Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Suspect]

[TCTphantom]

As things stand. it's not particularly likely any specific mons are getting banned. Oftentimes, throughout a suspect test, people start digging for new ways to counter a specific mon, which slightly shifts the meta towards another mon being banworthy. When moon eventually gets ST'd, the same thing is going to happen. I do think moon might be broken enough to get voted out on the ST, but my hopes aren't particularly high considering what happened with gouging and kyurem.

Honestly to build off this, I genuinely think that unbanning Zamazenta Crowned would be a closer vote than any suspect we do right now. Is it a good idea to even test it? Probs not, but I think it kind of shows how awkward testing is in the tier right now. People broadly are unhappy with the tier, but if you ask people what the problem is with the tier you will get all sorts of different answers. People will say Gholdengo, Kyurem, Gouging Fire, Raging Bolt, Ogerpon, Kingambit, Dragapult, Roaring Moon, and what have you. But I think it is kinda telling both Kyurem and Gouging did not get the banhammer. Obviously, a big part of that is due to how the meta has adapted to them, but it also is kinda telling that this gen in particular, six of our eleven public suspect tests have failed. Yeah, part of that is the OU council being a lot more willing to exercise quickbans; outside of Volc in DLC1, I feel most of the mons quickbanned would have met a decisive majority for a ban.

I could make a post on why Zamazenta Crowned is the only Uber that is even a remotely reasonable test, but I feel all that would do is bring in the unban Lugia crowd, and that sounds miserable. I'll just comment that right now, the meta is in a serviceable spot but not one a lot of folks like, but there isnt much we can realisitcally do imo.

 

[Sylveon used calm mind]

With SPL coming to an end, maybe we could try retesting older pokemon that got banned before dlc2 dropped and hold off on the suspect test for newer pokemon for now.

The mons in question would be:
Sneasler
Baxcalibur
Chien Pao
Urshifu-Water & Dark
Ursaluna-Bloodmoon

I think most of these mons sadly won't be in the discussion of retesting even though I personally would want to retest all of them since this is most likely the final gen 9 meta we're getting (maybe some more pokemon will be transferrable through legends z-a)

 

[Eeveeto]

With SPL coming to an end, maybe we could try retesting older pokemon that got banned before dlc2 dropped and hold off on the suspect test for newer pokemon for now.

The mons in question would be:
Sneasler
Baxcalibur
Chien Pao
Urshifu-Water & Dark
Ursaluna-Bloodmoon

I think most of these mons sadly won't be in the discussion of retesting even though I personally would want to retest all of them since this is most likely the final gen 9 meta we're getting (maybe some more pokemon will be transferrable through legends z-a)

Can see Sneasler and Chien Pao, but there is only place for one Ice Dragon and one bear in OU, Kyurem and Ursaluna already cover it.

 

[RainWaiv]

Can see Sneasler and Chien Pao, but there is only place for one Ice Dragon and one bear in OU, Kyurem and Ursaluna already cover it.

ursaluna is NOT an OU mon. It's UU

 

[Finchinator]

Any list with Ursaluna-Bloodmoon is a nonstarter. It is completely unplayable to have an OU with it. Sneasler is similar, too, given Rillaboom still being plenty viable.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I'll just comment that right now, the meta is in a serviceable spot but not one a lot of folks like, but there isnt much we can realisitcally do imo.

the main issue is that this meta has serious flaws but no one can agree where to take it. some people say we should take it in a more offensive direction and unban ubers. some people say we should take it in a more balance/stall-favoring direction and ban stuff. some people say we should take it in a more traditional direction and ban tera. me, i say at this point we should take it into the woods and leave it there while we go play gen 6 or something

 

[RainWaiv]

the main issue is that this meta has serious flaws but no one can agree where to take it. some people say we should take it in a more offensive direction and unban ubers. some people say we should take it in a more balance/stall-favoring direction and ban stuff. some people say we should take it in a more traditional direction and ban tera. me, i say at this point we should take it into the woods and leave it there while we go play gen 6 or something

I personally vote we unban 1 random uber every week. So every week we get to build around countering one specific massive threat. Magearna wins the roll? Clodsire stocks skyrocket. Chi-yu? Heatran rises to the top of OU again. Zacian? We stop playing for the week.

