I can't believe Encore didn't get a mention here Ogerpon's speed stat make it an amazing encore abuser. It's no Booster Valiant, but anything passive/bulky becomes a liability when Ogerpon is rocking Encore
True, it is very good as an Encore user! I don't think Encore is a big part of what makes it broken, but it definitely limits defensive counterplay even further.
Ferro's outta town for one game and Ludicolo's shady cousin is destroying the whole metagame. Truly annoying fat mons with a million resistances are what make this game playable
ferro isnt a good answer it has acess to superpower and without reliable recovery and not being able to leach seed ogerpon it cant take advantage of the attack drop to recover up on it
110 speed being considered "mediocre" hurts my old gen experience and shows on how insane the modern gen powercreep is. Although tbf oger is locked into 1 item so unless it trailblazes its stuck where it is. good video btw
The idea that a ban making stall or fat balance more viable is some great reason not to go through with a ban is kinda ridiculous when neither are dominating the metagame. Making less viable team styles more viable promotes diversity in a metagame which makes match ups more interesting and the metagame more fun.
@@Zebra-ke1rn If you have a team that forces you to spend an hour against a fat balance or stall team, that sounds like either you also have a stall team or your team has some serious problems.
For me, my most hated is Roaring Moon. Remind me why Garchomp still can't learn DD, but something faster, stronger, and basically just as bulky can. It fries everything with Knock + Acro + EQ, it resists most priority, it abuses Tera to no end, it gets Taunt and Roost to shut down defensive options, so have fun trying to Will-O-Wisp or Thunder Wave it
@@Renegade77784 corvi and skarm are not infallible. Tusk drops to acro, lokix is not a viable pokemon in the tier. And using Dondozo means using stall.
Btw, I believe that Ogerpon-Cornerstone can be promoted to the OU and be very worthy, as well as be an excellent balanced replacement for WaterPon if it is ever banned. She has the same stats, moveset, and coverage (in this case using Stomping Tantrum or Low Kick to fight steel), but her type and abilities are somewhat less insane than FirePon and WaterPon. The Grass / Rock type has 4 weaknesses in defense, one of which is the common fighting and ice type, and the resists are only related to normal and electric, but her Sturdy ability allows her to be more long-lived, considering that with the help of Horn Leech she can restore Sturdy. The strong and 100% accurate rock-type Ivy Cudgel can pose a threat to the flying types widespread in OU, such as Zapdos, Moltres, Dragonite or Tera Flying Kingambit, also can hit hard other mons with super-effective Rock Cudgel. Overall, she needs more support from her teammates, as there will be more checks for her, but RockPon is a force to be reckoned with.
It provides similar breaking power, but much less defensive utility, making it harder to fit onto teams. A very balanced deal, I'd say! I'm a big fan of Cornerstone (I've been wanted to use an accurate rock move for SO long) and I think it's definitely OU viable.
Ogerpon Cornerstone is good and gets the same stuff but it’s just the worse typing and water Ivy cudgle being more useful in many scenarios as well as just straightforward worse ability. I hope it rises and it is good but not before the waterpon ban lol
Definitely check out some people on metagame discussion that have different opinions before voting-- but yea, as you'll see in the video, I don't think their arguments are particularly strong.
spl player here and I AGREE!!! i think pon ban is an incredibly easy improvement to the metagame and i really dont understand the resistance against it. as you say, most checks to it are fairly temporary and with knock all checks are temporary. it’s an excessive chokehold on the builder and it produces nightmarish weighted coinflips in game as the only way to swap into it with most teams is to predict the exact move it’s clicking every time it hits the field, which is often as pon has an incredibly easy time getting in. Hopefully pon sees some tiering action during spl.
You see ever since ogerpon W I just dont play gen 9 ou. I play gen 8 ou, gen 3 ou, gen 8 nat dex, more balanced meta games because I don't like having every single defensive mon on my team nullified because of one single move on sd ogerpon. @@pinkacross2042
My whole fucking life is falling apart as we speak, but when I listen to this I'm temporarily transported to a wonderful world where the most pressing problem is how underpowered balanced team structures are in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Thank you.
The reason why Ivy Cudgel doesn't make contact is because Ogerpon's using her club, which is a melee weapon, so she's not making physical contact with the opponent.
I‘ll never forget how i once ran eviolite duraladon with t wave and idef body press specifically for ogerpon and then the 2nd or 3rd one that i played just used spikes and u turned out into gliscor. I stopped playing for like 3 weeks after that
Good thing Palafin didn't end up staying in OU, because if Ogerpon-W ever got suspected in the future, I just know that there would be a subset of players who'd argue "We can't ban Ogerpon! We need it to check Palafin!"
Solid vid pinkacross. Seeing this type of video for kyurem and especially wellspring makes me wonder why you do not co sider doing these kind of over analysis vids on already existing pokemon in ou. Imagine a 20 minute video about all the intricacies of great tusk
I have indeed considered such a video! I'm not sure if people would like a deep-dive into meta pokemon, but I'll probably give it a try at some point! :]
Yea, this is without a doubt the best-performing video I've released in over a year. I'm amazed and elated!
13 дней назад+5
Extra arguments against waterpon: > Dealing with him defensively is almost impossible due to encore. Even with defensive Pokemon that can withstand its hits, the fear of Encore always forces counters to use offensive attacks, and never recovery options. For example, vileplume, a mon that is mainly used to counter waterpon, loses in 1 vs 1 if waterpon uses encore on Strength Sap. > (not exactly a good argument, but just my own experience) when I'm not using stall, I usually use ho (yes, I use extreme archetypes, which, as you already said, are the easiest to use). Very rarely is waterpon a good option, in general. Neither in common HOs nor in teams based on screens or auroraveil is waterpon an essential option. These builds generally prefer faster sweepers, or those that boost speed during setup (like dd users) or that have priority.
Predictability is only a weakness if you can actually do something about it/to exploit it. Saying Ogerpon is predictable is like saying that you can just see the nuke coming in advance.
Im a fellow showdown content creator and I absolutely agree with everything you said in this video The fact that water types can't even click banded or specs water moves on rain anymore without heavy prediction is the thing I hate the most The instant spdef boost for tera is also unhealthy as it's a get out of jail card in most situations
@@pinkacross2042 I‘m very sure I read you say the following in a comment section in SS OU RMT: „Rain is a dishonest playstyle“ which I agree with lol. However ur creative Porygon Z Lele Heliolisk team is fire fun and creative
As a balance user I agree this mon has literally 0 checks. You described it well in the vid but it’s crazy how much this mon has going for it. •two abilities •1.2x boost on every move and item that can’t be knocked •Aceess to every move it could ever want from U-turn, Knock, Ivy, play rough, SD, trailblazer, power whip, leach life, encore •Ivy is just the best move of all time(No contact 100 bp water move with high crit ratio and Tera boost lol) •excellent base stats even speed is solid If the opponent doesn’t throw this mon just rolls all balance even with good play. Banning it would make the tier more than just booster spam
I would be interested in a long form talking video where you talk about your dream SV OU. Like Pokémon you want in the metagame that are in lower tiers, Pokémon you want back, items or abilities or moves you think should go away or come back, Pokémon you want to go away or come back, older mechanics Maybe actually just your dream OU Pokémon tier. Not necessarily SV
Yea, that makes it a better pokemon, but the encore sets aren't contributing much to its brokenness which is why I didn't emphasize it in the video. It does invalidate some defensive counterplay though.
@@pinkacross2042 while it doesnt add to its brokeness at destroying defensive-ish teams, encore is great for getting free sd's or just completely scaring the opponent out of setting up out of fear of getting encored, giving Oger free +2 and a sweep. it also is very annoying for getting encored into maybe a healing move or passives stuff in general being another easy setup opportunity
While I very much agree on Ogerpon being broken and suposed to be banned, it will always be Nr. 2 on the important to ban list bc Kyurem exists. Kyurem imo is a much bigger Problem, with an even bigger set variety, fitting on every archetype and being insane at everything it does. There is a kyurem for every team and an Ogerpon-Wellspring only for a lot of teams. There are many more reasons that imo defitnely justify banning kyurem first, but I‘m gonna leave it at this for now.
is agree ogerpon-w is a pain in the ass but why does no one complain about darkrai or zamazenta which are faster and have more set variety and both get super high usage?
Zam, while extremely fast is actually quite manageable if you status it, or use Tera Ghost, or phase it out. Plus there are mons like Enamorus or Val with booster who outspeed and destroy Zama Darkrai I have only seen it doing two things. Scarf, which is annoying but exploitable, and nasty plot sets with either life orb or something like expert belt. Not really much variety, and it mostly runs tera poison so it's rather predictable However. I must say I'm not really a good player, rather at 1400. So i might just be saying big bs
It's crazy that something with this level of breaking power is not difficult to get into the field. You look at a Pokemon with similar breaking power like Crawdaunt and Ogerpon can switch in so much easier. Also it doesn't need to switch in multiple times in a lot of games since it can simply crit past a lot of checks, which really limits the "stealth rock weakness" argument in favour of keeping it
This is actually really misleading and intentionally incorrect; you know perfectly well the most toxic pokemon is Pecharunt. please address this in a future video!!
Being a fast Encore user certainly helps too! It’s not Wellspring’s best option by any means, but being able to punish a passive option (i.e. a recovery move to stay healthy enough to tank another Ivy Cudgel later on) forces even more switches which means even more Knocks and/or even more Ivy Cudgels to tear a team’s defensive backbone apart with.
If gen 10 arrives and it's clear that it's just as power crept as gen 9, I feel like we should ban a lot of stuff right away and do a bunch of suspects in a dripfeed style. That way it will be easier to see if the pokemon has a positive or negative effect on the metagame and we can get to a sense of normalcy a lot quicker
The fact that Waterpon walled Palafin while it was in OU (most sets that relied on Jetpunch and Punished Flip Turn switches) says a lot about the prevalence of WSP
Thank god someone finally brought this to light. I always try to rationalize Wellspring’s existence with the hazard weakness argument, but I can almost never comfortably beat it. I’m a hardcore balance player and I always have been, so I can safely say this Mon is an absolute nightmare. The balance stock decline was insane between Gen 8 and 9
I feel like the argument about oger leaving making stall more viable is based entirely on the assertion that stall is inherently problematic and unhealthy as a metagame option. While it sure isn't fun to play against if you fail to bring the right matchup, that assertion has never proven to be true outside of mega sableye+arena trap dugtrio that one time, even in metas where stall _was_ a fully viable archetype. I feel the burden of proof for the idea that stall = bad must come before the argument that it would make stall too viable
A couple other things worth mentioning about Waterpon - Akin to more traditional Tera abusers, Ogerpon still gets to cheat type matchups with it. You go from being weak to Bug/Flying/Poison to being weak to Grass/Electric. Clicking Sludge Wave or Hurricane on Ogerpon can actually be a gamble, and even Booster Moon's Acrobatics without a DD fails to KO. - Offense is better off against Ogerpon, until she slots in Trailblaze. Suddenly the Dragapult you were banking on outspeeding Ogerpon just can't do it. It's also not like Trailblaze from Ogerpon is weak either, after a Swords Dance, Trailblaze + Ivy Cudgel always KOs offensive Zamazenta from full, with the Defense boost. - They gave her Spikes too, in case her movepool wasn't already loaded. Click Spikes as a Grass or Dragon switches in because they're not bringing in a Rapid Spinner, U-turn out, and you've just made good progress.
