Announcement np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 6 - The Killing Moon

[Goodstyle]

I can barely even tell what you're describing here but this roundabout switching nonsense doesn't work vs any competent player. Hurricane doesn't even come close to killing bulky BM and you're likely getting zapdos in with it having +1 spdef. 0 SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 132 SpD Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 169-201 (39.3 - 46.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery. Like what are we even talking about here lmao

Should have specified that I'm running max spa Zapdos with Specs. I know it sounds rough, but what I'm illustrating is that switching in a powerful breaker after soaking bloodmoon with a special wall is a roundabout way of beating this thing. Even if it calm minds on the switch, it takes a high enough amount of damage to die on the revenge kill.

It sounds dodgy, but it has worked out against overconfident high ladder players.

 

[ayevon]

Cringe elo shaming. It's ladder dude lmao. Regardless, I've peaked ladder in the past 3 gens at least once. It doesn't really matter if I'm a barely above average casual or literally ass to make a point about poor decisions for the tier.

Well when half of your arguments are listing random mons that have super effective moves against ground types as checks to BM, is it really cringe elo shaming or is validly pointing out that based on how you've formatted your arguments you don't know what you're talking about and you probably aren't good enough at the game to have opinion that anyone should really respect when it comes to subjects of tiering? Walking Wake suspect may have been premature but meta developments over OLT showed how insane it could be, 2hkoing nearly the whole tier. Finch was probably just early, not wrong, to suspect Wake. But that's really besides the point and moving the goalposts and something that has nothing to do with the clearly broken mon at hand

 

[Goodstyle]

I'm actually looking through showdown high ladder matches to try and find games to analyse with UBM, and what I got was a match where a guy actually swapped in a specially defensive Lando on Blood Moon, took 57% from the hit, then one shot it back with a crit grass knot. Without a crit, 2 would have done the job thanks to UBM being unable to Blood Moon twice. Also, this thing would probably be weary of tera Poisoning in front of Lando to begin with so that's not a solution either.

I'm actually looking through matches to try and see the other side of the argument, to see why this mon could be a problem that needs to be dealt with, but I'm mainly finding ways people are using to deal with it that I haven't even thought of. The fact that people are running bulky UBMs with less SpA is making all sorts of weird counter play possible.

 

[CTC]

The difference between an experienced ladder veteran and a theoretical on-paper arguer is that the arguer does not actually apply their theoretical workarounds in game. Even if ursa has checks, the sheer amount of free turns it forces while causing a 5050 each turn between free unblockable boomburst or cm until critical mass will add up over the course of the game. In high level games, incremental chip and accumulated advantage through positioning are essential, and ursa simply has too high of a reward with too low of an opportunity cost.
We are not arguing that this is arceus and is uncheckable, as stall/cress/sub corv/unaware cm clef among other bulky special checks that setup alongside it can beat ursa. However, having only roughly 4 checks that are viable in other mu's and causing massive amounts of switches while firing off 140 bloodmoons unable to be mitigated by ghosts is what pushed it over the line. The main counter play to ursa regular is switching into resisted hits and letting burn chip it, however, switching vs ursa-bloodmoon has negative consequences: more lefties heal, cm pressure, and bloodmoon hits so hard/is unblockable off the bat unlike the first unburned facade. Bloodmoon is a clearly more efficient ursaluna that circumvented its weakness to pivoting and stalling tactics by adding longevity while retaining monster breaking abilities. If the ability or the signature move didnt exist, the mon would be fair and balanced in ou, but as it stands the shit has perfect coverage with 2 moves and the ability to bolster its already high bulk, on the weak side no less. At this point this mon is a clear candidate for eradication because something cannot be this tanky, this strong, hit this hard off the bat and still retain this much longevity in drawn out game states. As it stands, poison ursa is akin to gen 6 cm clef if mb was 140 bp.

 

[Mimikyu Stardust]

Thoughts on Blood Moon:

Yea this thing is pretty busted, entering the DLC i was quite dissapointed that Ogerpon Hearthflame got the boot in a quickban despite that thing having alot more counter plays than what people think. Bloodmoon however, doesn't.

A lot of people are comparing it to walking wake which is valid, at first both are stupid strong special attacker than can 2hko or ohko everything with the right move, trading in speed for bulk. However, Walking Wake's stabs has common immunity like fairys and water absorb, and bloodmoon does not, on top of that bloodmoon also has calm mind unlike walking wake so it can boost its already insane special attacking prowess to new levels. The Only Counters it has now are SpDef Corviknight, Blissey/Chansey and SpDef Invested Unaware Clefable. You also can't really out offense Bloodmoon, its bulk is comparable to Great Tusk physically, and Gastrodon Specially. To put it into perspective, Ogerpon's Power Whip DOES NOT ohko bloodmoon after rocks. There are very little mons in OU that can take its hit or even revenge kill. The best way you can exploit it is just to stack hazards againts it (which you can say about most pokemon). Bloodmoon also has a pretty good movepool, besides earth power and bloodmoon it can use calm mind, moonlight or vacuum wave. Moonlight lets it be super hard to kill and almost invincible under screens, Vacuum wave lets it revenge kill a ton of mons like kingambit, samurott-h, gholdengo and more especially with tera fighting. So it has amazing bulk, can set up, can heal and has priority to fix its speed.

Bloodmoon also gets a lot of free turns. Its signature move is so strong that nothing can really switch into it and your opponent is already at a disadvantage when this mon is out, if you switch out you are giving it free turns with lefties, moonlight, calm mind or just fucking killing something.

