To be fair, Stall is doing a bit better after DLC, gaining two Knock Absorbers in Gliscor and Clefable is huge for it. Allows them to keep removal-less teams afloat.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
- Status
Yeah, I don't know where this narrative that Stall sucks comes from. There was a time in Gen 9 where it absolutely did, but right now Stall's probably one of the better playstyles since there's this huge void between Bulky Offense and Stall, where Balance/Semi-Stall are very hard to use outside of very specific structures.
It's the one consistent thing about what is at its core an incredibly inconsistent metagame.
It's the one consistent thing about what is at its core an incredibly inconsistent metagame.
IMO Stall is not doin well in the current meta, because simply seeing ogerpon wellspring on the other team necessitates a dondozo tera, and now you lose if any other mon on their team has a niche set that would also require tera to counter. Stall (along with HO) is inherently more matchup fish than the middleground strategies, but usually there is room to outplay each other even under bad matchup. Sometimes they bring an overkill wallbreaker like Hoopa-U or Arcanine-H, in which case it's great that you can tera to alleviate the matchup issue. However, it's not sustainable for a stall structure to be essentially playing tera-less against any team with one of the top 5 mons in the tier. You can try bringing a different ogerpon-water counter than dondozo, but losing dondozo makes your stall so much worse into every other swords dancer.
So in conclusion, stall is no more consistent in the current meta than any other strategy - except with how consistently it loses to the common structures.
True, But stall's have been getting a lot more creative in tackling this mon with stuff like clear smog amogus and introducing grasses like ches (ps it checks tera dark gambit) and using mons like torn to beat it over or force its tera meaning your not in a worse position for having to tera your own donzo.
Overall though Wellspring is some bullshit and deserves to go along with RM
Genuinely surprised that Kingambit can be rated low priority in the same opinion that someone rates sneasler as a high priority.
forget 16.7% dire claw shenanigans when you have 50% sucker punch shenanigans. This is on top of Kingambit being the most defensively reliable offensive pokemon in OU as it is.
sneasler is also adding more to the meta than ever before, with its ability to Tera-fly in front of Gliscor, and it’s critical poison STAB against fairies, including the best fairy in OU: kingambit.
In terms of the meta as a whole, things like roaring moon are more suffocating than gholdengo will ever be. This is due to how teams are actually designed, any team can force massive progress with knock off on roaring moon. At least you can get past gholdengo + HO spam with options such as HDB or cinderace.
That said, I can understand why hazards + gholdengo is the most annoying thing for so many people right now.
overall I’d argue pokemon like roaring moon take away team building options. Pokémon like Gliscor are useful and add potential for creativity with counterplay.
forget 16.7% dire claw shenanigans when you have 50% sucker punch shenanigans. This is on top of Kingambit being the most defensively reliable offensive pokemon in OU as it is.
sneasler is also adding more to the meta than ever before, with its ability to Tera-fly in front of Gliscor, and it’s critical poison STAB against fairies, including the best fairy in OU: kingambit.
In terms of the meta as a whole, things like roaring moon are more suffocating than gholdengo will ever be. This is due to how teams are actually designed, any team can force massive progress with knock off on roaring moon. At least you can get past gholdengo + HO spam with options such as HDB or cinderace.
That said, I can understand why hazards + gholdengo is the most annoying thing for so many people right now.
overall I’d argue pokemon like roaring moon take away team building options. Pokémon like Gliscor are useful and add potential for creativity with counterplay.
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Don't agree really. Stall is fine atm more because the tier is so incredibly volatile that specializing into walling the majority -> walling the minority and its been getting more popular than expected because people want to play something that at least is consistent in what it wins and what it loses to. Plus balance structures do exist fwiw they're just not really flexible in building to me which can be said about like.. 9/10 things right now lol (credit to cyberacc
If you have been keeping posted in the stall discord, notable players are testing out new things like Ditto stall and Talon/Moltres stall. That one team that Supa made (at the start of the dlc) doesn't represent the entire stall archetype. Below is a replay of a stall team being tested out vs a 1956 player.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1969131880-ozuixhvk4345mxhodtc0v0di8ozlys9pw
Although ogerpon water does suck ass to deal with as stall. We can't actually fit funny shitmons to blanket that one at all.
