Metagame 1v1 Metagame Discussion

[Kala chasmah]

Can we start seriously talking about Hoopa? A lot of people have been calling it broken. Its very strange that after a big tour we have basically no discussion on the meta. There's a lot of sv players in tours but during discussions maybe a few show up. Feels like people's efforts/time investment is not entirely valued, often being ignored/made fun of. People will continue moving to other tiers/quitting if this happens. I've myself had many occasions where I feel like posting something but don't because it feels like it will never be worth it.

More on the state of 1v1: Ladder Tour was a decent burst of activity, but it was still much smaller than it could have been. The moment it ended, the ladder went back to its usual dead state. A big part of this comes down to motivation—there’s barely any incentive left for people to join or improve at 1v1. There needs to be a way to fix the ladder staying dead. Maybe we could use last year’s custom avatar as a reward for this ladder, and if not, then come up with some other incentive.
Instead, we’re busy posting in the 1v1 Other Tiers thread, even though we already know no one really cares about it. UU, NatDex, and other tiers aren’t even played by most people.

I did not agree with Senior Staff's strange decision of removing a CA from champs last year. Not only does it make no sense looking at the crimes committed, it threw multiple people's year-long efforts in the trash. This has only continued as we continue to bleed players. I have multiple friends who decided to move to an different tier entirely because of this, and are probably never coming back after the death of 1v1's reputation. If the senior staff wanted to fix 1v1 they failed, if they wanted to kill 1v1 their decisions make more sense.

 

[Frailty]

Hoopa = Poopa Xd
OM = No M (No Mlayerbase at all)

It has been crickets surrounding hoopa lately which is fitting because U only need a low bp physical bug move to kill it with with anything (Double Entendre) ("Bars MMM!"). If u think that is overcommitment for one pokemon (S tier), play ss and see its really not; Ur choice.

Out of the oms the only even worth considering is nd but it was a complete joke in ndampl (Go team! #champs). Been a scramble of development lately but its giving procrastinating study till the night before an exam.
...
Ladder is gonna be dead just after lt because burnout exists, you don't feel like studying right after an exam period ends.

U are flogging a dead horse with your last point, stuff happened and it might not have been justified just let it go tho.

#Pce Out

 

[Marshmelto]

Instead, we’re busy posting in the 1v1 Other Tiers thread, even though we already know no one really cares about it. UU, NatDex, and other tiers aren’t even played by most people.l

what did Natdex do to you?

Can we start seriously talking about Hoopa? A lot of people have been calling it broken. Its very strange that after a big tour we have basically no discussion on the meta. There's a lot of sv players in tours but during discussions maybe a few show up.

We sure “a lot of people” isnt just you? Bc I’ve seen basically no one discussing banning anything because most people don’t think anything needs action

 

[Mentality]

I'm bored on a train so heres my thoughts on the mons mentioned in the survey before the results are out.

This mon is the epitome of flexible 1v1 top tier there isn't really a good argument for banning it. It's way too easy to check and doesn't "force" bug moves like Genesect forced fire moves. I'll reiterate from my pre-PL post that hoopa's flexibility and ambiguity is often to its detriments: Its most popular/well used sets lose more matchups than they gain.
You cannot build into a versatile top tier mon's superposition in 1v1, it makes bad teams more often than not. I do not think its bannable and I do not support a suspect test.

Crown is still good. I have no idea why but I feel like WP sets are being undereused right now, especially those that can slot in agility or be really bulky. Spa booster with its 500 slashes still acts as the "main" set for this mon, and we have seen AV and Specs pop up again this PL. Its weakness tends to be in its weakness to other top tiers :hoopaunbound: and things like the LO prim set that makes it hard to slap on a team as "the fairy check", though you can ev it for something more akin to a 50/50. Run hyper beam on spa for better bolt it wins trust me.

God I hate this creature. Pecharunt is the togekiss of our generation where in theory it loses to a lot but it can just hax 90% of its checks into oblivion. In theory steels are its most consistent checks but even those can lose out to curse sets. It has a lot more set diversity than you would expect, and offensive sets can really put in work aside from their surprise factor. Its a pretty good check for a lot of dragons, doesnt lose to fairies much, and finessses common glues like volcanion. The primary thing holding it back is that theres a whole 3 mons out of the top 10 that lose to it, even when its farming most of the rest of the tier. Did you know volcarona runs fiery dance? Run it! It beats pecharunt!

