Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

Finchinator

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OU Leader
If I may contribute to the suggestion box. Can we make tangible Tera solutions included on the next survey? That would gauge community support on specific courses of action to be tested or possibly even bypass a suspect test. Examples:

How do you feel about (1-5 scale just like suspects) ?

Tera Blast Ban
Tera Preview
Tera Captain
Tera Preview is a real non-solution. It was popular initially because VGC had just adopted it and it was super early, but it does not resolve a ton of "issues" (putting it in air quotes as many people do not view them as issues, but those who want action do, so it's in the eye of the beholder) that people have since noted. It got absolutely dismantled when the last wave of Tera discussions happened, which you can find here.

Tera Captain got virtually no support up front and really has no basis for even being included in future discussions.
 

1LDK

Vengeance
is a Top Team Rater
I want to believe the best for my favorite stapler, but the odds are looking against us rn. Too many top players want this guy gone, including Vert, Mav, AK, Srn, etc. With Kyurem, I expected roughly a 55% ban - DNB ratio, but I think given its SPL performance, the ban - DNB ratio will be closer to 80% for Archie.

That doesn't mean us Arch enjoyers will go down with out a fight though! I will give it my all to save the bridge! After all, bridges are bind us together as a community. We came together for Kyurem, we can do it again for Arch!

#SaveArch
Magcargo
 
Tera Preview is a real non-solution. It was popular initially because VGC had just adopted it and it was super early, but it does not resolve a ton of "issues" (putting it in air quotes as many people do not view them as issues, but those who want action do, so it's in the eye of the beholder) that people have since noted. It got absolutely dismantled when the last wave of Tera discussions happened, which you can find here.

Tera Captain got virtually no support up front and really has no basis for even being included in future discussions.
Yes, but those were discussions. What is the problem with putting them on the survey to get numerical data on community sentiment? Not saying it will contradict any of the discussion points but at least there would be a metric to say that community sentiment was polled and there is no reason to further pursue.
 
Speaking of starters, would running Charizard on sun teams even be an ok idea? I am quite sure that, with Chi-Yu not in the tier it is the most powerful special attacking fire type in OU. Now I am aware it is very unreliable but still would it ever be worth considering on sun teams this gen?
 
Otherwise, we might as well include every single Pokemon on the survey, too.
i feel like this, or at least including every mon currently in ou, would actually not be that terrible of a thing to do under certain circumstances. sure, the survey would be extremely long, but it'd absolutely eliminate the very real danger of some future survey maker trying to manipulate the tiering process by excluding certain problematic mons from surveys. if kokoloko tiering is ever adopted, i think it might be worth including every single ou pokemon on the pre-banwave survey
 
I think suspecting tera should wait, most people agree on this from what it seems when monsters like Archaludon and Roaring Moon are still in the tier and need to be suspected
 
i feel like this, or at least including every mon currently in ou, would actually not be that terrible of a thing to do under certain circumstances. sure, the survey would be extremely long, but it'd absolutely eliminate the very real danger of some future survey maker trying to manipulate the tiering process by excluding certain problematic mons from surveys. if kokoloko tiering is ever adopted, i think it might be worth including every single ou pokemon on the pre-banwave survey
I think suspecting tera should wait, most people agree on this from what it seems when monsters like Archaludon and Roaring Moon are still in the tier and need to be suspected
I’d be surprised if anything gets banned at this point. The metagame IMO has reached a point of saturation where there are so many borderline threats and strategies that you don’t encounter one specific threat enough to perceive it as being broken. Roaring Moon is an example of mon that is probably broken, but isn’t staple. I’ve gone entire days without seeing Moon. It’s tough to consider that broken, even if when you encounter it cleans your clock.
 

