Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

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genuinely believe somebody could make a better case for testing giratina or dialga-o in the tier than 90% of the brick shithouses listed in green and yellow. i would literally feel less disgust towards my opponent if they sent out the fucking lord of the shadow realm to click defog and will o wisp than fight against another sneasler in my lifespan

(wouldnt mind gliscor getting tested if the new meta ends up being more hostile towards it, but thats just personal bias on my end)
:giratina-origin:
See, the problem is that you may intend to free it with the intent of bringing a Defogger to tier only to realize “oh fuck we just let lose a 0 switchins wallbreaker with 150/100/100 bulk and a good priority move that isn’t even all that slow either”.
Honestly I was gonna make a post about how Giratina would be somewhere in the middle of this post, but then I remember this thing has Poltergeist. I would rather have the Fat Dragapult, but Poltergeist with the same boost Ogerpon gets is bit too much. If it didn’t have Poltergeist I would unironically consider it at least. More so than fucking Sneasler.
 
Why cant we suspect ho oh in dlc 2? It will give us a solid defogger that beats however is limited by sacred fire having low pp and its necessity need to hold boots and prone o knock off.

Solved the hazards meta!
Not sure if this is serious, but usually if a mon is dropped from Ubers it has little to no niche in that tier. Ho-oh with Boots is one of the best Pokemon in the entire game, it has no place in OU.
 
I am interested in whatever approach we take for DLC2 regarding tiering. My gut instinct tells me there could be roughly 10 unbans, which IMO would be a fine decision should the drops be closely monitored. Here's what I think the status of our current banlist would be should we decide to drop down everything.

Red = will not be considered for a drop
Green = will definetly be considered for a drop
Yellow = edge-case, arguements exist both for and against a drop

This is not going off of anything Finchinator said. This is moreso my personal opinion that I'm doing just for fun.
  • Flutter Mane
  • Iron Bundle
  • Palafin
  • Annihilape
  • Chi-Yu
  • Espathra
  • Chien-Pao
  • Regieleki (we banned it before we realized Transistor was nerfed to a 1.3 boost instead of being 1.5, which makes a large difference in damage calculations)
  • Magearna
  • Zamazenta-Crowned (green if Gliscor is unbanned)
  • Urshifu-Rapid-Strike
  • Volcarona
  • Baxcalibur
  • Ogerpon-Hearthflame
  • Ursaluna-Bloodmoon
  • Roaring Moon
  • Gliscor
  • Sneasler
Bonus:
  • Darkrai
  • Shaymin-Sky
  • Giratina-O - (personal bias lol, probably red in actuality)
Based off of some of the preview coverage I'm hearing, I think the new tutor moves have the potential to really shake up the metagame, should certain Pokemon get them, but without a list, its hard to say anything on that front. 19th Tera type is another wild card that may shake things up. I don't think any of the returning Pokemon in the DLC will have much of an impact on the OU tier unless legendaries like Tapu Koko come back.

This post is a bit off topic, but I do like speculating about the future. Keeps things fresh in these typically cyclical discussions lol. It is kind of crazy to think that we are almost at 20 bans, and while most are justified, I do wonder if they are all really neccessary, espicially for some of the bans that happened early on in the metagame's lifespan. I am hoping we are rather liberal in terms of what we unban, as long as we don't hestiate in quickbanning certain offenders.
Okay Sneasler is 100% more like yellow, but Iron Bundle is 100% red. There is no world where bundle would be fine down here and i'm sure almost every player with gamesense would agree with me.

And Eleki is 100% not coming back unless tera goes.

Rapid Strike is more like red. Probably should stay Ubers because game freak broke it even if tera gets banned but I could see it being tested anyway

Also Giratina-O is not coming here, its Lugia with actual offenses and an actually decent defensive typing even if it has slightly less overall bulk, and it hits way harder, absolutely not. I genuinely think there is a better argument for dropping Lugia than this thing, and I'm being serious here. Lugia may have way more bulk due to multiscale, but if we didn't have tera we would have Gambit and Ting Lu to actually answer anything it does.

At least Lugia has pitiful base 90 offenses, Giratina origin actually has good base 120 offenses and does not suffer from 4MSS nor does it suffer from being restricted to certain sets like Lugia would be. Yeah Giratina-Origin is way too strong for OU in every regard and would have literally zero counterplay. At least with Lugia in a non-tera meta it would lose to Gambit and Ting-Lu as Ting Lu can take hits from Lugia and Ruin it from setting up and Lugia has no fighting coverage to hit Gambit with.

That being said, we shouldn't even consider a Lugia test unless tera goes, because if tera is legal Lugia would 100% be too much since it can get out of its bad defensive typing.
 
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Why cant we suspect ho oh in dlc 2? It will give us a solid defogger that beats however is limited by sacred fire having low pp and its necessity need to hold boots and prone o knock off.

Solved the hazards meta!
just because it's thanksgiving doesn't mean we need to talk about the turkey. ho-oh is stupidly strong despite its reliance on boots—you have to remember that it was ubers even in the gens where boots didn't exist yet. you're also gonna have to deal with the fact that ho-oh has both breaker-level attack and wall-level bulk by ou standards. oh yeah, and we don't even know whether it's coming back, much less whether it keeps defog
 
just because it's thanksgiving doesn't mean we need to talk about the turkey. ho-oh is stupidly strong despite its reliance on boots—you have to remember that it was ubers even in the gens where boots didn't exist yet. you're also gonna have to deal with the fact that ho-oh has both breaker-level attack and wall-level bulk by ou standards. oh yeah, and we don't even know whether it's coming back, much less whether it keeps defog
Yeah, Ho-Oh has no business in OU, that thing has 130 atk, this bulk 130/90/154 and on top of that it has regenerator.

I mean even the people in the Ubers thread are waiting for it to solve the issues with Flutter and some of the legends there lol.
 