This mon has somewhat fallen off but its set diversity goes beyond just custap/band/av/orb. I think its one of the most flexible mons in terms of EV spreads. Physical vs Specially defensive sets both have their place in the meta and it can sometimes be a headache figuring out which one it is on preview. Speed investment, especially on flame orb sets also flip a lot of stuff into its favour. I want to re-mention taunt counter, which is still underused despite just how much it flips. It also has a great niche due to being one of the more consistent hoopa checks.

It was sad to see WP val lose to max def sylv in finals but I think that set is a testament to just how much this mon can do. Between The hundred variatoins of EncDis, Band, Specs, Subversal (liechi, attack booster, and speed booster), and now WP, it can really switch up the details of its MU spread while maintaining its big matchups.

There is nothing to be said about primarina that hasn't been said already. Just run timid LO more because that set is fire. Spdef specs is also great since you beat bolt and you can tech half the common checks with one of sitrus and kebia berry.

Note: Can we stop dooming about OMs/Natdex for no reason. People are having fun and playing pokemon, which is the reason we are on this site in the first place.

 

[Kaif]

custap should be banned post-world cup. had a conversation with the greatest minds in 1v1 DripLegend Nuxl RADU Potatochan zioziotrip LittEleven eblurb and decided it provides 0 value to the tier and actively deteriorates quality in builder/game. would address ongoing frustrations w mons like hoopa, luna, prim aka mons that have 5 viable items each

encourage people to post their thoughts. include a personal vr if ur eliminated from world cup

 

[lost heros]

custap should be banned post-world cup. had a conversation with the greatest minds in 1v1 DripLegend Nuxl RADU Potatochan zioziotrip LittEleven eblurb and decided it provides 0 value to the tier and actively deteriorates quality in builder/game. would address ongoing frustrations w mons like hoopa, luna, prim aka mons that have 5 viable items each

encourage people to post their thoughts. include a personal vr if ur eliminated from world cup

Personally, I could go either way on Custap.

I think it's definitely telling that virtually every one of the top pokemon have a viable custap set, and it definitely makes all of these pokemon just that much harder to counter. It's also incredibly frustrating in match to try and play around a potential custap set. The existence of custap berry makes pokemon like Iron Moth worse, as it's essentially forced to run a niche move to consistently beat things it should otherwise reasonably beat.

That being said, it's definitely a weird ban. It's already a non-pokemon element which goes a bit contrary to established tiering policy. It has been an element in some of our bans as certain banned pokemon like Snorlax, Mimikyu, and Archaludon all ran strong custap sets, but it's not like banning custap berry would realistically make these pokemon healthier.

 

[SuperMemeBroz]

Personally, I could go either way on Custap.

I think it's definitely telling that virtually every one of the top pokemon have a viable custap set, and it definitely makes all of these pokemon just that much harder to counter. It's also incredibly frustrating in match to try and play around a potential custap set. The existence of custap berry makes pokemon like Iron Moth worse, as it's essentially forced to run a niche move to consistently beat things it should otherwise reasonably beat.

That being said, it's definitely a weird ban. It's already a non-pokemon element which goes a bit contrary to established tiering policy. It has been an element in some of our bans as certain banned pokemon like Snorlax, Mimikyu, and Archaludon all ran strong custap sets, but it's not like banning custap berry would realistically make these pokemon healthier.

I think he’s pointing out that the pokémon that benefit from custap shouldn’t be unbanned but the item itself should be banned regardless of a mon that was already banned benefited from it or not

 

[frogfacts]

here is why i think all current samples we have are bad except 1. I just went through every sample and noted what they lost to or had horrible mus into

https://pokepast.es/ece1ef02d96927ff
loses to opposing lando band val wake av urshifu you also lose to band hands
https://pokepast.es/be7aea6b6458c991
loses to some zapdos scarf hoopa spectrier loses to basculegion
https://pokepast.es/0e69ec9243d0f566
loses to tales
https://pokepast.es/18b340ccb1045fe2
you have to roll val + you also roll tales and you have to also hit head smash vs tales and you have to setguess carona and defensive woger and honestly probably more
https://pokepast.es/5ab71b5d752d9976
has to setguess zapdos has to setguess opposing hoopas and you lose to av hands
https://pokepast.es/469cbf7513528e7b
val setguess you 50/50 prim lose to balloon gross lose to donphan
https://pokepast.es/746a5a80f6de02dc
setguess prim setguess hands setguess gross loses to mana loses to meow loses to ape
https://pokepast.es/08f2a35d9bcfa519
loses to woger loses to prim you 50/50 crown somehow??????????? loses to mana somehow someway it loses to diancie loses to darkrai
https://pokepast.es/ef162e7f6f176df6
just look at the scizor set and its mono thunder bolt

i think we should have higher standards of what can be a sample team. A sample shouldn't lose to multiple S or A tiers because samples serve as an introduction to 1v1 for new players. because if they have bad teams and keep losing on the ladder because the samples lose to Hoopa, they are probably less likely to stay and instead they just go find another format. also none of these samples are in line with the current metagame trends

