Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Magcargo]

It's amazing that in the 20 pages of discussion on sleep, freeing Miraidon and Annhilape hasn't been brought up once as a potential solution to this dilemna.

Miraidon's electric terrain would give teams a fantastic option in dealing with sleep, all while revenge killing its most prominent user, Darkrai. It does struggle somewhat with Iron Valiant, but miraidon's mere presence would open up new options. The once UU Pokemon in Iron Moth would see newfound viability in electric Terrain and can emerge as a fantastic check to the evil HypnoHex Valiant that is destroying the ladder. One doesn't need to go out of their way to respond to Miraidon either, as many of its best answers in Ubers, such as Iron Treads, Clodsire, and Ting-Lu are all prominent metagame staples and can force it into 50/50s when paired with a Fairy type like Hatterene. Miraidon would also solve many current issues, completely destroying Archaludon rain that has been throwing the tier into frenzy as of late.

Annihilape is admittingly more problematic than Miraidon, but vital spirit completely smokes Darkrai and it can destroy the evil Gliscdozo balance / stall teams that have been dominating the ladder. It would give us a much needed spinblocking option as well, while allowing for new options like Hisuian Zoroark to rise, challenging Great Tusk's dominance in thr hazard removal game.

I promise you all, that if we unban Miraidon and Annihilape, you guys won't be complaining about Hypnosis Darkrai anymore.

 

[veti]

I promise you all, that if we unban Miraidon and Annihilape, you guys won't be complaining about Hypnosis Darkrai anymore.

Additionally, Koraidon and Shaymin Sky can also counter sleep. Choice Scarf Koraidon can outspeed and OHKO both Darkrai and Iron Valiant, and Shaymin Sky, while it struggles with val + booster, outspeeds unboosted Valiant and Darkrai and forces them to both break through flinch and land hypnosis. Unbanning Sneasler would make Miraidon better with an excellent teammate, so we need to unban it as well, while also outspeeding and OHKOing both Valiant and Darkrai. Koraidon can be countered by bold skeledirge, Shaymin Sky can be countered with Covert Cloak Corviknight, and Sneasler can be countered with Dondozo.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

what about zacian-crowned? it outspeeds and ohkos darkrai and non-booster valiant easily, and dondozo counters it

 

[Pinecoishot]

we are never freeing any form of arceus in ou

Post elo

 

[Finchinator]

Fuck meta discussion

 

[ianlazerbeem]

It's amazing that in the 20 pages of discussion on sleep, freeing Miraidon and Annhilape hasn't been brought up once as a potential solution to this dilemna.

Miraidon's electric terrain would give teams a fantastic option in dealing with sleep, all while revenge killing its most prominent user, Darkrai. It does struggle somewhat with Iron Valiant, but miraidon's mere presence would open up new options. The once UU Pokemon in Iron Moth would see newfound viability in electric Terrain and can emerge as a fantastic check to the evil HypnoHex Valiant that is destroying the ladder. One doesn't need to go out of their way to respond to Miraidon either, as many of its best answers in Ubers, such as Iron Treads, Clodsire, and Ting-Lu are all prominent metagame staples and can force it into 50/50s when paired with a Fairy type like Hatterene. Miraidon would also solve many current issues, completely destroying Archaludon rain that has been throwing the tier into frenzy as of late.

Annihilape is admittingly more problematic than Miraidon, but vital spirit completely smokes Darkrai and it can destroy the evil Gliscdozo balance / stall teams that have been dominating the ladder. It would give us a much needed spinblocking option as well, while allowing for new options like Hisuian Zoroark to rise, challenging Great Tusk's dominance in thr hazard removal game.

I promise you all, that if we unban Miraidon and Annihilape, you guys won't be complaining about Hypnosis Darkrai anymore.

These are mostly great points, but I think you're overstating the "domination" of the Gliscor/Dozo core, Stall is very difficult to build right now due to the saturation of threats in the tier and adding Miraidon and Annihilape feels like a bit much to nerf them. However one way we can empower the archetype and give it a fighting chance in this new meta could be to free Ho-oh.

