Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Finchinator]

This suspect's point is to determine if Kyurem is broken in SV OU or not; it has nothing to do with how Kyurem may or may not balance Rain (or Rain Pokemon like Archaludon). If that is an issue, it will be dealt with separately. If it is not, it will not be dealt with. Of course, if you think Kyurem is balanced, then you should absolutely lean towards no ban and I think that's plenty valid. But the whole Rain sub-argument is silly.

You can vote based off of whatever you would like if you get voting reqs of course -- people have the right to do that and this right should always be upheld, but, in my eyes and in the intention of the tiering system, these arguments are and will continue to be lackluster. Conditional tiering without future assurance just leads to broken-checking-broken and hyperfocused/centralized tiers.

In my opinion, Kyurem is broken due to the lack of counterplay and how it warps teambuilding, so I will vote ban for the reasons cited in the suspect thread in my posts here. I also believe Archaludon is worthy of a suspect test in the aftermath of this suspect test, but that is the case regardless of the Kyurem verdict and is another discussion for another day in the near future.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

This suspect's point is to determine if Kyurem is broken in SV OU or not; it has nothing to do with how Kyurem may or may not balance Rain (or Rain Pokemon like Archaludon). If that is an issue, it will be dealt with separately. If it is not, it will not be dealt with. Of course, if you think Kyurem is balanced, then you should absolutely lean towards no ban and I think that's plenty valid. But the whole Rain sub-argument is silly.

You can vote based off of whatever you would like if you get voting reqs of course -- people have the right to do that and this right should always be upheld, but, in my eyes and in the intention of the tiering system, these arguments are and will continue to be lackluster. Conditional tiering without future assurance just leads to broken-checking-broken and hyperfocused/centralized tiers.

In my opinion, Kyurem is broken due to the lack of counterplay and how it warps teambuilding, so I will vote ban for the reasons cited in the suspect thread in my posts here. I also believe Archaludon is worthy of a suspect test in the aftermath of this suspect test, but that is the case regardless of the Kyurem verdict and is another discussion for another day in the near future.

common finch w. i don't think archaludon is broken, i think the rain sets are kinda dumb but ultimately beatable without specifically dedicating stuff to it in builder and non-rain sets are absolutely perfectly fine, but i encourage and welcome suspect tests on anything whether or not i consider them banworthy because i can accept the possibility that i might be wrong

(and for those of you in the audience who can't remember any times i was wrong, well, there are plenty of them. i was wrong about wake when it first dropped, i was wrong about ghold for a while towards the beginning of the gen, i was wrong about gliscor's banworthiness when dlc1 first dropped, i was wrong about darkrai being broken—but, notably, not about the reason i thought it'd be—and i was completely wrong about hisuian zoroark, which i thought would be good)

 

[YubelVT]

common finch w. i don't think archaludon is broken, i think the rain sets are kinda dumb but ultimately beatable without specifically dedicating stuff to it in builder and non-rain sets are absolutely perfectly fine, but i encourage and welcome suspect tests on anything whether or not i consider them banworthy because i can accept the possibility that i might be wrong

(and for those of you in the audience who can't remember any times i was wrong, well, there are plenty of them. i was wrong about wake when it first dropped, i was wrong about ghold for a while towards the beginning of the gen, i was wrong about gliscor's banworthiness when dlc1 first dropped, i was wrong about darkrai being broken—but, notably, not about the reason i thought it'd be—and i was completely wrong about hisuian zoroark, which i thought would be good)

Hisuian Zoroark WAS good... for about 2 months and then home dropped and the gen went to shit and has not recovered.

 

[ant4456]

Storm Zone at it with the spicy takes.

people whining about Raging Bolt even though it gives us a good asf fat wallbreaker with priority that is beneficial in the current meta for dealing with HO, Wogre, and Kingambit. It already has good checks via bulky grounds, Gking, Encore, etc. It also keeps Zapdos out which is good cause fuck Zapdos. The tier is responding well to Rbolt already, so idk it will be considered a problem in the future.

