What's wrong with the metagame?

[mkizzy]

Only bothered by a few things.

It is the most stagnant OU metagame in history. I mean, if I make an RMT, and every suggestion is "replace with (one of three top-tier pokes)", then we have a bit of a problem. Really, this can be boiled down to a loss of originality in teambuilding due to the power of Hyper Offense. Nothing against HO, but people, please mix up your teams a little. Dig up gems from the lower tiers. DIVERSIFY.

Also, this is kind of nitpicking, but every team I see has at least two legendaries. Come on. There are 600-something pokes out there, MAKE THEM WORK.

-saxton out.

The harsh truth of it is, people use the same pokemon over and over again because they are good. Most good threats are discovered already, as we're far into the metagame. However, this is not really a smogon-issue as it is a gamefreak issue, and that's just how it is. Legendary status should have no holding on whether a pokemon is used or not tbh, it means nothing lol. Some legendaries are good, some are trash. It's just a title that means nothing in terms of the metagame.

tl;dr: Diversifying = Worse teams. Not smogon's fault, gamefreak's fault (which we can't fix so we ideally deal with these issues with tiering balance etcetc this post is lazY)

 

[Halcyon.]

The harsh truth of it is, people use the same pokemon over and over again because they are good. Most good threats are discovered already, as we're far into the metagame. However, this is not really a smogon-issue as it is a gamefreak issue, and that's just how it is. Legendary status should have no holding on whether a pokemon is used or not tbh, it means nothing lol. Some legendaries are good, some are trash. It's just a title that means nothing in terms of the metagame.

tl;dr: Diversifying = Worse teams. Not smogon's fault, gamefreak's fault (which we can't fix so we ideally deal with these issues with tiering balance etcetc this post is lazY)

I totally agree with the whole legendary thing. No one cares if you bring Mew, Phione, Articuno, Entei, and Moltres. You're still going to lose to any normal OU team, even one without legendaries. Being legendary doesn't equate to being good, and it makes me really mad when people complain about the use of legendaries. Honestly, a Pokémon is a Pokémon, that's all there is to it.

However, I disagree when you say there's no room for diversity. There are plenty of sets that you might not think to use, but absolutely destroy in OU. Have you ever used Trick Room Slowking? because it's an absolut emonster once it sets up, though it might have a case of 4MSS. I think you can build teams around whatever you want as long as you're willing to give it the proper support. In fact, its this close-mindedness that leads to people exclusively using Keldeo when they need a Water sweeper. There are a lot of choices out there, and you can make them work if you try hard enough.

EDIT: I've actually been using a sun team that has a Charizard on it, and it's been decently successful. That's right, Charizard. It works like Volcarona, except it trades a setup move for immediate power. Now before you call me a noob for using Charizard in OU, know that I started using the team as a joke, and only continued to use to to see if I could, and because I found it to actually be pretty useful. It's hard to build teams around lower tier 'mons, but it's definitely not impossible. Is it the best sun Pokémon out there? No, of course not, and I wouldn't advise people to use it, but with a bit of team building skill, you can make almost anything work, to a point.

 

[Houndoomsday]

Yes you can make pretty much anything work, but the reality is 99% of the time a pokemon is used over another because it is better.

 

[yee]

Stop me if you've heard anything I'm about to say before. I'm trying to build on the thoughts of those who posted before me.

1. This is mostly just a current metagame issue, not innately tied to weather. In a metagame there is always a spectrum: heavy pure stall on one side and Aerodactyl offense on the other. Because of things like Keldeo and Landorus that create a situation where you can't counter everything, about half of the spectrum is being used. Other threats like Terrakion and Garchomp haven't beaten out the defensive power creep (i.e. you can layer checks in your team to beat them consistently), but the former two paired with TTar have and you're either playing for fun or shooting yourself in the foot if you use slow teams most of the time. Keldeo and Landorus are so powerful to the point where they just don't need to run weird sets to break walls like in other metas; you know exactly what's coming and it will beat your counter with ease.

Of counters in a vacuum counters do exist (even though Keldeo does things like OHKO Gyarados with Hydro Pump and 2HKO Tenta the same way), but it's like a Cresselia countering Salamence situation. It generally only works if TTar doesn't exist.

2. As the number of team matchup decided games go up, well, that means in game playing and mapping out your moves decreases in significance. This is frustrating and moves the game farther from being like poker and more towards being like rock-paper-scissors.