One thing that I'd like to add is the fact that Ogerpon, alongside getting a good defensive typing upon using tera, gets a stat boost it always keeps. Even if you switch it out, once it gets back on the field, it gets the same stat boost again, which is pretty funny considering the fact that both Zamazenta's and Zacian's abilities, which did essentially the same thing for different stats, got nerfed to only activate once per switch in, per battle. That, alongisde a plethora of reasons mentioned in the video, makes Ogerpon an excellent tera choice is a lot of cases.
One thing I would really like to see if Wellspring does get banned is how viable Cornerstone would be long-term. It's kinda sad how due to Wellsprings overwhelming power, it's other forms are kinda shafted as a result, which sucks because I love those 2 forms more than it (Cornerstone is my fav so I'm gonna be talking about her). I've seen a lot of people are saying it's basically a more balanced Wellspring because it doesn't have Water Absorb and Water STAB, but it does still have all of Wellspring's moves and they both have the same stats. Rock Type Ivy Cudgel is amazing, being able to hit the legendary birds for super-effective dmg, killing Moltres and nearly killing Zapdos in one hit, which in turn makes it a really good partner with strong offensive pokemon like Zamazenta and Dragonite. With rain being more viable without Wellspring, I could definitely see something like Rillaboom wrecking havoc alongside Cornerstone and Raging Bolt as a way to counter it. Horn Leech + Terrain healing could even let it leverage it's Sturdy ability even if it takes hazard damage, too. I would really like to see how much innovation there would be in the tier without Wellspring, and the prospect of my fav Ogerpon form no longer being trapped in the shadow of its surperior form will make me love the tier more, personally.
What sucks about this is that I like using this mon as a defensive pivot instead of a busted sweeper. - I LOVE the water immunity (Water types deserve a nerf imo) - Fast Encore punishes setup, especially Kingambit. - "Resists" Knock Off - Has Synthesis and Horn Leech for healing Ivy cudgel is a BS move tho and the fact that the best mon to switch into an Oger is another Oger is a bad sign
@ I still think Roaring Moon and Darkrai are worse. Moon gets DD and one misplay can cost you the game. It's nearly impossible to revenge kill without Tera. Specs Darkrai is way too fast and strong. 3rd Highest base speed in the OU. One Dark Pulse flinch can win a game. If it's Nasty Plot, not even BLISSEY is safe from it if it runs Focus Blast. The next 2 highest SpDef in OU are Araquanid, who's a suicide lead, and Primarina, who gets destroyed by Sludge Bomb. Funnily enough, all 3 of these mons truly fear First Impression Lokix, which is just badass.
_"The broken Pokemon can't carry ALL these moves at once!"_ Yeah, neither could XY Protean Greninja. Here's the thing about Pokemon's battle system: YOU CAN BLUFF Did they forget the game needlessly hides alot of information and that open teamsheets are a thing in certain formats? Of course Ogrepon isn't going to stay in on a bad matchup when you can switch out. The same has always been true for any broken Pokemon. It just needs to be out against something it can beat and then gain momentum. Only reason SM Pheromosa ever stayed in against anything that could potentially hurt it besides something like Mega Pinsir is cuz it could just U-Turn out, do ggood chip and avoid the interaction anyway.
i believe the most healthy course of action to balance ogerpon w would be to unban koraidon. its a great switch in on both of its stabs while also weakening ivy cudgel even further for the team. it is also a very good revenge killer into it as it outspeeds while threatening it with either uturn or its own stab. koraidon would most likely benefit the ou meta as a very stable check into ogerpon w while not being broken in its own right
I always found Wellspring’s tera to be annoying. Water’s weakness to grass and electric being neutralized when not tera’d is difficult because you rearrange your weaknesses extremely favorably while getting a stat boost with a crazy move pool.
This is an eye opener, I hope this issue will get more adressed among lower ranked and casual players like me, who get most of their info from you, Jimothy and Reddit
Hey in your video with Jimothy Cool you said that Mandibuzz can: "hard wall kingambit, also stop roaring moomg, dragonite, and can kill Wellspring " - some under certain circumstances - can you further explain that? I would really like too see a video or something about the bird stopping all these threats and even K.O them
Yea you pretty much got it-- just Foul Play, Roost, Iron Defense, and for the last slot Knock/Toxic/U-turn/Defog. You can ID up, then kill all these mons with Foul Play.
@@pinkacross2042 thanks for the replyi was watching the video. And about Mandibuzz, what items, Stats, nature and kind of mates does the bird 🐔◼️ needs ??
Ivy Cudgel critical hit bypasses Intimidate boost sadly... legitimately I think Arbok could have had usage in generation 8, but in gen 9 with Gliscor, Garg, and Gholdengo? Nah
Still better than Alolomola. That mon is just so strong and annoying with little skill required. It’s single-handedly the reason why I don’t find OU fun anymore.
Frankly, that power vacuum doesn't need to be filled. Way too many busted breakers already. But yea, Cornerstone is definitely viable. A lot of water types would get better, Hrott and Primarina for example.
Hey pink, I respect your opinions and take on wellspring and its place it the meta and i always appreciate the walk along as to how you arrive at your conclusions. however, I want to provide a critique that's not just aimed at you but a a sentiment that I see thata very prevalent amongst the high rank playerbase. That being the inherently overvaluing of higher tier rank checks to pokemon, and the inherent devaluing of lower tier options. When it comes to valuing common high tier checks that part makes sense, but the default dismissal of lower tier options as not being worth considering does a lot to effect the conversation. For one, it directly affects people perception of how many checks or answers to a pokemon their actually is. Take for example a mon like Viaplume, it's a more consistent Wellapring set into all the common set that does it more reliable than most of the mons mentioned in this video as well as having many useful matchups into other top tiers to justify its teamslot. However, the default response to the suggestion of using viaplume as a check before ever attempting it would be "Well that's an NU ranked pokemon, it would be to resticting/difficult to build around a mon like that" Pokemons tier placements directly affects people's willingness to explore and use certain option, and it would be more defendable if we were playing an older more solved metagame, but we aren't and our current tier rankings are still in that phase where they are more indicative of pokemon relative popularity rather then an objective assessment of that pokemons average usefulness. This is a bit Facetious, but who's to say a viaplume level antimeta demon isn't a Blunder video away from being considered viable ? You get my larger point by now but I'll conclude with this, while I'm sympathetic to the ban Wellspring crowd, I feel an underapprrciated gem of having mons like this in the tier is how it rewards the creative, intuitive anti meta prepper types of players.
Thank you for such a respectful and well-explained comment! I understand the point you're making. What if something that answers Wellspring, like Vileplume, IS a solid meta answer? While this argument sometimes works, and lower-tier pokemon have risen up in the past to answer a threat previously thought unmanageable-- Wellspring is not one of these cases though. It is a notorious breaker and lots of options have been explored already. Vileplume in particularly IS actually used on some Stall teams. It doesn't fit well on other archetypes, and it has been tried. It simply gets stat checked too hard. Even if it could fit on some very niche teams, it's just not NEARLY a good enough pokemon to become a meta threat. The argument you're making is sensible, but when so long has passed and nobody has found the lower tier answer? It's time to call it. We can't wait forever, and at some point one must accept that there IS no solid answer that fits well onto any reasonable number of teams.
It feels more managable in natdex where it can't tera and get a free av boost, but even then ivy cudgel crit chance makes it so scary to play against. Ivy cudgel is a super suffocating move to play around but either its checks are either temporary, or risk cudgel crit. Not to mention tera water being super obnoxious when trying to check it with a special attacker.
The only downside of ogerpon that it can't have everything at the same time, but who cares when it can cheese trough its answers with ivy cudgel crit. That thing really restricts teambuilding in an absurd degree
Yea, building bulkier teams and trying not to lose to it is nearly impossible. Even when you think you're prepared, all it takes in practice is a critical hit, and... yea.
No doubt she’s broken but I still don’t think it has such a crushing grip and a presence like the Goat Gambit, the meta game revolves around him and has since the first two waves of bans years ago
I'd totally be down for a gambit ban, and the meta definitely did evolve around it. At the same time, there are things higher on my priority list. Gambit with Tera and SD sweeping is super dumb, but it has more viable answers than Wellspring, and it's not as difficult to deal with in the builder.
I think the fundamental problem with competitive rn isn't even the problematic power creep, but the short-sighted tiering decisions, selfish voting system, and the ladder and tournaments where people gamble their self-worth away. A potential solution to this whole issue is putting a stat cap in place to lower the immense volatility of all these different scenarios, but no one thinks about that because diminishing the power fantasy makes them have to confront an uncomfortable truth about why they're playing in the first place, that being that they're addicted to points and glory and were never having any fun.
Not sure how to unpack this one honestly. Seems like a hot take, not quite sure what you're recommending. The idea of having a BST cap isn't great though. There are a lot of broken pokemon with lower BSTs and totally fine pokemon with great BSTs. Hoopa-U has 600 BST, and it's not even particularly good in OU.
@Wanawa8724 very true, urshifu rapid strike was also banned bc of rain. So to me it's like rain constantly gets nerfed and then it's finally where it is and we blame and want to ban ogerpon for it. After banning ogerpon the same domino effect of things losing their checks will continue and the meta game and variety of mons will be mid
Personally I think standard arch rain was mid and would have fallen off given time-- but yes, Arch ban definitely hurt rain. If Wellspring and Arch were both gone though, rain would 100% be viable at a top level.
We did NOT ban Urshifu because of rain. Rain wasn't even mentioned in its ban post. It was banned due to Punching Glove, Tera, Trailblaze, and Swords Dance.
