Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[tommytt22]

With the rise of Landorus-T, I have some delicious low-ELO heat for anybody interested in trolling around.


Maushold
Tera Ice
Wide Lens

Population Bomb
Encore
Tidy Up
Tera Blast

You are completely stonewalled by Gholdengo, but in exchange you get this lovely calc:

252 Atk Tera Ice Maushold Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 220+ Def Landorus-Therian: 292-348 (76.4 - 91%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I haven't found any teammates that especially love Lando-T being removed and synergize well, but Maushold itself can go hard with Population Bomb once the risk of suiciding into a Rocky Helmet is removed. I'm not saying this is good - it's certainly inferior to Ghost or Dark - but it's funny and preys on metagame trends.

is this assuming youve already used tidy up? because the actual calc should look like this:

-1 252 Atk Tera Ice Maushold Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 220+ Def Landorus-Therian: 196-232 (51.3 - 60.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[YubelVT]

i think this guy hates glimmora y'all (not broken tho)

I recognize that glimmora isn't broken, it's just the most annoying thing on the planet. For example: Mortal Spin is a spread move

 

[Alternator]

is this assuming youve already used tidy up? because the actual calc should look like this:

-1 252 Atk Tera Ice Maushold Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 220+ Def Landorus-Therian: 196-232 (51.3 - 60.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Yes. You click Tidy Up, they switch into Lando-T which normally counters Maushold, then you unleash the Tera Blast Ice.

 

[weirdo faye]

Ngl I just can't stay away from these forums it's too much fun esp on a shit morning commute to work, call me a hypocrite.

Tldr. I don't understand why volcarona is being suspect tested when there's are so many other pokemon that are very clearly too broken for the tier

I can see you're getting cancelled here so I'll say I support ur view on why volc is being suspected over some of the other pokemon but my reasoning is different.
There's so much priority around
-sucker from gambit (too common almost every team has one)
-espeed from dnite (also common)
-thunderclap from raging bolt (before someone theorycrafts volc beats booster energy bolt, I've been in that situation, boosted tbolts do way too much dmg that it hinders ur chance to sweep for offensive volc)
-ice shard from weavile, grassy glide from rillaboom (depends what ur tera is, u can open urself up to these)
Most properly built teams pack priority to rk it sometimes even 2 forms of it.

Volcarona was supposed by the community for far longer than pretty much anything else right now and, if you look at the suspect thread itself, you’ll realize a lot of people take issue with it.

Yea people definitely take issue with it but did they prefer volc to be suspected over some of the other pokemon or was it something you or the council of a few people decided for themselves instead of a poll of a few pokemon for people to actually vote what they wanted suspected?

The irony is that Volcarona is quite good against the HO and offense spam. It falls short against balanced and slower. Hybrid teams sometimes have a hard time based on MU.

chasing the wrong horse

I have played vs you a few times and also seen your team(s) through replays, u don't run ho and offense to know enough. (Unless I'm mistaken...?) This is a biased opinion. Volc is nothing special vs offense.

Despite all this, I'd probably still vote ban for volcarona if choosing to go for reqs cos this beig gone just means 1 less threat (on paper) to account for on the builder

 

[Finchinator]

Yea people definitely take issue with it but did they prefer volc to be suspected over some of the other pokemon or was it something you or the council of a few people decided for themselves instead of a poll of a few pokemon for people to actually vote what they wanted suspected?

I mean nobody said OU was a perfect democracy. It was always going to be one of Volcarona or Wellspring if anything was suspected, but there was a big push for Volcarona and a lot of people supported a suspect in the PR thread on it and Tera Blast. So between that and a slight majority within the council to suspect it before Wellspring, the decision was clear and made with plenty of data/support. Not every single suspect is going to have a thorough survey preceding it.

 

[Ctann]

I have played vs you a few times and also seen your team(s) through replays, u don't run ho and offense to know enough. (Unless I'm mistaken...?) This is a biased opinion. Volc is nothing special vs offense.

you can take out the words “vs offense” or change it to anything else. It’s really nothing special vs any specific format because it’s not consistent. It’s better against offense than slower teams that can fit clodsire, walls, unawares, etc.

it evokes strong reactions..

I don’t run many types of teams that are high performing. Usually prefer running fun things. So nothing really fits the mold of certain structures. Tho I watch a lot of ladder games too and play against almost every type of team. So I’d say my experience is decent.

Volcarona isn’t too prominent in high ladder for a reason. It’s really not as amazing as it’s made out to be. The HO spam being dominant playstyle is due to other problems not called Volcarona.

this ain’t Espathra lite or magearna-fire lol.

usually dominant overwhelming set up pokemon feature prominently in the dominant HO and offense teams.