3. Weather. Don't bother yourself reading the whole thing: it's every thought I've ever had to get across about weather. Please do if you plan to respond to it though. If you want a condensed version, otherwise crappy mons or "puppet" mons gaining Drizzle and Drought will inevitably lead to an a less desirable metagame.

I can absolutely name smaller factors but those are the beef of what I see.

 

[HolyAvatar]

I've actually been using a sun team that has a Charizard on it, and it's been decently successful. That's right, Charizard. It works like Volcarona, except it trades a setup move for immediate power. Now before you call me a noob for using Charizard in OU, know that I started using the team as a joke, and only continued to use to to see if I could, and because I found it to actually be pretty useful. It's hard to build teams around lower tier 'mons, but it's definitely not impossible. Is it the best sun Pokémon out there? No, of course not, and I wouldn't advise people to use it, but with a bit of team building skill, you can make almost anything work, to a point.

You admit using this pokemon (charizard) just for diversity's sake and that it's far from the best choice for its use, even for your team built around it.
This just means you're not competitive.

Your argument is pointless in a competitive battling environment. This is false diversity as you clearly handicap yourself by using this pokemon. I will not comment on the reasons that make you do so.

Edit: On the whole tyrannitar-keldo-landorusI thing, i don't see why people don't run toxicroak : it single handedly destroys tyrannitar and keldeo while being a check to landorus with ice punch if behind a sub. Bandtar usually doesn't carry eq and is easy to outspeed anyway.

 

[Halcyon.]

No, you misunderstand my point. My team is not worse because it uses an underrated threat. It uses an underrated threat because it uses the things it has over things that outclass it. In this case, Charizard better suits my team over something like Volcarona because it hits hard immediately, whereas Volcarona takes a turn to set up. I built my team this way because I wanted to use it. I'm not worsening the team, I'm just making it a certain way so that Charizard fits it better than the things that outclass it. You're right, it is diversity for diversity's sake, but that doesn't mean it's worse. When I OHKO a Terrakion that thinks it can set up on me because I'm locked into Fire Blast, I laugh. It's a niche Pokémon. There are lots of Pokémon that have niches in OU. They might be small niches, but they exist. This means that if that niche is something your team can use, you should use it. OR you can build a specific team that uses that niche. Do you get what I'm saying?

EDIT: I want to make sure everyone knows that this is an extreme example. Golurk isn't seen everywhere, but you can use it if your team is extremely weak to Terrakion and you need it taken out, but you also need a spin-blocker. If your team uses a Pokémon's niche, then you can still have a good team. Tournament players use weird sets all the time, because the niche sets they use fit their teams.

 

[BlankZero]

You admit using this pokemon (charizard) just for diversity's sake and that it's far from the best choice for its use, even for your team built around it.
This just means you're not competitive.

Your argument is pointless in a competitive battling environment. This is false diversity as you clearly handicap yourself by using this pokemon. I will not comment on the reasons that make you do so.

Edit: On the whole tyrannitar-keldo-landorusI thing, i don't see why people don't run toxicroak : it single handedly destroys tyrannitar and keldeo while being a check to landorus with ice punch if behind a sub. Bandtar usually doesn't carry eq and is easy to outspeed anyway.

You just called HoL uncompetitive. I'm just going to let that sink in a bit.

 

[PK Gaming]

Rain and Sun

I know it's against the rules, but please hear me out.

I'm changing my mind about both of these abilities, we really should try to get them out of metagame as soon as possible. At least their immediate banning would prevent people from playing on auto pilot and lessen team matchups. We can't continue blaming the disrepute state of the metagame because of minor issues, instead remedying the real issue that's right in front of us. It's absolutely ludicrous how you can use a rain team with as little thought possible by spamming Water-type moves and win. This isn't a claim made by elitists, it's a very real concept in BW OU. I have an issue with Pokemon like Specs Keldeo with rain support can 2HKO water resists like Rotom-W and 252/0 Celebi (which you never see, I wonder why) or do over 60% to Latias. I have an issue with Scarf Keldeo being able to OHKO everything in the rain that doesn't resist Hydro Pump.

We've always defaulted to "just ban the primary abusers!" but look at how far thats gotten us. 3+ years of BW and people still have a problem with rain. We shouldn't have to deal with Sun teams playing russian roulette and either immediately winning or losing based on the team matchup. UU, RU, and NU don't have to have to deal with Rain & Sun and it think it's pretty telling that tons of people consider those tiers to be leaps and bounds ahead of BW OU. Auto-weather still exists in lower tiers(and i'm not calling for Auto-weather to be banned in general) but unlike OU, there's no autopiloting, and team matchups don't play as big of a role.