While Woger is certainly strong, I don't think it's nearly as problematic as you make it out to be. Woger is unwallable over a long game, but this certainly isn't an attribute unique to it - other mons like specs Val, Hoopa, Wake in sun, etc. can all break through just about any team given enough openings. In Woger's case though, its vulnerability to all hazards significantly limits its opportunities to break teams. It's similar to Kyu in that regard - both are highly punishing to teams that don't keep up hazards, but much more manageable with hazards up. Tying into the above point is its predictability. Woger's inability to change its item or tera type make handling it much more straightforward than most other offensive threats this gen. It's also not difficult to guess between sd or pivot given that sd only really fits on offense/ho. Sd in particular has significant 4mss as it wants all of encore, play rough, and knock but can only fit one of them. While Woger does somewhat constrain balance, overall balance is doing fine - hell, Xav just recently won OLT while primarily playing balance and bulky offense teams. Additionally, balance staples continue to command respectable usage and winrates in ladder and tournaments - Ting-Lu and bulky Ghold are as common as ever, Dnite usage is rising, Gking is still doing fine, Zapdos is back in ou, and other balance mons like Corv and Garg still see successful use. Even just looking at the sample teams, none of the balance teams there are making significant sacrifices just to handle Woger. The combination of hazards + a soft check or two (e.g. Zama, Dnite, Kyu, any fast pivot) is sufficient at limiting its switch-ins and keeping it from running away with games. Realistically, the only balance teams that are struggling with Woger are overly passive teams that don't keep hazards up and pivot endlessly with mons like Mola and Gking, which of course allows Woger to come in repeatedly and break. Balance teams having to run more interaction/coverage to deal with breakers like Woger, sd Scor, and subtect Kyu is a healthy dynamic - it prevents the rise of greedy, uninteractive teams like the ones that gained significant traction in the late DLC1 meta. As for rain - yes, Woger is a substantial roadblock to rain. Rain isn't totally unviable though, and some players have made it work. Options like Overqwil and Bolt give rain a way around Woger without compromising their team structures. It's not just Woger though, as Rain has other problems this generation - most notably opposing Bolts. That being said, "killing rain" isn't really a reason to ban something, even if rain was good last gen. Sand is pretty mediocre this gen despite being a staple in previous gens, but we certainly aren't tiering to make sand good again.
1- Comparing Oger's breaking power to Specs Ival, Wake, and Hoopa is not even close. Hoopa is WAY harder to bring onto the field, much slower, worse defense, easier to revenge kill, and easier to switch into. Specs Ival is MUCH easier to switch into, and is very much wallable long-term with fairy resists like Corviknight, and Glowking. Specs Wake is very difficult to wall, but requires Sun, a major drawback. Oger is a MUCH better and more reliable breaker than any of these pokemon. 2- The claim that SD only fits on Offense / HO... this is not true. SD is great on bulky offense, and you can slap it on some balance teams as well. Guessing is not a consistent strategy. 3- Balance is not doing fine. Bulky Balance is not doing fine. Semistall is not doing fine. As you address in your next point, a lot of balance teams are running hazards and pokemon like Zamazenta, Dragonite, and Kyurem. These archetypes of course CAN be used. There is absolutely never a metagame where a playstyle has no good teams. Still, balance is very constrained. Try going into the builder and making a balance team that doesn't lose to Ogerpon-W. Extremely difficult. You'll probably end up making a team with hazards, and Zama/Dnite/Kyurem. On top of that, the balance samples (looking at them rn) are getting smoked by Wellspring. A bulky team simply can't deal with a threat like that. 4- I agree, making Rain bad is not a good enough reason alone to ban a pokemon. It does contribute, however. Sand is bad because there are a ton of pokemon that wall Excadrill, like Landorus, Gliscor, and Corviknight. These pokemon are not broken at all (with the exception of Gliscor). Wellspring is a VERY different case. If there was a single pokemon that was solely responsible for sand being bad, AND it was broken, I'd certainly mention that it killed sand in a video discussing its meta impact.
@@pinkacross2042 I wasn't trying to compare those mons - sorry if I didn't make that clear. My point was that being unwallable isn't broken on its own. Obviously all the mons I mentioned have exploitable flaws, otherwise they'd be banned. You're right, sd does fit on bulkier teams and it absolutely can work. It just tends to be harder to fit, and this is reflected in the teams players are bringing to tournaments. In SCL for example, sd only appeared 3 times out of the 59 times Woger was brought, which paints a clear picture - Woger functions much better as a breaker than a sweeper. Most bulkier teams do not need sd on Woger as its breaking power is generally sufficient without it. And even if you do guess the set wrong, counterplay between sets has significant overlap given that it can only run 1 coverage option. Mons like Kyu and Val are much more punishing for mispredicting the set. I'll be honest - I don't really understand why you think balance isn't doing fine. Sure, bulky balance and semistall aren't great right now, but I don't see that as an issue; not every variation of an archetype needs to be viable. For example, screens ho is very solid in gen 6 ou thanks to Serp being a great setter. This gen though, screens ho is almost completely unviable, really only seeing fringe use with Atales. But that doesn't mean that ho is in a bad spot this generation. Though this might just be due to ideological differences in how we view tiering as a whole. Balance is currently sitting at a fairly healthy ~28% usage on high ladder. This isn't that far off from other modern generations, which range from ~20% to ~40%. Additionally, balance teams continue to see success in tournaments. It's not like these teams are all being pidgeonholed into the same structures either. Splashable checks like Dnite, Pult, and Zama leave plenty of room for creative teambuilding. As for the sample teams, they are all capable of handling Woger. Even CTC's Keldeo team, which has no way to outspeed, burn, or pivot against it, still fairly comfortably deals with Woger with the combination of hazards alongside Sinistcha and roost dtail Dnite. Does Woger constrain balance? Yes, but so do many other offense staples. And I really don't find Woger to be the worst offender in that regard.
@ 1. Fair points on the first two paragraphs. I agree with everything you said. 2. As for why I don't think balance is doing well, mostly from my experience building and talking with other builders. Making balance teams is extremely difficult, and even when precautions are taken for Wellspring, all it takes is a critical hit or an unfortunate guess on a set, and you lose anyway. Balance simply isn't consistent when Wellspring is in the tier. Balance can't be consistent when such incredibly powerful breakers are around. Bulky Balance and Semistall suffer even worse, but I don't think you contested this, so I won't push that point. Balance is still usable, but constrained in how it can operate and what pokemon it can use. That's my main issue. As for ideological differences in tiering, that's a fair assessment. I'd like to see a metagame where the most possible archetypes are viable, and competitiveness is maximized within reason. 3. I could see Kyurem being the worst offender, that's a fair point. I would say Wellspring is either #1 or #2 though, few breakers are so consistently problematic for bulkier teams. Thank you for such polite responses! I appreciate your level-headed tone.
The most common argument I see is tera dragon/grass... if a pokemon forces one of your most valuable resources in order to have a counter, it isn't healthy for a meta. Tera shouldn't be a counterargument for any pokemon's metagame affect.
I got to top 50ish with rain early on before the spore ban (the tera grass iron moth webs meta team that ran rilla and waterpon meta), rain isn't really dead due to pon, but moreso due to moong being completely useless now. Moong alone made soooo many matchups actually doable.
This case that Amoonguss Spore ban is the reason that Rain is now bad... I can't agree with this at all. Amoonguss has never been commonly used on rain, it's always been a very niche option. It was OK as an Eject Button user but not really worthwhile for the most part, all the top rain teams throughout this generation have never used it.
@pinkacross2042 i mean as a rain user moong alone is what allowed me to overcome these matchups, tbf I was also running modest LD gren which ohko'd val and won on the spot, but literally all I'd do is just dpulse on the waterpon swap and crush people. I have an unupdated rmt on the team if you wanna read it
It is very funny to me that in VGC Ogerpon-W is a check to powerful attackers rather than the brocken attacker itself. I never thoght that a ofensive support pokemon could be this devastading in singles.
Not sure if this is an argument per se but ogerpon struggles with a lot of common priority. Taking a meaty 50%+ from thunderclap and gambit sucker punch as well as 40% from e speed nite means that you really have to keep hazards off to keep this thing healthy enough. My rebuttal would be that you can’t switch in any of these pokemon multiple times a game and you’re probably gonna have to do a 1:1 trade at best anyway.
I want to be riled up into an anti-ogerpon frenzy but the smooth gen 4 music stays my wrath.... I am forced to vote "No" in the upcoming Ogerpon suspect test. Jokes aside, great video!
It's even fucking up different metas. For instance, in pokebilities, you have a theoretically phenomenal check in Azumarill, which resists all of Ivy Cudgel, Horn Leech/Power Whip/Wood Hammer, U-Turn, Knock Off, and Superpower. However, max HP Azu still can't swith in more than once with hazards, and you're not just going to not invest in attack because Azu is supposed to be a bulky attacker. Then you take into account that many sets don't even run max HP because you want the speed EVs to outspeed Clef and Alo that don't drop their speed, lowering Azu's ability to check Wellspring. Wellspring destroys multiple metas and is unquestionably deserving of a ban imo
Some thoughts in defense of Ogerpon-W sticking around for the foreseeable future, in opposition to your own points: 1. It’s Unwallable, But Not Unbeatable. A solidly built pure stall team can run enough checks to at least suffer through learning which set it’s running. It is also not immune to being soundly checked offensively, as it has no real item slot for something like Choice Scarf or Leftovers. It’s also not terrible hard to kill, with the bare minimum amount of bulk to not be immediately called a glass cannon. 2. It Has Set Variety, But Most Extra Options are Niche in Application. A lot of discussed alternate move choices do make it scary as a blind read, but they are mostly scary if you are intending to tank Ogerpon (something you already should not be trying to do). Everything that is not U-turn or a big dumb damage button is there to make stall weep, with very few other applications. It’s a nice blunt hammer, but only just a hammer. And 3, what I hope is my strongest argument for it staying, It Makes Games Faster, But That’s How This Gen Has Gone Anyway. A lot of features that make it annoying to you (and me, to be clear) are a large number of factors endemic to the Gen 9 metagame. Tera heavily benefits Pokemon that use it proactively and with flexibility in who can use it, and that makes Offense in general outstandingly strong this time around. We have moves that set free hazards, a multi-role Pokemon that blocks all hazard removal, and plenty of Pokemon who heavily benefit from both offensive and defensive Tera type mixups. I do not agree with what we’ve done here, but what has been done has popular support or is past a reasonable time to do a suspect test. It’s no longer a game balancing problem, but a problem of my opinions on how things should be versus the community-approved choices I have no say in.
wellspring is also just wallable amoonguss takes basically everything it can throw out except +2 tera water cudgel and if they tera water you force them to burn tera and go to dondozo
@lucasgreer1736 if your Wellspring answer argument involves an Amoonguss AND a Dondozo... you don't see an issue with that? As I said in the video, it IS wallable, just nearly unwallable. If you stack several physical walls specifically designed to counter Wellspring, yea, you can handle it.
1. Yes, this is true. As I said in the video, offensively inclined teams don't have a huge issue with it. As for calling it "bare minimum amount of bulk to not be immediately called a glass cannon," that is very much an exaggeration. 80/84/96 is very solid. It has bulk comparable to Clefable. 2. You state that you should NOT try to tank Ogerpon. ALL defensive teams function on needing to wall pokemon. It seems like we agree here. 3. The idea of saying "screw it, SV is cooked anyway, let's just have a fast-paced offensive metagame" is pretty fair. I haven't given up on the tier yet and I think it can be made more competitive, but as for being a GOOD metagame? I've given up. Still, it can be better, and I think a Wellspring ban will make it better, more diverse, and more interesting.