I’m actually curious about the stats for Volcarona in high ladder, what’s the usage rate and most chosen Tera types. Does anyone know how to pull this data for the last few weeks?

 

[viivian]

I mean nobody said OU was a perfect democracy. It was always going to be one of Volcarona or Wellspring if anything was suspected, but there was a big push for Volcarona and a lot of people supported a suspect in the PR thread on it and Tera Blast. So between that and a slight majority within the council to suspect it before Wellspring, the decision was clear and made with plenty of data/support. Not every single suspect is going to have a thorough survey preceding it.

democracy is for losers. supreme leader finch when?

 

[Bold School]

I can see you're getting cancelled here so I'll say I support ur view on why volc is being suspected over some of the other pokemon but my reasoning is different.
There's so much priority around
-sucker from gambit (too common almost every team has one)
-espeed from dnite (also common)
-thunderclap from raging bolt (before someone theorycrafts volc beats booster energy bolt, I've been in that situation, boosted tbolts do way too much dmg that it hinders ur chance to sweep for offensive volc)
-ice shard from weavile, grassy glide from rillaboom (depends what ur tera is, u can open urself up to these)
Most properly built teams pack priority to rk it sometimes even 2 forms of it.

There are too many threats to cover in this threat saturated metagame. The speed tiers are crazy compared to past gens with the power creep and Booster Energy. A lot of sweepers boost speed with BE or their setup moves as well. There are two primary ways to deal with this.

1. Priority

2. Unaware walls

Stall is a more passive archetype that doesn't care about speed tiers. They are pretty much all defensive mons, so they can more freely check most of the tier than most forms of balance. They use an Unaware backbone to not die to setup sweepers.

For most other playstyles, there simply isn't room to check everything in this threat saturated meta. Priority is the main way to ensure you have the ability to revenge kill regardless of speed tiers or speedy setup. This gives you some insurance against getting swept. You can still get swept, but at least won't won't auto-lose to too many things if the team is well built.

In other posts, I have commented on the issues with Psychic Terrain teams. It's an offensive style that doesn't really allow priority. I literally added Rillaboom because this issue of not having reliable priority in this meta was just that bad for viability. Anyways, the point is these teams run priority because they need to for viability. This would be the case with or without Volc in the tier.

For Volc specifically, it naturally resists Ice Shard and Grassy Glide with the potential to resist others depending on the Tera. It sets up Quiver Dance to boost Sp.Def. for Thunderclap. Even something like Dragonite that is a counter to Volc can be screwed over by Flame Body after the E-Speed. There are other Flame Body mons, but things like Moltres and Heatren (which often runs Flash Fire) are more defensive and not really threats to sweep your team. There are just a lot of ways Volc can cheese its counters.

 

[pika pal]

democracy is for losers. supreme leader finch when?

>Not Supreme Overlord
You had one job with this joke.

What do people consider the most Splashable Pokemon, both in general and on certain team styles? The former is probably Great Tusk, but I'm curious if, say, Balance Players have a Pokemon they consider absolutely vital to run or otherwise extremely difficult to go without. Sort of the inverse relationship of "Blissey needs Stall Teams", in that "[Team Style] really wants/needs [Pokemon]"

 

[Time Waster]

I’m actually curious about the stats for Volcarona in high ladder, what’s the usage rate and most chosen Tera types. Does anyone know how to pull this data for the last few weeks?

It's the 15th most used mon in the tier with 14.69% usage at 1825+ ELO. Higher than Kyurem when it was suspected. It would be nice but there's no way of tracking tera types.

Volcarona isn’t too prominent in high ladder for a reason. It’s really not as amazing as it’s made out to be. The HO spam being dominant playstyle is due to other problems not called Volcarona.

To make this a longer post, I'm seeing a lot less HO spam than I have the past couple months at every level.

 

[GummyRowlets]

>Not Supreme Overlord
You had one job with this joke.