 

[LittEleven]

Since I played SV7 in WC I feel qualified enough to post a VR of the current meta. Most of the lower placements are irrelevant order wise and are just tossed randomly on there but I believe everything on this list is a loadable pokemon (bar swampert I added him here to dunk on him screw that guy). If I missed any mons I probably don't rate their value as loadable at this moment.

Most of the meta is just the benefits of being faster than 348 or being able to statcheck mons using high bulk and go from there. Not very fun or organized but it is what it is.

S tier: Luna Shifu benefit hugely from custap sets in addition to ATales being the default agreed better edisabler. Hoopa is very good at forcing weird coverage to be run so it sucks to load a bit but the additions are never free. I feel loading Hoopa is a way to boost your teams preview presence by a bunch and hide sets so its utility as a mon far surpasses its utility in game unlike the other three here. It was one of my most used when I had to hide garbage sets because of how well it stat checks random pokemon. ATales is a lot higher but I'm sure this is a bubble that will break with time. Shifu is a very good mon to load because of Tales' presence meaning you can use scarf more / av without being punished by Val which used to be a lot more common before. Has a lot of good MUs as well and flexible move wise. This is probably what SS Shifu wishes it was. TPunch also kills the basculegion fish thank me when u beat ppl with it in indivs who copy the same set every game.

S- tier: Gross Hoodra are the best steels in the tier for sure. Knock and Counter on Hoodra are easily some of the most evil moves to have to plan around on preview. Gross can run whatever it likes because of its new stab in Psy Fangs meaning its just a lot more powerful as a fighting type answer. Not foolproof though obviously. Spectrier probably enjoys this meta a lot more with the Val drop because you can taunt ATales. Draining Kiss generally performs very well atm, lot of mileage. Its also one of the most anti cheese mons in the sv landscape because of how it interacts with custap; unlike say SS where it gets finessed by every lum pokemon. Expect this guy to drop with time. Val pretty sad but that guys good just give him a few metas to come back around. Zap is good yeah.

A+: The last super serious tier, most of the value these mons bring to the table is being the best of their roles to be good seconds and thirds. Volcanion steep drop off post drago but the Pokemon is very loadable because of its flexibility with items and natural bulk. Scald++ also helps to that end. I like Flare Blitz AV the most followed by Shuca/Balloon then Specs Hyper Beam for just how well it performs vs a random meta mon. I love Wellspring but that guy has 4mss af, atleast she gets cool moves to compensate and force bad sequences. Counter is a decent set but I think every time ive seen it loaded its lost lmao. Manaphy good albeit worse with rise of Tales, LO Alluring cant be default set anymore. Stall is good though. Volcarona kinda bad when forced to load passho. Crown is OK but wp is far worse vs high tier mons, best set is definitely speed booster atm and SPA booster needs to hit focus blasts to win which is like yea i dont like this mon. Could be good into certain structures but I've never been enthused to build with this guy.

A -> solid brings with some static mus that are important. Not that good at finessing stuff though.
A- -> meta mons that suck to load in some form (e.g have to run obese sets to be runnable / one dimensional / end up being weaker because of optimal evs / rely on rolls)
B+ and below -> Fish tier


I couldn't really touch on it but I find Custap to be one of the more ugly parts of the tier because of the low anti item distribution. It definitely shapes a lot of the good pokemon in the tier to become really good because you have to run fat sets to beat them through custap and that decreases those mons loadability. SV is way easier to vibe play with custap yeah, which sucks and you have little downside to loading a lot of those sets minus the loss of random coverage move (NOO MY PSYCHIC MOVE FOR OKIDOGI). I would like other people to talk more about whether they enjoy its presence before deciding on whether to bother suspecting it though because its just a sentiment I have.

also disclaimer ASIA sv was very fragmented don't expect our indiv opinions to line up even though we teamed for like 7 weeks lol. s/o panchams squad deddd bea fancy akeras kaif glitched for helping with the relearning sv journey, i filed away most of the panchams sets to learn with before I started building stuff of my own. thanks for everything!

