Idk, I think Gholdengo either got better or is about the same place as it was before. Sure, Heatran, Lando-T, Chien-Pao, and esp Samurott-H are annoying, but Kingambit seems to have largely fallen off (at least atm, I could see it picking up steam later) and it has some really good MUs that are arguably in its favor like vs Magearna, Slowking-G, Zamazenta & Sneaseler. It gained some top tier partners for its bad MUs too like Urshifu-RS for Gambit and Chien-Pao, Samurott-H for Heatran + setting up easy Spikes, etc. ATM though, the biggest point in its favor is Kingambit's lower usage, since that mon limited the progress Gholdengo could make.
a bunch of new guys make his life harder, but at least the hazard removal still sucks.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v2 [Update on Post #5186]
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
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Cheryl.
Celesteela is Life
Zapdos-Galar @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Flying
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Close Combat
- U-turn
- Stomping Tantrum / Thunderous Kick
Anyone else forget this mon dropped? Honestly, after trying it, it's probably for good reason but this thing also isn't BAD. It's a really good ladder choice if anything because everyone and their mom is running Lando-T, and Zapdos-Galar can take advantage of it just like it did last gen (be sure to scout if it's Tera Blast Flying though!). It's also not a bad switch into Great Tusk, although losing your Band can blow a lot for your damage output. But yeah if you can get a Defiant boost with this guy, something is probably dying (especially if you choose to Tera, something WILL die), but it still suffers from its average speed tier and killing itself from recoil and Helmet chip. Also makes sense that this mon is nowhere to be seen as both of its typings offer major competition that offer more utility. It also is not Flamigo, so you can't just CC your way through Gholdengo teams which is very unfortunate. I think this may become a sleeper choice as the meta progresses, right now it's just an aight pick for abusing Lando-T usage
Lilligant-Hisui @ Life Orb / Focus Sash
Ability: Hustle
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Fighting
Jolly Nature
- Victory Dance
- Close Combat
- Leaf Blade
- Ice Spinner
Another middle-of-the-pack Fighting type, Hisuian Lilligant offers a new flavor of inconsistency with Hustle-boosted attacks. If you can position it correctly, and it actually lands its moves, it can do some hefty damage. Tera Fighting CC offer some truly gnarly calcs...
+1 252 Atk Hustle Tera Fighting Lilligant-Hisui Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 352-416 (88.2 - 104.2%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Tera Fighting Lilligant-Hisui Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 458-541 (114.7 - 135.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Tera Fighting Lilligant-Hisui Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 307-361 (76.9 - 90.4%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (bro what)
Among this is boosted CC 2HKOing bulky resists like Toxapex, limiting any need for prediction. You can also Tera Grass to boost Leaf Blade, which has its perks like offering an OHKO on the standard Pex spread after Rocks:
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Tera Grass Lilligant-Hisui Leaf Blade vs. 252 HP / 192+ Def Toxapex: 276-325 (90.7 - 106.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
.. and some other fun stuff:
252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Tera Grass Lilligant-Hisui Leaf Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gholdengo: 172-203 (54.6 - 64.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Tera Grass Lilligant-Hisui Leaf Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gholdengo: 257-304 (81.5 - 96.5%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
However, the plain issue I've been having with this mon, outside of its heavy competition and Hustle existing, is that Grass/Fighting is a dogshit typing offensively, and its coverage isn't really the best outside of hitting Birds and Amoonguss with Ice Spinner. Leaf Blade/CC/Ice Spinner leaves you walled by stuff like bulky Gholdengo and Skeledirge which have been rising up in usage to answer threats like Magearna. In addition, for a lot of the funny calcs to happen with this mon, you need to somehow find a way to set up Victory Dance (with 70/75/75 bulk at that...) and likely burn your Tera unless the walls are chipped heavily. And you still might not win if things goes right for you cause Hustle exists! I've experimented with AoA sets with Life Orb and Tera Blast Fire over Victory Dance, and they're okay, but I feel like any other Fighting type does the role better and more reliably. Unfortunately, I think Hisuian Lilligant is destined to be in UUBL jail unless Chlorophyll sets are what makes this mon good.
re: magearnaspecs was the set that made it broken in SS, but there are 5 key differences that make it less oppressive this gen:
1. SV's landscape is much faster & hostile than pussy SS
2. difficulty allocating ev's. without hp investment you die to 2 tera-dark crunch's from choice band chien-pao for example
3. high protect usage for scouting-- garganacl, dondozo, scream tail, rotom-w, etc. all of these 'mons that choice specs magearna technically exploits commonly ran protect even pre-home. protect usage will continue to rise even more now that trick room & slowking-galar future sight strategies are back
4. defensive + offensive tera's (magearna is slow) to heavily chip, if not outright remove it
5. larger pool of viable 'mons which makes it even more strapped for moveslots. you can't run all of trick, fleur cannon, volt switch, focus blast, ice beam, psyshock, flash cannon, and spikes on the same set for all of the 'mons below:
outside of points 1-3 above, choice specs sets have defensive checks such trick + black sludge glowking, heatran, gholdengo, clodsire, toxapex, amoonguss, volcarona, iron moth, your own magearna, speedy skeledirge, rest-talk zamazenta-c, magnezone, ceruledge, blissey, tera-poison garganacl, slowking, and iron treads. iron treads is dope because there is less demand for great tusk now with all our new kingambit answers. we have a larger pool of viable ground-types too this generation ting-lu, landorus-t, iron treads, ursaluna, great tusk, garchomp, sandy shocks, and tera-ground users which allow flexibility when trying to outplay volt switch. while it is true that choice specs magearna can use shit like tera-fairy fleur cannon to bypass some of this counter-play, i don't find this as egregious as people are making it out to be. for one, it requires dropping your steel-typing which can put you at risk of getting swept by something like chien-pao or iron valiant later for example. second, it forgoes one of the most important skills you need for success in this tier: tera management. there is a massive difference between tera'ing magearna which sacrifices half of your defensive profile & is very slow, and something like chien-pao which can do similar damage but has that godly 405 speed tier
magearna's other sets are not broken either (imo), including trick room. this variant is only used to enable ursaluna. i'm not sure why people think magearna is the issue here and not the bear; even if magearna is banned, players will just fuck around with other trick room setters such as eject pack hoopa-u, chilly reception glowking, and cresselia. not to mention ursaluna is even more broken with screens support. no one is going to use trick room magearna as a stand-alone set if the bear is banned anyways as there's no more incentive to do so-- SV lacks both fairium-z and m-mawile as a teammate. shift gear + 3A is also another good set magearna can run, but once again i don't find this set anywhere close to broken due to the lack of z-moves and its reliance on tera blast. next, we have magearna's spikes sets which once again are not overpowered. and i'd even argue they add a lot of value to the metagame as a pivot that can blanket check many threats mainly chien-pao and dragapult. anyone who thinks defensive spikes magearna is broken is a clown, no offense
magearna's other sets are not broken either (imo), including trick room. this variant is only used to enable ursaluna. i'm not sure why people think magearna is the issue here and not the bear; even if magearna is banned, players will just fuck around with other trick room setters such as eject pack hoopa-u, chilly reception glowking, and cresselia. not to mention ursaluna is even more broken with screens support. no one is going to use trick room magearna as a stand-alone set if the bear is banned anyways as there's no more incentive to do so-- SV lacks both fairium-z and m-mawile as a teammate. shift gear + 3A is also another good set magearna can run, but once again i don't find this set anywhere close to broken due to the lack of z-moves and its reliance on tera blast. next, we have magearna's spikes sets which once again are not overpowered. and i'd even argue they add a lot of value to the metagame as a pivot that can blanket check many threats mainly chien-pao and dragapult. anyone who thinks defensive spikes magearna is broken is a clown, no offense
re: light claythe only set that makes magearna broken is double dance. draining kiss + stored power is extremely cheap and while there is counter-play, most of it loses because it's often paired with screens support. screens also have little answers in terms of breaking and outplaying them. your best options are defog corviknight which requires a free turn vs set-up spam & can be blocked by gholdengo, curse dragapult, taunt grimmsnarl, etc., court change cinderace (good ngl), and less than optimal moves such as psychic fangs, brick break, and raging bull. and i am not proposing this ban just to potentially preserve magearna! i also find screens teams' other users to be highly problematic:
i'm not sure why people are calling this thing "mid." sneasler is extremely pussy and i consider it more broken than both zamazenta forms and possibly even the bear. and it's solely due to screens support. being able to put up screens and reliably fish with dire claw multiple times is highly uncompetitive, even more-so than magearna mindlessly clicking shift gear + calm mind. i feel people have been using sneasler wrong. poison touch sets are good but i don't think they are broken. use air balloon unburden with screens: replays: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
i think the bear hype has been dying down a bit and people have been learning how to position themselves around trick room turns, but this 'mon with screens support is just as ridiculous in my opinion. being able to screen up then come in on half the tier safely and claim 2-3 kills off rip is nonsense. add a defensive tera like -water or -fairy to fuck with urshifu's surging strikes or infiltrator dragapult's hydro pump and it's very cheap. tera-normal has been OD from my experience. replays: 1 / 2
volcarona is probably the most broken it has ever been. this is partially due to our wider dex making it harder to prep for, but also because of screens. offensive volcarona sets have been held back by its lack of bulk and having a reflect / light screen up lets it deal with common priority like chien-pao ice shard, urshifu-rs aqua jet, kingambit sucker punch, dragonite extreme speed... i'll leave some replays but tera blast-water, -ground, and even -fighting (AM put me on) are extremely broken. replays: 1 / 2
i'd be annoyed if this 'mon had to be banned solely for its iron defense sets as its choice band set is very chill. clicking screens and then bringing in iron defense zamazenta makes the match-up unplayable for offense and bulky offense as traditional checks such as slowking-g, zapdos, volcarona, iron valiant, iron moth, etc. all lose 1v1 to it via the support. replays: 1 / 2
i don't think this is as broken as people are making it out to be; it brings a lot of cool qualities to the tier defensively (trick, knock off immunity is beautiful) while being able to be out-offense'd or invalidated by common balance staples. very one-dimensional too. it's for sure centralizing but i haven't had too much trouble beating it personally. just mentioning it because behind screens it's dumb for the same reasons hero's iron defense sets are, if not more
njnp and i always joke around about how the chien-pao ban lowkey did more harm than good, but i'm glad that it's back. i think it's important for SV to have some type of premium offensively so i have it as low priority on my list so far. that said, screens solves everything that has made swords dance + black glasses chien-pao a bit of a fish in the past-- who cares about 4MSS when you can safely stay in on a magearna and 1v1 it?