To compare bloodmoon to regular ursaluna. Ursaluna has HUGE damage potential but it has very poor longevity due to guts and can't heal outside of receiving wish so while very bulky it can be easily revenge killed due to its poor speed and its bulk being essentially nullified by guts, it also needs guts because without guts facade it doesnt have a high enough BP spammable stab. Speaking of stabs, ursaluna's stabs has immunities, the thing thats preventing stuff like hoopa, ursaluna and walking wake dominating the tier is the fact that their stabs has clear immunities and resistance. While ursaluna can easily break through resistance with swords dance, it doesnt have a ton of turns to swords dance due to its bad longevity, so if you use ursaluna and you cannot predict, that mon will barely do anything. Bloodmoon, while weaker, Can boost its special attack much easier due to it not needing flame orb and can carry leftovers, it has moonlight, a VERY spammable stab in Bloodmoon that has no immunity and its resistance is covered by earth power. Bloodmoon can even use Vacuum wave to circumvent its poor speed. So bloodmoon just does what ursaluna do, but without its weakness.

So yea, im voting ban on it, absolutely broken mon.

oh also VIVA LA VOLCARONA

 

[JunkoAJ]

Cringe elo shaming. It's ladder dude lmao. Regardless, I've peaked ladder in the past 3 gens at least once. It doesn't really matter if I'm a barely above average casual or literally ass to make a point about poor decisions for the tier.

Just want to bring a random post to your attention:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ss-round-3-sleepwalking.3717388/#post-9532605

This post is Finch saying how broken Wake is. 22 Like/Love reactions. Dead wrong opinion.
Goofy hater comments from sycophants and laugh ratios don't phase me whatsoever on this site, and often says more about you than it does me.
There are posts on that thread where I'm saying how Wake isn't broken, how the suspect is way too soon, and our tier leader laugh reacts it, prompting dudes like you to follow and also laugh react lol.

I'm a bit confused on the Walking Wake point - it had an initial reaction of being fucking absurd, and then the suspect happened and it turned out to not be as broken - why is that a problem? The entire point of a suspect test is to see if a Pokémon/item/move/mechanic is broken or not and Walking Wake was deemed not to be broken.

Idk man, the kid is just a guy. We all make mistakes. Testing something like this where it might pass because it hasn't been given enough time is poor tiering policy. Same with testing far too late, like Gambit. The fact that DLC was around the corner gave Gambit the edge it needed to pass. If we suspected it 2 months ago it was gone.

So you admit you can rush a suspect and handle it poorly. We knew that already. I'm asking why. I'm asking you to do some self-reflecting and engage the possibility the you are making the same exact error. I ask why to put you in the same mindset you were when you thought Wake was an Uber... because it seems to be happening again. Another knee jerk, premature suspect.

I have a history of going too hard, then feeling bad about it. But rarely have I been proven dead wrong. It's more so how I go about it than the actual point. You've even said this.
This is less about the mon and more about how needlessly fast this suspect was laid out. We have DLC2 around the corner. There was nothing wrong with giving this mon more time.

You took on this role. If you don't have the bandwidth for it then I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond to that. Maybe delegate some tasks. You do have a council to support you. Maybe it all being put on you is how we get Wake suspects and this one. Not sure.
I've said many times I respect your efforts and love all the time and energy you put into the tier. You don't need to take my critiques as hateful. But yeah, it's too late now. The suspect is up and it is what it is. If the mon gets banned that's fine. I'm just saying, personally, I can't form a proper opinion given this little amount of time. That's all I wanted to say. No need for a response. Happy birthday dude.

I'm not Finch, I won't speak on his behalf but this is all incredibly patronising. Whether you're right or not, it's a dogshit way of getting your point across and is not conducive to discussion at all. And I feel like you guys don't pay attention to the timing of suspects and QBs at all, we can't have a suspect every week and Gambit obviously didn't have space for a suspect until the exact time it happened.

 

[Goodstyle]

The difference between an experienced ladder veteran and a theoretical on-paper arguer is that the arguer does not actually apply their theoretical workarounds in game.

I see this point. In my Landorous example, a tournament player is not staying in on the Lando's grass knot, they're going to leave after dealing 57% and call it a day. Even with leftovers, you probably get maybe only one other switch in with that answer.

That said, the way people play, even in the 1800s, more often than not, they're staying in. It truly doesn't feel to me like an issue in the ladder at the moment, or anything close to one, but that could change with time.

Meanwhile, because players are so thoughtful and prepared in tournaments, that's the only place where something like this might be a problem, but even then I'm not 100% sure. Thinking of a random offensive team with Gholdengo/Iron Valiant/Kingambit/Glimmora/Roaring Moon/Great Tusk, when is UBM going to have a chance to set up against a good player? Are you going to burn tera to deal with Glimmora's Energy balls? Iron Valiant can encore you or revenge kill you depending on the set. You get 2 hit killed by Make It Rain no matter how bulky you are. Offensive Tusk will maul you no matter which Tera you go with. You're not going to be seeing the Kiingambit most likely, and Roaring Moon has enough power to 2 shot you, depending on the set. Despite being better, it still has many of the same weaknesses regular Ursaluna has, except it has worse natural bulk but obviously a way better/versatile moveset.

 

[Negative Charge]

What an unbelievable wasted opportunity to use CCR as the suspect song, smh. The lyrics are even applicable too!

anyway, blood moon is comically stupidly hilariously broken. A nuclear powered tank with recovery and priority!? It has no place in OU. There isn’t even a valuable meta niche it’s providing, it’s not like there’s a dearth of breakers this gen. I’m just surprised that this gets a suspect and volc gets a qb.