Clas

pixibursting
is a Tiering Contributor
I do agree though that Giratina-O won't ever be healthy in OU. Giratina-A however isn't that strong, has 4 moveslot syndrome and is vulnerable to every hazard. It will be walling much of the Tier, but can't do that forever without support and with 5 weaknesses pre-Tera, Knock Off among them.
I'd like to quickly point out just how insane its bulk is. Granted this calc IS for a different format, but considering that this is a STAB, 1.2x boosted SE move off of 449 Attack, something nothing in the tier even comes close to having right now without getting lasered in the process, is genuinely quite stupid.
1700751346511.png

Dragapult is probably the best instant threat there is right now, and that's not even guaranteed to 2HKO because of the Draco miss chance. That's actually how stupid this is.
Yes it is indeed max vs max/max, but thats besides the point. The point is that not only do you have to SOMEHOW threaten a 2HKO on this thing, but then actually follow through, which is a nightmare to pull off thanks to Rest and its excellent pairing with Corviknight to wear down your PP even more. Yes, boosting through it technically works..... if you prevent Dragon Tail and Will-O-Wisp, that is. Now, just how exactly do you plan to get around this Pokemon regularly, let alone after Terastalization? Take the following set for example.
Giratina @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Fairy / Dark / Poison / Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold / Impish Nature
- Hex / Poltergeist
- Dragon Tail / Defog
- Will-O-Wisp / Defog
- Rest
Hex and Poltergeist both hurt a LOT. Even with a "measly" 100 Attack and Special Attack, this can threaten so much across the board past some random Normal-type that's otherwise unviable. Dragon Tail and Will-O-Wisp both punish setup attempts, and if you ever so manage to Knock Off Giratina, it also can carry Defog to wipe away hazards. Then there's Rest + Pressure in a Fini/Koko-less metagame. Yeah, no thanks.
 
The thought of any cover legendary dropping to OU with hazard control baffles me. It just goes to show the complete stranglehold hazards had brought to OU. I'm ALMOST CERTAIN if Gliscor kept Defog then it would still be in OU, as it kinda just... beats itself really. We will not live in a world where giratina any form -- snake or deteriorating dragon -- will ever be OU. But let's say we had our way and both Gholdengo and Kingambit got banned and this thing dropped immediately (ignoring DLC 2 stuff). Now, if you really think this is totally fine in OU, allow me to demonstrate its power:

252 Atk Sharpness Samurott-Hisui Ceaseless Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Giratina-Origin: 278-330 (63 - 74.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
^ OHKOs back with Draco Meteor + Shadow Sneak 90% of the time

252 Atk Choice Band Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Giratina-Origin: 297-349 (67.3 - 79.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
^ I don't even have to say it do I?

252 SpA Iron Valiant Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Giratina-Origin: 294-348 (66.6 - 78.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock


The simple matter is that this thing literally lives any normal move without tera, and most moves with a Choice Band boost even after Stealth Rock damage. Defog is nice sure, and the DLC is giving us pretty sparce options as hazard removal ig. But seriously man -- this isn't going to solve any sorta hazard issue at all. Why have Defog when Dragon Dance + Poltergeist is a thing.

God forbid if NORMAL Giratina ever came into the tier with a menace of a Heavy-Duty Boots offensive set. Adding more bulk to this thing is just a recipe for instantaneous combustion
 
Oh right fuckin Levitate. But in all honesty, even if this thing didn't have Levitate, which the bulkier one doesn't btw, does this change the fact that it's literally a debatably better Ogerpon in utility and maybe even offensive prowess?
Ho oh actually solves a lot of issues of the current meta instead of adding another stupid spinblocker thats also really hard to ko and does massive damage back oh and it is also immune to spikes without needing boots! If Giratina-O can be tested so can Ho-oH
 
Why cant we suspect ho oh in dlc 2? It will give us a solid defogger that beats however is limited by sacred fire having low pp and its necessity need to hold boots and prone o knock off.

Solved the hazards meta!
Ho oh managed to be good in ubers before heavy duty boots, why would we let an UBERS STAPLE in the ou tier just because it gets defog? Thats like letting charizard into the zu tier, or letting iron moth run loose in uu, i doubt ho oh wouldn’t get good ubers usage anyway since its number four in high ladder nat dex ubers usage
 

YNM

formerly yNot Mence
is a Tiering Contributor
I'm about as childish as everyone in here when it comes to trying new mons in OU just for fun, but then I realize how absurdly unhealthy a metagame with a 680 BST cover legendary would be. Just for the sake of the argument, though, let's take a look at the pros and cons of Giratina-O in OU:

PROS
  • New Defogger that could more consistently get rid of Hazards, while also threatening Gholdengo;
  • Forced to run Griseous Core, making its sets a bit more predictable and making it vulnerable to chip damage;
  • Has no access to Leftovers, Berries or recovery moves outside of Rest, so its longevity on the field would be hindered to a degree;
  • It gets somewhat checked by common mons such as Ting-Lu (which might be its best counter due to being able to spam Hazards in its face, while threatening it with Ruination), Blissey, Garganacl, Clef, Gambit (if it doesn't run Will-O-Wisp) and Pex with Toxic, while also being potentially revenge killed by Dragapult, Gren, Scarf Dengo, Samurott-H and Valiant;
  • For the reasons above, its presence may increase the viability of Balance and Stall teams in the meta;
  • Checks many Physical threats itself with Will-O-Wisp, notably Kingambit, Zamazenta and Ogerpon;
CONS
  • STUPIDLY high BST, being able to tank most Supereffective hits with a bit of EV investment on its bulk, while also threatening most mons with its 120 Base offensive stats;
  • Completely immune to Ground moves and Spikes due to Levitate;
  • New Spin-blocker, potentially making it even harder to remove Hazards from the field, and notably it completely walls Great Tusk since it's immune to its STABs and Knock Off would be nerfed due to Griseous Core, forcing Tusk to once again run Ice Spinner (which would still only do 45.2-53.3% from a Prothosyntesis-boosted Max Atk Tusk);
  • It has a crazy good STAB combination, boosted by Griseous Core, which allows it to OHKO a plentitude of mons with minimal EV investment, such as Tusk, Dragapult, Ceruledge, Dengo and Gren;
  • Incredible move coverage with Earth Power, EQ, Aura Sphere, Dark Pulse, Energy Ball, Dual Wingbeat, Iron Head, Psychic, Stone Edge and Thunderbolt;
  • It has access to a valuable STAB priority move in Shadow Sneak;
  • It has access to both T-wave and Wisp, further limiting its answers, especially behind a Sub;
  • WILL abuse Tera to counter-check its would-be checks;
I think the cons heavily outweigh its pros, but this is only my opinion.
 