@@pinkacross2042 this is true. hard stall has the space to handle wellspring, bulky balance not as much. apparently balance has been doing well in tours lately anyway, though.
Semi-unrelated, but the only tolerable part of Wellspring is that it dummies exactly the team you're facing in the first clip. I don't know what that shit is, but I'm sick of seeing it everywhere and have spent the past 2 weeks optimizing teams just to beat it... and even then it's not 100%
Fair enough, it does shred some teams. I wouldn't say it does super well into that team though, given that team has Dragonite and Sinistcha. If you want to wreck that team, use Kyurem.
You say word for word that you wish for Tera, Kyurem, Gambit and Rai to go as well right in the intro lmao. Btw the CA you made are pretty much spot on and imho weight more than Rain players refusing to predict 1 turn or that it might run play rough in teams clearly weak to dragon
Ogerpon Wellspring is a rather predictable pokemon and because she can only hold her mask, she's vulnerable to entry hazards. Ogerpon is just not as overpowered as people try to make it out to be. Lokix, Kyurem (especially in snow), physically defensive Glowking, Dragonite (if it doesn't have Play Rough), Cinderella (U Turn and Gunk Shot), Meowscarada (U Turn, Flower Trick), Amoongus, so many pokemon can check it. The same argument you use to say rain makes Ogerpon Wellspring "impossible" to switch in to, I can say the virtual omnipresence of sun teams helps check Ogerpon too (sun weakens Ivy Cudgel). Ogerpon can't run choice scarf, so you can't get surprised by being outsped.
Ok, so based on this I imagine you didn't watch the counter arguments part? They address how it being predictable doesn't really matter cause even if you know what's coming that doesn't make it any less effective. It also being hazard weak doesn't matter as much as you'd think because it's typing isn't weak to Stealth Rock, and as they mentioned it's often paired with Great Tusk to help remove hazards. Also neither Lokix or Amoonguss are ranked OU so saying they counter it doesn't matter even if true since they don't get enough usage to be considered counters that make it balanced in OU, also Cinderace can't switch into its attacks, and as for Meowscarada it's got 4 percent usage rn so it's hanging on by a thread meaning given next tier shift it may also be UU similar to Lokix, thus again making it kinda irrelevant to the convo at hand when referring to OU mons that keep it in check. Saying it can't surprise you with its Speed is also something they countered by bringing up how 110 speed is in no way slow so even if you can't use a Choice Scarf on it it's still gonna outrun the majority of mons, especially when going against archetypes like Balance and Semi-Stall. Also Torkoal is at 1.62 usage and Ninetales is at 1% meaning Sun is by no means omnipresent. It's viable for sure, but if it was Omni-present like you say it is then Torkoal would be OU instead of NU, and Ninetales would be OU instead of ZU. I don't mean to be rude but it comes across as if you haven't watched the entirety of the video yet.
@weesticles650 It comes across like you have one dimensional thinking I can still make an argument that he said in the video and it still be a valid argument. Yes I was typing my comment before the entire video finished but I made my argument based on my assessment not Pinkacross or your assessment. You saying Lokix isn't OU is a blatantly vague statement as if that means anything in regards to what it can do. So Latios and Latias being OU means they aren't still a legit threat that you shouldn't understand come on now stop thinking like a bot.
At least from what I know, of the mons you listed, Lokix and Ace are more offense mons than balance, PhysDef Glowking is not a common set, Amoongus is almost entirely a stall mon, and bonus: Sinistcha struggles to fit on a lot of balance teams for it's poor MU into Moon. Aside from that, what you listed are mostly *offensive* checks. Lack of consistent *defensive* checks is what Pinkacross cites as an issue. Now it isn't really a red flag to have few defensive checks imo, that's part of what being a consistent wallbreaker is, and it's existence disincentives passive play which I do take as a good thing. So I disagree with Pink on that front, and I don't mind Ogerpon despite it being undeniably suffocating towards balance which struggles to fit enough counterplay (hazards + faster mon + defensive stopgap + playing well works most of the time, sure, but there will be an Ogerpon set that beats you out there somewhere) so I do disagree with Pink, but additionally you don't really counter any of his points meaningfully at least from what I see. The point about Sun having a good MU into Ogerpon doesn't really... mean anything to me either? That's like saying because HO matches up well into Oger, it's fine that it destroys Balance. Could you explain in a bit more detail on this part, I think I'm not catching onto what you're saying? Thanks, and I hope you have a good day!
Gaslighter of fat, gatekeeper of balance, girlboss of offense
straight poetry
epic comment
W take
based comment
ogerpon is predictable in the same sense that dying after being run over by a train is predictable
LOL well-put
I can't believe Encore didn't get a mention here
Ogerpon's speed stat make it an amazing encore abuser. It's no Booster Valiant, but anything passive/bulky becomes a liability when Ogerpon is rocking Encore
True, it is very good as an Encore user! I don't think Encore is a big part of what makes it broken, but it definitely limits defensive counterplay even further.
or Spikes...you don't even need a grass move when you can just knock+lay a hazard+u-turn out
Alomomola wrote this
Alomomola ftw
The wish fish agenda cannot be stopped. AG or bust.
This is to funny lmfao
Ferro's outta town for one game and Ludicolo's shady cousin is destroying the whole metagame. Truly annoying fat mons with a million resistances are what make this game playable
Based take
half of these fraud offense mons would be unemployed if ferro and tapu fini were here
I swear that if Ferrothorn were here it would teach the little gremlin some humility
ferro isnt a good answer it has acess to superpower and without reliable recovery and not being able to leach seed ogerpon it cant take advantage of the attack drop to recover up on it
@@AngusGordon-hr7stwho tf thought ogerpon needed fighting stab too although superpower isn't a great move it still doesn't need to have it
110 speed being considered "mediocre" hurts my old gen experience and shows on how insane the modern gen powercreep is. Although tbf oger is locked into 1 item so unless it trailblazes its stuck where it is.
good video btw
Thanks! And yea, power creep definitely has hit pokemon hard.
I’ve heard enough, unban Iron Bundle
The only correct take I’ve read so far is
I totally disagree but your comment made me laugh so have a heart
The idea that a ban making stall or fat balance more viable is some great reason not to go through with a ban is kinda ridiculous when neither are dominating the metagame. Making less viable team styles more viable promotes diversity in a metagame which makes match ups more interesting and the metagame more fun.
Well-put!
It's never fun to waste an hour of your valuable time playing against a fat team
@@Zebra-ke1rn If you have a team that forces you to spend an hour against a fat balance or stall team, that sounds like either you also have a stall team or your team has some serious problems.
For me, my most hated is Roaring Moon. Remind me why Garchomp still can't learn DD, but something faster, stronger, and basically just as bulky can. It fries everything with Knock + Acro + EQ, it resists most priority, it abuses Tera to no end, it gets Taunt and Roost to shut down defensive options, so have fun trying to Will-O-Wisp or Thunder Wave it
Bro, have the speed of cindirace, is unfair xD
I don't like Roaring Moon either but Lokix, Ting Lu, Corviknight, Skarmory, Dondozo, Great Tusk, and bulky Fairy types can beat it fairly easily.
Def Great Tusk can reverse its matchup
@@Renegade77784 corvi and skarm are not infallible. Tusk drops to acro, lokix is not a viable pokemon in the tier.
And using Dondozo means using stall.
@visitinggoat6696Lokix is amazing in the tier lol what are you saying, it's like A- or B+ in the vr iirc
THIS VIDEO WAS APPROVED BY THE LOYAL THREE AND PECHARUNT!
THANK YOU FOR THIS APPROVAL!
and also my homie Iron Jugulis
Damn, what a reference. ❤️🔥👍🏽
MOCHI MOCHI!
Wall pokemon: Hmm today I'm going to Wall
The ever-reliable Ogerpon:
Btw, I believe that Ogerpon-Cornerstone can be promoted to the OU and be very worthy, as well as be an excellent balanced replacement for WaterPon if it is ever banned. She has the same stats, moveset, and coverage (in this case using Stomping Tantrum or Low Kick to fight steel), but her type and abilities are somewhat less insane than FirePon and WaterPon. The Grass / Rock type has 4 weaknesses in defense, one of which is the common fighting and ice type, and the resists are only related to normal and electric, but her Sturdy ability allows her to be more long-lived, considering that with the help of Horn Leech she can restore Sturdy. The strong and 100% accurate rock-type Ivy Cudgel can pose a threat to the flying types widespread in OU, such as Zapdos, Moltres, Dragonite or Tera Flying Kingambit, also can hit hard other mons with super-effective Rock Cudgel. Overall, she needs more support from her teammates, as there will be more checks for her, but RockPon is a force to be reckoned with.
It provides similar breaking power, but much less defensive utility, making it harder to fit onto teams. A very balanced deal, I'd say! I'm a big fan of Cornerstone (I've been wanted to use an accurate rock move for SO long) and I think it's definitely OU viable.
Ogerpon Cornerstone is good and gets the same stuff but it’s just the worse typing and water Ivy cudgle being more useful in many scenarios as well as just straightforward worse ability.
I hope it rises and it is good but not before the waterpon ban lol
I have not watched yet but I assume I am gonna be fully convinced this thing needs to go 20 minutes from now.
Definitely check out some people on metagame discussion that have different opinions before voting-- but yea, as you'll see in the video, I don't think their arguments are particularly strong.
Reason to keep Ogerpon:shes just a silly little guy
She didn't MEAN to kill those archetypes...
Your honor, my client (Ogerpon) pleads “oopsie daisy”
this is exactly why it would be more funny to have ogerpon in ubers instead
@ do you want to see her get hit with EKiller . She dont deserve that
@justenoughrandomness8989 fire ogerpon: am i a joke to you?
spl player here and I AGREE!!! i think pon ban is an incredibly easy improvement to the metagame and i really dont understand the resistance against it. as you say, most checks to it are fairly temporary and with knock all checks are temporary. it’s an excessive chokehold on the builder and it produces nightmarish weighted coinflips in game as the only way to swap into it with most teams is to predict the exact move it’s clicking every time it hits the field, which is often as pon has an incredibly easy time getting in. Hopefully pon sees some tiering action during spl.
Very well-put!
You want wellspring banned because it’s overpowered and warps the meta. I want it banned because I want Alolomola to be S tier. We are not the same.
I am both
Only wall is Ferrothorn that isn’t in this Gen unfortunately.
Actually, if Ferrothorn was in this Gen, Spore may not have been banned due to Amoongus and Oger wouldn’t be a huge issue
Until it runs superpower
If Ferro became common Oger would just run superpower
@@EggscellentTree true but SP isn’t stab and Oger would take recoil plus rocky helmet so it’s unlikely
@@FalcoTheFinesser Swords Dance super power puts Ferro in the dumpster with a little chip
Another W for gen 9 natdex OU
Yea, you guys have a lot of actual switch-ins there
You see ever since ogerpon W I just dont play gen 9 ou. I play gen 8 ou, gen 3 ou, gen 8 nat dex, more balanced meta games because I don't like having every single defensive mon on my team nullified because of one single move on sd ogerpon. @@pinkacross2042
My whole fucking life is falling apart as we speak, but when I listen to this I'm temporarily transported to a wonderful world where the most pressing problem is how underpowered balanced team structures are in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Thank you.