 

[CTC]

I see this point. In my Landorous example, a tournament player is not staying in on the Lando's grass knot, they're going to leave after dealing 57% and call it a day. Even with leftovers, you probably get maybe only one other switch in with that answer.

That said, the way people play, even in the 1800s, more often than not, they're staying in. It truly doesn't feel to me like an issue in the ladder at the moment, or anything close to one, but that could change with time.

Meanwhile, because players are so thoughtful and prepared in tournaments, that's the only place where something like this might be a problem, but even then I'm not 100% sure. Thinking of a random offensive team with Gholdengo/Iron Valiant/Kingambit/Glimmora/Roaring Moon/Great Tusk, when is UBM going to have a chance to set up against a good player? Are you going to burn tera to deal with Glimmora's Energy balls? Iron Valiant can encore you or revenge kill you depending on the set. You get 2 hit killed by Make It Rain no matter how bulky you are. Offensive Tusk will maul you no matter which Tera you go with. You're not going to be seeing the Kiingambit most likely, and Roaring Moon has enough power to 2 shot you, depending on the set. Despite being better, it still has many of the same weaknesses regular Ursaluna has, except it has worse natural bulk but obviously a way better/versatile moveset.

this is extreme cap because ursa in terrain w defensive investment sets up on all but ghold on that team or trades favorably by killing the mons in 1v1. whats val doing to tera poison? gambit is setup on or killed. glim is fodder to poison as well but it is dead by turn 4 usually. moon w taunt maybe, but defensive ursa in terrain shrugs acro and knock like anything while chewing up tusk, and please dont get me started on possible seed/mental herb.
If you dont play tournament you dont even know the possible sets ursa can run. physdef under grassy w moonlight can and will snowball with one free turn on the tera poison and now it is a 430 hp 300+ def mon w 200+ spdef in 1 turn, unpoisonable. How u gonna revenge that? if you have encore i have mental herb, if you have setup physical guys then im grassy seed? so whats your argument here, you just provided me an exact blueprint of the kind of team that i farm with tanky ursa in terrain. Thank you for your counter example here to further highlight how good of a mu ursa has vs standard offense

 

[Magcargo]

Thoughts on Blood Moon:

Yea this thing is pretty busted, entering the DLC i was quite dissapointed that Ogerpon Hearthflame got the boot in a quickban despite that thing having alot more counter plays than what people think. Bloodmoon however, doesn't.

A lot of people are comparing it to walking wake which is valid, at first both are stupid strong special attacker than can 2hko or ohko everything with the right move, trading in speed for bulk. However, Walking Wake's stabs has common immunity like fairys and water absorb, and bloodmoon does not, on top of that bloodmoon also has calm mind unlike walking wake so it can boost its already insane special attacking prowess to new levels. The Only Counters it has now are SpDef Corviknight, Blissey/Chansey and SpDef Invested Unaware Clefable. You also can't really out offense Bloodmoon, its bulk is comparable to Great Tusk physically, and Gastrodon Specially. To put it into perspective, Ogerpon's Power Whip DOES NOT ohko bloodmoon after rocks. There are very little mons in OU that can take its hit or even revenge kill. The best way you can exploit it is just to stack hazards againts it (which you can say about most pokemon). Bloodmoon also has a pretty good movepool, besides earth power and bloodmoon it can use calm mind, moonlight or vacuum wave. Moonlight lets it be super hard to kill and almost invincible under screens, Vacuum wave lets it revenge kill a ton of mons like kingambit, samurott-h, gholdengo and more especially with tera fighting. So it has amazing bulk, can set up, can heal and has priority to fix its speed.

Bloodmoon also gets a lot of free turns. Its signature move is so strong that nothing can really switch into it and your opponent is already at a disadvantage when this mon is out, if you switch out you are giving it free turns with lefties, moonlight, calm mind or just fucking killing something.

To compare bloodmoon to regular ursaluna. Ursaluna has HUGE damage potential but it has very poor longevity due to guts and can't heal outside of receiving wish so while very bulky it can be easily revenge killed due to its poor speed and its bulk being essentially nullified by guts, it also needs guts because without guts facade it doesnt have a high enough BP spammable stab. Speaking of stabs, ursaluna's stabs has immunities, the thing thats preventing stuff like hoopa, ursaluna and walking wake dominating the tier is the fact that their stabs has clear immunities and resistance. While ursaluna can easily break through resistance with swords dance, it doesnt have a ton of turns to swords dance due to its bad longevity, so if you use ursaluna and you cannot predict, that mon will barely do anything. Bloodmoon, while weaker, Can boost its special attack much easier due to it not needing flame orb and can carry leftovers, it has moonlight, a VERY spammable stab in Bloodmoon that has no immunity and its resistance is covered by earth power. Bloodmoon can even use Vacuum wave to circumvent its poor speed. So bloodmoon just does what ursaluna do, but without its weakness.

So yea, im voting ban on it, absolutely broken mon.

oh also VIVA LA VOLCARONA

Adding to the free turn point, a common counter-play I've seen is using Protect on something like Gliscor or sub on fliers. The issue with Protect is that Ursa can easily set up a CM on gliscor or other Protect users and become an even bigger menace the next turn. Sub Users can annoy Ursa, but it can easily turn the tables around them with Hyper Voice.

And that's really the biggest problem with Ursaluna. It has extremely limited counter Measures which can easily teched for. Corv and gliscor are fucked by tera poison, sub users by hyper Voice and Random Tera Steel Levitators are destroyed by Focus Blast, which Ursa can slot in over EP if it desires. There is no real defensive counterplay to this mon and even it's offensive countsrplay can be put in bad positions due to its ridiculous bulk.