What do people consider the most Splashable Pokemon, both in general and on certain team styles? The former is probably Great Tusk, but I'm curious if, say, Balance Players have a Pokemon they consider absolutely vital to run or otherwise extremely difficult to go without. Sort of the inverse relationship of "Blissey needs Stall Teams", in that "[Team Style] really wants/needs [Pokemon]"

For me, I feel like glowking is dam needed on almost all balance team, The ability to blanket check most special attacker in the tier is fantastic along with the best pivoting in the game. It's pivoting and longevity allow balance teams to manage and consistently bring in big bad threats like Kyurem or other breakers insafely. Without slowking, the stall, HO, and even opposing balance match-up is much more horrendous. Slowking used future sigh idea against stall, slowking uses status against HO, and balance it just keeps acting as an annoying pivot with regenerator. Glowking just offers so much role compression and longevity to every balance team out and gives the style a way to account for a lot of threats in such a hazardous meta-game where you have to take into account every dam threat in existence.
The Goat of Balance

 

[weirdo faye]

There are too many threats to cover in this threat saturated metagame. The speed tiers are crazy compared to past gens with the power creep and Booster Energy. A lot of sweepers boost speed with BE or their setup moves as well. There are two primary ways to deal with this.

1. Priority

2. Unaware walls

Stall is a more passive archetype that doesn't care about speed tiers. They are pretty much all defensive mons, so they can more freely check most of the tier than most forms of balance. They use an Unaware backbone to not die to setup sweepers.

For most other playstyles, there simply isn't room to check everything in this threat saturated meta. Priority is the main way to ensure you have the ability to revenge kill regardless of speed tiers or speedy setup. This gives you some insurance against getting swept. You can still get swept, but at least won't won't auto-lose to too many things if the team is well built.

In other posts, I have commented on the issues with Psychic Terrain teams. It's an offensive style that doesn't really allow priority. I literally added Rillaboom because this issue of not having reliable priority in this meta was just that bad for viability. Anyways, the point is these teams run priority because they need to for viability. This would be the case with or without Volc in the tier.

For Volc specifically, it naturally resists Ice Shard and Grassy Glide with the potential to resist others depending on the Tera. It sets up Quiver Dance to boost Sp.Def. for Thunderclap. Even something like Dragonite that is a counter to Volc can be screwed over by Flame Body after the E-Speed. There are other Flame Body mons, but things like Moltres and Heatren (which often runs Flash Fire) are more defensive and not really threats to sweep your team. There are just a lot of ways Volc can cheese its counters.

Bro, MY PURPOSE OF POSTING IS I SUPPORT THAT GUY THAT IS QUESTIONING WHY VOLCARONA IS TARGET OF SUSPECT WHEN THERE IS OTHER STRONG POKEMON AROUND, but he seems to be getting cancelled for it. I don't see the purpose of this post? Clarify your purpose please

 

[weirdo faye]

To make this a longer post, I'm seeing a lot less HO spam than I have the past couple months at every level.

Lots of dct1 players laddered with ho, I played a good 20-30games past week I have replays of this. I disagree with this

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

democracy is for losers. supreme leader finch when?

right now, actually. as the self-proclaimed pope of smogon, by the authority of god himself (who definitely has opinions on competitive pokemon), i hereby declare finch "finchinator" inator the emperor of ou, in the name of the offense, and of the stall, and of the holy balance, one meta forever and ever, amen

(my parish priest said it's not blasphemy if it's funny)

 

[Heatranator]

>Not Supreme Overlord
You had one job with this joke.

What do people consider the most Splashable Pokemon, both in general and on certain team styles? The former is probably Great Tusk, but I'm curious if, say, Balance Players have a Pokemon they consider absolutely vital to run or otherwise extremely difficult to go without. Sort of the inverse relationship of "Blissey needs Stall Teams", in that "[Team Style] really wants/needs [Pokemon]"

I'd say for more offensive teams, either BO or HO, its darkrai. I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but darkrai can do many jobs or role compress a lot of things. I've personally been using a will-o-wisp and sucker punch set which consolidates aspects of kingambit, darkrai and dragapult into one. You can run stuff like knock off, disable, taunt or even haze (which is a funny option). Furthermore, it can go multiple different routes if its going purely offensive. Want a really fast mon? Choice scarf is one of the best speed options in the tier. Want to decimate slower teams with brute force? Choice specs or nasty plot can do that for you. Want to just hit everything in the tier for super effective damage? 4 attacks can do it.
And even spicier, want to decimate most of a stall team?
Darkrai @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Drain Punch
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Thunder
Drain punch deals with blissey while not worrying about tera dark and can help if clod tera darks. Dark pulse just hits everything hard. Ice beam deals with gliscor, amoonguss and can 3hit ko clodsire, forcing it to tera. Thunder deals with corv and smacks dozo, mola and pex even harder. And it still is decent against other playstyles. (Note, this is a gimmicky set, I just think its funny).
4 Atk Tera Fighting Darkrai Drain Punch vs. 4 HP / 252 Def Blissey: 294-348 (45 - 53.3%) -- 31.6% chance to 2HKO

 

[Time Waster]

Lots of dct1 players laddered with ho, I played a good 20-30games past week I have replays of this. I disagree with this

Compared with the past couple months? Yes. Felt like every other game was Glimmora and 3 paradox mons. Now I run into balance and stall as well as offense.

