Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[weirdo faye]

I think it may be time for a break As others have said, there’s a really high skill curve and I think tiering is so oriented towards players who are already good, newer players like myself have been left by the wayside. As long as Tera is around balance will never be as good as offense.

There is no shame in playing for fun even if u aren't high elo. I think ppl forget sometimes it just a game if ur having fun at the end of the day who cares wat ppl think lol

Does anyone have any tips for using balance against weather? It feels like just an overwhelming matchup. yes, Glowking can change the weather but it has to be able to safely switch in, which it often can’t do against most special attackers after Tera.

Against Sun:
If you Tera water Glowking against Tera water walking wake, then you don’t have a good enough switch in for Gouging Fire. If you try to save your Tera, you risk getting 2HKO’d by Wake.

Against Rain:
In rain I face a similar predicament where weather ball Raging Bolt just tears through Ting Lu, but if I waste Tera there I have 0 switch ins to Baraskewda.

This is not an RMT, but for reference this is the team I’m using:
https://pokepast.es/6a01072011c6d2c1

So I'm no good at teambuilding in sv ou either cos I literally play 6 offensive mons on every team and try to win, so don't take me too seriously but... I think its kind of illegal ngl to play a team without a water resist which u just showed us. Sry lol. Tera water doesn't count btw.

 

[Duck Chris]

The problems of great tusk
Conclusion

This post is not saying that Great Tusk is bad. This post is saying that Great Tusk is not the best Pokémon around, because it is not as splashable as some people say. Great tusk does have its flaws, but every Pokémon does, and great tusk provides benefits to some teams. Just because it doesn’t benefit all teams, doesn’t mean it’s a bad Pokémon. It is just far less splashable, making it more of an A+/S- type of mon. What are your thoughts though?

I was on this train for a while during SPL since Great Tusk had notably less win percentage than Kingambit and other S tier mons. One thing I have realized though is that the instant you consider Great Tusk as anything less than an S tier threat on your opponent's team, it can run you over. Obviously the offensive utility sets are far and away the most effective since they can accomplish their goal even when the opponent is prepared for it. This highlights the main crux of the situation: every team is prepared for him. Every team. If you don't prepare for him he is simply going to 6-0 you. Even without bulk up, booster attack + rapid spin can be enough to completely clean out a team from top to bottom. Rapid Spin, Ice Spinner, Knock Off, Headlong Rush is near impossible to wall completely and it can even escape revenge killers with common defensive tera types like Poison or just by dropping its fighting type.

The main argument against Tusk is that every team is prepared for it and every player is ready to play around it. Which is true. But that is what makes it an S tier threat. Versatility, offence, defence, utility. It's good vs stall, fat, balance, bulky offence, offence, and HO. It's one of the top threats to Sun. It's a huge threat to sticky web teams. And it can be used on all of these teams as well (maybe not stall).

I think as long as we accept that S tier threats are simply the best OU pokemon and not the most banworthy or broken OU Pokemon, then Great Tusk is the prime example of S tier. Because Tusk is not broken, not really. The metagame has shifted to contain it and take advantage of it especially since so many of its sets are known. Set up sweepers like Ogerpon-W are so effectively largely due to the fact that the tier's premiere physical blanket check is weak to it. Special attackers like Lando, Vailant, Primarina and friends make their money off of forcing out or not letting in Tusk. But man if your team is weak to tusk it is basically unviable. So i would say it's still a top dog.

 

[dunderguy]

NEW SUN TECH?

Blimax released a new video the other day, featuring a sun team with . Of course it was a heat pick, but it seems to have a lot of utility for sun teams, and isn’t just an unmon that is dead weight. First off, it learns Sticky Web, which can help a lot of sun abusers such as , , , and even heat mons such as outspeed mons such as , , and mons such as and . Sticky Web by itself isn’t enough, which is why the ability Chlorophyll is useful. With its nice base 92 speed stat, it can outspeed under sun while using an Adamant Nature, which allows fast attacking and speedy Sticky Webs for the team. ’s base 103 Attack is somewhat comparable to ’s base 105 Attack, which means that it isn’t weak to attack either. Even though it loses Solar Blade, it gets coverage such as Knock Off, Triple Axel, and Low Kick to hit mons such as , , and , respectively. provides utility for any sun team with Sticky Web and Knock Off, and can dent mons using Leaf Blade, Triple Axel, and Low Kick. There is of course 4MSS, but you can alter the set as you please. This concludes my propoganda

Leavanny @ Life Orb / Focus Sash
Ability: Chlorophyll
Tera Type: Ghost / Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sticky Web / Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off / Low Kick
- Triple Axel / Low Kick

Big props to Blimax for the idea!

 

[weirdo faye]

you guys want a hot topic for discussion? who here agrees raging bolt is a tera hog? :)

 

[awyp]

you guys want a hot topic for discussion? who here agrees raging bolt is a tera hog? :)

It is a tera hog, but sometimes its not worth teraing because you only might get 2 kills, so I think you have to make a business decision if you do decide to tera because it will usually only save you 1-2 turns.

 

[EpicGuy321]

Does anyone have any tips for using balance against weather? It feels like just an overwhelming matchup. yes, Glowking can change the weather but it has to be able to safely switch in, which it often can’t do against most special attackers after Tera.

Against Sun:
If you Tera water Glowking against Tera water walking wake, then you don’t have a good enough switch in for Gouging Fire. If you try to save your Tera, you risk getting 2HKO’d by Wake.

Against Rain:
In rain I face a similar predicament where weather ball Raging Bolt just tears through Ting Lu, but if I waste Tera there I have 0 switch ins to Baraskewda.

This is not an RMT, but for reference this is the team I’m using:
https://pokepast.es/6a01072011c6d2c1

scarf Trace Gardevoir to outspeed the fast guys (Barraskewda and Hilligant at least, Trace doesn't copy Proto :( unfortunately)

Seriously though, I tried scarf Gardevoir and it isn't good. Not strong or fast enough. If it had base 90 speed it would be decent.

 

[ant4456]

I only see something as a "Tera Hog" if it uses Tera to become a good Pokemon, like Garganacl. Garganacl pre Tera has many problems, while Raging Bolt uses Tera to get past its very few problems by getting free turns.

Raging Bolt, Kingambit, and others I would not consider a Tera Hog because they are already great Pokemon using Tera in order to get free turns on top of the usual use.

 

[RS25802580]

The problems of great tusk

I was originally going to post this in the viability rankings thread, but I thought it would be better here since it is worth discussing. In my opinion, great tusk is still a strong metagame staple, but it is no longer the ultra-splashable god of OU that many would predict it to be at the start of the generation. This is due to several factors, which I will list here, but many of them are linked to actually fitting it to the teambuilder.

What great tusk does

I know many of you already know what great tusk does, but I will just list this out anyways. Great tusk has high physical bulk and great attack. It is mainly used as a utility Pokémon, with moves like knock off for forcing progress and stealth rock, and most importantly, rapid spin, which is extremely useful in a hazard-filled metagame where the majority of teams have stealth rock and spikes. In addition, you have lots of offensive options like Earthquake, Close Combat, Headlong Rush and Ice spinner to nail a common knock off absorber, Gliscor. However, it can also be used with Bulk Up, either as an offensive sweeper/wallbreaker or a defensive backbone against many threats, most notably Kingambit, which great tusk is one of the most reliable answers to. However, great tusk is extremely customisable, with options like Choice Band and Eject Pack having success.

Longevity

This is the first problem that is the least linked to the teambuilder (although it certainly is a factor there). Great Tusk is a hazard remover, but it can quickly get worn down often. It does not have the worst longevity, but it often has to come in over and over again to spin and remove hazards. Great Tusk lacks a reliable recovery, and is often stuck between a rock and a hard place on item choice. It must either choose leftovers or heavy duty boots in many scenarios. With leftovers, it has gets worn down by Spikes that it is tasked to remove, while with boots, it is extremely hard to hard-switch into mons AND play the long game, something that you would wish to do, for example, it is regularly worn down by Blissey's seismic toss. Additionally, it is vulnerable to burn and poison, which can wear it down rapidly. However, long-term survivability is not the only factor. Sheer bulk does not automatically give a mon insane longevity, but you cannot dismiss it as a factor. Ting-Lu suffers from most of the same problems, but it is extremely bulky, giving it decent longevity to act as a stopgap to many threats and setting hazards repeatedly. Great tusk has good physical bulk, but 1: it has poor special bulk and 2: it often has to remain at high health to be able to answer the ubiquitous Kingambit. 1 can be easily answered by pairing it with a specially bulky mon, while 2 technically can by pairing it with other Gambit checks like Dondozo, but then it will not be splashable, which is required to be the very top tier. You can solve this with rest, but great tusk suffers from 4MSS. I would not consider 4MSS to be a true problem since you are supposed to cater it to your team, but it must be mentioned, making it annoying to try to fit certain moves.

Competition (as a ground utility mon)

Whether competition is a drawback of a mon or a non-factor depends on the context. It would be foolish to say "Blissey is an awful mon because it is outclassed by Ting-Lu as a special sponge on bulky offense teams", but what we are talking about is whether Great Tusk deserves to be S tier. An S-tier should be able to fit in a lot of archetypes, and thus competition is a factor here. Firstly, I will discuss the competition as a ground utility mon.

Landorus-Therian

Lando-T competes with Great Tusk for a spot on bulky offense teams. It is far less reliable at checking kingambit, cannot remove hazards, lacks item removal, but it has upsides too. It has the combination of intimidate and U-turn, and another immunity, allowing it to increase its team’s mobility. It also has usable special bulk, allowing to take 1 neutral or resisted hit in a pinch. Great Tusk has item and hazard removal, but Landorus-Therian is far more mobile.

Of course, Great Tusk is not STRICTLY competing with Landorus-Therian. I have seen successful teams which use both on the same team, and they have synergy in filling out all of the team’s utility in 2 slots. However, they stack weaknesses, meaning you have to accept a vulnerability if you would use them together, making it harder to fit both. Therefore, you will often have to choose only one of them, making it competition nonetheless. This applies to all other competitors.