Ho-Oh's middling 90 speed leaves it opened to being revenged quite easily, not only by the various priority, booster users, and weather boosted speed control in the tier, but also by common raw speed control such as Dragapult, Meowscarada, and even Pokémon like Darkrai. It's even outsped by the relatively slow Garchomp, and can rarely even afford to invest in speed when its best application is a defensive pivot. And on that subject, although Regenerator is a very powerful ability that would add a lot of flexibility to stall and balance with the utility Whirlwind brings, its 106/90/154 isnt really crazy bulk in practice (special Pecharunt with a worse type) and with the prevalence of knock in the tier, Ho-oh really is much more ephemeral than it seems given its 4x rock weakness. Tera allows it to shed this and respond better to Miraidon (no Tera required for ape luckily.) As the tier currently stands Ho-Oh is also outsped and put to sleep by the most prominent sleepers in the tier, bar Amoonguss, a problem Mon that Ho-oh's good matchup into is overall a net positive for the tier. Recover is a solid tool to keep Ho-oh alive, but that PP runs out fast and can be stalled out or walled with Pressure given Ho-oh's inability to boost its important stats.

There's also the other elephant in the tier of Rain. rain is easily the most potent offensive archetype right now, and without exhausting Tera, Ho-oh has an EXTREMELY poor matchup into these teams. Its reliance on physical moves and power nerf in the weather allows Archaludon to not only sit on it but stack boosts with Electro Shot. The Raging Bolt matchup isn't much better (maybe worse!) - resists both stabs and nails Ho oh with super effective priority. Ho-oh at least has Ground coverage for a lot of Rain's potent Steels and Electrics, but between the STABs, Whirlwind, Recover, Wisp, etc this isn't the easiest to fit. Tera Ground (likely the best Tera type) also isn't exactly something you want to click vs Rain.

Overall given how it matches up with the tier offensively and defensively and the middling speed stat and 4MSS, Ho-oh is likely to be a net positive in the tier - hopefully we see a question about testing it on the next survey.

 

[artificialdeath]

what about zacian-crowned? it outspeeds and ohkos darkrai and non-booster valiant easily, and dondozo counters it

Will never forget people seriously floating the idea of dropping zacian-h before HOME came out

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

ok i think we should tone things down because we are all losing our mcfucking minds. it's completely devolved into shitposting now, which is fun, but i'd much rather continue this memery on smogoff or somewhere else and keep this thread on track before it gets locked and they "forget" to unlock it or make a new one. i hate being the "stop having fun" guy but it has to be said

 

[Divine Retribution]

keep this thread on track before it gets locked and they "forget" to unlock it or make a new one. i hate being the "stop having fun" guy but it has to be said

You act like this isn't a desirable outcome

 

[Aptronym]

I do want to look at the senorlopez method of adjusting the sleep clause, as I do think it's interesting.

Smogon enforces bans and rulesets in a manner that's similar to asking players to create a group of promises:

"I promise I won't bring this pokemon, or this move, or this item into the battle",
"I promise not to dynamax",
etc.

The senorlopez method sounds somewhat consistent to this idea of promises:

"I promise I won't use a sleep inducing status move against the opponent if at least one of their Pokemon is already asleep."

However... There's some problems with it: The former promise examples I showed are enforced even before the game was even started. But the sleep promise is not in that manner - it has to be enforced smack right in the middle of the battle.

That is to say, to completely mirror the cart rules, but add a ruleset on top, we could simply have one simple list of stuff we can't have, plug it in, a voila - Instant format with no tampering with the cart. The judge in the rules were there right from the beginning to filter everything out, and in full isolation of the game's codebase.

The suggested Sleep Promise, however, does require reprogramming of the game to be enforced that can't be isolated: You need to plug in code to find out when and when it isn't being enforced in the middle of the game. In pseudo-code, something like

if pokemon_asleep >= 1:
    sleep_move_allowed = false

Yes, it does emulate the promise well without tampering with mechanics too much. But sadly, we enter grim territory of having a true bot directly affecting the game code to enforce it.

One might say that banning Tera and Dynamax would be the same way, as it's like grey out the buttons letting you do those things. But the program for that anything but elaborate - no more so than disallowing items and such to begin with.

I suppose the proposed sleep clause idea is better than the one we already have now - Our current one definitely modifies the game out of tune with the cart. But not quite as sound as an actual banlist enforced from the get-go.

