Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[Morkal]

A bit off topic, but why not uturn on poison touch? Wouldn't it be better since you can poison opposing mons?

Also all those points make alot of sense, definitely see why you'd use deoxys-speed. Thanks for the explanation y'all!

I've found that the utility of softening an incoming attack via Parting Shot is more helpful than the additional Poison chance when it comes to U-Turn. However, it is definitely still a valid option if damage accumulation and status spreading are a higher priority for your team build, and you can assure that Grafaiai won't be put in a position to take more hits than it needs to. Parting Shot doesn't trigger powerful STAB priority moves such as Kingambit's Sucker Punch or Raging Bolt's Thunderclap. Grafaiai isn't bulky, and its defensive profile is situational (immunity to Ghost-type attacks is nice, but not as common as you'd think), so any hits you can avoid taking with Grafaiai should be avoided.

 

[perplexful]

Hi everyone. This is my first post on the overused forums in a while.

I think the metagame right now is pretty good, with one notable exception.

I believe that screens are too polarizing in the current metagame and that the meta would be far far better off with light clay banned. I don't think they are necessarily broken or particularly overpowered, but I do think that screens promote a very parasitic playstyle where you just throw a series of threats together and hope they can get though. Sometimes they can't, sometimes they can, but ultimately the opportunities for skill expression are very minimal in any match screens are involved. Especially recently, screens have become super optimized to fish as many good matchups as possible. Playing non cheese offenses at the moment feels very difficult because its challenging to deal with many of the setup threats that exist in the game once the screens are up for frailer teams. Ceruledge is a very big offender(probably the biggest), but stuff like moltres galar, gambit, gliscor, and hatterene can turn a single turn behind screens into an instant win.

I dont particularly find screens to be super mentally engaging to play or to play against either. I never feel like my wins come from getting key turns right or playing a solid positional game on BOTH sides of the matchup. Its usually just send in setup threat-> hope it wins-> if it doesnt, hope that whatever just came in to deal with it is setup fodder for my next guy. And if it isnt, then usually the game is over very quickly.
There are other cheeses that feel like this, namely stall and sun, but the matchup spread for those styles are much worse. Stall is bad and sun is really fishy(on top of that games vs sun are a lot less linear). But screens feels like it is way too good for how much skill expression it removes from the game. It ends up being a major team building constraint(probably the biggest one currently honestly), since if you lose to screens, there isnt really any cope you can have with "if I play well I can outplay this bad matchup", its just you die immediately and painfully.

Anyway long story short, screens are probably not "overpowered" in the traditional sense but they feel very toxic to the game and are too good for how much they rely on getting the matchup+how little they make in game skill matter.

I saw no one really replied so i thought i would take a shot at making this an actual discussion lol but i mean this is just kind of how the game works, new strategies are constantly being made. I mean if screens really becomes such an annoyance for the metagame then it’s not much of a hard thing for it to adapt to -> things like infiltrator dragapult could finally find their time to shine. i also think banning light clay is a little stretched considering how quickly screens can fall apart after deo - s is knocked off or dead. Sure atm there is a lot of cringe teams and strategies but it’s still a lot of stuff that just require common counters that seem so rare because of how vast SVOU has become with insane strategies. Infiltrator haze etc. But i can agree this late stage of SVOU has felt very unenjoyable cuz cheesy strategies.

 

[Moyashi]

I saw no one really replied so i thought i would take a shot at making this an actual discussion lol but i mean this is just kind of how the game works, new strategies are constantly being made. I mean if screens really becomes such an annoyance for the metagame then it’s not much of a hard thing for it to adapt to -> things like infiltrator dragapult could finally find their time to shine. i also think banning light clay is a little stretched considering how quickly screens can fall apart after deo - s is knocked off or dead. Sure atm there is a lot of cringe teams and strategies but it’s still a lot of stuff that just require common counters that seem so rare because of how vast SVOU has become with insane strategies. Infiltrator haze etc. But i can agree this late stage of SVOU has felt very unenjoyable cuz cheesy strategies.

Infiltrator Pult has issues with Tera abusing set up threats due to its lack of notable power, and is hardly a catch all for every screens abuser in the first place. It’s awful against Galarian Moltres and CM Hatterene and in general struggles against bulky set up mons. Phasing is not always reliable because some abusers run taunt to shut that down, which also ruins haze attempts.

Riding out the 8 turns of screens isn’t always the easiest, nor is it an automatic solution either when some mons can just abuse those turns to snowball into a very dangerous, potentially game winning state right there. This again is very notable in bulky set up threats like the aforementioned edge and goltres, but also cm hat, sd gliscor, gambit, and the many other variable threats you can run into. Screens with clay have too much variable options and there aren’t enough reliable ways to deal with enough of the possible combinations, leading to the style really feeling kind of cheesy, at least I think so. You have go be prepared for these kinds of teams or just risk losing outright very quickly, but they place an annoying restraint on the builder in a tier that has so many threats to account for naturally as is.

