Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[taziathegreat]

Wasn't Zacian Crowned banned in gen-8 before Zacian as a whole? It was an in-battle form, unless the only thing banned initially was the Rusted Sword

It’s an immediate form change though. Which is different from terapagos since you manually trigger it.

that being said I’m gonna get some more games In today and see what changes for me

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

(OU Forumite) posts WORST TAKE EVER, asked to u-turn out of the forums (not you btw this is about those kinds of post)

you can say my name out loud, i promise i won't be offended

unless this post isn't about me, in which case i will be very offended that i'm not the center of attention

 

[Magcargo]

Not saying terapagos isn’t broken. But I’m surprised i haven’t seen people run the actual counters or checks to it. Like I’m not seeing any ting Lu or blissey, not really seeing any of the fast fighting types that out speed +1 and OHKO.

I've been running Spdef Toxapex, Blissey, and Unaware Clef (shoutouts to No1MariaGoreySimp and Firer4 for teams btw) on a few builds that I made / stole and they all have workable MUs vs Terapagos, yeah. I don't think Unaware Clef is even that specific since it checks some other cheese sweepers like Latias and some volcarona variants.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Wasn't Zacian Crowned banned in gen-8 before Zacian as a whole? It was an in-battle form, unless the only thing banned initially was the Rusted Sword
if it's the former, i think it's enough precedent for banning stellarpagos, if mega ray wasn't enough

there is something of a difference still—when i go into teambuilder in uubers (the only place right now where zacian-crowned is banned and zacian isn't), i can't put rusted sword on a regular zacian. it tells me "zacian-crowned is banned". we can't do that with terapagos-stellar because there's no feasible way to ban it in teambuilder. mega rayquaza is a more apt comparison because the only way to ban it in builder and keep regular ray would have been to ban dragon ascent, which they didn't do

 

[TCTphantom]

Hot take incoming: Deoxys S is scary but not for the reasons you think.

IMO, the lead sets are great but over performing right now. Its an early meta. We know how HO performs there, and Deo S is a great HO mon. Deo S HO squads are easy to build and let you abuse a lot of the new drops extremely easily, it should not be a surprise they are good. But I don't think the hazard sets are too much for the tier? We have boots, we have dealt with strong leads for a while. I think if Hazards or Screens were its only sets, Deo S would not be as egregious as people are saying.

What I am concerned about, especially post Terapagos ban, are the offensive Life Orb sets. I think it will be an exceptional revenge killer that will be second to none at its ability to mow down chipped teams. It isn't hard to take a current HO build, swap Deo S over to an offensive role, and have a Hamurott take over as the lead. The only thing holding this set back right now is the fact Terapagos is insanely fat and is on almost every team. Once it is dealt with, I would not be shocked if offensive Deo S was one of the top candidates for a quickban.

 

[moore's law]

Gouging fire sun is really fun, CB Proto Raging Fury/Heat Crash OHKOs or 2HKOs just about everything, especially with tera fire. I also like sun a lot more with the addition of Venusaur - a lot of sun teams previously were heavy on proto mons and stacked fairy weaknesses. I've been testing this (mostly standard sets, no CB or bulk up tusk though) team out and it's made navigating low ladder stress free, but I'm sure it can be optimized, I'm an average to bad player/builder.

https://pokepast.es/75ae8a986a0e1961

I don't like CB tusk because it is kinda prediction reliant, and proto attack hits hard enough, quickly kills a lot of Terapagos when they try to set up.

 

[Welcome to mars]

why were people saying landorus beat the uu allegations, the dlc brought gliscor which is now better at most of landorus does, so yeah, landorus therian didn’t come close to proving that hes still worthy of your use, let him die

Not saying terapagos isn’t broken. But I’m surprised i haven’t seen people run the actual counters or checks to it. Like I’m not seeing any ting Lu or blissey, not really seeing any of the fast fighting types that out speed +1 and OHKO.

Come on now, i need to see how BAD iron boulder is, trying fitting a blissey or valiant on YOUR team when you’re playing showdown in your metaphorical kitchen

 

[Gambit_Gamin]

I disagree with the idea that Iron Boulder is the new Iron Valiant, as I feel this disregards Iron Valiant's massive utility movepool and its versatility. Iron Boulder is even faster than Valiant, but can only attack from one side of the spectrum, lacks options like Encore, Destiny Bond and Hypnosis, not to mention its defensive utility is notably worse thanks to its Type combo and lower Defense (Iron Valiant resists U-Turn, Dark and Fighting Type moves, which are extremely valuable).