 

[Avira]

Heatran just will never be at the top of OU again after it lost Toxic and Eruption, two moves that were great for the trapping set and the Air Balloon offensive set respectably. It doesn't even beat Chi-Yu since Specs Dark Pulse cleanly 2HKOes.

 

[Magcargo]

Heatran just will never be at the top of OU again after it lost Toxic and Eruption, two moves that were great for the trapping set and the Air Balloon offensive set respectably. It doesn't even beat Chi-Yu since Specs Dark Pulse cleanly 2HKOes.

IDK, been playing more balance lately and while Heatran isn't at the top it is still annnoying af with Taunt Magma Storm making easy progress + stopping Ting-Lu from setting up hazards + walling the main regen mon, Gking. That being said, Mola structures make Heatran struggle unless it runs some BS like Tera Blast Grass. Even if it had Toxic, there's nothing Heatran can really do to stop Mola from bottlenecking its progress with free flips.

Ironically, I see Heatran falling off even more if Ogerpon-Wellspring gets banned since Alomomola structures will be fully unleashed, which Heatran can't make progress against. I see Volcanion taking Heatrans place since it can more efficiently trap Mola due to being immune to flip turn.

As an aside, how do players currently feel about balance dynamics lately? I've been using a pretty generic structure that was discovered day one in DLC2 and when I am not autolosing to random stuff by turn 5 cause I'm bad, it feels like the gameplan is generally

• Spam hazards
• Try spamming Knock with Meow / Weav
• switch into metal bird to avoid Knock
• Take advantage of opposing metal bird with Dragapult for free Will-O to beat their checks with Hex late OR switch into GKing to setup Future Sight
• Take advantage of GKing with Ting-Lu to spam hazards
• Rinse and repeat

As a Meow fan, I am generally a fan of these structures, esp since it promoted a more methodical approach to breaking down the enemies team over time, but I'm not sure if Knock and Boots being so central to the gameplan of a balance like this is healthy for the game. It feels like whichever team loses the metal bird first is at a severe disadvantage since everything else just dies if they get Knocked, even Gking doesn't have the longevity to survive. I feel like Boots ironically worsens the problem, since the team that lacks boots is at such a distinct disadvantage in longevity compared to the team with Boots.

IDK, I probably am 2 month too late talking about this, but using a structure like this put into perspective a lot of other top players opinions, stuff like Garg being potentially OP, Zama being OP, Meow being broken -> falling off (still good imo), Kyurem potentially being broken because of freeze, etc. I also am not sure this style of balance is in favor in tournaments, seeing as a lot the balances I see others use don't have speed control or are running completely different mons like Apple to handle Woger, Dozo as a wincon, etc, which didn't seem to have much Knock off countermeasures barring Tusk, and those did fine. Its more than likely that this style just isn't the ideal way balance is meant to be played, esp since its so vulnerable to cheese (though the Gking / Ting-Lu / Metal Bird core is still quite excellent as a defensive backbone). It doesn't help that Ting-Lu is getting worn down too fast, so its really easy to auto lose to stuff like Volcarona.

Also using a team like this just put into perspective how amazing Utility Pult really is & why it is the best mon in the metagame. In practice, its longevity is actually amazing because of Boots & longterm, it gets multiple entry points on stuff like Skarmory, Tusk, etc. Fast wisp completely neutralizes a lot of mons -> Hex breaks down stuff over time, Pult is the perfect speed control mon, Darts breaks down special walls, and Fast Wisp is never not useful. It wins long-term interactions very easily.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Would be neat but maybe wait for the meta to settle a bit through another ban or two perhaps before we unleash that type of chaos?

Also with zama being as strong as it is we should be thankful we still have fat gouging fire to actually be a really good check into, I am so glad Gliscor and Gouging Fire exist in this tier along with the always tried and true Glowking to keep it from getting out of hand. The fact these guys keep Zama in line is a very good thing considering how good Zamazenta is right now

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Let's just move on now...

On a new note, I do think Roaring Moon will be the next suspect simply because it feels like the easiest thing to get people to agree on getting out of OU.

 

[Heatranator]

View attachment 618025

The next suspect test is the friends we made along the way.