Tho I still believe Arch is broken for how perfectly it synergizes with Barraskewda and the only consistent checks are passive ground types like Clod, and Hippo, which can’t be fit on many structures, and the fact Arch can just get rack up Electro Shot boosts vs WA Clod cause it hits like a wet noodle. Lando and Ting are also Fish bait.

If they have Unaware Clod, or Ting, you could just double into Barra since the switch is easy to telegraph, and if they switch into their Water resist, you just come back to Arch. If they Tera their Ting-Lu, they lose to Arch.

The Tera argument I disagree with for Kyu and Arch. They have offensive typings and coverage that simply don’t let you Tera your way out of it like Srn said. Ice Beam/Freeze Dry + EP hits everything. The same with Draco + Flash Cannon + Electro. You and Vert made convincing arguments about Kyu but this isn’t one of them.

I also don’t like the “balance will take over” fearmongering, because even without Kyu and Arch, we won’t be lacking in ways to break through balance. Things like Weavile, FS Gking, and Gholdengo come to mind. Hydrapple is another solid balance breaker Dragon due to NP + Regen.

I think it's funny when people who don't get how Balance works think that banning Balance Breaker = a nerf to balance

My brother in Christ, how do you think Balance has a matchup against opposing Balance. Most of the best "Balance Breakers" are actually best on Balance, because these Pokemon are usually very economical in teambuilding. One slot for destructive power. People often forget that Balance also needs to beat Stall and opposing Balance, or else it's a bad team.

Urshifu was a Balance Breaker, and also was one of my favorite Pokemon to use on Balance ever. Because for one single Pokemon slot, I get an unwallable menace.

Then you just need one slot for a fast Pokemon that can revenge kill. Okay, so throw on a Dragapult. Offensive core of literally two Pokemon = unwallable? That's amazing for Balance teams. The only thing you could really want left is a setup wincon.

And Balance teams, despite the Pokemon being called "Balance Breakers", are thus in the position of having some of the most freedom. With four slots left, you can make a core that works defensively.

Balance Breakers are Balance's best partners. Pokemon that are notoriously good at destroying entire fat cores are generally amazing on a team where you are aiming to have a very well rounded team, with the same amount of Pokemon slots as every other teamstyle.

 

[Just A Shroom God]

hard agree about archaludon, the only sets that can be considered even remotely unhealthy are heavily reliant on two teammates, but i still have to disagree on kyurem. it's seriously constricting in builder, checking all of its sets requires at least two mons dedicated to it because you're fucked if you only have one and you guess wrong, and i just generally think the negatives of its presence in the meta outweigh the positives.

I don't think this statement paints the full picture. Everything you say is true, but you leave out some important bits. For one, while yes Arch is reliant on rain, rain is arguably the best teamstyle in the tier right now, and it's largely because of Bridge Man. It ruins typical rain checks like Dondozo and Rillaboom while providing a solid defensive backbone for the playstyle, and because of stamina and AV bulk, often forces at least a 1-1 trade, which typically puts you in a very uncomfortable position as you now have to survive the 4 other water-spamming team members that you just lost your resist to. It's not held back by needing rain; It enables rain instead.

For Kyurem, the only set worth talking about are special sets. While physical DD sets do exist, they struggle with less initial damage and more hard counters compared to the special sets, and generally have only lure value over specs sets. And to be fair, specs sets ARE lethal; there's almost nothing that can reliably switch into specs kyurem more than once given correct prediction. But that's the thing: given correct prediction. It NEEDS correct prediction because almost every team has something for each move: Ice Beam/Blizzard struggles against fat (tera) waters that exist to check the broken rain, Freeze Dry struggles with power against stuff with even passable Spdef like Darkrai, AV arch, and Iron Boulder as well as fat steels, and earth power struggles with being EXTREMELY weak on a wrong prediction. And on a wrong prediction, or even after KOing a pokemon, it is almost always forced to switch out. And that's the other thing: being an ice type locked into specs with a secondary weakness to moonblast and draco meteor means that the number of times kyurem can come in is very limited; playing aggressively can lead to the kyurem user getting only 1 or 2 chances to switch in. Add onto that its slow speed and the existance of 1-time Air Balloon Steels that often get the job done due to its incredibly poor longevity and you've got a pokemon that may be strong, just not broken. In a way, it reminds me of crawdaunt: in theory it's incredibly broken because it hits so hard but in practice its just not all that.

