The ORAS OU Metagame Discussion Thread

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Uralya

*ponders everything*
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The ORAS OU Metagame Discussion Thread
Expectations for, experiences with, and thoughts on the developing ORAS metagame!

The first half of this generation was a very nice improvement from the weather-centric metagame of Black and White. However, the metagame did not have long to settle down before the advent of the Ruby and Sapphire remakes, which introduced a slew of new Mega Pokemon and gave notable new additions like tutor moves. As of now, we have seen Mega Salamence rise to Ubers, Mega Rayquaza go so high that it created a new metagame all on its own, and Greninja become the second starter to be banned from OU. What more might we see in the future as the latter half of this generation looks to simmer down? Discuss it all!

Possible discussion topics include viable suspects and prominent threats in general, usage trends, how the metagame as a whole adapts from one event to the next, etc. Use it as a venting thread for your experiences (within reason). The purpose is to collect data from the playerbase about the metagame as it evolves.
 
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Uralya

*ponders everything*
Member
A list of discussion possibilities and purposes is at the bottom of the OP now.

To offer up some threat discussion:

Although in usage its Therian brother eclipses it, Landorus-I is a real monster in this metagame. It has great coverage (Sludge Wave, Psychic, Earth Power, and Focus Blast compounded by the rise of Knock Off in the transition to XY) and huge attack power due to the LO+Sheer Force combination. In addition, access to Rock Polish and Calm Mind essentially lets it destroy whatever playstyle it wants aka whatever your team wants. There's a lot of difficulty to be had in stopping Landorus-I, evidenced by the fact that some of its few counters are dismantled by Pursuit users quite easily (many of whom make great partners on offensive teams, e.g. Bisharp).

Let's face it, Landorus-I is an easy Pokemon to build around or with and nearly always gets results. It's easily one of the best non-Megas right now.
 

Chaos Jackal

Legend of the Past
Member
Landorus-I was banned from OU for a reason, and even if the arrival of Megas and the rise of its other form overshadowed it, it's still monstrous. As Uralya said, Landorus is kind of a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" pokemon; there are many occassions where one can use it, and it's nearly always a plus. It would have gotten tremendously more usage had it not been for its other form, which forces you to choose one of them, but it still has all the tools that made it great back in Gen V, and can still utilize them nearly just as effectively.
 

Scattered mind

Competitive VG Forums Mod
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So Sheer Force Feraligatr is available and I see a lot of arguments on how much it can be viable in OU. It has 2 main sets- DD for sweeping and SD for wallbreaking. Priority in AJ and free from recoil damage Life Orb. after one boost it can outspeed base 135 like MegaMan and MegaLop. Still only one STAB and low speed makes people wonder how much can it be better than Crawdaunt and Gyarados.

Few things :
-Only water type no dark type weaknesses ( but no STAB Crunch)
-bulkier than Craw
-Has priority move ( Gyarados doesn't )
-No recoil damage from LO

So I guess now when you need a water type set up sweeper or wallbreaker you have an extra Pokemon to check out.
 

Uralya

*ponders everything*
Member
scattered mind said:
So Sheer Force Feraligatr is available and I see a lot of arguments on how much it can be viable in OU. It has 2 main sets- DD for sweeping and SD for wallbreaking. Priority in AJ and free from recoil damage Life Orb. after one boost it can outspeed base 135 like MegaMan and MegaLop. Still only one STAB and low speed makes people wonder how much can it be better than Crawdaunt and Gyarados.

Few things :
-Only water type no dark type weaknesses ( but no STAB Crunch)
-bulkier than Craw
-Has priority move ( Gyarados doesn't )
-No recoil damage from LO
Very true. Feraligatr has access to two boosting sets and can respectively give competition to Crawdaunt and Gyarados.

Feraligatr has an arguably better chance of getting the +2 than Crawdaunt and can also afford to run a mixture of priority and hard-hitting options in order to be a threat to a variety of playstyles. Crawdaunt has singular wallbreaking power that does carve out a considerable niche but is damn frail and easier to revenge kill.

With (Mega) Gyarados, it probably has the better DD set due to Intimidate, a wider set of resistances in either forme, overall better bulk, and an additional STAB. However, Feraligatr has the priority as you said, a lack of an initial SR weakness, and a bit more power even when using the preferred Jolly nature (more than Adamant Gyarados).

Overall, it's a legitimate threat and has fair pros over the aforementioned Water-Dark types, being able to easily challenge both with a simple move change. Time will tell, but I think it will be preferred over Crawdaunt and be in contention with Gyarados aside from Mega-slotting (M-Gyarados>Feraligatr if you lack another viable mega).
 

Professor Palutena

The Queen
Member
So Smogon is suspect testing Giratina-O to see if it's able to be balancing in OU.

Link: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-oras-ou-suspect-process-round-3-ghosts.3533937/

Not too sure what to think about it. On one hand, I feel like by acting as a giant catch-all to so many threats, Giratina simplifies teambuilding in ORAS OU to the point where I think it could be a massive benefit in the game. But on the other, this makes it centralizing because so many things struggle with it.
 

Professor Palutena

The Queen
Member
Aww man...

I almost had reqs too. I was really enjoying having it around.

I guess in hindsight the repeated "This isn't an April Fools joke" kinda meant it was. Oh well. RIP Giratina-O
 

Scattered mind

Competitive VG Forums Mod
Forum Mod
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New suspect test suggests to bring Aegislash back to OU!
Do you think the new metagame can handle with it this time?
Can you feel the ground shaking? ( EQ users )
 

Professor Palutena

The Queen
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Oh this'll be exciting.

