Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[pika pal]

FTFY

gen 8 is one of the most skillful BORING metagames

One liner aside, these wouldn't even be mutually exclusive sentiments, not least of which because entertainment value varies between players. Calling Gen 8 a boring Metagame doesn't do anything to refute the claim (true or not on either) that it's a skillful one to play in, the latter being what tiering ostensibly aims to achieve with its actions

More to the point, I do not find Gen 8's meta very engaging to play, but I can't deny that it feels like it takes a lot of skill to navigate considering even the most offensive teams have to work for their wins without the eggshell dancing some of this Gen's powerhouses (with or without Tera) bring to the table.

 

[Finchinator]

I deleted the one liner. Let's move on from discussing prior gens for now

thanks

 

[EpicGuy321]

It's funny how low ladder players will complain about stall and then this is low ladder stall: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2286883991



Okidogi @ Leftovers
Ability: Toxic Chain
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Atk / 52 SpD / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Taunt

These EVs let Drain Punch guarantee OHKO max HP Kingambit. Speed is for 4 EVs Gliscor.

 

[Quackborg]

It's funny how low ladder players will complain about stall and then this is low ladder stall: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2286883991



Okidogi @ Leftovers
Ability: Toxic Chain
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Atk / 52 SpD / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Taunt

These EVs let Drain Punch guarantee OHKO max HP Kingambit. Speed is for 4 EVs Gliscor.

one thing if gliscor runs speed its usually to outspeed bolt. ive even seen gliscors with lower ivs to ONLY outspeed gambit and beat the turn scor mirror more than ive seen only 4 speed

 

[Wapf]

All you have to do against low ladder stall is attack what’s in front of you and wait for them to sack something important for literally no reason. I love seeing stall on the low ladder, I just activate monkey brain.

 

[gephicka]

All you have to do against low ladder stall is attack what’s in front of you and wait for them to sack something important for literally no reason. I love seeing stall on the low ladder, I just activate monkey brain.

yeah I joined stallcord cz i was curious about learning stall and had to ask how one of the sample teams deals with garg
they said to pp stall salt cure with gliscor x regen GGEZ and my mind expanded

it's definitely a perspective shift on how to approach the game & unless you're loading into like goddamn papa smurf then i would definitely not expect low ladder players to have a good grasp on it.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

Vileplume @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Effect Spore
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Energy Ball
- Leech Seed
- Strength Sap

Vileplume is a Pokemon i've been rather impressed by since using it some months back. I've slowly built a team around it as a phys wall and its surprisingly preforming strong outside of Ghold and some minor match ups. Leech+Sap might sound like overkill, but forcing progress/switches with it is huge and being able to get chip dmg repeated on most things means even Garg can't sit there and just salt cure out sustain you once its ATK goes down.

I find the Grass Coverage to be more important on the team, but I can very easily see Sludge Bomb functioning well. Rocky Helmet + Effect spore means you will almost always make progress against U-Turn spammers or physical threats. This thing fucking EATS Moon alive and Gambit has to prepared or else it gets outsustained. I LOVE this Mushroom!

 

[JensenDale]

yeah I joined stallcord cz i was curious about learning stall and had to ask how one of the sample teams deals with garg
they said to pp stall salt cure with gliscor x regen GGEZ and my mind expanded

it's definitely a perspective shift on how to approach the game & unless you're loading into like goddamn papa smurf then i would definitely not expect low ladder players to have a good grasp on it.

I joined stallcord recently as well to learn about other playstyles I don't usually run, and I will say stall is not as overbearing in this gen than other gens. If a team is losing to stall it's either 1) A player can break through the team but there was a misplay along the way or 2) The team is not good if it can be walled by a mon on stall. I was building for ORAS a couple months ago and found out that my whole entire team that I made was walled by a few stall mons, and that is the moment where you don't get angry about stall but just fix the team.

I think it is good to learn stall not just to expand skills but also just to learn methodically how to play it and to beat it. It really does take a lot of effort to beat a good stall team by a good player, and the feeling does feel very good.

 

[Finchinator]

Working on survey results and they will likely be up Saturday (Sunday the latest).

We also have a larger tiering announcement in the works for the near future potentially, but no comment or promises on that yet.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Working on survey results and they will likely be up Saturday (Sunday the latest).