Gliscor

For bulkier builds, gliscor is the competitor. It has knock off like great tusk while having landorus-therian’s typing. However, it also has poison heal, giving it amazing longevity despite lacking a reliable recovery, and it also has other utility moves. It lacks rapid spin, but it has spikes, which it can use a lot because it walls many Pokémon, and pairs well with its own knock off, along with the more niche, less reliable but potentially devastating toxic spikes. While it is weaker than great tusk based on raw attack and base power moves at first glance, it has offensive sets which use swords dance, in conjunction with facade and/or knock off to break many balance teams, and defensive sets use something it has over it, toxic, to reduce their passivity. It is arguably holding together balance in this metagame. It acts as a strong knock off absorber, and generally packs a ton of value in one slot.

Ting-Lu

Ting-Lu is a very useful support mon, capable of fitting into almost any balance team and certain BO and stall teams. It is not a blob meant to take hits forever while healing them off with recovery, it is meant to be a bastion against setup sweepers, which also happens to last throughout the game. It uses the free turns from forcing out threats by setting hazards, and wearing down switchins with ruination and STAB earthquake. At first glance, it’s unimpressive, since all it does is switch in, take a hit and then phaze the other Pokémon out or do the aforementioned things, but it happens to be a powerful stopgap against much of the metagame, and the aforementioned things are incredibly useful. It is different from great tusk, but the weakness overlap is a factor though.

Hazard Control

Hazard removal is important in a metagame with a mon that blocks defog, reduced defog distribution and increased hazard distribution (why does hydreigon get stealth rock now? Makes 0 sense). This is the main reason why great tusk rose in usage at the start of the generation, since it can remove hazards while being able to threaten Dragapult and Gholdengo. The occasional Garchomp gets threatened by ice spinner. Great tusk's main competition in Hazard control is actually Heavy Duty Boots. Another way people adapted to this meta is by running team structures with a few knock off absorbers like Skarmory, Gliscor or Clefable along with Heavy Duty Boots on the rest of the Pokémon in their party. This removes the need of hazard removal, allowing for the teams to run almost anything they wanted, since they do not have to add great tusk or lose to Gholdengo hazardstack. Actual hazard removal competition is limited to only defog users and Iron treads. However, Hatterene is also massive competition, it can either run a calm mind set which can be annoying to deal with, or an eject button pivot. Additionally, bulky offense have been using weird but effective cores to deter hazards, like Iron Crowns + Lando-T. While great tusk is undoubtedly the best hazard REMOVAL, it has competition for the best hazard CONTROL.

Kingambit Answer

Every team needs a kingambit answer, and great tusk is the most reliable one. However, it is far from the only answer. Zamazenta is the most direct. It is easier to fit on a team alongside tusk’s aforementioned ground competition, and exchanges hazard and item removal for different utility in speed control. Zamazenta can be used on balance, bulky offense and hyper offense teams too, meaning it is quite splashable, some can make an argument that it is even more splashable than great tusk. Dondozo is another option for stall and fat balance. It not only answers kingambit, but it blanket checks almost all of the physical metagame in the tier. Iron Valiant allows HO teams to forgo great tusk. It quad resists sucker punch and can hit it back hard, making for a good revenge killer.

Great Tusk in the metagame

Great tusk feels less important in the metagame. It has alternatives to many of its roles. Especially spinning, which feels less mandatory due to how many alternatives there are. Additionally, despite its customisability, it is also very predictable. It has to run Ice Spinner to not get walled by Gliscor and Dragonite, among other things, and on top of that, it almost always has rapid spin on top of that. The metagame is also harsher towards it, for example Balloon Gholdengo rising in usage, which is an annoyance, and it is easy to adapt to it. That said, it is still great tusk. Its offensively-oriented sets provide useful role compression for offensive teams. After all, these teams also need a hazard control method and a kingambit answer, and their face pace helps get around its longevity issue because games are usually shorter. It can only perform its roles for so long during a match, but offense doesn’t need to care. Additionally, some balance teams can use defense tusk, which is arguably the most solid kingambit answer out there, while allowing them to forego boot spam, which is notable for collapsing after one misplay into a knock off. Even stall teams may want tusk, as a removal option that Gholdengo doesn’t want to come near, as well as relieving pressure from Dondozo.

Conclusion

This post is not saying that Great Tusk is bad. This post is saying that Great Tusk is not the best Pokémon around, because it is not as splashable as some people say. Great tusk does have its flaws, but every Pokémon does, and great tusk provides benefits to some teams. Just because it doesn’t benefit all teams, doesn’t mean it’s a bad Pokémon. It is just far less splashable, making it more of an A+/S- type of mon. What are your thoughts though?

I don't think Tusk should be considered the most reliable Gambit check. It can take a few hits from Gambit in the early-midgame to ease the pressure on other teammates, but when it comes to the late game, it will likely lose to a Tera Fairy Gambit even at full health. Rocky helmet Lando is a solid early-game Gambit answer since it can force chip on Gambit, so I don't think it does worse than Tusk in this regard. Nonetheless, most teams will want to pack Encore or Wisp support because one Tusk is rarely enough to check Gambit.

 

[GummyRowlets]

you guys want a hot topic for discussion? who here agrees raging bolt is a tera hog? :)

I don't 100%. It typing defensively is decent. Able to match up decently well into ogerpon, kambit, Gholdengo, Glowking, Rillaboom, cinderace, zama, and a couple more. It def wants tera more than other pokemon like Lando since being a slow electric type isn't great against the plethoras of ground types in the tier, but calling it a tera hog is a bit too much. A tera hog is like Garg, which has horrendous defensive typing and almost always wants to tera in the long run.

 

[GummyRowlets]

What are your guys favorite choiced pokemon? I've been using choiced pokemon more recently since all you do is press one button and watch things die. Mine is def kyurem. It's so BS yet fun at the same time.

 

[awyp]

What are your guys favorite choiced pokemon? I've been using choiced pokemon more recently since all you do is press one button and watch things die. Mine is def kyurem. It's so BS yet fun at the same time.

You ever want to break stall? Choice Band Dragonite

 

[Bold School]

Happy Page 420 my dudes!! Whats the most stoned set/team you've created this gen?

I since deleted it, but my craziest/drunkest set was my Tera Ghost mixed attacking crit Blaziken set. I had Scope Lense to try and proc crits on Blaze Kick and Shadow Claw with no Focus Energy setup. It wasn't good. But it was fun. I lured in so many Great Tusks only to Overheat them. I feel like a better version of this set would have been just Tera Fire Life Orb and Swords Dance. The crit fishing wasn't reliable enough and using a low power move like Shadow Claw was just plain lacking. What this needed was more consistent power.

I also want to bring up my attempt to save Indeedee from being a dead slot on Psychic Terrain teams.

Indeedee @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Expanding Force
- Tera Blast
- Trick
- Healing Wish

Trick improves the stall matchup and fast Healing Wish can help get key momentum into a sweeper. The best tech here is Tera Blast on a normal type mon, allowing you to change coverage to a different STAB move when choice locked. Indeedee still isn't good. But I would say this version is better at being useful than a Terrain Extender set.

A very successful set was my Tera Normal Life Orb Dragonite.

Dragonite @ Life Orb
Ability: Multiscale
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Rush

It's not as crazy as it sounds. Hear me out. You can get a lot of KOs at +1 that a HDB D-nite would need to be at least +2 for. You get the option for near immediate power to Choice Band for emergencies without being locked in. The hazard support is actually not very problematic since the only thing D-nite actually cares about is rocks. You literally just need one clear or Court Change to ensure D-nite can come in with a Multiscale to get the clean setup. And it's even easier in games the other team doesn't bring rocks or get them off. You don't care about Life Orb chip as much after that first setup because you usually only need +1 power.

Dragon Rush was the 4th move in my original attempt. It hit hard when it hit, but was too unreliable. I ultimately replaced it with Ice Spinner. The 4th move can likely change depending on what coverage you most need and teammate support. But The Dragon Rush version was definitely the most stoned.

My best set this gen is easily my Tera Dark D-speed set. I have been pushing D-speed for a long time. I think I may have been the first one to specifically try Tera Dark and like no speed EVs.

Deoxys-Speed @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Naive Nature
- Psycho Boost
- Ice Beam
- Knock Off
- Superpower

Not much else to say here that I haven't already said. Tera Dark Knock Off is really hard to switch into. I have since gone into using that Iron Valiant. I want to try it on Defiant Thunderous at some point, too.

you guys want a hot topic for discussion? who here agrees raging bolt is a tera hog? :)

I do. It often uses Tera Fairy to avoid the first big hit. And Grassy Seed Body Press Bolt wants Tera Fighting, but it's a similar thing. Sometimes you can't Tera Bolt because it isn't the right game for it, but nearly every game it really wants it. Bolt is very hungry for Tera.

What are your guys favorite choiced pokemon? I've been using choiced pokemon more recently since all you do is press one button and watch things die. Mine is def kyurem. It's so BS yet fun at the same time.

Definitely Rillaboom for me. Grassy Glide threatens offense while Wood Hammer wrecks stall. I don't always run Choice Band on Rillaboom, but when you do it's so fun. There isn't a matchup it can't help with.

 

[arnimacarni]

I since deleted it, but my craziest/drunkest set was my Tera Ghost mixed attacking crit Blaziken set. I had Scope Lense to try and proc crits on Blaze Kick and Shadow Claw with no Focus Energy setup. It wasn't good. But it was fun. I lured in so many Great Tusks only to Overheat them. I feel like a better version of this set would have been just Tera Fire Life Orb and Swords Dance. The crit fishing wasn't reliable enough and using a low power move like Shadow Claw was just plain lacking. What this needed was more consistent power.

I also want to bring up my attempt to save Indeedee from being a dead slot on Psychic Terrain teams.

Indeedee @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Expanding Force
- Tera Blast
- Trick
- Healing Wish

Trick improves the stall matchup and fast Healing Wish can help get key momentum into a sweeper. The best tech here is Tera Blast on a normal type mon, allowing you to change coverage to a different STAB move when choice locked. Indeedee still isn't good. But I would say this version is better at being useful than a Terrain Extender set.

A very successful set was my Tera Normal Life Orb Dragonite.

Dragonite @ Life Orb
Ability: Multiscale
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Rush

It's not as crazy as it sounds. Hear me out. You can get a lot of KOs at +1 that a HDB D-nite would need to be at least +2 for. You get the option for near immediate power to Choice Band for emergencies without being locked in. The hazard support is actually not very problematic since the only thing D-nite actually cares about is rocks. You literally just need one clear or Court Change to ensure D-nite can come in with a Multiscale to get the clean setup. And it's even easier in games the other team doesn't bring rocks or get them off. You don't care about Life Orb chip as much after that first setup because you usually only need +1 power.