Considering how close the test was, I'm really curious to see where it goes. Easily the most controversial suspect test in X/Y.
 

MegaBeedrill

This isn't even my final form!
Member
Haunter on smogon just announced you have three options to vote for.

Ban Aegislash
Do not Ban Aegislash
Ban King's Shield

If King's shield was banned, it certainly would make knock off spam from azumaril, mega scizor, and landorus easier against aegislash, not to mention pursuit trapping with max speed t-tar would be flawless on the RK being he's stuck in blade form.
 

Cinesra

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Aegislash is still probably about as strong as it was in XY, but I almost want it back just for the sake of covering all of these common threats that make ORAS OU so match-up dependent. Letting him back in, but without King's Shield could be a good way to un-ban it without it being broken.
 

Scattered mind

Competitive VG Forums Mod
Forum Mod
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People are saying that without KS Aegislash is bad while others are saying that there were many great sets without KS which prevailed. The truth is those sets were partly successful thanks to the fear from potential KS. So even if you didn't have KS there were still a lot of mind games until your opponent had figured it out.

My point is that you can't decide to ban King Shield without making a ladder without it.
 

MegaBeedrill

This isn't even my final form!
Member
A lot of discussion on the suspect forum isn't necessarly about aegislash and KS, it's about what's the point of banning KS when it's not broken on smeargle (unlike swagger and OHKO moves) and that blanket banning KS while unbanning aegislash at the same time sets a poor example of common tiering procedures used in the test.. they're worried that next thing smogon will go for is banning things like protean greninja and speed boost blaziken just to nerf them enough for OU.

To be honest, I think smogon really needs to get out of the gutter and switch up their tiering methods and arguments. They can never create a balanced metagame no matter what they remove and introduce.. there will always be one mon who tops them all and forces the metagame to revolve around it.

In aegislash's case, I don't see the overcentralization.. back in x/y one can argue that aegislash hurt the viability of pinsir, heracross, gardevoir, and medicham. We look now at the oras meta.. and guess what? Pinsir is RU by usage, medicham and heracross are UU by usage, and gardevoir hasn't really seen much of a change since mega scizor is on the rise without aegislash. Even in pinsir's case, pinsir was S-rank OU during the x/y aegislash metagame! and since.. now sits in the lower tiers with the pinsirite being banned in all but OU. Even gallade, who suposedly is the new medicham, is getting UU discussion as his usage statistics might be dropping him down!

Aegislash shadow sneaks his way back in the meta without much impact.. those everybody claim are unusable by his presence, are overselling those particular pokemon when they cannot properly function in the metagame even without aegislash around. If change wasn't made, than I don't believe aegislash's reintroduction is an issue in the slightest.

The only argument one can use for his ban is the no counter argument.. but look at keldeo, landorus, stall breaker and natural gift talonflame, and metagross.. all four if removed from the tier would make just as much of an impact as aegislash did lifting pressure from teambuilding. They hinder teambuilding just as much with their multitude of sets they can run while forcing teams to overprepare for them and have checks. No counter =/= ban worthy in this case.
 

Professor Palutena

The Queen
Member
There's a difference between banning King's Shield and banning Speed Boost Blaziken.

Banning Speed Boost Blaziken is a complex ban, as Speed Boost Scolipede would be legal (and there's no way a Speed Boost ban would work due to Scolipede existing).

You could compare it to banning Protean and legallizing Greninja, given that Protean!Kecleon and King's Shield!Smeargle probably have close to the same usage (read as: zero). Probably a more fitting comparison would be banning Dark Void and freeing Darkrai.
 

Cinesra

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Kecleon is at least used in NU and banning Protean would affect a lower tier mon. Smeargle isn't used in any tier to my knowledge with King's Shield, so it's not like we lose anything.
 

Scattered mind

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Do you think that the metagame is getting to adapted to Mega Metagross?
There are many answers to this threat such as Mega Manectric Mega Scizor Slowbro Skarmory etc
Yet not too many things has changed since the Metagrossite suspect test.
After Aegislash got retested to OU do you think those answers are not enough and that we will see another suspect test?
 

Chaos Jackal

Legend of the Past
Member
Since Aegislash didn't return, things are pretty much where they were before. To have another suspect test for Metagross is pretty much saying that there are serious doubts about the last test's decision, since Pokemon-wise nothing has changed in OU. Perhaps, after the metagame further evolved, it has become more obvious to some that Metagross was more than what it initially seemed. Perhaps not. Right now though, I don't foresee a Metagross test in the near future.
 

Chaos Jackal

Legend of the Past
Member
I wouldn't say it needs to go myself. Excellent coverage, only one "true" counter; but we've been through this a million times before. Landorus suffers from 4MSS, which may make it unpredictable, but it also makes it possible to wall depending on what it lacks. Its Speed is good, but lacking compared to many of the other monsters roaming in OU, allowing it to be easily checked by a variety of commonly used attackers. Don't get me wrong. This thing is amazing. But broken? Even Mega Metagross, which is the closest thing to a real life tank in OU managed to stay. I don't think it needs to be banned.

That being said, if it ends up getting banned, I don't see the metagame changing drastically. Landorus-I doesn't keep that many things in check, it's not like Aegislash which severely limited many otherwise perfectly good mons. The hole Landorus will leave behind will not be exactly gaping. Its ban will not signify any big changes in the metagame.
 
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