Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[BolTingBlazie]

Why does everyone always complain about Shed Tail? Yeah, the move seems constricting, but there is counterplay to the move considering Orth is slow as balls and red card exists if you really need an out against it. So many people talk about this move like it's ruining the metagame or poisoning the ladder, like seriously, it's a 65-speed 55-spdef poke.

Just because orthworm isn't the best abuser of the move doesn't mean it isn't unhealthy. If orthworm even gets the sub up, a lot of the time it creates too many matchup fishes where it can allow certain pokemon to win outright if they get the opportunity to come in with the shed tail passed to it. Its not fun to play against, and just like baton pass, even if it is to a lesser degree its not healthy in the slightest due to the cheese you can pull off if you can get the shed tail passed. Just because orthworm has to play mind games to get the shed tail up doesn't mean the move as a whole isn't broken, because it very much is broken and uncompetitive.

 

[MAVERICK SHOOTERS]

SHED TAIL

SHED TAIL-THE NERF

Initially the reason for cyclizar being banned over shed tail as a move was that the only other shed tail user was orthworm which many(myself included) believed at the time was not broken as compared to cyclizar which had regenerator,knock off,rapid spin,uturn and was extremely fast while being able to run surprise strong moves like draco meteor or overheat to catch pokemon off guard and so everyone had come to the conclusion that we should ban cyclizar instead of shed tail since for a move to be banned it should prove that multiple pokemon are made by broken by it,along with this at the time we also had many broken pokemon allowed,most notably espathra and annihilape were there which were considered the best shed tail abusers and so the council made a decision to quickban all of cyclizar,annihilape and espathra(they weren't banned together,first cyclizar and annihilape was banned but espathra followed shortly after)


SHED TAIL-THE RISE

After cyclizar,annihilape and espathra being quickbanned most assumed shed tail is not so good anymore and for a while that was the case but slowly people started to explore it more and more and realised orthworm wasnt all that bad,it was just outshined by cyclizar at the time but can def pull its own weight on the team,thx to its unique ability in earth eater while being a steel type with a enormous base 145 def stat,it can shed tail on a plethora of common ou mons,some examples being: (non bpress or cc version) (For some of these examples it requires orthworm being at full to shed tail but it can be the rest talk set and meet that condition)
Looking at this it might seem like a lot of mons and yes that's the thing,it can successfully shed tail on a lot of mons!
There is another extremely key aspect of shed tail from orthworm which differentiates it from cyclizar's shed tail completely which is that orthworm is extremely slow as compared to cyclizar who was extremely fast which gives it the opportunity to soak up the hit itself before shed tailing giving whatever sweeper comes in a free substitute with no damage taken,considering you bring out a pokemon that takes advantange of opposing pokemon you now have a free turn to setup with them switching and another free turn of setup as they break your substitute,now add tera into the mix and it can become even more turns of u getting to setup,obviously this doesn't happen all the time but this is a very realistic scenario which the opponent can barely recover from,a lot of these setup sweepers also run moves like taunt or encore which messes with potential unaware threats or other defensive pokemon's ability to check it.Now it makes it 10x worse that the shed tail abusers themselves are extremely good and strong pokemon and with booster energy it bolsters their offenses even more or makes them super fast making it basically impossible to revenge outside priority and when these mons get a undamaged free substitute up,its generally just game right there.

DEBUNKING SOME COUNTER ARGUMENTS OF WAYS TO CHECK IT:
Red Card : Red Card isn't a consistent shed tail counter play,as I mentioned above the shed tail sweepers are usually extremely strong pokemon in their own right and red card requires the holder to take the hit and live,so you usually cant even bring out your red card pokemon right infront of the sweeper since you risk being ohko'd,so you have to bring out a pokemon which baits the opponents move which your red card pokemon can live and double on it which well your opponent can predict too and gg what happened to your counter play now?reading this itself should make you realise its not a consistent answer,also doesnt help that red card isnt a top tier item anyways and the mons would much rather hold items like leftover's or heavy duty boots than this.Another note:Most people who have played the game enough at high level know the pokemon's which may hold red card,most common example being: so that makes it even harder for the red card user to bait opponents move to red card him out

Whirlwind :The only pokemon which runs whirlwind is ,Mons like roaring moon can taunt it to prevent whirlwind while mons like baxcalibur and iron valiant can icicle spear and moonblast respectively both of which are super effective on it and chunks it heavily,which also means it requires your ting lu to be at near full to be able to take on these hits,hence this isnt a good enough counter play as only one pokemon runs it and the abusers have ways to damage it heavily or stop it.

Taunt/Encore : Mostly encore is run by offensive pokemon which are also usually comparatively frail and for encore to work the user would need to be slower,meaning you can potentially be killed before you can even encore.Taunt has the same case,next to no defensive pokemon run taunt,so its mostly run by offensive pokemon or leads(Well these obviously are leads so arent there in the later part of game or have their sash already broken) and so it falls under the same issue of pokemon being comparitively frail so may die,just that one thing it has is it doesnt need the user to be slower so it can taunt and prevent the setup,but that doesnt mean it damaged the pokemon or its substitute.