 

[alkazoth]

Once Kyurem's banned I would love to see Archaludon get looked at, mon is completely broken in rain and nothing except Clodsire reliably beats it. As much as I love the mon, I can't deny the fact that it's totally broken, there's no excuses to be made at this point. Arch doesn't care if you go to a ground type, it still gets the special attack boost from Electro Shot anyway. It's a lot like Bloodmoon Ursaluna, it forces you to lose about 2-3 mons to beat it. Rain's the best weather in the tier by a long shot partially because of this guy, and if Kyurem (the best rain check) gets banned, Rain'll only get better.

 

[YubelVT]

Once Kyurem's banned I would love to see Archaludon get looked at, mon is completely broken in rain and nothing except Clodsire reliably beats it. As much as I love the mon, I can't deny the fact that it's totally broken, there's no excuses to be made at this point. Arch doesn't care if you go to a ground type, it still gets the special attack boost from Electro Shot anyway. It's a lot like Bloodmoon Ursaluna, it forces you to lose about 2-3 mons to beat it. Rain's the best weather in the tier by a long shot partially because of this guy, and if Kyurem (the best rain check) gets banned, Rain'll only get better.

Heatran does well outside of rain because of how will o wisp interacts with body press (learning how body press actually works made me unreasonably upset). Unfortunatly rain Archaludon is also paired with a bunch of other pokemon that really like the rain. Tera Grass bulky heatran once again proves that heatran dropping to UU by less than .1% usage at the beginning of DLC1 was a fluke

 

[Heatranator]

Heatran does well outside of rain because of how will o wisp interacts with body press (learning how body press actually works made me unreasonably upset). Unfortunatly rain Archaludon is also paired with a bunch of other pokemon that really like the rain. Tera Grass bulky heatran once again proves that heatran dropping to UU by less than .1% usage at the beginning of DLC1 was a fluke

Here's an idea for a core, Heatran + Hydrapple/water absorb mon. You can wall the combo of barra and arch pretty well while also being great against the general metagame. Maybe Heatran + Gastrodon?

 

[YubelVT]

Here's an idea for a core, Heatran + Hydrapple/water absorb mon. You can wall the combo of barra and arch pretty well while also being great against the general metagame. Maybe Heatran + Gastrodon?

You definitely want to get rid of rain too so some form of glowking should be there with chilly reception as I don't think any of the weather ability pokemon (except pelipper) have a momentum move that doesn't also kill it. The spanish transmasc core could be pretty good actually

 

[Heatranator]

You definitely want to get rid of rain too so some form of glowking should be there with chilly reception as I don't think any of the weather ability pokemon (except pelipper) have a momentum move that doesn't also kill it. The spanish transmasc core could be pretty good actually

Sorry, but what is that core composed of? I don't think I've heard of it.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

common finch w. i don't think archaludon is broken, i think the rain sets are kinda dumb but ultimately beatable without specifically dedicating stuff to it in builder and non-rain sets are absolutely perfectly fine, but i encourage and welcome suspect tests on anything whether or not i consider them banworthy because i can accept the possibility that i might be wrong

(and for those of you in the audience who can't remember any times i was wrong, well, there are plenty of them. i was wrong about wake when it first dropped, i was wrong about ghold for a while towards the beginning of the gen, i was wrong about gliscor's banworthiness when dlc1 first dropped, i was wrong about darkrai being broken—but, notably, not about the reason i thought it'd be—and i was completely wrong about hisuian zoroark, which i thought would be good)

yeah sure, that is technically true, Arch is beatable without dedicating slots to it. In fact, whether you dedicate slots to it or not, it doesn't matter. It's beatable. At the expense of 1-2 team members pretty much regardless of the situation thanks to its bulk, weirdly good speed tier, and offensive prowess, but yeah sure it is technically beatable. Again, whether you win the match in the end or not, it'll take 1-2 Pokémon pretty much every time before you beat it, but yes it is beatable. It has no recovery moves after all; you can wear it down and beat It. Yes. But what does it do while that's happening? Take 1-2 Pokémon without fail. But you beat it after, yes. Surely that's not a broken Pokémon, guaranteed 1-2 kills, since it does die after. Right?