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Mimikyu Stardust

Loli Kami Requiem~☆
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
UPL Champion
Since it is mere weeks untill DLC 1 ends and DLC 2 drops, im going to drop my thoughts on how SV has been going for me,

After the banning of sneasler there has been a sour taste that has been developing for me, i was an avid sneasler ban enjoyer, i thought it was busted but upon retrospect i think there is a problem with this generation. The bans are happening way too fast and there physically isn't enough time to let the meta settle to make balance changes. the speed of which things are getting banned, and how many pokemon ARE banned (which can be its own tier and metagame) is a bit concerning.

i'm going to take a few examples between Baxcalibur, Walking Wake, Garganacl (Pre Home), Sneaseler, Roaring Moon and Volcarona.

Baxcalibur i think is a perfect ban
, it has marinated in the metagame for a long while and we have seen the positives and the negatives it brings.
Pros
-Big Attacker with decent speed and good bulk
-Great defensive utility for offense
-Fixes many holes on teams

Cons
-Dondozo is almost forced on a lot of fat teams
-Can set up and win way too easily
-it can pick its counters very easily with tera, and with just 1 misplay, it can snowball

We had it in the tier for months and after exhausting everything that we can do with it, the verdict is made that it is Broken.

Garganacl was in the opposite side of the spectrum, where in pre home, it garnered a lot of support for a ban due to how dominant and slappable it was, at points gaining a 3/5 points in favor of suspect but it never got it and guess what? People adapted, people started using more knock off, Covert Cloak pex and dengo, Bulk Up great tusk, spikes spam, etc. After a while, garg just became a great, but not broken mon, the opposite of Baxcalibur before falling off a bit once Home dropped.

These two are perfect examples of how letting the meta adapt can show the true colors of a pokemon and truly see if they are just good, or broken.

However, those are just 2 rare cases, and i think this is the main problem for current tiering for SV OU, Actions are being taken way too quickly before the meta can even develop and marinate.

Walking Wake, Roaring Moon, Volcarona and Sneaseler didn't have enough time for the meta to settle to see if theyre truly broken or not.

Walking wake is a perfect example of a pokemon that was thought to be broken at the beginning and ended up being fine additions to the metagame. Walking Wake suspect in my opinion, was still one of the worst choice for suspect we have had, it was barely released in 4 days, in a meta where the scariest water type was rotom wash, and people were still comfortably using teams with no water resist, so if we just take those 3 days where people haven't adapted, Walking Wake is going to look like Dracovish-Incarnate, but after the suspect was over, people quickly realized that it was very mid, it did get better during home meta but at the time, we were about to suspect and potentially ban a pokemon that is mid, there was even rumors about a quick ban for it although i cant confirm it.

Blood Moon was a very centralizing pokemon that forced people to run stuff like Spdef Unaware Clefable that got banned in 7th of october 2023, then roaring moon was suspected 10 days later, the threshold for people making new teams and getting rid of old ones after a ban is usually around 3-5 days, arbitrary but its what i notice from friends who are good players as well. Taking this into account, we only have 5 Days to play in a roaring moon meta, a pokemon who is powerful, but is deeply flawed like only being able to sweep once, heavy 4MSS, before it was suspect tested and resulted in a ban. This ban opened the floodgates to the dreadful meta that was Rillaboom Sneaseler Gliscor Heatran meta, where it revolves around Gliscor Spikestack teams and Rillaboom Sneaseler, why? because the breaker that checked these pokemon got banned, and gliscor at this time held a monopoly on defensive pokemon which unintentionally made fatter teams worse and offensive teams better, once it got banned, Sneasler rose to power... for 2 days... before the meta can settle and potentially find a counter play to it and build the meta around it.

Now the meta is dominated by :great-tusk: :ting-lu: :zapdos: double ground zapdos, very static reliant, rillaboom is even more powerful, ogerpon is more dominant than ever and one can only be happy that it will only last a few days.

Volcarona was probably the most controversial ban in gen 9 ou, as before pokemon home dropped, volcarona was a fine setup sweeper, not too broken but still really good, it gives a great defensive utility for offense and can even be slotted into more balance teams, it is heavily flawed with pokemon like clodsire and ting-lu being able to counter it quite easily in pre-home meta. Once Home dropped, not many people were clammoring for its ban and it was just banned.



Now why am i posting about this?

If we take just this DLC meta right now, Ogerpon wouldn't have been as dominant if Sneaseler was around, and Sneaseler wouldn't have been as dominant had we have roaring moon and gliscor keeping it in check, and roaring moon was kept in check by pokemon like gliscor, zamazenta and kingambit. (Oh and if ur saying "but tera..." respectfully, learn how to deal with it, i am speaking from the perspective of a tera meta)

SV OU physically CANNOT function without being 'Broken checks broken' like SS OU or ORAS OU. Theres simply too many 'broken' pokemon, but those broken pokemon cancels eachother out. Iron Valiant loses to Dengo, which loses to gambit, which loses to valiant, which loses to moth, which loses to roaring moon, which loses to weavile, which loses to zamazenta, which loses to dondozo, which loses to rillaboom, which loses to volcarona and etc. We also have adequate defensive pokemon, stuff like Great Tusk, Ting-lu, Zapdos, Dondozo, Garganacl are amazing pokemon that can check pretty much anything in the metagame, at the start of dlc Highv0ltag3 peaked on ladder with stall in a hearthflame meta using a Torn-t stall, and on high-ladder there was also a lot of balance teams that uses pokemon like defensive dragonite to check it, so we were at a precipice of people acclimating to the hearthflame meta before it got quickbanned.

