Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

Nice list.

A few things worth adding.

Temper Flare Tusk is really good. 150 BP Temper Flare OHKOs offensive balloon Ghold attempting to spin block. Also deals massive damage to Skarm coming in on EQ. This lets Tusk click Spin and Ground STAB a lot more freely since it can easily punish the most common switch ins on H-Stack.

Corviknight is a decent remover that merits a mention. It can’t Defog vs Ghold, but recently we’re seen a decline in Ghold usage out of the Top 3 as the meta has become more punishing towards Old Moneybags. And Corv has an excellent matchup vs Hamurott and Glisc. I wouldn’t recommend having Corv as your sole remover, but it’s an excellent partner to other forms of hazard control like Tusk or Hatterene.

Finally, Mortal Spin Glimmora is a solid option on HO. Earth Power and Power Gem can 2HKO Gholdengo and Skarmory, respectively.
How often is glimmora living late enough to spin tho like let's be real.
 

viivian

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its whole job as a suicide lead is to get up hazards early and to prevent opposing hazards from going up. if glimmora didn't just kill the hazard setter then you go into one of your 5 offensive mons after it goes down to force a switch and set up. not like any sane person is clicking spikes in front of ogerpon or roaring moon
 

Finchinator

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I think Glimmora would have some potential as a Scarf user due to its decent speed tier and massive 130 SpAtk. It could easily snipe some kills of unsuspecting Gouging Fires, Raging Bolts, and Volcaronas.
When is it ever killing Volcarona though? Volcarona dies to Power Gem and does not do much to Glimmora without exhausting Tera, but once it Teras, it is not able to be RK'd by Glimmora and is oftentimes going to lose 1v1. You can say the same about Gouging Fire aside from the very rare Earthquake variant that has yet to DD, but is Jolly to outrun non-scarf Glimmora (or Adamant after a DD).

Raging Bolt you outrun regardless.

Scarf Glimmora is a viable surprise value set with good utility, but these are not really the targets. Getting a surprise hit off on Dragapult, Kyurem, Great Tusk, chipped Landorus-T, unboosted Roaring Moon, Weavile, and even Zamazenta-H come into play far more often when you factor in dynamic coverage it gets.
 
I think Glimmora would have some potential as a Scarf user due to its decent speed tier and massive 130 SpAtk. It could easily snipe some kills off unsuspecting Gouging Fires, Raging Bolts, and Volcaronas.
I do kinda agree with that, though there is the issue of poison not being the best offensive typing. I have found better success with air balloon rock polish glimmora, with energy ball to destroy most volc tera's and ground types. You do have to drop power gem, but most volc's are not going to stay in untera'd regardless.

Scarf kyurem is a scarf mon I have had good success with, though having to go modest to ohko dragapult is unfortunate, but suprise ko'ing a lot of faster mons is neat.
 
I think Glimmora would have some potential as a Scarf user due to its decent speed tier and massive 130 SpAtk. It could easily snipe some kills of unsuspecting Gouging Fires, Raging Bolts, and Volcaronas.
intriguing option, although volc will probably be teraing into glimm whenever they interact whether it's scarfed or not, so you're not sniping volc ever unless you correctly predict tera ground, click energy ball, and burn your own tera to not die to the incoming tera blast. also, if you don't lead with glimm in scenarios where it would be appropriate to, people might get suspicious that you've got something up your sleeve and play more cautiously around it. but i think scarf glimm does have some potential—poison/rock stab and earth power is pretty fantastic coverage
though there is the issue of poison not being the best offensive typing
it's actually pretty good with ground coverage backing it up, since they cover each other's resistances very well. in fact, only seven fully evolved pokemon resist or are immune to the combination of those two. unfortunately, four of them are skarmory, corviknight, landorus, and gliscor
 
it's actually pretty good with ground coverage backing it up, since they cover each other's resistances very well. in fact, only seven fully evolved pokemon resist or are immune to the combination of those two. unfortunately, four of them are skarmory, corviknight, landorus, and gliscor
While that is true, poison on it's own without any coverage isn't the best offensive type. It is resisted by poison, ground, rock (which doesn't matter much in this meta) and ghost, while steel is immune to it. In return, you are super effective against grass and fairy. That isn't bad when you are switching up moves, but with scarf that isn't really feasible. You can try to predict the switch in, but they could just do the obvious switch and get a free turn.
That's the main issue with scarf/specs/banded poison mons, there stab is somewhat exploitable, though if you can play around it then it can be good stab. Hitting fairies super effectivily will always be great.
 