I've gravitated towards stall as my main archetype in sv, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. I think "stallbreakers" that fulfill many other roles are a pretty good indicator of when a mon lacks any real counterplay, and is only perceived as tame due to its relative tameness in h/o mirrors. We've already had a lot of mons that fit this description. Chi-yu, Espathra, Urshifu, Annihilape, Blood Moon, and Baxcalibur come to mind. Stall is laughably easy to beat this gen if you play well, but if you'd like to have a little brain break, here's a few mons in the current meta that are able to solo any stall team that is attempting to be consistent. 
Gholdengo
There's a sample team that includes a Gholdengo running psyshock, which completely invalidates any defensive counterplay that can fit on stall this gen. In order to deal with normal gholdengo sets, stall needs to fit either calm mind blissey or clodsire, both of which lose to any set carrying psyshock.
Might as well mention that Any other psyshock user
can handily beat the current optimal stall builds.
Manaphy
Realistically, the only counterplay that stall has against this is, no joke, hard switching into blissey and spamming seismic toss to kill it. Not only does this put blissey in an unresponsive state for the rest of the match, but it also loses the 1v1 if it gets burned early on by scald. Any ho team carrying manaphy and any myriad of special sweepers can pretty much win the game on command.
Waterpon
I haven't seen this set discussed or used that much, but I'm a firm believer that the best waterpon set is Ivy cudgel, horn leech, substitute, swords dance. That's not too relevant to my point, though, because every half-decent Ogerpon set carries a tool to dismantle defensive counterplay. It's able to force tera on dondozo since it has no viable defensive counters, and puts you in a commanding position to pressure the rest of their now tera-less team.
It's not worth mentioning every niche mon that can beat 6/8 viable stall mons, but heres a few.
Specs Tera Blast
Curse
Any Physical set
Any Rillaboom that waits until corv is removed to sweep
Gholdengo
There's a sample team that includes a Gholdengo running psyshock, which completely invalidates any defensive counterplay that can fit on stall this gen. In order to deal with normal gholdengo sets, stall needs to fit either calm mind blissey or clodsire, both of which lose to any set carrying psyshock.
Might as well mention that Any other psyshock user
can handily beat the current optimal stall builds.Manaphy
Realistically, the only counterplay that stall has against this is, no joke, hard switching into blissey and spamming seismic toss to kill it. Not only does this put blissey in an unresponsive state for the rest of the match, but it also loses the 1v1 if it gets burned early on by scald. Any ho team carrying manaphy and any myriad of special sweepers can pretty much win the game on command.
Waterpon
I haven't seen this set discussed or used that much, but I'm a firm believer that the best waterpon set is Ivy cudgel, horn leech, substitute, swords dance. That's not too relevant to my point, though, because every half-decent Ogerpon set carries a tool to dismantle defensive counterplay. It's able to force tera on dondozo since it has no viable defensive counters, and puts you in a commanding position to pressure the rest of their now tera-less team.
It's not worth mentioning every niche mon that can beat 6/8 viable stall mons, but heres a few.
Specs Tera Blast
Curse
Any Physical set
Any Rillaboom that waits until corv is removed to sweep
Gotta keep defending Big Stall in the thread here lol, so yeah stall doesn't instantly crumple to psyshock users anymore with mons like tera steel spdef haze pex and a personal discovery I helped make to bring Empoleon into the light as a sturdy check to any cm psychock or stored power abuser.
Besides that i will agree that mons like Hoopa-U break stall wide open but honestly its rare and loses hard to any form of prediction from the side of the stall user like eqing on a predicted blissey switch from scor directly into Hoopa is just such a huge cripple.
Besides that i will agree that mons like Hoopa-U break stall wide open but honestly its rare and loses hard to any form of prediction from the side of the stall user like eqing on a predicted blissey switch from scor directly into Hoopa is just such a huge cripple.
So like, what happens if Kingambit somehow breaks records on a surveys and gets to a point where it's scoring warrants a emergency vote/matches others that have been quick banned?
Do we quick ban him after the suspect? (That mind you was in a different metagame)
Do we let him live and have everyone collectively groan? What do we do with the slash slinging slasher?
Do we quick ban him after the suspect? (That mind you was in a different metagame)
Do we let him live and have everyone collectively groan? What do we do with the slash slinging slasher?