Nice analysis. Personally, I'm not too worried about it being an in-battle ban, partly due to the precedent of Tera and Dynamax (like you said). What matters most for me is making sure that the rule is well-defined. That is, you always know whether you're allowed to click a sleep move or not based on public information. At that point, the greyed-out button is just a quality-of-life feature that tells you what you already know. (In cartridge play, we would assume the existence of an impartial judge to handle input and block any invalid plays, similar to what we assume for move cancellation.)

You're right that simpler is better here, and we'll need to do some exploration to make sure we can find a well-defined rule people are okay with. There might be some weird interaction that makes it impossible to tell whether you can click sleep. If there's interest in the clause, we can hash out the corner cases and see if it holds up. (Natural Cure is the most challenging so far; thoughts here.)

It's amazing that in the 20 pages of discussion on sleep, freeing Miraidon and Annhilape hasn't been brought up once as a potential solution to this dilemna.

Miraidon's electric terrain would give teams a fantastic option in dealing with sleep, all while revenge killing its most prominent user, Darkrai. It does struggle somewhat with Iron Valiant, but miraidon's mere presence would open up new options. The once UU Pokemon in Iron Moth would see newfound viability in electric Terrain and can emerge as a fantastic check to the evil HypnoHex Valiant that is destroying the ladder. One doesn't need to go out of their way to respond to Miraidon either, as many of its best answers in Ubers, such as Iron Treads, Clodsire, and Ting-Lu are all prominent metagame staples and can force it into 50/50s when paired with a Fairy type like Hatterene. Miraidon would also solve many current issues, completely destroying Archaludon rain that has been throwing the tier into frenzy as of late.

Annihilape is admittingly more problematic than Miraidon, but vital spirit completely smokes Darkrai and it can destroy the evil Gliscdozo balance / stall teams that have been dominating the ladder. It would give us a much needed spinblocking option as well, while allowing for new options like Hisuian Zoroark to rise, challenging Great Tusk's dominance in thr hazard removal game.

I promise you all, that if we unban Miraidon and Annihilape, you guys won't be complaining about Hypnosis Darkrai anymore.

You've solved it. The answer was right in front of us the whole time.

ok i think we should tone things down because we are all losing our mcfucking minds. it's completely devolved into shitposting now, which is fun, but i'd much rather continue this memery on smogoff or somewhere else and keep this thread on track before it gets locked and they "forget" to unlock it or make a new one

But I didn't get a chance to pitch Tapu Koko Mod... #FreeTapuKoko

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

You act like this isn't a desirable outcome

where am i supposed to farm reacts from if the meta discussion thread goes away? i work so hard, toiling all day in the hot sun and the pouring rain and the driving sleet all at the same time, to harvest those reacts and take them to the market to hawk at people who probably won't even eat them all, just so i can put food on the table for myself and my family of 50, all of whom are also humble react farmers like myself. think of the children, divine! cry not for me, for i have lived my life, but who will pass on my legacy if they are gone?

 

[Divine Retribution]

where am i supposed to farm reacts from if the meta discussion thread goes away? i work so hard to harvest those reacts and take them to the market just so i can put food on the table. think of the children

Have you considered eating your children?

 

[Cuddly]

Bro what do you have against Metagross?

 

[quacc]

Post elo

It's okay keep grinding bro, you'll hit number 1 in no time

 

[RyukTheDarkrai]

Orthworm @ Leftovers
Ability: Earth Eater
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earth Power
- Heavy Slam
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock

fuck this one Glimmora in particular

Through the combination of Earth Eater and its pure Steel Typing, Orthworm is quite potentially the best Glimmora counter in the game. It matches Glimmora's hazards with its own, is immune to Mortal Spin and can avoid tripping Toxic Debris with Earth Power (which is a 2HKO even with no investment and anegative nature).

unfortunately I don't think you can do much else with it since you lack phasing tools and are about as passive as a soggy wet noodle but it's still pretty cool right

 

[redninjapuffle]

ok i think we should tone things down because we are all losing our mcfucking minds. it's completely devolved into shitposting now, which is fun, but i'd much rather continue this memery on smogoff or somewhere else and keep this thread on track before it gets locked and they "forget" to unlock it or make a new one. i hate being the "stop having fun" guy but it has to be said

I can’t believe i got to watch the OU forums over fucking sleep and here we are.
Unrelated but what are people’s thoughts on latios?