I'm glad I was able to do that for you.
I hope your situation improves. :]
Imagine if Ferrothorn was in this gen. Single handedly walls Ogerppn, Ragin Bolt, Primarina, and cam hold ots own against many other.
It loses to bolt in a 1v1, its setup fodder despite the resistance
@spand9043 Iron defense body press sets can usually deal with it
@@k14fire33 thats true but 90% of ferro sets can only really leech seed it and get hazards while the bolt sets up
You forget Leech Seed. I've used Ferro against Bolt many times in Natdex-- Ferro wins.
Yea, Ferro would be fantastic and help the tier out a lot. It's a shame...
Who’da thought that Crawdaunt with an actual speed stat and defenses would be a problem😂
And a bigger movepool, and utility, and more coverage
The reason why Ivy Cudgel doesn't make contact is because Ogerpon's using her club, which is a melee weapon, so she's not making physical contact with the opponent.
Oh I understand the concept-- it makes sense given it's a cudgel. Still, the move is busted.
one time I typed Ogerpon into the Smogon Pokédex and Google autocorrected it to “overpowered” - gave me a good chuckle
accurate
LOL
I‘ll never forget how i once ran eviolite duraladon with t wave and idef body press specifically for ogerpon and then the 2nd or 3rd one that i played just used spikes and u turned out into gliscor. I stopped playing for like 3 weeks after that
I feel that LOL
Good thing Palafin didn't end up staying in OU, because if Ogerpon-W ever got suspected in the future, I just know that there would be a subset of players who'd argue "We can't ban Ogerpon! We need it to check Palafin!"
You're probably right, yea... broken checks broken is known to be an invalid argument, but many use it anyway.
Solid vid pinkacross. Seeing this type of video for kyurem and especially wellspring makes me wonder why you do not co sider doing these kind of over analysis vids on already existing pokemon in ou. Imagine a 20 minute video about all the intricacies of great tusk
I have indeed considered such a video! I'm not sure if people would like a deep-dive into meta pokemon, but I'll probably give it a try at some point! :]
I rarely comment on videos in general but please do this. I definitely approve!@@pinkacross2042
@@pinkacross2042 I think a similar deep dive on Kingambit in the current metagame would be interesting
@@pinkacross2042 I would be interested
we dont need ogerpon out we need ferrothorn in
Sure-- but we can't get Ferrothorn in, it's not in the game.
Ogerpon gets Superpower too
@@skazka3789 WHY DOES EVERYBODY FORGET LOW KICK ARGH, CORNERSTONE AND BASE FORM USE IT ALL THE TIME
(no offense)
she's just a silly little girl who likes to click +2 ivy cudgel, stop being so mean, pinka >_
I'm sure she didn't MEAN to kill Rain and Balance, but...
13:05 missed opportunity to say “but wait, there’s more”
I think you even subconsciously paused to set that up
Amazing video! Keep up this content man!
Thank you! Will do! :D
it only took 20 decades but finally a good player says wellspring is an issue. i hate this thing to the point of just starting to use it lol
I've been complaining about Wellspring for months lol, it bugs me
The engagement of this vid wow
This is a completing topic then wow, congrats on the success
Yea, this is without a doubt the best-performing video I've released in over a year. I'm amazed and elated!
Extra arguments against waterpon:
> Dealing with him defensively is almost impossible due to encore. Even with defensive Pokemon that can withstand its hits, the fear of Encore always forces counters to use offensive attacks, and never recovery options. For example, vileplume, a mon that is mainly used to counter waterpon, loses in 1 vs 1 if waterpon uses encore on Strength Sap.
> (not exactly a good argument, but just my own experience) when I'm not using stall, I usually use ho (yes, I use extreme archetypes, which, as you already said, are the easiest to use). Very rarely is waterpon a good option, in general. Neither in common HOs nor in teams based on screens or auroraveil is waterpon an essential option. These builds generally prefer faster sweepers, or those that boost speed during setup (like dd users) or that have priority.
Good points!
Perfect video with very intelligent arguments. #suspectwaterpon
:D
I don’t play singles too much but I still enjoy your content! Very informative
I appreciate that! :D
I think Game Freak did a good job balancing Ogerpon for VGC, so its funny how months later Wellspring started to really become a problem in OU.
Yea, a lot of these issues would be much less of a problem in VGC-- bulky teams hardly exist there anyway
There is the issue that Game Freak “balances / creates) Pokémon Igor VGC (their format) not singles
Predictability is only a weakness if you can actually do something about it/to exploit it. Saying Ogerpon is predictable is like saying that you can just see the nuke coming in advance.
Solid comparison
I think sv has A LOT of potential, its a shame its going to take YEARS to suspect everything
Yea, I think the method of banning all questionable mons and testing them in the tier one-by-one is best.
Im a fellow showdown content creator and I absolutely agree with everything you said in this video
The fact that water types can't even click banded or specs water moves on rain anymore without heavy prediction is the thing I hate the most
The instant spdef boost for tera is also unhealthy as it's a get out of jail card in most situations
I'm glad you agree! I used to love using Rain back in gen 8, so many cool variants... alas...
@@pinkacross2042 I‘m very sure I read you say the following in a comment section in SS OU RMT: „Rain is a dishonest playstyle“ which I agree with lol. However ur creative Porygon Z Lele Heliolisk team is fire fun and creative
As a balance user I agree this mon has literally 0 checks. You described it well in the vid but it’s crazy how much this mon has going for it.
•two abilities
•1.2x boost on every move and item that can’t be knocked
•Aceess to every move it could ever want from U-turn, Knock, Ivy, play rough, SD, trailblazer, power whip, leach life, encore
•Ivy is just the best move of all time(No contact 100 bp water move with high crit ratio and Tera boost lol)
•excellent base stats even speed is solid
If the opponent doesn’t throw this mon just rolls all balance even with good play. Banning it would make the tier more than just booster spam
Very relatable. This is the balance experience for the most part in SV OU
I would be interested in a long form talking video where you talk about your dream SV OU. Like Pokémon you want in the metagame that are in lower tiers, Pokémon you want back, items or abilities or moves you think should go away or come back, Pokémon you want to go away or come back, older mechanics
Maybe actually just your dream OU Pokémon tier. Not necessarily SV
That's a good idea! I'll write it down.
6:59 it also even has encore which is at 30% usage
Yea, that makes it a better pokemon, but the encore sets aren't contributing much to its brokenness which is why I didn't emphasize it in the video. It does invalidate some defensive counterplay though.
@pinkacross2042 ah ok
@@pinkacross2042 while it doesnt add to its brokeness at destroying defensive-ish teams, encore is great for getting free sd's or just completely scaring the opponent out of setting up out of fear of getting encored, giving Oger free +2 and a sweep. it also is very annoying for getting encored into maybe a healing move or passives stuff in general being another easy setup opportunity
While I very much agree on Ogerpon being broken and suposed to be banned, it will always be Nr. 2 on the important to ban list bc Kyurem exists. Kyurem imo is a much bigger Problem, with an even bigger set variety, fitting on every archetype and being insane at everything it does. There is a kyurem for every team and an Ogerpon-Wellspring only for a lot of teams. There are many more reasons that imo defitnely justify banning kyurem first, but I‘m gonna leave it at this for now.
You could definitely argue Kyurem needs a ban more. Sadly, a suspect test won't be coming for a while. Wellspring though, hasn't had a test yet.
I don't even play SV OU yet I know exactly what you are talking about. Very informative video :D
Thanks! :D
is agree ogerpon-w is a pain in the ass but why does no one complain about darkrai or zamazenta which are faster and have more set variety and both get super high usage?
Zam can be toppled if it gets knocked off or burned. It really has only 2 real sets. Darkai idk why
Zam, while extremely fast is actually quite manageable if you status it, or use Tera Ghost, or phase it out. Plus there are mons like Enamorus or Val with booster who outspeed and destroy Zama
Darkrai I have only seen it doing two things. Scarf, which is annoying but exploitable, and nasty plot sets with either life orb or something like expert belt. Not really much variety, and it mostly runs tera poison so it's rather predictable
However. I must say I'm not really a good player, rather at 1400. So i might just be saying big bs
@@agunguskangan494 you’re yapping 😂
@@RollingBobbyJones not every team has burn and knock really doesn’t do much it just totally walls 9/10 physical attackers
Well, people ARE complaining about them. They are less egregious than waterpon because they have reliable awnsers in the tier.
It's crazy that something with this level of breaking power is not difficult to get into the field. You look at a Pokemon with similar breaking power like Crawdaunt and Ogerpon can switch in so much easier. Also it doesn't need to switch in multiple times in a lot of games since it can simply crit past a lot of checks, which really limits the "stealth rock weakness" argument in favour of keeping it
Yea, it's not particularly slow or frail, and as you said, it breaks similar to Hoopa-U or Crawdaunt. Insane.
It's almost as if Game Freak doesn't care about balance and just want to make overpowered cutie patooties that will make you buy the DLC! 😮
@@CantusTropus Almost like Game Freak barely cares about singles due to VGC being the OFFICIAL format which they use
@@Wanawa8724 to be fair I think cantus is right, urshifu is arguably less healthy in doubles than singles smh
@ let’s just meet in the middle and say bot Cantù’s and I are right
This is actually really misleading and intentionally incorrect; you know perfectly well the most toxic pokemon is Pecharunt. please address this in a future video!!
This is true. Pecharunt is definitely the most toxic in a literal sense.
💀
Being a fast Encore user certainly helps too! It’s not Wellspring’s best option by any means, but being able to punish a passive option (i.e. a recovery move to stay healthy enough to tank another Ivy Cudgel later on) forces even more switches which means even more Knocks and/or even more Ivy Cudgels to tear a team’s defensive backbone apart with.
Very good point! I suppose I didn't emphasize encore enough in the video.
If gen 10 arrives and it's clear that it's just as power crept as gen 9, I feel like we should ban a lot of stuff right away and do a bunch of suspects in a dripfeed style. That way it will be easier to see if the pokemon has a positive or negative effect on the metagame and we can get to a sense of normalcy a lot quicker
I agree completely! This is a great idea.
The fact that Waterpon walled Palafin while it was in OU (most sets that relied on Jetpunch and Punished Flip Turn switches) says a lot about the prevalence of WSP
Thank god someone finally brought this to light. I always try to rationalize Wellspring’s existence with the hazard weakness argument, but I can almost never comfortably beat it. I’m a hardcore balance player and I always have been, so I can safely say this Mon is an absolute nightmare. The balance stock decline was insane between Gen 8 and 9
Yea, if you're a balance player, there's no amount of prep that makes this mon OK to face.
