Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[DaddyBuzzwole]

and I'm more concerned tera is gonna drive people away when the gen ends

what's gonna drive people away when the gen ends is the fact that a new gen is out. i'm probably gonna upset a lot of people by saying this, but once a gen is no longer current, no matter how balanced it is, it becomes largely irrelevant outside of the tournament scene. gen 8 is a contender for the most balanced ou there is, it was the most recent gen before this one, the games broke sales records at the time, and yet there are exactly three gen 8 ou battles happening on ladder right now. the vast, vast, vast majority of non-tournament players focus on whatever the current gen is and have little to no interest in other ones. i'm saying this now because i know some anti-tera person is going to point at this gen a month after gen 10 comes out and go "see?! look at the numbers!!!! it's tera's fault!!!!!!" as though it doesn't happen every gen

 

[YubelVT]

Firstly, eyeing Kingambit so hard I am now blind
Secondly, when we only have 2 rapid spinners and one defogger in the tier, of course hazard removal was going to be shit. Mons can still run non-HDB items and succeed, just look at Rillaboom, it never runs HDB from what I've seen.

Glimmora (my despised) would actually have mid-game value if Gholdengo didn't exist because Mortal Spin removes hazards in addition to being a spread move that spreads guaranteed poison. Crazy right?

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Glimmora (my despised) would actually have mid-game value if Gholdengo didn't exist because Mortal Spin removes hazards in addition to being a spread move that spreads guaranteed poison. Crazy right?

wait what the fuck

what

since when has it been a spread move

what the hell, this is some mandela effect shit

 

[CatsAreCute]

I'm just bored of Tera. Bored of still losing to a counter Tera even if you play well or have a lead like 3-1. I'll accept losing to a deserved sweep, but not one because I get countered and then reverse swept because I don't have any more options anymore or had lost an SE mon early on. Or because they same type tera, and what should have been a 2HKO is now a OHKO. I'm supposed to correctly predict the dozens of ways + few Teras per mons of battles can go? That same type tera can easily mess up calcs both ways and for both opponents.

Edit: I'm playing Gen 9 Doubles OU now because at least I can do funny crap like serene grace dudunsparce rock slide. Singles is frustrating

 

[Heatranator]

wait what the fuck

what

since when has it been a spread move

what the hell, this is some mandela effect shit

It is, in doubles its quite popular since it hits both opposing mons, poisoning both of them.
We just never knew it since we play singles, shit is wild in doubles.
Snatch Incineroar won worlds once. Chew on that sentence.

 

[Lightniong]

This is probably the wrong pla

It’s gonna be hard to do “We didn’t start the fire“, as NDM already did that for their gouging fire suspect. But Through the fire and the Flames suspect music gon be fire

well this aged poorly, anyway, fuck gouging fire. Feels like that thing sets up on damn near everything.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

what's gonna drive people away when the gen ends is the fact that a new gen is out. i'm probably gonna upset a lot of people by saying this, but once a gen is no longer current, no matter how balanced it is, it becomes largely irrelevant outside of the tournament scene. gen 8 is a contender for the most balanced ou there is, it was the most recent gen before this one, the games broke sales records at the time, and yet there are exactly three gen 8 ou battles happening on ladder right now. the vast, vast, vast majority of non-tournament players focus on whatever the current gen is and have little to no interest in other ones. i'm saying this now because i know some anti-tera person is going to point at this gen a month after gen 10 comes out and go "see?! look at the numbers!!!! it's tera's fault!!!!!!" as though it doesn't happen every gen

I completely agree that old gens don't matter outside the tournament scene but you're understating the importance of said tournament scene, it's what the whole site is structured around & several important tours use the last 3 gens or even all gens, an unbalanced SV is a significant headache for upwards of 10 years

 

[YubelVT]

wait what the fuck

what

since when has it been a spread move

what the hell, this is some mandela effect shit

Mortal Spin being a spread move is basically entirely why glimmora is good in VGC rn. I swear to god Glimmora was designed in a lab by gamefreak to be the single most annoying pokemon in existence no matter the format. In Ubers and AG it runs fucking mud shot

 

[BolTingBlazie]

I'm just bored of Tera. Bored of still losing to a counter Tera even if you play well or have a lead like 3-1. I'll accept losing to a deserved sweep, but not one because I get countered and then reverse swept because I don't have any more options anymore or had lost an SE mon early on. Or because they same type tera, and what should have been a 2HKO is now a OHKO. I'm supposed to correctly predict the dozens of ways + few Teras per mons of battles can go? That same type tera can easily mess up calcs both ways and for both opponents.