 

[Goodstyle]

Probably off topic, but I feel crazy when people talk about Volc like it was totally fair and balanced in comparison to the threats of today.

"THIS thing is still here, but Volc is banned?" is often the refrain. Volc is probably the best win con in any OU tier ever, and it isn't even close. You cannot revenge it, you can't do meaningfully stop it with status, and you can't truly counter it thanks to Tera. You can Wisp/encore most Gambits (and if the Gambit is tera fire then it's highly vulnerable to ground moves), you can outspeed and kill or encore Bloodmoon. There was no solution to Volc, if it got into position it just won straight up. The cherry on top was the burn chance it had for simply touching it.

this is extreme cap because ursa in terrain w defensive investment sets up on all but ghold on that team or trades favorably by killing the mons in 1v1. whats val doing to tera poison? gambit is setup on or killed. glim is fodder to poison as well but it is dead by turn 4 usually. moon w taunt maybe, but defensive ursa in terrain shrugs acro and knock like anything while chewing up tusk, and please dont get me started on possible seed/mental herb.
If you dont play tournament you dont even know the possible sets ursa can run. physdef under grassy w moonlight can and will snowball with one free turn on the tera poison and now it is a 430 hp 300+ def mon w 200+ spdef in 1 turn, unpoisonable. How u gonna revenge that? if you have encore i have mental herb, if you have setup physical guys then im grassy seed? so whats your argument here, you just provided me an exact blueprint of the kind of team that i farm with tanky ursa in terrain. Thank you for your counter example here to further highlight how good of a mu ursa has vs standard offense

I mean with Grassy and mental herb, I guess you have a point, but it seems like a bad call to burn Tera against Glim when it can EP spam and probably leave you in a situation where you're hovering at around 50% when you finally kill it.

Also gotta disagree with you on Ghold, you are not setting up on Make it Rain. That's doing 70% unless you're running Tera Water, in which case you're vulnerable to poison and Zapdos vaporizes you and you lose all answers to grass moves.

Please save this comment if I'm wrong and rub my face in it, but in a tournament setting I don't see this Pokemon being a bigger set up threat than a lot of the stuff that's already there.

 

[CTC]

I mean with Grassy and mental herb, I guess you have a point, but it seems like a bad call to burn Tera against Glim when it can EP spam and probably leave you in a situation where you're hovering at around 50% when you finally kill it.

Also gotta disagree with you on Ghold, you are not setting up on Make it Rain. That's doing 70% unless you're running Tera Water, in which case you're vulnerable to poison and Zapdos vaporizes you and you lose all answers to grass moves.

Please save this comment if I'm wrong and rub my face in it, but in a tournament setting I don't see this Pokemon being a bigger set up threat than a lot of the stuff that's already there.

its clear from this post and the volc post above saying that volc is 'the best wincon ever' that you are a casual fan despite the join date, so i will be kinder in my rebuttal:

first, kingambit is the best wincon ever and that fact wont change for a minute.
secondly, i actually agree w u that volc needs to be freed, it is quite healthy in this meta w a decent number of checks to it offensively and defensively, while it itself provides much needed counterplay to things such as ursa bm
finally, to address your quote tweet: bm isnt setting up on 130 spa glim or 140 spa ghold..... wow what an astute observation, but how about the other 4 mons? the issue is that once it sets up and forces a switch, ghold can no longer revenge it but dies in the process, while ursa still remains around half health and waits patiently for grassy to heal it up. So basically if ursa forces a switch ever, it is going to trade favorably vs even the 2 mons u mentioned because they die while failing to revenge. In competitive mons we call that having an unfavorable mu, since rock/poison and steel types are generally hit supereffectively by earth power, obviously im taking liberties assuming you understand the type chart.
furthermore, tera water has never been used and never will be used on ursa, please stop making up fake scenarios. even like u said before in the earlier post, why would a good player bm into landot for 60 then stay in to take knot chip? if u have a glim and ghold which arent exactly hard mons to switch into in ou, im just gonna get my bm kill and switch out? u gotta realize bm switchins are so few and far between that the bm user will attack with unmitigated moves much more often than not while ur glim or ghold is gonna attack into a spdef scor or gambit or something. now bring up the equivalent of those defensive mons when it comes to checking ursa? not many, about a handful.

hope my response cleared your doubts and provided a rudimentary picture of the competitive landscape. Fret not, theorize a couple more years and maybe you too can start winning on ladder and tours
cheers

 

[CaptainSC]

As a stall enjoyer: bm-ursa does nothing. It never breaks through blissey and it's a good mon to have anyways, as it walls other important threats (like almost all gholdengo sets). Well uhhh maybe it crits 2 times in a row, but every Mon would be broken then.

There are so many HO threats that 2HKO almost everything that isn't some niche pick or stall. Not being able to switch into it doesn't make it more broken than a lot of the meta right now.

gang what are we even talking about.

1. Ursa gets to fish for crits 24/7 against stall as it gets +6 cm boosts and the only thing that stands in the way is a blissey and that mf cant do anything if its the standard moonlight set.

calcs to disprove u about the 2 crits in a row

+6 140+ SpA Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey on a critical hit: 538-634 (75.3 - 88.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

this into bloodmoon

+6 140+ SpA Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. +6 252 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 139-165 (19.4 - 23.1%) -- possible 5HKO

which is a roll heavily in your favor and does min which does a min of 94.4 assuming min rolls + max hp max spdef calm. and THIS is your best chance at surviving. and with ursa having 24 chances with 0 threat that comes from your team to land 1 crit to end the entire game? yeah good luck LMAO

Also it doesn't seem to me like the meta is warping around it in any way whatsoever.