Can only shed tail once or twice : When cyclizar was around it usually took 3-4 shed tails before the game ended and so some ppl who havent played since are under the expression that it took cyclizar 3-4 shed tails before game ended,this can only do it once or twice,whats the big deal?
Well the thing is what i mentioned previously,it has a slow untouched substitute as opposed to cyclizar's substitute in which the receiving pokemon's substitute would take the damage often breaking it,here thats not the case,the receiver can basically get a guaranteed free turn and maybe more with tera potentially ending the game right there.

CONCLUSION:
A strat which is run in half the tournament games and high ladder games isnt a cheese strat,its a real strat.
This is an extremely uncompetitive(I dont think I need to explain why a baton pass+substitute in one turn is uncompetitive) and borderline broken move which is facilitated with extremely strong sweepers,booster energy and terastalization, It has run its time in the ou metagame and plagued the high ladder and tournaments enough that its time now it gets some immediate action taken on it,be it suspect or a quickban.If Suspect happens I would vote a Ban on it.
@Council kindly address this with a suspect or qb as soon as you can and pls dont say cuz home soon no action

 

[Savouras]

Its finally time to finish up the Bans for pre-home meta with one of the most broken ones that we have been discussin about since its first introduction, stupid Shed Tail.
Stats dont lie, this shit is everywhere and has shaped the metagame to the point that i find it pretty clear it has to go. Not gonna go in much detail as my boy Mav explained and gave a couple of examples above about why and how Shed Tail has shaped the metagame and how its not healthy for it. I find funny we took so long to adress this big problem and even had Pokemons banned like Espathra and maybe even Annihilape that outside of HO Shed tail cheesy teams they functioned worse. Especially Espathra that never saw the light of sun without Shed Tail clearly got banned because of it.

After so long and so much time we had to experiment with this broken mechanic i would easily support a Shed Tail Quick-ban but Suspect Test aint bad either (except that ST qualifiers coming up)

 

[Ast0rga]

Yeah after using Orthworm for most of S/V there's something that the post above mentioned but I'll just post the tl;dr version and it's something most people need to understand (well, it's just my/our opinion)

Slow Shed Tail > Fast Shed Tail

Orthworm @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Earth Eater
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Heavy Slam
- Body Press
- Shed Tail
- Iron Defense

No time for rocks, just take a hit, pass Shed Tail, and have some power in your other moves for the rare 1v1 late game scenario (it has happened and I was glad to have ID Body Press). Worm power!

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Survey soon! Hopefully this means shed tail can finally be gone or tested!

 

[kosecant]

Yeah because the Drizzle + Swift Swim ban totally worked out so well for the Gen 5 meta in the long term.

I'd actually be interested in a Spikes test if Gholdengo isn't on the table. Just in general. Spikes stacking is arguably stronger than Rocks and teams abusing it have continuously popped up over the years with high success.

I’ve always been of the opinion that spikes were better than rocks, and that they were only held back by poor move distribution. It seems that that holds mostly true, as spike have become completely absurd now that nearly every ground type gets them. A move suspect seems highly unlikely though, as you would need to prove that spikes are broken on every Pokémon that gets them. (Side note, I think the bar for what is considered a broken move should be lowered just a tad, especially because game freak is pretty consistently adding some crazy moves every generation and every dlc now)

 

[Finchinator]

View attachment 507139

Survey soon! Hopefully this means shed tail can finally be gone!

Confirming there will be a survey in the immediate future that will include Shed Tail.

 

[`ShadowTwo]

Why does everyone always complain about Shed Tail? Yeah, the move seems constricting, but there is counterplay to the move considering Orth is slow as balls and red card exists if you really need an out against it. So many people talk about this move like it's ruining the metagame or poisoning the ladder, like seriously, it's a 65-speed 55-spdef poke.

Orthworm's slow speed, combined with his incredible physical bulk, is what makes his Shed Tail so powerful. It resists a hit, and use Shed Tail into a pokemon which is guaranteed to boost for free on the next turn. Its low special bulk doesn't matter, as it can settle easily against physical attackers without Fight and Fire attacks, or defensive pokemon.

Very few teams play the Red Card.

 

[bludgeoning angel]

decentralization leads to disaster, you can shed tail into 10 different tera abusers and sweep, but if you unban annihilape they're more likely to shed tail into annihilape and you can find a way to counter the strategy
essentially, centralization makes more sense since you don't have to build a defensive core to check 30 different tera abusers only to lose to shed tail passing into a random protosynthesis/quark drive abuser like stored power scream tail who you're not prepared for
if you ban cyclizar then orthworm becomes OU destroying the whole tier in the process, if you ban chien-pao you make baxcalibur OU, if you ban flutter mane you make walking wake op
so you ban every single protosynthesis/quark drive mon or you ban shed tail, since fundamentally boosting moves and baton pass are obviously the most effective way to win a game, shed tail just makes this a no-brainer (at least with baton pass you need 2 turns and 2 move slots)
you can find the opening for a free shed tail into anything
but still, the real issue isn't shed tail, ironically it is the decentralization making the meta unplayable since you cannot predict what kind of pokemon your opponent has in the back that probably will win the game
finally, rotom-wash is OU and has decent usage but I haven't seen any rotom-wash teams winning games, that's why you need to check on winrate and matchups

tutorial on how to fix the meta:
- ban every legendary/paradox with over 570bst (including palafin and every paradox mon)
- suspect the mons you think aren't strong enough to break the metagame, let's say brute bonnet (even tho it 6-0s every fat team)
- value mons not individually but in a team preview, how threatening they're
- if toxapex gets scald back: ban toxapex, no questons asked
- see the winrate of every composition, let's say the winrate of orthworm+roaring moon and ban according to winrate NOT arbitrary opinions
- rinse and repeat

remember: when the meta is healthy, balanced teams are viable (now it is unplayable)

 

[Mega Breloom]

Confirming there will be a survey in the immediate future that will include Shed Tail.