That and its way easier to punish a good tera since redirection moves exist and the fact that you can double up on the terastalized mon

 

[Kenpwnchi]

So, OU, how're we feeling about Gouging Fire getting banned soon? I'm sorry it had to be this way. R.I.P.

 

[EpicGuy321]

So, OU, how're we feeling about Gouging Free getting banned soon? I'm sorry it had to be this way. R.I.P.

rip bozo, won't be missed. get him out with utmost haste !!

 

[Heatranator]

So, OU, how're we feeling about Gouging Fire getting banned soon? I'm sorry it had to be this way. R.I.P.

Rest in Piss Gouging Fire, you will not be missed.
(mods, please don't delete my funny post, its all I have nowadays)

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

So, OU, how're we feeling about Gouging Fire getting banned soon? I'm sorry it had to be this way. R.I.P.

 

[tigers jaw]

Did you get reqs and vote ban?

The vote was close (58%) so a few more ban votes could have swung the outcome.

My life is too busy to get reqs, but I also have the cognizance to not complain too much about undesired suspect outcomes because of this.

i’m really tired of this attitude, as though one cannot remark upon the state of the meta without getting reqs. not only is it totally irrelevant to what i said, it’s also obscenely condescending. maybe i don’t enjoy going for reqs, maybe i am also too busy, maybe i wasn’t playing during the time of the suspect, maybe the process of going for reqs causes me anxiety - frankly, it’s none of your business what i do or say after the fact.

“complaining too much” in this case is actually a single post on the subject.

i’ll hop in my time machine & be sure to go 30-0

Magcargo i’ll respond properly to your post tomorrow, but i’ll just say that almost all of the checks/counters to kyurem you listed simply fold to specs, especially with tera ice.

 

[Heatranator]

i’m really tired of this attitude, as though one cannot remark upon the state of the meta without getting reqs. not only is it totally irrelevant to what i said, it’s also obscenely condescending. maybe i don’t enjoy going for reqs, maybe i am also too busy, maybe the process of going for reqs causes me anxiety - frankly, it’s none of your business what i do or say after the fact.

“complaining too much” in this case is actually a single post on the subject.

i’ll hop in my time machine & be sure to go 30-0

It was your tone and length of your post. It's fine to complain, but there is a point where it's just complaining for the sake of complaining. You ranted about kyurem for three paragraphs, that is kinda too much. I also think kyurem is broken, but I have admitted it was not banned because people voted for it to not. It's not the end of the world, there are much more important issues at hand rn and in the future.

 

[FayaWizard]

i’m really tired of this attitude, as though one cannot remark upon the state of the meta without getting reqs. not only is it totally irrelevant to what i said, it’s also obscenely condescending. maybe i don’t enjoy going for reqs, maybe i am also too busy, maybe the process of going for reqs causes me anxiety - frankly, it’s none of your business what i do or say after the fact.

“complaining too much” in this case is actually a single post on the subject.

i’ll hop in my time machine & be sure to go 30-0

Magcargo i’ll respond properly to your post tomorrow, but i’ll just say that almost all of the checks/counters to kyurem you listed simply fold to specs, especially with tera ice.

I do think it's unfair to complain about the results of a suspect test if you yourself did not put in the effort to ladder for reqs, especially since the vote was insanely close. Do I like Kyurem being stuck in the tier? No, I voted ban and tried to convince as many people as I could to vote ban as well. But for better or for worse, the playerbase has decided to keep Kyurem in the tier, and there's no use in complaining about it (especially since we won't be able to get a suspect for quite a while), and instead we should examine other threats of the metagame to see if they should be banned instead, like Gouging Fire and Ogerpon-Wellspring.