2. It doesn't seem like the meta is wrapping around it in any way whatsoever??
we have
1. spedef unaware clef with leftovers running around. like that is a horseshit set
2. spedef corv when corv can be running physdef to help pivot around ogres?
3. more and more tusks running fighting coverage just so that it can smack ursaluna harder so that it doesn't straight up 6-0 the team cus the tusk is too passive against it?
4. sub gliscor?

listen everyone is entitled to their own opinion whether that be right or wrong. But if you're gonna make points..... then lets be objectively correct?

 

[LoseToRU?]

I'm a bit confused on the Walking Wake point - it had an initial reaction of being fucking absurd, and then the suspect happened and it turned out to not be as broken - why is that a problem? The entire point of a suspect test is to see if a Pokémon/item/move/mechanic is broken or not and Walking Wake was deemed not to be broken.

I'm not Finch, I won't speak on his behalf but this is all incredibly patronising. Whether you're right or not, it's a dogshit way of getting your point across and is not conducive to discussion at all. And I feel like you guys don't pay attention to the timing of suspects and QBs at all, we can't have a suspect every week and Gambit obviously didn't have space for a suspect until the exact time it happened.

My point is that the initial reaction of Wake reminds me of the initial reaction to Boon. I understand the mon is insane, has almost no switch ins, and is most likely broken. Even if I think it's broken, which it most likely is, I'm saying we haven't had enough time. I used to think Specs Val was broken early meta, and then time passed. New mons dropped, new strategy, etc. I keep seeing Tera Psn mentioned, doesn't that just open it up to all our grounds? Tera Ground Moth can OHKO w TB. We finally have a vacuum wave user for Gambit that forces it to Tera or KO. There are interactions with Gold, Gliscor, weather, etc. that I would like to see played out. It would force fatter builds because offense has a hard time with it. The meta is overly geared towards offense. Maybe we need a mon that forces fat.
The point of a suspect isn't to discover if something is broken, it's to vote on it. We discover if it's broken by playing the game, and I'm saying that technically there is a field of counterplay that hasn't been explored. Let me Skill Swap it and wall with Balloon Dengo lol.
Although, like I said, GF loves busting mons and giving this thing Scrappy is def the nail in the coffin, I'm just confused why we are so ban happy when we literally haven't had enough time to explore all the counterplay.

For your 2nd point, there were many times we could have suspected Gambit, that's not even an argument. And yeah, I should have just said, "Voting NB on principle. This mons counterplay has not had proper time to be explored, regardless of how broken it seems right now." It will most likely get banned, but it will be off of initial reactions, and Tera, instead of giving us time to explore. There is counterplay, but when the ladder is filled with Veil and Webs HO, players are getting mad a mon isn't OHKO and their glass cannons can't switch in. Gambit is more unhealthy and broken than Blood Moon, same w the Ogers, but Gambit has been giving months of time and counterplay exists now. The ladder is also over prepped for Offense. We saw with the quick claw shit that the ladder does not take kindly to bulky offense. Was I sort of joking when I said Skill Swap the bear, yeah. But if you told me Dnite would have to run Encore some day I would have been perplexed lol.

Anyway, we could have easily waited for this suspect. We can agree to disagree but banning this thing won't save the meta. It just shows a lack of patience and trust in ourselves to overcome what could be a valuable S tier to our meta.

 

[CaptainSC]

Anyway, we could have easily waited for this suspect. We can agree to disagree but banning this thing won't save the meta. It just shows a lack of patience and trust in ourselves to overcome what could be a valuable S tier to our meta.

we can just re-test if we think its manageable later down the line..... like who knows maybe our meta develops in a way that it wont be broken. but that's not the meta rn and it probably wont for a while bc broken traits are just inherently broken.

your whole argument lies on the fact that it COULD get better. But why have a broken mon just sitting around while we just hope that it doesn't get broken....

that just sounds stupid to me tbh.

 

[Goodstyle]

Fret not, theorize a couple more years and maybe you too can start winning on ladder and tours
cheers

True, I only started playing more seriously this gen, but I've been observing for a long while, and I don't think it's that outlandish a take to say Volc was better than Gambit. I feel like that's a debate and not a sure sign that someone's a noob.

And I do fine in the latter thank you very much.

 

[Shadow2054]

I'm an Ursaluna BM fan. I've had so much fun playing with it, tapping one button and seeing health bars drop. However, the fun must end and unfortunately, I feel like it should be banned.

I use trickroom, and my turn 1 is almost always send out Ursaluna, tera normal, and tell my opponent to choose an offering. Most of the time, I get 1 kill immediately. Turn 1 Ursaluna is such an oppressive force that you can only either hope to one shot it turn one, assuming you get a good start, or send something out to tank a Bloodmoon. Even if you switch out to say, Blissey, you generally lose momentum the turn after + it's quite predictable to an extent.

One of the most common turn 1 interactions i face is Ursaluna vs Ogerpon-Wellspring (usually terastalizes)
252 Atk Wellspring Mask Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 212-250 (49.3 - 58.1%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera: 309-364 (102.6 - 120.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Air balloon Gholdengo Switch in
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 242-285 (76.8 - 90.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 283-334 (65.8 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This is vaccuum wave range unless you tera the ghold

Rillaboom vs Ursaluna Turn 1
252+ Atk Choice Band Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon in Grassy Terrain: 348-411 (80.9 - 95.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

This mon is like specs Dragapult, in a sense that it comes in to deal a ton of damage, but it's harder to switch into than Dragapult, is harder to kill than Dragapult and does not wear choice specs.

