Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [NEW TIERING RESULTS POST 11597]

[BolTingBlazie]

View attachment 641904
not gonna take this slander solgaleo would be broken in OU for entirely different reasons

It doesn't get stored power in gen 9 huh, either way crit me not Solgaleo sounds extremely unpleasant to deal with

 

[Dead by Daylight]

If a user is not banned and has access to a forum, they should logically be allowed to post in that forum and be taken seriously if their post is not inflammatory.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

If a user is not banned and has access to a forum, they should logically be allowed to post in that forum and be taken seriously if their post is not inflammatory.

Everyone has a chance to change their ways after all and become more respectful after all, it would be unfair to not give CTC that chance even if he ends up being disrespectful again. People change so him getting another chance is fair by that logic, and he hasn't done anything wrong yet. Just because his opinions were kinda ass doesn't give mods the right to kick him off the forums because we disagree.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

One step away from being banned? Again? So all of his buddies on Discord will say "see u in x months (cry emoji)" and every Youtuber Guy will put him on their channels?

Moderation discretion? I'm flaming that right now, it's very lenient and I explained why (hint: the reasons are not valid)

Sure, if you want to talk about moderator discretion in his punishment, go ahead and talk about it in a thread that's based on that topic, not the OU discussion thread.

 

[Finchinator]

Clearly the full consequences of the actions on Smogon is very little considering how bad the community's reputation is for keeping bad actors out of it, and people being given short bans, where all of their tour friends keep supporting them (or even helping them into unofficial tournaments), and then they are back.

This is not fair whatsoever.

I was on board with CTC's ban after he crossed the line when warned. A moderation team I am a part of banned him. He was literally held accountable for his actions. In my opinion, a multi-month time-out for using ableist slurs and hostile language is perfectly fitting. These things are not ok and bad actions lead to consequences.

Because I was part of the moderation team and this ban upset so many people, I got harassed for weeks over it -- do you see me crying over it? No, it's part of the job to do the right thing, even if it comes with a social cost. So hearing someone imply it was handled too lightly is absolutely baffling.

Smogon's reputation towards harassment has improved a ton over the last ten years -- if you think otherwise, you're using revisionist history. Look at some shit that used to fly vs how frequently we rid the community of bad presences now when provided evidence. HOWEVER, it still needs LOTS of work because it is ALWAYS a work-in-progress. We encounter new situations and change how we handle things to fit the growing needs of our community. User safety is hugely important!! With this said, I do not think CTC would have even been infracted had this happened some years ago, but instead he faced the appropriate consequence and this is a good thing. Him being unbanned months later is just him serving the time for the punishment he faced. If you think he deserved a permanent ban for that, then I do not know what to say beyond I and staff that goes above me disagrees.

Everyone who knows anything about the tour scene knows that bans are a slap on the wrist and learning about high level Smogon players is like seeing a fucking Rogue's Gallery.

You have no idea what you are talking about. The best player missed the end of the regular season and playoffs of the biggest tournament. This is the opposite of a slap on the wrist. It was a serious, untimely ban that he earned for his own bad behavior.

You can't go on Twitter and act like a paragon of inclusivity on Smogon if you are also gonna do a whole "we treat slur hurlers with respect", and deflect for maybe the 1838283th time on any issue to some higher power, that you refuse to flame, and also often support (I see you liking every pro-status quo Policy Review post on issues you said "I actually have no power! take it up with the correct people!" btw)

Shame on you for implying that this is "acting" or performative activism. You have no clue what the fuck I have going on in life or why I am so verbal with my stances. This is now getting personal and I take great offense to this implication.

And for your information, I literally have brought so many user safety issues to staff and policy issues to staff. Just because it is done beyond closed doors does not mean it does not happen. Do you realize how many hours I spend discussing things with other mods ranging from user safety to tiering to quality of life things? It is practically a job for me, but I do it because I love this community.

Your post was entirely unfair to me. Be better. If you continue to post implying bad faith of staff without actual evidence in a thread it does not belong in, you will end up infracted.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Not only is this freedom not afforded to like most people who get banned (that aren't tour players), but as previously stated, he has not a single time said that his ban was justified. My guy hasn't even made an apology for what he has done and you're saying "He may have changed his ways?"

That's gotta be a joke lmao

Not everyone apologizes with words, sometimes it takes actions to show you have grown from situations. Not defending CTC but giving him the benefit of the doubt since it doesn't seem like he has been disrespectful at all yet since coming back. Stop stirring up unneeded drama or you will potentially be punished, the mods have things handled so please stop. If CTC continues being disrespectful mods will handle things.

 

[Cheryl.]

The fact that a guy who was banned for toxicity and slurs is the guy leading the charge on changing tiering, made a potentially serious suggestion for wanting to be council member, and is getting full respect from the council is so fucking funny

This community is a massive joke and you can't even argue "reform" because the start of his post is "Quite a while has passed since the controversial volcarona suspect process during which I, a shining voice of reason in SV OU, was wrongfully banned according to many."

The "many" are his tour pals who never lost

Not only is this freedom not afforded to like most people who get banned (that aren't tour players), but as previously stated, he has not a single time said that his ban was justified. My guy hasn't even made an apology for what he has done and you're saying "He may have changed his ways?"