I believe Ogerpon-Cornerstone is one of the most underrated mons in all of OU rn. It completely destroys stall. And if they dont have a Dondozo to Tera, it 6-0’s.
This set has has perfect coverage as a setup sweeper. You can also Tera Rock for that Stab and high critical rate boost.
Ogerpon-Cornerstone (F) @ Cornerstone Mask
Ability: Sturdy
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech/Seed Bomb/Power Whip
- Ivy Cudgel
- Stomping Tantrum
This set has has perfect coverage as a setup sweeper. You can also Tera Rock for that Stab and high critical rate boost.
Ogerpon-Cornerstone (F) @ Cornerstone Mask
Ability: Sturdy
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech/Seed Bomb/Power Whip
- Ivy Cudgel
- Stomping Tantrum
What I see ghold’s problem as right now isn’t really much to do with the spikes setters getting better - yes gliscor is excellent, but so are meowscarada and ting-lu which have been in the game since release. I unironically think that people have just gotten better at optimising ghold: hstack teams either put constant pressure on tusk or can play the guessing game with it better, air balloon is a much more common item for it than it was in pre-home, and also the threats on hstack teams are stronger - like zamazenta, ogerpon-w, rillaboom, or even the tera blast gambit variants that have been picking up steam since pre dlc. Mons like moltres and zapdos are also fully capable of pressuring tusk away from spinning with minimal risk thanks to their abilities, bulk, and favourable typing, and can be paired with ghold to fully dissuade hazard removal as a whole.
Smogon user reinvents Kokoloko tiering (unironically based)
https://www.smogon.com/smog/issue34/let-me-explain
basically for anyone who doesn't know kokoloko tiering = quickbanning a lot of things before unbanning them one by one into a stable metagame, reversing the process.
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So I know most people are complaining about Kingambit, but I thought I'd share a fun, if a bit memey set.
BulKing (Kingambit) @ Leftovers
Ability: Defiant
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Brick Break
Yes, that's right, I'm using thunder wave on this set. NGL, T-wave has actually been pretty good so far though I am low in the ladder so maybe it's just noobs being noobs is why it's doing great. Did you not like that Gambit could force 50/50s, well with Thunder wave you can turn this into a 75/25. Defiant allows Gambit to do quite well against any defoggers or sticky webs teams, plus brick break means it goes well against aurora veil teams.
TLDR, this is a fun little tech and if you want to see the team this is used on, here it is https://pokepast.es/bec9f6125e84068d
BulKing (Kingambit) @ Leftovers
Ability: Defiant
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Brick Break
Yes, that's right, I'm using thunder wave on this set. NGL, T-wave has actually been pretty good so far though I am low in the ladder so maybe it's just noobs being noobs is why it's doing great. Did you not like that Gambit could force 50/50s, well with Thunder wave you can turn this into a 75/25. Defiant allows Gambit to do quite well against any defoggers or sticky webs teams, plus brick break means it goes well against aurora veil teams.
TLDR, this is a fun little tech and if you want to see the team this is used on, here it is https://pokepast.es/bec9f6125e84068d
NabboCheTesta
Gniubbo come sempre
Things that make you feel powerful: money, social status and clicking a 120 BP, perfectly accurate Rock move backed by Grass STAB.
Is this like a legitimate thing or a "haha look at him what a dummy he only has 29 cents he only has one tortilla chip" thing? Bc I really wouldnt mind doing this
Unironically based, as said before. I have been a believer in Kokoloko tiering for a while, especially in metagames that can never really seem to stabilize like this. I am of the opinion that the biggest problem of SV OU (besides for things that may never change, like Tera) is that we didn't do enough quickbans at the beginning.
If you don't do adequate enough quickbans you get problems that can last years, and with DLC that just means some problems don't get resolved. SV has given an extremely large number of controversial/straight-up banworthy Pokemon, and I feel that if we did more quickbans at the beginning we would have had way more time and we'd not really be in the same place. You then retest the controversial elements down into the tier, one by one, or in groups (if deemed appropriate).
If I had a nickel for every pseudo legendary that dropped to UU, got banned to UUBL, returned to OU, and then potentially banned to Ubers because of a buff in the DLC, I'd have two nickels.
Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it might happen twice, right?
Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it might happen twice, right?