Okay, just been trying to use a team with a few more unorthodox builds, and a few things I gotta say.
1. Skeledirge is still great, don't underestimate it. I know in SPL one dominated its game, but it still is great. Unlike dondozo, it immediately threatens damage against opponents, I've personally been using covert cloak as even with hazards up, it still can do great. The set completely screws over garg, so quite a good set.
2. I know I have said it twice before, but SCARF KYUREM IS GREAT. I honestly think that being forced to go modest isn't that bad as you hit a speed stat of 433, which is enough to outspeed dragapult, which seems to be a lead most games I've played against it. A quick freeze dry is great for destroying a lot of teams. I've been running a set of freeze-dry, dragon pulse, earth power and focus blast. I am thinking of swapping out focus miss for either ancient power to destroy volc or even glaciate to slow down opponents, it's only 5 bp less than freeze dry, so I am interested in it cause if you hit a fast mon on the switch you can technically get two hits in.
3. Quaquaval is great with low kick, with tera grass, screws over raging bolt and can get a ko off. Definetely a good pick, going to try it with encore to screw more mons over while dropping roost. Even thinking of dropping rapid spin for knock off to hit ghold hard.
4. Specs darkrai with charge beam and trick can snowball games decently easy. Charge beam means that even if you trick it off to another mon, you can still potentially get the power of specs if you get lucky. Midrai might be over (probs not, that dude is going to UU at some point sadly).
 
One dissapointing move in gen 9 is trailblaze.

On paper this move should have been good, but it just isnt.

Most pokemon with this move either are so slow that boosting speed is meaningless(clodsire, blissey, metagross etc) either so fast that they rarely need to boost their speed(weavile, zamazenta, meowscarada) or simply have better options (rilaboom has priority, volcarona has quiver dance,greninja has both priority and battle bond).

Also there is the case of serperior where this move would backfire due to its contrary ability.
 
One dissapointing move in gen 9 is trailblaze.

On paper this move should have been good, but it just isnt.

Most pokemon with this move either are so slow that boosting speed is meaningless(clodsire, blissey, metagross etc) either so fast that they rarely need to boost their speed(weavile, zamazenta, meowscarada) or simply have better options (rilaboom has priority, volcarona has quiver dance,greninja has both priority and battle bond).

Also there is the case of serperior where this move would backfire due to its contrary ability.
Well, on the right mons, this is definetely a good move.
For example, waterpon can use it on non-grassy terrain teams (in which case you can use grassy glide) to boost its speed, which is one of its biggest flaws due to the fast paced aspect of the meta as even 110 speed is only good and not blazing fast.
Azumarill can use it to hit water types for big damage and fix its slow speed issue somewhat. Aqua jet is most likely better but it still should be considered.
Mamoswine can use it to hit water types for big damage, and making it a suprisingly threatening mon.
A few electric types can use it to hit ground types for big damage, as stuff like electivire, luxray and zebstrika otherwise are walled by them. (I know they are not going to be used in OU anytime soon, but I still think I should mention them).
It's similar in usage and viability to flame charge, which is literally just a fire type version, not the best on everything, but amazing on some mons who like the speed boost. Heck, even chandelure has used flame charge just due to the fact that fast chandelure is scary. (Also, metagross is not slow after a speed boost, with jolly 252 speed evs at +1, it has a speed stat of 393, which is outsped only by dragapult and zamazenta in OU and booster speed valiant and moon, which is impressive.)
 
One dissapointing move in gen 9 is trailblaze.

On paper this move should have been good, but it just isnt.

Most pokemon with this move either are so slow that boosting speed is meaningless(clodsire, blissey, metagross etc) either so fast that they rarely need to boost their speed(weavile, zamazenta, meowscarada) or simply have better options (rilaboom has priority, volcarona has quiver dance,greninja has both priority and battle bond).

Also there is the case of serperior where this move would backfire due to its contrary ability.
I mean there was a really good user for it. Firepon. She's in ubers now.
Rockpon can also be ok with it i guess... but not the same thing.
 
I want to pop in to remind people that no, you don't need many Defoggers to have viable recourse against hazards. Literally one good Defogger is enough for an entire meta. If that one good Defogger would be spammable (which Corviknight would be, it's literally already fine), then it would be fine as the main removal for the entire tier.

This is because "Defogger loses to X" doesn't fucking matter, because the Defogger simply has to get 1 free turn at any point in the game. Especially when you aren't typically trying to remove Stealth Rocks, but instead multiple hazards that takes more turns to setup than it took you to clear.

Being punished for Defogging by the opponent switching in to try and make progress in another way is also normal and fine, Defog has never been actually unpunishable. But you actually got to do the thing.

The issue with Good as Gold is that getting a free turn to Defog doesn't matter lol.

This is also just obviously true if you look at many metagames where people just use the same 1-2 defoggers on most teams, and if not defog, the same 1 spinner. You don't need many removers if the one guy does its fucking job.
 
Gholdengo and hazards conversation again? I’ll throw in my two cents

While I don’t have nearly as much experience with oldgens before defog was made to remove hazards, I recognize the impact that spikes (and rocks) have had on those metagames. I feel that saying that :great tusk: is the best spinner we have had ever, while undoubtedly true, is a bit disingenuous because in gen7 and 8 (and for a while at the beginning of 6 before we realized many of the defoggers weren’t good), defog was the primary hazard removal tool and it was on some of the best mons in the metagame. :Landorus-therian: :rotom-wash: :Tornadus-Therian: and :zapdos: along with :Corviknight: and :Latias-mega: in their respective generations we’re incredibly common, good, and splashable Pokémon. Great tusk is many of these things, but it’s really the only one that can fit onto just about every team structure.