That's gotta be a joke lmao

This. Bro literally stated verbatim "I was wrongfully banned", he feels NOTHING regarding remorse and the only thing I could see even hinting at that is that he now does "community service" hosting a project on the OU Forum. How charitable. But it's okay, he'll just call us mentally deficient the next time we disagree with his views on tiering.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

This. Bro literally stated verbatim "I was wrongfully banned", he feels NOTHING regarding remorse and the only thing I could see even hinting at that is that he now does "community service" hosting a project on the OU Forum. How charitable. But it's okay, he'll just call us mentally deficient the next time we disagree with his views on tiering.

Two things can be true at the same time.

CTC can be a bad user as a whole, but the user you're quoting explicitly stated that his post on tiering didn't deserve any respect from the council not because of its contents, but because CTC as a whole is an inflammatory user. I don't like throwing out buzzwords, but this is just textbook ad hominem: saying an argument should be discarded simply because of the speaker's faults.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

Generally in any other competitive community I'm in, that has actual moderation, if you are CTC you are banned for life, and anyone who helps you get in is also banned for life.

Maybe appeals in years time, but Smogon's approach is laughable in comparison.

I don't see it as what he said, but the fact that he got to say it is pretty insane, and honestly an insidious part of how this community functions.

Now you're just insulting the moderation team. CTC did the time that the mod team, who by the way has had many years of experience dealing with cases such as his, thought was appropriate and missed the latter half of one of the most prestigious tournaments on Smogon as punishment. Smogon as a whole is also still improving. If you have a problem with how his case was moderated fine, but don't extrapolate this to saying "the entire mod team is useless" in a roundabout way. He didn't "get to say it" consequence-free either - he quite literally got blacklisted from the community for multiple months as one of its most recognizable members, playing in a big-time tournament near its finale.

 

[FayaWizard]

Generally in any other competitive community I'm in, that has actual moderation, if you are CTC you are banned for life, and anyone who helps you get in is also banned for life.

Maybe appeals in years time, but Smogon's approach is laughable in comparison.

I don't see it as what he said, but the fact that he got to say it is pretty insane, and honestly an insidious part of how this community functions.

Ok, putting aside the debate about punishments, why is this in SV OU Metagame Discussion? Why not bring this up with a Senior Staff in the appropriate channels, instead of starting a huge argument in an unrelated thread, attacking Finchinator for no reason, and being belligerent and aggressive to anyone who disagrees with you?

 

[BolTingBlazie]

CTC may be inflammatory and bad, but as mods it feels wrong to ban a notable player without giving them another chance persay. He may not have remorse for the disrespectful behavior but it is only fair to see if he will stop being disrespectful even if he refuses to apologize as he is such a noteworthy player and while what he did was wrong, he could still decide to not be disrespectful despite refusing to apologize for it. Look, I may not like CTC either but let's just drop this topic please. If he does any disrespectful stuff like he did during the gouging fire suspect mods will handle the situation and he will be punished. This has yet to happen though so it wouldn't be fair to punish him for past actions because as of right now, he may have had an objectively bad opinion, but he has not been disrespectful as of yet like I said. So please, JUST LET THE MODS HANDLE THINGS. I hate that we have to discuss this.

Ok, putting aside the debate about punishments, why is this in SV OU Metagame Discussion? Why not bring this up with a Senior Staff in the appropriate channels, instead of starting a huge argument in an unrelated thread, attacking Finchinator for no reason, and being belligerent and aggressive to anyone who disagrees with you?

Agreed! Let's drop this, it shouldn't even be in this thread. Talking about this kinda stuff in a forum talking about a metagame because CTC opened his mouth is stupid.

 

[Finchinator]

All of this is a slap on the wrist. Try most other competitive communities in the Nintendo-sphere and if you say a slur you are banned for life.

I just want to point out that gaming communities throughout the internet have a horrible regulatory track record. Your thoughts here are misleaded. I have spoken at length with leaders across various other online communities and even have a group chat with a few of them -- Smogon is relatively well-off. Smogon still needs improvement for sure, but what you are saying here is wrong.

Missing out on a tournament final? Big deal compared to a permaban

Nobody deserves a permaban for the contents of that thread. He used an ableist slur, apologized, and then had a spree of hostile posts. That alone is not close to permanent ban worthy. Otherwise, I would be permanent banned for things I said when I was 14 and so would half of the website.

Meanwhile getting mentions by even nicher people like BKC as being good friends

How the hell am I supposed to police who other people are friends with??? What am I supposed to do? This is so silly.

Maybe if the behind the scenes work is so large, the actual scene should show the work? Maybe the system is broken? Maybe there is a problem with the process?

If so, please feel free to call it out, especially on Twitter, and then get people to actually help things happen quicker, and meaningfully. Or, do you agree with it? Then yes, it is crazy for you to perform activisim or whatever and then keep people like that at the top level.

The system was broken years ago and has improved a lot. It is still improving because a lot of what we do is reactionary in nature, so we need situations to form precedent and improve handling/practices. Ideally, these situations do not occur.

How the CTC situation was handled is appropriate. If you continue to go off calling out auth and saying he should face a permanent ban without actually listening and while maintaining a rude tone, you are going to end up infracted -- this is my second warning.

Finally, so much is confidential -- you should know this. Want to talk about performative? You freaking out and overblowing things in fucking metagme discussion and calling out someone who pushes for equality and user safety is performative -- if you want change, report incidents to staff!!!

The useful life of this dialogue is over. Learn from it and stop clogging up this thread with off-topic posts please.