Here's my team if you wanna try it! (Peak 1900)

https://pokepast.es/b0fbdc94406ebb2a

 

[ayevon]

this is a mon with insane bulk, recovery, the ideal setup move for its archetype, and nearly unresisted stab coverage. this isn't something where counterplay is just gonna randomly pop up through exploring the metagame, it literally forces you to use awful sets that aren't applicable to the rest of the metagame to have a chance at countering it defensively. While gambit is insane and centralizing, it has splashable counterplay that is applicable to many other mons. I mean the fact there's a move/status condition that can half kingambit's attack and blood moon has no equivalent makes this comparison undeniably dumb

 

[Exotic64]

My point is that the initial reaction of Wake reminds me of the initial reaction to Boon. I understand the mon is insane, has almost no switch ins, and is most likely broken. Even if I think it's broken, which it most likely is, I'm saying we haven't had enough time. I used to think Specs Val was broken early meta, and then time passed. New mons dropped, new strategy, etc. I keep seeing Tera Psn mentioned, doesn't that just open it up to all our grounds? Tera Ground Moth can OHKO w TB. We finally have a vacuum wave user for Gambit that forces it to Tera or KO. There are interactions with Gold, Gliscor, weather, etc. that I would like to see played out. It would force fatter builds because offense has a hard time with it. The meta is overly geared towards offense. Maybe we need a mon that forces fat.
The point of a suspect isn't to discover if something is broken, it's to vote on it. We discover if it's broken by playing the game, and I'm saying that technically there is a field of counterplay that hasn't been explored. Let me Skill Swap it and wall with Balloon Dengo lol.
Although, like I said, GF loves busting mons and giving this thing Scrappy is def the nail in the coffin, I'm just confused why we are so ban happy when we literally haven't had enough time to explore all the counterplay.

For your 2nd point, there were many times we could have suspected Gambit, that's not even an argument. And yeah, I should have just said, "Voting NB on principle. This mons counterplay has not had proper time to be explored, regardless of how broken it seems right now." It will most likely get banned, but it will be off of initial reactions, and Tera, instead of giving us time to explore. There is counterplay, but when the ladder is filled with Veil and Webs HO, players are getting mad a mon isn't OHKO and their glass cannons can't switch in. Gambit is more unhealthy and broken than Blood Moon, same w the Ogers, but Gambit has been giving months of time and counterplay exists now. The ladder is also over prepped for Offense. We saw with the quick claw shit that the ladder does not take kindly to bulky offense. Was I sort of joking when I said Skill Swap the bear, yeah. But if you told me Dnite would have to run Encore some day I would have been perplexed lol.

Anyway, we could have easily waited for this suspect. We can agree to disagree but banning this thing won't save the meta. It just shows a lack of patience and trust in ourselves to overcome what could be a valuable S tier to our meta.

 

[CaptainSC]

View attachment 556291

gambit stabs much more easily can be resisted + put to status to half its damage output + no reliable healing + more tera reliant than luna + helmet chip + intimidate from lando which = not the fucking same as ursaluna bm.

its just a centralizing mon that CAN be played around. while playing around ursaluna is MUCH more harder and it requires use of shitter sets in general.

 

[Goodstyle]

I'm an Ursaluna BM fan. I've had so much fun playing with it, tapping one button and seeing health bars drop. However, the fun must end and unfortunately, I feel like it should be banned.

I use trickroom, and my turn 1 is almost always send out Ursaluna, tera normal, and tell my opponent to choose an offering. Most of the time, I get 1 kill immediately. Turn 1 Ursaluna is such an oppressive force that you can only either hope to one shot it turn one, assuming you get a good start, or send something out to tank a Bloodmoon. Even if you switch out to say, Blissey, you generally lose momentum the turn after + it's quite predictable to an extent.

One of the most common turn 1 interactions i face is Ursaluna vs Ogerpon-Wellspring (usually terastalizes)
252 Atk Wellspring Mask Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 212-250 (49.3 - 58.1%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera: 309-364 (102.6 - 120.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Air balloon Gholdengo Switch in
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 242-285 (76.8 - 90.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 283-334 (65.8 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This is vaccuum wave range unless you tera the ghold

Rillaboom vs Ursaluna Turn 1
252+ Atk Choice Band Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Normal Ursaluna-Bloodmoon in Grassy Terrain: 348-411 (80.9 - 95.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

This mon is like specs Dragapult, in a sense that it comes in to deal a ton of damage, but it's harder to switch into than Dragapult, is harder to kill than Dragapult and does not wear choice specs.

Here's my team if you wanna try it! (Peak 1900)

https://pokepast.es/b0fbdc94406ebb2a

The best answer to turn 1 Bloodmoon I've found is another turn 1 Bloodmoon. This isn't an argument either way for how broken it is, but fast UBM completely destroys Trick Room teams. Just lead it turn one and go crazy after the Cresselia dies. It also wrecks Indeedee/Armarouge teams teams which is part of why I like using it.

 

[Roller K]

Options like Protect or Sub haven't been explored, same with Encore. If bulky cm is its premier set, then wouldn't any sort of taunt, encore, protect, sub basically handle it? Why are we not abusing the mechanic of its signature? We haven't had enough time to know forsure if consistent counterplay exists.