 

[RS25802580]

Thoughts on Gouging Fire right now? I recently ran into a banded set that was EV’d to received a speed proto boost in Sun. The Chiquita Banana from Hell proceeded to Tera Fire and cleanly OHKO my offensive Great Tusk and 3HKO my physdef Dozo from full. Outsped the rest of my team and just Gouged all over the place (I feel disturbed & violated). Is Gouging Fire a problem or do I need to cope harder?

 

[Heatranator]

Thoughts on Gouging Fire right now? I recently ran into a banded set that was EV’d to received a speed proto boost in Sun. The Chiquita Banana from Hell proceeded to Tera Fire and cleanly OHKO my offensive Great Tusk and 3HKO my physdef Dozo from full. Outsped the rest of my team and just Gouged all over the place (I feel disturbed & violated). Is Gouging Fire a problem or do I need to cope harder?

View attachment 600474

In my opinion, it is a great mon, but to get the insane numbers that people post, it has to go adamant which means that it doesn't outspeed tusk. 3hit ko'ing dondozo is definetely amazing, but the two hit ko's that people talk about are having to give up on 309 jolly speed, which really hurts since you are outsped by tusk. It also really struggles into rain and set up variants are weak to hazards (if they use HDB, they are giving up a speed boost) and have coverage issues. It is a mon that could be broken down the line, but right now, it is fine in my book.

 

[RyukTheDarkrai]

Color me curious, but do you guys think there could be any practical value out of Tera Poison Kingambit? Strange question, but it grants you a resistance to Fighting while also giving you one to Fairy, in addition to having a nice resistance to Grass. Weakness to Ground moves is pretty lame though.

 

[Heatranator]

Color me curious, but do you guys think there could be any practical value out of Tera Poison Kingambit? Strange question, but it grants you a resistance to Fighting while also giving you one to Fairy, in addition to having a nice resistance to Grass. Weakness to Ground moves is pretty lame though.

It could be good, potentially as a niche tera option, but the ground weakness isn't great. The reason why tera flying and fairy are so popular is because they remove the fighting weakness while not making gambit weak to ground. You could potentially use it, but you would have to have heavy anti ground insurance.
The other main reason why people choose tera poison on any mon is to get the poison immunity, which gambit's base typing doesn't have to worry about, so that diminishes a bit of its utility.

 

[EpicGuy321]

Hoopa-Unbound is pretty decent right now. Wielding an , it can take on many special threats in the tier. I pair it with Moltres, which quad resists U-Turn and punishes it with a nasty 30% burn chance. Sorry Meowscarada + Weavile, but you’re nothing to the bird. Additionally walling Great Tusk and even Gouging Fire (kinda)? Awesome. T-Wave + Hex Dragapult provides good speed control for the team.

 

[Heatranator]

Hoopa-Unbound is pretty decent right now. Wielding an , it can take on many special threats in the tier. I pair it with Moltres, which quad resists U-Turn and punishes it with a nasty 30% burn chance. Sorry Meowscarada + Weavile, but you’re nothing to the bird. Additionally walling Great Tusk and even Gouging Fire (kinda)? Awesome. T-Wave + Hex Dragapult provides good speed control for the team.

How can it wall tusk and gouging fire? Doesn't Hoopa-U have a horrible defense stat? Or are you talking about Moltres

 

[darkmoonbeam]

While toxapex isn't bothering me anymore in this gen it is nice seing it dropping.
Do you think that quaquaval will have any chances of rising if primarina and pwlliper drop too?
They are currently the only pokemon in OU that can resist both of its stabs.

It still bothers plenty, its just not as common. labels!

Im glad it doesnt get scald tho

 

[Heatranator]

It still bothers plenty, its just not as common. labels!

