Kenpwnchi
formerly Pwndkthnx
Prankster Roost would definitely hit different.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
- Thread starter TPP
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To change the topic a little bit, what are your opinions on Weather teams right now? Ogerpon-W is giving them a really hard time, not only for Rain teams but for Sun as well, considering that the latter really likes running Specs Walking Wake, and when you pair Waterpon with Flash Fire Heatran (which has been getting very popular lately) you pretty much wall their entire team. Rain, on the other hand, struggles not only because of Water Absorb, but because Rain boosted Tera Water Ivy Cudgel OHKOs the likes of Barraskewda, Greninja, Zapdos, Crawdaunt and 2HKOs Manaphy and Azumarill, while also easily 3HKOing Pelipper itself. Now that I read my own post the real question might as well be what do you think of Waterpon.
Kenpwnchi
formerly Pwndkthnx
Glad you brought this up. As an advocate of Waterpon, I can say that it's DEFINITELY up there for, potentially, warranting a ban (eventually). I can't tell y'all how many times I've safely switched in with Water Absorb, regained my HP, clicked Ivy Cudgel, and then, "oh you wanna kill me?", healed up using Horn Leech and Synthesis. The fact I feel safe when using Waterpon says a lot. You can feel its power.
yeah choice specs thundurus-T just goes insane once it positions itself properly, especially against balanced teams. every time i play balance and run into thundurus ive had to play a game of chicken that usually ended in me sacking something to bring in a faster attacker like choiced dragapult to revenge kill it. ive managed to deal w/ it somewhat by giving my specially defensive slowking-G an electric tera just so i can safely pivot in and pivot out of thundy and even then it still doesnt like taking a knock off. besides that however i cant think of anything that actually takes thundurus on. blissey maybe but it gets volt switched on for free momentum, doesnt like coming in on knock off and only fits on stall teams. other special walls dont do so hot against it either, clodsire gets obliterated by TB flying, specially defensive garganacl easily gets volt switched on and hates grass knot and/or focus blast and ive tried holding thundy off w/ ting-lu but TB flying/focus blast/grass knot all seriously hurt it. and i dont know anything else in the tier that can reliably deal w/ thundurus defensively. this pokemon is insane as a wallbreaker against stall and balance due to the sheer power and progress-making w/ knock spam it provides for teams, its genuinely breathtaking seeing it in action against one
i highly doubt fezandipiti will catch on in OU. i think could be legit if it had more utility moves since its defensive stats and typing are genuinely very good, but as of now the most amount of utility it brings to the table is having a fast taunt. it probably fits quite nicely on specific stall/fat builds but outside of that im not seeing it rising in usage or viability anytime soon
rain is struggling w/ the presence of ogerpon and its forms, especially the wellspring form. though rain teams do really like having ogerpon-W on its side of the field from what ive been seeing, its seriously powerful with boosted ivy cudgels. with that being said, i think its in a bit of a tough spot now but it can manage, at least until DLC2. i think if ferrothorn were still here it would have much more potential to shine especially since it matches much better into both ogerpon and walking wake which hugely threaten rain as a playstyle. as for sun, its doing great as always. i dont think ogerpon-W threatens the playstyle much however since halving the power of its ivy cudgel makes the matchup substantially easier for it than it is for rain. brute bonnet does a fine job against it w/ the threat of a strong sucker punch to revenge kill it though you do need to look out for u-turn, kingambit also deals with it quite nicely under sun and speed booster iron moth easily takes it out. heatran is much more of a problem for sun but it has its outs against it, particularly in the form of walking wake who 4x resists boosted magma storm and doesnt have to fear toxic anymore. i think sun is very good right now, especially post-gliscor ban but rain is in a bit of a pinch right now but both playstyles are still viable in my eyes
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You know what? I honestly feel tired about people complaining about every single ban so far, especially "Why not banning Gholdengo?" squad and "Why not banning Gambit?"