 

[Earthflax]

One step away from being banned? Again? So all of his buddies on Discord will say "see u in x months (cry emoji)" and every Youtuber Guy will put him on their channels?

not to dogpile but do you really want staff to hound blunder and aim or something? the guy has friends what can auth do about that

also to comment on the overarching point, very prominent and popular people have caught permas on this site, including ojama who is arguably a top 10 player ever. what other nintendo communities are you comparing smogon to by the way? every other person in the smash community is a slur slinger or pedo. this whole thing just reeks of trying to create a stink about something that has been over for a long ass time and everyone has moved on from.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

To move this thread back to actual OU discussion, let's talk about Walking Wake.

​

Right now, this thing is mainly seen on Sun teams as a wallbreaker and has carved out a niche there - however, I wanted to talk about its presence on Balance teams as a pretty good Knock Off user that can force the move onto a lot of its common "checks" like Glowking to severely hinder their survivability over the course of a game. I personally see it as a pretty solid presence to abuse balance teams in the vein of Darkrai with its difficult-to-answer STAB combo and progress-making potential. I'm a bit out of touch with the meta at the moment, but I think more in-touch players can be more accurate about the viability of this set.

 

[Moyashi]

To move this thread back to actual OU discussion, let's talk about Walking Wake.

​

Right now, this thing is mainly seen on Sun teams as a wallbreaker and has carved out a niche there - however, I wanted to talk about its presence on Balance teams as a pretty good Knock Off user that can force the move onto a lot of its common "checks" like Glowking to severely hinder their survivability over the course of a game. I personally see it as a pretty solid presence to abuse balance teams in the vein of Darkrai with its difficult-to-answer STAB combo and progress-making potential. I'm a bit out of touch with the meta at the moment, but I think more in-touch players can be more accurate about the viability of this set.

I think knock off Wake is underrated and honestly underexplored. I remember a while back there was a cool voltturn-y team that used it alongside Rilla and I think Garg? It was a while go so my brain do be foggy. it's cool for other stuff too like Blissey on stall or some variants of Mola who run spdef investment that try to eat Wake's water moves.

On the subject of Glowking also, I do wonder if anyone has experimented with its access to Toxic Spikes as another means of making progress (TSpikes being especially helpful against teams with less longevity like the faster paced teams running around).

 

[Avira]

I've always considered Knock Off the best 4th move on Choice Specs Walking Wake ever since it gained Knock Off after the second DLC. Getting rid of Blissey or Alomomola's Heavy-Duty Boots makes the match-ups against stall and Alomomola balances easier since forcing them to take hazard damage is something your opponent won't appreciate.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

To move this thread back to actual OU discussion, let's talk about Walking Wake.

​

Right now, this thing is mainly seen on Sun teams as a wallbreaker and has carved out a niche there - however, I wanted to talk about its presence on Balance teams as a pretty good Knock Off user that can force the move onto a lot of its common "checks" like Glowking to severely hinder their survivability over the course of a game. I personally see it as a pretty solid presence to abuse balance teams in the vein of Darkrai with its difficult-to-answer STAB combo and progress-making potential. I'm a bit out of touch with the meta at the moment, but I think more in-touch players can be more accurate about the viability of this set.

I used knock/hydrosteam/Flipturn on a AV set awhile back to very fun success I felt? It didn't lag behind against sun due to the bulk boost (underrated imo) and it equally let itself cripple stall by removing their boots. Very fun, worked great with wish support letting you keep this thing going and combining with Tera Fairy, let you completely deal with a lot of dragon types that aren't mixed.

Edit: english bad and so is grammar

 

[Anchor9]

Updating Ampharos for OU. Here’s the team I’ve been using:
https://pokepast.es/2ba64463f6374cbc
Been floating pretty consistently in the high 1400s to mid 1500s with this which is pretty funny to me. Ampharos’s job is to usually snipe the opposing Great Tusk / Ting-Lu / Gliscor / Lando-T / Iron Treads etc. Ground Type to clear the path for Raging Bolt. Tera Fairy Ampharos actually lives a lot of stuff. It took a Sludge Bomb from Darkrai. Any advice on the team?

Also these Ampharos calcs will never not be funny:

Funny Spec Ampharos Calcs

Ground Targets:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Tera Fairy Ampharos Dazzling Gleam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 248-294 (48.2 - 57.1%) -- 44.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Choice Specs Tera Fairy Ampharos Dazzling Gleam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian: 237-280 (62 - 73.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Ampharos Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Iron Treads: 526-620 (163.8 - 193.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Ampharos Dazzling Gleam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 438-516 (100.9 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Tera Fairy Ampharos Dazzling Gleam vs. 244 HP / 16 SpD Gliscor: 246-289 (69.8 - 82.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal

Funny Calcs vs. Meta staples

252+ SpA Choice Specs Ampharos Thunder vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Slowking-Galar: 186-219 (47.2 - 55.5%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Ampharos Thunder vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Gholdengo: 294-346 (77.7 - 91.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Ampharos Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Kyurem: 430-506 (109.9 - 129.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Ampharos Thunder vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Primarina: 320-378 (99.6 - 117.7%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Tera Fairy Ampharos Dazzling Gleam vs. 64 HP / 0 SpD Raging Bolt: 434-512 (106.6 - 125.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[Deathbringer7]

I think knock off Wake is underrated and honestly underexplored. I remember a while back there was a cool voltturn-y team that used it alongside Rilla and I think Garg? It was a while go so my brain do be foggy. it's cool for other stuff too like Blissey on stall or some variants of Mola who run spdef investment that try to eat Wake's water moves.