MOON SUSSY BAKKAA!!
Alright lads time to come up with a song.
CAN YOU HEAR THE MOON by Grady is the first thing that comes to mind for me, but I can’t really name many songs with moon in the title so.
Roar of the Spark also comes to mind, but it won’t happen because idt finch will let a guilty gear song get chosen for a test.
I don't post in here very often, but I wanted to share my response to the survey and other general metagame opinions that I've gathered from laddering at ~1850-1900 and helping my teammates prepare for SCL.
What is your enjoyment of the tier? - 4/10
The tier as it is right now feels empty. HO is present, in several incarnations even with Grassy/Psychic Terrain, Weather and of course more traditional Glimmora Paradox Spam teams. Stall is also quite strong and consistent. The new toys of Gliscor and Clefable have greatly assisted its ability to absorb Knock Off (traditionally stall's greatest weakness in SV), as well as some new toys like Torn-T. A lot of big stall counters exist, such as Hex Darts Boots Pult or Psyshock Glowking, and running into a Waterpon basically mandates a Dondozo Tera, which can be problematic, but stall is ultimately fine, and has enough different structures to feel fun and creative.
What's really missing is balance, which is a major problem for players like me who are looking for more flexible teams. Of course linear, easy stalls and HO's are fine to grind ladder games for hours at a time, but in a tournament setting you often want more agency over your gameplay then those archetypes can provide. Right now, the only viable form of balance/bulky offense is Superman, to borrow a term from ADV. Teams built around Flying-types, Magic Guard, Boots and theoretically Levitate, and perhaps one leftovers Pokemon like Ting-Lu. These teams are designed to basically bypass the hazard game altogether by absorbing knock with the non-boots users. This cuts the viability of Pokemon like Azumarill drastically, and on a grander scale just makes structures more rigid and basic when you don't have much choice for an item.
The only Pokemon that can really afford to not run boots on bulky offense structures are ones that are, let's face it, pretty broken. This is your Roaring Moons, Waterpons, Iron Moths and Valiants. These Pokemon all have their own set of problems though, leading into:
How competitive do you think the meta is? - 3/10
This meta, and SV as a whole to be honest but especially this meta, has a problem where extremely power-crept set-up Pokemon, when combined with Tera, are able to win games off of a single free turn at times. Moon with a single DD afforded by a burn, sleep or para, or simply with its impressive natural bulk. Waterpon's who pull out an unexpected Trailblaze after SDing. An Iron Moth who happens to get two Fiery Dance boosts in a row. A Manaphy who has the exact wrong set for your team between Tail Glow Tera Electric, Acid Armour Stored Power, or RestTalk Take Heart. Sneasler under Terrain with the right Tera or Shadow Claw. Kingambit doing the same shit it always has, even better now with Tusk getting weaker. If you don't have a Zama, good luck, and that's if it can't Tera. Even more niche stuff like Agility SD Gliscor can become unstoppable thanks to the element of surprise letting it set up and Tera pulling a reversal on any counter you might have. It's simply too easy for a variety of monsters in this tier to win on the spot, even in a 6v6 or close to it situation to call the tier truly competitive. This is why freeing Darkrai is stupid by the way, it'll just add another set-up monster that shreds balance depending on its set to the tier (and thats ignoring all the Wide Lens Hypnosis shit we would surely see).
Even without these mons, the tier has its flaws. Stall vs Stall feels like it comes down to who has more knock users, it's not really possible to outplay a stall which has a good matchup against your stall. Stall vs HO feels like a check for "do you have any of the niche anti-stall techs (some i will mention later) on your team? If you do I lose if you don't I win". HO vs HO is as much of a crap-shoot as ever. Balance is, as established earlier hampered by a lack of diversity and item flexibility, and comes down to who can knock better or who can pop-off with one of the aformentioned monster sweepers. The better player is always going to have an advantage, sure, but simple bad matchups feels really hard to surmount in this metagame. And yes, tera is a big part of this problem, we should look at it again definitively after DLC2 dust settles and we have our presumably final version of Gen 9.