1. I have to say, all of the bans so far are justifiable. With or without the existence of Gambit or Ghold, they would still be the problem mons. Ghold is just an easy scapegoat because in a vacuum, Good as Gold and its typing invalidates two most popular hazard removal mons. However, if Ghold is gone, given how limited the choice of hazard removal this gen is, it is unlikely that we will see the stop to H-Stack and Web meta.
2. I feel that a lot of the bans lately have been more of a band-aid solutions before we can finally address the elephant of the room: Tera. We still have to wait for all of the fuckery that DLC2 may bring to finally conclude that Tera itself also has a large part in this messy metagame. Sure, people also say "But it makes some mons become usable", but like... it also makes a lot of mons that are already good to be broken (Volcarona, Regieleki, Espratha). So...please, can y'all hold your attitude until DLC2 happens?
3. Gambit and Ghold themselves are also large tera abusers. Gambit benefits a lot from tera, because Steel/Fighting is not a good defensive typing. Without tera, Tusk can still manage it fairly. Without tera, Ghold wouldn't be such a hassle to KO because it can just easily turn into Flying to dodge Earthquake or Fairy/Fighting to dodge Dark STAB moves. Therefore, I feel that we need to see whether they are still broken in a tera-less environment.
Those are just some of my opinions about all of this. I am pretty tired with this metagame, cause this is the messiest we have ever seen in the last few gens.
1. I have to say, all of the bans so far are justifiable. With or without the existence of Gambit or Ghold, they would still be the problem mons. Ghold is just an easy scapegoat because in a vacuum, Good as Gold and its typing invalidates two most popular hazard removal mons. However, if Ghold is gone, given how limited the choice of hazard removal this gen is, it is unlikely that we will see the stop to H-Stack and Web meta.
2. I feel that a lot of the bans lately have been more of a band-aid solutions before we can finally address the elephant of the room: Tera. We still have to wait for all of the fuckery that DLC2 may bring to finally conclude that Tera itself also has a large part in this messy metagame. Sure, people also say "But it makes some mons become usable", but like... it also makes a lot of mons that are already good to be broken (Volcarona, Regieleki, Espratha). So...please, can y'all hold your attitude until DLC2 happens?
3. Gambit and Ghold themselves are also large tera abusers. Gambit benefits a lot from tera, because Steel/Fighting is not a good defensive typing. Without tera, Tusk can still manage it fairly. Without tera, Ghold wouldn't be such a hassle to KO because it can just easily turn into Flying to dodge Earthquake or Fairy/Fighting to dodge Dark STAB moves. Therefore, I feel that we need to see whether they are still broken in a tera-less environment.
Those are just some of my opinions about all of this. I am pretty tired with this metagame, cause this is the messiest we have ever seen in the last few gens.
banning gholdengo would make hazard removal much less constrained since now corviknight and mandibuzz can reliably defog without Le Spooky Cheese String™ switching in for free and blocking their hazard removal, to say nothing of the free turn you just gave it by trying to defog on it. if we ban gholdengo then hazards would at least be more manageable since the pool of viable removers would be expanded. granted, corviknight and mandibuzz have their own troubles outside of hazard control so i doubt they would shoot up to the forefront of the metagame even if gholdengo got banned (definitely not mandibuzz at least) but having them around to defog reliably would be huge
I mean, it just feels a bit "more" manageable, but honestly, given how the two cases you mentioned are both extremely passive, there is no guarantee that the opponent's mon can just go in and set up hazards again.
I have to say, the metagame has always been on the low for hazard removal mons and on the high for mons with Spikes + Stealth Rock. It won't change the matter as much as people may think it is.