You’re right. All those moves really hinder Ursa’s ability to do well. Even its special defense is very easily exploitable. However, Ursa has already started to adapt to these:

Ursaluna-Bloodmoon @ Leftovers
Ability: Mind's Eye
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 248 HP / 56 SpA / 164 SpD / 40 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blood Moon
- Hyper Voice
- Vacuum Wave
- Calm Mind
​

This is my set that I’ve been using along with Alolan Ninetales for screens support. It got me up to 1900s and achieved a 35-3 record for voting reqs. Here’s how the set handles each of the aforementioned issues:

1. Taunt: Common taunters are frail and cannot risk staying in on Ursa before getting nuked by Blood Moon. Usually, you can get +1 before getting taunted, and even when taunted, it really isn’t a big deal. Just click your moves and watch the other team fall apart.

2. Encore: This is definitely the best counter measure to Ursa, just as it is against any slow setup mon. Here’s the issue: you have to know what the Ursa is going to do. If you encore an Ursa into Blood Moon, it goes for it repeatedly and doesn’t have a cooldown (I found this out the hard way). If you hard switch into Ursa with your encore mon thinking it will CM and it uses Blood Moon, you just lost your encore mon and really don’t have counterplay for Ursa setting up. It’s not a bad option, but it’s not consistent enough and relies on prediction to succeed. Even then, I could see Ursa running Mental Herb to avoid this issue; I won’t count it here though since I never see that.

3. Protect: My set accounts for Protect. By running both Blood Moon and Hyper Voice, Ursa does not need to second guess clicking Blood Moon as often. If it doesn’t work for Ursa, you just Hyper Voice the next turn and do great damage; if it’s not quite enough to KO, you have Vacuum Wave in a pinch.

4. Substitute: Beyond not having to worry about clicking Blood Moon, my Ursa set having Hyper Voice completely ignores any Substitute user barring Soundproof Kommo-o. Even on normal sets with Blood Moon as the only Normal attack, Substitute would only be viable on Flying-types and Levitate mons so that they can’t be chunked by Earth Power.

5. Weak Special Defense: Having investment in bulk, access to Calm Mind, and protection from screens fixes Ursa’s most glaring weakness. Screens especially makes Ursa live every hit with ease.

I see the argument you’re trying to make, it’s just that none of these moves fully counter Ursa. In fact, nothing fully counters Ursa; there are only checks, and a well-made team can easily handle such checks.

I’ll link the team here if you want to try it out. Let me know if it changes your opinion on Blood Bear, it did for me

 

[LoseToRU?]

this is a mon with insane bulk, recovery, the ideal setup move for its archetype, and nearly unresisted stab coverage. this isn't something where counterplay is just gonna randomly pop up through exploring the metagame, it literally forces you to use awful sets that aren't applicable to the rest of the metagame to have a chance at countering it defensively. While gambit is insane and centralizing, it has splashable counterplay that is applicable to many other mons. I mean the fact there's a move/status condition that can half kingambit's attack and blood moon has no equivalent makes this comparison undeniably dumb

Gambit has incredible bulk. the ideal setup move, and nearly unresisted stab coverage. Counterplay did randomly pop up, and forced sets like Encore Nite. I don't know what splashable counterplay you mean, since Tera and Lum berry handle 99% of the tier. You can toxic boon, which forces a Tera Psn, which is not a great defensive typing in this meta. The same counterplay with Encore exists, and we haven't explored abusing its cooldown time on its best move. This meta has also been defined by mirror matches and speed ties, so I don't see much wrong with checking it with your own bear.

Is it an uphill battle to justify this thing staying? Obviously lol. Am I having fun trying? Yeah. Could we have waited another few weeks? I think so. Should we retest it? Naw. Could we live with it and adapt? Yeah. Should we have to? Idk. Because we haven't been given enough time, I can't say if it has a more positive or negative effect on the meta. I'm guessing it's more negative, but none of us can be certain of that.

You’re right. All those moves really hinder Ursa’s ability to do well. Even its special defense is very easily exploitable. However, Ursa has already started to adapt to these:

Ursaluna-Bloodmoon @ Leftovers
Ability: Mind's Eye
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 248 HP / 56 SpA / 164 SpD / 40 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blood Moon
- Hyper Voice
- Vacuum Wave
- Calm Mind
​

This is my set that I’ve been using along with Alolan Ninetales for screens support. It got me up to 1900s and achieved a 35-3 record for voting reqs. Here’s how the set handles each of the aforementioned issues:

1. Taunt: Common taunters are frail and cannot risk staying in on Ursa before getting nuked by Blood Moon. Usually, you can get +1 before getting taunted, and even when taunted, it really isn’t a big deal. Just click your moves and watch the other team fall apart.

2. Encore: This is definitely the best counter measure to Ursa, just as it is against any slow setup mon. Here’s the issue: you have to know what the Ursa is going to do. If you encore an Ursa into Blood Moon, it goes for it repeatedly and doesn’t have a cooldown (I found this out the hard way). If you hard switch into Ursa with your encore mon thinking it will CM and it uses Blood Moon, you just lost your encore mon and really don’t have counterplay for Ursa setting up. It’s not a bad option, but it’s not consistent enough and relies on prediction to succeed. Even then, I could see Ursa running Mental Herb to avoid this issue; I won’t count it here though since I never see that.

3. Protect: My set accounts for Protect. By running both Blood Moon and Hyper Voice, Ursa does not need to second guess clicking Blood Moon as often. If it doesn’t work for Ursa, you just Hyper Voice the next turn and do great damage; if it’s not quite enough to KO, you have Vacuum Wave in a pinch.

4. Substitute: Beyond not having to worry about clicking Blood Moon, my Ursa set having Hyper Voice completely ignores any Substitute user barring Soundproof Kommo-o. Even on normal sets with Blood Moon as the only Normal attack, Substitute would only be viable on Flying-types and Levitate mons so that they can’t be chunked by Earth Power.