I saw a lot of people here mentioning "why unban pokemon when its already banned? what purpose do they bring?" its to prevent stuff like this from happening, if Volcarona was here, Rillaboom wouldn't be this broken and so on. Having more variety is almost always better.

So heres my proposal, Slow Down the bans, after the first few OBVIOUSLY brokens (Magearna, Chi-Yu, Landorus-I, etc) only do suspect tests, and have a longer gap between them and let the meta settle, maybe 3 weeks minimum. Then can we also not ban litterally everything? I know "Broken checks broken" is a no-go usually, but looking at how game freak is taking SV with the DLC, new broken moves, new broken pokemon, its impossible to make an ORAS or SS style balanced metagame. If we continue this meta and ban Gholdengo, it may fix the problem of hazards but then Iron-Valiant and Rillaboom becomes more broken, then we ban those and dark types become more broken, then if we ban too much the defensive pokemon like garg starts becoming broken again its a never ending cycle, and lets not forget that the defensive pokemon of this meta like Garganacl, Great Tusk, Ting-lu, Zapdos are excellent and can check pretty much every pokemon. SV is very similar to SM at how many broken things there are, and guess what? despite SM having so many downright broken pokemon, the meta thrives, the things that are thought to be broken have balanced out (Tapu Lele, Ash Gren, etc.) because the meta eventually settled. I think its just impossible for this meta to be completely balanced with how dominant hazards are, amount of broken pokemon, the defensive power creep, etc.

I am not againts bans, but i am very concerned at how fast the meta is going, there are so many surveys in a row, just one after another barely after a ban just happened and people don't have enough time to collect their thoughts and vote, which at that point why even have a survey?

Slow down the survey so people can collect their thoughts a vote with a full grasp on the meta, Slow down the bans and suspect so the meta can develop naturally and have people deal with the 'broken' pokemon like :baxcalibur: Bax and :garganacl: Garg in the past, Embrace the 'Broken checks broken' aspect of SV since it is the way game freak is going with the balancing and pokemon that are available, i know its very much so, not ideal but its just an idea. I know that Game Freak have moved from a Game to New Game basis to DLC to New DLC in a single gen, so the meta will be shorter than before. However, i dont think it is right to rush balancing just because a meta will only last 5 months. 2 Solid bans will always be better than a scattershot of 5 bans.
 
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If Giratina-O can be tested so can Ho-oH
neither one can, or should, be tested. the only ubers we should even include on the "what should we drop" survey are:
  • :zamazenta-crowned:
  • :volcarona:
  • :urshifu-rapid-strike:
  • :roaring moon:
  • :gliscor:
  • :darkrai:
(all of which, for the record, i would vote to keep in ubers)
anything else is either too broken to consider, has been resoundingly rejected from the tier, or both. yes, flutter mane and regieleki got banned before we fully understood the extent of how their abilities worked, but that doesn't change what made either of them so broken
Since it is mere weeks untill DLC 1 ends and DLC 2 drops, im going to drop my thoughts on how SV has been going for me,

After the banning of sneasler there has been a sour taste that has been developing for me, i was an avid sneasler ban enjoyer, i thought it was busted but upon retrospect i think there is a problem with this generation. The bans are happening way too fast and there physically isn't enough time to let the meta settle to make balance changes. the speed of which things are getting banned, and how many pokemon ARE banned (which can be its own tier and metagame) is a bit concerning.

i'm going to take a few examples between Baxcalibur, Walking Wake, Garganacl (Pre Home), Sneaseler, Roaring Moon and Volcarona.

Baxcalibur i think is a perfect ban
, it has marinated in the metagame for a long while and we have seen the positives and the negatives it brings.
Pros
-Big Attacker with decent speed and good bulk
-Great defensive utility for offense
-Fixes many holes on teams

Cons
-Dondozo is almost forced on a lot of fat teams
-Can set up and win way too easily
-it can pick its counters very easily with tera, and with just 1 misplay, it can snowball

We had it in the tier for months and after exhausting everything that we can do with it, the verdict is made that it is Broken.

Garganacl was in the opposite side of the spectrum, where in pre home, it garnered a lot of support for a ban due to how dominant and slappable it was, at points gaining a 3/5 points in favor of suspect but it never got it and guess what? People adapted, people started using more knock off, Covert Cloak pex and dengo, Bulk Up great tusk, spikes spam, etc. After a while, garg just became a great, but not broken mon, the opposite of Baxcalibur before falling off a bit once Home dropped.

These two are perfect examples of how letting the meta adapt can show the true colors of a pokemon and truly see if they are just good, or broken.

However, those are just 2 rare cases, and i think this is the main problem for current tiering for SV OU, Actions are being taken way too quickly before the meta can even develop and marinate.

Walking Wake, Roaring Moon, Volcarona and Sneaseler didn't have enough time for the meta to settle to see if theyre truly broken or not.

Walking wake is a perfect example of a pokemon that was thought to be broken at the beginning and ended up being fine additions to the metagame. Walking Wake suspect in my opinion, was still one of the worst choice for suspect we have had, it was barely released in 4 days, in a meta where the scariest water type was rotom wash, and people were still comfortably using teams with no water resist, so if we just take those 3 days where people haven't adapted, Walking Wake is going to look like Dracovish-Incarnate, but after the suspect was over, people quickly realized that it was very mid, it did get better during home meta but at the time, we were about to suspect and potentially ban a pokemon that is mid, there was even rumors about a quick ban for it although i cant confirm it.