On the subject of Glowking also, I do wonder if anyone has experimented with its access to Toxic Spikes as another means of making progress (TSpikes being especially helpful against teams with less longevity like the faster paced teams running around).

TSpikes , in theory atleast, seems to be a waste of 4th slot on Glowking. Anything bulky offense or balance would be having their own Glowking and stall would have Clodsire, and they'd just get absorbed comfortably. I guess it can be good vs HO (those without Moth) once you get rid of the Glim and if you pair it with Protect Garg, but it doesn't seem worthwhile. I'd rather use something like Ice Beam to pressure Glisc (and ig catch Lando on the switch) or flamethrower for coverage vs steels (or even Surf to fully counter sub Moth)

 

[Achohermano]

What are your EV/Nature spreads on Lando-T this gen?? I’m thinking about using it on a team alongside Prima, Cinderace, Specs Raging Bolt, Moltres and Kingambit (If you also want to recommend changes for the team structure itself I’m all for it. I mostly like to run BO stuff)

 

[Bold School]

What are your EV/Nature spreads on Lando-T this gen?? I’m thinking about using it on a team alongside Prima, Cinderace, Specs Raging Bolt, Moltres and Kingambit (If you also want to recommend changes for the team structure itself I’m all for it. I mostly like to run BO stuff)

While I normally refuse to run it on principle, I ran it one time trying out a mixed set just to see what was possible.

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Earth Power
- Tera Blast
- Smack Down
- Swords Dance

Flying/Ground coverage is one of the best in the game. The thought process is to be able to change Tera Blast to physical or special depending on circumstances. Hence SD over NP or even CM. But I wanted part special because most thing weak to Ground take more on average from EP. Mixed attackers are also hard to stop.

Smack Down would let you hit the rare mons that resisted and/or were immune to both, which are basically just Corv, Zap, and the very occasional Rotom. This was better in theory than practice since I often was chipped before them switching out.

The main problem with the set, other than the inefficiency, was the removal of Rock Polish. Without a reliable way to boost speed, I gambled on bringing in the T on a setup sweeper using DD or something. Mirror Herb was way too inconsistent. I thought that maybe the combination of that and webs could do something, but it didn't work that great.

I also noticed that the set was severely lacking a damaging item. LO on webs would probably have been a bit more consistent. I think the proper way to run this would have been as a wallbreaker and not a half hearted sweeper. But Oger is obviously better at that.

I will say, though, that Rock Polish in a Tera metagame would have probably been too much for players to deal with. There are just too many sets it would have been able to run.

 

[xavgb]

Dropping a quick post mostly so people know my thoughts on the potential suspect targets (although these will mostly be personal thoughts as I'm too lazy to do a big analysis).

- I've been pretty vocally against suspecting Wells pring for a while on Discord, and I wanted to take some time to flesh out my position a bit. Firstly, I don't think this mon is broken. Given the amount of limitations it has between the hazard weakness, being weak to 3 mons that are faster than it and are also known to carry entire games (Zama/Pult/Rai), the lack of defensive Teras, and a few big matchups that get way more comfortable if the Ogerpon takes chip switching in (Gambit/Bolt/Dnite), I feel pretty comfortable dealing with Wellspring. In terms of balance's Wellspring matchup, I think that focusing on momentum is the way to go. More proactive balances can afford mons like Chesto Idef Zama which ease the matchup a fair bit. On top of that, gameplanning adjustments like clicking Ruination with Ting-Lu instead of instantly Spiking help with handling the threat a lot, as well as emergency Teras when you can afford to click them. The gameplans that I end up using against Wellspring do vary quite a bit from game to game, but I find it hard to imagine a team in this meta that is good enough to use against other threats, but too bad to use against Wellspring, barring maybe some specific Alomomola structures.

In general, I think that Wellspring has a lot of practical limitations as a breaker, and I believe that there are better ways to break in this meta than many of the Wellspring teams I've seen that either rely too heavily on Wellspring to break or leave themselves too open to offense's faster/bulkier/prio-having wincons. When I do decide to use Wellspring, I'm mostly looking for a mon that hits certain defensive roles that other offensive options not named Terrible Ass Volcanion can't hit. Here's a short list of roles that I might use a Wellspring for:

Primarina switchin (seriously, offense has so little for this and yet some teams really want to not sack mons immediately)
Barraskewda/Hydro Steam switchin (insanely fast mons spamming weather-boosted moves for free is not fun)
Encore user (especially one that is fast but not tied to Booster Energy, bulky cheese setup hates this)
Great Tusk (we don't have that many Ground resists that dont get Ice Spinner, it's nice to keep options open)
Alomomola block (again very important for some offensive cores that cannot keep up maximum pressure on Mola at all times)
Ting-Lu response (I consider this a fine trade for both ends, Ting-Lu user gets the opportunity to neuter Wellspring's breaking capacity, and the Wellspring user gets to prevent Ting-Lu from mindlessly vomiting Spikes all over the team)

Most of the strategies that Wellspring counteracts require less user input than what is needed to succeed with Wellspring. It's worth noting that a few of these roles are either temporary or outright risky, but the nature of Wellspring defensively and offensively is that most great performances with it start from its user outplaying in general or winning 50/50s. I think it's valuable to preserve mons like this with a high skill ceiling and average/below average regular performance (when compared to some of the busted dudes we have in this meta), especially when they're rarely even trying to sweep teams like a Gouging Fire would.