Dragon Rush was the 4th move in my original attempt. It hit hard when it hit, but was too unreliable. I ultimately replaced it with Ice Spinner. The 4th move can likely change depending on what coverage you most need and teammate support. But The Dragon Rush version was definitely the most stoned.

My best set this gen is easily my Tera Dark D-speed set. I have been pushing D-speed for a long time. I think I may have been the first one to specifically try Tera Dark and like no speed EVs.

Deoxys-Speed @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Naive Nature
- Psycho Boost
- Ice Beam
- Knock Off
- Superpower

Not much else to say here that I haven't already said. Tera Dark Knock Off is really hard to switch into. I have since gone into using that Iron Valiant. I want to try it on Defiant Thunderous at some point, too.



I do. It often uses Tera Fairy to avoid the first big hit. And Grassy Seed Body Press Bolt wants Tera Fighting, but it's a similar thing. Sometimes you can't Tera Bolt because it isn't the right game for it, but nearly every game it really wants it. Bolt is very hungry for Tera.



Definitely Rillaboom for me. Grassy Glide threatens offense while Wood Hammer wrecks stall. I don't always run Choice Band on Rillaboom, but when you do it's so fun. There isn't a matchup it can't help with.

That Dragonite set makes me think, is Normal Gem still in the game? Bc a set w Normal Gem Tera Normal ESpeed and Acrobatics could be fyah

EDIT: BROOOOOOO HOW DOES DRAGONITE NOT LEARN ACRO

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

NEW SUN TECH?

Blimax released a new video the other day, featuring a sun team with . Of course it was a heat pick, but it seems to have a lot of utility for sun teams, and isn’t just an unmon that is dead weight. First off, it learns Sticky Web, which can help a lot of sun abusers such as , , , and even heat mons such as outspeed mons such as , , and mons such as and . Sticky Web by itself isn’t enough, which is why the ability Chlorophyll is useful. With its nice base 92 speed stat, it can outspeed under sun while using an Adamant Nature, which allows fast attacking and speedy Sticky Webs for the team. ’s base 103 Attack is somewhat comparable to ’s base 105 Attack, which means that it isn’t weak to attack either. Even though it loses Solar Blade, it gets coverage such as Knock Off, Triple Axel, and Low Kick to hit mons such as , , and , respectively. provides utility for any sun team with Sticky Web and Knock Off, and can dent mons using Leaf Blade, Triple Axel, and Low Kick. There is of course 4MSS, but you can alter the set as you please. This concludes my propoganda

Leavanny @ Life Orb / Focus Sash
Ability: Chlorophyll
Tera Type: Ghost / Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sticky Web / Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off / Low Kick
- Triple Axel / Low Kick

Big props to Blimax for the idea!

band gouging with webs support sounds like an absolutely devastating combination, i might have to try this out at some point

 

[littensalt]

how i view it is that
tera hog = mon that almost always need tera to be useful, like if you SERIOUSLY tried using a tera water bastiodon to make super diet offbrand dondozo, then you'd have to tera it like every game or so, obviously this is a exaggerated example but still
tera abuser = mon thats already great but does EXCEEDINGLY well with tera, mons like regieleki, raging bolt, gambit, etc are all examples, should be noted a mon doesnt HAVE to be a tera abuser to be good, rillaboom is a pretty good tera abuser in the right circumstances but if its 2v1 with a gambit and rilla vs a corv, youre probably gonna tera your gambit instead
and i haven't thought of a term but a tera disliker for mons that dont really wanna tera unless its a dire situation, ie gliscor because you lose your hazard immunity, not sure if theres any other notable examples of this but i think there might be a couple(maybe ghost types not wanting to give up spinblocking)

 

[658Greninja]

658Greninja’s Archetype Ranking​

Last week I watched Pinkactoss’ team archetype ranking (great video btw, please check it out if you have the chance.) I’m mentioning this cause I want to present my own takes on SV OU’s team styles. I’ve been working on this write-up before the Volc ban, but imo it did not impact the rankings since every archetype minus a couple benefits from Volcarona being booted.

Standard Hyper Offense: 8/10
My opinion on HO is similar to Pinkacross’. It has remained one of the strongest playstyles in Gen 9 due to the level of offensive power creep and Tera. Offensive powerhouses like Moon, Valiant, Kingambit, Raging Bolt, and Darkrai, HO is very flexible in the way it can be built. The style has gotten worse due to the meta slowing down and matchups like Zama, Webs, and Prima being obnoxious. Plus HO teams can find themselves feeling flow-charty, making the style inconsistent and more difficult to pilot once taken to a higher level of play, but remains great in the current metagame.

Webs: 6.5/10
The idea of webs is simple. Set up webs, keep them up with Gholdengo, and sweep with your offensive mons like Manaphy or Booster Tusk that would otherwise be too slow to sweep normally. It has great matchups into HO and the mons used are good enough on their own like Ghold to be good into other builds. However the style is slowly becoming more of a matchup fish. Boots Spam is more common, Knock Boots Tusk makes spinblocking with Ghold less trivial, Cinderace is an annoying mu, and lowered speed doesn’t protect you from priority. Webs as a style goes back and forth. Boots spam becomes the norm, then HO teams start tramping over them, then Webs ends up being a cteam vs HO, and then Balance/Boots Spam rises to check both.

Trick Room: 2/10
Ursaluna isn’t enough to make this archetype worth it. Priority is common in this meta. Gambit can straight up 6-0 in team preview. Gliscor and Mola can click Protect to stall out TR turns. Sub-CM Prim is very bad for Trick Room, or just anything with Sub like Moth in general. It can do fine into certain HO builds, so I don’t think it is as bad as in Pinkacross’ ranking, but the style is incredibly inconsistent.

Screens/Veil: 5.5/10
Screens is not the most consistent offensive archetype in SV OU, but it has its place in the current meta. It appreciates the rise of bulkier teams that often rely on trading or status to deal with these offensive threats thanks to mons like Hatterene, NP Darkrai, and Sub-CM Prima being scary for Balance teams. The main issue with the archetype is that common screen setters like Deo-S, Serp, Alolatales, and Pult are frail, so switch in opportunities are harder to grab. You often can’t sack your screen setters early unlike other HO builds with dedicated hazard leads like Glimm or Ribombee. Running screens also means Rocks are difficult to slot in. You can run both Rocks and screens on Deo-S, but it means you risk being a sitting duck vs a number of threats. Matchups like Pult and Cinder are also incredibly annoying. However I do not find it to be bad.

Hazard Stack Hyper Offense: 6/10
Hazard Stack HO is a classic in SV OU. With Ghold along with a slot for Spikes and Rocks, you input offensive pressure with chip from hazards. It is rather inconsistent these days for a few reasons. There’s only 3-4 free slots as you need to fit in a rocker, spiker, and a spinblocker on the team. If they can successfully remove hazards with Cinder or Tusk, these teams can fall apart as they become less potent versions of standard HO without them. Boots Spam Balance/BO is relatively common. Plus most good players will hardly give you room to get up 3 layers of Spikes. Still, you can find some successful hazard stack HO builds on ladder or tours.

Electric Terrain: 1/10
Pincurchin is a frail as shit mon with a great support movepool but terrible stats. Running E-Terrain to support the Future Paradoxes is not worth it. Better to just run them on a standard offense. It also loses hard to matchups like Rillaboom who comes in on Pincurchin for free and Tusk who can Ice Spinner your hard work away.

Psychic Terrain: 2.5/10
Psychic Terrain Offense or Psyspam, is better, but by a hair. Indeedee is still mid, but rocks an ok speed tier and support options like Encore or Healing Wish. Plus the terrain itself is more valuable for blocking priority than Electric Terrain is for free Quark Drive boosts (and Alolan Midchu). It has had rare instances of taking a win, but its incredibly inconsistent and loaded with bad matchups. Psyspam struggles to break past Ting-Lu Balance teams, even with support from Hatt and Hawlucha. The gameplan with Psyspam is to keep terrain up and hazards out, which becomes hell if you run into a Samurott or Rillaboom. Psyspam often hard loses to Stall since they pack Tera Dark Blissey or Tera Steel Unaware Clod. It is an archetype you can’t make mistakes with, as you can lose for making even minor errors in your plays.

Grassy Terrain: 7.5/10
Unlike Psyspam and E-Terrain, G-Terrain teams not only are more varied in how they are player, but its main setter is also not garbage, in fact its a strong breaker that role compresses Knock, speed control, and U-Turn. Grassy Terrain also benefits mons like Gambit, Tran, Garg, Bolt, G-Fire, Lucha, Hatt, Prima, Dirge, Tusk, Ghold, Zama, Wogre, etc. You could either build an offensive style Grassy Terrain with a couple Grassy Seed abusers, or a bulky offense team backed up by passive recovery.

Misty Terrain: 3/10
Yes, this style exists and is ironically better than every Terrain besides Grassy. G-Weezing is rather decent, and as a Terrain setter it’s alright. Misty Terrain can support status weak mons like Kingambit, Moon, Dnite, R-Bolt, etc. Again though, having difficulties slotting in rocks and though the status immunity is nice, these sweepers can function fine without it.

Standard Offense: 9/10
As stated by Pinkacross, Standard Offense makes use of slow and fast pivots alike to support powerful wallbreakers like Kyurem and Wogre. Pokemon like Court Change Cinderace and Lando-T are big contributors to the archetype’s success. Compared to Hyper Offense, this build has a stronger matchup into fatter teams while defensive backbones like Glowking, Tusk, and Lando provide flexibility into offense. It also makes the archetype less flowcharty than the standard HOs.

Rain: 5/10
While Rain still has a couple showings since the Arch ban. Without the bridge, Rain does not reach the same heights it used to. The archetype does have good matchups into offense, but lacks in flexibility. Rain runs Pelipper, Barra, Raging Bolt, and Treads which only leaves room for 2 slots. Rillaboom is annoying, priority from Gambit or other strong threats is hard to play around, Prima can pick up a kill vs most Rain teams, any team with checks to both Bolt and Barra tend to give Rain a hard time, Wogre puts Barra in an awkward position, click CC and lose momentum or click your Water moves and lose momentum. You could slot in answers to them like the birds, your own Gambit, or Overqwil, but slots are limited on Rain.