If only Ferrothorn didn't get cancelled for tweets from 7 years ago..
I'd rather deal with Wellspring than Alomomola everywhere.
I feel like the argument about oger leaving making stall more viable is based entirely on the assertion that stall is inherently problematic and unhealthy as a metagame option. While it sure isn't fun to play against if you fail to bring the right matchup, that assertion has never proven to be true outside of mega sableye+arena trap dugtrio that one time, even in metas where stall _was_ a fully viable archetype. I feel the burden of proof for the idea that stall = bad must come before the argument that it would make stall too viable
"Stall bad" is a dumb take. We shouldn't promote low attention span behaviour in competitive.
Agreed. A lot of people hate stall, which I get, but tiering to make it worse due to subjective bias is senseless.
While stall is a hell to face, it is very much a fair playstyle that kinda needs to exist for other playstyles like HO to not go too wild.
A couple other things worth mentioning about Waterpon
- Akin to more traditional Tera abusers, Ogerpon still gets to cheat type matchups with it. You go from being weak to Bug/Flying/Poison to being weak to Grass/Electric. Clicking Sludge Wave or Hurricane on Ogerpon can actually be a gamble, and even Booster Moon's Acrobatics without a DD fails to KO.
- Offense is better off against Ogerpon, until she slots in Trailblaze. Suddenly the Dragapult you were banking on outspeeding Ogerpon just can't do it. It's also not like Trailblaze from Ogerpon is weak either, after a Swords Dance, Trailblaze + Ivy Cudgel always KOs offensive Zamazenta from full, with the Defense boost.
- They gave her Spikes too, in case her movepool wasn't already loaded. Click Spikes as a Grass or Dragon switches in because they're not bringing in a Rapid Spinner, U-turn out, and you've just made good progress.
Good points! None of these things are a major part of what makes it broken, but they are solid options!
One thing that I'd like to add is the fact that Ogerpon, alongside getting a good defensive typing upon using tera, gets a stat boost it always keeps. Even if you switch it out, once it gets back on the field, it gets the same stat boost again, which is pretty funny considering the fact that both Zamazenta's and Zacian's abilities, which did essentially the same thing for different stats, got nerfed to only activate once per switch in, per battle. That, alongisde a plethora of reasons mentioned in the video, makes Ogerpon an excellent tera choice is a lot of cases.
Yea, the fact that it gets the SpDef boost every time is just odd. Amazing Tera user.
Guys, he wants this so we can only use Ludicolo
I think gens 8 and 9 really show just how strong and kinda toxic the water type is. Palafin, Dracovish, Iron Bundle, and now Ogerpon wellspring
On top of everything you said her mask also gives all of her moves a 20% boost.
I did mention that, but yes, the item is crazy!
@@pinkacross2042 Oh I must have missed that, sorry
@ No problem!
Waterpon has genuinely taken the joy out of SV OU for me 😭
Yea, a few Ivy Cudgel crits will do that to ya
One thing I would really like to see if Wellspring does get banned is how viable Cornerstone would be long-term. It's kinda sad how due to Wellsprings overwhelming power, it's other forms are kinda shafted as a result, which sucks because I love those 2 forms more than it (Cornerstone is my fav so I'm gonna be talking about her).
I've seen a lot of people are saying it's basically a more balanced Wellspring because it doesn't have Water Absorb and Water STAB, but it does still have all of Wellspring's moves and they both have the same stats. Rock Type Ivy Cudgel is amazing, being able to hit the legendary birds for super-effective dmg, killing Moltres and nearly killing Zapdos in one hit, which in turn makes it a really good partner with strong offensive pokemon like Zamazenta and Dragonite. With rain being more viable without Wellspring, I could definitely see something like Rillaboom wrecking havoc alongside Cornerstone and Raging Bolt as a way to counter it. Horn Leech + Terrain healing could even let it leverage it's Sturdy ability even if it takes hazard damage, too.
I would really like to see how much innovation there would be in the tier without Wellspring, and the prospect of my fav Ogerpon form no longer being trapped in the shadow of its surperior form will make me love the tier more, personally.
I agree! Cornerstone for the win. Very cool, doesn't harm the metagame, still a fantastic breaker!
What sucks about this is that I like using this mon as a defensive pivot instead of a busted sweeper.
- I LOVE the water immunity (Water types deserve a nerf imo)
- Fast Encore punishes setup, especially Kingambit.
- "Resists" Knock Off
- Has Synthesis and Horn Leech for healing
Ivy cudgel is a BS move tho and the fact that the best mon to switch into an Oger is another Oger is a bad sign
Yea, if the Wellspring mask didn't boost 1.2x and Ivy Cudgel wasn't high crit and was like 80 BP, this pokemon could be a balanced pivot. As it is...
@ I still think Roaring Moon and Darkrai are worse.
Moon gets DD and one misplay can cost you the game. It's nearly impossible to revenge kill without Tera.
Specs Darkrai is way too fast and strong. 3rd Highest base speed in the OU. One Dark Pulse flinch can win a game. If it's Nasty Plot, not even BLISSEY is safe from it if it runs Focus Blast. The next 2 highest SpDef in OU are Araquanid, who's a suicide lead, and Primarina, who gets destroyed by Sludge Bomb.
Funnily enough, all 3 of these mons truly fear First Impression Lokix, which is just badass.
_"The broken Pokemon can't carry ALL these moves at once!"_
Yeah, neither could XY Protean Greninja.
Here's the thing about Pokemon's battle system:
YOU CAN BLUFF
Did they forget the game needlessly hides alot of information and that open teamsheets are a thing in certain formats?
Of course Ogrepon isn't going to stay in on a bad matchup when you can switch out. The same has always been true for any broken Pokemon. It just needs to be out against something it can beat and then gain momentum. Only reason SM Pheromosa ever stayed in against anything that could potentially hurt it besides something like Mega Pinsir is cuz it could just U-Turn out, do ggood chip and avoid the interaction anyway.
Pokemon like Ogrepon is why I play past gen, I cannot believe they hit Archeops with Defeatist but Roaring Moon and this thing get to go crazy 💔
Yea for real, save Archeops! That pokemon is awesome, I'd use it in all my BW playthroughs
Rain users: "how do I win?"
Ogerpon-W: "that's the neat part, YOU DON'T.."
I chuckled reading this
i believe the most healthy course of action to balance ogerpon w would be to unban koraidon. its a great switch in on both of its stabs while also weakening ivy cudgel even further for the team. it is also a very good revenge killer into it as it outspeeds while threatening it with either uturn or its own stab. koraidon would most likely benefit the ou meta as a very stable check into ogerpon w while not being broken in its own right
Great idea!
(for those of you that don't play a lot of competitive pokemon, I AM joking).
Sadly it just gets blown up by play rough ):
I was gonna make a joke and say "just unban Archaludon lol" but then i remembered Ogerpon has Superpower
Yea... it would spread it more thin, since it only gets 4 moveslots, but in NatDex it does run a fighting move for Ferro and Gambit.
I always found Wellspring’s tera to be annoying. Water’s weakness to grass and electric being neutralized when not tera’d is difficult because you rearrange your weaknesses extremely favorably while getting a stat boost with a crazy move pool.
Yea the Tera Water with the Spdef boost is super solid, terrifying Tera.
This is an eye opener, I hope this issue will get more adressed among lower ranked and casual players like me, who get most of their info from you, Jimothy and Reddit
Thank you for your attention! :]
"Use a grass type"
Me looking for ferrothorn in gen 9: 🔎🧐
Ferro would help so much...
Hey in your video with Jimothy Cool you said that Mandibuzz can: "hard wall kingambit, also stop roaring moomg, dragonite, and can kill Wellspring " - some under certain circumstances - can you further explain that? I would really like too see a video or something about the bird stopping all these threats and even K.O them
Playing Mandibuzz with Iron Defense and Foul play
Yea you pretty much got it-- just Foul Play, Roost, Iron Defense, and for the last slot Knock/Toxic/U-turn/Defog. You can ID up, then kill all these mons with Foul Play.
@@pinkacross2042 thanks for the replyi was watching the video.
And about Mandibuzz, what items, Stats, nature and kind of mates does the bird 🐔◼️ needs ??
Hear me out: Arbok. Deep in the trenches of untier it has intimidate, glare to cripple and can oneshot with gunk shot/run a defensive variant
Ivy Cudgel critical hit bypasses Intimidate boost sadly... legitimately I think Arbok could have had usage in generation 8, but in gen 9 with Gliscor, Garg, and Gholdengo? Nah
Still better than Alolomola. That mon is just so strong and annoying with little skill required. It’s single-handedly the reason why I don’t find OU fun anymore.
Me laying back as my favorite gen 9 Pokemon destroys the meta
Ogerpon IS a cool pokemon. Personally I prefer Cornerstone though
I haven’t watched yet BUT SHE DESERVES IT!! OGERPON CAN DO NO WRONG
She's just too good
@@pinkacross2042 I did finish the video and it was very well done! Very informative and clear especially as someone who is more on the fringes of vgc
ok i actually had no idea that wellspring mask was a 1.2x damage multiplier, no wonder its so good lmao
Yea, it's STRONG.
Follow up question: if it were to get banned what would fill the power vacuum? Cornerpon? Another water type?
Frankly, that power vacuum doesn't need to be filled. Way too many busted breakers already. But yea, Cornerstone is definitely viable. A lot of water types would get better, Hrott and Primarina for example.
This honestly feels like Gen 6 OU crawdaunt if you gave it a decent Speed stat, and a water stab that doesn’t make contact
Bulky teams crumble
Yea, it does remind me of Crawdaunt! If Crawdaunt was insane
Hey pink, I respect your opinions and take on wellspring and its place it the meta and i always appreciate the walk along as to how you arrive at your conclusions. however, I want to provide a critique that's not just aimed at you but a a sentiment that I see thata very prevalent amongst the high rank playerbase.
That being the inherently overvaluing of higher tier rank checks to pokemon, and the inherent devaluing of lower tier options.
When it comes to valuing common high tier checks that part makes sense, but the default dismissal of lower tier options as not being worth considering does a lot to effect the conversation.
For one, it directly affects people perception of how many checks or answers to a pokemon their actually is. Take for example a mon like Viaplume, it's a more consistent Wellapring set into all the common set that does it more reliable than most of the mons mentioned in this video as well as having many useful matchups into other top tiers to justify its teamslot. However, the default response to the suggestion of using viaplume as a check before ever attempting it would be
"Well that's an NU ranked pokemon, it would be to resticting/difficult to build around a mon like that"
Pokemons tier placements directly affects people's willingness to explore and use certain option, and it would be more defendable if we were playing an older more solved metagame, but we aren't and our current tier rankings are still in that phase where they are more indicative of pokemon relative popularity rather then an objective assessment of that pokemons average usefulness. This is a bit Facetious, but who's to say a viaplume level antimeta demon isn't a Blunder video away from being considered viable ?