swords dance is already lowkey broken. now add screens. dondozo is your only answer lolcombine this with the booster 'mons we had previously and screens are beyond broken as an archetype. imagine what will happen once screens users start making variations with iron valiant, baxcalibur, encore dragonite, and roaring moon. new toy syndrome is going to fade away soon kek. banning light clay will be able to nerf the above pokemon and potentially preserve magearna
taunt heatran
standard fat leftovers kingambit
skeledirge (wisp + hex)
ting-lu to phase
iron treads
haze 'mons like clodsire, toxapex, and volcanion
boosting alongside it-- ceruledge, specially defensive dondozo, tera-normal dragonite, zamazenta-c, scizor, volcarona
trick & switcheroo users-- iron valiant, gholdengo, magearna, rotom-w, sneasler, glowking (black sludge)
brute force as screens won't be able to save it + you can tera to compound stab
encore users like iron valiant, dragonite, scream tail, azumarill, magearna,...
if we can adapt to garganacl which was clearly bullshit and unhealthy for the first 3 months of SV, then best believe we can also adapt to cheese magearna without screens support too. just saying a light clay ban would make the metagame a lot more playable because we can test the counter-play above to see if it's effective. and if magearna still ends up being dumb? ok cool go ahead and quickban it, doesn't take long lol
standard fat leftovers kingambit
skeledirge (wisp + hex)
ting-lu to phase
iron treads
haze 'mons like clodsire, toxapex, and volcanion
boosting alongside it-- ceruledge, specially defensive dondozo, tera-normal dragonite, zamazenta-c, scizor, volcarona
trick & switcheroo users-- iron valiant, gholdengo, magearna, rotom-w, sneasler, glowking (black sludge)
brute force as screens won't be able to save it + you can tera to compound stab
encore users like iron valiant, dragonite, scream tail, azumarill, magearna,...
if we can adapt to garganacl which was clearly bullshit and unhealthy for the first 3 months of SV, then best believe we can also adapt to cheese magearna without screens support too. just saying a light clay ban would make the metagame a lot more playable because we can test the counter-play above to see if it's effective. and if magearna still ends up being dumb? ok cool go ahead and quickban it, doesn't take long lol
thank you for reading. here is the team i used: https://pokepast.es/a600cbf703bffa30
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Gambit is still solid IMO. Not as dominant as before obviously, but absolutely still a great mon thanks to Tera and its inherent strengths.kinda sucks in zamazenta meta. it now also needs to consider defiant for lando-t, which is interesting i guess.
But that's debatable, what I'm 100% sure you're wrong about is having to consider defiant. It really doesn't, Supreme Overlord is still the way to go almost every time. Defog and Lando just aren't prominent enough in this meta yet to consider using anything besides Supreme Overlord.
So how does this work? U trap it into Shift Gear, it boost, then u trap it into CM, it boosts, then u die?
- Unsurprisingly the issue right now. I'm impressed by how Zamazenta-C abuses Body Press and I'm glad it got it, we could play with it more but in the Ubers metagame but not in OU 
- One of the Pokémon I'm most excited for, can run a great variety of sets including Choice Scarf, Choice Band and Focus Sash, think it has amazing potential to be a good metagame staple
- Will eventually cause problems the further the metagame develops. Incarnate can quickly snowball with its high Speed and Contrary + Superpower, while the Therian form is very bulky and can do good damage as well
- First of all, gaining Taunt was insane. Second: Sandsear Storm + Nasty Plot
Floatzel is much faster, I would even argue that the two are even in serving a rain team.[*]basculegion completely outclasses float now.
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It’s interesting that pretty much every Pokemon you talked about you mention screens. Is screens prevalent in high ladder, or has it just been from your personal play? Asking for a Light Clay ban seems extreme just because some broken mons are even more broken under screens.just hit #1 on the ladder last night, and i'd like to give my vision on what i think should happen tiering-wise. this might controversial, but i don't think magearna is that broken. before i get into more detail, i'd like to give a big shoutout to ausma as i thought her thoughts on the 'mon were well-written and ones i largely agree with. the only broken set that magearna has is its stored power cheese set and i believe there is a simple solution we can make to simultaneously nerf this 'mon and a lot of other borderline brokens such as zamazenta, ursaluna, sneasler, urshifu-rs, volcarona, etc. what is it you may ask? ban light clay. before i get into why i believe screens are overpowered right now, i'd like to explain why magearna's other sets are not broken first:
specs was the set that made it broken in SS, but there are 5 key differences that make it less oppressive this gen:
1. SV's landscape is much faster & hostile than pussy SS
2. difficulty allocating ev's. without hp investment you die to 2 tera-dark crunch's from choice band chien-pao for example
3. high protect usage for scouting-- garganacl, dondozo, scream tail, rotom-w, etc. all of these 'mons that choice specs magearna technically exploits commonly ran protect even pre-home. protect usage will continue to rise even more now that trick room & slowking-galar future sight strategies are back
4. defensive + offensive tera's (magearna is slow) to heavily chip, if not outright remove it
5. larger pool of viable 'mons which makes it even more strapped for moveslots. you can't run all of trick, fleur cannon, volt switch, focus blast, ice beam, psyshock, flash cannon, and spikes on the same setwhile it is true that choice specs magearna can use shit like tera-fairy fleur cannon to bypass some of this counter-play, i don't find this as egregious as people are making it out to be. for one, it requires dropping your steel-typing which can put you at risk of getting swept by something like chien-pao or iron valiant later for example. second, it forgoes one of the most important skills you need for success in this tier: tera management. there is a massive difference between tera'ing magearna which sacrifices half of your defensive profile & is very slow, and something like chien-pao which can do similar damage but has that godly 405 speed tieroutside of points 1-3 above, i find choice specs magearna to have plenty of counter-play that isn't dogshit 'mons like specially defensive excadrill and blissey last gen. the most common ones include slowking-galar which is a top 3 'mon right now in my opinion with its assault vest and black sludge + chilly reception sets. heatran and iron treads are also other great answers into anything that is not choice specs focus blast. heatran in particular doesn't mind trick too much. clodsire, toxapex, and amoonguss are decent pivots as choice specs psyshock is very rare. the latter two can even use eject button to bring momentum back in your favor (though on toxapex i still prefer black sludge to punish trick). i'm not a big fan of assault vest toxapex nowadays anyways. you need haze for a lot of set-up 'mons like zamazenta, urshifu-rs, and sneasler. volcarona and iron moth are also solid checks and a choice specs trick can put your opponent in unfavorable positions. for the next 'mon we have gholdengo which is immune to trick and can heal off volt switch chip damage later in the match via recover. bulky cinderace is also a great 1-time switch-in on anything not volt switch. specially defensive and assault vest magearna is a great pivot into these variants, and even your own choiced magearna can suffice as a check. these magearna vs magearna interactions remind me of melmetal vs melmetal interactions last gen. skeledirge is also ok. it is a bit volatile since volt switch into 2 fleur cannons will deck it but if you run speed investment it becomes more salvageable than you'd think. lastly we have rest + sleep talk zamazenta-crowned which is godly on fatter archetypes due to its trick immunity and being able to switch in comfortably on anything not focus blast with special defense investment
in terms of more niche answers we have magnezone to punish a stab lock, ceruledge, blissey (decent pick now that it has heal bell), slowking, and tera-poison garganacl. the final thing i'd like to point out is we have a larger pool of viable ground-types this generation which allows flexibility in game-play. while none of these are direct switch-ins, shit like ting-lu, landorus-t, iron treads, ursaluna, great tusk, garchomp, sandy shocks, and tera-ground users can make magearna users think twice before making aggressive volt switch plays
another common set magearna runs is trick room. this variant is also far from broken and is only used to enable ursaluna. i'm not sure why people think magearna is the issue here and not the bear; even if magearna is banned, players will just fuck around with other trick room setters such as eject pack hoopa-u, chilly reception glowking, and cresselia. no one is going to use trick room magearna as a stand-alone set if the bear is banned anyways as there's no more incentive to do so-- SV lacks both fairium-z and m-mawile as a teammate. next, we have magearna's spikes sets which once again are not broken. and i'd even argue they add a lot of value to the metagame as a pivot that can blanket check many threats mainly chien-pao and dragapult. anyone who thinks spikes magearna is problematic is a clown, no offense
shift gear + 3A is also another good set magearna can run, but once again i don't find this set anywhere close to broken due to the lack of z-moves and its reliance on tera blast
this leaves us with magearna's last set which is the definition of cringe: double dance. draining kiss + stored power is extremely cheap and while there is counter-play, most of it loses because it's often paired with screens support. screens also have little answers in terms of breaking and outplaying them. your best options are defog corviknight which requires a free turn vs set-up spam & can be blocked by gholdengo, curse dragapult, taunt grimmsnarl, etc., court change cinderace (good ngl), and less than optimal moves such as psychic fangs, brick break, and raging bull. while banning light clay seems like a cope solution just to preserve this one 'mon, i disagree entirely as screens teams' other abusers are just as, if not more oppressive than cheese magearna:
combine this with the booster 'mons we had previously and screens are beyond broken as an archetype. imagine what will happen once screens users start making variations with iron valiant, baxcalibur, encore dragonite, and roaring moon. new toy syndrome is going to fade away soon kek. banning light clay will be able to nerf the above pokemon and potentially preserve magearna. here's a large pool of highly viable 'mons that can defeat cheese magearna in the case that we limit screens:overall i enjoy the dynamic between magearna & chien-pao. i can 100% see a long-lasting competitive format with both 'mons legal similar to SM. i'd find it very frustrating if we had to ban magearna solely off of its stupid cheese screens sets as i don't think its other sets are broken at all. banning magearna would also mean shit like chien-pao, and hoopa-u to an extent, would become unmanageable. i genuinely believe we need to explore a light clay ban first because it will directly nerf these uncompetitive magearna sets and many of other threats i highlighted above such as sneasler, ursaluna, and volcarona. it will also make magearna more manageable. i really enjoy its tier presence defensively; the 'mon brings a lot of stability to our metagame. banning light clay is a simple item ban, not a complex ban contrary to popular belief. it has been done before in other tiers and should be added to the radar in my opinionstandard heatran with taunt shuts down any cheese magearna set as even if it turns into a water-type, it will never lose since you 4x resist draining kiss. standard fat leftovers kingambit is another great check to this set as long as it's not iron defense. you can click swords dance then iron head will fry this 'mon. unaware skeledirge is another splashable answer and all you need to do is click wisp then hex. stop clicking torch song if it hasn't revealed leftovers. no wonder you're losing to it when you activate its weakness policy rofl. we also have 'mons such as curse dondozo (specially defensive curse), ceruledge, tera-normal dragonite, scizor, iron defense zamazenta-c, and volcarona can also set up alongside non-iron defense variants without screens up. garganacl is another great answer to make progress vs it since salt cure absolutely shits on it even if tera-water's and earthquake does solid damage. iron treads is another pretty good check which can knock off and spam earthquake, while taking negligible damage from draining kiss. there is also less demand for great tusk now that we have new kingambit checks like urshifu-rs, zapdos-g (underrated), flame body heatran, and zamazenta. still has other good moves in knock off, stealth rock, rapid spin, and even ice spinner if you want a way to hit landorus-t and magearna if it tera's into a flying-type. lastly, slowking-galar is another splashable answer to this set with trick + black sludge, and slowking-g in general is a top 3 'mon in the metagame right now.
speaking of trick, we have an abundance of good users this time like iron valiant, gholdengo, magearna, rotom-w, sneasler (switcheroo), etc. that can lock it into an undesirable move. encore can do the same thing from 'mon like dragonite, azumarill, scream tail, the aforementioned magearna & iron valiant, etc. allowing another teammate to capitalize and remove with brute force as screens won't be there to save it. offensive / defensive terastillization is very powerful as well and i find that it's very easy to tech on teams like tera-fire on hoopa-u for example. while clicking tera to beat something is quite demanding in terms of game-play, i don't find this neither outrageous nor new as other 'mons have done this in the past such as baxcalibur
finally, we have haze users. toxapex needs haze > assault vest now because of how good iron defense zamazenta and swords dance urshifu-rs are. so to say we're using haze toxapex just for one 'mon is cap. clodsire is another good user of the move, and haze on this 'mon provides wider match-up coverage vs other fat breakers, mainly nasty plot tera-flying gholdengo, substitute + nasty plot hydreigon, and stored power hatterene. lastly we have haze volcanion. before some kid says that "if you're using this then it's broken" i'd like to say that we have had a lot of wack shit in SV like substitute skeledirge and encore dragonite, so to say 1 move-slot is too much for your team is ignorant. volcanion doesn't need sludge bomb in a tapu fini-less tier anyways; it's a surprisingly comfortable fit and still covers belly drum azumarill.
if we can adapt to garganacl which was clearly bullshit and unhealthy for the first 3 months of SV, then best believe we can also adapt to cheese magearna without screens support too. i guarantee you we will find more shit over time and the shit i listed above is only the tip of the iceberg
thank you for reading. here is the team i used: https://pokepast.es/a600cbf703bffa30
Gonna disagree with you for a few big reasons.just hit #1 on the ladder last night, and i'd like to give my vision on what i think should happen tiering-wise. this might controversial, but i don't think magearna is that broken. before i get into more detail, i'd like to give a big shoutout to ausma as i thought her thoughts on the 'mon were well-written and ones i largely agree with. the only broken set that magearna has is its stored power cheese set and i believe there is a simple solution we can make to simultaneously nerf this 'mon and a lot of other borderline brokens such as zamazenta, ursaluna, sneasler, urshifu-rs, volcarona, etc. what is it you may ask? ban light clay. before i get into why i believe screens are overpowered right now, i'd like to explain why magearna's other sets are not broken first:
specs was the set that made it broken in SS, but there are 5 key differences that make it less oppressive this gen:
1. SV's landscape is much faster & hostile than pussy SS
2. difficulty allocating ev's. without hp investment you die to 2 tera-dark crunch's from choice band chien-pao for example
3. high protect usage for scouting-- garganacl, dondozo, scream tail, rotom-w, etc. all of these 'mons that choice specs magearna technically exploits commonly ran protect even pre-home. protect usage will continue to rise even more now that trick room & slowking-galar future sight strategies are back
4. defensive + offensive tera's (magearna is slow) to heavily chip, if not outright remove it
5. larger pool of viable 'mons which makes it even more strapped for moveslots. you can't run all of trick, fleur cannon, volt switch, focus blast, ice beam, psyshock, flash cannon, and spikes on the same setwhile it is true that choice specs magearna can use shit like tera-fairy fleur cannon to bypass some of this counter-play, i don't find this as egregious as people are making it out to be. for one, it requires dropping your steel-typing which can put you at risk of getting swept by something like chien-pao or iron valiant later for example. second, it forgoes one of the most important skills you need for success in this tier: tera management. there is a massive difference between tera'ing magearna which sacrifices half of your defensive profile & is very slow, and something like chien-pao which can do similar damage but has that godly 405 speed tieroutside of points 1-3 above, i find choice specs magearna to have plenty of counter-play that isn't dogshit 'mons like specially defensive excadrill and blissey last gen. the most common ones include slowking-galar which is a top 3 'mon right now in my opinion with its assault vest and black sludge + chilly reception sets. heatran and iron treads are also other great answers into anything that is not choice specs focus blast. heatran in particular doesn't mind trick too much. clodsire, toxapex, and amoonguss are decent pivots as choice specs psyshock is very rare. the latter two can even use eject button to bring momentum back in your favor (though on toxapex i still prefer black sludge to punish trick). i'm not a big fan of assault vest toxapex nowadays anyways. you need haze for a lot of set-up 'mons like zamazenta, urshifu-rs, and sneasler. volcarona and iron moth are also solid checks and a choice specs trick can put your opponent in unfavorable positions. for the next 'mon we have gholdengo which is immune to trick and can heal off volt switch chip damage later in the match via recover. bulky cinderace is also a great 1-time switch-in on anything not volt switch. specially defensive and assault vest magearna is a great pivot into these variants, and even your own choiced magearna can suffice as a check. these magearna vs magearna interactions remind me of melmetal vs melmetal interactions last gen. skeledirge is also ok. it is a bit volatile since volt switch into 2 fleur cannons will deck it but if you run speed investment it becomes more salvageable than you'd think. lastly we have rest + sleep talk zamazenta-crowned which is godly on fatter archetypes due to its trick immunity and being able to switch in comfortably on anything not focus blast with special defense investment
in terms of more niche answers we have magnezone to punish a stab lock, ceruledge, blissey (decent pick now that it has heal bell), slowking, and tera-poison garganacl. the final thing i'd like to point out is we have a larger pool of viable ground-types this generation which allows flexibility in game-play. while none of these are direct switch-ins, shit like ting-lu, landorus-t, iron treads, ursaluna, great tusk, garchomp, sandy shocks, and tera-ground users can make magearna users think twice before making aggressive volt switch plays
another common set magearna runs is trick room. this variant is also far from broken and is only used to enable ursaluna. i'm not sure why people think magearna is the issue here and not the bear; even if magearna is banned, players will just fuck around with other trick room setters such as eject pack hoopa-u, chilly reception glowking, and cresselia. ursaluna is just as broken behind screens as well. no one is going to use trick room magearna as a stand-alone set if the bear is banned anyways as there's no more incentive to do so-- SV lacks both fairium-z and m-mawile as a teammate. next, we have magearna's spikes sets which once again are not broken. and i'd even argue they add a lot of value to the metagame as a pivot that can blanket check many threats mainly chien-pao and dragapult. anyone who thinks spikes magearna is problematic is a clown, no offense