Individual Pokemon Rankings
- 4
Manaphy has too many sets and is too good with all of them. This isn't a surprise to anyone that's been following the meta. Bulky Take Heart + Acid Armour Stored Power with Tera Poison completely fucks some structures, Tera Electric Tail Glow completely fucks others, Inbetween sets like Tera Fairy Take Heart, Scald, Energy Ball exist as well, as well as even RestTalk Take Heart Scald. Screens, Rain or Grassy Terrain just make this Pokemon even more immediately lethal when it takes a couple of turns to completely take over a game. I've seen this Pokemon cleanly beat Spdef Haze Pex + Blissey before. It's not a 5 because its slow and not the most dominating thing in the metagame.
- 5
It has to go. Knock Off has completely reinvigorated this Pokemon, and being faster than basically everything with even a single DD, a very small task with its impressive bulk and Tera, allows it to just completely rip through teams with Tera Flying Acrobatics. Even if you have a Tera-Steel on something to try and counter it, it's a very simple prediction for the Roaring Moon user to EQ/Brick Break and make a joke out of it. This pokemon isn't reasonable to handle defensively for balance teams, or the HO's which it outspeeds every member of, bar Kingambit's Sucker Punch which delaying tera, Substitute, or Tera Fairy variants handle easily.
Even for Stall however, Roaring Moon is a problem. Growing steadily in popularity from my experiences at high ladder are sets like Taunt/Roost/Acro/DD with Booster Tera Flying, or Jaw Lock/Rest/DD/Taunt with Lefties Tera Fairy. These sets can and have 6-0d most Stall structures off the lead from my observation, and a single pokemon shouldn't be able to 100% invalidate a playstyle like that, no matter how specialised towards stallbreaking it is.
- 5
This Pokemon is, as far as I'm concerned, the main culprit of the meta's problems right now. The standard set of Spikes, Protect, Toxic and EQ/Knock is able to put Pokemon on timers, come back from huge injury, threaten Knocks and get max layers up easily. The only pokemon that really want to come in on a Knock or Toxic are Clefable, which has trouble threatening Gliscor, and opposing Gliscor. Unsurprisingly, the latter is the most common switch-in, and when two Gliscor's meet, both will get back to full health and lay all their Spikes, contributing to this perma-hazard, boots-mandatory metagame. This is ignoring the great utility of U-Turn, and the surprising Stall/Balance dismantling abilities of SD Ice Fang, but those just further stress how strong Gliscor is. The centralising effect Gliscor has is astonishing, with Tusk being weakened due to needing to run Ice Spinner on every set. and Fighting-types in general suffer greatly because of it. This Pokemon can slow games to a crawl, especially in matchups against Corviknight where PP stalling seems to be an inevitability. And yes, tera of course is great on it. If anything needs to go it's this
- 5
Again, it's just too strong. If you don't have Amoongus on your balance, this thing is going to sweep you with an SD. If you're using Stall, it forces your Dondozo to tera, enabling a cheese mon Waterpon is usually paired with to dominate the game. It's a fantastic user of tera, and Water Absorb is extremely powerful even without Tera. Horn Leech can make it hard to take out and Power Whip is simply incredibly powerful, and it's hard to know which it has before it's already attacking you. Between Synthesis, Knock, Play Rough and Trailblaze, it has so many great, hard to predict options that are hard to cover all of. It says a lot about the pokemon when it's an elite threat in a meta where boots are necessary, without boots. If Gliscor goes I imagine it will definitely tip over the edge without its only weakness of omnipresent hazards.
- 3
It will be a shame if this thing goes because I very much enjoy using the Boots Pivot set on balance (the only set viable on non-HO), but under Terrain this thing is insane. Even in games where it faces a Tusk, that's far from a safe guarantee, as EQ vs Seed Terrain Tera Ghost does awful damage with the Terrain healing, and one or two SD's is enough to just win a game. Gholdengo will beat it if it's not Shadow Claw or meme Fling, but against an SD'd Sneasler you hardly have the time to scout such options. This thing will probably be strictly broken if Gliscor goes, since thats the only great answer it has. It doesn't help that it shares most of its counters with Moon and Gambit, both of which are super common allies.
- 4
Still broken, exact same reasons as always. Tusk being worse doesn't help in that regard either. If you don't have a Zamazenta, or you need your Zamazenta to tera to deal with something else like a Moon or Valiant, good luck.