Sun: 6/10
Pinkacross rated Sun a 7.5/10, but I disagree about it being at that level. Sun is the best weather in the tier, with strong abusers like the Past Paradoxes and H-Lilligant and Torkoal being a decent check to Gambit, Dnite, etc. Sun has more flexibility in the builder than Rain. The Paradox Dogs are also still great outside Sun (besides Wake). The archetype still has a lot of holes that are frequently seen on these builds. Glowking is an infamous matchup that can pivot into Wake or Torkoal to reset the Sun, nearly everything on Sun hates Garg and it can Protect to stall out turns or Tera on an incoming Wake. Prima can pick up a kill vs Sun as they have few ways to OHKO or switch into it. Wogre makes clicking Hydro Steam a risk and pivoting around Wake easier. Booster mons like Valiant can outspeed and threaten everything under Sun. Glimmora messes with a lot of Sun builds, either by getting up rocks/tspikes or dealing big damage. We’ve also seen Balance teams adapt to CB G-Fire with Tera Water Knock Gliscor or G-Fire/Heatran to switch into Blitz. The archetype has other fundamental issues like lacking Ground immunes making Headlong Rush or EQ free to click, Sun also relies on double switches or stuff like Eject Button Hatt since they have few ways to generate momentum otherwise.

Sand: 5/10
I don’t think Sand is as bad as Pinkacross says. Tyranitar is not great, but Knock, Ice Beam, and T-Wave with Sand chip is surprisingly annoying to switch into, even for Balance. Ttar + Balloon Drill also has solid matchups into Raging Bolt and some offensive builds. Sand is flexible enough to steer offensively or defensively and saw some minor success in SPL or OLT. Excadrill is kinda mid, I agree, Sand Rush is great, but it struggles to break past standard Balance teams with Gliscor, Dozo, Zama, Lando, Mola, Tusk, Corv, Skarm, etc and you often have to burn Tera to break them. I would personally just ditch running Sand for Drill all together and just going all-out with CB Ttar alongside Tusk to remove hazards who’s a much better mon.

Standard Bulky Offense: 10/10
I might be biased since it is my favorite archetype, but BO teams rn have plenty of flexibility and is an equilibrium matchup. It can pack glue mons like Lando, AV Crown, or Glowking, progress for Balance like Wogre, Darkrai, Samu, or Prima, and anti-HO options like Pult, Gambit, R-Bolt, Dnite, Zama, etc. It can forgo running Boots Spam or Hazard Control entirely due to the offensive power it puts out. The archetype also has enough bulk to pivot into strong hits hence the name. A well-built BO team is incredibly good and satisfying to play.

Balance: 10/10
BO might be my favorite, but Balance is the best archetype rn, mainly the classic 3 offensive mons/3 bulky walls builds. Balance is also the most flexible and diverse archetype, if it is in the tier, 90% of the time it fits on Balance. There are plenty of variations of these Balance teams, either spamming Boots, or running Tusk/Corv as hazard control. Even its worst matchups like Wogre, Darkrai, or HO can be accounted for through the plethora of teambuilding options Balance has in its disposal. You could also tweak your Balance teams for any matchup. Want to shred Stall? Mola + Ursaluna Balance. HO got your tongue? Run Dozo, Zama, or Ting-Lu. It sports a palette of great wincons like SD Gliscor, Kingambit, CM Primarina, DD G-Fire, and Curse Dondozo, etc. Pinkacross put three styles of Balance on his list, but imo they’re all equally good rn.

Hazard Stack Semi Stall: 4.5/10
What makes Hazard Stack Balances good are not just that they can get up multiple layers, but also they have offensive pressure supporting it. Take that away and you’re left with mid. Meow Hazard Stack Semi Stalls lost their luster long ago, and they get overwhelmed fast before hazards can take effect. Pinkacross put it in 7.5/10, but imo it has too many bad matchups. Standard Stall prefers to have six sturdy walls while successful Hazard Stacking Balances sports a solid offensive mon or core. This archetype feels like a Frankenstein mish mesh of the two without the wings that keep them afloat.

Standard Stall: 7/10
Most of Pinkacross’ takes in the video I agree with, but I think he massively downplayed Stall with his ranking. Stall is not only successful in tournaments, but we’ve seen several Stall teams top the ladder. Stall has more flexibility outside the typical Blissey/Dozo/Clod/Gliscor builds. Molt is an option that checks Gambit while punishing U-Turn with Flame Body, Amoonguss, Wo-Chien nicely cover Wogre while providing utility like Status, Knock, Worry Seed, etc. Wo-Chien in particular checks some bad matchups like SD Wogre, Future Sight, Hoopa-U, Gambit, Samu-H, etc. Toxapex hard counters most Prima variants while being good into other Fairies. Muk has seen usage as a Knock absorber with Sticky Hold and also doubles as a hard counter to Barb Clef while packing Knock Off itself. Muk notably checks Valiant which can trade a Knock or a kill vs Stall. Mirror Coat Mola can hardstop Volcanion who is often an insta-loss for Stall. As an example of Stall’s flexibility, El Stefano posted this creative Stall team with three Defoggers including N-Gas Weezing meaning hazards are rarely staying up. It showcases Talonflame who’s criminal underrated on Stall, being a Defogger that beats Ghold, Flame Body being OP, and fast Wisp to cripple Tusk, Gambit, etc. These three Defoggers also allow the team to run Helmet on Mola, Lefties on Dozo, and Chansey over Blissey. It covers some notorious matchups for Stall like Black Glasses Kingambit, Knock + Hazard Stack, SD Wogre, Garg, Glowking, and Taunt Roaring Moon. There are other examples like Knexhawk’s infamous Muk stall, but I’ve already made my point.

Final Ranking

10/10: Balance, Standard Bulky Offense
9/10: Standard Offense
8/10: Standard Hyper Offense
7.5/10: Grassy Terrain
7/10: Standard Stall
6.5/10: Webs
6/10: Hazard Stack Hyper Offense, Sun
5.5/10: Screens/Veil
5/10: Rain, Sand
4.5/10: Hazard Stack Semi Stall
3/10: Misty Terrain
2.5/10: Psychic Terrain
2/10: Trick Room
1/10: Electric Terrain

 

[GummyRowlets]

658Greninja’s Archetype Ranking​

Last week I watched Pinkactoss’ team archetype ranking (great video btw, please check it out if you have the chance.) I’m mentioning this cause I want to present my own takes on SV OU’s team styles. I’ve been working on this write-up before the Volc ban, but imo it did not impact the rankings since every archetype minus a couple benefits from Volcarona being booted.

View attachment 629622Standard Hyper Offense: 8/10
My opinion on HO is similar to Pinkacross’. It has remained one of the strongest playstyles in Gen 9 due to the level of offensive power creep and Tera. Offensive powerhouses like Moon, Valiant, Kingambit, Raging Bolt, and Darkrai, HO is very flexible in the way it can be built. The style has gotten worse due to the meta slowing down and matchups like Zama, Webs, and Prima being obnoxious. Plus HO teams can find themselves feeling flow-charty, making the style inconsistent and more difficult to pilot once taken to a higher level of play, but remains great in the current metagame.

View attachment 629623Webs: 6.5/10
The idea of webs is simple. Set up webs, keep them up with Gholdengo, and sweep with your offensive mons like Manaphy or Booster Tusk that would otherwise be too slow to sweep normally. It has great matchups into HO and the mons used are good enough on their own like Ghold to be good into other builds. However the style is slowly becoming more of a matchup fish. Boots Spam is more common, Knock Boots Tusk makes spinblocking with Ghold less trivial, Cinderace is an annoying mu, and lowered speed doesn’t protect you from priority. Webs as a style goes back and forth. Boots spam becomes the norm, then HO teams start tramping over them, then Webs ends up being a cteam vs HO, and then Balance/Boots Spam rises to check both.

View attachment 629624Trick Room: 2/10
Ursaluna isn’t enough to make this archetype worth it. Priority is common in this meta. Gambit can straight up 6-0 in team preview. Gliscor and Mola can click Protect to stall out TR turns. Sub-CM Prim is very bad for Trick Room, or just anything with Sub like Moth in general. It can do fine into certain HO builds, so I don’t think it is as bad as in Pinkacross’ ranking, but the style is incredibly inconsistent.

View attachment 629626Screens/Veil: 5.5/10
Screens is not the most consistent offensive archetype in SV OU, but it has its place in the current meta. It appreciates the rise of bulkier teams that often rely on trading or status to deal with these offensive threats thanks to mons like Hatterene, NP Darkrai, and Sub-CM Prima being scary for Balance teams. The main issue with the archetype is that common screen setters like Deo-S, Serp, Alolatales, and Pult are frail, so switch in opportunities are harder to grab. You often can’t sack your screen setters early unlike other HO builds with dedicated hazard leads like Glimm or Ribombee. Running screens also means Rocks are difficult to slot in. You can run both Rocks and screens on Deo-S, but it means you risk being a sitting duck vs a number of threats. Matchups like Pult and Cinder are also incredibly annoying. However I do not find it to be bad.

View attachment 629627Hazard Stack Hyper Offense: 6/10
Hazard Stack HO is a classic in SV OU. With Ghold along with a slot for Spikes and Rocks, you input offensive pressure with chip from hazards. It is rather inconsistent these days for a few reasons. There’s only 3-4 free slots as you need to fit in a rocker, spiker, and a spinblocker on the team. If they can successfully remove hazards with Cinder or Tusk, these teams can fall apart as they become less potent versions of standard HO without them. Boots Spam Balance/BO is relatively common. Plus most good players will hardly give you room to get up 3 layers of Spikes. Still, you can find some successful hazard stack HO builds on ladder or tours.

View attachment 629628Electric Terrain: 1/10
Pincurchin is a frail as shit mon with a great support movepool but terrible stats. Running E-Terrain to support the Future Paradoxes is not worth it. Better to just run them on a standard offense. It also loses hard to matchups like Rillaboom who comes in on Pincurchin for free and Tusk who can Ice Spinner your hard work away.