We also have a larger tiering announcement in the works for the near future potentially, but no comment or promises on that yet.

an announcement, you say?

roaring moon suspect confirmed

 

[Avira]

Working on survey results and they will likely be up Saturday (Sunday the latest).

We also have a larger tiering announcement in the works for the near future potentially, but no comment or promises on that yet.

I'm wondering what the potential larger tiering announcement will be. Even though nobody was able to predict the Christmas likeshop, I think the content of that tiering announcement if it ends up being a real thing could be even harder to predict than that.

 

[JensenDale]

People don't mention that regileki was banned with transistor programmed much stronger. It is probably not even OU with tera blast banned, but there's reasonably a discussion to be had about it due to its quickban occurring with bad mechanics, anyways. But i wouldn't bother making this argument too often until the tera blast bridge is crossed since that settles it immediately

The poster above that stated tera blast ban goes against policy and i don't see how. We have banned moves for being broken but also purely on not being competitive. Argument against competitiveness is easy but also remember that some (a few) of our banned, broken mons did use tera blast often. Kyurem will still be a monster but taken down a peg without tera blast.

This is a revolving door of dead internet conversation

I will never mention Tera blast again if it scores low.

Edit: just reread the "views from the council" thread discussing kokoloko and bruh look at some of the suggested quickbans. Serperior. Fortunately we didn't go that direction. Many mentioned it at the time though

I am not sure on this. Yes tera blast is great for Regi however it is important to note that the move pool isn't non existent. I could see it theoretically being a very fast screen setter on offensive teams, and added w explosion reminds me a lot of gen 4 azelf w/o rocks. There is a light clay build around Azelf and it isn't bad!

The main issues with it are it's abysmal defense, however as a HO lead that doesn't sound too bad paired with it's speed. It also has Rain dance in the pool attatched w thunder, which can be used as another rain setter for offensive rain teams theoretically.

This should be said, I don't actually know how Regielecki would be utilized in SV OU, but this is all just me spitballing to a sense; on that note please take this all with a grain of salt.

 

[Sqookblooks]

We need to talk about this bitch-ass mon real quick. Bro it feels impossible to build around this mon. If you have a mon that's even remotely fun to use, I guarantee Kyurem shits on it. Great Tusk is the only mon that feels remotely usable as Hazard Removal, and Kyurem shits all over it. Basically all the ground immunities in the tier invite this fool in to cook your team. And so many of the mons that are supposed to be checks can get gimmicked by any of the several variants this mon packs. Every time I try to mess with a fun pokemon or with a fun team core, I'm reminded of this eyesore of a mon when it blows chunks out the team. I'm tired of being forced to slot in Glowking into every team I build to avoid getting menaced by the special variants of Kyurem. And the less that's said about that Physical Loaded Dice set, the better. I feel like all the other mons on the survey that people might consider broken (i.e WellSpring) would be WAY WAY more manageable if Kyurem didn't limit the hell out of every bulky grass or dragon in the tier.

By the way on an unrelated note, is there a place where I can see the build for the Ting-Lu-Pech Teams that are being used in top level play. Love me a good Ting-Lu team since that mon be getting progress for free.

 

[TurquoiseLink]

One thing I've been finding with 4 attacks Zamazenta is that I like play rough a lot more than heavy slam. Enamorus gets hit by stone edge and Iron Valiant gets hit by play rough, that only leaves Clefable where you miss heavy slam.

What play rough gives you is a solid clickable move in a lot of situations. For example, just stuff like you can click play rough on Great Tusk without fear of a Dragapult switch in. I've found it alleviating predictions so much. There are just so many mons weak to fairy in OU.

Plus with Tera Fairy you get to pretend to be a Zacian.

252 Atk Life Orb Zamazenta Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raging Bolt: 261-308 (66.7 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Tera Fairy Zamazenta Play Rough vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raging Bolt: 393-463 (100.5 - 118.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
(Adamant expert belt scores this too if you hate life orb).

252+ SpA Protosynthesis Raging Bolt Thunderclap vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Fairy Zamazenta: 151-178 (46.4 - 54.7%) -- 63.7% chance to 2HKO

 

[Eeveeto]

One thing I've been finding with 4 attacks Zamazenta is that I like play rough a lot more than heavy slam. Enamorus gets hit by stone edge and Iron Valiant gets hit by play rough, that only leaves Clefable where you miss heavy slam.