- 1
Maybe an unexpected hot take given my general pessimism throughout this post, but I actually think Gholdengo has been the subject of a lot of scapegoating for problems caused largely by other pokemon. This Pokemon helps keep menaces like Amoongus and Corviknight in check, and can help fill gaps for teams as a scarfer, or balloon user (it used to be able to do more, but even ghold is restricted in versatility in this meta). Psyshock sets can help break stall, but most good stall teams these days seem use Tera Dark Blissey which beats it cleanly while also handling Stored Power Threats. It's a problem of course when paired with Waterpon forcing a Dozo tera, but this is another case of a broken pokemon scapegoating Ghold.
Most people seem to contend that this pokemon is too good at blocking hazard removal, but this is really only true for Corv, which should U-turn on it anyway (but can't because most Corv's are forced to run Iron Defense because of broken physical sweepers) it does nothing to stop measures like Court Change and tidy up, Defoggers like Mandibuzz threaten it, and even Balloon-variants don't want to come in on a fast Tusk Knock (which it can't run because they're all forced to be Ice Spinner for Gliscor). This pokemon is such a versatile glue on a lot of archetypes with its different options, helps keep annoying pokemon in check, and is perfectly balanced in my opinion with low speed, very notable type-weaknesses (ghost/fire/dark/ground), and hazard vulnerability. This pokemon was quite clearly not broken pre-DLC, and I don't think that's changed. Would be a big blow to see this Pokemon go.
***
Some other options I offered as potential problems were Rillaboom, Valiant, Moth and Booster Energy itself, but I believe the above Pokemon are bigger problems. Really, to me, Tera is starting to reach a breaking point with the amount of power in the tier, and I don't think DLC2 will help, (rather, make it worse with things like Serperior). As I said before, I would love to see it re-examined definitively at some point, with DLC2 seeming to be the best time. For now though:
TL;DR: Gliscor, Moon and Waterpon need to go. Kingambit and Manaphy are pushing it and Sneasler might be a problem after Gliscor is banned. The problems of this tier tie back to Tera and it should be re-examined when DLC2 drops and SV is in it's "final version".
Also, as I've finished writing this Finch has just posted a Moon suspect. I would have gotten Gliscor first but this is a good sign. I say suspect all three concurrently and let those with reqs check boxes for which ones they think should be banned though.
What is your enjoyment of the tier? - 4/10
The tier as it is right now feels empty. HO is present, in several incarnations even with Grassy/Psychic Terrain, Weather and of course more traditional Glimmora Paradox Spam teams. Stall is also quite strong and consistent. The new toys of Gliscor and Clefable have greatly assisted its ability to absorb Knock Off (traditionally stall's greatest weakness in SV), as well as some new toys like Torn-T. A lot of big stall counters exist, such as Hex Darts Boots Pult or Psyshock Glowking, and running into a Waterpon basically mandates a Dondozo Tera, which can be problematic, but stall is ultimately fine, and has enough different structures to feel fun and creative.
What's really missing is balance, which is a major problem for players like me who are looking for more flexible teams. Of course linear, easy stalls and HO's are fine to grind ladder games for hours at a time, but in a tournament setting you often want more agency over your gameplay then those archetypes can provide. Right now, the only viable form of balance/bulky offense is Superman, to borrow a term from ADV. Teams built around Flying-types, Magic Guard, Boots and theoretically Levitate, and perhaps one leftovers Pokemon like Ting-Lu. These teams are designed to basically bypass the hazard game altogether by absorbing knock with the non-boots users. This cuts the viability of Pokemon like Azumarill drastically, and on a grander scale just makes structures more rigid and basic when you don't have much choice for an item.
The only Pokemon that can really afford to not run boots on bulky offense structures are ones that are, let's face it, pretty broken. This is your Roaring Moons, Waterpons, Iron Moths and Valiants. These Pokemon all have their own set of problems though, leading into:
How competitive do you think the meta is? - 3/10
This meta, and SV as a whole to be honest but especially this meta, has a problem where extremely power-crept set-up Pokemon, when combined with Tera, are able to win games off of a single free turn at times. Moon with a single DD afforded by a burn, sleep or para, or simply with its impressive natural bulk. Waterpon's who pull out an unexpected Trailblaze after SDing. An Iron Moth who happens to get two Fiery Dance boosts in a row. A Manaphy who has the exact wrong set for your team between Tail Glow Tera Electric, Acid Armour Stored Power, or RestTalk Take Heart. Sneasler under Terrain with the right Tera or Shadow Claw. Kingambit doing the same shit it always has, even better now with Tusk getting weaker. If you don't have a Zama, good luck, and that's if it can't Tera. Even more niche stuff like Agility SD Gliscor can become unstoppable thanks to the element of surprise letting it set up and Tera pulling a reversal on any counter you might have. It's simply too easy for a variety of monsters in this tier to win on the spot, even in a 6v6 or close to it situation to call the tier truly competitive. This is why freeing Darkrai is stupid by the way, it'll just add another set-up monster that shreds balance depending on its set to the tier (and thats ignoring all the Wide Lens Hypnosis shit we would surely see).