FayaWizard

Amnesia
is an official Team Rateris a Tiering Contributor
i feel like this, or at least including every mon currently in ou, would actually not be that terrible of a thing to do under certain circumstances. sure, the survey would be extremely long, but it'd absolutely eliminate the very real danger of some future survey maker trying to manipulate the tiering process by excluding certain problematic mons from surveys. if kokoloko tiering is ever adopted, i think it might be worth including every single ou pokemon on the pre-banwave survey
What even is the point of adding all the mons of the tier? If something is such a presence that it'll need action, it'll either A: be on the survey or B: be in the writeins. Current surveys are fine. And if you're arguing that some future survey might be rigged, then that doesn't reflect on the survey itself, but the leadership of the tier (which isn't even remotely close to this problem and I doubt it'll ever reach such a point).
 
Now that Kyurem is here for a while, does anyone know a Mon have a switch into it? Or do we not do that anymore?
before i lay out my opinion, i will admit that in rain archaludon is extremely strong, very snowbally, and often trades for at least one mon. the thing holding it back from being broken in my eyes (and this opinion is liable to change) is that it's heavily dependent on rain to actually be that good. unlike something like gouging fire, who can force similar trades with out-of-weather sets too, archaludon really needs those electro shots to get to that scary-strong level, and it really needs that rain for those electro shots. also, when i play arch i feel like i still have to actually play the game to get mileage out of it, as opposed to gouging fire or roaring moon or kyurem, where i can basically just click buttons
Ok I agreed with you and then I played with/against more rain and I think Arch is a total cheat code. It’s so disgusting broken in rain it warps the meta in insane way. Ting Lu isn’t even a true check, if it take any chip at all it’s can’t switch in to it.
 

TPP

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Head TD
Now that Kyurem is here for a while, does anyone know a Mon have a switch into it? Or do we not do that anymore?


Jokes aside, you can try:

Slowking-Galar
Volcarona
Blissey
Offensively checking Kyurem
Tera on a good turn (like using Tera Water Glowking and using Thunder Wave or Toxic on that turn)
Balloon Gholdengo/Kingambit

It really depends on what Kyurem's set turns out to be. Boots means weaker raw power, which makes it easier to check if you have a sturdier mon like Defensive Volcarona. Specs would be weak to Stealth Rock, offensively checking it, and scouting the choice lock move while keeping your Ice/Dragon resists around. Tera turns help a lot in case it does look a bit difficult to handle in the long-run. Gholdengo and Slowking-Galar are pretty good at paralyzing it while using Tera to tank a hit.
 
Now that Kyurem is here for a while, does anyone know a Mon have a switch into it? Or do we not do that anymore?


Ok I agreed with you and then I played with/against more rain and I think Arch is a total cheat code. It’s so disgusting broken in rain it warps the meta in insane way. Ting Lu isn’t even a true check, if it take any chip at all it’s can’t switch in to it.
To a certain extent I think you people are just playing into arch really poorly. Even with an assault vest it really can't take neutral special hits that well and, while its physical bulk is decent, it still takes quite a bit from the initial hits and has no recovery to speak of outside of alomomola on bulkier rain teams. Like I agree that arch is very good but what is it gonna do in the face of glowking + a second pivoter. Arch is certainly a great pokemon but you're all greatly overhyping its capabilities imo. Like the chip you're forcing on it by just threatening skewda adds up quickly and can end up with arch dying earlier than the rain player would like.
 
To a certain extent I think you people are just playing into arch really poorly. Even with an assault vest it really can't take neutral special hits that well and, while its physical bulk is decent, it still takes quite a bit from the initial hits and has no recovery to speak of outside of alomomola on bulkier rain teams. Like I agree that arch is very good but what is it gonna do in the face of glowking + a second pivoter. Arch is certainly a great pokemon but you're all greatly overhyping its capabilities imo. Like the chip you're forcing on it by just threatening skewda adds up quickly and can end up with arch dying earlier than the rain player would like.
To be clear I enjoy using it in rain, I just think it can easily create a path for Skewda in so many games. It provides a lot of routes to winning, unless you’re going against Clod, it’s clear you need to chip down the pivot/Ground switch once and then you can beat it 1v1.

I don’t think saying “you people are playing it poorly” isn’t a constructive argument.
Electro Shot on Gking Switch in and then Draco takes out/heavily chips most mons.
 