View attachment 629629Psychic Terrain: 2.5/10
Psychic Terrain Offense or Psyspam, is better, but by a hair. Indeedee is still mid, but rocks an ok speed tier and support options like Encore or Healing Wish. Plus the terrain itself is more valuable for blocking priority than Electric Terrain is for free Quark Drive boosts (and Alolan Midchu). It has had rare instances of taking a win, but its incredibly inconsistent and loaded with bad matchups. Psyspam struggles to break past Ting-Lu Balance teams, even with support from Hatt and Hawlucha. The gameplan with Psyspam is to keep terrain up and hazards out, which becomes hell if you run into a Samurott or Rillaboom. Psyspam often hard loses to Stall since they pack Tera Dark Blissey or Tera Steel Unaware Clod. It is an archetype you can’t make mistakes with, as you can lose for making even minor errors in your plays.

View attachment 629630Grassy Terrain: 7.5/10
Unlike Psyspam and E-Terrain, G-Terrain teams not only are more varied in how they are player, but its main setter is also not garbage, in fact its a strong breaker that role compresses Knock, speed control, and U-Turn. Grassy Terrain also benefits mons like Gambit, Tran, Garg, Bolt, G-Fire, Lucha, Hatt, Prima, Dirge, Tusk, Ghold, Zama, Wogre, etc. You could either build an offensive style Grassy Terrain with a couple Grassy Seed abusers, or a bulky offense team backed up by passive recovery.

View attachment 629631Misty Terrain: 3/10
Yes, this style exists and is ironically better than every Terrain besides Grassy. G-Weezing is rather decent, and as a Terrain setter it’s alright. Misty Terrain can support status weak mons like Kingambit, Moon, Dnite, R-Bolt, etc. Again though, having difficulties slotting in rocks and though the status immunity is nice, these sweepers can function fine without it.

View attachment 629632Standard Offense: 9/10
As stated by Pinkacross, Standard Offense makes use of slow and fast pivots alike to support powerful wallbreakers like Kyurem and Wogre. Pokemon like Court Change Cinderace and Lando-T are big contributors to the archetype’s success. Compared to Hyper Offense, this build has a stronger matchup into fatter teams while defensive backbones like Glowking, Tusk, and Lando provide flexibility into offense. It also makes the archetype less flowcharty than the standard HOs.

View attachment 629633Rain: 5/10
While Rain still has a couple showings since the Arch ban. Without the bridge, Rain does not reach the same heights it used to. The archetype does have good matchups into offense, but lacks in flexibility. Rain runs Pelipper, Barra, Raging Bolt, and Treads which only leaves room for 2 slots. Rillaboom is annoying, priority from Gambit or other strong threats is hard to play around, Prima can pick up a kill vs most Rain teams, any team with checks to both Bolt and Barra tend to give Rain a hard time, Wogre puts Barra in an awkward position, click CC and lose momentum or click your Water moves and lose momentum. You could slot in answers to them like the birds, your own Gambit, or Overqwil, but slots are limited on Rain.

View attachment 629634Sun: 6/10
Pinkacross rated Sun a 7.5/10, but I disagree about it being at that level. Sun is the best weather in the tier, with strong abusers like the Past Paradoxes and H-Lilligant and Torkoal being a decent check to Gambit, Dnite, etc. Sun has more flexibility in the builder than Rain. The Paradox Dogs are also still great outside Sun (besides Wake). The archetype still has a lot of holes that are frequently seen on these builds. Glowking is an infamous matchup that can pivot into Wake or Torkoal to reset the Sun, nearly everything on Sun hates Garg and it can Protect to stall out turns or Tera on an incoming Wake. Prima can pick up a kill vs Sun as they have few ways to OHKO or switch into it. Wogre makes clicking Hydro Steam a risk and pivoting around Wake easier. Booster mons like Valiant can outspeed and threaten everything under Sun. Glimmora messes with a lot of Sun builds, either by getting up rocks/tspikes or dealing big damage. We’ve also seen Balance teams adapt to CB G-Fire with Tera Water Knock Gliscor or G-Fire/Heatran to switch into Blitz. The archetype has other fundamental issues like lacking Ground immunes making Headlong Rush or EQ free to click, Sun also relies on double switches or stuff like Eject Button Hatt since they have few ways to generate momentum otherwise.

View attachment 629635Sand: 5/10
I don’t think Sand is as bad as Pinkacross says. Tyranitar is not great, but Knock, Ice Beam, and T-Wave with Sand chip is surprisingly annoying to switch into, even for Balance. Ttar + Balloon Drill also has solid matchups into Raging Bolt and some offensive builds. Sand is flexible enough to steer offensively or defensively and saw some minor success in SPL or OLT. Excadrill is kinda mid, I agree, Sand Rush is great, but it struggles to break past standard Balance teams with Gliscor, Dozo, Zama, Lando, Mola, Tusk, Corv, Skarm, etc and you often have to burn Tera to break them. I would personally just ditch running Sand for Drill all together and just going all-out with CB Ttar alongside Tusk to remove hazards who’s a much better mon.

View attachment 629636Standard Bulky Offense: 10/10
I might be biased since it is my favorite archetype, but BO teams rn have plenty of flexibility and is an equilibrium matchup. It can pack glue mons like Lando, AV Crown, or Glowking, progress for Balance like Wogre, Darkrai, Samu, or Prima, and anti-HO options like Pult, Gambit, R-Bolt, Dnite, Zama, etc. It can forgo running Boots Spam or Hazard Control entirely due to the offensive power it puts out. The archetype also has enough bulk to pivot into strong hits hence the name. A well-built BO team is incredibly good and satisfying to play.

View attachment 629637Balance: 10/10
BO might be my favorite, but Balance is the best archetype rn, mainly the classic 3 offensive mons/3 bulky walls builds. Balance is also the most flexible and diverse archetype, if it is in the tier, 90% of the time it fits on Balance. There are plenty of variations of these Balance teams, either spamming Boots, or running Tusk/Corv as hazard control. Even its worst matchups like Wogre, Darkrai, or HO can be accounted for through the plethora of teambuilding options Balance has in its disposal. You could also tweak your Balance teams for any matchup. Want to shred Stall? Mola + Ursaluna Balance. HO got your tongue? Run Dozo, Zama, or Ting-Lu. It sports a palette of great wincons like SD Gliscor, Kingambit, CM Primarina, DD G-Fire, and Curse Dondozo, etc. Pinkacross put three styles of Balance on his list, but imo they’re all equally good rn.

View attachment 629638Hazard Stack Semi Stall: 4.5/10
What makes Hazard Stack Balances good are not just that they can get up multiple layers, but also they have offensive pressure supporting it. Take that away and you’re left with mid. Meow Hazard Stack Semi Stalls lost their luster long ago, and they get overwhelmed fast before hazards can take effect. Pinkacross put it in 7.5/10, but imo it has too many bad matchups. Standard Stall prefers to have six sturdy walls while successful Hazard Stacking Balances sports a solid offensive mon or core. This archetype feels like a Frankenstein mish mesh of the two without the wings that keep them afloat.

View attachment 629639Standard Stall: 7/10
Most of Pinkacross’ takes in the video I agree with, but I think he massively downplayed Stall with his ranking. Stall is not only successful in tournaments, but we’ve seen several Stall teams top the ladder. Stall has more flexibility outside the typical Blissey/Dozo/Clod/Gliscor builds. Molt is an option that checks Gambit while punishing U-Turn with Flame Body, Amoonguss, Wo-Chien nicely cover Wogre while providing utility like Status, Knock, Worry Seed, etc. Wo-Chien in particular checks some bad matchups like SD Wogre, Future Sight, Hoopa-U, Gambit, Samu-H, etc. Toxapex hard counters most Prima variants while being good into other Fairies. Muk has seen usage as a Knock absorber with Sticky Hold and also doubles as a hard counter to Barb Clef while packing Knock Off itself. Muk notably checks Valiant which can trade a Knock or a kill vs Stall. Mirror Coat Mola can hardstop Volcanion who is often an insta-loss for Stall. As an example of Stall’s flexibility, El Stefano posted this creative Stall team with three Defoggers including N-Gas Weezing meaning hazards are rarely staying up. It showcases Talonflame who’s criminal underrated on Stall, being a Defogger that beats Ghold, Flame Body being OP, and fast Wisp to cripple Tusk, Gambit, etc. These three Defoggers also allow the team to run Helmet on Mola, Lefties on Dozo, and Chansey over Blissey. It covers some notorious matchups for Stall like Black Glasses Kingambit, Knock + Hazard Stack, SD Wogre, Garg, Glowking, and Taunt Roaring Moon. There are other examples like Knexhawk’s infamous Muk stall, but I’ve already made my point.

Final Ranking

10/10: Balance, Standard Bulky Offense
9/10: Standard Offense
8/10: Standard Hyper Offense
7.5/10: Grassy Terrain
7/10: Standard Stall
6.5/10: Webs
6/10: Hazard Stack Hyper Offense, Sun
5.5/10: Screens/Veil
5/10: Rain, Sand
4.5/10: Hazard Stack Semi Stall
3/10: Misty Terrain
2.5/10: Psychic Terrain
2/10: Trick Room
1/10: Electric Terrain

Absolutely love this post, my fav playstyle, Balance, continues to be the best :D. Just a question but as someone who builds pure balance, what is Bulky offense? I thought it was just offense but with slower pokemon like Prim, kambit, or Iron Hands. Yet I saw you mention AV Crown and Zama, quite fast pokemon to what i thought weren't used on Bulky offense.

 

[ant4456]

658Greninja’s Archetype Ranking​

Last week I watched Pinkactoss’ team archetype ranking (great video btw, please check it out if you have the chance.) I’m mentioning this cause I want to present my own takes on SV OU’s team styles. I’ve been working on this write-up before the Volc ban, but imo it did not impact the rankings since every archetype minus a couple benefits from Volcarona being booted.

View attachment 629622Standard Hyper Offense: 8/10
My opinion on HO is similar to Pinkacross’. It has remained one of the strongest playstyles in Gen 9 due to the level of offensive power creep and Tera. Offensive powerhouses like Moon, Valiant, Kingambit, Raging Bolt, and Darkrai, HO is very flexible in the way it can be built. The style has gotten worse due to the meta slowing down and matchups like Zama, Webs, and Prima being obnoxious. Plus HO teams can find themselves feeling flow-charty, making the style inconsistent and more difficult to pilot once taken to a higher level of play, but remains great in the current metagame.