The last thing I wanted to talk about was the builder aspect of dealing with Wellspring. You may have noticed that I havent mentioned a single Grass type so far in the post (except Wellspring lol) and the reason for that is because I think they are all bad enough mons that they realistically cannot fit on the vast majority of teams, but I think that's fine. As far as direct Wellspring answers go, Zama (esp with Rest) is a much more practical choice than any of these mons, and Dnite covers a wide range of situations, forcing the opponent to have specific sets and make specific plays to break through it, and the strength of these mons will more than make up for them not being permanent counters, both in the Wellspring matchups and other matchups.
It's also worth noting that Zama and Dnite are two mons that are heavily encouraged by the rest of the meta - I'm more likely to justify Zama on my team due to its Gouging Fire/Gambit/Rai matchup than I am to justify it because of Wellspring, and I'm more likely to justify Dnite on the basis that it covers an insane amount of things including Roaring Moon, which also has limited switchins while being much harder to revenge kill than Ogerpon.


- I don't think Kyurem is broken. Honestly, outside of Loaded Dice mixed sets I think Kyurem is super underwhelming. Boots Kyurem sets suffer heavily from a case of not really being amazing at anything - it's not fast enough to be speed control, it's not scary enough to be your main source of breaking, its typing doesn't really cover much that its teammates won't already handle. The base 95 speed tier is still pretty neat for outspeeding and threatening the Ground types, but without being able to perform some role to a top level it becomes hard to justify in such a power crept metagame. Specs Kyurem aims to address some of the breaking issues, but it still faces issues fitting onto teams. Committing to running properly good removal so that you can click buttons with a breaker is hard, and it usually results in flimsy structures that don't actually cover threats/teras/offensive teams well, which is probably the single most important thing in this meta. These structures are usually also incredibly predictable on the defensive side, which is a big problem when your main gameplan requires you to give up momentum and even Tera so often. DD mixed sets somewhat rectify these issues, allowing the Kyurem player to play more aggressively and position more efficiently. However, most of the Steels and Zama will force Kyurem to try and outlast its checks before going for a sweep, which is tough when it still has to contest with hazards/prio/tera etc.


- Probably the most broken of the three pokemon I'm talking about, but I think it's still too early for suspecting Rai. Darkrai has caught a lot of attention from WCoP, largely for its ability to beat down certain balance structures. My issue with using this as a justification for a ban right now is that the balance teams I've been seeing in WCoP feel largely outdated. For example, a typical SD Scor balance runs into all sorts of issues when it comes to switching into threats, because the structure's options are largely limited by SD Scor's desperate need to be paired with at least Spikes (ideally Rocks as well) and Gliscor's general inability to handle or even deter major offensive threats from setting up. These teams face pressure from most playstyles in the metagame, whether it's from Wellspring/Rai/Kyurem/Ghold/opposing SD Scor/Gouging Fire/even Raging Bolt, and those are just the high tier mons that put major pressure on balances. With this in mind, I think it's really hard to justify balance structures that force you into the same defensive picks every time - if you're running Gliscor + Skarm + Clef, not only are you running an incredibly predictable core of 3, you're also going to be limited in what you can use in the last 3 slots, since you're always allowing/aiming for the max hazards trade, leaving you with only Boots options to pick from (most of which simply cannot handle the current threat level). While the structures I'm talking about are not passive (they do make progress very reliably at least in longer games), they do struggle heavily to influence games when the matchup is not in their favour. Frankly, I think the meta at least needs some time before a Rai suspect, so people can figure out how to give balance teams more tools against offense matchups, or go the other way and run stall instead.


As a final note, I wanted to say that while I think the meta has been in a pretty dire place for most of DLC 2, this current meta is probably marginally better than most of the months preceding it. In terms of tiering action, the only mon that I'm sure has no business being in the tier is Goug. This doesn't mean that I think the tier will be fine with one ban, it just means that I think the next steps will require some more thought as well as some time given to let the metagame develop. A lot of the ideas being explored right now, particularly the ones regarding the approach to the hazard game and item choices, are harder to work with than the previous building standards, and I'd rather not shoot mons that could potentially be an important part of this new metagame. The chances are, unless we somehow ban our way back to a DLC 1 power level, we're going to need to lab out new building approaches to stay on top of the meta.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

After many months of suffering, I've been finally able to break my 1500's curse of losing to either random cheese and/or tilting and have ascended to "semi real pokemon matches now". The downside being there are now too many Earthpower Lando's and Okidogi is suffering a bit but I will push ahead in his honor for carrying me this far.

 

[Kallum]

Dropping a quick post mostly so people know my thoughts on the potential suspect targets (although these will mostly be personal thoughts as I'm too lazy to do a big analysis).

- I've been pretty vocally against suspecting Wells pring for a while on Discord, and I wanted to take some time to flesh out my position a bit. Firstly, I don't think this mon is broken. Given the amount of limitations it has between the hazard weakness, being weak to 3 mons that are faster than it and are also known to carry entire games (Zama/Pult/Rai), the lack of defensive Teras, and a few big matchups that get way more comfortable if the Ogerpon takes chip switching in (Gambit/Bolt/Dnite), I feel pretty comfortable dealing with Wellspring. In terms of balance's Wellspring matchup, I think that focusing on momentum is the way to go. More proactive balances can afford mons like Chesto Idef Zama which ease the matchup a fair bit. On top of that, gameplanning adjustments like clicking Ruination with Ting-Lu instead of instantly Spiking help with handling the threat a lot, as well as emergency Teras when you can afford to click them. The gameplans that I end up using against Wellspring do vary quite a bit from game to game, but I find it hard to imagine a team in this meta that is good enough to use against other threats, but too bad to use against Wellspring, barring maybe some specific Alomomola structures.