Even without these mons, the tier has its flaws. Stall vs Stall feels like it comes down to who has more knock users, it's not really possible to outplay a stall which has a good matchup against your stall. Stall vs HO feels like a check for "do you have any of the niche anti-stall techs (some i will mention later) on your team? If you do I lose if you don't I win". HO vs HO is as much of a crap-shoot as ever. Balance is, as established earlier hampered by a lack of diversity and item flexibility, and comes down to who can knock better or who can pop-off with one of the aformentioned monster sweepers. The better player is always going to have an advantage, sure, but simple bad matchups feels really hard to surmount in this metagame. And yes, tera is a big part of this problem, we should look at it again definitively after DLC2 dust settles and we have our presumably final version of Gen 9.
Individual Pokemon Rankings
- 4Manaphy has too many sets and is too good with all of them. This isn't a surprise to anyone that's been following the meta. Bulky Take Heart + Acid Armour Stored Power with Tera Poison completely fucks some structures, Tera Electric Tail Glow completely fucks others, Inbetween sets like Tera Fairy Take Heart, Scald, Energy Ball exist as well, as well as even RestTalk Take Heart Scald. Screens, Rain or Grassy Terrain just make this Pokemon even more immediately lethal when it takes a couple of turns to completely take over a game. I've seen this Pokemon cleanly beat Spdef Haze Pex + Blissey before. It's not a 5 because its slow and not the most dominating thing in the metagame.
- 5It has to go. Knock Off has completely reinvigorated this Pokemon, and being faster than basically everything with even a single DD, a very small task with its impressive bulk and Tera, allows it to just completely rip through teams with Tera Flying Acrobatics. Even if you have a Tera-Steel on something to try and counter it, it's a very simple prediction for the Roaring Moon user to EQ/Brick Break and make a joke out of it. This pokemon isn't reasonable to handle defensively for balance teams, or the HO's which it outspeeds every member of, bar Kingambit's Sucker Punch which delaying tera, Substitute, or Tera Fairy variants handle easily.
Even for Stall however, Roaring Moon is a problem. Growing steadily in popularity from my experiences at high ladder are sets like Taunt/Roost/Acro/DD with Booster Tera Flying, or Jaw Lock/Rest/DD/Taunt with Lefties Tera Fairy. These sets can and have 6-0d most Stall structures off the lead from my observation, and a single pokemon shouldn't be able to 100% invalidate a playstyle like that, no matter how specialised towards stallbreaking it is.
- 5This Pokemon is, as far as I'm concerned, the main culprit of the meta's problems right now. The standard set of Spikes, Protect, Toxic and EQ/Knock is able to put Pokemon on timers, come back from huge injury, threaten Knocks and get max layers up easily. The only pokemon that really want to come in on a Knock or Toxic are Clefable, which has trouble threatening Gliscor, and opposing Gliscor. Unsurprisingly, the latter is the most common switch-in, and when two Gliscor's meet, both will get back to full health and lay all their Spikes, contributing to this perma-hazard, boots-mandatory metagame. This is ignoring the great utility of U-Turn, and the surprising Stall/Balance dismantling abilities of SD Ice Fang, but those just further stress how strong Gliscor is. The centralising effect Gliscor has is astonishing, with Tusk being weakened due to needing to run Ice Spinner on every set. and Fighting-types in general suffer greatly because of it. This Pokemon can slow games to a crawl, especially in matchups against Corviknight where PP stalling seems to be an inevitability. And yes, tera of course is great on it. If anything needs to go it's this
- 5Again, it's just too strong. If you don't have Amoongus on your balance, this thing is going to sweep you with an SD. If you're using Stall, it forces your Dondozo to tera, enabling a cheese mon Waterpon is usually paired with to dominate the game. It's a fantastic user of tera, and Water Absorb is extremely powerful even without Tera. Horn Leech can make it hard to take out and Power Whip is simply incredibly powerful, and it's hard to know which it has before it's already attacking you. Between Synthesis, Knock, Play Rough and Trailblaze, it has so many great, hard to predict options that are hard to cover all of. It says a lot about the pokemon when it's an elite threat in a meta where boots are necessary, without boots. If Gliscor goes I imagine it will definitely tip over the edge without its only weakness of omnipresent hazards.