Saying it was the new Iron Val was definitely not true. I wrote these messages at like 1 am lol.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Hot take incoming: Deoxys S is scary but not for the reasons you think.

the reasons i think:

• it doesn't have a mouth. what sort of fucked-up creature doesn't have a mouth? you couldn't even build that in spore. terrifying
• no hands, just weird little noodle arms
• it can tera ghost or dark, which allows it to become even spookier
• it contains dna, which means genetic engineering, which means mutants
• the "s" stands for "scary"

 

[Wolf-X]

As expected this meta is very HO oriented, even more than before. It will take a bit to stabilize but its very fun overall.

Many mouths are getting shout, so far Ive had 0 issues dealing with Darkrai or Stellar Terapagos

On the other hand many people called me crazy for saying Iron Boulder knowing this gens tendencies to Min Max could be a menace, they where saying Iron Boulder would be meh/meh because Rock/Psyquic typing.
It turns out Iron Boulder is pretty fucking fantastic and true menace, faster than valiant, energy boost, almost perfect coverage and SD access.
All those that laughed at me are now showing their true clown face.

Currently Im running Dyno Sun teams because its fun and strong.
Long Neck is good, but as I predicted speed is its main weakness.
Fire Horns/Tricerentei is great too, im running CB under sun which is a great threat RK, but to be honest the DD set looks scarier.
Latias is pretty great too.

This are some of my early quick conclusions.

 

[pika pal]

That isn't even true. It didnt open the door to stupid stuff but absolutely rewrote precedent and lead to multiple changes to how ubers tiering functioned. Mray ban opened up a huge can of worms. It lead to the creation of AG and enabled ubers actually banning stuff which was a precedent then actually used.

The clause was unprecedented in all fronts but bans in general were not a thing in Ubers, so I don't think Mega Ray means much in saying a Clause specifically is incomparable. It sets a general tiering case to point to of "a distinct form initiated by an in-battle button instead of the builder can be banned without barring the base form from regular play" for every tier. The main argument there is that Ubers is a questionable precedent since it simply did not have Pokemon bans of any sort until Ray, only basic Clauses like Evasion.

All this said, the Council has made clear a solely Terapagos-Stellar ban is evidently not on the table, so I don't want to argue it too much. I will say the reasoning probably is (and should be explained as) something more logical than a "complex ban" issue since the rule could be summarized as "Terapagos-Stellar is Ubers" in a rulebook and the Mega Ray ban was clearly comprehensible to even casual observers compared to things like the Baton Pass experiments and infamous Gen 5 Weather. At that point I think it better to say upfront it's from OU not following the Mega Ray ban as an Uber precedent for a very different tier, or whatever the agreed reason among the Council members is if none of the above.

 

[Ihatestall]

https://pokepast.es/a79f88e3f035c324
I burned the kitchen with this one…….. I have to say that eforce deo s is something straight out of nightmares. The obligatory obese turtle, and alolamolamola is there as a standin, any defensive backbone can work.

 

[Some random freak]

Banning Terapagos as a whole would be a massive disappointment when the solution is so clear but whatever.

 

[Finchinator]

Nobody tried to complain about banning Ogerpon-Hearthflame when we banned it instead of its Tera form. Nobody tried to complain about banning use of Tera on Pokemon like Volcarona or Regieleki.

It is very clear within tiering policy that you ban the Pokemon if a ban is needed. Punch into the air for all you'd like, but this is not really a debate.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Nobody tried to complain about banning Ogerpon-Hearthflame when we banned it instead of its Tera form. Nobody tried to complain about banning use of Tera on Pokemon like Volcarona or Regieleki.

It is very clear within tiering policy that you ban the Pokemon if a ban is needed. Punch into the air for all you'd like, but this is not really a debate.

this is a bad comparison. firepon was broken both inside and outside of its tera form, and neither volcarona nor regieleki mega evolve when they terastallize. terapagos isn't "using tera" in the traditional sense, it's doing something completely different that's really only nominally tera. and this should be a debate, because it seems to me like a significant portion of the community would support a clause over a full ban, so shutting them down like this is not a great look

 

[cyrtie]

Nobody tried to complain about banning Ogerpon-Hearthflame when we banned it instead of its Tera form. Nobody tried to complain about banning use of Tera on Pokemon like Volcarona or Regieleki.

It is very clear within tiering policy that you ban the Pokemon if a ban is needed. Punch into the air for all you'd like, but this is not really a debate.

