Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[Bold School]

SV OU Viability Rankings are now up: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-viability-ranking-thread.3712493/#post-9432321

The list seems pretty good at first glance. I don't actually have too many criticisms with the initial list. I am a bit shocked at some of the things in A+ rank being only A+ rank. But there really isn't that much disparity between most of the things I think should be ranked a bit higher or lower in that range or in general.

I don't know about Killowattrell being OU and Jolteon, which has better stats and mostly similar strengths, not being on the list. Jolteon is probably the better fast Volt Switcher in most situations besides rain. Personally, I think both are UU.

Is there anything missing? All I can think of at the moment are a couple theoretical mons I haven't tested enough myself. Noivern is maybe good on paper and I've been meaning to get to that. Frosmoth I tested a little. It's only viable if you really devote your Tera slot to it, which might be a non-starter, but it is a decent answer to a lot of special attackers if you do. I can't recall seeing either on the ladder on any of my accounts so I can only assume the usage is very low. Haven't bothered to check.

This ranking is a pretty good start I'd say.

 

[ochoagenalyn]

looking at the VR i realized we need some good pivots but with all the setup sweepers and hazards running amok that seems like a tall order. the higher ranks are mostly just setup sweepers and their enablers.

 

[Olijolly]

Always thought pult was CRIMINALLY underrated mon for the discussion of of the other mons, such as roaring moon, dragonite, Chien pal, etc we’re getting.

agreed but im unsure if it's correc to say pult is top 2-4 mon, which is what that list is saying for now. it def has lots of options right now that are great though.

 

[Askeia]

Could we get a replay of that last thing actually happening? I’d like to have an example of how to play around Gholdengo that we can all use before it gets banned.

Watch any high rank game with Corviknight and it happens all the time.
U-turn into Garchomp or Ting-Lu, click Spikes as Gholdengo is forced to switched out. Repeat once or twice and you are already ahead on hazards against the spike stacking team.
Gholdengo is coming in at most twice before it is unable to deal with all the chip damage it’s taking.

Or U-turn to something like Dragapult or Chi-Yu and just delete whatever they decide to switch Gholdengo out for.

Gholdengo switching into Corviknight is literally the most predictable move you can make. That’s why double Ghost cores with Annihilape rose to prominence to punish the U-turn. But even then a lot of Corviknight players are just choosing to hard switch when they see double Ghost core.

Speaking of Annihilape, even if Gholdengo gets banned, Annihilape is still going to be around to punish blind Defog with Defiant. And it’s not limited to Annihilape either, Spikes is just so strong this Gen that whatever Defog punisher you ban, the next will just take its place. Since Spikes is strong this Gen and Defog is scarce, all that is going to change is that targeted hate towards Corviknight will increase to keep Spikes up.

Spikes is either a problem or it’s not. If it’s not, then learn to play around it because it’s going to stay no matterGholdego leaves or not

 

[Contrary Servine]

Running into some problems with iron valiant. Is choice scarfing my own IV advisable? Max special attack and kill opposing IVs with moonblast.

In my experience Spdef Sylveon is an excellent counter to IV, since the only physical move most sets run is CC.

Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Wish
- Protect
- Yawn

I‘d like to plug this set just in general anyway. With full spdef investment it beats Specs Chi-yu outside of Sun or Tera Fire, and can pretty much hard counter Iron Valiant. Hyper Voice doesn’t care about the endless Shed Tail subs running around, and Wish passing is really useful after the Gen 9 recovery nerf. Also as has already been mentioned it can help bring breakers like Chi-yu in quite effectively, as Sylveon can set up a Wish while baiting Gholdengo, allowing for a free switch to Chi-yu barring a Focus Blast prediction. Yawn is also nice for shutting down set-up sweepers, and Tera Poison lets you take on Gholdengo/Iron Moth if you have to. Sylveon’s underrated in the current meta imo-with most of it’s competitors gone it’s the premier defensive fairy rn.

 

[Joseph Gomes]

I don't nominate Chi-Yu for S rank, because I think Chi-Yu needs to be banned outright. It's very, very unhealthy for the tier, forces Tera nearly everytime it's on the field, and definitely when terastalizes itself. It has very limited number of viable checks which can still be crippled (Ruination slashes HP by 50%, for example)

I would recommend the council to consider quickbanning Chi-Yu, or hold a suspect test for it before Tera. Chi-Yu is one of those mons that are broken regardless of tera, and there's no point delaying its eventual ban.