In general, I think that Wellspring has a lot of practical limitations as a breaker, and I believe that there are better ways to break in this meta than many of the Wellspring teams I've seen that either rely too heavily on Wellspring to break or leave themselves too open to offense's faster/bulkier/prio-having wincons. When I do decide to use Wellspring, I'm mostly looking for a mon that hits certain defensive roles that other offensive options not named Terrible Ass Volcanion can't hit. Here's a short list of roles that I might use a Wellspring for:

Primarina switchin (seriously, offense has so little for this and yet some teams really want to not sack mons immediately)
Barraskewda/Hydro Steam switchin (insanely fast mons spamming weather-boosted moves for free is not fun)
Encore user (especially one that is fast but not tied to Booster Energy, bulky cheese setup hates this)
Great Tusk (we don't have that many Ground resists that dont get Ice Spinner, it's nice to keep options open)
Alomomola block (again very important for some offensive cores that cannot keep up maximum pressure on Mola at all times)
Ting-Lu response (I consider this a fine trade for both ends, Ting-Lu user gets the opportunity to neuter Wellspring's breaking capacity, and the Wellspring user gets to prevent Ting-Lu from mindlessly vomiting Spikes all over the team)

Most of the strategies that Wellspring counteracts require less user input than what is needed to succeed with Wellspring. It's worth noting that a few of these roles are either temporary or outright risky, but the nature of Wellspring defensively and offensively is that most great performances with it start from its user outplaying in general or winning 50/50s. I think it's valuable to preserve mons like this with a high skill ceiling and average/below average regular performance (when compared to some of the busted dudes we have in this meta), especially when they're rarely even trying to sweep teams like a Gouging Fire would.

The last thing I wanted to talk about was the builder aspect of dealing with Wellspring. You may have noticed that I havent mentioned a single Grass type so far in the post (except Wellspring lol) and the reason for that is because I think they are all bad enough mons that they realistically cannot fit on the vast majority of teams, but I think that's fine. As far as direct Wellspring answers go, Zama (esp with Rest) is a much more practical choice than any of these mons, and Dnite covers a wide range of situations, forcing the opponent to have specific sets and make specific plays to break through it, and the strength of these mons will more than make up for them not being permanent counters, both in the Wellspring matchups and other matchups.
It's also worth noting that Zama and Dnite are two mons that are heavily encouraged by the rest of the meta - I'm more likely to justify Zama on my team due to its Gouging Fire/Gambit/Rai matchup than I am to justify it because of Wellspring, and I'm more likely to justify Dnite on the basis that it covers an insane amount of things including Roaring Moon, which also has limited switchins while being much harder to revenge kill than Ogerpon.


- I don't think Kyurem is broken. Honestly, outside of Loaded Dice mixed sets I think Kyurem is super underwhelming. Boots Kyurem sets suffer heavily from a case of not really being amazing at anything - it's not fast enough to be speed control, it's not scary enough to be your main source of breaking, its typing doesn't really cover much that its teammates won't already handle. The base 95 speed tier is still pretty neat for outspeeding and threatening the Ground types, but without being able to perform some role to a top level it becomes hard to justify in such a power crept metagame. Specs Kyurem aims to address some of the breaking issues, but it still faces issues fitting onto teams. Committing to running properly good removal so that you can click buttons with a breaker is hard, and it usually results in flimsy structures that don't actually cover threats/teras/offensive teams well, which is probably the single most important thing in this meta. These structures are usually also incredibly predictable on the defensive side, which is a big problem when your main gameplan requires you to give up momentum and even Tera so often. DD mixed sets somewhat rectify these issues, allowing the Kyurem player to play more aggressively and position more efficiently. However, most of the Steels and Zama will force Kyurem to try and outlast its checks before going for a sweep, which is tough when it still has to contest with hazards/prio/tera etc.


- Probably the most broken of the three pokemon I'm talking about, but I think it's still too early for suspecting Rai. Darkrai has caught a lot of attention from WCoP, largely for its ability to beat down certain balance structures. My issue with using this as a justification for a ban right now is that the balance teams I've been seeing in WCoP feel largely outdated. For example, a typical SD Scor balance runs into all sorts of issues when it comes to switching into threats, because the structure's options are largely limited by SD Scor's desperate need to be paired with at least Spikes (ideally Rocks as well) and Gliscor's general inability to handle or even deter major offensive threats from setting up. These teams face pressure from most playstyles in the metagame, whether it's from Wellspring/Rai/Kyurem/Ghold/opposing SD Scor/Gouging Fire/even Raging Bolt, and those are just the high tier mons that put major pressure on balances. With this in mind, I think it's really hard to justify balance structures that force you into the same defensive picks every time - if you're running Gliscor + Skarm + Clef, not only are you running an incredibly predictable core of 3, you're also going to be limited in what you can use in the last 3 slots, since you're always allowing/aiming for the max hazards trade, leaving you with only Boots options to pick from (most of which simply cannot handle the current threat level). While the structures I'm talking about are not passive (they do make progress very reliably at least in longer games), they do struggle heavily to influence games when the matchup is not in their favour. Frankly, I think the meta at least needs some time before a Rai suspect, so people can figure out how to give balance teams more tools against offense matchups, or go the other way and run stall instead.