Blood Moon was a very centralizing pokemon that forced people to run stuff like Spdef Unaware Clefable that got banned in 7th of october 2023, then roaring moon was suspected 10 days later, the threshold for people making new teams and getting rid of old ones after a ban is usually around 3-5 days, arbitrary but its what i notice from friends who are good players as well. Taking this into account, we only have 5 Days to play in a roaring moon meta, a pokemon who is powerful, but is deeply flawed like only being able to sweep once, heavy 4MSS, before it was suspect tested and resulted in a ban. This ban opened the floodgates to the dreadful meta that was Rillaboom Sneaseler Gliscor Heatran meta, where it revolves around Gliscor Spikestack teams and Rillaboom Sneaseler, why? because the breaker that checked these pokemon got banned, and gliscor at this time held a monopoly on defensive pokemon which unintentionally made fatter teams worse and offensive teams better, once it got banned, Sneasler rose to power... for 2 days... before the meta can settle and potentially find a counter play to it and build the meta around it.

Now the meta is dominated by :great-tusk: :ting-lu: :zapdos: double ground zapdos, very static reliant, rillaboom is even more powerful, ogerpon is more dominant than ever and one can only be happy that it will only last a few days.

Volcarona was probably the most controversial ban in gen 9 ou, as before pokemon home dropped, volcarona was a fine setup sweeper, not too broken but still really good, it gives a great defensive utility for offense and can even be slotted into more balance teams, it is heavily flawed with pokemon like clodsire and ting-lu being able to counter it quite easily in pre-home meta. Once Home dropped, not many people were clammoring for its ban and it was just banned.



Now why am i posting about this?

If we take just this DLC meta right now, Ogerpon wouldn't have been as dominant if Sneaseler was around, and Sneaseler wouldn't have been as dominant had we have roaring moon and gliscor keeping it in check, and roaring moon was kept in check by pokemon like gliscor, zamazenta and kingambit. (Oh and if ur saying "but tera..." respectfully, learn how to deal with it, i am speaking from the perspective of a tera meta)

SV OU physically CANNOT function without being 'Broken checks broken' like SS OU or ORAS OU. Theres simply too many 'broken' pokemon, but those broken pokemon cancels eachother out. Iron Valiant loses to Dengo, which loses to gambit, which loses to valiant, which loses to moth, which loses to roaring moon, which loses to weavile, which loses to zamazenta, which loses to dondozo, which loses to rillaboom, which loses to volcarona and etc. We also have adequate defensive pokemon, stuff like Great Tusk, Ting-lu, Zapdos, Dondozo, Garganacl are amazing pokemon that can check pretty much anything in the metagame, at the start of dlc Highv0ltag3 peaked on ladder with stall in a hearthflame meta using a Torn-t stall, and on high-ladder there was also a lot of balance teams that uses pokemon like defensive dragonite to check it, so we were at a precipice of people acclimating to the hearthflame meta before it got quickbanned.

I saw a lot of people here mentioning "why unban pokemon when its already banned? what purpose do they bring?" its to prevent stuff like this from happening, if Volcarona was here, Rillaboom wouldn't be this broken and so on. Having more variety is almost always better.

So heres my proposal, Slow Down the bans, after the first few OBVIOUSLY brokens (Magearna, Chi-Yu, Landorus-I, etc) only do suspect tests, and have a longer gap between them and let the meta settle, maybe 3 weeks minimum. Then can we also not ban litterally everything? I know "Broken checks broken" is a no-go usually, but looking at how game freak is taking SV with the DLC, new broken moves, new broken pokemon, its impossible to make an ORAS or SS style balanced metagame. If we continue this meta and ban Gholdengo, it may fix the problem of hazards but then Iron-Valiant and Rillaboom becomes more broken, then we ban those and dark types become more broken, then if we ban too much the defensive pokemon like garg starts becoming broken again its a never ending cycle, and lets not forget that the defensive pokemon of this meta like Garganacl, Great Tusk, Ting-lu, Zapdos are excellent and can check pretty much every pokemon. SV is very similar to SM at how many broken things there are, and guess what? despite SM having so many downright broken pokemon, the meta thrives, the things that are thought to be broken have balanced out (Tapu Lele, Ash Gren, etc.) because the meta eventually settled. I think its just impossible for this meta to be completely balanced with how dominant hazards are, amount of broken pokemon, the defensive power creep, etc.

I am not againts bans, but i am very concerned at how fast the meta is going, there are so many surveys in a row, just one after another barely after a ban just happened and people don't have enough time to collect their thoughts and vote, which at that point why even have a survey?

Slow down the survey so people can collect their thoughts a vote with a full grasp on the meta, Slow down the bans and suspect so the meta can develop naturally and have people deal with the 'broken' pokemon like :baxcalibur: Bax and :garganacl: Garg in the past, Embrace the 'Broken checks broken' aspect of SV since it is the way game freak is going with the balancing and pokemon that are available.
ah yes, you're right, we should just give up! surely that will solve the problem. listen, these bans are necessary. action at this speed is not only necessary but even inadequate.
 
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Since it is mere weeks untill DLC 1 ends and DLC 2 drops, im going to drop my thoughts on how SV has been going for me,

After the banning of sneasler there has been a sour taste that has been developing for me, i was an avid sneasler ban enjoyer, i thought it was busted but upon retrospect i think there is a problem with this generation. The bans are happening way too fast and there physically isn't enough time to let the meta settle to make balance changes. the speed of which things are getting banned, and how many pokemon ARE banned (which can be its own tier and metagame) is a bit concerning.

i'm going to take a few examples between Baxcalibur, Walking Wake, Garganacl (Pre Home), Sneaseler, Roaring Moon and Volcarona.