 

[Carl_the_turtle]

where am i supposed to farm reacts from if the meta discussion thread goes away? i work so hard, toiling all day in the hot sun and the pouring rain at the same time, to harvest those reacts and take them to the market, just so i can put food on the table for myself and my family of 50, all of whom are also humble react farmers like myself. think of the children

ok but if you really wanted to feed your children you would make another ou the team smh

 

[Heatranator]

where am i supposed to farm reacts from if the meta discussion thread goes away? i work so hard, toiling all day in the hot sun and the pouring rain at the same time, to harvest those reacts and take them to the market, just so i can put food on the table for myself and my family of 50, all of whom are also humble react farmers like myself. think of the children

Just get yourself an appletun, the pokedex says that children eat its skin, so that should suffice.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

ok but if you really wanted to feed your children you would make another ou the team smh

if i really wanted to feed my children i'd get in long arguments with unbelievably uninformed people about contentious topics. it's such a shame that never happens here, where all the posters are so well-informed and intelligent that i never have to criticize anyone about anything

 

[Axiemeister]

can this thread have a sleep clause talk clause mod? sleep clause was discussed once, it can't be discussed again. i was TWENTY pages behind and it's only been two days and none of these pages were even good because so many people keep regurgitating the same arguments (the pro-clause ones actually got even worse)

i do have the say that simply reworking the clause seems fine to me. "but what if the opponent forc--" why on earth are you trying to force sleep moves to be used on you. what's the strategy there. you have to go out of your way to encore a sleep move, too. you deserve multiple asleep pokémon for doing that!!

 

[Heatranator]

can this thread have a sleep clause talk clause mod? sleep clause was discussed once, it can't be discussed again. i was TWENTY pages behind and it's only been two days and none of these pages were even good because so many people keep regurgitating the same arguments (the pro-clause ones actually got even worse)

i do have the say that simply reworking the clause seems fine to me. "but what if the opponent forc--" why on earth are you trying to force sleep moves to be used on you. what's the strategy there. you have to go out of your way to encore a sleep move, too. you deserve multiple asleep pokémon for doing that!!

You have a breloom, your opponent has a mon with trick and scarf. You manoveur you breloom to be in on the turn that they trick. Now you have a fast spore mon that can click it over and over again. Nevermind that breloom is slow naturally, your opponent still can outmanoveur you and breloom is mostly not used in OU. Oh, and the amount of times that would never happen because they are such small chances for all those things to occur.

 

[Axiemeister]

You have a breloom, your opponent has a mon with trick and scarf. You manoveur you breloom to be in on the turn that they trick. Now you have a fast spore mon that can click it over and over again. Nevermind that breloom is slow naturally, your opponent still can outmanoveur you and breloom is mostly not used in OU. Oh, and the amount of times that would never happen because they are such small chances for all those things to occur.

and also the fact the best counterplay to this is... staying on, because if the breloom switches out then it can't click spore again until your mon wakes up, which takes us back to square one. if you switch out on a choiced spore anyway then that's on you

 

[Finchinator]

survey will go up between 9am-noon gmt-5 saturday

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

can this thread have a sleep clause talk clause mod? sleep clause was discussed once, it can't be discussed again.

sleep clause mod clause mod: sleep clause mod cannot be discussed while any smogon user is asleep

 

[gregdawiz]

There is no gentlemen's agreement. You can spam spore to your heart's content in simulator and if you already sleeped something, it "fails" via sleep mod. If there was a gentlemen's agreement, the whole box would be grayed out aside for some niche cases such as encore or being pp stalled. This is not similar to bringing an Ubers mon (there isn't even a similarity lol).

You did not even read the post I was responding to. The discussion was about a proposed reformation that is cartridge accurate, that would be a gentleman's agreement. The conversation that just went on here was (SenorLopez: We should use a new version of sleep clause that is cartridge accurate and can be simulated by a gentleman's agreement -> SRN: You can't simulate a gentleman's agreement with it bc of [reason] -> Me: [Reason] makes no sense and you can absolutely hold up a gentleman's agreement with this new proposed clause -> Quacc: Sleep Clause Mod is already breaking a gentleman's agreement) In fact the exact thing we were talking about was the gray-ing out you mentioned in the second sentence.

No one was talking about Sleep Clause Mod before you brought it up out of nowhere. Why did this not-even-trying-to-be-informed post get 8 likes? Like genuinely how; this post makes no sense