As a final note, I wanted to say that while I think the meta has been in a pretty dire place for most of DLC 2, this current meta is probably marginally better than most of the months preceding it. In terms of tiering action, the only mon that I'm sure has no business being in the tier is Goug. This doesn't mean that I think the tier will be fine with one ban, it just means that I think the next steps will require some more thought as well as some time given to let the metagame develop. A lot of the ideas being explored right now, particularly the ones regarding the approach to the hazard game and item choices, are harder to work with than the previous building standards, and I'd rather not shoot mons that could potentially be an important part of this new metagame. The chances are, unless we somehow ban our way back to a DLC 1 power level, we're going to need to lab out new building approaches to stay on top of the meta.

Gotta agree with someone who has been EXCLUSIVELY using the past few months, sure once it gets going, especially with Specs and Snow to help longevity, its good. But that 95 speed stat might as well put it on a death timer, its gonna get chipped to death. Especially since to deal real good damage you gotta drop the boots which means 25% chip from Rocks. So I still agree with the previous decision on the Test to not ban it.

 

[LoseToRU?]

Dropping a quick post mostly so people know my thoughts on the potential suspect targets (although these will mostly be personal thoughts as I'm too lazy to do a big analysis).

- I've been pretty vocally against suspecting Wells pring for a while on Discord, and I wanted to take some time to flesh out my position a bit. Firstly, I don't think this mon is broken. Given the amount of limitations it has between the hazard weakness, being weak to 3 mons that are faster than it and are also known to carry entire games (Zama/Pult/Rai), the lack of defensive Teras, and a few big matchups that get way more comfortable if the Ogerpon takes chip switching in (Gambit/Bolt/Dnite), I feel pretty comfortable dealing with Wellspring. In terms of balance's Wellspring matchup, I think that focusing on momentum is the way to go. More proactive balances can afford mons like Chesto Idef Zama which ease the matchup a fair bit. On top of that, gameplanning adjustments like clicking Ruination with Ting-Lu instead of instantly Spiking help with handling the threat a lot, as well as emergency Teras when you can afford to click them. The gameplans that I end up using against Wellspring do vary quite a bit from game to game, but I find it hard to imagine a team in this meta that is good enough to use against other threats, but too bad to use against Wellspring, barring maybe some specific Alomomola structures.

In general, I think that Wellspring has a lot of practical limitations as a breaker, and I believe that there are better ways to break in this meta than many of the Wellspring teams I've seen that either rely too heavily on Wellspring to break or leave themselves too open to offense's faster/bulkier/prio-having wincons. When I do decide to use Wellspring, I'm mostly looking for a mon that hits certain defensive roles that other offensive options not named Terrible Ass Volcanion can't hit. Here's a short list of roles that I might use a Wellspring for:

Primarina switchin (seriously, offense has so little for this and yet some teams really want to not sack mons immediately)
Barraskewda/Hydro Steam switchin (insanely fast mons spamming weather-boosted moves for free is not fun)
Encore user (especially one that is fast but not tied to Booster Energy, bulky cheese setup hates this)
Great Tusk (we don't have that many Ground resists that dont get Ice Spinner, it's nice to keep options open)
Alomomola block (again very important for some offensive cores that cannot keep up maximum pressure on Mola at all times)
Ting-Lu response (I consider this a fine trade for both ends, Ting-Lu user gets the opportunity to neuter Wellspring's breaking capacity, and the Wellspring user gets to prevent Ting-Lu from mindlessly vomiting Spikes all over the team)

Most of the strategies that Wellspring counteracts require less user input than what is needed to succeed with Wellspring. It's worth noting that a few of these roles are either temporary or outright risky, but the nature of Wellspring defensively and offensively is that most great performances with it start from its user outplaying in general or winning 50/50s. I think it's valuable to preserve mons like this with a high skill ceiling and average/below average regular performance (when compared to some of the busted dudes we have in this meta), especially when they're rarely even trying to sweep teams like a Gouging Fire would.

The last thing I wanted to talk about was the builder aspect of dealing with Wellspring. You may have noticed that I havent mentioned a single Grass type so far in the post (except Wellspring lol) and the reason for that is because I think they are all bad enough mons that they realistically cannot fit on the vast majority of teams, but I think that's fine. As far as direct Wellspring answers go, Zama (esp with Rest) is a much more practical choice than any of these mons, and Dnite covers a wide range of situations, forcing the opponent to have specific sets and make specific plays to break through it, and the strength of these mons will more than make up for them not being permanent counters, both in the Wellspring matchups and other matchups.
It's also worth noting that Zama and Dnite are two mons that are heavily encouraged by the rest of the meta - I'm more likely to justify Zama on my team due to its Gouging Fire/Gambit/Rai matchup than I am to justify it because of Wellspring, and I'm more likely to justify Dnite on the basis that it covers an insane amount of things including Roaring Moon, which also has limited switchins while being much harder to revenge kill than Ogerpon.


