Ehmcee
A Spoopy Ghost
I've personally always been in the No Tera Blast ban camp, I've found that it's usage is incredibly risky on the majority of mons due to necessitating commitment in the teambuilder, and essentially having a full move as a dead slot if your Pokemon is not the target pick for your Tera during a game.
The few cases where I think there's an argument for it being broken are on Pokemon that can either:
A) Afford to be a dedicated Tera during a game, due to their sheer strength (Ex: Kingambit, Volcarona, DD Kyurem)
B) Can Afford to have a dead moveslot (Enamorus, Kingambit and kind of Iron Moth)
Now I was interested in seeing the stats behind Tera Blast usage, and see which users of Tera Blast where the most common among the Pokemon ranked on the current VR, so here's some stats (I included Comfey due to it's considerable usage on both ladder and the Tournament scene), including every OU VR'd Pokemon with Tera Blast usage above 10%:
There was one surprise to me, the lack of
Kingambit hasn't seen Tera Blast be a significant part of it's moveset at all in the DLC2 meta, which was interesting to me. Now there may certainly be some discrepancy between it's usage on ladder and it's usage in Tournament, but I certainly expected Tera Blast to make up for at least 10% of it's sets. Turns out it's coverage between Sucker Punch/Kowtow+Iron Head+Low Kick is pretty damn good, it rarely needs the additional coverage Tera Blast provides, and the neutrality that Tera Fairy provides or the immunity that Tera Flying provides is often enough for Kingambit to beat Great Tusk (the main mon it needs to Tera out of).
Now I think the main Tera Blast users can be distributed into three main categories:
1. Pokemon that need additional coverage to succeed:
, , , , , , , DD
These pokemon all suffer greatly without the additional coverage, or are just full out outclassed by other mons. This is mostly filled with Pokemon that setup as a win condition or just for breaking power. Pokemon like , and typically use Tera Blast Fighting, due to it's favorable matchup into steel types, which multiple of them struggle to break. typically slots in Tera Fairy, to become a bulky double dance sweeper. and both slot in Tera Fire or Ground, to gain super effective stab against steel types, which both struggle against.
is the true wild card here, it's tera blast can be a wide range of types, between ground, water, fairy and even dragon. I'd argue this is outright the most problematic user of Tera Blast. Without Tera Blast it's fairly balanced due to it's fairly bad matchup into most fire types like , , . In combination with Quiver Dance and Volcarona's stats, it could very much be too much for the metagame. I however don't believe this is the fault of Tera Blast, but simply due to Volcarona's unique combination of characteristics.
The one exception to the "setup sweeper" mantle is , which mainly uses Tera Blast since Game Freak didn't give it flying stab :(. It becomes an especially effective breaker thanks to Tera Blast Flying.
2. Pokemon that typically can afford a dead slot
, , , ,
and fill kind of a similar role. both being leads for specific archetypes, which cover Tera Blast just in case they think they can nab a kill on defensive typings that cover them extremely well, Shocks running Tera Blast Ice to nail ground types, while Indeedee typically slots Tera Blast Fighting to OHKO Kingambit. These Pokemon don't typically need a 4th moveslot, as they act as either hazard leads that are expected to die quickly, or spawn Psychic Terrain as essentially their only job.
is an interesting one because unlike Volcarona, Iron Moth has amazing coverage. When they run Tera Blast, it's mainly for Tera Blast Water or Ground, to mainly hit and super effectively, it's primary checks. There's an argument to be made that this could also slot into category 1, but these two Pokemon rarely appear, and Iron Moth certainly doesn't need the additional coverage for success.
this one's pretty much only here because of that one stall team with Tera Blast Ice. Hydrapple doesn't really need to have Tera Blast Ice, it's pretty much just Teraing in select matchups where the team needs an ice resist (mainly vs Weavile and Meow). Tera Blast is kind of just a cherry on top because between Giga Drain, Body Press and Recover, it might as well slot in Tera Blast Ice due to it's synergy with the rest of it's offensive moves.
will be explained in the next section, but between Moonblast, Earth Power and Healing Wish, it hardly ever needs it's 4 slot unless it wants to go for a sweep.
3. Stellar users
,
I'd only really argue enamorus should be here, because I think Serperior's other tera types vastly outclass Stellar. Enamorus is the only potential problematic user of Tera Blast Stellar, due to it's unresisted option that continuously boosts it's special attack. Good speed control or priority is needed to outplay it, which I think the metagame generally has, between , , , and , as well as the multiple defensive Pokemon that have a fairly good matchup against it when locked into Tera Blast, such as , , , and .
Now I think the most popular Tera Blast users are overwhelmingly balanced, the majority of them aren't broken or game breaking and are definitely manageable in the current metagame. Where this changes however is with 4 specific Pokemon that have the potential to be broken with it, , , , . Now in my personal opinion, all of these mons should be looked into individually over a Tera Blast ban, I think Tera Blast is a great addition that offers many pokemon that need additional coverage with extra options, while having a noticeable tradeoff in a dead moveslot if the user itself does not Tera.