I'll see myself out.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I'll see myself out.

so will i, see y'all if we ever suspect something again

 

[quacc]

Landorus-Incarnate could be a really cool unban for the tier. First, let's go over what makes it a lot weaker this time around:

-Lots of good ground types, hard to stack multiple. You usually stack 2 ground types at most, but 3 gives you glaring weaknesses to lots of threats. On top of this, even if you wanted to use some pivot Landorus-Therian + Landorus-Incarnate core, you literally couldn't because that would be cheating. You wouldn't pair it with Gliscor either, because having half your team die to ice moves is kinda cringe.

-Lots of threats this time around. Weavile is at an all time high, Meowscarada got triple axel, and Kyurem is here to stay, meaning this mon does not get that many switchin opportunities. Here's a few relevant calcs:

252 Atk Protean Meowscarada Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Landorus: 772-916 (242 - 287.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (a lot of damage)

252 Atk Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Landorus: 268-324 (84 - 101.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO (something something rocks calc)

252 Atk Weavile Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Landorus: 812-976 (254.5 - 305.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO (a lot of damage)

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ice Kyurem Blizzard vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Landorus: 1720-2032 (539.1 - 636.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO (I can't count past 316 so that's probably a lot of damage)

-Powercrept tier means that it's speed isn't that overwhelming, 101 speed trolls some base 100 speed mons, but you literally get outsped by like everything else. THis means that you're pretty easy to smack around and cripple with moves like knock off. Additionally, 115 special attack, while it used to be pretty cool and all, does not cut it when literally everyone and their mother can cause more emotional damage. For example, from a statistical standpoint, Enamorus-Incarnate literally outclasses Landorus-Incarnate because of the higher speed, way more special attack, access to contrary for broken tera blast stellar shenanigans, and a fairy typing instead of a ground typing to cut back on type weakness overlap (you even resist Kingambit sucker punch which is really nice).

-Walled by a lot of mons nowadays. You got the recently OU mon Blissey, the goat himself (Corviknight), Dragonite, Latios and Latias, and a lot of other things that are immune to gorund. A lack of flying STAB means you rely on earth power for the most part, and then you need to run psychic (not good), sludge wave (hits fairies I guess), focus blast (missing), or rock slide (but it's on a different spectrum of attack so you don't hit as strong with it). The coverage is honestly lacking, and even if it deals a lot, it's pretty much stuck with dealing neutral on non-STAB, so it's quite weak.

Now, let's talk about why it should drop, because this mon could be a healthy drop down.

-Puts pressure on Gking balances and threatens huge damage, but doesn't insta win cause the opponent can switch around.

-Makes pretty strong progress every time it comes in, which is nice for quickening the pace against slower teams.

-Adds diversity in offensive threats.

Landorus-Incarnate deserves a chance to prove itself to be a solid OU pick, but not an incredible one. It's strong, but not too strong. The meta is pretty out for it, with all the offensive and defensvie counterplay there is to beat it. Overall, this mon should be unbanned.

 

[Finchinator]

Curious what people think of Ogerpon-Wellspring. I find the combination of STABs and Play Rough challenging to switch into. I think it makes building balance or bulky teams really challenging. Switchins to it are limited, but its own switchins are limited as well admittedly.

 

[Magcargo]

Curious what people think of Ogerpon-Wellspring. I find the combination of STABs and Play Rough challenging to switch into. I think it makes building balance or bulky teams really challenging. Switchins to it are limited, but its own switchins are limited as well admittedly.

Seen some creative balance teams adapt with Tera Grass Hydrappl / Amoongus, but yeah, this mon is too much. Recently I've been using Meow / Dragapult / Ting / Gking / Corv / Prim balance and this sort of team gets 6-0'd by that mon even with Meow / Pult since Oger is doing too much to them on the switch with play rough. Zama is a decent check as well, but its more of a 1-time answer for similar reasons + is weak to hazards if you use ID + BP.

I've tried a few other mons like Tera Grass Zapdos and that still loses lmao. +2 Tera Water Ivy Cudgel just 2Shots & Zapper doesn't do enough damage back, while also giving you a worse MU vs Gambit / Gliscor. Hazards are a limiting factor, yea, but setting them up ASAP can be difficult since Ting-Lu / Skarm don't match up well vs Oger imo.