Game Freak tonight: "it is a good time to announce Home update"

 

[Dreadfury]

Game Freak tonight: "it is a good time to announce Home update"

Jokes aside, though, how exactly would a situation like this be handled if it actually happened? Would the suspect test just get axed altogether if a suspect test was going on while HOME dropped, or would something else happen?

Because on one hand, I do think Shed Tail is insanely problematic (and it's like... the one thing that isn't one of the earlier quickbans I can see not being unbanned in a HOME meta because Shed Tail enables very strong stuff no matter what), but on the other hand I legitimately don't know how a suspect test would proceed if we got, say, a HOME or DLC drop out of the blue mid-suspect. If Garg were to be suspected prior to Walking Wake and H-Zoroark dropping but those mons still released out of the blue at the same time, how would that affect the suspect from a purely policy PoV since we obviously know now that Walking Wake is a meta-warping threat on its own.

 

[awyp]

Confirming there will be a survey in the immediate future that will include Shed Tail.

#freecyclizar

 

[awyp]

SHED TAIL
View attachment 507086

SHED TAIL-THE NERF

Initially the reason for cyclizar being banned over shed tail as a move was that the only other shed tail user was orthworm which many(myself included) believed at the time was not broken as compared to cyclizar which had regenerator,knock off,rapid spin,uturn and was extremely fast while being able to run surprise strong moves like draco meteor or overheat to catch pokemon off guard and so everyone had come to the conclusion that we should ban cyclizar instead of shed tail since for a move to be banned it should prove that multiple pokemon are made by broken by it,along with this at the time we also had many broken pokemon allowed,most notably espathra and annihilape were there which were considered the best shed tail abusers and so the council made a decision to quickban all of cyclizar,annihilape and espathra(they weren't banned together,first cyclizar and annihilape was banned but espathra followed shortly after)


SHED TAIL-THE RISE

After cyclizar,annihilape and espathra being quickbanned most assumed shed tail is not so good anymore and for a while that was the case but slowly people started to explore it more and more and realised orthworm wasnt all that bad,it was just outshined by cyclizar at the time but can def pull its own weight on the team,thx to its unique ability in earth eater while being a steel type with a enormous base 145 def stat,it can shed tail on a plethora of common ou mons,some examples being: (non bpress or cc version) (For some of these examples it requires orthworm being at full to shed tail but it can be the rest talk set and meet that condition)
Looking at this it might seem like a lot of mons and yes that's the thing,it can successfully shed tail on a lot of mons!
There is another extremely key aspect of shed tail from orthworm which differentiates it from cyclizar's shed tail completely which is that orthworm is extremely slow as compared to cyclizar who was extremely fast which gives it the opportunity to soak up the hit itself before shed tailing giving whatever sweeper comes in a free substitute with no damage taken,considering you bring out a pokemon that takes advantange of opposing pokemon you now have a free turn to setup with them switching and another free turn of setup as they break your substitute,now add tera into the mix and it can become even more turns of u getting to setup,obviously this doesn't happen all the time but this is a very realistic scenario which the opponent can barely recover from,a lot of these setup sweepers also run moves like taunt or encore which messes with potential unaware threats or other defensive pokemon's ability to check it.Now it makes it 10x worse that the shed tail abusers themselves are extremely good and strong pokemon and with booster energy it bolsters their offenses even more or makes them super fast making it basically impossible to revenge outside priority and when these mons get a undamaged free substitute up,its generally just game right there.

DEBUNKING SOME COUNTER ARGUMENTS OF WAYS TO CHECK IT:
Red Card : Red Card isn't a consistent shed tail counter play,as I mentioned above the shed tail sweepers are usually extremely strong pokemon in their own right and red card requires the holder to take the hit and live,so you usually cant even bring out your red card pokemon right infront of the sweeper since you risk being ohko'd,so you have to bring out a pokemon which baits the opponents move which your red card pokemon can live and double on it which well your opponent can predict too and gg what happened to your counter play now?reading this itself should make you realise its not a consistent answer,also doesnt help that red card isnt a top tier item anyways and the mons would much rather hold items like leftover's or heavy duty boots than this.Another note:Most people who have played the game enough at high level know the pokemon's which may hold red card,most common example being: so that makes it even harder for the red card user to bait opponents move to red card him out

Whirlwind :The only pokemon which runs whirlwind is ,Mons like roaring moon can taunt it to prevent whirlwind while mons like baxcalibur and iron valiant can icicle spear and moonblast respectively both of which are super effective on it and chunks it heavily,which also means it requires your ting lu to be at near full to be able to take on these hits,hence this isnt a good enough counter play as only one pokemon runs it and the abusers have ways to damage it heavily or stop it.