I disagree to an extent. Yeah the hazard removers in OU are largely stymied by Gholdengo, but there is at least one that would likely rise after he's gone, being mandibuzz. In addition, it would be much easier to remove or control hazards with the existing 3.5 removers without the presence of the single best spin blocker in OU history. To actually kill Ghold, tusk has to take quite a lot of damage because its special defense may as well be Blissey's physical defense. There's also nothing stopping ghold from simply switching out and letting a partner either eat the knock off (i.e. unchoicing a choiced mon that's bad into the team you're facing because choice locks) or just floating over a ground move. I do agree that very few hazard removers would rise into OU, but the ones we have (minus cinderace but he falls apart if you also click a hazard button) would benefit really hard from the removal of Gholdengo.
real. I think mandibuzz may honestly be better than corv if Gholdengo becomes Gholdengone just because of a better utility movepool and immunity to powder.
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"just going in and setting up hazards again" on corviknight has always been a pretty tall task given how it easily defogs on every hazard setter besides heatran, which was always a headache for bulkier pokemon/playstyles to handle. if anything the real problem w/ it as a defogger in this meta would be having it clear hazards only to have something like iron moth or choice specs dragapult come in for free and start firing off attacks. corviknight really hates the fast-paced, offensive metagame in SV in comparison to the slow-paced, balance-heavy SWSH meta since its now substantially easier to exploit even without factoring in gholdengo. it would still be good but so long as offense is still holding the meta hostage then corviknight will always be somewhat limited as a defensive presence
I think it's almost mandatory for Corv to be paired with something like Milotic (good special wall that isn't as passive as blissey) or Heatran (hard walls non-garbage moth variants) at this point. It's easy to take advantage of yes, but at the same time it is also easy to compensate for that with other good pokemon you'd want to consider running anyway. Corv is in the running for the Worst Good Pokemon™ in OU currently and you have to build around the fact that it sucks ass. You could also try some low ladder jank with random tera blasts but do that with pokemon that have offensive stats (or don't do it at all and save my mental health).
To be honest gholdengo isn't super broken we still got cinderace with court change , we got taunt trap hetran , assault vest great tusk which is actually is really tanky and can ko gholdengo with ease i mean just look at this mind blowing tank (+2 252 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 132 HP / 232 SpD Assault Vest Great Tusk: 313-370 (77.4 - 91.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) also that's a +2 make it rain . Clearly there are many other niche counters like tidy up and neutralizing gas weezing galar defog , mold breaker hawlucha defog , also magic bounce hatterene does keep most hazards away except maybe ceaseless edge from hisui samurott . Gholdengo might be annoying but it isn't too broken for it do get banned .
HStack/webs are always gonna be good because of how this generation functions, sure, but I don't see that as an excuse to not deal with them being extremely centralizing markedly due to a mon that completely prevents any form of hazard removal with effectively zero risk and zero effort required. Banning Dengo forces Hstack/webs teams to be more aware, especially into bulkier teams that can afford hazard removal with recovery, since they can't just switch into Dengo whenever they think hazards might go down. There are certainly ways to play around it with Tusk, but Tusk has to play a far riskier game than Gholdengo does, given that it almost certainly will die if they get the predict right, whereas Gholdengo either only has to worry about teraing or breaking its air ballon, neither of which are devastating for the Gholdengo. Without Dengo, they now have to try and switch Dragapult or another ghost in on a Tusk's rapid spin, which is significantly more risky for them since Pult getting knocked is resulting in it either becoming useless or outright dying.
Ok let's go through these one by one.
Cinderace Court Change is entirely dependent on you not also having hazards up. Ghold is immune to taunt and any sane person would switch it out of heatran. AV Tusk is a decent answer but I don't think it's a good choice over all. Tidy Up Maushold does work but also Maushold sucks ass, Neutralizing Gas Gweezing or Weezing is probably ok, Mold Breaker Hawlucha is a meme, and hatt is the most telegraphed lead in the world and doesn't even stop ceaseless edge spikes. You also didn't mention Glimmora, which is ok because Glimmora is almost never alive long enough to actually use Mortal Spin to remove hazards and gets owned by ghold anyway. So over all, that's 2.5 hazard removal options in the tier that Ghold doesn't completely mess up or are otherwise terrible.