I do like how Woger keeps Manaphy and Alo + Ursaluna in check, but its doing many of the same things these mons are doing, arguably more efficiently too since its so much faster, while still being strong off the rip.

 

[Finchinator]

Meow isn’t a good check, Amoonguss is painfully passive, Hydrapple only works in very limited capacities and has to watch out for Play Rough, and Ogerpon’s regular form is ok once over at least. Everything matters in context of course and Wellspring isn’t as durable as many other things, especially without Boots, but it isn’t a walk in the park to contain it.

 

[RainWaiv]

I think the problem with waterpon is that if you're building balance or stall you have to have an incredibly precise gameplan for it. For most other threats to your teams there is always going to be some counterplay between either 1 mon standalone or 2 mons working together, and for threats that your team isn't 100% prepared for you can still win with good play. That just isn't something you can do with Waterpon as it gets so many setup oppurtunities if your opponent has sacked or slow pivoted and it can do so much with those setup oppurtunities. At +0, tera water ivy cudgel can dish out solid damage against would-be checks, and if it can get an SD up it becomes much harder to stop. It's something that can heavily restrict teambuilding as if you aren't completely ready for waterpon you will get your ass handed to you on a platter. If it did come to a suspect test I honestly would vote DNB but that's just because i'm an offense player and that's waterpons worst matchup by a long shot.

 

[Heatranator]

Meow isn’t a good check, Amoonguss is painfully passive, Hydrapple only works in very limited capacities and has to watch out for Play Rough, and Ogerpon’s regular form is ok once over at least. Everything matters in context of course and Wellspring isn’t as durable as many other things, especially without Boots, but it isn’t a walk in the park to contain it.

I would be interested in seeing people explore amoonguss, I personally used a sunny day growth set when rain was prevalent which was scary. I think you've all seen the memes where it has more attack then Talonflame, so I think if we looked at more offensive set, amoonguss could help with stuff like waterpon and raging bolt.
Overall, if waterpon goes, I won't complain, but it's not my first choice. It punishes balance and BO teams the most, but HO and stall can deal with it decently well.

 

[Avira]

Personally, I find Ogerpon-Wellspring oppressive if you're using a slower-paced team due to how strong of a wallbreaker it is while having a good speed tier and not being frail on one end of the spectrum while possibly being able to Encore non-attacking moves or attacks that bounce off it.

Only specific Tera Grass physically walls are even remotely answers to it since it can easily outdamage basically every wall before Tera. Past wallbreakers such as Tapu Lele had a lower speed tier, quite poor physical bulk, and a worse STAB combo and could be pivoted around through regenerator cores due to hazards not being crazy, while no such thing can really be done with Ogerpon-Wellspring.

Yeah, Ogerpon-Wellspring gets hella chipped by spikes and is slower than many top offensive threats while also being vulnerable to priority, making it easy for offense to trade mons with it, but slower-paced teams do not have that same luxury to fit as much of that.

I know some people hype up Hoopa-Unbound as being some unstopabble wallbreaker as a reason Ogerpon-Wellspring should remain OU, but in my experience, it is easy to deal with Hoopa due its low speed (slower than Base 87), physical fragility, and horrible defensive typing. Ursaluna at least chips itself, is REALLY slow, has an exploitable defensive typing in spite of its nuclear power, and its STAB attacks have common immunities.

I believe Ogerpon-Wellspring has all the right traits to make it among the best wallbreakers of any OU mainstays in the past, and I do believe it is at a level above Tapu Lele in previous generations, which I personally find to be unhealthy due to how much it constrains building. I probably won't be able to get reqs if she were suspected since I've only managed to get reqs for the Tera suspect test, but if I were able to, I'd vote ban.

 

[Finchinator]

I would be interested in seeing people explore amoonguss, I personally used a sunny day growth set when rain was prevalent which was scary. I think you've all seen the memes where it has more attack then Talonflame, so I think if we looked at more offensive set, amoonguss could help with stuff like waterpon and raging bolt.
Overall, if waterpon goes, I won't complain, but it's not my first choice. It punishes balance and BO teams the most, but HO and stall can deal with it decently well.

