Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

[Cuddly]

Darkrai should not be tested even with Tera banned as it'd clearly be broken. Nasty Plot, Dark Pulse, Psyshock, and Focus Blast with a Life Orb cleaves through the entire meta at +2 aside from Clefable. It's absolutely still a disgusting mon that has no business being OU. It would literally 'cause Zamazenta usage to increase a lot as the only relevant naturally faster Pokemon that can OHKO Darkrai without using an inaccurate move and shift the meta towards HO since it shits on everything slower.

I think, if anything, Darkrai becomes more broken in a Teraless meta since you can't pop a defensive Tera against it much like Walking Wake becomes really problematic in a Teraless meta, although depending on who you ask, Walking Wake is already a problem in this meta that has Tera.

Would it REALLY though?
Not to say that it should for now, as OU already has enough to deal with and would create another Gen 5 Kyu-B situation.
Like honestly OU is dealing with some stuff that are just as or even stronger than Darkrai. Like compared to Sneasler which can sleep you while attacking and is effectively stronger due to its movepool.
After the meta settles, Darkrai should be considered for unbanning (or not if Sneasler ever gets banned like it should uncompetitive piece of shit).

 

[Avira]

Would it REALLY though?
Not to say that it should for now, as OU already has enough to deal with and would create another Gen 5 Kyu-B situation.
Like honestly OU is dealing with some stuff that are just as or even stronger than Darkrai. Like compared to Sneasler which can sleep you while attacking and is effectively stronger due to its movepool.
After the meta settles, Darkrai should be considered for unbanning (or not if Sneasler ever gets banned like it should uncompetitive piece of shit).

Sneasler may have higher Base Attack and higher BP STABs than Darkrai does, but strong special attackers are historically harder to check than physical threats with most walls having a higher Defense than Special Defense stat. Sneasler is also notably frailer even though it resists SR, and Close Combat also lowers its defenses, making it vulnerable to priority moves at higher percentages of health, such as Dragonite's Extreme Speed and Kingambit's Sucker Punch. Sneasler's STAB combo is also walled by a decent portion of OU, meaning there is more defensive counterplay to it.

 

[Soiramio3000]

What are your thoughts on ceruledge now that it got access to poltergeist?

This pokemon came close to 4.52% usage last month.

Poltergeist in general is a risky move to use this gen since the booster energy item is pretty common.

Do you think that ceruledge is a victim of the rampardos theorem?

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

What are your thoughts on ceruledge now that it got access to poltergeist?

This pokemon came close to 4.52% usage last month.

Poltergeist in general is a risky move to use this gen since the booster energy item is pretty common.

Do you think that ceruledge is a victim of the rampardos theorem?

Booster Energy only works with Paradoxes, a good number of whom are either banned or teetering on banned.

Ceruledge will probably rise once we're done dealing with all these dang Suspect tests.

 

[ZannaBianca]

What are your thoughts on ceruledge now that it got access to poltergeist?

This pokemon came close to 4.52% usage last month.

Poltergeist in general is a risky move to use this gen since the booster energy item is pretty common.

Do you think that ceruledge is a victim of the rampardos theorem?

The viability of Ceruledge is directly correlated to the viability of Sun as an archetype. With the ban of Oger-H I can see people getting tired of it for a while but once the BM-Luna suspect is over (who incidentally destroys it) it will probably come back with a vengence, especially since Walking Wake is still very good

Edit: Oh and the recent rise of Roaring Moon helps probably

 

[JunkoAJ]

Booster Energy only works with Paradoxes, a good number of whom are either banned or teetering on banned.

Ceruledge will probably rise once we're done dealing with all these dang Suspect tests.

Idk about a good number - Flutter Mane and Iron Bundle are banned, the only other one people want banned at least a little bit is Valiant (as much as Tusk is fantastic, I don't think I've ever seen anyone call for it to be banned).

Poltergeist in general is a risky move to use this gen since the booster energy item is pretty common.

Is there something I'm missing, does Poltergeist not work on Booster Energy?