shift gear + 3A is also another good set magearna can run, but once again i don't find this set anywhere close to broken due to the lack of z-moves and its reliance on tera blast
this leaves us with magearna's last set which is the definition of cringe: double dance. draining kiss + stored power is extremely cheap and while there is counter-play, most of it loses because it's often paired with screens support. screens also have little answers in terms of breaking them and outplaying due to how screens 'mons can get them up reliably twice per game. your best options are defog corviknight which requires a free turn vs set-up spam & can be blocked by gholdengo, curse dragapult, taunt grimmsnarl, etc., court change cinderace (good ngl), and less than optimal moves such as psychic fangs, brick break, and raging bull. while banning light clay seems like a cope solution just to preserve this one 'mon, i disagree entirely as screens teams' other abusers are just as, if not more oppressive than cheese magearna:
combine this with the booster 'mons we had previously and screens are beyond broken as an archetype. imagine what will happen once screens users start making variations with iron valiant, baxcalibur, encore dragonite, and roaring moon. new toy syndrome is going to fade away soon kek. banning light clay will be able to nerf the above pokemon and potentially preserve magearna. here's a large pool of highly viable 'mons that can defeat cheese magearna in the case that we limit screens:overall i enjoy the dynamic between magearna & chien-pao. i can 100% see a long-lasting competitive format with both 'mons legal similar to SM. i'd find it very frustrating if we had to ban magearna solely off of its stupid cheese screens sets as i don't think its other sets are broken at all. banning magearna would also mean shit like chien-pao, and hoopa-u to an extent, would become unmanageable. i genuinely believe we need to explore a light clay ban first because it will directly nerf these uncompetitive magearna sets and many of other threats i highlighted above such as sneasler, ursaluna, and volcarona. it will also make magearna more manageable. i really enjoy its tier presence defensively; the 'mon brings a lot of stability to our metagame. banning light clay is a simple item ban, not a complex ban contrary to popular belief. it has been done before in other tiers and should be added to the radar in my opinionstandard heatran with taunt shuts down any cheese magearna set as even if it turns into a water-type, it will never lose since you 4x resist draining kiss. standard fat leftovers kingambit is another great check to this set as long as it's not iron defense. you can click swords dance then iron head will fry this 'mon. unaware skeledirge is another splashable answer and all you need to do is click wisp then hex. stop clicking torch song if it hasn't revealed leftovers. no wonder you're losing to it when you activate its weakness policy rofl. we also have 'mons such as curse dondozo (specially defensive curse), ceruledge, tera-normal dragonite, scizor, iron defense zamazenta-c, and volcarona can also set up alongside non-iron defense variants without screens up. garganacl is another great answer to make progress vs it since salt cure absolutely shits on it even if tera-water's and earthquake does solid damage. iron treads is another pretty good check which can knock off and spam earthquake, while taking negligible damage from draining kiss. there is also less demand for great tusk now that we have new kingambit checks like urshifu-rs, zapdos-g (underrated), flame body heatran, and zamazenta. still has other good moves in knock off, stealth rock, rapid spin, and even ice spinner if you want a way to hit landorus-t and magearna if it tera's into a flying-type. lastly, slowking-galar is another splashable answer to this set with trick + black sludge, and slowking-g in general is a top 3 'mon in the metagame right now.
speaking of trick, we have an abundance of good users this time like iron valiant, gholdengo, magearna, rotom-w, sneasler (switcheroo), etc. that can lock it into an undesirable move. encore can do the same thing from 'mon like dragonite, azumarill, scream tail, the aforementioned magearna & iron valiant, etc. allowing another teammate to capitalize and remove with brute force as screens won't be there to save it. offensive / defensive terastillization is very powerful as well and i find that it's very easy to tech on teams like tera-fire on hoopa-u for example. while clicking tera to beat something is quite demanding in terms of game-play, i don't find this neither outrageous nor new as other 'mons have done this in the past such as baxcalibur
finally, we have haze users. toxapex needs haze > assault vest now because of how good iron defense zamazenta and swords dance urshifu-rs are. so to say we're using haze toxapex just for one 'mon is cap. clodsire is another good user of the move, and haze on this 'mon provides wider match-up coverage vs other fat breakers, mainly nasty plot tera-flying gholdengo, substitute + nasty plot hydreigon, and stored power hatterene. lastly we have haze volcanion. before some kid says that "if you're using this then it's broken" i'd like to say that we have had a lot of wack shit in SV like substitute skeledirge and encore dragonite, so to say 1 move-slot is too much for your team is ignorant. volcanion doesn't need sludge bomb in a tapu fini-less tier anyways; it's a surprisingly comfortable fit and still covers belly drum azumarill.
if we can adapt to garganacl which was clearly bullshit and unhealthy for the first 3 months of SV, then best believe we can also adapt to cheese magearna without screens support too. i guarantee you we will find more shit over time and the shit i listed above is only the tip of the iceberg
thank you for reading. here is the team i used: https://pokepast.es/a600cbf703bffa30
1. If we go down this route, then a lot of other uncomfortable arguments get brought up. Like Life Orb is basically what makes Landorus-I broken, we're not banning that item ever over that. It's just Lando-I now, but what if another extremely powerful Sheer Force mon gets added? What then? Then the argument becomes about banning the item and not the pokemon, which I really disagree with.
2. Magearna is broken with or without screens. The sweeping sets are obnoxious as you mentioned, but the fact that it can do a million things, made all the more dangerous thanks to Tera is why this thing shouldn't be allowed in the meta. Eject pact sets, Specs sets, hazard stacking, pivoting, and basically having such a massive movepool where it can just tweek one or two things to make its counters into fodder for it. All of these sets alone aren't the most broken thing ever, but all of them together makes this thing ridiculous. And even with 2-3 turns of screens, this thing has enough time to snowball teams if you guess wrong thanks to Tera, that amazing typing, and its decent bulk.
3. Your argument about broken checking broken with Magearna and Chien Pao is really, really unappealing. Magearna keeping Chien Pao from being banned is not exactly a ringing endorsement to keep it. Chien Pao is one of the most obnoxious, obviously busted Pokemon in the tier, and the last meta got way better when we finally got rid of it. Why on Earth is keeping this thing a priority?
4. Why are we skipping to banning light clay when there's a ton of counter play people just aren't doing yet? You mentioned them all, but Court Change, Raging Bull, and Brick Break (which is a ubiquitous move) are all great answers if screen ever becomes a bigger problem. We did it with Covert Cloak vs Garg, why not with screens? This isn't even mentioning anticipating and knocking off screen users too.
I feel like banning an item is an extreme solution to a problem with a simple solution, which is to ban a bunch of uncompetitive, and frankly obnoxious pokemon, from the tier. There are already so many pokemon in the tier, it's not the end of the world if we lost Zam, Magearna, Chien-Pao, and Urishifu right away and slowed down and assessed what's best with the rest.
I’m openminded to a dialogue on Light Clay if it is seen as an issue; in fact, it has already been discussed among the council and I imagine it will continue to if it’s a problem. It was acted on in lower tiers in prior generations for those interested in a history lesson.
I’d argue it’s a hard sell to act right now though...just given tiering policy towards Pokemon vs non-Pokemon. Pretty much any historic precedent would set a high, but attainable over time, bar in OU here. The onus on an item to prove it’s broken rather than Pokemon itself is quite high, and would need to be proven over time as numerous Pokemon would have to be directly broken due to its effects. Proving that within a few days or just over Magearna (or even Magearna and 1-2 Pokemon) over such a short span is a very tough sell and one that I am not even sure would get approved by higher-ups. And if the goalposts were to be moved on this to make it more mainstream, a Policy Review thread would almost certainly be required (which could be a good thing if people really want to pursue this -- feel free if you are badged and feel strongly).
It will be discussed as we discuss our other potential radar topics and Light Clay is not being ignored, but we also have to be mindful of what tiering items encompass. This is not a veto or a no so much as a tread cautiously. I think it is cool that we are discussing creative solutions, but they are also not always the optimal solution (not saying it is or is not in this instance).
For now, I'd ban Magearna without a doubt.
I’d argue it’s a hard sell to act right now though...just given tiering policy towards Pokemon vs non-Pokemon. Pretty much any historic precedent would set a high, but attainable over time, bar in OU here. The onus on an item to prove it’s broken rather than Pokemon itself is quite high, and would need to be proven over time as numerous Pokemon would have to be directly broken due to its effects. Proving that within a few days or just over Magearna (or even Magearna and 1-2 Pokemon) over such a short span is a very tough sell and one that I am not even sure would get approved by higher-ups. And if the goalposts were to be moved on this to make it more mainstream, a Policy Review thread would almost certainly be required (which could be a good thing if people really want to pursue this -- feel free if you are badged and feel strongly).