What play rough gives you is a solid clickable move in a lot of situations. For example, just stuff like you can click play rough on Great Tusk without fear of a Dragapult switch in. I've found it alleviating predictions so much. There are just so many mons weak to fairy in OU.

Plus with Tera Fairy you get to pretend to be a Zacian.

252 Atk Life Orb Zamazenta Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raging Bolt: 261-308 (66.7 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Tera Fairy Zamazenta Play Rough vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raging Bolt: 393-463 (100.5 - 118.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
(Adamant expert belt scores this too if you hate life orb).

252+ SpA Protosynthesis Raging Bolt Thunderclap vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Fairy Zamazenta: 151-178 (46.4 - 54.7%) -- 63.7% chance to 2HKO

I would agree with this, but this implies your Zamazenta is running Stone Edge, which I don,t think its optimal. Moltres is far less important Mon to hit than Gliscor is, so the optimal combination for me is CC, Crunch, Ice Fang and then between Heavy Slam and Play Rough, leaning to the former.

 

[ShizuOsaka]

I honestly hope Waterpon would be suspected next.

 

[MC Squared]

We also have a larger tiering announcement in the works for the near future potentially, but no comment or promises on that yet.

Shed Tail making its glorious return. Sceptile's time in OU is going to begin soon inshallah

 

[Cyber-DJ]

Shed Tail making its glorious return. Sceptile's time in OU is going to begin soon inshallah

Shed Tail's return?

 

[JensenDale]

I would agree with this, but this implies your Zamazenta is running Stone Edge, which I don,t think its optimal. Moltres is far less important Mon to hit than Gliscor is, so the optimal combination for me is CC, Crunch, Ice Fang and then between Heavy Slam and Play Rough, leaning to the former.

I don't know how I feel about this. Yes Play rough adds great coverage but the utility of ID + BP is so strong not just for attack power but also survivability + Lefties I don't know if 4A Zama is the play

 

[gephicka]

I don't know how I feel about this. Yes Play rough adds great coverage but the utility of ID + BP is so strong not just for attack power but also survivability + Lefties I don't know if 4A Zama is the play

4 attacks boots zama has seen an immense amount of usage over the first week of SPL. It works really well as a very fast strong wallbreaker that can take a physical hit in a pinch and lures in a lot of checks to the body press set (moltres and clefable for example)

it fills a really nice roll on balance and BO that don’t necessarily need ID zama

I would agree with this, but this implies your Zamazenta is running Stone Edge, which I don,t think its optimal. Moltres is far less important Mon to hit than Gliscor is, so the optimal combination for me is CC, Crunch, Ice Fang and then between Heavy Slam and Play Rough, leaning to the former.

depends on what coverage your team needs, a lot of teams can be way weaker to molt than they are to gliscor and love zama luring it with edge

it’s not a set in stone (edge) set
play rough could probably work, but i do think non-boots 4A zama is a little questionable

 

[KrazyKoopa95]

We need to talk about this bitch-ass mon real quick. Bro it feels impossible to build around this mon. If you have a mon that's even remotely fun to use, I guarantee Kyurem shits on it. Great Tusk is the only mon that feels remotely usable as Hazard Removal, and Kyurem shits all over it. Basically all the ground immunities in the tier invite this fool in to cook your team. And so many of the mons that are supposed to be checks can get gimmicked by any of the several variants this mon packs. Every time I try to mess with a fun pokemon or with a fun team core, I'm reminded of this eyesore of a mon when it blows chunks out the team. I'm tired of being forced to slot in Glowking into every team I build to avoid getting menaced by the special variants of Kyurem. And the less that's said about that Physical Loaded Dice set, the better. I feel like all the other mons on the survey that people might consider broken (i.e WellSpring) would be WAY WAY more manageable if Kyurem didn't limit the hell out of every bulky grass or dragon in the tier.

By the way on an unrelated note, is there a place where I can see the build for the Ting-Lu-Pech Teams that are being used in top level play. Love me a good Ting-Lu team since that mon be getting progress for free.