 

[woodgoldtwo]

Idk about a good number - Flutter Mane and Iron Bundle are banned, the only other one people want banned at least a little bit is Valiant (as much as Tusk is fantastic, I don't think I've ever seen anyone call for it to be banned).



Is there something I'm missing, does Poltergeist not work on Booster Energy?

Poltergeist fails if the target isn't holding an item

 

[JunkoAJ]

If the target isn't holding an item, Poltergeist fails

Oh for some reason in my head Booster Energy stayed Held.

 

[Heatranator]

Oh for some reason in my head Booster Energy stayed Held.

Honestly, if it stayed held but only activated once per battle, it probably would be a lot better game design. That means that it could be knocked off, thus dealing more damage, and poltergeist could work on it. There could be some funny interactions with iron valiant and scream tail as they learn trick and they could trick it off and get a more valuable item once it is used.

 

[woodgoldtwo]

Honestly, if it stayed held but only activated once per battle, it probably would be a lot better game design. That means that it could be knocked off, thus dealing more damage, and poltergeist could work on it. There could be some funny interactions with iron valiant and scream tail as they learn trick and they could trick it off and get a more valuable item once it is used.

You can still use trick even without an item

 

[Soiramio3000]

Is there something I'm missing, does Poltergeist not work on Booster Energy?

Booster energy is an item that gets consumed on a switch.
Poltergeist works only when the opponent is holding an item.

I am aware that there are other consumable items in the game but most of them cannot be consumed on a switch.

I know that there were instances in gen 8 where some low tier pokemon went itemless in order to avoid poltergeist.

 

[MattC (Banned)]

Gonna ask a genuine question here.

Who thinks Iron Valiant is a problem? If you don't think so, let me remind you what it gets

Save your time. It's a lot of shit

Look at it's movepool yourself you lazy motherfucker

And even aside from all of that, it's got a free Choice Scarf without locking itself into a move. If you think something with almost the same speed as max speed timid Eleki and every coverage move in the game is totally fine to be kept around OU, you lost your shit. The amount of top level competitive play this thing saw during some SPL or even just on the ladder is ridiculous (someone pull up the usage stats). And if I'm being honest... it wins too many games on its own. I don't think I wanna build my team to beat every Iron Valiant set

Oh I forgot YOU CAN'T BEAT IT

 

[redninjapuffle]

Anyway, as a proposal, how about we set a Tera suspect for February? That would seem like an appropriate amount of time, assuming DLC2 is November/December, and would dovetail neatly with Pokemon Day as a bonus.

I agree with this, we would get a few months to test gambit again, plus whatever dlc 2 gives us

 

[Blaze_101392]

Honestly, if it stayed held but only activated once per battle, it probably would be a lot better game design. That means that it could be knocked off, thus dealing more damage, and poltergeist could work on it. There could be some funny interactions with iron valiant and scream tail as they learn trick and they could trick it off and get a more valuable item once it is used.

I wouldn't call it better game design to let two moves interact with Booster energy, especially when one of them wasn't even in the game at launch.

 

[sims796]

If we're going to throw out nonsensical suggestions:

Ban recovery. All of it. Leech Seed, gone. Strength Sap, gone. Leftovers, gone. Poison Heal, gone. Water Absorb, gone. Regenerator, gone. Needless to say, straightforward moves like Rest and Recover, gone.

Embrace the HO that GameFreak has given us.

Or...we can accept that we're an unofficial metagame, based on a game that is (theoretically) balanced around a 4v4 doubles format, trying to shoehorn everything into a 6v6 singles format. The only singles format that GameFreak cares about is BSS, not the one that comprises nearly every in-game battle.

If GameFreak hands us a bunch of insanely powerful offensive mons (and they have), we have two choices: ban a bunch of stuff to recreate a "preferred" metagame, or deal with it and accept that Gen 9 is going to skew offensive. Smogon policy holds that the metagame should allow different styles to all be playable, it does not hold that any given style is 'bad' and some other (usually a flavor of balance, varies with the complainer) is 'good'.

There's a point where an offensive mon is too good and stifles another style entirely - this was Annihilape's crime - and then of course, we ban them. General "make the meta less offensive" is not grounds to ban anything.