Taunt/Encore : Mostly encore is run by offensive pokemon which are also usually comparatively frail and for encore to work the user would need to be slower,meaning you can potentially be killed before you can even encore.Taunt has the same case,next to no defensive pokemon run taunt,so its mostly run by offensive pokemon or leads(Well these obviously are leads so arent there in the later part of game or have their sash already broken) and so it falls under the same issue of pokemon being comparitively frail so may die,just that one thing it has is it doesnt need the user to be slower so it can taunt and prevent the setup,but that doesnt mean it damaged the pokemon or its substitute.

Can only shed tail once or twice : When cyclizar was around it usually took 3-4 shed tails before the game ended and so some ppl who havent played since are under the expression that it took cyclizar 3-4 shed tails before game ended,this can only do it once or twice,whats the big deal?
Well the thing is what i mentioned previously,it has a slow untouched substitute as opposed to cyclizar's substitute in which the receiving pokemon's substitute would take the damage often breaking it,here thats not the case,the receiver can basically get a guaranteed free turn and maybe more with tera potentially ending the game right there.

CONCLUSION:
A strat which is run in half the tournament games and high ladder games isnt a cheese strat,its a real strat.
This is an extremely uncompetitive(I dont think I need to explain why a baton pass+substitute in one turn is uncompetitive) and borderline broken move which is facilitated with extremely strong sweepers,booster energy and terastalization, It has run its time in the ou metagame and plagued the high ladder and tournaments enough that its time now it gets some immediate action taken on it,be it suspect or a quickban.If Suspect happens I would vote a Ban on it.
@Council kindly address this with a suspect or qb as soon as you can and pls dont say cuz home soon no action

don't forget the infiltrator argument with dragapult lol

 

[Mega Breloom]

Does it mean we get back Cyclizar?

More like UU/RU gets it.
To add something else, I think it would worth including in the poll the common abusers of shed tail, like others have mentioned, in practice the free sub isn't really a factor in most of the cases, like in the tie breaker without the sub the moon player would just have use tera a turn early and the outcome would have been the same. So it is worth to ask if ST is really the issue or it just the the amount of threats that can snowball teams and realistically you can't prepare for them all making some battles just """"match up fish""".

 

[`ShadowTwo]

I think Shed Tail, Garganacl, Kingambit, Volcarona, Baxcalibur and maybe Iron Valiant should be included in the tiering survey. I hope quickban of Shed Tail.

Walking Wake and Tera have already had their suspect test and will be waiting for HOME, and for Gholdengo we have to see the impact of Pokémon arriving with HOME on the hazard game.

 

[`ShadowTwo]

And if Shed Tail is banned, please don't bring back Espathra and Anihilape, those Pokemon were horrible to fight against, even without Shed Tail.

 

[awyp]

And if Shed Tail is banned, please don't bring back Espathra and Anihilape, those Pokemon were horrible to fight against, even without Shed Tail.

Yeah I just want to echo this, Savorous said that the reason that Espathra was banned was because of Shed Tail is kind of not true tbh. Espathra was banned because of of Speed Boost + Calm Mind + Tera change cheese. I used Espathra successfully in psyspam didn't need Orthworm on the team to show that Espathra by itself is broken. In reality if Tera was ever banned Espathra would be OU, maybe UU / UUBL.

 

[Mega Breloom]

Yeah I just want to echo this, Savorous said that the reason that Espathra was banned was because of Shed Tail is kind of not true tbh. Espathra was banned because of of Speed Boost + Calm Mind + Tera change cheese. I used Espathra successfully in psyspam didn't need Orthworm on the team to show that Espathra by itself is broken. In reality if Tera was ever banned Espathra would be OU, maybe UU / UUBL.

Even without tera I can see Espathra being considered unhealthy, tera was what made it solo teams almost alone, without it would be just a matter of getting more support.

 

[Ctann]

The reason shed tail is too good is simple: there are many Pokémon that have matchups where there is only 1-2 checks to it in a typical team, and many of these checks require 2 turns to do their job. Shed tail puts you in a position where you need 3 turns.

“orthworm only gets 1-2 shed tails per game, max”. This is a true counter statement, but it doesn’t need anymore than 1. I’ve even had more success with rocky helmet over sitrus berry (ironically it assists with beating other shed tail + booster energy strats), and that only gives you one shed tail.

the SPL replay was a horrible example of why shed tail is too much for OU tho, lol.

If I were to participate in any tiering action, I would actually vote ban on shed tail, the level of pressure it puts in some matchups is far too much. You can completely turn a game on its head with the easiest double switching.

this point in the metagame is strange, you can run a team specifically designed to deal with shed tail, like standard skeledirge + rocky helmet max def dondozo + dragapult, and you’ll steamroll the games against shed tail, but it just feels weird

truly the only proper counter is all 6 on your team having enough power to do 75% or more to orthworm, or having taunt

—



roaring moon might be too good for OU as well, it’s the best abuser of booster energy, and has a good typing to fish for setup opportunities. Although it could be getting exacerbated by shed tail and general HO teams, because it’s mostly a problem when stacked with other high power threats.