View attachment 629623Webs: 6.5/10
The idea of webs is simple. Set up webs, keep them up with Gholdengo, and sweep with your offensive mons like Manaphy or Booster Tusk that would otherwise be too slow to sweep normally. It has great matchups into HO and the mons used are good enough on their own like Ghold to be good into other builds. However the style is slowly becoming more of a matchup fish. Boots Spam is more common, Knock Boots Tusk makes spinblocking with Ghold less trivial, Cinderace is an annoying mu, and lowered speed doesn’t protect you from priority. Webs as a style goes back and forth. Boots spam becomes the norm, then HO teams start tramping over them, then Webs ends up being a cteam vs HO, and then Balance/Boots Spam rises to check both.

View attachment 629624Trick Room: 2/10
Ursaluna isn’t enough to make this archetype worth it. Priority is common in this meta. Gambit can straight up 6-0 in team preview. Gliscor and Mola can click Protect to stall out TR turns. Sub-CM Prim is very bad for Trick Room, or just anything with Sub like Moth in general. It can do fine into certain HO builds, so I don’t think it is as bad as in Pinkacross’ ranking, but the style is incredibly inconsistent.

View attachment 629626Screens/Veil: 5.5/10
Screens is not the most consistent offensive archetype in SV OU, but it has its place in the current meta. It appreciates the rise of bulkier teams that often rely on trading or status to deal with these offensive threats thanks to mons like Hatterene, NP Darkrai, and Sub-CM Prima being scary for Balance teams. The main issue with the archetype is that common screen setters like Deo-S, Serp, Alolatales, and Pult are frail, so switch in opportunities are harder to grab. You often can’t sack your screen setters early unlike other HO builds with dedicated hazard leads like Glimm or Ribombee. Running screens also means Rocks are difficult to slot in. You can run both Rocks and screens on Deo-S, but it means you risk being a sitting duck vs a number of threats. Matchups like Pult and Cinder are also incredibly annoying. However I do not find it to be bad.

View attachment 629627Hazard Stack Hyper Offense: 6/10
Hazard Stack HO is a classic in SV OU. With Ghold along with a slot for Spikes and Rocks, you input offensive pressure with chip from hazards. It is rather inconsistent these days for a few reasons. There’s only 3-4 free slots as you need to fit in a rocker, spiker, and a spinblocker on the team. If they can successfully remove hazards with Cinder or Tusk, these teams can fall apart as they become less potent versions of standard HO without them. Boots Spam Balance/BO is relatively common. Plus most good players will hardly give you room to get up 3 layers of Spikes. Still, you can find some successful hazard stack HO builds on ladder or tours.

View attachment 629628Electric Terrain: 1/10
Pincurchin is a frail as shit mon with a great support movepool but terrible stats. Running E-Terrain to support the Future Paradoxes is not worth it. Better to just run them on a standard offense. It also loses hard to matchups like Rillaboom who comes in on Pincurchin for free and Tusk who can Ice Spinner your hard work away.

View attachment 629629Psychic Terrain: 2.5/10
Psychic Terrain Offense or Psyspam, is better, but by a hair. Indeedee is still mid, but rocks an ok speed tier and support options like Encore or Healing Wish. Plus the terrain itself is more valuable for blocking priority than Electric Terrain is for free Quark Drive boosts (and Alolan Midchu). It has had rare instances of taking a win, but its incredibly inconsistent and loaded with bad matchups. Psyspam struggles to break past Ting-Lu Balance teams, even with support from Hatt and Hawlucha. The gameplan with Psyspam is to keep terrain up and hazards out, which becomes hell if you run into a Samurott or Rillaboom. Psyspam often hard loses to Stall since they pack Tera Dark Blissey or Tera Steel Unaware Clod. It is an archetype you can’t make mistakes with, as you can lose for making even minor errors in your plays.

View attachment 629630Grassy Terrain: 7.5/10
Unlike Psyspam and E-Terrain, G-Terrain teams not only are more varied in how they are player, but its main setter is also not garbage, in fact its a strong breaker that role compresses Knock, speed control, and U-Turn. Grassy Terrain also benefits mons like Gambit, Tran, Garg, Bolt, G-Fire, Lucha, Hatt, Prima, Dirge, Tusk, Ghold, Zama, Wogre, etc. You could either build an offensive style Grassy Terrain with a couple Grassy Seed abusers, or a bulky offense team backed up by passive recovery.

View attachment 629631Misty Terrain: 3/10
Yes, this style exists and is ironically better than every Terrain besides Grassy. G-Weezing is rather decent, and as a Terrain setter it’s alright. Misty Terrain can support status weak mons like Kingambit, Moon, Dnite, R-Bolt, etc. Again though, having difficulties slotting in rocks and though the status immunity is nice, these sweepers can function fine without it.

View attachment 629632Standard Offense: 9/10
As stated by Pinkacross, Standard Offense makes use of slow and fast pivots alike to support powerful wallbreakers like Kyurem and Wogre. Pokemon like Court Change Cinderace and Lando-T are big contributors to the archetype’s success. Compared to Hyper Offense, this build has a stronger matchup into fatter teams while defensive backbones like Glowking, Tusk, and Lando provide flexibility into offense. It also makes the archetype less flowcharty than the standard HOs.

View attachment 629633Rain: 5/10
While Rain still has a couple showings since the Arch ban. Without the bridge, Rain does not reach the same heights it used to. The archetype does have good matchups into offense, but lacks in flexibility. Rain runs Pelipper, Barra, Raging Bolt, and Treads which only leaves room for 2 slots. Rillaboom is annoying, priority from Gambit or other strong threats is hard to play around, Prima can pick up a kill vs most Rain teams, any team with checks to both Bolt and Barra tend to give Rain a hard time, Wogre puts Barra in an awkward position, click CC and lose momentum or click your Water moves and lose momentum. You could slot in answers to them like the birds, your own Gambit, or Overqwil, but slots are limited on Rain.

View attachment 629634Sun: 6/10
Pinkacross rated Sun a 7.5/10, but I disagree about it being at that level. Sun is the best weather in the tier, with strong abusers like the Past Paradoxes and H-Lilligant and Torkoal being a decent check to Gambit, Dnite, etc. Sun has more flexibility in the builder than Rain. The Paradox Dogs are also still great outside Sun (besides Wake). The archetype still has a lot of holes that are frequently seen on these builds. Glowking is an infamous matchup that can pivot into Wake or Torkoal to reset the Sun, nearly everything on Sun hates Garg and it can Protect to stall out turns or Tera on an incoming Wake. Prima can pick up a kill vs Sun as they have few ways to OHKO or switch into it. Wogre makes clicking Hydro Steam a risk and pivoting around Wake easier. Booster mons like Valiant can outspeed and threaten everything under Sun. Glimmora messes with a lot of Sun builds, either by getting up rocks/tspikes or dealing big damage. We’ve also seen Balance teams adapt to CB G-Fire with Tera Water Knock Gliscor or G-Fire/Heatran to switch into Blitz. The archetype has other fundamental issues like lacking Ground immunes making Headlong Rush or EQ free to click, Sun also relies on double switches or stuff like Eject Button Hatt since they have few ways to generate momentum otherwise.

View attachment 629635Sand: 5/10
I don’t think Sand is as bad as Pinkacross says. Tyranitar is not great, but Knock, Ice Beam, and T-Wave with Sand chip is surprisingly annoying to switch into, even for Balance. Ttar + Balloon Drill also has solid matchups into Raging Bolt and some offensive builds. Sand is flexible enough to steer offensively or defensively and saw some minor success in SPL or OLT. Excadrill is kinda mid, I agree, Sand Rush is great, but it struggles to break past standard Balance teams with Gliscor, Dozo, Zama, Lando, Mola, Tusk, Corv, Skarm, etc and you often have to burn Tera to break them. I would personally just ditch running Sand for Drill all together and just going all-out with CB Ttar alongside Tusk to remove hazards who’s a much better mon.

View attachment 629636Standard Bulky Offense: 10/10
I might be biased since it is my favorite archetype, but BO teams rn have plenty of flexibility and is an equilibrium matchup. It can pack glue mons like Lando, AV Crown, or Glowking, progress for Balance like Wogre, Darkrai, Samu, or Prima, and anti-HO options like Pult, Gambit, R-Bolt, Dnite, Zama, etc. It can forgo running Boots Spam or Hazard Control entirely due to the offensive power it puts out. The archetype also has enough bulk to pivot into strong hits hence the name. A well-built BO team is incredibly good and satisfying to play.

View attachment 629637Balance: 10/10
BO might be my favorite, but Balance is the best archetype rn, mainly the classic 3 offensive mons/3 bulky walls builds. Balance is also the most flexible and diverse archetype, if it is in the tier, 90% of the time it fits on Balance. There are plenty of variations of these Balance teams, either spamming Boots, or running Tusk/Corv as hazard control. Even its worst matchups like Wogre, Darkrai, or HO can be accounted for through the plethora of teambuilding options Balance has in its disposal. You could also tweak your Balance teams for any matchup. Want to shred Stall? Mola + Ursaluna Balance. HO got your tongue? Run Dozo, Zama, or Ting-Lu. It sports a palette of great wincons like SD Gliscor, Kingambit, CM Primarina, DD G-Fire, and Curse Dondozo, etc. Pinkacross put three styles of Balance on his list, but imo they’re all equally good rn.

View attachment 629638Hazard Stack Semi Stall: 4.5/10
What makes Hazard Stack Balances good are not just that they can get up multiple layers, but also they have offensive pressure supporting it. Take that away and you’re left with mid. Meow Hazard Stack Semi Stalls lost their luster long ago, and they get overwhelmed fast before hazards can take effect. Pinkacross put it in 7.5/10, but imo it has too many bad matchups. Standard Stall prefers to have six sturdy walls while successful Hazard Stacking Balances sports a solid offensive mon or core. This archetype feels like a Frankenstein mish mesh of the two without the wings that keep them afloat.