We are all aware that it would be something specific or different but I feel we should do a vote for this issue since a lot of people imply that Terapagos could be good for the tier which I am not sure about but it evidently would not be broken. I know complex bans like this is a big deal but we have had it before in mega rayquaza and I feel like using the excuse that it isnt ubers and that stuff is different is not really the case nowadays I would say ubers works more like the tier above OU and not a banlist with specific rules. So what I'd propose is a vote for it to see what the community as a whole thinks, but this is off course up to you tier leaders and I can not make a completely valid assessment considering I dont play OU but I do read and watch a lot of it.

 

[Finchinator]

this is a bad comparison. firepon was broken both inside and outside of its tera form

this is incredibly wrong. please play the game.

 

[Finchinator]

Mega Rayquaza precedent is not applicable to OU.

Ubers is not under the same guidelines and rules as OU. They are intentionally minimalist with bans and have higher bars, different precedent, and so on. Ubers is not a usage based tier like OU (or lower tiers), so a lot can vary between the two.

Things like this do not exist in OU or other usage based tiers. Never has been and and never will be the case if we wish for our tiering to be taken seriously and consistency -- otherwise banlists will grow muddled and confusing without great consistency for the sake of minimizing collateral.

 

[oreofestar]

You are essentially banning one specific pokemon from using a universal mechanic (tera) because it becomes broken with it. There's no spinning it, that's a complex ban.

 

[Finchinator]

People arguing to minimize collateral for their personal convenience will happen with every single potential ban. Tiering is firm and our game has only grown to the point it has and our community has only grown to the extent it has because our banlists tend to be justifiable and easy to understsnd for both experienced players and beginners.

If we give in once and do something wildly inconsistent and deploy incorrect precedent, it is going to create ripples that will have an impact we do not desire. This is not a topic for debate or discussion. It just is what it is. Accept it or not -- I cannot control you, but the reality is we will focus on the Pokemon and this is the right decision in-line with our tiering policy.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

this is incredibly wrong. please play the game.

all right, i'll bite, what's wrong about it? what about firepon made it not broken?

 

[Floatstonemafia]

Just some numbers for you for what a life orb Deoxys-S with modest/252 spa/252 speed can do while outrunning the entire unboosted tier

Hide

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Enamorus: 316-372 (109.3 - 128.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Focus Blast vs. 236 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 691-816 (172.7 - 204%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Iron Valiant: 795-936 (274.1 - 322.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragapult: 286-338 (90.2 - 106.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Gouging Fire Stand-In: 278-329 (67.1 - 79.4%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Cornerstone: 270-320 (89.7 - 106.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 270-320 (89.7 - 106.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Roaring Moon: 296-351 (84.3 - 100%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Serperior: 274-324 (94.1 - 111.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zamazenta: 468-554 (120.6 - 142.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 224 HP / 0 SpD Cinderace: 333-394 (93.2 - 110.3%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO


252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Focus Blast vs. 56 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem: 328-387 (80.9 - 95.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Latios: 208-247 (69.1 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Raging Bolt Stand-In: 289-341 (63.6 - 75.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Psycho Boost vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Volcarona: 253-298 (76.4 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos: 247-291 (64.3 - 75.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Deoxys-Speed Ice Beam vs. 144 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 226-268 (62.9 - 74.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

By the way, that's a sub + 3 attack set I'm theorymoning to beat kingambit/raging bolt. Not a 4 attack set or nasty plot one. You'd get better coverage and more ohkos with the 4 attack set. Even without coverage pretty much everything not investing in SpD that doesn't resist/immune psycho boost takes 80%+. You could even run a mixed set with superpower and score more consistent ohkos with the right set, but at the cost of worse match ups vs anything you can't hit super effectively.

So uhhh, just don't let anything on your team that isn't fat take more than 20% damage? Otherwise it gets instagibbed by Deoxy-S?

Hazards D-S is a headache. Offensive D-S is a genuine menace to society. For an offensive mon, your options are literally 'have unconditional priority, get to +1 speed, or die'.

 

[Magcargo]

So I'm seeing a lot of talk about the metagame being nothing but HO, and while its not wrong, I feel this is just a result of the early, day 1 meta stuff we are use to seeing. I've been using Gliscor Balance and its worked decently well (currently sitting around 1790).

Balance is in a significantly better state because of the following Pokemon:
This pokemon compresses a lot of utility due to its unmatched longevity, status immunity, and strong ability to Toxic Stall. Still a top tier spiker in this metagame and will win the long game vs most offensive threats.
An amazing win conditition for balance that does extremely well into cheese styles like Veil. Compresses a lot of utility as well by being able to check the likes of Enamorus and Iron Valiant.
Terapagos is amazing on balance as a secondary win condition, utility mon with Rapid Spin and Toxic, and another blanket check to various threats such as Gholdengo, Dragapult, etc.
Niche pick, but for me its been performing pretty well as a check to Kingambit and Ogerpon. Doesn't have great longevity, but its more than enough to get the job done. I'm sure other players can replace it with another option like Sinistcha or Hydrappl however.