Don't mind the Angry reaction. You spoke against Leech Seed which makes you an enemy for a while. Then you shat spoke Strength Sap and I need you to chill.

Everything else I agree with. This isn't the case but this gen sorta feels like a Nintendo dev played Smogon and thought "fuck those nerds".

 

[YubelVT]

ban the normal type

there's nothing normal about being normal

 

[ZannaBianca]

ban the normal type

there's nothing normal about being normal

I was about to say that we may soon have our first Normal type banned from OU but was forgetting Mega-Kang used to be a thing

 

[Spheal boi]

I was about to say that we may soon have our first Normal type banned from OU but was forgetting Mega-Kang used to be a thing

Yep, and was so broken that Gamefreak nerfed its ability and also Sucker Punch I think for it

 

[MellowBusiness]

not too sure if you understand how the phrase "adapting to threats" is used in smogon's metagame concepts. adapting to threats imply that the mons have additional uses OUTSIDE of what they were initially aimed to do during the teambuilding process.

i.e - during team building process, you decided that encore valiant was gna be your catch all to offence but the sharp rise of gliscor spike balance meant that you had to figure another way around it. your answer to that was to swap encore for feint. now does valiant's functionality and viability to be used against offence change because you ran feint over encore? ans is no. valiant can still be used effectively in OU teams despite this small change. this is therefore an adaptive change.

when a lower tier mon is being used, it is used solely to deal with certain threats and has no other utility that other mons can't provide better. if you're running max physdef max hp arcanine just to deal with teal mask ogerpon and against any other matchups where oger is not around you are playing a 5v6 matchup then that's a problem lol

tldr - its not rlly about the tier of the mons used but its about their utility outside of what they were intended to do.

Getting flashbacks to all those people who were insisting Seismitoed was viable in Gen 8 OU outside of checking a cancerous abomination.

 

[1LDK]

I see many people arguing that Iron Valiant is broken due to its speed and move pool, and while those are true, I don't believe valiant is that hard to prepare too (compared to other top mons)

Mixed sets lack power in order to keep the surprise
and even boosting sets have selected mons it cannot kill consistently, you can say "well, encore fixes this by making it too powerful" the thing with encore is that its a move slot, so depending on coverage, you will need extra turns, and if the opp guy gives you that much, the guy was not gonna win the match anyway

Just attack the valiant

and I know what you people are gonna think "wow 1LDK, such insightful advice, you truly are the greatest of all time to come up with such delightful answer, you fucking worthless nerd"

But think about it for a sec, if the valiant got safely, he has 2 options
a) set up
b) kill you beforehand and set on the next mon

If the valiant player decides to set up, you can cut its sweeping with chip damage, and valiant is frail, so anything that is not a dark or dragon type move will hurt it

If the valiant player decides to kill you and set on the next mon, you can just sack the thing in front of you (or just go into a regen mon/gliscor if you have it) and pivot from there

Valiant also has to be careful around hitting the field, because remember, booster energy is a 1 time speed boost, and unboosted valiant can easily be revenge killed by opp booster mons or naturally faster mons. And if packing moves such as roar or whirlwind, you can even bring valiant to the forefront early game and kill its precious booster

Don't get me wrong, valiant is scary, but the trainer using it has to be very careful with how he brings it and how he puts the pressure on the opponent, if the opponent is not fearful of valiant or guesses the correct set, it is very easy to deal with

I know this bunch of thoughs are messy as shit, I'm on a timer right now, so I hope this can be readable at least

 

[SDK03]

Getting flashbacks to all those people who were insisting Seismitoed was viable in Gen 8 OU outside of checking a cancerous abomination.