5. Weak Special Defense: Having investment in bulk, access to Calm Mind, and protection from screens fixes Ursa’s most glaring weakness. Screens especially makes Ursa live every hit with ease.

I see the argument you’re trying to make, it’s just that none of these moves fully counter Ursa. In fact, nothing fully counters Ursa; there are only checks, and a well-made team can easily handle such checks.

I’ll link the team here if you want to try it out. Let me know if it changes your opinion on Blood Bear, it did for me

Encore lets BM go twice?! That's cool af lmao. I wonder if VGC is gonna abuse that. Nice post, thanks for laying it all out. I won't nitpick it even if I disagree on some of the points. I will agree this thing basically has no counters, only checks, but you could argue that for a few other mons we have.

 

[ayevon]

Gambit has incredible bulk. the ideal setup move, and nearly unresisted stab coverage. Counterplay did randomly pop up, and forced sets like Encore Nite. I don't know what splashable counterplay you mean, since Tera and Lum berry handle 99% of the tier. You can toxic boon, which forces a Tera Psn, which is not a great defensive typing in this meta. The same counterplay with Encore exists, and we haven't explored abusing its cooldown time on its best move. This meta has also been defined by mirror matches and speed ties, so I don't see much wrong with checking it with your own bear.

You had ID Corv and ID Zama that were great checks to pretty much all gambits and helped with other mons like baxc, dnite etc. Moltres handled most gambits, prevented it from attacking raw, could check with both attacking and status. It also had a great role checking various threats like physical valiant, dnite, cinderace etc. Great Tusk, the most splashable mon for nearly a year, was a significant barrier for kingambit to cross that's nearly on every team. Just in general, the meta is much better at handling physical threats than special ones. This isn't to downplay how centralizing kingambit is and its ability to circumvent convential counterplay with tweaks, but A) there's a hell of a lot more of that counterplay available in the builder B) those counterplay options have a lot more applicable roles in the meta

 

[Exotic64]

blood moon is broken. i will be voting ban for the first time this gen actually, i do think it is unhealthy for the metagame for sure as there are a limited amount of checks
the 'mon is fat as fuck. no im not kidding, look at these calcs

252+ Atk Choice Band Zamazenta Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 188+ Def Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 408-480 (94.8 - 111.6%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
adament choice band zama CC barely kills a bulkier variant of this mon (which is what everyone is running, i presume)

+2 252+ Atk Black Glasses Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Kowtow Cleave vs. 252 HP / 188+ Def Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 375-442 (87.2 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
think you can win lategame with gambit? if this thing is full HP, the answer is no. on the physical side, it almost lives every single atack and then kills back with blood moon. its access to vaccum wave also forced the kingambit to click sucker lategame LMFAO, dont even mention this mon

well surely blood moon is super squishy on the special defense side too right?
unfortunately its high HP stat compensates extremely well for its lowish special defense, well enough to the point where it affects many interactions in OU. here are some very common ones:
+1 252 SpA Iron Valiant Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 313-369 (72.7 - 85.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 SpA Ursaluna-Bloodmoon Blood Moon vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Iron Valiant: 295-348 (101.7 - 120%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+1 132 SpA Iron Moth Fiery Dance vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 271-319 (63 - 74.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Ursaluna Blood Moon has insane bulk, and its incredible power lets it pretty much sponge the majority of offensive mons' attacks and kill it back.

What about encore?
Well as everyone has probably experienced already, encoring Blood Moon makes it repeat twice in a row LMFAO. you cant encore it either if it clicked earth power last turn. only chance is if you can lock it into calm mind, in which the ursaluna might carry a mental herb since every item is good on it - literally. lefties, boots, herb, life orb - many other items are common too.

Okay so Ursaluna is very bulky, and it does insane damage already even with no investment, which can be boosted by calm minds. It is also very slow, a drawback to its bulkiness and offensive prowess, SURELY it doesnt get priority right? Hate to break it to ya, but the bear now gets a good fighting type priority move in Vaccum Wave. Despite its 40 BP, it is certainly extremely handy to have, as you can force mons like Kingambit to click sucker punch, or outright kill it if its slower. It is great at revenge killing leads such as Samurott-H and Ogerpon-Rock, and after a few calm minds, starts hitting hard.

Finally, if you think all that wasnt enough, the bear also gets Moonlight - which, when used under screens, practically makes the mon literally unkillable. Good luck

Frankly, the combination of its immense bulk and great stabs in Blood Moon and Earth Power make it extremely difficult to play against. Often times, it comes in on a tusk or Gliscor and you either sack the aforementioned mons or take huge damage. It thrives on offensive teams, where it can act as an emergency sponge to setup mons such as Iron Valiant, BU Tusk, Moth etc, and kill them back with ease in 1 move. No this is not an overreaction this time, its not another Walking Wake fiasco. Ursaluna Blood Moon does not have the same issues as its counterpart, where it takes 1/16 every turn, is a physical attack, which is checked by many mons like Corv, Tusk, Zama etc. Ursaluna Blood Moon can heal, is just as bulky, does insane damage as well, and even gets priority. I have also run Taunt on Blood Moon Ursaluna, which shuts down any chance that any stall/balance had against this mon.

Please dont get me started on tera poison ursaluna-BM. if they are setup properly and turn poison type, it is almost unkillable. It may not be as polarising as something like Cresselia, but its bulk pretty much makes it equal - except BM is able to beat Kingambit in a 1v1.
If you say its a tera issue, you are delusional, no other way to put it.

Good luck on suspects and see you guys in a metagame without Ursaluna Blood Moon.