You get my larger point by now but I'll conclude with this, while I'm sympathetic to the ban Wellspring crowd, I feel an underapprrciated gem of having mons like this in the tier is how it rewards the creative, intuitive anti meta prepper types of players.
Thank you for such a respectful and well-explained comment!
I understand the point you're making. What if something that answers Wellspring, like Vileplume, IS a solid meta answer? While this argument sometimes works, and lower-tier pokemon have risen up in the past to answer a threat previously thought unmanageable-- Wellspring is not one of these cases though. It is a notorious breaker and lots of options have been explored already. Vileplume in particularly IS actually used on some Stall teams. It doesn't fit well on other archetypes, and it has been tried. It simply gets stat checked too hard. Even if it could fit on some very niche teams, it's just not NEARLY a good enough pokemon to become a meta threat.
The argument you're making is sensible, but when so long has passed and nobody has found the lower tier answer? It's time to call it. We can't wait forever, and at some point one must accept that there IS no solid answer that fits well onto any reasonable number of teams.
honestly the boost to spdef with tera plus the fact that ivy cudgel changes with the mask is so broken
Yea it's a GREAT Tera user.
It feels more managable in natdex where it can't tera and get a free av boost, but even then ivy cudgel crit chance makes it so scary to play against.
Ivy cudgel is a super suffocating move to play around but either its checks are either temporary, or risk cudgel crit. Not to mention tera water being super obnoxious when trying to check it with a special attacker.
Yea it's a lot more manageable in NatDex I'd say. There's also Ferro/Tangrowth
Hell yeah, a video on the pokemon I use to click ivy cudgel🔥
LOL I feel ya, that move is fun to use, just not so fun to be on the receiving end of
The only downside of ogerpon that it can't have everything at the same time, but who cares when it can cheese trough its answers with ivy cudgel crit. That thing really restricts teambuilding in an absurd degree
Yea, building bulkier teams and trying not to lose to it is nearly impossible. Even when you think you're prepared, all it takes in practice is a critical hit, and... yea.
No doubt she’s broken but I still don’t think it has such a crushing grip and a presence like the Goat Gambit, the meta game revolves around him and has since the first two waves of bans years ago
I'd totally be down for a gambit ban, and the meta definitely did evolve around it. At the same time, there are things higher on my priority list. Gambit with Tera and SD sweeping is super dumb, but it has more viable answers than Wellspring, and it's not as difficult to deal with in the builder.
While the meta is revolving around him, there has been found a lot of counterplots. The same can’t be said for ogerpon
If wellspring runs swords dance horn leech, it can just heal off all the hazard damage
Yea Horn Leech is growing more popular, especially scary when paired with Substitute
I think the fundamental problem with competitive rn isn't even the problematic power creep, but the short-sighted tiering decisions, selfish voting system, and the ladder and tournaments where people gamble their self-worth away.
A potential solution to this whole issue is putting a stat cap in place to lower the immense volatility of all these different scenarios, but no one thinks about that because diminishing the power fantasy makes them have to confront an uncomfortable truth about why they're playing in the first place, that being that they're addicted to points and glory and were never having any fun.
Not sure how to unpack this one honestly. Seems like a hot take, not quite sure what you're recommending. The idea of having a BST cap isn't great though. There are a lot of broken pokemon with lower BSTs and totally fine pokemon with great BSTs. Hoopa-U has 600 BST, and it's not even particularly good in OU.
9:08 Archaludon was very good for dealing with ogerpon and a rain staple, what killed rain was the ban of arch tbh
While banning Archaludon killed rain, Archaludon was defitnely too broken to stay ):
@Wanawa8724 very true, urshifu rapid strike was also banned bc of rain. So to me it's like rain constantly gets nerfed and then it's finally where it is and we blame and want to ban ogerpon for it.
After banning ogerpon the same domino effect of things losing their checks will continue and the meta game and variety of mons will be mid
Personally I think standard arch rain was mid and would have fallen off given time-- but yes, Arch ban definitely hurt rain. If Wellspring and Arch were both gone though, rain would 100% be viable at a top level.
We did NOT ban Urshifu because of rain. Rain wasn't even mentioned in its ban post. It was banned due to Punching Glove, Tera, Trailblaze, and Swords Dance.
@ after 1 SD and Punching Glove Shifu OHKOES Zapdos AND ignores static
Also itnowcan use trailblaze
Tera Trailblaze and Sd make it too good
While Woger is certainly strong, I don't think it's nearly as problematic as you make it out to be.
Woger is unwallable over a long game, but this certainly isn't an attribute unique to it - other mons like specs Val, Hoopa, Wake in sun, etc. can all break through just about any team given enough openings. In Woger's case though, its vulnerability to all hazards significantly limits its opportunities to break teams. It's similar to Kyu in that regard - both are highly punishing to teams that don't keep up hazards, but much more manageable with hazards up.
Tying into the above point is its predictability. Woger's inability to change its item or tera type make handling it much more straightforward than most other offensive threats this gen. It's also not difficult to guess between sd or pivot given that sd only really fits on offense/ho. Sd in particular has significant 4mss as it wants all of encore, play rough, and knock but can only fit one of them.
While Woger does somewhat constrain balance, overall balance is doing fine - hell, Xav just recently won OLT while primarily playing balance and bulky offense teams. Additionally, balance staples continue to command respectable usage and winrates in ladder and tournaments - Ting-Lu and bulky Ghold are as common as ever, Dnite usage is rising, Gking is still doing fine, Zapdos is back in ou, and other balance mons like Corv and Garg still see successful use.
Even just looking at the sample teams, none of the balance teams there are making significant sacrifices just to handle Woger. The combination of hazards + a soft check or two (e.g. Zama, Dnite, Kyu, any fast pivot) is sufficient at limiting its switch-ins and keeping it from running away with games. Realistically, the only balance teams that are struggling with Woger are overly passive teams that don't keep hazards up and pivot endlessly with mons like Mola and Gking, which of course allows Woger to come in repeatedly and break. Balance teams having to run more interaction/coverage to deal with breakers like Woger, sd Scor, and subtect Kyu is a healthy dynamic - it prevents the rise of greedy, uninteractive teams like the ones that gained significant traction in the late DLC1 meta.
As for rain - yes, Woger is a substantial roadblock to rain. Rain isn't totally unviable though, and some players have made it work. Options like Overqwil and Bolt give rain a way around Woger without compromising their team structures. It's not just Woger though, as Rain has other problems this generation - most notably opposing Bolts. That being said, "killing rain" isn't really a reason to ban something, even if rain was good last gen. Sand is pretty mediocre this gen despite being a staple in previous gens, but we certainly aren't tiering to make sand good again.
1- Comparing Oger's breaking power to Specs Ival, Wake, and Hoopa is not even close. Hoopa is WAY harder to bring onto the field, much slower, worse defense, easier to revenge kill, and easier to switch into. Specs Ival is MUCH easier to switch into, and is very much wallable long-term with fairy resists like Corviknight, and Glowking. Specs Wake is very difficult to wall, but requires Sun, a major drawback. Oger is a MUCH better and more reliable breaker than any of these pokemon.
2- The claim that SD only fits on Offense / HO... this is not true. SD is great on bulky offense, and you can slap it on some balance teams as well. Guessing is not a consistent strategy.
3- Balance is not doing fine. Bulky Balance is not doing fine. Semistall is not doing fine. As you address in your next point, a lot of balance teams are running hazards and pokemon like Zamazenta, Dragonite, and Kyurem. These archetypes of course CAN be used. There is absolutely never a metagame where a playstyle has no good teams. Still, balance is very constrained. Try going into the builder and making a balance team that doesn't lose to Ogerpon-W. Extremely difficult. You'll probably end up making a team with hazards, and Zama/Dnite/Kyurem. On top of that, the balance samples (looking at them rn) are getting smoked by Wellspring. A bulky team simply can't deal with a threat like that.
4- I agree, making Rain bad is not a good enough reason alone to ban a pokemon. It does contribute, however. Sand is bad because there are a ton of pokemon that wall Excadrill, like Landorus, Gliscor, and Corviknight. These pokemon are not broken at all (with the exception of Gliscor). Wellspring is a VERY different case. If there was a single pokemon that was solely responsible for sand being bad, AND it was broken, I'd certainly mention that it killed sand in a video discussing its meta impact.
@@pinkacross2042 I wasn't trying to compare those mons - sorry if I didn't make that clear. My point was that being unwallable isn't broken on its own. Obviously all the mons I mentioned have exploitable flaws, otherwise they'd be banned.
You're right, sd does fit on bulkier teams and it absolutely can work. It just tends to be harder to fit, and this is reflected in the teams players are bringing to tournaments. In SCL for example, sd only appeared 3 times out of the 59 times Woger was brought, which paints a clear picture - Woger functions much better as a breaker than a sweeper. Most bulkier teams do not need sd on Woger as its breaking power is generally sufficient without it. And even if you do guess the set wrong, counterplay between sets has significant overlap given that it can only run 1 coverage option. Mons like Kyu and Val are much more punishing for mispredicting the set.
I'll be honest - I don't really understand why you think balance isn't doing fine. Sure, bulky balance and semistall aren't great right now, but I don't see that as an issue; not every variation of an archetype needs to be viable. For example, screens ho is very solid in gen 6 ou thanks to Serp being a great setter. This gen though, screens ho is almost completely unviable, really only seeing fringe use with Atales. But that doesn't mean that ho is in a bad spot this generation. Though this might just be due to ideological differences in how we view tiering as a whole.
Balance is currently sitting at a fairly healthy ~28% usage on high ladder. This isn't that far off from other modern generations, which range from ~20% to ~40%. Additionally, balance teams continue to see success in tournaments. It's not like these teams are all being pidgeonholed into the same structures either. Splashable checks like Dnite, Pult, and Zama leave plenty of room for creative teambuilding. As for the sample teams, they are all capable of handling Woger. Even CTC's Keldeo team, which has no way to outspeed, burn, or pivot against it, still fairly comfortably deals with Woger with the combination of hazards alongside Sinistcha and roost dtail Dnite.
Does Woger constrain balance? Yes, but so do many other offense staples. And I really don't find Woger to be the worst offender in that regard.
@
1. Fair points on the first two paragraphs. I agree with everything you said.
2. As for why I don't think balance is doing well, mostly from my experience building and talking with other builders. Making balance teams is extremely difficult, and even when precautions are taken for Wellspring, all it takes is a critical hit or an unfortunate guess on a set, and you lose anyway. Balance simply isn't consistent when Wellspring is in the tier. Balance can't be consistent when such incredibly powerful breakers are around. Bulky Balance and Semistall suffer even worse, but I don't think you contested this, so I won't push that point. Balance is still usable, but constrained in how it can operate and what pokemon it can use. That's my main issue. As for ideological differences in tiering, that's a fair assessment. I'd like to see a metagame where the most possible archetypes are viable, and competitiveness is maximized within reason.