TLDR - Ban Chi-Yu

 

[BlackKnight_Gawain]

I quite like the viability list, first time in a while where I generally agree with most picks. My only personal nitpick is I'd bump everything up a half or full rank, just because of how versatile or dominating they are , e.g Tusk runs a good number of sets that make it discount Lando in the way it can just fit anywhere, or Chi-Yu being S because 'press button to delete' or Glimmora to A+ also because it's versatile even out of hazard stack teams (scarf set is actually such a doozy)

 

[ochoagenalyn]

In my experience Spdef Sylveon is an excellent counter to IV, since the only physical move most sets run is CC.

Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Wish
- Protect
- Yawn

I‘d like to plug this set just in general anyway. With full spdef investment it beats Specs Chi-yu outside of Sun or Tera Fire, and can pretty much hard counter Iron Valiant. Hyper Voice doesn’t care about the endless Shed Tail subs running around, and Wish passing is really useful after the Gen 9 recovery nerf. Also as has already been mentioned it can help bring breakers like Chi-yu in quite effectively, as Sylveon can set up a Wish while baiting Gholdengo, allowing for a free switch to Chi-yu barring a Focus Blast prediction. Yawn is also nice for shutting down set-up sweepers, and Tera Poison lets you take on Gholdengo/Iron Moth if you have to. Sylveon’s underrated in the current meta imo-with most of it’s competitors gone it’s the premier defensive fairy rn.

Until it's CM/Specs Psyshock, in which case:

+1 252 SpA Iron Valiant Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 228-269 (57.8 - 68.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

It's dead if it Tera into Poison. There are better checks out there

 

[658Greninja]

SV OU Viability Rankings are now up: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-viability-ranking-thread.3712493/#post-9432321

Finally, some respect for my boi Iron Treads.

Floatzel and Barra should swap places. Wave Crash hits harder than Barra’s Liquidation in Rain. The speed tiers also aren’t a massive difference.

 

[Finchinator]

Finally, some respect for my boi Iron Treads.

Floatzel and Barra should swap places. Wave Crash hits harder than Barra’s Liquidation in Rain. The speed tiers also aren’t a massive difference.

This thread really is not open to nitpicking ranks as I allude in the quote below, but Barraskewda doesn’t rely on a recount move, has close combat/psychic fangs, and has higher attack, so it’s not that simple. It’s certainly the more common and relies upon of the two.

Hello everyone, this is the first edition of the SV OU Viability Rankings!

We will keep this thread locked for a couple of days and then open it up to public questions for 1-2 days, which we will try to respond to for those curious about ranks. Please hold your questions in the meantime -- we will get to them then, I promise! Thanks for being patient -- I am just a tad overwhelmed right now with everything going on.

After this stretch, it will also be open to nominations and we will engage in the normal VR process. Enjoy!

 

[fratelli bc]

So... In S and A rank we have 4 ghosts, 4 steels and 6 darks. No wonder why there is not a single Psychic-type that is OU by usage. At least there are 3 that can be viable, and one of those can be really dangerous.

 

[Komodo_Drogo]

How are people dealing with iron valiant? Has special coverage that seems to cover essentially everything and I'm usually having to sack something to pick it off with priority.

Any other mons besides Sylveon?

 

[Contrary Servine]

Until it's CM/Specs Psyshock, in which case:

+1 252 SpA Iron Valiant Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 228-269 (57.8 - 68.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

It's dead if it Tera into Poison. There are better checks out there

Fair enough, but Specs Valiant is pretty rare and easily exploited, and even CM on the switch doesn’t beat Sylveon:
0 SpA Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. +1 0 HP / 0 SpD Iron Valiant: 254-302 (87.8 - 104.4%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

Valiant dies if it’s at all chipped. Besides, you’re not using your Tera against Valiant, that’s specifically for Iron Moth/Gholdengo. Sylveon can’t 100% counter every Valiant set, I don’t think anything can, but deals pretty reliably with most of the common sets.