 

[tigers jaw]

any concerns regarding potential issues around banning shed tail with home not too far off are moot. when things are deemed uncompetitive, this cannot be mitigated by a change of metagame context - they are uncompetitive inherently.

 

[sims796]

any concerns regarding potential issues around banning shed tail with home not too far off are moot. when things are deemed uncompetitive, this cannot be mitigated by a change of metagame context - they are uncompetitive inherently.

This should be the motto of the site by this point.

 

[Ast0rga]

Here's a replay I just got with worm , I know the ladder isn't too high but I think it's a good example of Shed Tail's raw efficiency. If there are more adequate replays well let's try to gather some of them to keep building this case.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1841672320

 

[Baloor]

hi, this part of a three-part series of post-spl post of mine. this one is mostly about my thoughts on the metagame coming out of spl, pokemon I like/dislike and what i think is particularly problematic. this thread seems to be arguing about drypassing at the moment so ill try to change the topic a bit.

meta thoughts

i find this metagame painfully plain and with a ton of issues, which is to be expected with a pre-home meta but I don't really think that should be case. I really just don't have fun playing SV OU at all which I feel might have been part of what affected my spl performance. something I noticed throughout SPL is that the meta didn't really "evolve" a ton, a lot of week 1 teams with slight edits can be still be serviceable now. usually in these high level tournaments you will see big metagame shakeups, especially in fresher tiers. throughout the tournament, we didn't really have any big metagame shakeups outside of two. the chien-pao ban which saw the rise of kingambit in its stead as the premier breaker certainly is very notable, but, teams were already prepping for gambit as it was and with the #1 mon in the tier being great tusk a lot of teams already had built in checks. There were some variations in gambit sets which started popping up like tera fairy which are threatening on its own but gambit was always a pokemon you needed to consider in builder and it just ended up losing competition for its slot. Amoonguss saw a light rise during this time but after the wake release came out not too long after it went back to normal (still a good mon but a 100% win rate with like 10 uses lol). Another shake-up was the Wake release, which only really affected a singular week until people realized it wasn't all that. The only effect this really had was the rise of slowking but it still faces a ton of competition in the water resist slot and isn't anything too notable. AV Toxapex could have been a result of Walking Wake but its kind of hard to tell what crying is thinking and might have became a trend regardless. Some might argue the takeover of shedtail teams but the thing is, when you look at the tier throughout the whole tournament, offense has always been the tiers premier style. While shed tail certainly now has a chokehold on the meta, we were dealing with obnoxious offensive threats the whole tour, we had espathra until like week 5 lol. That said, I don't find the metagame particularly rewarding building-wise as I feel a lot of structures are pretty cookie-cutter at this point. A lot of this has to do with the fact that due to the introduction of tera there is a good handful of pokemon that have become pretty over the top, meaning teams typically have to stack counterplay to a particular mon to cover more sets which in turn limits of the amount of options to be had in builder. The funny thing is you still likely lose to a particular set from one of the top tera abusers after you're done building your team anyway and a lot of it just comes down to praying you dont play vs said set. There are creative options to be had with tera, I don't think this negates my point. While I'll touch on tera and how you can innovate with that a bit more, looking at the tier from a purely Pokemon standpoint, I don't think there is a lot of creativity to be had and I feel you are actively shooting yourself in the foot by experimenting with more "heat mons".

if you know me you'll know I do not like tera. I don't want to beat on a dead horse too much so i won't, but ill touch on the necessary points as this is an spl metagame reflection. From a spectating point of view, tera adds an exciting oh shit element that SS simply didn't have. This is great for tournament interest, though, I don't find playing with it particularly fun or rewarding for playing good. The meta is incredibly centralized around baiting your opponent to tera first so you have an advantage by gaining an additional "50/50" that favors you. While sometimes there is situations where you can make an absurd amount of progress by teraing first, in most games you will try to save your tera. At a glance if you don't read into it much, you can argue that this is fine and perfectly skill based but there are some aspects that make this a very frustrating interaction. While you can learn what teras into what, most of the viable tera abusers have various tera options that are good so it turns this into a bit of a guessing game. While if this was locked onto one mon like z-moves or megas it could be fine, any pokemon can tera on any given turn which theoretically creates a 50/50 every turn. On the turn you tera you also gain a significant advantage due to the general unpredictability that is changing your defensive profile on a whim. Tera has very little skill reward cost for clicking a button compared to mechanics of the past like z-moves and megas. You can also run more troll and unpredictable tera options for very little drawback as you can choose to just not tera that mon in the game. I feel I've argued this 1000 times now but I legitimately find that a lot of the tiers problems come back to tera in the end and the people spouting the "SS 2" argument are pretty unjustified as this gens power creep is significantly higher than SS while also having significant move and base mechanic changes that will prevent this from happening. There are too many Pokemon that are broken abusers of the mechanic and we haven't even got to home yet, I'm fundamentally against banning a ton of pokemon just because they're broken tera abusers instead of just banning the common denominator. I find the amount of broken tera abusers alongside the whole "wanting to tera second" deal that this metagame has part of the reason offense is so strong. Offense being a pressure-heavy playstyle forces a lot of people to tera defensive pokemon just so they don't lose on the spot and you can take advantage of that reaction by responding with a sweeper that now just wins (for example, you force dirge to tera with moon so you can win with valiant). There's a lot of aspects of tera that i dont find we can feasibly justify keeping it around long term and i find its part of the reason the metagame feels so plain at the moment even with the lack of mons. I also feel like chien-pao is a very healthy mon that provides a lot of offensive utility for this current meta but an overall fine pokemon was pushed over the edge by tera, which i find frustrating as theres a lot of things that it offers otherwise. all things considered i think the lack of creativity outside of tera comes from the lack of mons and the fact that good tera abusers have a certain level of control over the metagame which requires a level of over prepping which causes particular restrains on the meta.

