Metagame np: SV DOU Stage 12: Under the Bridge | Archaludon remains legal

[Lemurro]

I'm pretty satisfied with the current meta, what Xrn said earlier in this thread about cringe teams making the tier seem worse than it is rings true, but I'd like to say that if anything should be suspected it's Landorus-Incarnate.

it's utility as the one of the best landorus/tornadus checks in the format with its inherently stupid power means that one of the best ways to answer offensive teams in the format is itself one of the most offensive pokemon in the game

This all would be fine if we could opt to use bulkier pokemon such as volcanion and screens as we did in the HOME metagame to adapt to chien-pao offense but such pokemon and team structures have been rendered unviable by faster and more consistent archetypes

It seems to me that a Landorus-Incarnate ban would solve the problems raised here better than a Pao or Torn ban, it's Lando that really kills balance and banning it would make pokemon that match up well into Pao such as Volcanion and Heatran better. You'd probably have to ban Archaludon afterwards but, while I agree with Zee that Archaludon's not a matchup fish I don't think it brings much of value to the metagame. Additionally, I find Sandsear Storm outside of Rain extremely lame, you get to click a 97.5 base power STAB spread move and your opponent can't do much besides hope you miss.

 

[Xrn]

takes from someone who has disliked the tier for some time but isn't sure if anything should change:

I think the metagame has actually adapted quite well to Landorus. Three mons that are unquestionably Tier 1 to me, TornI/Wetpon/Pao, all match up positively into it. In my experience traditional LO sets struggle to click with confidence in a lot of matchups, Scarf and Sash are cool to help alleviate that but the power dropoff is noticeable. Despite poor matchups into the tier's faster mons Lando is still the best and only real splashable special breaker in the meta. It's great at pressuring slower balance teams as usual and provides valuable damage into the overtuned Steels and Electrics (which can all flip the matchup in their favor btw). Even the balance teams which Lando is supposed to roll over can be built in ways that it isn't so overbearing. In SCL we've seen Incin+P2+Amoon/Sinis with all of PaoPult, Snow, and Rain to add an extra dimension to the core and improve the matchup against mons like Lando. A Landorus ban does not make sense unless the community wants rapidfire bans to drastically decrease the power level, but I agree with zee that this probably isn't ideal.

I have less to say about Pao, it taking Flutter's place as the premier fast offensive threat is quite unsurprising but I find it much more manageable. You know what it's going to do and while it's amazing at what it does it has well defined weaknesses. Zee outlined a lot of counterplay to it and didn't even cover all the viable options.

I also want to make it clear Spurrific has not been carried to a 7-0 record by Pao or anything (not that anyone is saying that but that's why it's WR looks so good), he's consistently bringing strong teams and playing well in a pool where everyone else (myself included) has been making plenty of mistakes.

Even less to say about Arch, I feel the same way that I did when it was suspect tested.

Tornadus is the most interesting point of discussion to me. It's definitely my least favorite part of the tier currently. There are a million different ways to punish it being on the field but Prankster Tailwind is quite silly when on a mon that isn't complete garbage otherwise. I believe Torn can be viable on nearly any structure and accounting for how Torn elevates all of them is extremely difficult. I flipflop regularly on whether I think Torn is actually unhealthy or if the tier just isn't for me, but I support a suspect test for it regardless of what I'd end up voting on it.

also, evasion should be banned. if nothing else at least run a test for that please.

 

[Penter]

my opinion on the meta has fluctuated a lot over time but ive been enjoying it quite a bit recently.

mainly wanted to saay here that im not actually sure scl usage supports the notion that current meta is too centralized thus leading to the same archetypes. there are certainly a few mons that are very very strong (pao, wellspring, etc mentioned in prev posts), but this in itself is pretty typical of dou. DPL stats for oldgens show this last year, with sm/xy/bw all having 2-5 or so mon that are used much more frequently than others. perhaps theres a case to be made that 66% lando-t usage is too much or smth but i dont think that most ppl would at all as it provides stability (and doesnt limit itself to a few kinds of team archetypes) even if it might invalidate some teams. thats probably a bad example but what im getting to is that what is viable changes between generations and that sv's current usage stats dont seem too different from other generations.

if u compare current scl to early weeks of last dpl flutter was getting used on 80% of teams (sample size is small as it wasnt many weeks before it was banned tho its not that much smaller than this scl). i actually think bulkier team styles are easier to work with in more centralized metas tho cuz everyoness running the same stuff.

as Zee highlighted in their post, there have been quite a few balance/fat whatever u call structures perform well. despite all the busted offense mons bulkier playstyles did get mon like ting lu and sinistcha (raging bolt/archa if that counts) this gen as well. They may be higher tempo than pastgen balance but it feels destinct from standard pao-nite esque offense.


also scl winrate really says nothing about the mons themselves. way too many factors at play to try and draw any conclusions besides "spurrific people who use pao are winning" from its high wr