 

[LumityForever]

Ok,heres a crazy idea.

Instead of banning Baton Pass entirely,lets unban the move but bans setup with it (like no SD,no CM,.....).
This gens bottlenecked most pivot moves like Teleport,Flip Turn,..... so i see this as a cool solution to add in to the pivoting game
Smogon had also done a similar thing on BP in gen 3,where the move wasnt banned outright but there was a complex ban so you cant make full chains that autowin every battle.

 

[1LDK]

Ok,heres a crazy idea.

Instead of banning Baton Pass entirely,lets unban the move but bans setup with it (like no SD,no CM,.....).
This gens bottlenecked most pivot moves like Teleport,Flip Turn,..... so i see this as a cool solution to add in to the pivoting game
Smogon had also done a similar thing on BP in gen 3,where the move wasnt banned outright but there was a complex ban so you cant make full chains that autowin every battle.

So you want to add another pivot option at the cost of cutting every single setup move in the game, thats literally cereal with no milk, it just doesnt work

 

[Uranium233]

I'm not sure how you're getting 60 BP. I believe it was established that the boost to weak moves with Tera does not apply to multi-hits.

Sorry for the late reply, that makes sense. I hope it does because otherwise this is broken

 

[Soiramio3000]

it is weird how espartha was voted as the least broken pokemon.
she always feels like the most broken of them all since she often singlehandedly destroys entire teams.

 

[Stories]

it is weird how espartha was voted as the least broken pokemon.
she always feels like the most broken of them all since she often singlehandedly destroys entire teams.

This is such a broad and subjective statement. Any Pokemon could sweep an entire team. Obviously Espathra is quite good at setting up sweeps but its common enough to mandate prep for and with only 2 relevant tera types and poor stats and reliance on Stored Power’s BP to do damage, I think its safe to say the only thing that “breaks” Espathra is Shed Tail.

 

[SetsuSetsuna]

How are people dealing with iron valiant? Has special coverage that seems to cover essentially everything and I'm usually having to sack something to pick it off with priority.

Any other mons besides Sylveon?

You are right in that it has coverage for everything, Thunderbolt for Corvi and bulky waters, Shadow Ball for Gholdengo and Skerelidge, Psyshock for Clodsire and Iron Moth, even Close Combat for Blissey if it decides to go mixed. All these moves however tend to be super committal if you are choice locked, so most of the time it will be clicking Specs Moonblast. Think of it like a faster but a bit weaker Lele. If it's Booster Energy then it doesn't have the same levels of power and can be played around more easily.

 

[MasterPlayer]

I know Glaceon is a bad Pokémon, but on paper Specs Tera Ice CM boosted STAB Ice Beam sounds like something that not even Blissey would want to switch into

 

[Finchinator]

addiction is real kids, watch out

(let’s stop discussing Glaceon, it’s not viable or remotely discussion worthy)

May be the first time we ever start a generation’s Viability Rankings with a Pokemon preemptively on the blacklist.

 

[Local Dog]

At this point, they deserve some special badge that's like "no 1 Glaceon fan" or something

 

[LumityForever]

So you want to add another pivot option at the cost of cutting every single setup move in the game, thats literally cereal with no milk, it just doesnt work

most setup sweepers dont run pivot moves,duh

itll give stuff like alomomola niches,why not

 

[Athyestic]

I know Glaceon is a bad Pokémon, but on paper Specs Tera Ice CM boosted STAB Ice Beam sounds like something that not even Blissey would want to switch into

Specs and CM boosted? Bit confusing there, don’t know how you’re getting that.

Also, don’t get me wrong I love Glaceon. It’s a very cool Pokémon (hehe) and I do think it has some merit… but I think there are limits to the amount of times you can propagate one Pokémon that fringes on viability without getting the side eye.

 

[Athyestic]

So you want to add another pivot option at the cost of cutting every single setup move in the game, thats literally cereal with no milk, it just doesnt work

firstly I dislike this analogy, dry cereal is lowk good and I tend to eat my cereal dry. That’s not the point though, the idea is on the same set. You can’t run SD and Baton Pass on the same set, but you can run Baton Pass on a Pokémon without a setup move. It would just function as a pivot option for mons like Alolamola.