 

[kosecant]

Regarding the sleep ban


I implore the council to consider each move on a case by case basis. Going over the main primary methods that cause direct sleep, counterplay, and my opinion on these topics and similar topics.


Sleep Powder

Causes sleep but has the drawback of not being very accurate with 75% accuracy. This results in games being won with it more often than not. Due to being a powder move, Safety glasses is a strong method to ignore this move's existence, while also being a strong item to ignore sandstorm that your team might be providing. Berries are an alternative, Rest Sleep talk sets also don’t mind being put to sleep by Sleep Powder. Grass types also are immune to this method of putting a target to sleep. Heal Bell and Aromatherapy also exist to benefit this.Natural Cure is another ability that exists in the metagame that disregards what sleep could do. Early Bird exists but isn’t as prominent and I wouldn’t expect formal OU players to be running a Pokemon just for Early Bird. I do think Tapu Fini’s Misty terrain or Tapu Koko’s Electric Terrain was a more prominent faster way to get out of sleep issues entirely before they take place, but that case will be ignored because Tapu Fini isn’t in Gen 9 OU. These aren’t specific cases, items like Lum berry, or Safety Goggles are multi purpose items in many instances of the metagame. Heal Bell or Aromatherapy also are general cases that are helpful for any status.


Spore

All instances I’ve listed above with Sleep Powder also exist with Spore.
Same as sleep powder but less splashable as fewer Pokemon have access to this move, primary targets being Breloom, Ammongus, and Smeargle(more so in ubers or AG).



Yawn case

Yawn unlike these other moves adds to the metagame it rewards a more passive style of play, and punishes setup offensive styles of play. Yes, it's another splashable sleep move, but due to the sleep clause existing prior to this rule change limiting a team to only having 1 target asleep this move was never overpowered. In most circumstances this move wouldn’t be overpowered in either event it only adds to the metagame with prediction. Often used in draft, but may be banned in some future drafts because many known draft leagues that are focused around OU use the base clause rules as a template while building their document. It also allows it to do completely nothing if the user just switches. All it does is change the game state in the vast majority of instances, which isn’t unbalanced. Or does it seem that people think that slowing down this power crept meta game with yawn is a bad idea. The benefits of having support sleep options that have counterplay in the OU metagame far outweigh the cons of the rng turn counter, because these 3 moves have viable strong counterplay.





Let’s Talk about Sleep

Regarding the cases above I’ve listed none of the current metagame targets are able to effectively take advantage of these moves to automatically win the majority of games easily with the exception of H-Lilligant which wasn’t even an excessive threat even with Sleep Powder, but on top of the counterplay to its method of sleep. As for Sun teams that use H-Lilligant again, Sleep Powder has a lot of counterplay.

As a mechanic, sleep is usually RNG unless you put yourself to sleep with rest then it is static 2 turns. While sometimes we can agree sleep is manageable other times it isn’t. Games could be won or lost on bad RNG with how many turns a Pokemon stays asleep. This mechanic is similar to terrestrialization in this manner, or confusion. Both Confusion and Terrastalization as mechanics can automatically win games that the player may not have won otherwise. RNG does exist in Pokemon but mechanics that the player can relatively avoid with team building and planning can be dealt with.

Confusion has a chance to hurt the user in confusion potentially multiple times in 1 confusion instance. Which in itself can take away multiple turns and be more harmful then sleep. While having the same primary counterplay as yawn, via switching.

Terrestrialization as a mechanic is RNG based, sure to some extent you can predict within reason what type they might be, but on occasion you will face a type you didn’t expect that wins the game alone. A type change that follows smogons recommended sets while common, there are teams that deviate from those quite often. This mechanic alone this generation has caused multiple Pokemon to be banned prior to the DLC, and will likely continue to ban Pokemon as this generation moves forward. While no action is being taken on it. Regarding the sleep ban and NOT banning tera, I’d say the council has banned the lesser of 2 evils.