It will be discussed as we discuss our other potential radar topics and Light Clay is not being ignored, but we also have to be mindful of what tiering items encompass. This is not a veto or a no so much as a tread cautiously. I think it is cool that we are discussing creative solutions, but they are also not always the optimal solution (not saying it is or is not in this instance).
For now, I'd ban Magearna without a doubt.
how many times does it need to be said
All of it is threatening, yada yada. Personally don't think Shifu is broken. Don't get me wrong its 100% strong but we got bigger fish to fry. Physically can't play this meta with this bullshit here. Teams are generic and bland ig
I said this shit too much and I'm overreacting. So instead I'll think of mons that beat these pokes
The more obvious one. Can live a Sneasler Dire Claw and has Flame Body, and is good into Magearna/ might not take a Band CC however
Lowkey feels kinda mandatory. Surging Strikes alone gives this thing a niche vs screens cheese with a guaranteed crit.
Also kinda madatory. Nice pivot. BEST pivot we got right now. Great into Sneasler, decent into Magearna provided it's not Tera Blast Ground
Someone used Driflblim and fucking COOKED. If it's a Ghost-type with Levitate or a Flying typing, ESPECIALLY if it got Skill Swap + Will-o-Wisp, it walls Ursaluna and Zamazenta-Crowned. Tf are they gonna do to you? Crunch aint doin enough with investment. And even outside of those 2, they wall Great Tusk as well (not really relevant with Lando in the mix).
Scarf Iron Moth with Overheat nukes Magearna. Specs as well. They started running tera Ground tho - so idk about this one
Unfortunate that it's the only faster thing than Chien-Pao offensively. I'm so tired of using the phrase "X needs to be banned", but it's gotta go.
Screens be damned with the shit we got. So much offense. Hell, we might see Revival Blessing usage. (at which point I disintegrate) It works against screens on the right poke. Shifu can use it well alongside Surging Strikes. Galarian Zapdos could also use it ig but idk
A lot of shit will be taken care of tomorrow so for now i cope. What do yall use to counter this shit? I'll find other stuff to counter these pokes. And with that being said, goodbye
All of it is threatening, yada yada. Personally don't think Shifu is broken. Don't get me wrong its 100% strong but we got bigger fish to fry. Physically can't play this meta with this bullshit here. Teams are generic and bland ig
I said this shit too much and I'm overreacting. So instead I'll think of mons that beat these pokes
The more obvious one. Can live a Sneasler Dire Claw and has Flame Body, and is good into Magearna/ might not take a Band CC however
Lowkey feels kinda mandatory. Surging Strikes alone gives this thing a niche vs screens cheese with a guaranteed crit.
Also kinda madatory. Nice pivot. BEST pivot we got right now. Great into Sneasler, decent into Magearna provided it's not Tera Blast Ground
Someone used Driflblim and fucking COOKED. If it's a Ghost-type with Levitate or a Flying typing, ESPECIALLY if it got Skill Swap + Will-o-Wisp, it walls Ursaluna and Zamazenta-Crowned. Tf are they gonna do to you? Crunch aint doin enough with investment. And even outside of those 2, they wall Great Tusk as well (not really relevant with Lando in the mix).
Scarf Iron Moth with Overheat nukes Magearna. Specs as well. They started running tera Ground tho - so idk about this one
Unfortunate that it's the only faster thing than Chien-Pao offensively. I'm so tired of using the phrase "X needs to be banned", but it's gotta go.
Screens be damned with the shit we got. So much offense. Hell, we might see Revival Blessing usage. (at which point I disintegrate) It works against screens on the right poke. Shifu can use it well alongside Surging Strikes. Galarian Zapdos could also use it ig but idk
A lot of shit will be taken care of tomorrow so for now i cope. What do yall use to counter this shit? I'll find other stuff to counter these pokes. And with that being said, goodbye
Pretty sure Vert was one of the more vocal anti-garg guys around precisely because you needed to run Covert Cloak / Substitute on random Pokemon to beat it haha.
Running specifc counter-tech for certain strategies isn't necessarily a bad idea in a vacuum, but when you are required to pack specific counter-measures in addition to needing to deal with the rest of the metagame, it can put a massive strain on teambuilding.
Like how Maushold got banned instead of King’s Rock. OH WAIT…
im mid 1800s rn and i almost never see screens. it's like 1 in 10 games, and i don't usually lose to it. fwiw i play offense - currently running zama/tusk/tran/zap/hsamu/pult.
i believe magearna is broken even on non-screens teams. i don't think a light clay ban really solves any of the problems the tier currently has. magearna & zama-c quickbans, however, would really help free up the tier. whilst the original post is very well written, i still tend to agree with Goodstyle 's counter points.
Here's a shoutout to Vert for citing Ursaluna as being more broken than Magearna is. We need more people like you around. I believe there's merit to what you said about banning Light Clay. As the dex grows, there will be more and more threats to handle, and it is indeed the case as you said in lower tiers that Light Clay is banned entirely for enabling too many strong sweepers. Tier leaders in lower tiers decided to follow Smogon's philosophy to ban as few things as possible and opted to nerf Screens instead of banning a ton of abusers seen on Screens HO.
I don't think Screens Offense needs to go extinct, but nerfing it so that it isn't as powerful as it currently is one way to approach tiering OU. I think Ursaluna would be broken even after the nerf to screens HO as breaking power comparable to Choice Band Gorilla Tactics Darmanitan-Galar with the ability to switch moves and skyhigh bulk is a combination OU has never seen before that is definitely overtuned. I do believe Vert is right that fewer mons would be banned later down the line if Light Clay were to get banned, nerfing a hard to combat playstyle in the process.
I don't think Screens Offense needs to go extinct, but nerfing it so that it isn't as powerful as it currently is one way to approach tiering OU. I think Ursaluna would be broken even after the nerf to screens HO as breaking power comparable to Choice Band Gorilla Tactics Darmanitan-Galar with the ability to switch moves and skyhigh bulk is a combination OU has never seen before that is definitely overtuned. I do believe Vert is right that fewer mons would be banned later down the line if Light Clay were to get banned, nerfing a hard to combat playstyle in the process.
Why are you people always hating on finch/the council for not agreeing with every fucking opinion you have? These are some of the best players on the site, at least ten times smarter then you. They can't do everything at once, and you shouldn't scream at them for being human.
Editorial: the post above was someone reacting to someone else hating on the council.