I find that :Gholdengo: has little to do with the hazard removal “problem” (if you want to call it that) present in SV at the moment. If you haven’t taken a look recently, go search what Pokémon have access to defog in generation 9. :Corviknight: and :mandibuzz: are the only ones that are usable in ou, and while they may see a rise in usage with the removal of :Gholdengo:, they have passivity and matchup problems (for example, mandibuzz loses to many spikers, most notably :gliscor: which forces it to lose boots or be toxiced or both depending on the set) which will preclude them from the same splashability as previous generation defog staples. I do think :scizor: would be quite usable on many more teams if it kept roost, but it suffers from survivability which in my experience keeps it from running defog on defensive or utility sets.

My other problem with hazard is a little more personal and has nothing to do with their overall health but more the issue of finding ways to add removers to balance and especially bulky balance teams. While many of the previous mons mentioned such as :cinderace:, :hatterene: and :glimmora: are completely serviceable in their role to remove hazards, I find it hard to fit them onto bulkier teams without dedicating structures around them. :great tusk: is really the only good hazard remover that super bulky teams have and that necessitates similar team structures (cores supporting its weaknesses, the common :slowking-galar: and :kingambit: cores we’ve seen) or copious boots stacking, neither of which I am a fan of. Things like :cinderace: and :corviknight: sometimes do work on bulkier balance teams, but :cinderace: has no recovery and :corviknight: lacks the ability to do anything to :Gholdengo: and is annoyed by knock off :gliscor: and ruination :Ting Lu: I do think that if Game Freak added back defog to some of the mons that had it before, specifically :landorus-Therian: and :tornadus-Therian:, hazard removal (and not simply their prevention) would be significantly improved, but alas we are not beholden to their magical balancing department thought process.
 
Yeah I figured the initial hype at the start of the suspect died down. But now the meta continues and I'm not sure if there's anything of priority to suspect, maybe Raging Bolt ig. Just a very high powered meta right now which doesn't have to be a bad thing.

It's actually the lowest ban % of any suspect so far.
  1. Ursaluna-B - 93.42%
  2. Archaludon - 75.81%
  3. Roaring Moon - 70.23%
  4. Chien-Pao - 69.03%
  5. Gliscor - 66.37%
  6. Tera - 59.25%
  7. Kyurem - 58.1%
  8. Kingambit - 55.12%
  9. Walking Wake - 46.23%
  10. Zamazenta-H - 45.05%
  11. Gouging Fire - 42.34%
 

Finchinator

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How the Finch has changed. From pro-ban and, “Don’t worry, I’ll make a HUGE post about why it should be banned. Soon. Later. Don’t worry I’ll get to it.” to , “Eh. CTC was right I guess. I’ll vote DNB.”
What a silly thing to say.

I made a post explaining why two of his points were misguided (winrate and teambuilder implications) in the thread. I came to an opinion independently through playing the tier because Gouging Fire has been accounted for a lot better.

How about you actually read before accusing me of nonsense
 

awyp

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Just keep in mind there was a policy review to change the World Cup format in terms of which tiers being played because people are so discontent with the SV OU tier yet people want to keep voting DNB especially this time around where a bunch of people don’t play the tier get reqs to vote DNB to help the martyrdom of CTC.
 

1LDK

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Just keep in mind there was a policy review to change the World Cup format in terms of which tiers being played because people are so discontent with the SV OU tier yet people want to keep voting DNB especially this time around where a bunch of people don’t play the tier get reqs to vote DNB to help the martyrdom of CTC.
Not quite

the whole wcup format change came from the fact that during gen 8 also did a full deck cg ou, this long war exhausted the creativity resources from the tier and burnt out many countries from both playing and spectating
 

Finchinator

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Just keep in mind there was a policy review to change the World Cup format in terms of which tiers being played because people are so discontent with the SV OU tier yet people want to keep voting DNB especially this time around where a bunch of people don’t play the tier get reqs to vote DNB to help the martyrdom of CTC.
There’s a lot of issues with drawing this comparison. You of course are entitled to dislike the metagame, but the cause-and-effect here is silly.

WCOP was always changing formats after the first year of the generation — all CG was hated for years and only retained last year due to a slight majority. This is because seeing hundreds of games of the same tier with no alternative just isn’t great for a lot of people.

It got banned at 42%; only 6-7 new people got reqs. Multiple other prominent players shifted opinions (me, storm) or posted in opposition (zio and others). The metagame shifted a ton over the last few weeks and I’d argue numerous things are more worrisome than Gouging and counterplay grew more numerous. There’s not much more to it.
 
What a silly thing to say.

I made a post explaining why two of his points were misguided (winrate and teambuilder implications) in the thread. I came to an opinion independently through playing the tier because Gouging Fire has been accounted for a lot better.

How about you actually read before accusing me of nonsense
:(

Also can y’all change the thread name. It’s a bit outdated.
 
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