Hypnosis:

Hypnosis is a move that had its biggest rise in generation 7 which was with Z-Hypnosis particularly with Ultra Beasts, but with how prominent Tapus was in that given generation it wasn’t really an issue and was manageable.
This move has always had less options to handle but in exchange less accuracy.
Lower accuracy then sleep powder at 60%, so you might as well flip coins and you’ll often win more then you lose, but only 10% more. The threats that utilized this Iron Val and Darkrai specifically are just examples of power creep. While the answers for this may be less than Sleep Powder, and unconventional, the move isn’t the most consistent. I’m unsure why other moves need to be banned because of the lack of counterplay this generation to fast power crept hypnosis abusers. The examples given by the council have been primarily targeting this move, and singles out the fact there is little counterplay to fast abusers of it. With how RNG based Sleep is as a mechanic. However between generation 9 OU and Nat dex for the same generation, there is no reason why this format (in a competitive sense would be banned on one and not the other, except Tapus, but if Tapus are in fact the only reason that is restricted to team building). Overall in generation 9 I see this as the main move that is causing this entire issue, but I also have an idea that might make this not matter as much as it currently does.

Regarding the argument of being ‘console accurate’ or enforceable on the console, not clicking a sleep move can be done. Before recently the timers were 20 minutes so any single battles that take place on console aren’t going to PP stalling. Even in generation 7 or 6 with 1 hour battle timers PP stalling would rarely take games by themselves. As we are referring to the switch battle timer/delay and animation mechanics prior to the dlc you were given very little time to ever attempt to run out of PP (even if you just used 1-3 Pokemon in a 1v1 or 3v3 trying to waste pp fast while sitting threw the animations/delay). Up until recently that would be the case, but with friendly battles 60 minute timer now being implemented PP stalling goes back to how it was in generation 7 and prior. However on showdown neither timer is ever enforced on the traditional ladder, why? It’s a simulator, and as such if it wanted to accurately represent what would happen in such conditions would a timer not be required on ladder tiering? or simply the council chooses not to add it because letting players resolve a battle is simply more fun/healthier for the game to let players finish what they might have not been able to otherwise? Furthermore animation/delay is further reduced/near eliminated on showdown so if a timer was ever added to traditional battling, accurately accounting for the delay/animations reflected only on the timer (for the convenience of the playerbase) might also be required in this instance. One of the main points I’m making about this is, the degree in which battles are done on showdown is ‘console accurate’ is less than the player base may think because prior to the friendly battle timers and the entire generation 8, a large quantity of battles on showdown(that weren’t aborted) wouldn’t finish on console with a clear winner and would usually go to HP deciding it, at least until a timer and delay are added to ladder battle.


Sleep clause, while not directly enforceable on console, has been more or less a gentleman’s agreement, and should continue to be. To benefit everything from draft formats to actual OU, Yawn utility in some bulky lower tier options is helpful while having active counterplay. Sleep Powder and Spore have a lot of counterplay as well. I’m aware I didn’t go over Sing and options of that nature, I could but they usually aren’t viable enough, however if anyone wants to hear my opinion regarding them I could.



In conclusion, sleep while may be rng based can be healthy to OU and other formats, while some may be unhealthier than others (Hypnosis), most of. My suggestions to fix some issues with the sleep clause, would be banning terra(this removes a lot of threats that might be causing these issues due to how the meta changes). Banning tera shifts turns the OU format on its head, simply because a lot of Pokemon that are broken with tera wouldn’t be, and a lot of Pokemon that are going to be bounced on and off the smogon banlist wouldn’t need to be. I could see Iron Valiant still being a big sleep abuser, which would be more manageable under sleep clause in a format where it can’t tera. Iron Valiant and Darkrai would almost never be on the same team because of the sleep clause (doesn’t mean they can’t be used on the same, it would just waste a slot in many circumstances unless you're not running sleep on 1 or both of these). Without having both the ability to tera your opponent can’t safely sleep, setup and tera accordingly. Sleep isn’t the issue, the ability to tera is the issue.