3. I could see Kyurem being the worst offender, that's a fair point. I would say Wellspring is either #1 or #2 though, few breakers are so consistently problematic for bulkier teams.
Thank you for such polite responses! I appreciate your level-headed tone.
Ivy cudgel proving that stone edge would be stupid if it was 100% accurate
Not quite-- rock coverage is solid but has a lot more meta resistances in OU than water-- at least, when paired with grass coverage.
The most common argument I see is tera dragon/grass... if a pokemon forces one of your most valuable resources in order to have a counter, it isn't healthy for a meta. Tera shouldn't be a counterargument for any pokemon's metagame affect.
Yea, if you have to Tera to respond to another pokemon that ISN'T using Tera, that's a huge issue and you're at a massive disadvantage.
I got to top 50ish with rain early on before the spore ban (the tera grass iron moth webs meta team that ran rilla and waterpon meta), rain isn't really dead due to pon, but moreso due to moong being completely useless now. Moong alone made soooo many matchups actually doable.
This case that Amoonguss Spore ban is the reason that Rain is now bad... I can't agree with this at all. Amoonguss has never been commonly used on rain, it's always been a very niche option. It was OK as an Eject Button user but not really worthwhile for the most part, all the top rain teams throughout this generation have never used it.
@pinkacross2042 i mean as a rain user moong alone is what allowed me to overcome these matchups, tbf I was also running modest LD gren which ohko'd val and won on the spot, but literally all I'd do is just dpulse on the waterpon swap and crush people. I have an unupdated rmt on the team if you wanna read it
Also I've played against you while you were using rain when rapid fu was allowed, Zora489. I've also top 1'd gen 9 a few times on various alts
It is very funny to me that in VGC Ogerpon-W is a check to powerful attackers rather than the brocken attacker itself. I never thoght that a ofensive support pokemon could be this devastading in singles.
Yea, VGC doesn't have a lot of these issues. Bulky teams aren't even really a thing in VGC, which helps a lot with breakers like this.
Not sure if this is an argument per se but ogerpon struggles with a lot of common priority. Taking a meaty 50%+ from thunderclap and gambit sucker punch as well as 40% from e speed nite means that you really have to keep hazards off to keep this thing healthy enough.
My rebuttal would be that you can’t switch in any of these pokemon multiple times a game and you’re probably gonna have to do a 1:1 trade at best anyway.
Struggling with priority definitely makes it worse as a sweeper, but the role in which it's broken is as a breaker.
I want to be riled up into an anti-ogerpon frenzy but the smooth gen 4 music stays my wrath.... I am forced to vote "No" in the upcoming Ogerpon suspect test.
Jokes aside, great video!
Thank you lol! :D
It's even fucking up different metas. For instance, in pokebilities, you have a theoretically phenomenal check in Azumarill, which resists all of Ivy Cudgel, Horn Leech/Power Whip/Wood Hammer, U-Turn, Knock Off, and Superpower. However, max HP Azu still can't swith in more than once with hazards, and you're not just going to not invest in attack because Azu is supposed to be a bulky attacker. Then you take into account that many sets don't even run max HP because you want the speed EVs to outspeed Clef and Alo that don't drop their speed, lowering Azu's ability to check Wellspring. Wellspring destroys multiple metas and is unquestionably deserving of a ban imo
Wellspring powering through Sap Sipper Azu with Ivy Cudgel sounds... like exactly what I'd expect LOL.
Some thoughts in defense of Ogerpon-W sticking around for the foreseeable future, in opposition to your own points:
1. It’s Unwallable, But Not Unbeatable. A solidly built pure stall team can run enough checks to at least suffer through learning which set it’s running. It is also not immune to being soundly checked offensively, as it has no real item slot for something like Choice Scarf or Leftovers. It’s also not terrible hard to kill, with the bare minimum amount of bulk to not be immediately called a glass cannon.
2. It Has Set Variety, But Most Extra Options are Niche in Application. A lot of discussed alternate move choices do make it scary as a blind read, but they are mostly scary if you are intending to tank Ogerpon (something you already should not be trying to do). Everything that is not U-turn or a big dumb damage button is there to make stall weep, with very few other applications. It’s a nice blunt hammer, but only just a hammer.
And 3, what I hope is my strongest argument for it staying, It Makes Games Faster, But That’s How This Gen Has Gone Anyway. A lot of features that make it annoying to you (and me, to be clear) are a large number of factors endemic to the Gen 9 metagame. Tera heavily benefits Pokemon that use it proactively and with flexibility in who can use it, and that makes Offense in general outstandingly strong this time around. We have moves that set free hazards, a multi-role Pokemon that blocks all hazard removal, and plenty of Pokemon who heavily benefit from both offensive and defensive Tera type mixups. I do not agree with what we’ve done here, but what has been done has popular support or is past a reasonable time to do a suspect test. It’s no longer a game balancing problem, but a problem of my opinions on how things should be versus the community-approved choices I have no say in.
wellspring is also just
wallable
amoonguss takes basically everything it can throw out except +2 tera water cudgel and if they tera water you force them to burn tera and go to dondozo
@lucasgreer1736 if your Wellspring answer argument involves an Amoonguss AND a Dondozo... you don't see an issue with that? As I said in the video, it IS wallable, just nearly unwallable. If you stack several physical walls specifically designed to counter Wellspring, yea, you can handle it.
1. Yes, this is true. As I said in the video, offensively inclined teams don't have a huge issue with it. As for calling it "bare minimum amount of bulk to not be immediately called a glass cannon," that is very much an exaggeration. 80/84/96 is very solid. It has bulk comparable to Clefable.
2. You state that you should NOT try to tank Ogerpon. ALL defensive teams function on needing to wall pokemon. It seems like we agree here.
3. The idea of saying "screw it, SV is cooked anyway, let's just have a fast-paced offensive metagame" is pretty fair. I haven't given up on the tier yet and I think it can be made more competitive, but as for being a GOOD metagame? I've given up. Still, it can be better, and I think a Wellspring ban will make it better, more diverse, and more interesting.
@@pinkacross2042 this is true. hard stall has the space to handle wellspring, bulky balance not as much. apparently balance has been doing well in tours lately anyway, though.
Semi-unrelated, but the only tolerable part of Wellspring is that it dummies exactly the team you're facing in the first clip. I don't know what that shit is, but I'm sick of seeing it everywhere and have spent the past 2 weeks optimizing teams just to beat it... and even then it's not 100%
Fair enough, it does shred some teams. I wouldn't say it does super well into that team though, given that team has Dragonite and Sinistcha. If you want to wreck that team, use Kyurem.
It's the CTC team lol. Blunder dropped a video about it like two days ago, so it's all over the ladder right now.
without Oger SV turns into the bad old SS stallfest
Disagree. Do you think a stallfest can exist in a tier with Kyurem, Kingambit, Roaring Moon, Darkrai, Raging Bolt, AND with the option to Tera?
You say word for word that you wish for Tera, Kyurem, Gambit and Rai to go as well right in the intro lmao. Btw the CA you made are pretty much spot on and imho weight more than Rain players refusing to predict 1 turn or that it might run play rough in teams clearly weak to dragon
ferrothorn got canceled for homophobia and now ogerpon is roaming free
Ogerpon Wellspring is a rather predictable pokemon and because she can only hold her mask, she's vulnerable to entry hazards. Ogerpon is just not as overpowered as people try to make it out to be. Lokix, Kyurem (especially in snow), physically defensive Glowking, Dragonite (if it doesn't have Play Rough), Cinderella (U Turn and Gunk Shot), Meowscarada (U Turn, Flower Trick), Amoongus, so many pokemon can check it. The same argument you use to say rain makes Ogerpon Wellspring "impossible" to switch in to, I can say the virtual omnipresence of sun teams helps check Ogerpon too (sun weakens Ivy Cudgel). Ogerpon can't run choice scarf, so you can't get surprised by being outsped.
omnipresence of sun teams? sun is at like 5% usage bro
Ok, so based on this I imagine you didn't watch the counter arguments part? They address how it being predictable doesn't really matter cause even if you know what's coming that doesn't make it any less effective. It also being hazard weak doesn't matter as much as you'd think because it's typing isn't weak to Stealth Rock, and as they mentioned it's often paired with Great Tusk to help remove hazards. Also neither Lokix or Amoonguss are ranked OU so saying they counter it doesn't matter even if true since they don't get enough usage to be considered counters that make it balanced in OU, also Cinderace can't switch into its attacks, and as for Meowscarada it's got 4 percent usage rn so it's hanging on by a thread meaning given next tier shift it may also be UU similar to Lokix, thus again making it kinda irrelevant to the convo at hand when referring to OU mons that keep it in check.
Saying it can't surprise you with its Speed is also something they countered by bringing up how 110 speed is in no way slow so even if you can't use a Choice Scarf on it it's still gonna outrun the majority of mons, especially when going against archetypes like Balance and Semi-Stall. Also Torkoal is at 1.62 usage and Ninetales is at 1% meaning Sun is by no means omnipresent. It's viable for sure, but if it was Omni-present like you say it is then Torkoal would be OU instead of NU, and Ninetales would be OU instead of ZU. I don't mean to be rude but it comes across as if you haven't watched the entirety of the video yet.
Cinderella you know…. Great points by the way
@weesticles650 It comes across like you have one dimensional thinking I can still make an argument that he said in the video and it still be a valid argument. Yes I was typing my comment before the entire video finished but I made my argument based on my assessment not Pinkacross or your assessment. You saying Lokix isn't OU is a blatantly vague statement as if that means anything in regards to what it can do. So Latios and Latias being OU means they aren't still a legit threat that you shouldn't understand come on now stop thinking like a bot.
At least from what I know, of the mons you listed, Lokix and Ace are more offense mons than balance, PhysDef Glowking is not a common set, Amoongus is almost entirely a stall mon, and bonus: Sinistcha struggles to fit on a lot of balance teams for it's poor MU into Moon. Aside from that, what you listed are mostly *offensive* checks. Lack of consistent *defensive* checks is what Pinkacross cites as an issue.
Now it isn't really a red flag to have few defensive checks imo, that's part of what being a consistent wallbreaker is, and it's existence disincentives passive play which I do take as a good thing. So I disagree with Pink on that front, and I don't mind Ogerpon despite it being undeniably suffocating towards balance which struggles to fit enough counterplay (hazards + faster mon + defensive stopgap + playing well works most of the time, sure, but there will be an Ogerpon set that beats you out there somewhere) so I do disagree with Pink, but additionally you don't really counter any of his points meaningfully at least from what I see.
The point about Sun having a good MU into Ogerpon doesn't really... mean anything to me either? That's like saying because HO matches up well into Oger, it's fine that it destroys Balance. Could you explain in a bit more detail on this part, I think I'm not catching onto what you're saying?
Thanks, and I hope you have a good day!