 

[Fancy1]

encouraged by a few ppl for josh vr so here it is playing sv7 last two tours. here are some of my specific thoughts post worldcup/umpl.

S- - hoopa really good equalizer in the tier. able to stat check a lot and aura check a lot on preview because of set variability. u can run ridiculous lure sets and still have success just because of its pressure on preview. On shifus talked to emil a lot abt this. They are the most unpunishable mons in the tier by far. very few mons who can solidly check both formes in one slot so u end up w edge on preview a large chunk of the time. band rapid @ iron head genuinely breaks through so many top structures rn. dark shifu @ ice punch also very good w band and av. fat luna w/ flame orb and counter r really good at stat checking a lot, would like to see more usage of those. custap very good also

S - Atails best fairy glue in tier rn. being good into grounds and freeze dry access goes long way. note that a lot of structures have become repetitive because of this, meta will shift soon i think. More setup spect oriented sets have become popular cus of no spiritbreak val which i am a fan of. amulet painsplit dkiss are all very good options to beat lazy structures. same for wp and curse pult which i have lower but similar ideas. i feel the same for atails as i do zapdos. hope that guy declines in usage. for my thoughts on prim watch zio vs deg. <- av and petaya r good use them also.

A+ - basically the good glue mon tier. Ogerw has good flexibility that lets it play a lot of roles and fit on lots of structures. Pecha is consistent into a lot and forces specific answers by its nature, i like av personally. I will note i think hoodra is rising as a threat w custap counter and knock off breaking through lots of clear amulet checks, i would like to experiment w more direct offense sets myself.

A - haxorus has good matchup spread not a lot of room for more preview pressure <- case for most of this tier. defensive sets with counter r very good. run bulky band hands. band and scarf tusk also feel great rn.

A- - like the above but more linear in nature. ape and mana r poster children for this.

B+ and B - fish tiers my personal favorites r gren bax regi dogi belli gzap. anything below is niche fish.


those r my unorganized thoughts on some of the meta RN. overall i think fat fast and preview pressure are my dominating factors. Might do a custap post if the discussions keeps continuing.

 

[DripLegend]

post umpl vr
my takes are a bit hot but if anyone wants to discuss further im on cord or reply here if it means that much to u, i think Big 3 of luna hoopa prim r far and away better than the rest of the tier but unsure if custap or hoopa ban is ultimately the route i think should be the next step. I think potentially having a no custap tour would be something im interested in hosting if theres the demand for it.

 

[RADU]

i copypasted my votes from the vr sheet so maybe some mons are not where they're supposed to be cause i skipped over them oops sue me

luna and hoopau obv S i think i was the first to make that statement, atales S- it kinda is in a similar position as val used to be earlier where the encdis set is just so consistent and now the offensive sets are pretty nice into some stuff. urshifu i feel like i have to justify, i think dark is nice especially into top mons and has a fair amount of set customization but its just hard for each individual set to be consistent into the things it wants to beat. It's often either too specially frail, too weak or too slow and that can cost MUs; thats why you see so much custap cause it tries to solve all 3 at once but custap as an item is unreliable/abusable which makes it difficult to slot on teams. rapid sucks because the water typing is kinda fucking worthless right now so ur worse dark or worse annihilape or worse sneasler even

ok now LittEleven Fancy1 DripLegend frogfacts im gonna actually use this thread for its supposed to be used for THERE IS A VR THREAD AND A SAMPLES THREAD WYD

i spoke about custap on cord im just gonna translate my thoughts here:

custap berry cannot be classified "broken" because it does not mandate usage, it does not really push pokemon over the edge on its own, and its not overpowered on a majority of mons. Yes ursaluna and hoopaU are S tier and both can use custap, but they're not S tier thanks to custap, they are just S tier pokemon and as a result they are able to use custap berry as an item effectively. That doesn't make custap broken.

you could, potentially, make the argument for custap to be uncompetitive. it is able to flip matchups on their head and makes some preview matchups not necessarily straightforward. what you, as a custap ban believer, would have to prove, is that this results in the less skilled player being able to win over the more skilled player more often. I'm convinced of the opposite, I believe that loading a meowscarada into ursaluna and getting custap'd doesn't mean that you got cheesed, but that you were not able to setguess ursaluna to be custap, or have a more reliable ursaluna check. you were the less skilled player. As custap berry becomes relevant on mons like ursaluna and hoopaU, the meta adapts away from guys like meowscarada that are fast and ohko, to guys like annihilape that ohko and are able to bulk a custap hit. the more skilled player is able to adapt, to me custap berry is a positive addition to the metagame.
the 5050s coming from custap also to me are a capacity for skill expression; good players will click substitute or taunt or encore on endure; it follows the basis of the tier.