Swift Swim Seismitoad was cool though

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Don't get me wrong, valiant is scary, but the trainer using it has to be very careful with how he brings it and how he puts the pressure on the opponent, if the opponent is not fearful of valiant or guesses the correct set, it is very easy to deal with

the problem is exactly that. all valiant counterplay comes down to a guessing game. it's like schrodinger's sweeper, you have to assume that it's simultaneously sd and encore and hypnosis and whatever coverage it needs and tera something-that-resists-the-move-you're-about-to-use and whatever other bullshit set it pulled out of its ass this week, until it collapses the wavefunction all over your team and deletes the thing you sent out to beat the set that it wasn't. you can't bring out any of those things safely because then it pulls out the tera water liquidation to resist scizor bullet punch and 2hko gliscor

 

[TCTphantom]

Valiant isn't even on my top 5 "problems" in the meta. NGL Veil has settled down enough I am no longer as enthusiastic about testing Alolan Ninetales. Manaphy and Ogerpon Wellspring also are settling into the meta decently well. I expected them to cause a bit more of a stir, but for the most part they seem fine. Honestly outside of handling the hazards meta by looking deeper into Gholdengo and/or Gliscor (preferably the former), I think the meta is settling into a decent place.

Is it perfect? No, I know plenty of people are looking to at least restrict Terastralization in some way shape or form. The hazards meta as I said about is kinda wack. We also have the looming issue of this meta being super temporary. We have time for *maybe* one more suspect. We can't fix every single issue this meta has: we just do not have the time. It would be super nice if we had the 5 month period the Isle of Armor had. We have maybe one more month. We just do not have time to suspect and "fix" everything.

This is no fault of the council, I think they have done the best with the bad hand they were dealt. They only have so much time to fix a temporary metagame. I think they have overall done a good job managing things. Prudent quickbans on Baxcalibur and Ogerpon H saved us precious time that we needed to "fix" this meta the best we could.

If I had to suggest out best form of action, I think you could go one of two ways. I think you either try to ban one thing from the tier, or you re suspect Volcarona. I dont think either is a perfect solution. If you want a hard reset for the Indigo Disk, where we drop some of the more borderline Ubers and take a look at Terastralization, retesting something like Volcarona might feel like a waste of time. On the other hand, is there enough public sentiment for any single ban suspect? Manaphy fervor has cooled down. Valiant, Gholdengo, and Kingambit talk is more scattered as well. I feel like no matter what ends up being tested, people will be salty it wasn't something else.

Personally, I think we should figure out what the plan is before the Indigo Disk drops. Do we want that hard reset? Do we want to unban over half of our banned mons and take a fresh look at Tera? Or do we want to be more conservative and look at just letting down 1-2 potential safer drops? Figuring that out now might be a good thing to help figure out what we do with the precious time we have left in this meta.

 

[YubelVT]

Yep, and was so broken that Gamefreak nerfed its ability and also Sucker Punch I think for it

and it was STILL really good!

 

[FCKNfuego]

If we're going to throw out nonsensical suggestions:

If GameFreak hands us a bunch of insanely powerful offensive mons (and they have), we have two choices: ban a bunch of stuff to recreate a "preferred" metagame, or deal with it and accept that Gen 9 is going to skew offensive. Smogon policy holds that the metagame should allow different styles to all be playable, it does not hold that any given style is 'bad' and some other (usually a flavor of balance, varies with the complainer) is 'good'.

There's a point where an offensive mon is too good and stifles another style entirely - this was Annihilape's crime - and then of course, we ban them. General "make the meta less offensive" is not grounds to ban anything.

Nothing really states that Smogon should allow for all "styles" to be playable. Its also a pretty impractical and unobjective task. Annihilape was banned for a myriad of reasons but invalidation of a "style" isn't one of them and it shouldn't ever be a valid reason as to why action is taken.

i agree with all of these except for darkrai. that guy can fuck right off no matter what gen it is. i think espathra, firepon, and gambit would likely still find themselves facing tiering action after dropping—even without tera, espathra effectively forces a dark-type onto every team, firepon's damage output is still bullshit good and she still has swords dance, and gambit doesn't deserve to be let back into ou ever once it gets banned, no matter what, purely out of spite

Darkrai been overrated to the moon and back for too many gens. Free this man. Gambit and Firepon are both considerably better. Firepon I can see potentially getting suspected in a Tera less meta but the other two....pretty doubtful. Gambit is already manageable and counterplay to it gets waaaay more consistent and Espathra is just....weak and doesn't have enough coverage. UUBL at best.