 

[weirdo faye]

Compared with the past couple months? Yes. Felt like every other game was Glimmora and 3 paradox mons. Now I run into balance and stall as well as offense.

No clue I quit in 2019 or 2020 and came back maybe 2 months ago blame my current job for let giving me time to talk shit at work. From what limited time I've played, offense seems to be king. If it's otherwise my bad.

 

[Bold School]

Bro, MY PURPOSE OF POSTING IS I SUPPORT THAT GUY THAT IS QUESTIONING WHY VOLCARONA IS TARGET OF SUSPECT WHEN THERE IS OTHER STRONG POKEMON AROUND, but he seems to be getting cancelled for it. I don't see the purpose of this post? Clarify your purpose please

Odd reaction. You mentioned how priority mons were everywhere. And if I didn't misunderstand, this was your different reasoning? Did I get that right?

I simply expounded on the prevalence of priority in the metagame and then how it does and doesn't relate to Volcarona. It wasn't an attack on you or your opinion or anything, if that's what you thought.

 

[weirdo faye]

Odd reaction. You mentioned how priority mons were everywhere. And if I didn't misunderstand, this was your different reasoning? Did I get that right?

I simply expounded on the prevalence of priority in the metagame and then how it does and doesn't relate to Volcarona. It wasn't an attack on you or your opinion or anything, if that's what you thought.

What's the meaning of expounded dude? Ur literally confusing me with words like this and making me read so much stuff over a children's game. My English isn't that good hello, plz make things simpler for me to understand.

Priority moves make volc less of a threat esp sucker from gambit which is everywhere since it can ohko after all the work u put in to setup, other dangerous pokemon can hit as hard or even harder and have more actual bulk to take priority than volc. So my question is why suspect volc first over these other pokemon? Ur just telling me how the game works dude and I don't see how ur relating to my point. Only thing that made sense to me was volc can cheese its counters. OK but other pokemon have more brute force some taunt and also not fold to the most common priorities.

And no? Idk why u think I even got mildly offended, flame is so common in SEA region gaming where I'm from. This doesn't even bother me dude

 

[Time Waster]

No clue I quit in 2019 or 2020 and came back maybe 2 months ago blame my current job for let giving me time to talk shit at work. From what limited time I've played, offense seems to be king. If it's otherwise my bad.

Offense is still the most popular playstyle and probably always will be this generation, which is fine. It's just not as common as it was previously. There's a lot more balance teams especially than there used to be in my opinion. Before, I swear every other game was Glimm or Hamurott lead + Moon n' goons.

 

[Bold School]

What's the meaning of expounded dude? Ur literally confusing me with words like this and making me read so much stuff over a children's game. My English isn't that good hello, plz make things simpler for me to understand.

Priority moves make volc less of a threat esp sucker from gambit which is everywhere since it can ohko after all the work u put in to setup, other dangerous pokemon can hit as hard or even harder and have more actual bulk to take priority than volc. So my question is why suspect volc first over these other pokemon? Ur just telling me how the game works dude and I don't see how ur relating to my point. Only thing that made sense to me was volc can cheese its counters. OK but other pokemon have more brute force some taunt and also not fold to the most common priorities.

And no? Idk why u think I even got mildly offended, flame is so common in SEA region gaming where I'm from. This doesn't even bother me dude

Well, I'm sorry to confuse you I guess. I tend to be rather wordy. You recently said you were quitting the thread, so I don't know what you take offense to. I'm glad you didn't quit it, though. And I'm glad you weren't bothered. Sometimes it is hard to tell over the internet.

As for my purpose in expounding, I thought you were discussing how Volc relates to priority. And for the record, Volc mostly folds to priority from Dragonite and Gambit. But not Rillaboom or Weavile. Also, usually not Raging Bolt. This can change depending on its Tera or Flame Body luck. To say Volc loses to priority is a bit of an oversimplification.

 

[weirdo faye]

Well, I'm sorry to confuse you I guess. I tend to be rather wordy. You recently said you were quitting the thread, so I don't know what you take offense to. I'm glad you didn't quit it, though. And I'm glad you weren't bothered. Sometimes it is hard to tell over the internet.