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Hey great post but if you want to ban light clay, then doesn’t that open the door to unbanning shed tail, espathra and even maybe ape? I don’t think light clay bans will solve anything.just hit #1 on the ladder last night, and i'd like to give my vision on what i think should happen tiering-wise. this might controversial, but i don't think magearna is that broken. before i get into more detail, i'd like to give a big shoutout to ausma as i thought her thoughts on the 'mon were well-written and ones i largely agree with. the only broken set that magearna has is its stored power cheese set and i believe there is a simple solution we can make to simultaneously nerf this 'mon and a lot of other borderline brokens such as zamazenta, ursaluna, sneasler, urshifu-rs, volcarona, etc. what is it you may ask? ban light clay. before i get into why i believe screens are overpowered right now, i'd like to explain why magearna's other sets are not broken first:
specs was the set that made it broken in SS, but there are 5 key differences that make it less oppressive this gen:
1. SV's landscape is much faster & hostile than pussy SS
2. difficulty allocating ev's. without hp investment you die to 2 tera-dark crunch's from choice band chien-pao for example
3. high protect usage for scouting-- garganacl, dondozo, scream tail, rotom-w, etc. all of these 'mons that choice specs magearna technically exploits commonly ran protect even pre-home. protect usage will continue to rise even more now that trick room & slowking-galar future sight strategies are back
4. defensive + offensive tera's (magearna is slow) to heavily chip, if not outright remove it
5. larger pool of viable 'mons which makes it even more strapped for moveslots. you can't run all of trick, fleur cannon, volt switch, focus blast, ice beam, psyshock, flash cannon, and spikes on the same setwhile it is true that choice specs magearna can use shit like tera-fairy fleur cannon to bypass some of this counter-play, i don't find this as egregious as people are making it out to be. for one, it requires dropping your steel-typing which can put you at risk of getting swept by something like chien-pao or iron valiant later for example. second, it forgoes one of the most important skills you need for success in this tier: tera management. there is a massive difference between tera'ing magearna which sacrifices half of your defensive profile & is very slow, and something like chien-pao which can do similar damage but has that godly 405 speed tieroutside of points 1-3 above, i find choice specs magearna to have plenty of counter-play that isn't dogshit 'mons like specially defensive excadrill and blissey last gen. the most common ones include slowking-galar which is a top 3 'mon right now in my opinion with its assault vest and black sludge + chilly reception sets. heatran and iron treads are also other great answers into anything that is not choice specs focus blast. heatran in particular doesn't mind trick too much. clodsire, toxapex, and amoonguss are decent pivots as choice specs psyshock is very rare. the latter two can even use eject button to bring momentum back in your favor (though on toxapex i still prefer black sludge to punish trick). i'm not a big fan of assault vest toxapex nowadays anyways. you need haze for a lot of set-up 'mons like zamazenta, urshifu-rs, and sneasler. volcarona and iron moth are also solid checks and a choice specs trick can put your opponent in unfavorable positions. for the next 'mon we have gholdengo which is immune to trick and can heal off volt switch chip damage later in the match via recover. bulky cinderace is also a great 1-time switch-in on anything not volt switch. specially defensive and assault vest magearna is a great pivot into opposing magearna too, and even your own choiced magearna can suffice as a check. these magearna vs magearna interactions remind me of melmetal vs melmetal interactions last gen. skeledirge is also ok. it is a bit volatile since volt switch into 2 fleur cannons will deck it but if you run speed investment it becomes more salvageable than you'd think. lastly we have rest + sleep talk zamazenta-crowned which is godly on fatter archetypes due to its trick immunity and being able to switch in comfortably on anything not focus blast with special defense investment
in terms of more niche answers we have magnezone to punish a stab lock, ceruledge, blissey (decent pick now that it has heal bell), slowking, and tera-poison garganacl. the final thing i'd like to point out is we have a larger pool of viable ground-types this generation which allows flexibility in game-play. while none of these are direct switch-ins, shit like ting-lu, landorus-t, iron treads, ursaluna, great tusk, garchomp, sandy shocks, and tera-ground users can make magearna users think twice before making aggressive volt switch plays
another common set magearna runs is trick room. this variant is also far from broken and is only used to enable ursaluna. i'm not sure why people think magearna is the issue here and not the bear; even if magearna is banned, players will just fuck around with other trick room setters such as eject pack hoopa-u, chilly reception glowking, and cresselia. no one is going to use trick room magearna as a stand-alone set if the bear is banned anyways as there's no more incentive to do so-- SV lacks both fairium-z and m-mawile as a teammate. next, we have magearna's spikes sets which once again are not broken. and i'd even argue they add a lot of value to the metagame as a pivot that can blanket check many threats mainly chien-pao and dragapult. anyone who thinks spikes magearna is problematic is a clown, no offense
shift gear + 3A is also another good set magearna can run, but once again i don't find this set anywhere close to broken due to the lack of z-moves and its reliance on tera blast
this leaves us with magearna's last set which is the definition of cringe: double dance. draining kiss + stored power is extremely cheap and while there is counter-play, most of it loses because it's often paired with screens support. screens also have little answers in terms of breaking and outplaying them. your best options are defog corviknight which requires a free turn vs set-up spam & can be blocked by gholdengo, curse dragapult, taunt grimmsnarl, etc., court change cinderace (good ngl), and less than optimal moves such as psychic fangs, brick break, and raging bull. while banning light clay seems like a cope solution just to preserve this one 'mon, i disagree entirely as screens teams' other abusers are just as, if not more oppressive than cheese magearna:
combine this with the booster 'mons we had previously and screens are beyond broken as an archetype. imagine what will happen once screens users start making variations with iron valiant, baxcalibur, encore dragonite, and roaring moon. new toy syndrome is going to fade away soon kek. banning light clay will be able to nerf the above pokemon and potentially preserve magearna. here's a large pool of highly viable 'mons that can defeat cheese magearna in the case that we limit screens:overall i enjoy the dynamic between magearna & chien-pao. i can 100% see a long-lasting competitive format with both 'mons legal similar to SM. i'd find it very frustrating if we had to ban magearna solely off of its stupid cheese screens sets as i don't think its other sets are broken at all. banning magearna would also mean shit like chien-pao, and hoopa-u to an extent, would become unmanageable. i genuinely believe we need to explore a light clay ban first because it will directly nerf these uncompetitive magearna sets and many of the other threats i highlighted above such as sneasler, ursaluna, zamazenta, and volcarona. i really enjoy magearna's tier presence defensively; the 'mon brings a lot of stability to our metagame. banning light clay is not a complex ban, contrary to popular belief. you're just banning an item. it has been done before in other tiers and should be added to the radar in my opinionstandard heatran with taunt shuts down any cheese magearna set as even if it turns into a water-type, it will never lose since you 4x resist draining kiss. standard fat leftovers kingambit is another great check to this set as long as it's not iron defense. you can click swords dance then iron head will fry this 'mon. unaware skeledirge is another splashable answer and all you need to do is click wisp then hex. stop clicking torch song if it hasn't revealed leftovers. no wonder you're losing to it when you activate its weakness policy rofl. we also have 'mons such as curse dondozo (specially defensive), ceruledge, tera-normal dragonite, and scizor can also set up alongside non-iron defense variants without screens up. iron defense zamazenta-c and volcarona are also set-up 'mons that can boost alongside it + win regardless of its set. garganacl is another great answer to make progress vs it since salt cure absolutely shits on it even if tera-water's and earthquake does solid damage. iron treads is another pretty good check which can knock off and spam earthquake, while taking negligible damage from draining kiss. there is also less demand for great tusk now that we have new kingambit checks like urshifu-rs, zapdos-g (underrated), flame body heatran, and zamazenta. still has other good moves in knock off, stealth rock, rapid spin, and even ice spinner if you want a way to hit landorus-t and magearna if it tera's into a flying-type. ting-lu is also a solid check that can 1v1 non-tera-flying sets with its own tera-poison or just stay base and phase it out temporarily. lastly, slowking-galar is another splashable answer to this set with trick + black sludge, and slowking-g in general is a top 3 'mon in the metagame right now.
speaking of trick, we have an abundance of good users this time like iron valiant, gholdengo, magearna, rotom-w, sneasler (switcheroo), etc. that can lock it into an undesirable move. encore can do the same thing from 'mon like dragonite, azumarill, scream tail, the aforementioned magearna & iron valiant,... allowing another teammate to capitalize and remove with brute force as screens won't be there to save it. offensive / defensive terastillization is very powerful as well and i find that it's very easy to tech on teams like tera-fire on hoopa-u for example. while clicking tera to beat something is quite demanding in terms of game-play, i don't find this neither outrageous nor new as other 'mons have done this in the past such as baxcalibur
finally, we have haze users. toxapex needs haze > assault vest now because of how good iron defense zamazenta and swords dance urshifu-rs are. so to say we're using haze toxapex just for one 'mon is cap. clodsire is another good user of the move, and haze on this 'mon provides wider match-up coverage vs other fat breakers, mainly nasty plot tera-flying gholdengo, substitute + nasty plot hydreigon, and stored power hatterene. lastly we have haze volcanion. before some kid says that "if you're using this then it's broken" i'd like to say that we have had a lot of wack shit in SV like substitute skeledirge and encore dragonite, so to say 1 move-slot is too much for your team is ignorant. volcanion doesn't need sludge bomb in a tapu fini-less tier anyways; it's a surprisingly comfortable fit and still covers belly drum azumarill.
if we can adapt to garganacl which was clearly bullshit and unhealthy for the first 3 months of SV, then best believe we can also adapt to cheese magearna without screens support too. i guarantee you we will find more shit over time and the shit i listed above is only the tip of the iceberg
thank you for reading. here is the team i used: https://pokepast.es/a600cbf703bffa30
magearna is also extremely bulky and good without the double dance. You’re talking a great stat spread an ability better than beast boost, the movepool of the gods, and the ability to pull massive weight in any matchup. Current mag is better than pre-home gambit from a use-case perspective.