this might have came off as verbal garbage but im pretty unhappy with the current state of things but its understandable as we are just working with what we have. I feel like im forced to play something that I don't enjoy which is a first for me on this site and it did effect me mentally through spl. regardless of some of my horrible playing in spl and with all I previously said in this post considered, I don't find SV OU in its current state competitive and find you can play worse by a good margin and still troll your way to win even without hax. with all that said, with home hopefully around the corner im more than happy to move on from this pre home meta and im optimistic that we can make start to make some serious adjustments where ill be here to help move the meta forward as usual.

what i like (generally good/underrated)

I love this mon and I'm really happy i helped it take off. being one of the holy viable ground immunes we have is such a godsend for building while having a good defensive typing. this mon is also very threatening for common balance cores which makes it very useful currently and I'm under the belief that it is a A-rank mon.
under the radar broken mon. ada taunt destroys fat while jolly is very nice into offense. a well-positioned moon can make an absurd amount of progress. here is one of my spl games that showcases how a single miss-step lets this mon go nuts. while this team wasn't prepared for moon really at all, you can find a lot of other examples in spl and ost.
i spent a lot of time in spl building around this mon for really no reason at all. its a pretty under-the-radar threatening breaker that offers some nice utility on offense. illusion is a very annoying ability and hisui zoro abuses it better than base. has a really good win rate in tours fsr and nobody is really talking about it but me.
mon fell off for a bit because people were using it wrong but turns out having a hazard removal option in a meta that doesnt have much is really really good. fits on every playstyle and is a pretty clutch mon when push comes to shove. right now im really enjoying bulky ace with wisp but there is some bait offensive set that can make good progress.
another pseudo hazard removal, i think denying hazards in this meta is good guys. way less splashable than cinderace but comes with the benefit that it is incredibly annoying for current fat structures. personally i think the only good set is stored power but specs has seen some use too.
another top tera abuser that is under the radar broken. a shit ton of sets and tera options that can be edited for any team. everybody kinda has an idea of the sets and tera by now but i list some funnier ones that have merit; Focus Energy DD, Tera Fire Tera Blast DD, Tera Water DD and scarf.
loom is lowkey a top 5 fat breaker in the tier but sufferings from being pretty hard to fit on teams. very high risk high reward but a well built and played loom can pay off big time. njnp has been using a really cool loom lead ho thats pretty good. band and spore 3atks is insanely threatening.
steel type rocker that acts as a decent spdef sponge. pseudo valiant check. utility machine having options such as twave, knock and encore. encore in particular is really nice in the current meta to slow down set-up sweepers and fatter mons. being able to free up the rocks slot on tusk is also nice as it gives variety to teams such as being able to run a fighting move or bulk up. was given some really core teams that i found success with ladder on but never brought to spl.
everybody kinda knows what amoonguss does at this point but sleeping pokemon in this meta is really good as we don't have a lot switch ins to it. red card sets also has gave amoong a boost in viability for a few reasons but one of them is that you can red card pokemon out into getting a random spore on something, this is nice as you force a random sleep sack rather than your opp choosing what they sack. these sets are really nice on eject offense teams which are seeing increased usage rn thanks to people like mind gaming.
spore good but this time you can spore everything including gholdengo. rapid spinner that has access to knock, tspikes and spikes. good spdef with a nice offensive typing which makes this mon pretty threatening. i feel toeds is very underexplored right now and has some merit as a offensive lead and as a offensive pivot on balance. like tinkaton i didnt build with this guy personally but was given a couple of fun teams with it.
gholdengo seems like a weird pick here but its mostly because I feel its underexplored. for the most part, right now youll see offensive balloon/cover np or scarf with some instances of eject pack on some offensives. though i feel specs sets and defensive sets have some really good merit. i really think right now specs is just as viable as scarf but its just a case of being willing to try it out since so many people are accustomed to slapping it on for speed control without thinking about other options. defensively I also think gholdengo is pretty cool, offering a valiant check thats able to spread twaves. theres offensive sub sets i've seen that have also been annoying on ladder. ive seen tera fairy and tera water as well which i found very annoying to deal with. I think theres a lot of exploring to do with this guy still even though he is a top mon and think people should try to experiment with it more.