- 3It will be a shame if this thing goes because I very much enjoy using the Boots Pivot set on balance (the only set viable on non-HO), but under Terrain this thing is insane. Even in games where it faces a Tusk, that's far from a safe guarantee, as EQ vs Seed Terrain Tera Ghost does awful damage with the Terrain healing, and one or two SD's is enough to just win a game. Gholdengo will beat it if it's not Shadow Claw or meme Fling, but against an SD'd Sneasler you hardly have the time to scout such options. This thing will probably be strictly broken if Gliscor goes, since thats the only great answer it has. It doesn't help that it shares most of its counters with Moon and Gambit, both of which are super common allies.
- 4Still broken, exact same reasons as always. Tusk being worse doesn't help in that regard either. If you don't have a Zamazenta, or you need your Zamazenta to tera to deal with something else like a Moon or Valiant, good luck.
- 1Maybe an unexpected hot take given my general pessimism throughout this post, but I actually think Gholdengo has been the subject of a lot of scapegoating for problems caused largely by other pokemon. This Pokemon helps keep menaces like Amoongus and Corviknight in check, and can help fill gaps for teams as a scarfer, or balloon user (it used to be able to do more, but even ghold is restricted in versatility in this meta). Psyshock sets can help break stall, but most good stall teams these days seem use Tera Dark Blissey which beats it cleanly while also handling Stored Power Threats. It's a problem of course when paired with Waterpon forcing a Dozo tera, but this is another case of a broken pokemon scapegoating Ghold.
Most people seem to contend that this pokemon is too good at blocking hazard removal, but this is really only true for Corv, which should U-turn on it anyway (but can't because most Corv's are forced to run Iron Defense because of broken physical sweepers) it does nothing to stop measures like Court Change and tidy up, Defoggers like Mandibuzz threaten it, and even Balloon-variants don't want to come in on a fast Tusk Knock (which it can't run because they're all forced to be Ice Spinner for Gliscor). This pokemon is such a versatile glue on a lot of archetypes with its different options, helps keep annoying pokemon in check, and is perfectly balanced in my opinion with low speed, very notable type-weaknesses (ghost/fire/dark/ground), and hazard vulnerability. This pokemon was quite clearly not broken pre-DLC, and I don't think that's changed. Would be a big blow to see this Pokemon go.
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Some other options I offered as potential problems were Rillaboom, Valiant, Moth and Booster Energy itself, but I believe the above Pokemon are bigger problems. Really, to me, Tera is starting to reach a breaking point with the amount of power in the tier, and I don't think DLC2 will help, (rather, make it worse with things like Serperior). As I said before, I would love to see it re-examined definitively at some point, with DLC2 seeming to be the best time. For now though:
TL;DR: Gliscor, Moon and Waterpon need to go. Kingambit and Manaphy are pushing it and Sneasler might be a problem after Gliscor is banned. The problems of this tier tie back to Tera and it should be re-examined when DLC2 drops and SV is in it's "final version".
Also, as I've finished writing this Finch has just posted a Moon suspect. I would have gotten Gliscor first but this is a good sign. I say suspect all three concurrently and let those with reqs check boxes for which ones they think should be banned though.
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The Moon Will Sing by the crane wives
The background means on the radar, but tbh, I just feel that moon is a byproduct of the meta we are in instead of an actual menace
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Holy shit, you're dropping Ho-oh?
Ashamed to say it was my genuine first thought when I saw the top of the wings, until I saw RM's horns.
Finch, I forgot to ask but does this suspect come with any voting on quickbans or was moon the most highly rated mon from the survey?
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