Baxcalibur i think is a perfect ban
, it has marinated in the metagame for a long while and we have seen the positives and the negatives it brings.
Pros
-Big Attacker with decent speed and good bulk
-Great defensive utility for offense
-Fixes many holes on teams

Cons
-Dondozo is almost forced on a lot of fat teams
-Can set up and win way too easily
-it can pick its counters very easily with tera, and with just 1 misplay, it can snowball

We had it in the tier for months and after exhausting everything that we can do with it, the verdict is made that it is Broken.

Garganacl was in the opposite side of the spectrum, where in pre home, it garnered a lot of support for a ban due to how dominant and slappable it was, at points gaining a 3/5 points in favor of suspect but it never got it and guess what? People adapted, people started using more knock off, Covert Cloak pex and dengo, Bulk Up great tusk, spikes spam, etc. After a while, garg just became a great, but not broken mon, the opposite of Baxcalibur before falling off a bit once Home dropped.

These two are perfect examples of how letting the meta adapt can show the true colors of a pokemon and truly see if they are just good, or broken.

However, those are just 2 rare cases, and i think this is the main problem for current tiering for SV OU, Actions are being taken way too quickly before the meta can even develop and marinate.

Walking Wake, Roaring Moon, Volcarona and Sneaseler didn't have enough time for the meta to settle to see if theyre truly broken or not.

Walking wake is a perfect example of a pokemon that was thought to be broken at the beginning and ended up being fine additions to the metagame. Walking Wake suspect in my opinion, was still one of the worst choice for suspect we have had, it was barely released in 4 days, in a meta where the scariest water type was rotom wash, and people were still comfortably using teams with no water resist, so if we just take those 3 days where people haven't adapted, Walking Wake is going to look like Dracovish-Incarnate, but after the suspect was over, people quickly realized that it was very mid, it did get better during home meta but at the time, we were about to suspect and potentially ban a pokemon that is mid, there was even rumors about a quick ban for it although i cant confirm it.

Blood Moon was a very centralizing pokemon that forced people to run stuff like Spdef Unaware Clefable that got banned in 7th of october 2023, then roaring moon was suspected 10 days later, the threshold for people making new teams and getting rid of old ones after a ban is usually around 3-5 days, arbitrary but its what i notice from friends who are good players as well. Taking this into account, we only have 5 Days to play in a roaring moon meta, a pokemon who is powerful, but is deeply flawed like only being able to sweep once, heavy 4MSS, before it was suspect tested and resulted in a ban. This ban opened the floodgates to the dreadful meta that was Rillaboom Sneaseler Gliscor Heatran meta, where it revolves around Gliscor Spikestack teams and Rillaboom Sneaseler, why? because the breaker that checked these pokemon got banned, and gliscor at this time held a monopoly on defensive pokemon which unintentionally made fatter teams worse and offensive teams better, once it got banned, Sneasler rose to power... for 2 days... before the meta can settle and potentially find a counter play to it and build the meta around it.

Now the meta is dominated by :great-tusk: :ting-lu: :zapdos: double ground zapdos, very static reliant, rillaboom is even more powerful, ogerpon is more dominant than ever and one can only be happy that it will only last a few days.

Volcarona was probably the most controversial ban in gen 9 ou, as before pokemon home dropped, volcarona was a fine setup sweeper, not too broken but still really good, it gives a great defensive utility for offense and can even be slotted into more balance teams, it is heavily flawed with pokemon like clodsire and ting-lu being able to counter it quite easily in pre-home meta. Once Home dropped, not many people were clammoring for its ban and it was just banned.



Now why am i posting about this?

If we take just this DLC meta right now, Ogerpon wouldn't have been as dominant if Sneaseler was around, and Sneaseler wouldn't have been as dominant had we have roaring moon and gliscor keeping it in check, and roaring moon was kept in check by pokemon like gliscor, zamazenta and kingambit. (Oh and if ur saying "but tera..." respectfully, learn how to deal with it, i am speaking from the perspective of a tera meta)

SV OU physically CANNOT function without being 'Broken checks broken' like SS OU or ORAS OU. Theres simply too many 'broken' pokemon, but those broken pokemon cancels eachother out. Iron Valiant loses to Dengo, which loses to gambit, which loses to valiant, which loses to moth, which loses to roaring moon, which loses to weavile, which loses to zamazenta, which loses to dondozo, which loses to rillaboom, which loses to volcarona and etc. We also have adequate defensive pokemon, stuff like Great Tusk, Ting-lu, Zapdos, Dondozo, Garganacl are amazing pokemon that can check pretty much anything in the metagame, at the start of dlc Highv0ltag3 peaked on ladder with stall in a hearthflame meta using a Torn-t stall, and on high-ladder there was also a lot of balance teams that uses pokemon like defensive dragonite to check it, so we were at a precipice of people acclimating to the hearthflame meta before it got quickbanned.

I saw a lot of people here mentioning "why unban pokemon when its already banned? what purpose do they bring?" its to prevent stuff like this from happening, if Volcarona was here, Rillaboom wouldn't be this broken and so on. Having more variety is almost always better.

So heres my proposal, Slow Down the bans, after the first few OBVIOUSLY brokens (Magearna, Chi-Yu, Landorus-I, etc) only do suspect tests, and have a longer gap between them and let the meta settle, maybe 3 weeks minimum. Then can we also not ban litterally everything? I know "Broken checks broken" is a no-go usually, but looking at how game freak is taking SV with the DLC, new broken moves, new broken pokemon, its impossible to make an ORAS or SS style balanced metagame. If we continue this meta and ban Gholdengo, it may fix the problem of hazards but then Iron-Valiant and Rillaboom becomes more broken, then we ban those and dark types become more broken, then if we ban too much the defensive pokemon like garg starts becoming broken again its a never ending cycle, and lets not forget that the defensive pokemon of this meta like Garganacl, Great Tusk, Ting-lu, Zapdos are excellent and can check pretty much every pokemon. SV is very similar to SM at how many broken things there are, and guess what? despite SM having so many downright broken pokemon, the meta thrives, the things that are thought to be broken have balanced out (Tapu Lele, Ash Gren, etc.) because the meta eventually settled. I think its just impossible for this meta to be completely balanced with how dominant hazards are, amount of broken pokemon, the defensive power creep, etc.