As Finch has already clarified, there is a higher standard to meet when banning items/moves as opposed to Pokemon, and I don't believe we've reached that point on day 2 of a brand new meta. Definitely an idea to keep in mind, but regardless, let me come at this from a different angle:just hit #1 on the ladder last night, and i'd like to give my vision on what i think should happen tiering-wise. this might controversial, but i don't think magearna is that broken. before i get into more detail, i'd like to give a big shoutout to ausma as i thought her thoughts on the 'mon were well-written and ones i largely agree with. the only broken set that magearna has is its stored power cheese set and i believe there is a simple solution we can make to simultaneously nerf this 'mon and a lot of other borderline brokens such as zamazenta, ursaluna, sneasler, urshifu-rs, volcarona, etc. what is it you may ask? ban light clay. before i get into why i believe screens are overpowered right now, i'd like to explain why magearna's other sets are not broken first:
specs was the set that made it broken in SS, but there are 5 key differences that make it less oppressive this gen:
1. SV's landscape is much faster & hostile than pussy SS
2. difficulty allocating ev's. without hp investment you die to 2 tera-dark crunch's from choice band chien-pao for example
3. high protect usage for scouting-- garganacl, dondozo, scream tail, rotom-w, etc. all of these 'mons that choice specs magearna technically exploits commonly ran protect even pre-home. protect usage will continue to rise even more now that trick room & slowking-galar future sight strategies are back
4. defensive + offensive tera's (magearna is slow) to heavily chip, if not outright remove it
5. larger pool of viable 'mons which makes it even more strapped for moveslots. you can't run all of trick, fleur cannon, volt switch, focus blast, ice beam, psyshock, flash cannon, and spikes on the same setwhile it is true that choice specs magearna can use shit like tera-fairy fleur cannon to bypass some of this counter-play, i don't find this as egregious as people are making it out to be. for one, it requires dropping your steel-typing which can put you at risk of getting swept by something like chien-pao or iron valiant later for example. second, it forgoes one of the most important skills you need for success in this tier: tera management. there is a massive difference between tera'ing magearna which sacrifices half of your defensive profile & is very slow, and something like chien-pao which can do similar damage but has that godly 405 speed tieroutside of points 1-3 above, i find choice specs magearna to have plenty of counter-play that isn't dogshit 'mons like specially defensive excadrill and blissey last gen. the most common ones include slowking-galar which is a top 3 'mon right now in my opinion with its assault vest and black sludge + chilly reception sets. heatran and iron treads are also other great answers into anything that is not choice specs focus blast. heatran in particular doesn't mind trick too much. clodsire, toxapex, and amoonguss are decent pivots as choice specs psyshock is very rare. the latter two can even use eject button to bring momentum back in your favor (though on toxapex i still prefer black sludge to punish trick). i'm not a big fan of assault vest toxapex nowadays anyways. you need haze for a lot of set-up 'mons like zamazenta, urshifu-rs, and sneasler. volcarona and iron moth are also solid checks and a choice specs trick can put your opponent in unfavorable positions. for the next 'mon we have gholdengo which is immune to trick and can heal off volt switch chip damage later in the match via recover. bulky cinderace is also a great 1-time switch-in on anything not volt switch. specially defensive and assault vest magearna is a great pivot into opposing magearna too, and even your own choiced magearna can suffice as a check. these magearna vs magearna interactions remind me of melmetal vs melmetal interactions last gen. skeledirge is also ok. it is a bit volatile since volt switch into 2 fleur cannons will deck it but if you run speed investment it becomes more salvageable than you'd think. lastly we have rest + sleep talk zamazenta-crowned which is godly on fatter archetypes due to its trick immunity and being able to switch in comfortably on anything not focus blast with special defense investment
in terms of more niche answers we have magnezone to punish a stab lock, ceruledge, blissey (decent pick now that it has heal bell), slowking, and tera-poison garganacl. the final thing i'd like to point out is we have a larger pool of viable ground-types this generation which allows flexibility in game-play. while none of these are direct switch-ins, shit like ting-lu, landorus-t, iron treads, ursaluna, great tusk, garchomp, sandy shocks, and tera-ground users can make magearna users think twice before making aggressive volt switch plays
another common set magearna runs is trick room. this variant is also far from broken and is only used to enable ursaluna. i'm not sure why people think magearna is the issue here and not the bear; even if magearna is banned, players will just fuck around with other trick room setters such as eject pack hoopa-u, chilly reception glowking, and cresselia. no one is going to use trick room magearna as a stand-alone set if the bear is banned anyways as there's no more incentive to do so-- SV lacks both fairium-z and m-mawile as a teammate. next, we have magearna's spikes sets which once again are not broken. and i'd even argue they add a lot of value to the metagame as a pivot that can blanket check many threats mainly chien-pao and dragapult. anyone who thinks spikes magearna is problematic is a clown, no offense
shift gear + 3A is also another good set magearna can run, but once again i don't find this set anywhere close to broken due to the lack of z-moves and its reliance on tera blast
this leaves us with magearna's last set which is the definition of cringe: double dance. draining kiss + stored power is extremely cheap and while there is counter-play, most of it loses because it's often paired with screens support. screens also have little answers in terms of breaking and outplaying them. your best options are defog corviknight which requires a free turn vs set-up spam & can be blocked by gholdengo, curse dragapult, taunt grimmsnarl, etc., court change cinderace (good ngl), and less than optimal moves such as psychic fangs, brick break, and raging bull. while banning light clay seems like a cope solution just to preserve this one 'mon, i disagree entirely as screens teams' other abusers are just as, if not more oppressive than cheese magearna:
combine this with the booster 'mons we had previously and screens are beyond broken as an archetype. imagine what will happen once screens users start making variations with iron valiant, baxcalibur, encore dragonite, and roaring moon. new toy syndrome is going to fade away soon kek. banning light clay will be able to nerf the above pokemon and potentially preserve magearna. here's a large pool of highly viable 'mons that can defeat cheese magearna in the case that we limit screens:overall i enjoy the dynamic between magearna & chien-pao. i can 100% see a long-lasting competitive format with both 'mons legal similar to SM. i'd find it very frustrating if we had to ban magearna solely off of its stupid cheese screens sets as i don't think its other sets are broken at all. banning magearna would also mean shit like chien-pao, and hoopa-u to an extent, would become unmanageable. i genuinely believe we need to explore a light clay ban first because it will directly nerf these uncompetitive magearna sets and many of the other threats i highlighted above such as sneasler, ursaluna, zamazenta, and volcarona. i really enjoy magearna's tier presence defensively; the 'mon brings a lot of stability to our metagame. banning light clay is not a complex ban, contrary to popular belief. you're just banning an item. it has been done before in other tiers and should be added to the radar in my opinionstandard heatran with taunt shuts down any cheese magearna set as even if it turns into a water-type, it will never lose since you 4x resist draining kiss. standard fat leftovers kingambit is another great check to this set as long as it's not iron defense. you can click swords dance then iron head will fry this 'mon. unaware skeledirge is another splashable answer and all you need to do is click wisp then hex. stop clicking torch song if it hasn't revealed leftovers. no wonder you're losing to it when you activate its weakness policy rofl. we also have 'mons such as curse dondozo (specially defensive), ceruledge, tera-normal dragonite, and scizor can also set up alongside non-iron defense variants without screens up. iron defense zamazenta-c and volcarona are also set-up 'mons that can boost alongside it + win regardless of its set. garganacl is another great answer to make progress vs it since salt cure absolutely shits on it even if tera-water's and earthquake does solid damage. iron treads is another pretty good check which can knock off and spam earthquake, while taking negligible damage from draining kiss. there is also less demand for great tusk now that we have new kingambit checks like urshifu-rs, zapdos-g (underrated), flame body heatran, and zamazenta. still has other good moves in knock off, stealth rock, rapid spin, and even ice spinner if you want a way to hit landorus-t and magearna if it tera's into a flying-type. ting-lu is also a solid check that can 1v1 non-tera-flying sets with its own tera-poison or just stay base and phase it out temporarily. lastly, slowking-galar is another splashable answer to this set with trick + black sludge, and slowking-g in general is a top 3 'mon in the metagame right now.
speaking of trick, we have an abundance of good users this time like iron valiant, gholdengo, magearna, rotom-w, sneasler (switcheroo), etc. that can lock it into an undesirable move. encore can do the same thing from 'mon like dragonite, azumarill, scream tail, the aforementioned magearna & iron valiant,... allowing another teammate to capitalize and remove with brute force as screens won't be there to save it. offensive / defensive terastillization is very powerful as well and i find that it's very easy to tech on teams like tera-fire on hoopa-u for example. while clicking tera to beat something is quite demanding in terms of game-play, i don't find this neither outrageous nor new as other 'mons have done this in the past such as baxcalibur
finally, we have haze users. toxapex needs haze > assault vest now because of how good iron defense zamazenta and swords dance urshifu-rs are. so to say we're using haze toxapex just for one 'mon is cap. clodsire is another good user of the move, and haze on this 'mon provides wider match-up coverage vs other fat breakers, mainly nasty plot tera-flying gholdengo, substitute + nasty plot hydreigon, and stored power hatterene. lastly we have haze volcanion. before some kid says that "if you're using this then it's broken" i'd like to say that we have had a lot of wack shit in SV like substitute skeledirge and encore dragonite, so to say 1 move-slot is too much for your team is ignorant. volcanion doesn't need sludge bomb in a tapu fini-less tier anyways; it's a surprisingly comfortable fit and still covers belly drum azumarill.
if we can adapt to garganacl which was clearly bullshit and unhealthy for the first 3 months of SV, then best believe we can also adapt to cheese magearna without screens support too. i guarantee you we will find more shit over time and the shit i listed above is only the tip of the iceberg
thank you for reading. here is the team i used: https://pokepast.es/a600cbf703bffa30
Why should Magearna get a pass for bringing some healthy qualities to the tier? If it has a broken set, then it should be banned regardless. Every other one of its 235 sets can be healthy, but if people are spamming the broken one, then it has to go.
For example, we can look back very recently at our good friend Regieleki, who I totally wasn't ringing alarm bells about months ago. And then let's take a look at our good hazard removal options right now:
Damn that was fast.
It's undoubtedly true that Regieleki being a viable spinner had the potential to be a very healthy presence in a metagame absolutely strapped for removal options. It sucks that great tusk usage will go back to being 60%+ simply because we have no other options. But regieleki does not get a free pass for being potentially healthy, it gets the banhammer for being broken. If we are going to entertain reaching for a Light Clay ban in an attempt to preserve Magearna, why are people so allergic to the idea of a Tera Ban to preserve Regieleki? A Tera ban which would simultaneously nerf all of the mons you mentioned too, by the way.
I believe we should continue to tier aggressively to bring down the power level and make balance/fat possible again, and if screens remains dominant AND there's no obvious pokemon (or mechanic) that is the culprit, then we can consider a light clay ban.
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who's mans
Well congrats on your first post but I wouldn't try to flame someone even if they're wrong.
edit: welcome to smogon
we are on like day 2 of a meta and people are somehow entertaining the idea of banning light clay? am i losing my mind?