I don't think it's offensive that Rain & Sun is still around, and I find the council's handling of the metagame to be adequate because:

1. Let's be honest here, its pretty fucking hard to balance a metagame, even a flat rain & sun ban would require suspect testing
2. We had no idea what we were getting into when we first combo banned rain + swift swim (I was 100% behind the proposal btw)

But if you wanted me to pinpoint the 2 biggest issues with the metagame, it would be those weather abilities. There are dozens of problems with the BW metagame, but those 2 elements stand far above everything else. Those abilities are responsible for completely fucking up the metagame, Landorus be damned.

 

[MMII]

Ah, it looks like I worded my last sentence in the OP poorly. When I was asking for your suspect test philosophy I didn't mean your opinions on how the council is currently doing things, I meant what is your mindset and thinking process when you participate in a suspect test and have to decide if something should be banned or not. It was just to add some context so that I could understand better why you thought the metagame was bad/good (I guess another fault of mine was the way I titled the thread). I didn't intend for it to be a whine about OU and the council sort of thread so don't feel pressured that you have to find something wrong with either. (I was interested in way others participated in the suspect testing process and how they viewed the metagame from a fundamental standpoint.)


(As for Rain and Sun, I sorta agree with a suspect test in that it is probably one of the best ways to shrink the bloated offensive presence with as few bans as possible. Aldaron's proposal, the first complex ban ever, was made in the attempt to protect the new diversity brought to OU via Rain. I think this diversity is too much for OU now, especially since it seems to show much more favoritism to offensive Pokemon in the metagame than defensive ones.)

 

[Tassa]

The main points that make the metagame worse, imo, has been already said but I would like to emphasis them. Switching is one of the bases, if not the one, of the competitiveness in Pokémon. And switching is, in BW2, too often a bad choice. There are extremely powerful attacks that do to much damage, trappers that avoid switching, or attacks like U-Turn or Volt Switch. These two attacks were mentioned earlier about avoiding trapping, but it is extremely harmful for switching (especially U-Turn, since there is no immunity). Entry Hazard don't help to switch either but they are managable and help for other things (Sash).
The power of the attacks and the diversity of the threats (be they offensive, or defensive, because if a defensive team will have a hard time facing all offensive flavours, they can totally blocks some) just worsen the case by creating a team match up situation which make this metagame worse.

People complaining about diversity (at least, about mons diversity) are juste out of the topic. BW is by far the more diverse in term of viable mon, and hey, it is stated to be the worse in the OP and by most good players, because Smogon is a competitive site. You may have fun by having unusual mons or rules (and there are plenty of "fun metagames", and you can create your own rules with your friends or spam fun team in the ladder), but there are people which have fun by winning a competitive game and trying to improve their tactic and skill, and this is Smogon's OU goal from what I saw.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Ah i see. The opinions diverge again. Banning rain/sun will do nothing but increase the power of ttar+keldeo+landorus cores. Banning rain/sun/keldeo/landorus will do nothing but make the meta sand infested again. Banning sand will do nothing but make HO weatherless teams dominate. Then we can reach the bottom of the barrel and ban hazards. What is left in the meta then? I think we need a better way to handle these threats or we will just keep banning and banning. I really cant think of anything right now but i clearly dont see how constantly banning are going to be helpful for us.

 

[termi]

I guess it just really depends on what Gen 6 will bring. If Gen 6 brings more rain abusers, mons with insane offensive stats and more mediocre defensive mons, then you can say goodbye to serious play in OU. If gen 6 provides some amazing walls and doesn't add any flawless hyperoffensive mons then maybe we'll get things balanced out.

Also, I'm curious: Do these DW abilities disappear in Gen 6? If so, then sand would become the weather of choice again and therefor stall might gain more use because I personally think sand's great for (semi)stall rather than offense (disregarding Landy, Stoutland (lol) and Sandslash (lol))

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

I guess it just really depends on what Gen 6 will bring. If Gen 6 brings more rain abusers, mons with insane offensive stats and more mediocre defensive mons, then you can say goodbye to serious play in OU. If gen 6 provides some amazing walls and doesn't add any flawless hyperoffensive mons then maybe we'll get things balanced out.

Also, I'm curious: Do these DW abilities disappear in Gen 6? If so, then sand would become the weather of choice again and therefor stall might gain more use because I personally think sand's great for (semi)stall rather than offense (disregarding Landy, Stoutland (lol) and Sandslash (lol))

The last thing we want is a meta where sand force landorus and sand rush stoutland (it is really fucking good) can run free without losing their boosts.