I am not againts bans, but i am very concerned at how fast the meta is going, there are so many surveys in a row, just one after another barely after a ban just happened and people don't have enough time to collect their thoughts and vote, which at that point why even have a survey?

Slow down the survey so people can collect their thoughts a vote with a full grasp on the meta, Slow down the bans and suspect so the meta can develop naturally and have people deal with the 'broken' pokemon like :baxcalibur: Bax and :garganacl: Garg in the past, Embrace the 'Broken checks broken' aspect of SV since it is the way game freak is going with the balancing and pokemon that are available.
Iirc the goal is never Broken check broken tho?
 

Mimikyu Stardust

Loli Kami Requiem~☆
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
UPL Champion
ah yes, you're right, we should just give up! surely that will solve the problem
Please actually read the post and not give a half-assed response, you have always been very passive-aggressive in this thread to everyone opposing you for no reason and ended up cluttering the thread with jokes and insults, make one or two big post about how you feel about the metagame and invite everyone to read your thoughts and engage with the responses. We are human, we change our thoughts every single minute. If you actually read my post, my main point is to slow down the surveys and bans so people can collect their full thoughts on how to fix the metagame for the better and focus on Quality, Instead of Quantity and have bans happen more organically like with Baxcalibur and Garganacl.
 

YNM

formerly yNot Mence
is a Tiering Contributor
Finch, can we get some kind of survey where we ask "How have you been feeling about the bans so far?" so we can have a clear idea of what the community feels? I know that we already ask "Have you been enjoying the metagame/how balanced do you feel the metagame is rn", but those replies are always kinda negative due to the fact that people will always have something to complain about. On the other hand, many people here are actually happy with the current ban rate, while some others are not, so we can at least understand the general sentiment of the community.
 

658Greninja

is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
Moderator
Since it is mere weeks untill DLC 1 ends and DLC 2 drops, im going to drop my thoughts on how SV has been going for me,

After the banning of sneasler there has been a sour taste that has been developing for me, i was an avid sneasler ban enjoyer, i thought it was busted but upon retrospect i think there is a problem with this generation. The bans are happening way too fast and there physically isn't enough time to let the meta settle to make balance changes. the speed of which things are getting banned, and how many pokemon ARE banned (which can be its own tier and metagame) is a bit concerning.

i'm going to take a few examples between Baxcalibur, Walking Wake, Garganacl (Pre Home), Sneaseler, Roaring Moon and Volcarona.

Baxcalibur i think is a perfect ban
, it has marinated in the metagame for a long while and we have seen the positives and the negatives it brings.
Pros
-Big Attacker with decent speed and good bulk
-Great defensive utility for offense
-Fixes many holes on teams

Cons
-Dondozo is almost forced on a lot of fat teams
-Can set up and win way too easily
-it can pick its counters very easily with tera, and with just 1 misplay, it can snowball

We had it in the tier for months and after exhausting everything that we can do with it, the verdict is made that it is Broken.

Garganacl was in the opposite side of the spectrum, where in pre home, it garnered a lot of support for a ban due to how dominant and slappable it was, at points gaining a 3/5 points in favor of suspect but it never got it and guess what? People adapted, people started using more knock off, Covert Cloak pex and dengo, Bulk Up great tusk, spikes spam, etc. After a while, garg just became a great, but not broken mon, the opposite of Baxcalibur before falling off a bit once Home dropped.

These two are perfect examples of how letting the meta adapt can show the true colors of a pokemon and truly see if they are just good, or broken.

However, those are just 2 rare cases, and i think this is the main problem for current tiering for SV OU, Actions are being taken way too quickly before the meta can even develop and marinate.

Walking Wake, Roaring Moon, Volcarona and Sneaseler didn't have enough time for the meta to settle to see if theyre truly broken or not.

Walking wake is a perfect example of a pokemon that was thought to be broken at the beginning and ended up being fine additions to the metagame. Walking Wake suspect in my opinion, was still one of the worst choice for suspect we have had, it was barely released in 4 days, in a meta where the scariest water type was rotom wash, and people were still comfortably using teams with no water resist, so if we just take those 3 days where people haven't adapted, Walking Wake is going to look like Dracovish-Incarnate, but after the suspect was over, people quickly realized that it was very mid, it did get better during home meta but at the time, we were about to suspect and potentially ban a pokemon that is mid, there was even rumors about a quick ban for it although i cant confirm it.

Blood Moon was a very centralizing pokemon that forced people to run stuff like Spdef Unaware Clefable that got banned in 7th of october 2023, then roaring moon was suspected 10 days later, the threshold for people making new teams and getting rid of old ones after a ban is usually around 3-5 days, arbitrary but its what i notice from friends who are good players as well. Taking this into account, we only have 5 Days to play in a roaring moon meta, a pokemon who is powerful, but is deeply flawed like only being able to sweep once, heavy 4MSS, before it was suspect tested and resulted in a ban. This ban opened the floodgates to the dreadful meta that was Rillaboom Sneaseler Gliscor Heatran meta, where it revolves around Gliscor Spikestack teams and Rillaboom Sneaseler, why? because the breaker that checked these pokemon got banned, and gliscor at this time held a monopoly on defensive pokemon which unintentionally made fatter teams worse and offensive teams better, once it got banned, Sneasler rose to power... for 2 days... before the meta can settle and potentially find a counter play to it and build the meta around it.