View attachment 629639Standard Stall: 7/10
Most of Pinkacross’ takes in the video I agree with, but I think he massively downplayed Stall with his ranking. Stall is not only successful in tournaments, but we’ve seen several Stall teams top the ladder. Stall has more flexibility outside the typical Blissey/Dozo/Clod/Gliscor builds. Molt is an option that checks Gambit while punishing U-Turn with Flame Body, Amoonguss, Wo-Chien nicely cover Wogre while providing utility like Status, Knock, Worry Seed, etc. Wo-Chien in particular checks some bad matchups like SD Wogre, Future Sight, Hoopa-U, Gambit, Samu-H, etc. Toxapex hard counters most Prima variants while being good into other Fairies. Muk has seen usage as a Knock absorber with Sticky Hold and also doubles as a hard counter to Barb Clef while packing Knock Off itself. Muk notably checks Valiant which can trade a Knock or a kill vs Stall. Mirror Coat Mola can hardstop Volcanion who is often an insta-loss for Stall. As an example of Stall’s flexibility, El Stefano posted this creative Stall team with three Defoggers including N-Gas Weezing meaning hazards are rarely staying up. It showcases Talonflame who’s criminal underrated on Stall, being a Defogger that beats Ghold, Flame Body being OP, and fast Wisp to cripple Tusk, Gambit, etc. These three Defoggers also allow the team to run Helmet on Mola, Lefties on Dozo, and Chansey over Blissey. It covers some notorious matchups for Stall like Black Glasses Kingambit, Knock + Hazard Stack, SD Wogre, Garg, Glowking, and Taunt Roaring Moon. There are other examples like Knexhawk’s infamous Muk stall, but I’ve already made my point.

Final Ranking

10/10: Balance, Standard Bulky Offense
9/10: Standard Offense
8/10: Standard Hyper Offense
7.5/10: Grassy Terrain
7/10: Standard Stall
6.5/10: Webs
6/10: Hazard Stack Hyper Offense, Sun
5.5/10: Screens/Veil
5/10: Rain, Sand
4.5/10: Hazard Stack Semi Stall
3/10: Misty Terrain
2.5/10: Psychic Terrain
2/10: Trick Room
1/10: Electric Terrain

Not sure why Balance gets the favor in this post of basically being 3 styles of Balance while others get split (you mention Hazard Stack Balance in the Semi Stall, but that isn't on the list?)

Overall a good post but idk why that choice was made, especially since frankly Hazard Stack BO/Balance is more what I associate Gholdeno stack cores with than HO or Semi Stall (Ting Lu Ghold Tusk type shit)

 

[Heatranator]

658Greninja’s Archetype Ranking​

Last week I watched Pinkactoss’ team archetype ranking (great video btw, please check it out if you have the chance.) I’m mentioning this cause I want to present my own takes on SV OU’s team styles. I’ve been working on this write-up before the Volc ban, but imo it did not impact the rankings since every archetype minus a couple benefits from Volcarona being booted.

View attachment 629622Standard Hyper Offense: 8/10
My opinion on HO is similar to Pinkacross’. It has remained one of the strongest playstyles in Gen 9 due to the level of offensive power creep and Tera. Offensive powerhouses like Moon, Valiant, Kingambit, Raging Bolt, and Darkrai, HO is very flexible in the way it can be built. The style has gotten worse due to the meta slowing down and matchups like Zama, Webs, and Prima being obnoxious. Plus HO teams can find themselves feeling flow-charty, making the style inconsistent and more difficult to pilot once taken to a higher level of play, but remains great in the current metagame.

View attachment 629623Webs: 6.5/10
The idea of webs is simple. Set up webs, keep them up with Gholdengo, and sweep with your offensive mons like Manaphy or Booster Tusk that would otherwise be too slow to sweep normally. It has great matchups into HO and the mons used are good enough on their own like Ghold to be good into other builds. However the style is slowly becoming more of a matchup fish. Boots Spam is more common, Knock Boots Tusk makes spinblocking with Ghold less trivial, Cinderace is an annoying mu, and lowered speed doesn’t protect you from priority. Webs as a style goes back and forth. Boots spam becomes the norm, then HO teams start tramping over them, then Webs ends up being a cteam vs HO, and then Balance/Boots Spam rises to check both.

View attachment 629624Trick Room: 2/10
Ursaluna isn’t enough to make this archetype worth it. Priority is common in this meta. Gambit can straight up 6-0 in team preview. Gliscor and Mola can click Protect to stall out TR turns. Sub-CM Prim is very bad for Trick Room, or just anything with Sub like Moth in general. It can do fine into certain HO builds, so I don’t think it is as bad as in Pinkacross’ ranking, but the style is incredibly inconsistent.

View attachment 629626Screens/Veil: 5.5/10
Screens is not the most consistent offensive archetype in SV OU, but it has its place in the current meta. It appreciates the rise of bulkier teams that often rely on trading or status to deal with these offensive threats thanks to mons like Hatterene, NP Darkrai, and Sub-CM Prima being scary for Balance teams. The main issue with the archetype is that common screen setters like Deo-S, Serp, Alolatales, and Pult are frail, so switch in opportunities are harder to grab. You often can’t sack your screen setters early unlike other HO builds with dedicated hazard leads like Glimm or Ribombee. Running screens also means Rocks are difficult to slot in. You can run both Rocks and screens on Deo-S, but it means you risk being a sitting duck vs a number of threats. Matchups like Pult and Cinder are also incredibly annoying. However I do not find it to be bad.

View attachment 629627Hazard Stack Hyper Offense: 6/10
Hazard Stack HO is a classic in SV OU. With Ghold along with a slot for Spikes and Rocks, you input offensive pressure with chip from hazards. It is rather inconsistent these days for a few reasons. There’s only 3-4 free slots as you need to fit in a rocker, spiker, and a spinblocker on the team. If they can successfully remove hazards with Cinder or Tusk, these teams can fall apart as they become less potent versions of standard HO without them. Boots Spam Balance/BO is relatively common. Plus most good players will hardly give you room to get up 3 layers of Spikes. Still, you can find some successful hazard stack HO builds on ladder or tours.

View attachment 629628Electric Terrain: 1/10
Pincurchin is a frail as shit mon with a great support movepool but terrible stats. Running E-Terrain to support the Future Paradoxes is not worth it. Better to just run them on a standard offense. It also loses hard to matchups like Rillaboom who comes in on Pincurchin for free and Tusk who can Ice Spinner your hard work away.

View attachment 629629Psychic Terrain: 2.5/10
Psychic Terrain Offense or Psyspam, is better, but by a hair. Indeedee is still mid, but rocks an ok speed tier and support options like Encore or Healing Wish. Plus the terrain itself is more valuable for blocking priority than Electric Terrain is for free Quark Drive boosts (and Alolan Midchu). It has had rare instances of taking a win, but its incredibly inconsistent and loaded with bad matchups. Psyspam struggles to break past Ting-Lu Balance teams, even with support from Hatt and Hawlucha. The gameplan with Psyspam is to keep terrain up and hazards out, which becomes hell if you run into a Samurott or Rillaboom. Psyspam often hard loses to Stall since they pack Tera Dark Blissey or Tera Steel Unaware Clod. It is an archetype you can’t make mistakes with, as you can lose for making even minor errors in your plays.

View attachment 629630Grassy Terrain: 7.5/10
Unlike Psyspam and E-Terrain, G-Terrain teams not only are more varied in how they are player, but its main setter is also not garbage, in fact its a strong breaker that role compresses Knock, speed control, and U-Turn. Grassy Terrain also benefits mons like Gambit, Tran, Garg, Bolt, G-Fire, Lucha, Hatt, Prima, Dirge, Tusk, Ghold, Zama, Wogre, etc. You could either build an offensive style Grassy Terrain with a couple Grassy Seed abusers, or a bulky offense team backed up by passive recovery.

View attachment 629631Misty Terrain: 3/10
Yes, this style exists and is ironically better than every Terrain besides Grassy. G-Weezing is rather decent, and as a Terrain setter it’s alright. Misty Terrain can support status weak mons like Kingambit, Moon, Dnite, R-Bolt, etc. Again though, having difficulties slotting in rocks and though the status immunity is nice, these sweepers can function fine without it.

View attachment 629632Standard Offense: 9/10
As stated by Pinkacross, Standard Offense makes use of slow and fast pivots alike to support powerful wallbreakers like Kyurem and Wogre. Pokemon like Court Change Cinderace and Lando-T are big contributors to the archetype’s success. Compared to Hyper Offense, this build has a stronger matchup into fatter teams while defensive backbones like Glowking, Tusk, and Lando provide flexibility into offense. It also makes the archetype less flowcharty than the standard HOs.

View attachment 629633Rain: 5/10
While Rain still has a couple showings since the Arch ban. Without the bridge, Rain does not reach the same heights it used to. The archetype does have good matchups into offense, but lacks in flexibility. Rain runs Pelipper, Barra, Raging Bolt, and Treads which only leaves room for 2 slots. Rillaboom is annoying, priority from Gambit or other strong threats is hard to play around, Prima can pick up a kill vs most Rain teams, any team with checks to both Bolt and Barra tend to give Rain a hard time, Wogre puts Barra in an awkward position, click CC and lose momentum or click your Water moves and lose momentum. You could slot in answers to them like the birds, your own Gambit, or Overqwil, but slots are limited on Rain.

View attachment 629634Sun: 6/10
Pinkacross rated Sun a 7.5/10, but I disagree about it being at that level. Sun is the best weather in the tier, with strong abusers like the Past Paradoxes and H-Lilligant and Torkoal being a decent check to Gambit, Dnite, etc. Sun has more flexibility in the builder than Rain. The Paradox Dogs are also still great outside Sun (besides Wake). The archetype still has a lot of holes that are frequently seen on these builds. Glowking is an infamous matchup that can pivot into Wake or Torkoal to reset the Sun, nearly everything on Sun hates Garg and it can Protect to stall out turns or Tera on an incoming Wake. Prima can pick up a kill vs Sun as they have few ways to OHKO or switch into it. Wogre makes clicking Hydro Steam a risk and pivoting around Wake easier. Booster mons like Valiant can outspeed and threaten everything under Sun. Glimmora messes with a lot of Sun builds, either by getting up rocks/tspikes or dealing big damage. We’ve also seen Balance teams adapt to CB G-Fire with Tera Water Knock Gliscor or G-Fire/Heatran to switch into Blitz. The archetype has other fundamental issues like lacking Ground immunes making Headlong Rush or EQ free to click, Sun also relies on double switches or stuff like Eject Button Hatt since they have few ways to generate momentum otherwise.