- I don't think Kyurem is broken. Honestly, outside of Loaded Dice mixed sets I think Kyurem is super underwhelming. Boots Kyurem sets suffer heavily from a case of not really being amazing at anything - it's not fast enough to be speed control, it's not scary enough to be your main source of breaking, its typing doesn't really cover much that its teammates won't already handle. The base 95 speed tier is still pretty neat for outspeeding and threatening the Ground types, but without being able to perform some role to a top level it becomes hard to justify in such a power crept metagame. Specs Kyurem aims to address some of the breaking issues, but it still faces issues fitting onto teams. Committing to running properly good removal so that you can click buttons with a breaker is hard, and it usually results in flimsy structures that don't actually cover threats/teras/offensive teams well, which is probably the single most important thing in this meta. These structures are usually also incredibly predictable on the defensive side, which is a big problem when your main gameplan requires you to give up momentum and even Tera so often. DD mixed sets somewhat rectify these issues, allowing the Kyurem player to play more aggressively and position more efficiently. However, most of the Steels and Zama will force Kyurem to try and outlast its checks before going for a sweep, which is tough when it still has to contest with hazards/prio/tera etc.


- Probably the most broken of the three pokemon I'm talking about, but I think it's still too early for suspecting Rai. Darkrai has caught a lot of attention from WCoP, largely for its ability to beat down certain balance structures. My issue with using this as a justification for a ban right now is that the balance teams I've been seeing in WCoP feel largely outdated. For example, a typical SD Scor balance runs into all sorts of issues when it comes to switching into threats, because the structure's options are largely limited by SD Scor's desperate need to be paired with at least Spikes (ideally Rocks as well) and Gliscor's general inability to handle or even deter major offensive threats from setting up. These teams face pressure from most playstyles in the metagame, whether it's from Wellspring/Rai/Kyurem/Ghold/opposing SD Scor/Gouging Fire/even Raging Bolt, and those are just the high tier mons that put major pressure on balances. With this in mind, I think it's really hard to justify balance structures that force you into the same defensive picks every time - if you're running Gliscor + Skarm + Clef, not only are you running an incredibly predictable core of 3, you're also going to be limited in what you can use in the last 3 slots, since you're always allowing/aiming for the max hazards trade, leaving you with only Boots options to pick from (most of which simply cannot handle the current threat level). While the structures I'm talking about are not passive (they do make progress very reliably at least in longer games), they do struggle heavily to influence games when the matchup is not in their favour. Frankly, I think the meta at least needs some time before a Rai suspect, so people can figure out how to give balance teams more tools against offense matchups, or go the other way and run stall instead.


As a final note, I wanted to say that while I think the meta has been in a pretty dire place for most of DLC 2, this current meta is probably marginally better than most of the months preceding it. In terms of tiering action, the only mon that I'm sure has no business being in the tier is Goug. This doesn't mean that I think the tier will be fine with one ban, it just means that I think the next steps will require some more thought as well as some time given to let the metagame develop. A lot of the ideas being explored right now, particularly the ones regarding the approach to the hazard game and item choices, are harder to work with than the previous building standards, and I'd rather not shoot mons that could potentially be an important part of this new metagame. The chances are, unless we somehow ban our way back to a DLC 1 power level, we're going to need to lab out new building approaches to stay on top of the meta.

Great post. If this is your "lazy" analysis then I'm kinda afraid of what it looks like when you give 100% lol
Gouging is forsure insane, just a better M-Char-X. I don't think it's close to its full potential but as long as it has trouble with Dozo, Fairy/Water Garg, Gliscor, Prima, etc. then I'm not that mad at it.

SV is defined by how volatile and capricious it is. Even those who are far-sighted and can notice overarching trends have been surprised by what we've gotten used to. Gambit and Gold were practically surrounded by torch wielding mobs at one point and now they're just sorta whatever. I'm also a firm believer in letting a meta breathe; the playerbase as a whole usually knows when something is truly broken and then it's banned with a clear majority.

The most fun I've had building since Gen 7 is trying to find off-meta counters to the cookie cutter teams that pervade the SV ladder. Specs Comfey (D-Kiss, Giga, Trick, CM) is insane rn vs HO and BO and not even as a meme. I'll vs a team who's last 4 mons are Tusk, Pult, Moon and Rai. This isn't uncommon and it puts a lot of pressure on teams to be wary about burning a Tera or Comfey clean sweeps. Even Val, Kyu, Bolt, Nite and Zama also fold unless they Tera. One little silly mon puts insane pressure on the most common offense cores.

Personally, SV will never feel like a "real" meta to me due to Tera. When you have such inconsistent end-game mapping thanks to not being able to set up consistent win conditions then the meta doesn't feel valid. Executing your late-game plan that you worked all match to get into a certain position for, i.e., weakening walls to put things in range, getting rid of your win-cons hard counter, predicting that your opp is also aware of your end game and having a second win-con they aren't as focused on, etc., only to have something change into an essentially different mon and take that work away from you will always feel silly. Tera is like a turn within a turn and it creates space for easy bail outs or sweeps vs an otherwise fair MU.

I say all that not to bring up the long dead Tera conversation, it's simply to illustrate we can get used to anything that isn't insanely broken. If we can handle a Dark/Steel mon turning into a Fairy with a Fairy STAB within a turn, then we can handle Kyurem and Darkrai. This is literally the meta most people want, and personally I've had no trouble with any of the mons on the survey with some exceptions if they Tera, but again, we voted for this. You can't have a meta with such a volatile mechanic baked into its core and expect consistent outcomes.

Post-Volc meta needs at least another few months in the oven, straight up. Nothing on the recent survey showed any promise of reaching a majority ban. Players who are in favor of banning multiple mons should realize that the moment we leave a dedicated offensive Tera meta we enter into a dedicated defensive Tera meta. Do we really want to lose more breakers? All the shrieking about if we ban Tera then SV will turn into SS will be ironic af since I would put money on a defensive heavy Tera meta making SS look fast-paced and hardcore in comparison.