ORAS OU Meta-Game Discussion Thread

So as the title would suggest, this thread is to discuss the trends in the current ORAS OU meta. Would x pokemon be good in these meta? what dominates the current meta? what can beat or counter the most popular mons? is x mon underrated/overrated? are some of the questions that should be discussed here. What do you think about the mons in the tier or the tier-ing structure in general.

Discussion about what sets you think can dominate the tier or what is complete bs and rather gimmicky are also welcome, although please refrain from "this mon is ugly and i hate it and should not be used" comments. Keep it logical etc.

NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS THREAD TO VENT YOUR HATE ABOUT SMOGON.
keep it civil have fun ;)


You can also look into the viability list for general reference

I'd say the most underrated Pokemon is Exploud. It's probably the best Trick Room abuser in the game and is almost impossible to switch into. Not a huge threat, but should definitely be higher than D rank.

i don't find trick room generally that good of a play style, since most other play styles also tend to use slower but bulkier powerful mons, priority. It can surely give frail ho teams a run for their money tho (mega hera is kinda op under tr but lol).

i dont think ive ever seen a tr team on the ladder but then again i dont get further than 1400 so what do i know lol

discuss quagsire :) i think it's op

Unaware is definitely a really op ability - it just stops setup sweepers DEAD. When fully sp.def invested and using Scald to make up for its Defense.... wow.

one poke i've been wanting to try is physically ev'd mega diancie (just standard mix spread but boosting diamond storm instead of moonblast). seems like a cool wrinkle. also syn told me that apparently it learns/rarely runs sharpen what even is this lol.

anyway, haven't played enough lately to comment on 'the metagame' in the aggregate but i think that the 'diversity' of oras is a myth. there are a variety of mega sweepers you can choose, but the five non mega slots are pretty much always the same cores do you don't get 6-0ed by zardx or mega scizor or mega gyarados or w/e it is. you know, lati/keld/landt bulky offense, balances with slowbro/ferro/gliscor or rotom/landt/heatran and/or ferro, tons of clefables and kelds, etc. that might just be ladder being bad or w/e but the same archetypes are still pretty apparent no matter where you look. that's what i don't like about the metagame, or rather, team-building for the metagame.

i think rp land is a bit of a flavor of the month that actually loses considerable breaking ability when restricted to three moveslots though it's still good. would be interested to see a suspect (not an april fools one) because of its versatility and sheer force (hnnnng) though i am not sure it's broken when its speed is iffy and ground stab kind of necessitates that you can play around it to a degree.

metagross is still as annoying as ever.

i am really interested to try to run gengar in this meta. scarftar is annoying but it's a really solid poke and i'd love to try to make him work, especially since his checks seem specific enough to be able to build to beat pretty effectively, though it is more a breaker than an endgame sweeper usually.

quagsire is cool if you're really weak to mega scizor, bisharp, and electrics but it's so passive that i'd probably never want to run it, especially when it competes with something like hippowdon for a team slot who offers SR support and more impressive overall bulk. perfectly usable though.

I think I'll try Choice Specs Goodra and Life Orb Seismitoad on some of my rain teams - Goodra is surprisingly strong and has a good movepool while Seismitoad is immune to Thunder Wave and can use Stealth Rock.

Also, what do you guys think about Double Dance Lando-T?

double dance land t sweeped me once ( but i was attending a lecture and syn just sucks). but uh i think if invested a bit in bulk and brought out in the right moment it could do good. Also you have notice the rise of things like azu, mamo,weavile etc who have priorities that can maim it, but eh seems legit.
i also remember gravity sd lando t making quite a mark before.
gengar is a monster tbh rn. almost everyone is weak to it :/ and since i never win speed ties it just makes everything worse.

What made Gengar so strong is the nerf of Steel-type resistances. Scizor, who used to be a safe Shadow Ball switch-in against Gengar, is now 2hko'd by Shadow Ball.

Previous gens: 252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Scizor: 101-120 (29.4 - 34.9%) -- 10.4% chance to 3HKO

This gen: 252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Scizor: 203-239 (59.1 - 69.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Thankfully it's really frail. But man, no one is safe.

Weavile is also generally very underrated. anti showed what a beast it is.
i mean literally everyone is weak to it, has priority in ice shard, has knock off (such op), amazing speed and low kick to round it all.

I wouldn't say that everyone is weak to Weavile. I don't think it's changed much anyway since Gen4 (except for OP Knock Off).

Zeffy said:

I wouldn't say that everyone is weak to Weavile. I don't think it's changed much anyway since Gen4 (except for OP Knock Off).

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Weavile hasnt changed apart from the fact its got the OP Knock Off and Icicle Crash to work with now which are powerful STAB moves, neither of which it had in gen 4.

Steel nerf for it is massive aswell. Plus people spamming Defog. In addition to people using Weavile bait like Lati@s, Gengar, Lando etc. You'd be surprised how much this thing can cripple teams. I mean sure it has pokes it still struggle with (Azu, MScizor, Keld etc) but it can still ream alot of offensive teams.

i dig weavile a lot because, with the very notable exception of mega scizor teams, it will always have an impact on a match. knock off is ridiculously spammable and keldeo and azumarill reveal their sets in taking and, AND their sets lose their effectiveness (ie av azum with no av, cb with no cb, bd with no sitrus or enough health to set up; spexkeld w/p spex, submind w/o leftovers, etc.)

that being said, it's incredible easy to wear down and is realistically coming in no more than twice per match unless you do exceptionally well in the hazards game, especially since it can't actually switch in on anything. i have enjoyed running pursuit over ice shard to trap latis and especially starmie, but i have often missed the utility of ice shard. :( its downsides are real, but i do think overall they don't hinder it too much.

anyway, it's a nice poke. besides knock, its speed is just so useful, and it hits low-key hard.