Because of mons that are able to cast a wide net against the metagame like Gliscor and Terapagos, Balance has more room to run Pokemon that are otherwise considered niche such as Toxapex and Clodsire to handle threats it would otherwise struggle against.

 

[Finchinator]

all right, i'll bite, what's wrong about it? what about firepon made it not broken?

FirePon without Tera was not much more broken than WaterPon, for example. It hardly ever entered safely, had a horrible defensive typing, and did not have much better coverage (only better thanks to Mold Breaker). There is no chance it would have been quickbanned without Tera and this was discussed to death at the time.

Even aside from this, you refuting my comparison with this is nonsense. IF it were broken regardless, you are still missing the premise of divorcing the two forms as separare entities in tiering, which is the issue here. You are off base on both levels given that.

 

[SDK03]

So far this meta has been really chaotic, but also really fun so far.

- This turtle’s hilarious, but also really fucking broken. Offensive Double Dance with Rock Polish + Calm Mind makes for easy sweeps (if you set up your Terapagos first, of course). Second form (which this thing automatically becomes) getting Multiscale on roids and the Stellar form giving it a Zygarde-C style statboost that also eliminates weather/terrains is really damn funny, but also worth slapping together a complex “this thing can’t click the Tera Stellar button lol” ban for. Yeah, apparently if they take a look at it, they’re not gonna do any complex bans, just throw the whole thing away outright if it gets enough support for a ban like with Ogerpon-Hearthflame. Gonna be really funny while it lasts though.

- Haven’t seen this in action too much yet, but it seems promising. Great overall bulk with a Fire/Dragon typing, solid Attack and decent Speed for a Dragon Dance sweeper, Protosynthesis to make the thing hit really hard in Sun, a Burn version of Baneful Bunker to take advantage of things like Roaring Moon and even Morning Sun so it can do stuff on a bulky set. I can easily see this guy shining on Fire/Water/Grass cores and especially Sun teams. Fundamentally a really nice mon.

- I know Raging Neck barely has anything resembling coverage other than Weather Ball, but Dragon/Electric is still really good Offensive STAB (look at Miraidon and Zekrom over in Ubers for examples of how well Electric/Dragons with great stats and moves do). Also helps that its bulk is really good for a slower Calm Mind sweeper at 125/91/89 and it doesn’t even have bad speed for what it is. With just a slight bit of investment, it beats max speed Adamant Kingambit to the (sucker)punch. 137 SpA is really damn good too, and goes through the roof once you put a Booster Energy on this thing. Thunderclap pretty much being Special Electric Sucker Punch is very threatening and forces the mindgame of “do I avoid attacking/switch into my Ground type and potentially take a 137 SpA (and potentially Protosynthesis boosted) Draco Meteor/Dragon Pulse to the face, or do I eat the Special Sucker Punch clone it gets STAB?”. At least having Weather Ball for coverage is gonna make this guy pretty damn scary alongside the other Paradox Beasts on Sun with 137 SpA backed Electric/Dragon/Fire coverage at its disposal.

- Seems like a nice Double Dance Stored Power sweeper on paper with good overall bulk and a Steel/Psychic base typing to prevent Toxic and Quark Drive giving it a further boost, but at the moment the thing is completely overshadowed in that regard by Latias and especially Terapagos. Roaring Moon being back also doesn’t do it that many favours either. I could see this being a decent option once the meta cools down, but with all the brokens running around right now there are better things you could run.

- Having a 4x weakness to Ice in a meta where Triple Axel has seemingly been given to the best possible abusers of such a move (Weavile, Cinccino, Meowscarada) and where everyone’s running Ice Spinner / Ice Beam in fear of Gliscor isn’t good, but Hydrapple still seems really nice defensively in spite of that. Being a bulky Physically defensive Grass wall with Regenerator that also has usable Special Defense, a nice Special Attack stat to avoid being passive and a neutrality to Fire makes it almost an answer to the prayers of those asking for Tangrowth to return to help stop Waterpon. Thankfully, it also has access to Tera for patching up the 4x Ice weakness. Assault Vest sets also seem doable for it as despite lacking things like Knock Off, it still has Dragon Tail / Earth Power and other nice coverage moves to make it work. Fickle Beam is a funny ass move though, and putting Quick Claw on it just for the RNG bullshit is a hilarious idea to me.