Screens are a reason why I just find myself not enjoying building or playing this tier lately. There’s also burnout from how long gen9 has gone on but it’s felt not great

 

[EpicGuy321]

If you hate screens just run Psychic Fangs Metagross. Ez. Or classic stuff like Garg to outlast. In general screens will beat some offenses which can't play around A9, so you just have to consider that in builder I think.

Something cool is that Hoopa-U may get Psychic Fangs in gen 10, because it has it in ZA DLC.

 

[Slyish]

Hi everyone. This is my first post on the overused forums in a while.

I think the metagame right now is pretty good, with one notable exception.

I believe that screens are too polarizing in the current metagame and that the meta would be far far better off with light clay banned. I don't think they are necessarily broken or particularly overpowered, but I do think that screens promote a very parasitic playstyle where you just throw a series of threats together and hope they can get though. Sometimes they can't, sometimes they can, but ultimately the opportunities for skill expression are very minimal in any match screens are involved. Especially recently, screens have become super optimized to fish as many good matchups as possible. Playing non cheese offenses at the moment feels very difficult because its challenging to deal with many of the setup threats that exist in the game once the screens are up for frailer teams. Ceruledge is a very big offender(probably the biggest), but stuff like moltres galar, gambit, gliscor, and hatterene can turn a single turn behind screens into an instant win.

I dont particularly find screens to be super mentally engaging to play or to play against either. I never feel like my wins come from getting key turns right or playing a solid positional game on BOTH sides of the matchup. Its usually just send in setup threat-> hope it wins-> if it doesnt, hope that whatever just came in to deal with it is setup fodder for my next guy. And if it isnt, then usually the game is over very quickly.
There are other cheeses that feel like this, namely stall and sun, but the matchup spread for those styles are much worse. Stall is bad and sun is really fishy(on top of that games vs sun are a lot less linear). But screens feels like it is way too good for how much skill expression it removes from the game. It ends up being a major team building constraint(probably the biggest one currently honestly), since if you lose to screens, there isnt really any cope you can have with "if I play well I can outplay this bad matchup", its just you die immediately and painfully.

Anyway long story short, screens are probably not "overpowered" in the traditional sense but they feel very toxic to the game and are too good for how much they rely on getting the matchup+how little they make in game skill matter.

Hi.

I agree that the idea of screens is very mu fishy and generally unfun to play against among other archetypes (stall will always be worse). However, I feel like this is just a common theme with Gen 9. The introduction of gambit and Bolt made 50/50s very normal in most games, and those mons fit on a majority of team archetypes, which is arguably a guessing game and supports the notion that it didn't matter how you played or if you got key turns right, you might still lose to the gambit in the back.

To address screens directly, I do think it comes down to what team styles you enjoy playing and the counters you can find within them. If you enjoy playing HO, you do have to accept that screens may be a big determining factor in most games. Balance can get away with running a solid defogger or Cinderace. From my perspective, the highest performing teams consistently that I've been seeing are balance or bulky offense, and I believe the meta has shifted away from mindlessly spamming offense for free wins, ESPECIALLY near the top of the ladder. As you had mentioned as well, HO has to always be aware that it can run into stall and insta lose on the spot, which is why it feels like running these teams are more cheesy and not super mentally engaging.

Addressing screens can be fairly simple. As I had mentioned, Cinderace is an amazing counter to screens and significantly limits the screen users ability to use their main strategy. Another fairly simple counter is status moves or phasing moves. A thunder waving gking or gholdengo and a whirlwing tinglu or skarm can easily shut down a mindless setup sweeper going for game after screens get up. Along the lines of this, and knowing gholdengo is can be a team member on screens teams, you can run defoggers like Corv who seems to be on 90% of teams nowadays. Hazards also tend to be very useful, as breaking potential sashes for certain setup sweepers or getting consistent chip on certain switch ins can be beneficial in the long run You can run things like choiced breaker/utility pult, but it's not ideal and can usually get shut down by one of the 5 sweepers on the screens team. Lastly, screens thankfully don't last forever. The screens team, depending on the team they are against, usually can activate screens maybe 2 or 3 times during a game, and still have to spend turns setting up and switching out of their setup user, as well as turns setting up their sweeper. Ninetails-A and Deo-s tend to be the best users since alolatails doesn't have to waste a turn on one of the screens, and Deo-S is fast with a lot of utility, yet alolatails still struggles into multiple different mons and relies on hail being up and is punished by hazards very heavily, and Deo-S can struggle with 4 move syndrome and can be very obvious on team preview, showing some big flaws into the screens strategy. If you run into a sun team with alolatails screen setup, it'll be very difficult to get that w.