Just tried out the new meta for the first time today and was able to ladder from the mid 1500s to low 1700s fairly quickly mostly using this Samurott-H team if anyone is interested.
Some quick thoughts:
1. Hazard removal is super hard
I played roughly 15 games and I can't recall any of my opponents (or myself) even getting off a single rapid spin, defog, court change, or mortal spin successfully. This is partially due to the crazy offensive state of the new meta limiting opportunities to remove hazards, but I think new toy syndrome is also playing a big role here. Tusk, treads, and corv are still the only real ways to remove hazards. Gholdengo seems pretty viable rn which may limit corv, but I expect tusk usage to rebound (I barely saw it at all) once the meta settles and a few more things are banned. Fwiw I tried using cinderace and saw a couple others as well, but it was very underwhelming.
2. Magearna needs to go asap
I support the effort of unbanning a bunch of things and seeing what happens because you never know, but unfortunately shift gear sets are as dumb as ever. Here's a replay just for the fun of it. Nothing else jumped out to me as obviously broken yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Chien-Pao go soon after.
3.
and
are super good due to their ability to pivot and blanket check
I saw someone mention here how good slowking-galar is so I tried it out right away. Basically it's typing is still great and chilly reception + toxic are superb movepool additions for it. I found myself pivoting a lot with the former, and the latter is great for making progress (plus it's so satisfying to toxic a volc or skele).
Lando still does lando things even without knock off/toxic. It's always nice to have something that can blanket check a large portion of the meta game, set rocks, and slow pivot out.
4.
is also very legit
Being able to set hazards while doing solid damage coming from a pokemon with a good defensive typing and reasonable stats is actually as good in practice as it sounds on paper. I used a choice band set because I wanted to spam ceaseless edge, but I'm sure there's lots of potential with this given its vast movepool (eg taunt, swords dance). Y'all might clown on me for this now, but I could see a world where people are calling this mon oppressive a few months down the road given how spammable ceaseless edge is in combination with taunt for defoggers, hydro pump for tusk, knock off for boots/general progress, and the lack of good hazard removal in this gen.
Some quick thoughts:
1. Hazard removal is super hard
I played roughly 15 games and I can't recall any of my opponents (or myself) even getting off a single rapid spin, defog, court change, or mortal spin successfully. This is partially due to the crazy offensive state of the new meta limiting opportunities to remove hazards, but I think new toy syndrome is also playing a big role here. Tusk, treads, and corv are still the only real ways to remove hazards. Gholdengo seems pretty viable rn which may limit corv, but I expect tusk usage to rebound (I barely saw it at all) once the meta settles and a few more things are banned. Fwiw I tried using cinderace and saw a couple others as well, but it was very underwhelming.
2. Magearna needs to go asap
I support the effort of unbanning a bunch of things and seeing what happens because you never know, but unfortunately shift gear sets are as dumb as ever. Here's a replay just for the fun of it. Nothing else jumped out to me as obviously broken yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Chien-Pao go soon after.
3.
I saw someone mention here how good slowking-galar is so I tried it out right away. Basically it's typing is still great and chilly reception + toxic are superb movepool additions for it. I found myself pivoting a lot with the former, and the latter is great for making progress (plus it's so satisfying to toxic a volc or skele).
Lando still does lando things even without knock off/toxic. It's always nice to have something that can blanket check a large portion of the meta game, set rocks, and slow pivot out.
4.
Being able to set hazards while doing solid damage coming from a pokemon with a good defensive typing and reasonable stats is actually as good in practice as it sounds on paper. I used a choice band set because I wanted to spam ceaseless edge, but I'm sure there's lots of potential with this given its vast movepool (eg taunt, swords dance). Y'all might clown on me for this now, but I could see a world where people are calling this mon oppressive a few months down the road given how spammable ceaseless edge is in combination with taunt for defoggers, hydro pump for tusk, knock off for boots/general progress, and the lack of good hazard removal in this gen.
If
then why not first discuss the more pressing case:
ban [or restrict] Tera to preserve Pokémon’s in OU
I think after Magearna is banned, hopefully the metagame will be levelled enough for Tera disclosure at preview to be the main topic again.
tho after mag there might be CP, URS and the dogs still keeping pressure high and they might remain contentious before Tera becomes the topic
if you’re going to use the argument of banning light clay to preserve Pokémon’s in OU
then why not first discuss the more pressing case:
ban [or restrict] Tera to preserve Pokémon’s in OU
I think after Magearna is banned, hopefully the metagame will be levelled enough for Tera disclosure at preview to be the main topic again.
tho after mag there might be CP, URS and the dogs still keeping pressure high and they might remain contentious before Tera becomes the topic
Yeah, I think Ceaseless Edge is one of the most busted moves in the game. RN, it is somewhat kept in check by a lot of teams being a bit fast paced and offensive + Tusk being on most teams and having a better Speed tier than Samurott, but it expliots pokemon like Heatran, Gholdengo, Slowking-G HARD. I already think it is busted, but I am a scrub so it may just be a skill issue.Just tried out the new meta for the first time today and was able to ladder from the mid 1500s to low 1700s fairly quickly mostly using this Samurott-H team if anyone is interested.
Some quick thoughts:
1. Hazard removal is super hard
I played roughly 15 games and I can't recall any of my opponents (or myself) even getting off a single rapid spin, defog, court change, or mortal spin successfully. This is partially due to the crazy offensive state of the new meta limiting opportunities to remove hazards, but I think new toy syndrome is also playing a big role here. Tusk, treads, and corv are still the only real ways to remove hazards. Gholdengo seems pretty viable rn which may limit corv, but I expect tusk usage to rebound (I barely saw it at all) once the meta settles and a few more things are banned. Fwiw I tried using cinderace and saw a couple others as well, but it was very underwhelming.
2. Magearna needs to go asap
I support the effort of unbanning a bunch of things and seeing what happens because you never know, but unfortunately shift gear sets are as dumb as ever. Here's a replay just for the fun of it. Nothing else jumped out to me as obviously broken yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Chien-Pao go soon after.
3.andare super good due to their ability to pivot and blanket check
I saw someone mention here how good slowking-galar is so I tried it out right away. Basically it's typing is still great and chilly reception + toxic are superb movepool additions for it. I found myself pivoting a lot with the former, and the latter is great for making progress (plus it's so satisfying to toxic a volc or skele).
Lando still does lando things even without knock off/toxic. It's always nice to have something that can blanket check a large portion of the meta game, set rocks, and slow pivot out.
4.is also very legit
Being able to set hazards while doing solid damage coming from a pokemon with a good defensive typing and reasonable stats is actually as good in practice as it sounds on paper. I used a choice band set because I wanted to spam ceaseless edge, but I'm sure there's lots of potential with this given its vast movepool (eg taunt, swords dance). Y'all might clown on me for this now, but I could see a world where people are calling this mon oppressive a few months down the road given how spammable ceaseless edge is in combination with taunt for defoggers, hydro pump for tusk, knock off for boots/general progress, and the lack of good hazard removal in this gen.
I agree that hazards feel overwhelming, and losing Regieleki makes them harder to deal with since its fast spin could be clutch. Most teams I see are resorting to the same ol' Tusk that they've been relying on for a while since its getting the job done, but it is unfortunate that it shares the Fighting-type with so many of the new Pokemon like Sneaseler and Urshifu so it can feel like its competing w/ them for a team slot. Perhaps other options like Corv and Cinderace are worth exploring more.
What move are you getting rid of for rest and what does rest help you beat besides zapdos? if you don't run sleep talk you give the zap player two turns to switch out, hit zama hard with whatever special breaker, and switch back in to eat a body press. You also have to attack while awake, which makes it much easier for static to completely ruin you since getting para'd on a rest turn is lethal. If you run Sleep Talk, you can't touch any ghost type in the tier or random tera ghost option that might exist. Like sure you've theoretically been able to PP Stall static zapdos but it's at the cost of giving free turns to specs pult or NP gholdengo or whatever ceruledge is running these days. Zamazenta cannot conceivably cover everything it wants to at once and speccing into something to beat one mon opens you up to two more things you lose to.
Also, let's say your next sentence is true and for argument's sake the unaware trio, hatterene, and scream tail were the only answers to zama. That's... five Pokemon, all of which are currently OU by usage and likely to remain that way (or scream tail, which is in the A ranks on the VR and also likely to stick around into this meta), all of which are strong options that fit on a multitude of team styles. I'm not sure what your point is, that it hard loses to... some of the best Pokemon in the metagame? Things that can and will be run anyways once everyone, myself included, gets over themselves and goes back to running Pokemon that were already in the tier instead of a bunch of new stuff? Even without those five running multiple soft checks to big threats instead of one hard counter is a common teambuilding practice. Don't tell me we're not gonna run helmet lando-t + zapdos for the fourth generation in a row, and zama will have an extremely difficult time making progress against that, for example.
Lastly, has anyone actually like... used hero? This mon's a ghost. I've seen exactly one Zama-H and it died to +2 Acrobatics at the end of a sweep. is there any replays of hero's supposed sweeping prowess out there? Especially the people arguing for both it and crowned to go. Do we have any evidence of this mon doing anything at all?
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