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Jokes aside, you can try:

Slowking-Galar
Volcarona
Blissey
Offensively checking Kyurem
Tera on a good turn (like using Tera Water Glowking and using Thunder Wave or Toxic on that turn)
Balloon Gholdengo/Kingambit

It really depends on what Kyurem's set turns out to be. Boots means weaker raw power, which makes it easier to check if you have a sturdier mon like Defensive Volcarona. Specs would be weak to Stealth Rock, offensively checking it, and scouting the choice lock move while keeping your Ice/Dragon resists around. Tera turns help a lot in case it does look a bit difficult to handle in the long-run. Gholdengo and Slowking-Galar are pretty good at paralyzing it while using Tera to tank a hit.
Thanks this is a great explanation. I’ve considered the Snorlax tech!
 
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The whole point of surveys is they only take a few minutes to fill out -- we would be doing a substantial disservice in overly inflating them.
fair enough, i suppose anything dumb enough will get enough write-in votes to address anyway
Now that Kyurem is here for a while, does anyone know a Mon have a switch into it? Or do we not do that anymore?
i guess we, i dunno, just learn to live with either revenge-killing or just losing to it? apparently having no switch-ins is perfectly fine nowadays, look at gouging fire
 

KamenOH

formerly DynamaxBestMeta
fair enough, i suppose anything dumb enough will get enough write-in votes to address anyway

i guess we, i dunno, just learn to live with either revenge-killing or just losing to it? apparently having no switch-ins is perfectly fine nowadays, look at gouging fire
252+ SpA Choice Specs Landorus-Therian Earth Power vs. 204 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Archaludon: 396-468 (106.4 - 125.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Archaludon Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 24 SpD Landorus-Therian: 265-313 (83 - 98.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
It forces the Arch out, no?

Edit: for you physical chads:
252+ Atk Tera Ground Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 204 HP / 0 Def Archaludon: 416-492 (111.8 - 132.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
 
I am not upset that Kyurem is staying. Given the context of this broken gen of insane offense, Kyurem really isn't that bad. That doesn't necesarrily make it good for the tier. But eh. Everything is just very hyper offensive now. This isn't a broken checks broken argument, either. But the entire gen is broken. At what point do we raise our standards on what is considered broken? Perhaps that has happened with a few mons like Kyurem. It just sucks having to ban like every other mon because it is too much.

To touch on some of the other conversations on here, I do agree that Tera is problematic. I don't know if anything will be done about it. There is a lot of bias for the mechanic. All this has been touched on before. It's just a matter of community will.

If we address rain, I agree that Arch should be the focus. I actually really like Raging Bolt in the tier, particularly since every OU team already runs a ground type. It doesn't take that much more to prep for it, unlike Arch. And we should allow rain to have some bulky options.

If we were to ban Barraskewda, it would just be replaced with some other swift swim sweeper(s). In this gen, literally anything can combine all these bonus multipliers with the Tera multiplier to get insane damage output. The only thing about Barraskewda is, even for a Swift Swim sweeper, the speed tier in rain is a bit outrageous. But that didn't break it before. Anyways, the point is the other potential rain sweepers have much more manageable speed tiers. So if that ever did become a problem, that's about the only way it would make sense to ban just Barry.

Speaking of outrageous speed tiers, did you know D-Speed is actually able to outspeed the entire unboosted tier with only a + speed nature? No EVs even required. The next fastest OU mon is Dragapult, which basically never runs scarf and gets out sped even with 252 EVs and a + nature. This frees you up to put all your EVs in whatever else you want. You could still put EVs in speed to outspeed certain boosted things if you want, but like, you don't even really need to. And your opponent often cannot tell the set and precise speed tier until it is too late.

Yeah, I've tested this thing a bit. While I could use more testing, D-Speed still has me concerned. Not only did figuring out more about what this can do not change my mind on its brokenness, I actually think it's maybe more problematic than I initially thought. The biggest problem is the existence of the mixed Life Orb set. I'm not going to get too into it now, but I have a post coming at some point this week probably. It will take some time to get everything organized.