 

[reyscarface]

theres something inherently wrong in the metagame if, in tournaments (arguably the highest level of play), players decide its a better idea (aka leads to win more often than othewise) to take teams that have been made in the past with maybe one minimal change rather than creating their own. its fucking pathetic that nowadays we can see the same teams being used over and over and over again and this was unheard of in past generations.

i dare someone say im wrong because this shit has been running rampant in tournaments and it needs to stop. it might be that players got lazier (wouldnt doubt it) but im of the opinion this metagame creates this situation and thankfully it will be over soon due to the generation change. which will probably make it even fucking worse but loooooool at least it will be funny to see how bad it will be

 

[peng]

The last thing we want is a meta where sand force landorus and sand rush stoutland (it is really fucking good) can run free without losing their boosts.

I've exclusively used Sand Balance / Stall for a very long time, meaning that whenever I play Stoutland Sand teams, we're effectively playing a format where Drizzle and Drought are completely out of the picture. You are implying that teams other than Rain and Sun have issues with Stoutland and Sand Force Landorus because they can't remove their boosts, which isn't the case.

If Stoutland isn't overpowered in a Sand vs Sand match-up, then it probably isn't overpowered in a metagame where Drizzle and Drought don't exist. Stoutland has a bunch of checks and counters that aren't exclusive to Rain and Sun teams (Skarmory, Bronzong etc are excellent defensively, then we have Scarf Keldeo, Scarf Terrakion, Scizor, Breloom as omnipresent offensive checks. Physical Landorus is a bit different because its viability stems a lot from the existence of the Sheer Force set rather than just its own strengths, but even then, we handled it before in the Excadrill era (again, wasn't broken in the Sand vs Sand match-up) and we can probably handle it again now we have all the new BW2 toys.

Theorymonning that Sand abusers will be broken in a metagame with Sand as the sole offensive weather isn't a fair reason to keep Drizzle and Drought around.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

I've exclusively used Sand Balance / Stall for a very long time, meaning that whenever I play Stoutland Sand teams, we're effectively playing a format where Drizzle and Drought are completely out of the picture. You are implying that teams other than Rain and Sun have issues with Stoutland and Sand Force Landorus because they can't remove their boosts, which isn't the case.

If Stoutland isn't overpowered in a Sand vs Sand match-up, then it probably isn't overpowered in a metagame where Drizzle and Drought don't exist. Stoutland has a bunch of checks and counters that aren't exclusive to Rain and Sun teams (Skarmory, Bronzong etc are excellent defensively, then we have Scarf Keldeo, Scarf Terrakion, Scizor, Breloom as omnipresent offensive checks. Physical Landorus is a bit different because its viability stems a lot from the existence of the Sheer Force set rather than just its own strengths, but even then, we handled it before in the Excadrill era (again, wasn't broken in the Sand vs Sand match-up) and we can probably handle it again now we have all the new BW2 toys.

Theorymonning that Sand abusers will be broken in a metagame with Sand as the sole offensive weather isn't a fair reason to keep Drizzle and Drought around.

It inst. Thats why if were going to suspect weather all of it should go.

 

[MikeDawg]

It inst. Thats why if were going to suspect weather all of it should go.

Tyrannitar was relevant since Gen 3. There is no reason that sand should be considered alongside Rain and Sun, especially when it doesn't offer the 1.5x boost that makes the latter weather so difficult to handle

 

[phantom]

Tyrannitar was relevant since Gen 3. There is no reason that sand should be considered alongside Rain and Sun, especially when it doesn't offer the 1.5x boost that makes the latter weather so difficult to handle

Are you fucking blind? Sand accumulated abusers this gen. Plenty of them mind you. One was actually banned, fyi. Tyranitar + Keldeo + Landorus cores is probably the most annoying core that exists. Tyranitar's SpD boosts plays a huge role in keeping that core together. Otherwise, things like Jellicent, Latias, and Celebi could actually threaten it, as opposed to all being pursuit bait.

Instead of things like offensive Latias being able to trample through the core: +1 252 SpA Life Orb Latias Surf vs. 180 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar: 359-424 (93 - 109.84%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

This happens: +1 252 SpA Life Orb Latias Surf vs. 180 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in sand: 239-283 (61.91 - 73.31%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

See what Tar does back: 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latias: 240-284 (79.47 - 94.03%) -- 43.75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

One round of LO recoil and that's it. Keldeo and Landorus can just run through your team. Sand does in fact play a role in why gen 5 OU is a mess, it just happens to be overshadowed by rain and sun.