- Haven’t seen much from this one either, but it seems solid with actually having good Rock STAB and being faster than the whole meta after Booster Energy with STAB Psychic moves to nail Iron Valiant and Close Combat to kill Roaring Moon. Problem is that although 120 Attack is good, it still needs a turn of set up to get going and it really hates the Unaware Pokémon. Rock/Psychic also isn’t the best typing overall, with Earthquake from most of the meta bringing this guy down to 20% health at the very least and Gholdengo being able to come in and net a KO on it. Seems like another one where it’ll get better as more of the brokens are cleared out.

- Already very threatening with Double Dance Stored Power sets. Aura Sphere completely nails Kingambit even without too much SpA investment or any Calm Mind boosts, it gets Draining Kiss if it wants to go Tera Fairy and get itself a free form of recovery, can just go Calm Mind + Recover if it wants to. If you let it get a turn or two to set up (which it can easily do with its good bulk and decent Defensive typing + Tera), it can run away with games.

- Although it can pull the same Double Dance stunts that Latias can, it still prefers being a powerful offensive pivot thanks to gaining Flip Turn and Luster Purge getting a great buff to 95 BP. Specs sets still do the same things they always have and Scarf sets are now even better with the ability to safely escape bad matchups with Flip Turn. Still overshadowed by Latias and its Double Dance thing atm, but still another “once the broken shit’s gone it gets more opportunities” kind of thing.

- I’m surprised not to have seen much of this guy so far. Despite this, it’s still really damn powerful on paper with Tera Stellar turning out to be the best fitting mechanic it could have possibly wanted for sweeping, killing Webs as a playstyle just by existing and getting Glare to shut down the faster offensive threats of the meta. Low HP and low attacking stats still hold it back just a little though, but definitely not a reason to let your attention drift from it.

- Alright, this is probably the scariest returning Pokémon aside from Latias I’ve dealt with so far imo. Tera Flying + Acrobatics on Grassy Terrain is some scary shit that can run away with a game near effortlessly without even needing to click Protect. If you don’t have an Unaware Pokémon, this thing can just steamroll its way through teams. Sure, Flare Blitz means it has to deal with Recoil, but with Grassy Terrain to help offset the damage and Grassy Seed to give it a slight longevity boost it can almost ignore the recoil. Dondozo is back in season, I guess.

- Yeah, letting this thing into OU has gone as well as you would expect. Sets hazards with almost no punishment thanks to insane Speed and I’ve seen Life Orb Psycho Boost way too many times. Oh yeah, it also gets Expanding Force to make it a funny Psyspam sweeper with Nasty Plot. Even if you took away Gholdengo this thing is still a bit too ridiculous for OU.

- Compared to the other crit-me-not/Stored Power abusers, honestly not that much of an issue. Even as a hazard setter, it’s kind of underwhelming in my experience since Taunt/Encore users abuse the thing’s passivity and tendency to only ever click Spikes and its 160/160 defenses are brought down by 50 HP and a mono-Psychic typing. Mid atm, but who knows what this thing does once the meta clears up.

- A slightly less powerful but much bulkier version of Baxcalibur. Scale Shot is noob bait for it imo without Swords Dance, Tera Fire/Ground are the real threats to watch out for. Should also be much more of a problem once people realize it can also still run Specs/NMI Freeze Dry + Earth Power.

- Out of all the recently dropped mons, this guy is an immediate problem. Runs away with games the same way it did before its ban, doesn’t give a shit about being revenged by Iron Boulder’s Close Combat after the first Dragon Dance with its own Speed booster and nothing can stop it once it sets up.

- With how chaotic things are at the moment it isn’t an apparent problem. Then again it should become more noticeable once the meta clears up, but the expanded coverage of Triple Axel and Serperior/Reuniclus’ presences should help to tone the issues that people have with it down. Honestly not something I see being broken.

- The only reason why this isn’t seen as an issue right now is because of all the other insane shit in the meta rn (Terapagos, SP Latias, AcroBlaziken, Roaring Moon, the Stellar Contrary abusers, Iron Boulder outspeeding the entire meta). I can see it becoming a problem once the meta clears up and people realize it can do shit other than spam Hypnosis every time it switches in.

- With all the other broken shit in the meta it isn’t too much of a concern, but at the same time it still does the same matchup things it did before its ban. I’m happy to have it back, but once the meta clears up people will inevitably have this guy back on their radars.

Those are kind of my thoughts atm on the meta so far. Not like it really matters with how early it is, but yeah this shit is hilarious lmfao.