Now that Kyurem is here for a while, does anyone know a Mon have a switch into it? Or do we not do that anymore?
Although there were some answers given, I think this needs to be touched on more. It's debatable that we really don't do that anymore. Not just for Kyurem but for a lot of mons. The power creep is just so insane this gen.

Even something like Enamorus, which I assume most people wouldn't consider broken at all, is often tough to switch into because of the combination of Fairy and Earth Power. Kyurem has Ice STAB + Earth Power. Same difference. Enamorus even has a physical set it can use with Contrary to catch you by surprise.

Of course, Enamorus is balanced by being a glass cannon. Kyurem has more bulk. But Kyurem also has sub 100 speed. Given the speed tiers of modern gen 9 OU, I believe Kyurem can generally count as a wallbreaker rather than a sweeper. The physical set is a sweeper, but that's more gimmicky and about catching folks off guard.

I havent seen Deoxys on the ladder in like a week i swear
It is currently being overshadowed by things like rain, but I do at least agree with them that at least Speed is fundamentally problematic. Not sure when the player base will realize it.
 
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IDK if Deo-S is broken, but it definitely is annoying. It mainly comes down to how damn fast it is. Life Orb Psycho Boost is just a scary move to switch into, even off of 95 Special Attack, because the pool of mons Deo-S is gonna be outright deleting is much higher, including mons like Ogerpon-W, Dragapult, Zamazenta, etc. which can be seen as a good or bad thing in one's eyes. Unlike with Dragapult, there is no catching it off guard with a random scarfer since its outspeeding all of them, and it has super good coverage to catch most other crap off guard. Calling it better than Dragapult is a stretch for sure, but..... I am in the minority that thinks that Dragapult is borderline OP given its risk / reward ratio (must be strange to hear this from a Ghold / Kyurem defender lol). The support sets aren't a deal breaker imo, esp since we've got other mons that can do the same shit like Dragapult for screens or Ting-Lu / Glimm for hazards.

Dealing with Deo-S just sorta goes back to that issue other players have where covering everything in the meta is difficult. Oh cool, I can run Scarf HSam as a cool speed control option that can revenge kill common mons like Dragapult and Cinderace, but it still gets completely fucked by Deo-S + has all the drawbacks that scarf entails. Hatterene is a cool mon to prevent hazards from ever getting setup if played well, but - oh no, the opponent has HSam, so I have to deal with all 3 layers getting setup anyways. Ting-Lu is a really awesome raging bolt answer - but wait, the opponent is running Weather Ball in rain, so I get destroyed anyways.... Of course, this has always been an issue, but its really apparent this gen imo.

Part of the reason Rain is the best playstyle rn (the same way G-Terrain was the best playstyle in DLC 1) is that it can pretty much cover everything in 3 Slots and they are mostly universal. Barraskewda is one of the strongest and fastest revenge killers, Archaludon is one of the strongest breakers, and the remaining 3 slots are fairly flexible (though Iron Treads prob does the most overall). You deal with other weather BS like Gouging in sun as well since you've got your own powerful weather to combat it. Is it perfect? No, but it handles quite a bit and is fairly flexible in how it can be played due to having such a powerful win condition & tank.
 
broken or uncompetitive. hypnosis valiant was objectively uncompetitive during all of the previous metas, even though it hadn't really been discovered yet. sleep didn't magically become uncompetitive when dlc2 dropped
I really don't believe in the term "uncompetitive". Everyone has access to the same kit, so I think everything is perfectly fair. Imo we should just start looking at things as broken or not broken. Are OHKO moves broken? Yeah, ban them. Is sleep broken? We decided yes so ban it. The uncompetitive thing makes it too vague
 
Ting-Lu

Body Press without activating stamina does like 12% to 0 def lu after leftovers, every single hazard goes up, arch get whirlwinded out, barraskewda insta dies gg
I get the argument for Archaludon being broken though, it almost always trades 1 for 1 at minimum and can easily plow through a large defensive core and it's hard to revenge kill, if it got suspected I'd probably vote ban, but I honestly would hate to see it go because it's such a cool glue for rain. I'd rather test damp rock, but I also get why that's way more complex to vote on
 

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