onto other pokemon
hoopaU is S tier strictly because its solid and versatile to use. Not once have I been like "oh noo i cant beat this guy hoopaU omg hes so unfair etc" in builder and in practice he often ends up being underwhelming and not often a great click. he should not be the talk for any metagame action
ursaluna is, I think, a pretty healthy S tier. slow bulky mons are often plenty abusable. cb is straightlined, flame orb can easily be cheesed/has 4mss, av and custap are pretty weak. people can experiment with things like jolly choice band but you cant push the pokemon much past a certain point. counter sets are cool but don't push it over the edge. I like a metagame with ursaluna S tier

tldr i aint considering no metagame action for no reason whatsoever

also the metagame is pretty good rn honestly im having fun
#freeregidrago #freessgenesect

 

[zioziotrip]

hi hello this is the max verstappen of 1v1 checking in a little late after playing sv in wcup to share thoughts on the tier. I'm not gonna post a personal vr because I agree with the placement of top tiers in above vrs for the most part but I wanted to share my experience learning sv.

sv is the most centralized 1v1 tier for sure (besides maybe zardx oras) but I don't really view that as a bad thing. The top tiers are so incredibly strong because of stat disparity/relative opportunity cost to run sets that any mon that's below top 15 is only really competing with a highly specific MU list or to be quirky scout variety. this is not to say you can't load nonsense, it's 1v1 nonsense is often rewarded, but if your goal is to have the best record I would advise sticking mostly to varying sets on top tiers. a lot of mons like prim/luna/urshifu/pech/pon have an incredibly low opportunity cost to tech losing mus (pech item lets you beat so much without even changing moves lol) and some top tiers like atales/bolt/gross/cress have invaluable pure MUs to provide.

quick note hoopa val are very overesitmated imo, being able to beat everything on paper and having an actual consistent set are very different things. Preview pressure is not real into well built teams, idc what ur hoopa set is when I click gmolt into it, I found the pure MUs of those two mons incredibly underwhelming for mons that people have even called for bans on. If you struggle with them I would recommend finding surefire answers that you feel comfortable with and you feel like provide a lot of value then you will realize how limited mons with low pure MUs can be. You leaving a team susceptible to having to setguess valiant is not a valiant issue it's a builder issue.

I personally found sv's monpool fun, the top tiers are able to run a lot of stuff for eachother and I'm sure I'd get sick of it over the course of a gen but idk mons like luna are so comically overtuned you can legit go creative mode building sets it's quite fun. I don't think any mon stands out as broken, luna is a pretty insane gatekeeper for low tiers but if you're fine with sv being centralized (which is fair imo) then it's fine. I do have one balance concern tho:

Custap Berry should definitely be banned for the health of this metagame. I think spearheading the argument as about the 50/50s they force (which is also a toxic element I will get into later) is viewing Custap from the wrong angle. Custap is an item that provides significantly more MU coverage than any other item in the game and it does that while having the incredibly low opprotunity cost of just the item slot+endure. To make it less abstract, if Prim wanted to tech CB Annihilape without Custap it'd have to run Kebia Berry but as is it can run Custap flip that MU while also flipping literally any choice mon that'd like to just OHKO you (pz, hoopa, harc, cb dogi now useless LMAO!!, etc), marginal mons that now can't play two turns vs prim ever (bundle, kyurem, random av/passho attackers), and if you're max verstappen you can even flip mus like iron crown. You can say the Iron Crown replay is an extreme example but Custap is an extreme item this isn't even possible with other items. There are MUs I'm not even mentioning like spect that are heinous because of my dementia but the point I'm trying to make is that no other item in the game even comes close to having this versatility/spread for this little investment, yes you could run wp/super physdef for some of these MUs but they're not going to have remotely the same return on investment.

I think the 5050s+"1v1 is about guessing!" argument is incredibly disingenous honestly. Custap games are pretty far from a true 5050; the player who loads Custap has a notable disparity in information in-game as the guesser on the other side you not only have to to guess the set but also participate in the (entirely assumed) 5050 on a turn that you also have to guess. I also think if you want to take winning as many 1v1 games possible seriously a huge priority should be eliminating as much guessing and variance as possible, Custap is one of the few items in the game which takes autonomy out of the hands of the player on the other side. Beyond this, the item is just broken lol and prim luna would be much more balanced without access to it allowing a lot more marginal mons to participate. I'm not sure what idea from decade old policy for a different tier this applies to but I don't really care, I think Custap presents enough issues in the context of 1v1 to warrant a ban.