Im glad it doesnt get scald tho

And yet raikou gets it, which I have been finding good success with on ladder.
But actually, why does a lightning beast get scald but a literal crown of thorns starfish that has a crown on its head to shoot the water not get it.

 

[Soiramio3000]

It still bothers plenty, its just not as common. labels!

Im glad it doesnt get scald tho

It bothers you?
I don't see how.
Physical attackers no longer need to be scared of scald, you can finally wait for it to run out of recover, tera lets you have coverage against it,
Gliscor has almost nothing to be afraid of.

I just don't see how it can bother you.
Last gen dealing with it was pretty challenging, and even if you got an OHKO its very existence limited your team building.[/QUOTE]

 

[sims796]

Scarf dragapult is funny, it picks off scarf meowscarada turn one with u-turn and then you lose the game anyways because you have scarf dragapult on your team lol

That's ironic. I've often fought Scarf Dragapult...when I Tricked a Scarf on them. That tends to neuter them for the rest of the match, although I was sweating bullets before I realized that.

This reminds me, is Dragapult as scary as it once was? I don't find it as intimidating. Maybe because I'm so scared of meteors, fire, electricity and the like from other things like Arch, Gouging, Raging and whatnot.

 

[heileone]

That's ironic. I've often fought Scarf Dragapult...when I Tricked a Scarf on them. That tends to neuter them for the rest of the match, although I was sweating bullets before I realized that.

This reminds me, is Dragapult as scary as it once was? I don't find it as intimidating. Maybe because I'm so scared of meteors, fire, electricity and the like from other things like Arch, Gouging, Raging and whatnot.

Specs pult is pretty bad but hexpult is one of the meanest balance breakers around atm. Spreads an insane amount of status and hits just as hard as specs as long as the enemy is statused. I will say I prefer modest for hexpult because the teams its on usually can deal with weav darkrai and zama.

 

[NotDaProGamer]

That's ironic. I've often fought Scarf Dragapult...when I Tricked a Scarf on them. That tends to neuter them for the rest of the match, although I was sweating bullets before I realized that.

This reminds me, is Dragapult as scary as it once was? I don't find it as intimidating. Maybe because I'm so scared of meteors, fire, electricity and the like from other things like Arch, Gouging, Raging and whatnot.

be scared of miniors instead

 

[Komodo_Drogo]

I decided to log in to ask this, even though I decided to take a break, but what are people using to actually check Archaludon? So far I've seen only clodsire reliably check it but it getting past it isn't impossible due to rng drops or hazards. Skeledirge is another check in theory but it's extremely difficult it seems to deal with it in general without 2 mons minimum. I'm asking this because people are saying it's easy to deal with but not providing actual answers.

I tried it during the suspect, using the sample Triple steel rain but it felt more like an issue of the team rather than of arch itself as I had to use it as a response to some things and it got overwhelmed pretty regularly. It also felt like some games it was just absurdly punishing from the coverage + stamina. It's been a while so I could be misremebering but I'd like to know some options I could include in teams to more reliably deal with it outside of clod.

 

[j0nathan]

Let's see which generation has the most and least current SV OU Pokémon! Hisui is gonna be it's own generation, but you could also argue it's part of gen 8. Regional Variants are gonna be part of the generation they are from and not there "original generation.


Gen 6 has 0. (0%)
Gen 2 and 7 both have 1. (2%)
Gen 1 and Hisui both have 2. (4%)
Gen 3 has 3. (7%)
Gen 4 has 4. (8%)
Gen 5 has 6. (13%)
Gen 8 has 8. (18%)
And finally:
Gen 9 has 18. (40%)
Gen 6 is kinda embarrassing.
Gen 7 needs the Tapus back!!
Unova surprised me! They introduced a lot of strong Pokémon apparently. And I didn't know Alolamola is from Unova.
Hisui having 2 while only introducing 17 fully evolved Pokémon is impressive!
Gen 3 gets carried by Weather (Torkoal and Pelliper).
And yeah I think everybody expected Paldea on top.