Also, there should be a list of what is and isn't affected by Good as Gold, I manually tested this (on showdown) because I wasn't sure and nobody online said anything helpful other than "status effects aren't blocked by GaG" which could mean literally anything.
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OK, even if we exclude the fact that Taunt Trap Heatran doesn't clear hazards, Maushold, Geezing, Hatt, and Hawlucha all lose to Ghold, and Court Change has its own issues, all the options you just listed are very niche options that aren't super reliable otherwise, whereas Gholdengo is ultimately a very splashable mon with phenomenal offensive and defensive presence, setup, and immunity to all the other chicanery going on with encore/trick/wisp/etc. via it's ability. It's not just used for hazard blocking like these other pokemon are used just for hazard removal.
you posted a calc of a specially defensive AV great tusk just barely surviving a boosted make it rain. if spikes are up (which they very well could be, this is a gholdengo calc) then that great tusk is dead. mold breaker defog hawlucha is a complete meme and loses to gholdengo. maushold, weezing-G and hatterene all lose to gholdengo. sure you deal with its hazard-stacking antics but now gholdengo does whatever it wants. also you said yourself that hazard-stacking teams can adapt to hatterene by running hisuian samurott and ignoring magic bounce anyway, cant block that and cant remove the hazards either w/ gholdengo around. see why this thing is a problem?
Ok, name a spike setter that beats Mandi? Now name a spike setter that beats Corv? Hard isn’t it? Our removal options are good, the problem is Ghold blocks them. Even Tusk can lose to physically defensive Tera Ghost.
Sandy Shocks beats both actually it was very easy. I wasn't even gonna name a serious one at first, my first consideration was Coalossal. Is lead Sandy Shocks something worth using? Maybe, but it does beat both of them and that's my point. And on your other point, I'd argue that Tusk is the only genuinely good hazard remover in the tier (Cinderace is not hazard removal it is hazard control that falls apart with your own hazards).
I mostly haven't been seeing much HO teams or even Spike stacking offensive teams in general these days. Ironically, the most common style seems to be some sort of balance structures with Moltres, Garganacl, Ting-Lu, and the like with a few other defensive mons like Clefable. Ogerpon-W is a mon I'm seeing on more balanced teams as well, likely due to Spikes in general being somewhat less common and its defensive utility vs Manaphy being greatly appreciated, as well as its high speed letting it check crucial Pokemon like Thundurus-T which can be a massive pain to switch into.
Speaking of Garganacl, that mon has seen a MASSIVE resurgance as of late. With Gliscor being gone, its number one partner, Clef has also seen a bit of a dip in usage. Clefable is still good, probably being one of the best Stealth Rock setters in the metagame alongside Heatran, but its lowered usage is a big boon to Garganacl, who can go ham with its powerful Curse sets. Garganacl also doesn't feel like it needs to run Boots, which is great since it feels almost unkillable with Leftovers. Heatran is also popping off, having very few to no safe switch-ins.
IDK, I personally am a big fan of Balance, so I think this is a fine metagame state to be in. It somewhat reminds me of Pre-Home, which was the best this metagame has ever felt, but also isn't too far off from the post-home metagame, which wasn't bad imo. The only major difference is that it feels like Kingambit usage has waned significantly. It feels like I barely seen the guy these days.
Speaking of Garganacl, that mon has seen a MASSIVE resurgance as of late. With Gliscor being gone, its number one partner, Clef has also seen a bit of a dip in usage. Clefable is still good, probably being one of the best Stealth Rock setters in the metagame alongside Heatran, but its lowered usage is a big boon to Garganacl, who can go ham with its powerful Curse sets. Garganacl also doesn't feel like it needs to run Boots, which is great since it feels almost unkillable with Leftovers. Heatran is also popping off, having very few to no safe switch-ins.