 

[fake tom numbers]

and if you're max verstappen you can even flip mus like iron crown.

Sorry max verstappen but prim already won vs crown with icy wind encore (one of its most used sets during pl)

But for real for real we are just wanting to ban custap to “make the tier fresh”, which is funny because most good mons almost never run custap (or if they do have to give up a move and lose matchups + sv is the encore spam tier so glhf). If you want to ban something nuke hoopau or free sleep so that vivi venu etc become really good, instead of recycling the same argument from ss of “it forces 50-50s!!”

If you really want to ban custap then start with ss custap since it’s actually used there. Custap helps sv by allowing niche mons be used and win against the oppressive top mons

tl;dr banning custap=more centralized sv+more boring+more sad+mclarens already won this f1 season

 

[Fancy1]

I have read through all the recent arguments I could find in order to aquaint myself more with the discussion on whether or not any action should be taken on custap. as a tour player with not a lot of past big post writing experience I really tried to dig deeper than anything I’ve posted in the past to anaylyze custap fully. as my tour mindset is more blunt in nature, my prep and play styles of tours has given me a solid base of knowledge since I’ve interacted with custap a lot. So here goes. (If you want a TLDR I think a suspect is the right call).

The SV metagame is dominated by slow bulky powerhouses like ursaluna, iron hands, goodra hisui, prim… etc. so by nature choice users rose to be the best options to break through these stats. all of these bulky users can adapt to use custap as an option of counterplay to would be counters, often losing very little value because they aren’t forced to run boosting items for core matchups (goodrah not the best example but it gains different matchups from custap than it gets from sets like band). and for aforementioned choice users to remain consistent checks in builder to all sets of bulky mons requires relinquishing its choice item or coverage slot in favor of protect. (ex specs moth forced to run booster tect to beat prim, loses power loses coverage slot) now my moth has 100% win rate into all prim but i lose out on power and may have to rely on rolls for other matchups and lose out on any matchups I could’ve gained from a coverage slot. In other words a lot of pokemon in order to be consistent into custap have to run suboptimal sets all for a maybe of whether or not it’s brought in game. <- I understand there are a lot of aspects of 1v1 that make things a “maybe” that I find no issues with. but custap is different in that it’s forces mons to inconvience themselves significantly in order for reliability.

Custap counterplay options I’ve seen argued
- protect
- outplay (encore trick priority)
- type check
project is the most “accessible” option out of the other two. while you can run protect for a guaranteed counter to all custap (minus hoopau) it always means shorting yourself of a move slot and often a better item. Encore is not reliable because the two best users of it (atails and previously val) both lost to custap users such as ursaluna. ogerw is a reliable encore option I concede on though, does mean your shorting yourself a slot but ogerw is rather customizable. The best trick users in the tier are gross and cress (and florges…heh). From my building experience I almost never slot trick on gross because of the almost necessary matchups it gains from extra coverage slots that allow it to function on its structures (zen, ice punch, stone edge, eq). I think sv is not the kindest environment to cress because it often gets overpowered before it can boost sufficiently/fire off boosted attacks. Which makes it hard to fit in structures and use as a consistent custap counter. Priority moves are good options but the pokemon that can use them in important custap matchups are limited (pokemon like bax and donphan use ice shard for different objectives) aqua jet can be used on wake and basc (rapid asw but you lose out on good mu’s in order to slot, especially considering band is its best set rn). Lastly type checking as counterplay. If you can resist the two moves used by the custap user in conjunction there are no inconsistencies. ex hoopau versus moltg, moltg will always live two gunk shots in a row so it doesn’t need any other type of counterplay. obviously type checks work as counterplay to only certain custap users at once and depends on team structure but it’s a viable way to go about removing inconsistencies and not shorting yourself options.

On 50/50s I think it’s the wrong way to approach the grievances with custap. when i was gathering my thoughts on the overall topic there was a small amount of tour replays that show the hypothetical arguments about how custap causes “forced 50/50s”. Not to say I don’t think this point is valid, but more so it doesn’t actually come in to play much as often as it is speculated. Anyways to end this topic the custap user will always have more weight in the “50/50” based on the fact that the custap user already has the edge knowledge wise.

Overall a custap suspect would be beneficial to the metagame.