what i dislike (overhyped/other reasons)

my team and i found garg the single most overrated pokemon in the current meta for a few reasons. personally, I find garg the perfect example of a bait mon. teams are incredibly over-prepped for it and will be for the foreseeable future. i find people are far too scared of this mon to the point they'll sacrifice a good team comp just to not lose to it. the thing about garg is though is that it is not the most splashable mon in the tier at all, its actually pretty difficult to build with. I find that you will usually come out with a more solid by removing garg from your team altogether. The setup sets might be scary on paper but garg right now doesn't really have a lot of room to breathe in a more offense-based meta where pressure is everything. Another reason I dislike garg is the fact that saving tera is so important is so important in this meta and garg is mon that needs to tera most of the time to do anything, which is an aspect I really dislike. I personally think with the way teams are built right now theres no way you should still be losing at preview to this pokemon and all the fuss about it needing a ban is very unwarrented.
another pokemon that I consider a bait mon that im still seeing a lot of complaining about for some reason? i dont really find specs sets all too viable outside of sun though there some teams that use it well. sun itself has a lot of natural checks in the meta and its not particularly too difficult to deal with. outside of sun the pokemon isnt really anything special but it does have a unique role in the meta that I do appreciate. I do feel people are using this pokemon wrong and that sets such as subroar are a lot more viable currently or eject pack pivot sets on offense. I want to see more experimentation with wake as i think it has a lot of potential but the approach we a currently taking it is just good enough at best.
this is ironic because I feel some builds you are forced to run rotom but I find rotom is currently set-up bait for a lot of offensive teams which is not particularly fun when roaring moon comes in, taunts you and then wins. spdef twave is cool vs some teams but i feel this mons existence right now is to just to act as a levitate water resist and volt switch. I feel it currently lacks the ability to pressure the shit out of teams like it did previously.
clodsire is another mon i find is set-up bait for offensive teams despite being an unaware pokemon. the current set is just way too passive and doesn't threaten a whole lot outside of being one of the only pokemon with toxic which is cool i guess. I know within raiders we discussed that its current set is a little too passive but there might be some other options to make it more threatening such as the curse set that crying used. some people on my team really like this mon but I am personally not too much of a fan, though there are some teams that I don't particularly mind it on.
the thing about garchomp is that I find there is no reason to use it unless you really want to. its outclassed as a rocker, its outclassed a spiker, its outclassed as a ground and its outclassed as a breaker. Chain Chomp is still a fun set if used correctly but I dont find it particularly splashable when theres better options. eject pack and lead sets are probably the best sets but I feel there are better options for HO at the moment.
ladders favorite mon? i dont remember the last time this thing dude anything that another pokemon doesnt do way better though i keep seeing people advocating for its rise? most consistent set is probably the lead set but as I mentioned with chomp theres just way better HO leads. there is some merit to life orb sets under eterrain but that playstyle is pretty niche.
recent mon seeing some usage on ladder and seasonal. i dont find it good as I feel it makes you play a 5v6 most of the time since its only checking small handful of pokemon. admittedly it checks what it wants to pretty well but its otherwise deadweight in a lot of matchups.
(sorta) just like Gholdengo I wanted to have a kind of surprising entry to finish the list. while I feel Volcarona is 100% broken, I personally dislike building with it outside of HO teams due to the fact that I find its ability to edit its matchups far less valuable on bo and balance. Typically the annoyance of volcarona stems from the fact that it chooses its matchups and go make progress off of a guessing game. HO benefits from this as even if they manage to kill volcarona you can answer accordingly with a pokemon that appreciates the presence of volcarona. On a slower pace team theres not a lot of options that can take advantage of its presences and I find if you want to use something with a similar defensive profile on BO then theres other mons like skeledirge fair a bit better. I just find volcarona relatively harder to build with outside of HO even though on its own its a incredibly broken mon.

problems (excluding tera)

if you need proof for any of these claims please go watch replays from ost and spl lol. there is way more than enough examples to prove every point im making for every single one of these mons there. im talking about these mons in the current state but a general theme across all of them is that theyre likely fine with a tera ban.