No clue how this Pokemon passed the suspect test twice already. Such a cancerous Pokemon. Freeze Dry is such a broken move that removes one of ice’s few resists. Also, banning Kyurem might open the potential to ban other cancerous Pokemons like Gliscor.

 

[peepeepoopoo722]

I want tera blast suspect next but would be relatively content if it's anything besides kyurem again. I didn't even care if it got banned the second time or when it was ultimately not banned. I just hate to potentially waste more time and I think so many people are exhausted by it they won't be excited enough to participate.

My opinion. Have a good weekend.

 

[Cape Canaveral]

We need to talk about this bitch-ass mon real quick. Bro it feels impossible to build around this mon. If you have a mon that's even remotely fun to use, I guarantee Kyurem shits on it. Great Tusk is the only mon that feels remotely usable as Hazard Removal, and Kyurem shits all over it. Basically all the ground immunities in the tier invite this fool in to cook your team. And so many of the mons that are supposed to be checks can get gimmicked by any of the several variants this mon packs. Every time I try to mess with a fun pokemon or with a fun team core, I'm reminded of this eyesore of a mon when it blows chunks out the team. I'm tired of being forced to slot in Glowking into every team I build to avoid getting menaced by the special variants of Kyurem. And the less that's said about that Physical Loaded Dice set, the better. I feel like all the other mons on the survey that people might consider broken (i.e WellSpring) would be WAY WAY more manageable if Kyurem didn't limit the hell out of every bulky grass or dragon in the tier.

By the way on an unrelated note, is there a place where I can see the build for the Ting-Lu-Pech Teams that are being used in top level play. Love me a good Ting-Lu team since that mon be getting progress for free.

I have to say, what do you mean by 'fun pokemon'?

I think if you're playing less used mons, you have to accept you may face bad matchups in the OU tier. If you're not willing to take some bad matchups when using something unconventional then I would say you need to temper your expectations.
If you are using an OU pokemon, the good news is that every pokemon in OU has been able to find fairly consistent success in the tier even with the presence of Kyurem.
If you don't think the pokemon in OU are very fun to play with, then there's no problem with that, but maybe it's not your tier.

The past two suspects have proven that Kyurem is a fairly honest wallbreaker, and its DD sets are only mediocre objectively. At this point it's well understood how Kyurem generally has weaknesses to hazards, is reliant on item, and is a Tera hog. If your team can exploit these qualities, you should still be fine against it. I personally think Kyurem is not unfair for the tier to handle.

I do think that sometimes Kyurem is a little matchup-fishy, but I'm gonna take this chance to keep pushing the anti-tera blast narrative. Banning Tera Blast and nerfing the matchup-fishy DD sets would make it p healthy, in my opinion. After that, I suspect that the best set would very easily become subtect or sub 3a, making it much more predictable.

 

[Moyashi]

The past two suspects have proven that Kyurem is a fairly honest wallbreaker, and its DD sets are only mediocre objectively. At this point it's well understood how Kyurem generally has weaknesses to hazards, is reliant on item, and is a Tera hog. If your team can exploit these qualities, you should still be fine against it. I personally think Kyurem is not unfair for the tier to handle.

With all due respect, not much of this is true. The last two suspects proved it was honest? Where? It barely survived the first suspect and the second was by a single vote. It’s remained largely controversial this whole time (arguably more now than before).

DD is mediocre “objectively”? Can people stop using the word “objective” because it’s only ever used wrongly to try and make one’s argument sound bigger. DD is not “mediocre” and is well known for putting immense pressure on balance and makes it so awkward to run because one of its many variations can just cream teams that just couldn’t possibly prep for it. “Reliant” on an item is very much reaching because 90% of all Pokémon “rely on their item”, and in Kyurem’s case how is that relevant? You’re most cases not in a position to remove said item. Also it’s not a Tera hog unless running DD where it’s hardly a problem because the upside is massive.

Of course people (me included) would love a TB ban, but until that can happen Kyurem itself remains a massive chore and one of the worst parts of this meta game bar none. It’s unbalanced, very oppressive into balance and does far more harm than any good.

 

[Seraphyde]

If the next suspect isn’t Tera Blast then I really do have to question if the council are serious people. This has been something that people have been clamoring for, for a long time, and it’s quite demonstrable that it would help mitigate broken threats (and by extension, determine if they are truly broken) yet it keeps being put off because ??????