This was an interesting look into Tera Blast as a move, and I hope it was interesting for you :)
The few cases where I think there's an argument for it being broken are on Pokemon that can either:
A) Afford to be a dedicated Tera during a game, due to their sheer strength (Ex: Kingambit, Volcarona, DD Kyurem)
B) Can Afford to have a dead moveslot (Enamorus, Kingambit and kind of Iron Moth)
Now I was interested in seeing the stats behind Tera Blast usage, and see which users of Tera Blast where the most common among the Pokemon ranked on the current VR, so here's some stats (I included Comfey due to it's considerable usage on both ladder and the Tournament scene), including every OU VR'd Pokemon with Tera Blast usage above 10%:
95.81% | |
72.70% | |
63.65% | |
63.35% | |
61.29% | |
55.95% | |
55.12% | |
51.34% | |
49.04% | |
42.89% | |
21.17% | |
20.14% | |
20.06% | |
12.06% |
93.69% | |
89.72% | |
83.57% | |
71.21% | |
68.83% | |
67.82% | |
67.36% | |
52.85% | |
50.77% | |
50.07% | |
36.71% | |
21.88% | |
10.19% |
There was one surprise to me, the lack of
Kingambit hasn't seen Tera Blast be a significant part of it's moveset at all in the DLC2 meta, which was interesting to me. Now there may certainly be some discrepancy between it's usage on ladder and it's usage in Tournament, but I certainly expected Tera Blast to make up for at least 10% of it's sets. Turns out it's coverage between Sucker Punch/Kowtow+Iron Head+Low Kick is pretty damn good, it rarely needs the additional coverage Tera Blast provides, and the neutrality that Tera Fairy provides or the immunity that Tera Flying provides is often enough for Kingambit to beat Great Tusk (the main mon it needs to Tera out of).
Now I think the main Tera Blast users can be distributed into three main categories:
1. Pokemon that need additional coverage to succeed:
, , , , , , , DD
These pokemon all suffer greatly without the additional coverage, or are just full out outclassed by other mons. This is mostly filled with Pokemon that setup as a win condition or just for breaking power. Pokemon like , and typically use Tera Blast Fighting, due to it's favorable matchup into steel types, which multiple of them struggle to break. typically slots in Tera Fairy, to become a bulky double dance sweeper. and both slot in Tera Fire or Ground, to gain super effective stab against steel types, which both struggle against.
is the true wild card here, it's tera blast can be a wide range of types, between ground, water, fairy and even dragon. I'd argue this is outright the most problematic user of Tera Blast. Without Tera Blast it's fairly balanced due to it's fairly bad matchup into most fire types like , , . In combination with Quiver Dance and Volcarona's stats, it could very much be too much for the metagame. I however don't believe this is the fault of Tera Blast, but simply due to Volcarona's unique combination of characteristics.
The one exception to the "setup sweeper" mantle is , which mainly uses Tera Blast since Game Freak didn't give it flying stab :(. It becomes an especially effective breaker thanks to Tera Blast Flying.
2. Pokemon that typically can afford a dead slot
, , , ,
and fill kind of a similar role. both being leads for specific archetypes, which cover Tera Blast just in case they think they can nab a kill on defensive typings that cover them extremely well, Shocks running Tera Blast Ice to nail ground types, while Indeedee typically slots Tera Blast Fighting to OHKO Kingambit. These Pokemon don't typically need a 4th moveslot, as they act as either hazard leads that are expected to die quickly, or spawn Psychic Terrain as essentially their only job.
is an interesting one because unlike Volcarona, Iron Moth has amazing coverage. When they run Tera Blast, it's mainly for Tera Blast Water or Ground, to mainly hit and super effectively, it's primary checks. There's an argument to be made that this could also slot into category 1, but these two Pokemon rarely appear, and Iron Moth certainly doesn't need the additional coverage for success.
this one's pretty much only here because of that one stall team with Tera Blast Ice. Hydrapple doesn't really need to have Tera Blast Ice, it's pretty much just Teraing in select matchups where the team needs an ice resist (mainly vs Weavile and Meow). Tera Blast is kind of just a cherry on top because between Giga Drain, Body Press and Recover, it might as well slot in Tera Blast Ice due to it's synergy with the rest of it's offensive moves.
will be explained in the next section, but between Moonblast, Earth Power and Healing Wish, it hardly ever needs it's 4 slot unless it wants to go for a sweep.
3. Stellar users
,
I'd only really argue enamorus should be here, because I think Serperior's other tera types vastly outclass Stellar. Enamorus is the only potential problematic user of Tera Blast Stellar, due to it's unresisted option that continuously boosts it's special attack. Good speed control or priority is needed to outplay it, which I think the metagame generally has, between , , , and , as well as the multiple defensive Pokemon that have a fairly good matchup against it when locked into Tera Blast, such as , , , and .
Now I think the most popular Tera Blast users are overwhelmingly balanced, the majority of them aren't broken or game breaking and are definitely manageable in the current metagame. Where this changes however is with 4 specific Pokemon that have the potential to be broken with it, , , , . Now in my personal opinion, all of these mons should be looked into individually over a Tera Blast ban, I think Tera Blast is a great addition that offers many pokemon that need additional coverage with extra options, while having a noticeable tradeoff in a dead moveslot if the user itself does not Tera.
This was an interesting look into Tera Blast as a move, and I hope it was interesting for you :)