(+ +) clumping these 3 together because theyre kind of all related. theres plenty posts about shed tail in the last few hours which I all agree with so I wont talk about this too long. in a tier where tera already can give some free turns and where tera sweepers run rampant, its not a surprise that giving slow passing a sub to give these sweepers another free turn is beyond annoying. I find roaring moon the biggest offender of this right now as sub gives it way too many opportunities. I find it pretty absurd that tera flying roaring moon can 1v1 a dondozo if it starts the sequence behind a sub. taunt roaring moon can own most of the fatter teams in the tier just by being given a sub and its pretty insane the lack of counterplay moon has just because of a move from a entirely different pokemon. I find bax in the same boat as moon but to a lesser extent as its fat mu is less good, but nonetheless being given a sub def pushes bax a little over the edge for me. I lumped moon and bax in with worm rather than theyre own section as I question their brokenness without shed tail while the rest of the list are just insane pokemon made even insaner by subpassing. I 100% feel we should qb shed tail and free the lizard and I also agree with the sentiment that this has stunted the growth of the tier to some degree.
any people that play SV rn know the gambit is the best mon in the tier. yeah tusk is the #1 in usage, but Gambit is the #1 offensive presence and is the best late-game mon probably in the history of pokemon itself. Gambit is one of incredibly low risk high reward and I've never seen a mon just the tide of a game just by existing as well as gambit does. I have seen this pokemon win a 1v4 before, thats how insane it is. Not to mention its tera options making it even more threatening. Tera Dark and Tera Fairy can make nuts progress and really lack counterplay while defensive options such as Fire and Flying can win games if you're drastically behind. I think this mon is probably the closest pokemon to a suspect test right now (we should qb shed tail) even though I dislike the next two pokemon more. Gambits simplicity with its ability to change the outcomes of games without any skillful positioning is pretty telling that is probably unhealthy, though at the moment im unsure about touching steel types in this tier due to us only have like 2-3 good ones at think we should probably wait till home when we have more options at this point.
we have been calling this pokemon the Matchup moth for various generations but I feel this is the generation where its most true. this pokemon has been checked by rocks for generations now but in generation 8 boots were added. while it was certainly very annoying in gen8, it had issues getting past some of its reliable counterplay. In gen9, however, tera was introduced alongside another mons cut and now this thing is running rampant. volc is known to be able to edit its matchups to best suit its team while being a massive pain in the ass when it comes to "predicting" the set. Every team is weak to one of volcarona sets at this point and it has like 10 different ones so good luck. sub passing makes this pokemon even more annoying as it gives it free set up most of the time. One missplay can typically lead towards it making absurd progress into a team and opening holes for the sweepers in the back to clean up the mess. Feel like everybody at this point knows this mon is insane and the only thing holding it back right now is the offensive meta we are in where the best answer to it is to just win first lol.
Guessing game the pokemon Electric Boogaloo 2. Similar vein to volcarona where it has a million sets but has a little bit more universal counterplay. Though, unlike volcarona, it has options across all playstyles making it a lot more widespread. Valiant also punishes people by clicking tera a lot more than volcarona does and can really mess with peoples gameplans where was volc just teras and tries to smash through your team. Overall, valiant is an annoying guessing game, has a lot of utility to troll games and can fit on just about every playstyle. The sweeper sets can snowball pretty easily being able to tera out of priority and super effective hits or encore defensive mons while the breaker sets have the coverage to break past most teams and you just have to get the turns right (or you can be a maniac and run wise glasses / expert belt. I don't feel there is a lot of reliable counterplay to valiant as its main thing is kind of trolling ts counterplay through tera and utility moves like encore, taunt and trick. Do think this suspect would be interesting as I see theres some strong opinions about it unlike the other two blatantly broken mons where its like "yeah we should probably ban it" but I find the guessing game valiant has is just way too much and its sheer amount of sets is the reason its obnoxious in the first place.

thanks for reading my essay, I probably missed a lot of things as I was trying to cover a very large topic rather than focusing on a smaller one but I think I covered my general thoughts on the metagame as well as stuff I like/dislike pretty well. I do find this metagame a chore to play and not enjoyable due to various aspects I consider uncompetitive such as the several guessing games in the tier, whether that be tera or the mons themselves, that take a ton of control from one player. There is too many ways to gain position that do not involve playing better than your opponent and personally, that frustrates me. despite me saying how much I dislike the tier, ill still probably play the tier for now regardless due to commitments lol. once again, thanks for reading this, and hopefully you can take something from my perspective to help better create your own.

here is my SPL team dump and game retrospective for those interested https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-premier-league-xiv-sv-ou-discussion.3714163/page-2#post-9575543

 

[Magcargo]

any concerns regarding potential issues around banning shed tail with home not too far off are moot. when things are deemed uncompetitive, this cannot be mitigated by a change of metagame context - they are uncompetitive inherently.

Why is Shed Tail uncompetitive and not just OP? Its hardly comparable to RNG elements that we mostly banned for uncompetitiveness like Sheer Cold, Double Team, Moody, etc. nor does it remove a fundamental element of the game like Shadow Tag / Arena Trap do (though those abilities may just be more of a case of being OP than uncompetitive). Closest analog to Shed Tail is Baton Pass, but I do think Baton Pass had a much greater form of "nuance" to its uncompetitiveness because of full chains being a thing. W/ individual passers like Venemoth, Smeargle, or Scolipede, I feel it was a case of them just being OP because it was extremely difficult to stop them from passing boost due to Protect + Speed Boost or Sleep move + boosting move, which seems to be the case w/ Orthworm, where the issue is that dealing 75%+ damage to it is difficult, making it hard to prevent a Shed Tail pass.

 

[kosecant]

Why is Shed Tail uncompetitive and not just OP? Its hardly comparable to RNG elements that we mostly banned for uncompetitiveness like Sheer Cold, Double Team, Moody, etc. nor does it remove a fundamental element of the game like Shadow Tag / Arena Trap do (though those abilities may just be more of a case of being OP than uncompetitive). Closest analog to Shed Tail is Baton Pass, but I do think Baton Pass had a much greater form of "nuance" to its uncompetitiveness because of full chains being a thing. W/ individual passers like Venemoth, Smeargle, or Scolipede, I feel it was a case of them just being OP because it was extremely difficult to stop them from passing boost due to Protect + Speed Boost or Sleep move + boosting move, which seems to be the case w/ Orthworm, where the issue is that dealing 75%+ damage to it is difficult, making it hard to prevent a Shed Tail pass.

It’s uncompetitive because of how it reduces skill in the game. Usually a strategy that could be considered “brain dead” and also is very strong in the meta would be considered uncompetitive even if there is nothing inherently random about it. She’s tail is a very low risk high reward play style, and makes games far more linear.