View attachment 629635Sand: 5/10
I don’t think Sand is as bad as Pinkacross says. Tyranitar is not great, but Knock, Ice Beam, and T-Wave with Sand chip is surprisingly annoying to switch into, even for Balance. Ttar + Balloon Drill also has solid matchups into Raging Bolt and some offensive builds. Sand is flexible enough to steer offensively or defensively and saw some minor success in SPL or OLT. Excadrill is kinda mid, I agree, Sand Rush is great, but it struggles to break past standard Balance teams with Gliscor, Dozo, Zama, Lando, Mola, Tusk, Corv, Skarm, etc and you often have to burn Tera to break them. I would personally just ditch running Sand for Drill all together and just going all-out with CB Ttar alongside Tusk to remove hazards who’s a much better mon.

View attachment 629636Standard Bulky Offense: 10/10
I might be biased since it is my favorite archetype, but BO teams rn have plenty of flexibility and is an equilibrium matchup. It can pack glue mons like Lando, AV Crown, or Glowking, progress for Balance like Wogre, Darkrai, Samu, or Prima, and anti-HO options like Pult, Gambit, R-Bolt, Dnite, Zama, etc. It can forgo running Boots Spam or Hazard Control entirely due to the offensive power it puts out. The archetype also has enough bulk to pivot into strong hits hence the name. A well-built BO team is incredibly good and satisfying to play.

View attachment 629637Balance: 10/10
BO might be my favorite, but Balance is the best archetype rn, mainly the classic 3 offensive mons/3 bulky walls builds. Balance is also the most flexible and diverse archetype, if it is in the tier, 90% of the time it fits on Balance. There are plenty of variations of these Balance teams, either spamming Boots, or running Tusk/Corv as hazard control. Even its worst matchups like Wogre, Darkrai, or HO can be accounted for through the plethora of teambuilding options Balance has in its disposal. You could also tweak your Balance teams for any matchup. Want to shred Stall? Mola + Ursaluna Balance. HO got your tongue? Run Dozo, Zama, or Ting-Lu. It sports a palette of great wincons like SD Gliscor, Kingambit, CM Primarina, DD G-Fire, and Curse Dondozo, etc. Pinkacross put three styles of Balance on his list, but imo they’re all equally good rn.

View attachment 629638Hazard Stack Semi Stall: 4.5/10
What makes Hazard Stack Balances good are not just that they can get up multiple layers, but also they have offensive pressure supporting it. Take that away and you’re left with mid. Meow Hazard Stack Semi Stalls lost their luster long ago, and they get overwhelmed fast before hazards can take effect. Pinkacross put it in 7.5/10, but imo it has too many bad matchups. Standard Stall prefers to have six sturdy walls while successful Hazard Stacking Balances sports a solid offensive mon or core. This archetype feels like a Frankenstein mish mesh of the two without the wings that keep them afloat.

View attachment 629639Standard Stall: 7/10
Most of Pinkacross’ takes in the video I agree with, but I think he massively downplayed Stall with his ranking. Stall is not only successful in tournaments, but we’ve seen several Stall teams top the ladder. Stall has more flexibility outside the typical Blissey/Dozo/Clod/Gliscor builds. Molt is an option that checks Gambit while punishing U-Turn with Flame Body, Amoonguss, Wo-Chien nicely cover Wogre while providing utility like Status, Knock, Worry Seed, etc. Wo-Chien in particular checks some bad matchups like SD Wogre, Future Sight, Hoopa-U, Gambit, Samu-H, etc. Toxapex hard counters most Prima variants while being good into other Fairies. Muk has seen usage as a Knock absorber with Sticky Hold and also doubles as a hard counter to Barb Clef while packing Knock Off itself. Muk notably checks Valiant which can trade a Knock or a kill vs Stall. Mirror Coat Mola can hardstop Volcanion who is often an insta-loss for Stall. As an example of Stall’s flexibility, El Stefano posted this creative Stall team with three Defoggers including N-Gas Weezing meaning hazards are rarely staying up. It showcases Talonflame who’s criminal underrated on Stall, being a Defogger that beats Ghold, Flame Body being OP, and fast Wisp to cripple Tusk, Gambit, etc. These three Defoggers also allow the team to run Helmet on Mola, Lefties on Dozo, and Chansey over Blissey. It covers some notorious matchups for Stall like Black Glasses Kingambit, Knock + Hazard Stack, SD Wogre, Garg, Glowking, and Taunt Roaring Moon. There are other examples like Knexhawk’s infamous Muk stall, but I’ve already made my point.

Final Ranking

10/10: Balance, Standard Bulky Offense
9/10: Standard Offense
8/10: Standard Hyper Offense
7.5/10: Grassy Terrain
7/10: Standard Stall
6.5/10: Webs
6/10: Hazard Stack Hyper Offense, Sun
5.5/10: Screens/Veil
5/10: Rain, Sand
4.5/10: Hazard Stack Semi Stall
3/10: Misty Terrain
2.5/10: Psychic Terrain
2/10: Trick Room
1/10: Electric Terrain

I think sand is IMO, a rank 4 playstyle. Excadrill just kinda sucks, it doesn't have enough bulk to set up and sweep and while the playstyle is flexible, everytime it is brought it kinda faulters. One thing I am interested in for sand is Sand Force Excadrill. This gives excadrill a much needed power boost and since it already outspeeds tusk and gets a speed boost from rapid spin, it could work better. You do have to worry about fast scarfers, but excadrill usually has the bulk to take one hit. Other mons such as Houndstone are better for sand rush sweeping because they can actually take hits.

Not sure why Balance gets the favor in this post of basically being 3 styles of Balance while others get split (you mention Hazard Stack Balance in the Semi Stall, but that isn't on the list?)



Overall a good post but idk why that choice was made, especially since frankly Hazard Stack BO/Balance is more what I associate Gholdeno stack cores with than HO or Semi Stall (Ting Lu Ghold Tusk type shit)

He noted in the post that Pinkacross split it into three styles, but he thinks they are equally viable, so he decided to not split them up.

 

[RyukTheDarkrai]

If it weren’t for , could have been a legit OU mon? It threatens all the other Ground Types with Ice Punch and its Fighting STAB of choice and its physical stats are simply monstrous. Its HP is so massive its Special Defense isn’t even that horrid. Not surviving any Moonblasts, but you get the gist.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

If it weren’t for , could have been a legit OU mon? It threatens all the other Ground Types with Ice Punch and its Fighting STAB of choice and its physical stats are simply monstrous. Its HP is so massive its Special Defense isn’t even that horrid. Not surviving any Moonblasts, but you get the gist.

one thing i don't think people realize about iron hands is that it has almost exactly the same bulk as dondozo. 154/108/68 to 150/115/65, so slightly worse defense but slightly better spdef. and it's got 140 attack on top of that. honestly, its main problem isn't even tusk, it's the simple fact that quark drive is just not that good on it because it likes other items and pincurchin is ass. put koko and hands in a meta together and you've got an absolute fucking monster. this is further evidenced by the fact that it's good in a bunch of oms where it can run an actual ability instead—a- in almost any ability, the literal best or second-best mon in inheritance, etc

 

[Heatranator]

If it weren’t for , could have been a legit OU mon? It threatens all the other Ground Types with Ice Punch and its Fighting STAB of choice and its physical stats are simply monstrous. Its HP is so massive its Special Defense isn’t even that horrid. Not surviving any Moonblasts, but you get the gist.

Potentially, but I don't think so. It does have some impressive traits, but it is so slow and that special defense stat is not helping it. I do think that iron hands might be a bit undderated, but it just hates that ground types in general are so prevelant. Yes, it has ice punch but except for clod and ting lu, it will always have to take one e-quake, leaving it at a disadvantage as it now has to deal with any decently strong special hit decimating it. If it takes a gliscor e-quake and has even 10% chip, it is now in range of a serperior leaf storm or a specs dragapult shadow ball. Any mon that trades with the opponent, while not bad, does suffer issues with being consistent. Iron Hands is the defintion of a trade mon, it usually takes a ko but then gets ko'd in return. If it could be more consistent, then it would be a lot better.

Some options I could see that are niche that could work on iron hands are:
Volt Switch (decently used, but not enough).
Whirlwind (hazard chip baby, plus helps with ground types)
Charge (I have used this set, and it helps with the special defense problem while still being offensively threatening.)
Force Palm (Very Niche, but could be good for making sure hands has more impact over the course of the game due to para.)

 

[Moyashi]

does have some impressive traits, but it is so slow and that special defense stat is not helping it. I do think that iron hands might be a bit undderated, but it just hates that ground types in general are so prevelant. Yes, it has ice punch but except for clod and ting lu, it will always have to take one e-quake, leaving it at a disadvantage as it now has to deal with any decently strong special hit decimating it.

GT is kinda the worst of the ground type matchups honestly. LandoT running EP actually makes it slightly less of a bad match up and something like Wish Mola can offset damage (and cover for some weaknesses). Also unless super effective, special hits do need to be especially strong (IE high BP specs or something like specs Wake), as otherwise-

252 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 28 HP / 252 SpD Iron Hands: 135-159 (29.6 - 34.8%) -- 8.7% chance to 3HKO

Certainly a strong special attack, and it actually bounces off. It's hard to build with because of GT's big physical bulk making it tough to get through and invited it in can be annoying. Zama is also annoying because IronPress and good physical bulk.

Edit: oops forgot to say but I do agree it's hard to use. Just mentioning a few things.

 

[Ehmcee]

If it weren’t for , could have been a legit OU mon? It threatens all the other Ground Types with Ice Punch and its Fighting STAB of choice and its physical stats are simply monstrous. Its HP is so massive its Special Defense isn’t even that horrid. Not surviving any Moonblasts, but you get the gist.

I had a lot of success with AV Hands on GTerrain during the Archaludon meta, dealt particularly well with Kyurem as well as other mons like specs pult and the obvious Kingambit, can even tank Moonblast's from Prim if needed.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

I had a lot of success with AV Hands on GTerrain during the Archaludon meta, dealt particularly well with Kyurem as well as other mons like specs pult and the obvious Kingambit, can even tank Moonblast's from Prim if needed.

Firm AV Hands chad here. On Grassy Terrain this shit is un-fucking-killable. Give it wish support and a good tera type, and you literally just sit there walling things and hitting the enemy until they either mess up or faulter. Feels amazing honestly.