IDK, I personally am a big fan of Balance, so I think this is a fine metagame state to be in. It somewhat reminds me of Pre-Home, which was the best this metagame has ever felt, but also isn't too far off from the post-home metagame, which wasn't bad imo. The only major difference is that it feels like Kingambit usage has waned significantly. It feels like I barely seen the guy these days.
I've seen a few Walking Wake sun teams, and like before, they get completely smashed by our great friend, Tera Water Garganacl. Ogerpon also completely fries these squads since its outspeeds and forces 50/50s on their main lifeline, Walking Wake. I've seen Corv used on these sun squads, which is pretty cool - Walking Wake puts heavy pressure on Dengo, Corv loves sun to Weaken Oger's Ivy Cudgel, and it covers some other annoying mons like Meowscarada, but it too is Garganacl food.
sandy shocks is legit in OU especially post-gliscor ban, though tbf sandy shocks also threatens every form of hazard control in the current metagame. cinderace and great tusk dont want anything to do with it either, and hatterene can either be whittled down by its STABs or pivoted on w/ volt switch
mentioned this earlier but i dont think sun has much of a tough time against ogerpon, at least not to the extent people are saying. i find that the rise of garganacl and heatran after the recent bans are substantially more threatening to the viability of the playstyle than ogerpon ever could be. you can usually manage to barely squeak past them w/ brute bonnet and walking wake respectively (WW can also muscle past tera water garganacl w/ draco meteor spam) but theyre still very tough matchups for sun
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Is Clefable itself on a general decline or specifically the sets that Curse Garg hated seeing? I can see the Magic Guard Encore sets are obvious but I'd think the Unaware sets have problems due to no Salt Cure resistance wearing out their recovery in a war of attrition
without encore i cant clefable doing much against curse garganacl. it absorbs salt cure, sure, but garganacl can just boost up and kill it w/ EQ eventually. if its packing encore then great, just be careful about coming in on EQ. but i havent seen much clefable sets running encore as of late, and if the move has dipped in usage then that is yet another net benefit for garganacl.
Sp Atk Chomp can still blast Corv. Samurott-H can opt to run SD set to still set Hazard and eats Corv.
As for Mandi, Glimm can beat it, Rockpon can beat it, Clod can opt to run Toxic to cripple it. Not to mention Sandy Shock for both cases.
You would be surprised to learn that everyone and their dog can learn both Rock and Spikes this gen.
EDIT: Oh and right, Glimm can also pressure Corv too.
well i am not really going with hazards cuz i need a real good counter to the uncommon webs team , cinderace has a positive matchup against both ribombee and gholdengo , since pyro ball isn't a contact move it fearlessly spams it in the face of zapdos and corviknight without the fear of paralysis or rocky helmet . Also as you mentioned glimmora's mortal spin is a poision move so it does nothing against gholdengo , also the common specs users like dragapult (pult has stab shadow ball so nvm) and enamorus usually run flamethrower so gholdengo isn't really gonna have good time switching especially with u turn support . Since kingambit is in most of the teams , it is like the premier gholdengo counter resisting both stabs as long as it doesn't use focus blast(miss). It always fears a sucker punch as long as it doesn't tera fighting with is complete dedication.
It's mainly that Encore set that's seen a sharp decline I think. That set completely f'd up Curse Garg. The other sets aren't as bad to deal with. And Yeah, Garg is amazing vs cheese clef.
garchomp also isnt common in general, let alone chainchomp? as a hazard setter chainchomp is only found on offensive teams as a lead that can counter samurott-H, and even then chainchomp is not super common as a lead anymore. samurott-H cant SD on corviknight lest you want to eat a body press, or it can whittle you down w/ rocky helmet chip as it continously heals back up with roost. if you try setting up another SD anticipating another roost then you risk eating another body press. even then SD samurott-H isnt the most common variant running around so its not something the corv user should be expecting. also no, glimmora does not "pressure" corviknight, and definitely not without power gem. even then the damage dealt by power gem is easily recoverable. not to mention brainlessly spamming it against corviknight expecting it to keep roosting can risk something like great tusk coming in for free
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