 

[Scorpiopt]

Awnsering directly to the question , for me its the almost mandatory use of Weather or Hazard setting
There is too much weather abuse via certain abilities or certain pokemon that become way too hard to counter, the only weather that is not "op" is Hail mostly because near all abusers of it have common weaknesses and hail doesn't boost their defenses like in sand ( way to go trollfreak)
On the hazards part stealth rock is the king ( its unbalanced and i am in favor of ban ) most battlers first tough is i need to get rocks up even if it sacrifices a pokemon to do it
The only reason Ninetales and Politoed are used is because of their ability if they didnt have it , they would not be OU even Tyranitar falls in this category since he is too slow for this fast paced metagame
How i see the metagame just runs around this 2 concepts of weather and hazard setting witch makes it broken ,everybody wants to win in the easiest manner possible no one wants to go for other strategies that are too hard to use
And going weather is the easiest one and brainless one to use , same with hazard spam

 

[MMII]

I think we need a better way to handle these threats or we will just keep banning and banning.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

theres something inherently wrong in the metagame if, in tournaments (arguably the highest level of play), players decide its a better idea (aka leads to win more often than othewise) to take teams that have been made in the past with maybe one minimal change rather than creating their own. its fucking pathetic that nowadays we can see the same teams being used over and over and over again and this was unheard of in past generations.

This is interesting, why are players resorting to the same teams over and over again? Has teambuilding become that excessively shallow? If so, what do you think is fueling this as opposed to past generations?

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

This is interesting, why are players resorting to the same teams over and over again? Has teambuilding become that excessively shallow? If so, what do you think is fueling this as opposed to past generations?

People do everything possible to win, using, of course, legal methods. This is real life, it is not something like on Pokémon anime where you can win using your favorite Pokémon. The truth is: people are only interested on win. This can be a reason to why this metagame is so boring, since people stopped playing for fun and are now playing just to see who is the better.

People say here that OU is the most diverse metagame that exists; this is until you realize that although there are many options, most of them are outclassed. For example, why using Mienshao when there is Terrakion? Sure, Mienshao has U-Turn and a pseudo-immunity to hazards thanks to Regenerator, but for almost every player, those are overshadowed by Terrakion's better Speed stat, reliable Fighting-type STAB attack, STAB on Rock-type attacks, and higher bulk with resistances to Fire and ability to gain a Special Defense boost on sandstorm.

Because those options are outclassed, it is hard to justify using them over other better options, at least without using arguments like "I do not like using legendaries" or "I prefer to win using my favorite Pokémon". And because most battlers are not very experienced or don't have the best prediction skills (I must admit that I am on the latter category) they prefer to use the better Pokémon to have a better chance of winning, and since the nowaday's metagame's battles are mostly decided by team matchup, it is easy for those players to win against better players. It is very fun to play with your favorite Pokémon, but let's get real; none of those will guarantee you the win.

About suspecting rain and sun, I agree because it will partially solve the above problem, but lets be honest, with every generation it is only natural that there will be more threats to cover and I fear that on a future generation, people will be hard-pressed to create a team that can cover X metagame threat very well, but will fall to Y metagame threat, and no matter what those people do, they will never be able to create a team that does not fall easily to one of the biggest Pokémon on OU.

 

[Reymedy]

People play to win ? What the heck ? Is that new ?
I thought people were playing 300 turns 0 win condition Stall in ADV to have fun ?_?

 

[Chou Toshio]

I really enjoy / like BW(2) OU. So yeah.

 

[Cornburrito]

People play to win ? What the heck ? Is that new ?
I thought people were playing 300 turns 0 win condition Stall in ADV to have fun ?_?

I'm just going to point out that for many people, winning IS fun. Playing to win and playing for fun are not mutually exclusive.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

I didnt meant we shouldnt suspect things because we will end up suspecting another thing. I worded it badly and forgot to mention the time issue but here it is. We have several threats at the moment and we dont know what to focus on. We can just keep suspecting and banning what we feel is broken until pxy is released and at the end we will have accomplished nothing. Removing rain/sun wont prevent ttar+keldeo+landorus from doing its job. Removing sand (and consequently ttar) wont stop weatherless HO teams. Then of course we can remove hazards and stop everything. But will this be benefitial to the metagame? We dont have the time to figure this out because suspecting everything will take time that we dont have. We could end up with a worse metagame. Thats why i feel we should deal with this in a different way.