Ultimately, I think screens are healthy and are just a niche part of the Gen 9 metagame. It might not be fun to play against, but I believe you risk more running a screens team than you do running balance or BO as the counterplay to it relies on multiple different factors. For lower to mid ladder, it can be very effective, but as soon as you reach the higher ranks, I believe it falls off a cliff in terms of viability. Screens HO seems to be worse than just running hazard stack HO and hoping for the best.

Sorry for the long post, I don't engage often, but I had thought this at the beginning of the generation and I feel like the metagame has just become a much better place lol.

 

[Achohermano]

To address screens directly, I do think it comes down to what team styles you enjoy playing and the counters you can find within them. If you enjoy playing HO, you do have to accept that screens may be a big determining factor in most games. Balance can get away with running a solid defogger or Cinderace. From my perspective, the highest performing teams consistently that I've been seeing are balance or bulky offense, and I believe the meta has shifted away from mindlessly spamming offense for free wins, ESPECIALLY near the top of the ladder.

I don't know what you consider "near the top", but I play on the 1800s, and every single player I face except the Jolteon guy is either playing stall, or HO, 80% of the time it is, in fact, screens HO. And those fellas are like my elo or higher. So I honestly completly disagree.

I don't think that screens are broken but they're clearly omega easy to use and spam, and they're extremely common atm in ALL elos.

 

[LoseToRU?]

I've never given a second thought to screens/light clay.
Even as an offensive player, I never really went for what I would consider gimmick offense: webs, screens, weather, TR, etc.
They always felt a little inconsistent and unengaging MU fishing. I did rock M-Camel TR in gen 6 and in gen 8 my Maractus Sun was beyond based +2 252+ SpA Maractus Solar Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragapult in Grassy Terrain: 306-360 (96.5 - 113.5%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
Ox Hail last gen was fun as well, but I digress.

SV is wildly MU fishy. It's not rock, paper, scissors bad but not that far off, either. Screens is not helping the situation.
Higher skilled players can better navigate a bad MU, but your average player will be loading into massive uphill battles here and there, depending on their team.

Citing Ace, or Infiltrator just proves the point that unless they have specific mons, or a certain team archetype, then some monster set-up sweeper who can Tera past their check will steamroll the match. Needing to have the same pair of scissors on every team isn't a good sign. Don't get me started on the cringe "use brick break, psy fangs" rhetoric. Be serious.

Light Clay isn't broken, but it's definitely not healthy. All is does is increase the MU fishing. It's just another strain on the builder.
That opens the question that seemingly cannot be answered: "What do we do with unhealthy elements that aren't technically broken." Or, sorry, it can be answered, it's just the solution seems to be: "We just shrug and keep them around."

I simply see Light Clay as another King's Rock
The arguments are almost the same lol
"Bring something specific to counter it. If KR is broken then Inner Focus mons will rise. Just use Covert Cloak. Use priority moves. You have to accept that KR will be a big determining factor in most games. I think KR is healthy and niche."

LC won't get banned, but let's not pretend it's adding anything to the meta. It's just more cheese in the cheddar factory of SV. It's for players who struggle with positioning. Instead of sacking something and bringing in your set-up mon in on something it can set up on, just boost in front of basically anything due to magical damage reduction. Don't worry about eliminating all the checks before sweeping, that RK can't quite KO now due to magically increased bulk.

I have zero struggles vs screens, for the record. Since I am actually good at offense instead of pretending to be, I get my momentum going vs screen cheese like 90% of the time. I personally don't care. But again, let's be serious. It's not healthy, it wasn't designed for 6v6 singles, and if it was gone the only players who would miss it are also the players who miss King's Rock, for the exact same reasons.

--
p.s. some cool replays of full RU or lower mons on OU ladder: Psychic Noise Yanmega - Comfey <3 - Scarf Craw - Screens lol

 

[Slyish]

I don't know what you consider "near the top", but I play on the 1800s, and every single player I face except the Jolteon guy is either playing stall, or HO, 80% of the time it is, in fact, screens HO. And those fellas are like my elo or higher. So I honestly completly disagree.

I don't think that screens are broken but they're clearly omega easy to use and spam, and they're extremely common atm in ALL elos.

I see what you mean. I think there’s a blurred line somewhere in the 1700s where you have a solid mix of good and mid players. I also think we actually agree that screens is probably the easiest play style to load up and win a game on, I was just arguing that screens weren’t broken and that there is very viable counterplay. It’s extremely viable because it is very easy, but I think what I’m saying here by “near the top” is you’d be hard struck to find an 1800s screens warrior consistently beating someone who is competent using balance.