Now the meta is dominated by :great-tusk: :ting-lu: :zapdos: double ground zapdos, very static reliant, rillaboom is even more powerful, ogerpon is more dominant than ever and one can only be happy that it will only last a few days.

Volcarona was probably the most controversial ban in gen 9 ou, as before pokemon home dropped, volcarona was a fine setup sweeper, not too broken but still really good, it gives a great defensive utility for offense and can even be slotted into more balance teams, it is heavily flawed with pokemon like clodsire and ting-lu being able to counter it quite easily in pre-home meta. Once Home dropped, not many people were clammoring for its ban and it was just banned.



Now why am i posting about this?

If we take just this DLC meta right now, Ogerpon wouldn't have been as dominant if Sneaseler was around, and Sneaseler wouldn't have been as dominant had we have roaring moon and gliscor keeping it in check, and roaring moon was kept in check by pokemon like gliscor, zamazenta and kingambit. (Oh and if ur saying "but tera..." respectfully, learn how to deal with it, i am speaking from the perspective of a tera meta)

SV OU physically CANNOT function without being 'Broken checks broken' like SS OU or ORAS OU. Theres simply too many 'broken' pokemon, but those broken pokemon cancels eachother out. Iron Valiant loses to Dengo, which loses to gambit, which loses to valiant, which loses to moth, which loses to roaring moon, which loses to weavile, which loses to zamazenta, which loses to dondozo, which loses to rillaboom, which loses to volcarona and etc. We also have adequate defensive pokemon, stuff like Great Tusk, Ting-lu, Zapdos, Dondozo, Garganacl are amazing pokemon that can check pretty much anything in the metagame, at the start of dlc Highv0ltag3 peaked on ladder with stall in a hearthflame meta using a Torn-t stall, and on high-ladder there was also a lot of balance teams that uses pokemon like defensive dragonite to check it, so we were at a precipice of people acclimating to the hearthflame meta before it got quickbanned.

I saw a lot of people here mentioning "why unban pokemon when its already banned? what purpose do they bring?" its to prevent stuff like this from happening, if Volcarona was here, Rillaboom wouldn't be this broken and so on. Having more variety is almost always better.

So heres my proposal, Slow Down the bans, after the first few OBVIOUSLY brokens (Magearna, Chi-Yu, Landorus-I, etc) only do suspect tests, and have a longer gap between them and let the meta settle, maybe 3 weeks minimum. Then can we also not ban litterally everything? I know "Broken checks broken" is a no-go usually, but looking at how game freak is taking SV with the DLC, new broken moves, new broken pokemon, its impossible to make an ORAS or SS style balanced metagame. If we continue this meta and ban Gholdengo, it may fix the problem of hazards but then Iron-Valiant and Rillaboom becomes more broken, then we ban those and dark types become more broken, then if we ban too much the defensive pokemon like garg starts becoming broken again its a never ending cycle, and lets not forget that the defensive pokemon of this meta like Garganacl, Great Tusk, Ting-lu, Zapdos are excellent and can check pretty much every pokemon. SV is very similar to SM at how many broken things there are, and guess what? despite SM having so many downright broken pokemon, the meta thrives, the things that are thought to be broken have balanced out (Tapu Lele, Ash Gren, etc.) because the meta eventually settled. I think its just impossible for this meta to be completely balanced with how dominant hazards are, amount of broken pokemon, the defensive power creep, etc.

I am not againts bans, but i am very concerned at how fast the meta is going, there are so many surveys in a row, just one after another barely after a ban just happened and people don't have enough time to collect their thoughts and vote, which at that point why even have a survey?

Slow down the survey so people can collect their thoughts a vote with a full grasp on the meta, Slow down the bans and suspect so the meta can develop naturally and have people deal with the 'broken' pokemon like :baxcalibur: Bax and :garganacl: Garg in the past, Embrace the 'Broken checks broken' aspect of SV since it is the way game freak is going with the balancing and pokemon that are available.
IMG_1339.jpeg


Ok Mimi, you are a fantastic, respectable player and builder, but this take ain’t it chief.

The bans/suspects are happening so quickly because there would normally be barely enough time for any tiering action. DLC2 is coming next month and will ultimately shift much of the meta, so why not get rid of as much problematic shit as possible before the next wave inevitably introduces more broken nonsense.

A broken checks broken meta is something that you don’t want. Gen 5 OU is an unbalanced mess rn because they kept Latios, Keldeo, Rain, Zam, etc in the tier for 10 years.

I do agree some of the banned Pokemon that provided defensive utility like Volc and Gliscor have caused other Pokemon to be harder to check, but ultimately they were still problematic for the meta. Volc was an unpredictable guessing game while Gliscor was an immortal spike machine that tainted the viability of several beneficial mons in the tier. The point is that they limited teambuilding. Sneasler provided no defensive utility and was just a big cheese weasel, so there is no benefit to keeping it.

I would argue banning problematic Pokemon actually opens up more viable counterplay to current mons. If you banned Gholdengo today, suddenly Amoonguss would become more reliable check to Valiant, Rilla, and Wogre since its not completely walled by the gold man anymore. Hazard removal becomes easier and this checking certain mons becomes easier.

The meta doesn’t need Volc rn, even if having a Fairy check and a Rilla check in one slot would be nice, you now have to slot in a Skeledirge or Tran and hope it isn’t carrying Tera Ground Tera Blast, which is why it ultimately got banned.

Then there is the stall/balance fearmongering cause people are too afraid of games that last for more than 20 turns. Fast broken offensive threats and spikes actually discourage wallbreakers that would otherwise crack open defensive cores.

I am not saying every competitive gen needs to be as blissfully balanced and fun as ADV, but we should at least try to balance the meta with the time we have before GF brings in DLC2 and the inevitable Gen 10 which will introduce an evolution to Gholdengo with 144 SpA and a 60 bp priority ghost move.
 
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