Sleep is so broken it took bro 3 turns to wake up and respond to the ban

 

[tigers jaw]

It was your tone and length of your post. It's fine to complain, but there is a point where it's just complaining for the sake of complaining. You ranted about kyurem for three paragraphs, that is kinda too much. I also think kyurem is broken, but I have admitted it was not banned because people voted for it to not. It's not the end of the world, there are much more important issues at hand rn and in the future.

i’ll be sure to run all my future posts by you prior to posting, just to get your permission on it.

i wasn’t complaining - i was opining on kyurem’s place in the meta & its impact. there are 3 paragraphs as they are the most problematic aspects of kyurem. i’d bet that your post contains at least half of the characters of my original post, just to police how & what another person says about the meta.

where did i deny that people voted for it to remain ou? the very premise of my post is that the result was incorrect, thus acknowledging the vote. people can be wrong, you know?

I do think it's unfair to complain about the results of a suspect test if you yourself did not put in the effort to ladder for reqs, especially since the vote was insanely close. Do I like Kyurem being stuck in the tier? No, I voted ban and tried to convince as many people as I could to vote ban as well. But for better or for worse, the playerbase has decided to keep Kyurem in the tier, and there's no use in complaining about it (especially since we won't be able to get a suspect for quite a while), and instead we should examine other threats of the metagame to see if they should be banned instead, like Gouging Fire and Ogerpon-Wellspring.

it’s none of your business as to why i didn’t vote, but if you must know, i lost interest in pokemon & took up other hobbies in its place during the time of the kyurem suspect. furthermore, laddering for reqs exacerbates my anxiety condition.

having not voted is in no way relevant to an assessment of part of the meta. the two do not connect at all. it doesn’t negate my liberty to discuss (or as you call it, “complain”), or try to spur discussion.

this is the meta discussion thread, not the Are Gouging Fire & Wellspring Broken thread.

edit: this is the last i’ll say on this, as i’m close to just asking who the f do you think you are. have a good one.

 

[Kenpwnchi]

So, based off the words of our great contributors, Gouging Fire, the new GF mascot, deserves to go?

 

[NotDaProGamer]

where did i deny that people voted for it to remain ou? the very premise of my post is that the result was incorrect, thus acknowledging the vote. people can be wrong, you know?

not how democracy works, but eh. Fair points.

i’ll be sure to run all my future posts by you prior to posting, just to get your permission on it.

Okay, we get it, you feel annoyed, no need to be sarcastic.

i lost interest in pokemon & took up other hobbies in its place during the time of the kyurem suspect. furthermore, laddering for reqs exacerbates my anxiety condition.

Maybe... (okay, I'm out of my depth here, tell me what to do someone)

 

[Heatranator]

Maybe... (okay, I'm out of my depth here, tell me what to do someone)

If somebody loses interest in pokemon, than that's cool, but that doesn't mean they should complain about the decision that was made while they were not around. The laddering reqs exacerbating anxiety is not fine and if laddering is causing anxiety attacks, I would recommend speaking to a professional about it. If you can't get reqs, cool, but people should not be complaining (yes, he is complaining, if he sees this post, you are complaining because you don't like how something is and are discussing it at length to a point where it is exaggerating things) to that degree.
That's how the response should go, on a firm tone.

 

[Heatranator]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2073907134-3royxnqgum4e8xwepd4p1lit95gdck5pw
Registeel sweep!!!!

 

[Fropop]

Registeel survived the psyko crit from hatterene, is it spdef EVed ? Or is it just that bulky ?

 

[viivian]

why are we suspect testing gouging fire when we could simply unban landorus-I and bloodmoon ursaluna so we have more pokemon that could beat it? is the OU council stupid?

 

[Finchinator]

why are we suspect testing gouging fire when we could simply unban landorus-I and bloodmoon ursaluna so we have more pokemon that could beat it? is the OU council stupid?

nou