As for my purpose in expounding, I thought you were discussing how Volc relates to priority. And for the record, Volc mostly folds to priority from Dragonite and Gambit. But not Rillaboom or Weavile. Also, usually not Raging Bolt. This can change depending on its Tera or Flame Body luck. To say Volc loses to priority is a bit of an oversimplification.

Read whatever was written again everythingis explained there with enough detail, I just kept things as short as possible or every1 would be reading a 2page long essay and I think people cba with that. And yh I'm back this is too much fun to kill boredom when u got nth to do at work call me a hypocrite :)

 

[Duck Chris]

This weekend in Smogon Tournaments

in Smogon Tour it was SV week with 3 live tours
Friday won by Vert
- Replay (semis)
- Replay (finals)
Finally someone makes Psychic Terrain work, definitely cool to see as it has some fun tools to work with since DLC2 dropped but has not seen really any success yet. Maybe dropping the reliance on sashed pokemon like Polteageist makes sense here given the ever present Samurott.
And then the finals team using an increasingly familiar Moltres-Tinkaton core cleans up vs a standard triple dark offense.

Saturday won by Empo
- Semis / Finals Game 1 / Finals Game 2
The team order is changed in every replay here which might mean Empo is using different versions of the same team (or maybe the replay viewer is just messing with me). Either way neat team with some non standard items like Specs Dragapult, Never-melt Ice Kyurem and Earth Plate Landorus. Guess empo wasn't afraid of opposing hazards due to the inclusion of what is likely court change cinderace.

Sunday won by Lily
- Replay (semis)
- Replay (Finals)
Lily comes through with a clean victory using some no nonsense garganacl+gliscor balances. Dispatching stall in one round and HO in the next shows the strength and consistency of these types of builds right now and they are piloted well here.

in World Cup of Pokemon
Signups are open now for teams in the qualifying stage! I will be one of many trying out for Team Canada, pretty competitive so we'll have to see what happens. Anyone else joining?

 

[weirdo faye]

This weekend in Smogon Tournaments

in Smogon Tour it was SV week with 3 live tours
Friday won by Vert
- Replay (semis)
- Replay (finals)
Finally someone makes Psychic Terrain work, definitely cool to see as it has some fun tools to work with since DLC2 dropped but has not seen really any success yet. Maybe dropping the reliance on sashed pokemon like Polteageist makes sense here given the ever present Samurott.
And then the finals team using an increasingly familiar Moltres-Tinkaton core cleans up vs a standard triple dark offense.

Saturday won by Empo
- Semis / Finals Game 1 / Finals Game 2
The team order is changed in every replay here which might mean Empo is using different versions of the same team (or maybe the replay viewer is just messing with me). Either way neat team with some non standard items like Specs Dragapult, Never-melt Ice Kyurem and Earth Plate Landorus. Guess empo wasn't afraid of opposing hazards due to the inclusion of what is likely court change cinderace.

Sunday won by Lily
- Replay (semis)
- Replay (Finals)
Lily comes through with a clean victory using some no nonsense garganacl+gliscor balances. Dispatching stall in one round and HO in the next shows the strength and consistency of these types of builds right now and they are piloted well here.

in World Cup of Pokemon
Signups are open now for teams in the qualifying stage! I will be one of many trying out for Team Canada, pretty competitive so we'll have to see what happens. Anyone else joining?

sure if people give me a chance id definitely like to play in a tournament setting esp for sm ou, maybe ill just leave my name in signups and do a tryout if they offer it and see how it goes but i think i can only play asia since from singapore. anyways goodnight a for effort again thanks for sharing

 

[Bold School]

in Smogon Tour it was SV week with 3 live tours
Friday won by Vert
- Replay (semis)

That's a pretty interesting Psychic Terrain team. This isn't a direction I would have seen coming. Moon/Crown is quite interesting as well. The only classic PT sweeper we see here is Hawlucha. This goes against a lot of the adjustments I had convinced myself were needed for optimizing PT teams, for whatever that is or isn't worth.

I don't tend to like using Iron Crown in general. Maybe I should look into it more, but I have not heard of anything besides an Assault Vest set being particularly notable. Base 98 speed isn't the fastest even with BE speed. Hawlucha also seems like the main form of speed control against the boosted meta since Moon was BE Attack.

It's an impressive showing by Vert. But I'm not even sure if I could make this work on ladder myself. Call it a skill difference, maybe, but I think this team would get eaten alive by certain offensive teams with fast threats like BE speed Moon. The matchup here was against a bit of a bulkier team. Valiant didn't even appear to be BE speed, so it didn't look like Vert had to actually deal with the boosted speed tiers. Was this created just for this sort of matchup? If so, it would be a great prediction.