Amoonguss has been tried quite a few times recently, even surfacing in some tournaments. It’s just absolutely deadweight into gliscor, Kingambit, and gholdengo while its lackluster damage output enables GKing and it’s pretty useless into bulky teams.

 

[Demon Queen]

deadweight into gliscor, Kingambit.

Save me Worry Seed…
Worry Seed… save me…

 

[Finchinator]

Save me Worry Seed…
Worry Seed… save me…

The issue is gliscor can still sit there for quite a few turns and then amoonguss isn’t even a threat for other Pokemon even if it fits worry seed; still enables knock and spikes or SD EQ EQ sequences

 

[jackuzzler]

I find Wellspring to be fairly overwhelming currently, definitely suspect worthy though it remains to be seen whether it should be banned or not. I think the dual STAB combination with Low Kick, Knock Off, and most threateningly Play Rough in the final slot is really hard to build around and makes building very difficult as the tier lacks defensive grass types. It lacks some critical characteristics though, not being able to run boots and weakness to priority make it super easy for offensive builds to wear down. Defensive builds have a harder time, and I think an increase of tera normal espeed killer dnite on balance has happened and will continue to happen as it can fit well. The problem is a lot of Ogerpon's solid checks are deadweight into some matchups, or too passive.

I've always had the philosophy when building (stealing teams I like) that priority is king in this tier. With the unpredictability of tera combined with offensive threats in Ogerpon lacking priority, it's a huge beneficiary and an important contingency plan and I always believe some form of priority is a must have on almost every archetype. I believe Wellspring is a big reason for my mentality around this. Wellspring forces good building but it still feels fairly restricting, so definitely okay with a suspect.

 

[Bold School]

Curious what people think of Ogerpon-Wellspring. I find the combination of STABs and Play Rough challenging to switch into. I think it makes building balance or bulky teams really challenging. Switchins to it are limited, but its own switchins are limited as well admittedly.

First of all, I don't think there is enough community support to ban it right now. Or anything else in particular. It did feel broken in DLC 1, but not really in this DLC. I am not currently pro-ban or anti-ban for this pokemon. But while I would like to see action on something, and Wellspring is as good to me as almost anything else at this point, I feel like it would do the least for the tier of all the potential borderline bans that have been brought up.

Other Ogerpon forms are likely underutilized. Cornerstone is actually very useful. If Waterpon was banned, we would likely see a lot more Cornerstone and maybe some other faster wall breaker sets when that didn't cut it. Even the base form is really decent anti-meta because of Defiant and the speed boost. Although, it doesn't fit on every team since it is a major Tera hog and lacks as good coverage. The point is there is enough to slot in where I don't think it would be too huge difference with Cornerstone and whatever else. Maybe a few of the matchups shift, and maybe rain becomes a bit more common without a common water immunity, but I truly don't think it would fix the tier or anything. I think Cornerstone and whatever else is enough to fill at least most of that void.

As far as my thoughts on it goes, Waterpon is fairly predictable. You know the Tera and it can be a Tera hog. You more or less know what the game plan is. It isn't something you typically have to scout all that much. Maybe you scout for coverage like Play Rough versus Encore or whatever. It's more a problem for slower teams or defensive cores. But many thing in this meta are.

Some people bring up Waterpon's speed tier as a problem for a wall breaker. But I don't know. 110 base speed in gen 9 is kinda like the old 100 base speed as a benchmark for exceeding it being fast or not. Waterpon is right on that line. Not over it. It cannot use Booster Energy and it really only can use an awkward Trailblaze as a speed boost. I don't even think Trailblaze is good on it since faster teams will have Booster Energy and/or priority to revenge kill it. Slower teams are mostly outsped anyways. In general, most of the teams that struggle to Waterpon are slower or at least have slower defensive cores and thus would also already struggle against other slower wallbreakers like Hoopa or Kyurem. So I don't feel like the speed tier is much of a problem.

I play primarily balance and offense, and I can say that Wellspring is almost never an issue for any of my teams. You can make this case with many borderline threats, though, because we live in a threat saturated meta state. So the styles of teams they use and how they are built will tend to determine which of the too many threats are an issue for them in particular and which ones aren't. But it would likely be different for the next person and so on.