Announcement - np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 12 - Moth To A Flame (2024)

Because of school and some other circ*mstances, I am not 100% sure how able it'll be for me to get reqs this go-around, but because I see this as a pretty important Pokemon to address, I think it's just as important that I vocalize my opinion.

Including Tera Blast, Volcarona is the most broken Pokemon in the tier imo. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to this; its set variety and ways it can spiral out of control are vast, and it's fairly easy for Volcarona to find setup fodder into a great chunk of the tier (namely thanks to how many bases Quiver Dance covers and how useful its pre-Tera typing is at forcing Pokemon like Draco Meteor-less Kyurem, non-Stone Edge Zamazenta, and Rillaboom out). Volcarona's fundamentals without Tera are very strong but manageable, however what brings it into broken territory for me is how much the combination of Tera Blast, Quiver Dance, and a new typing enable it to reliably turn whatever target it pleases into setup fodder. While no one set is capable of beating everything in the tier at once, that isn't quite what makes Volcarona's dynamic in the tier as troublesome as it actually is. The fact that it is able to carve a viable Tera type out of nearly half of all types and makes use of Tera Blast on a good majority of them is pretty ridiculous. There comes a point where set variety, even with Tera, becomes genuinely impossible to cover reliably. This is easy to make a speal about, so I want to elaborate a bit.

Ctann said:

needing multiple checks isn’t a new concept. This is a new paradigm Tera meta.

Click to expand...

This is an argument I anticipate will probably come up a few times throughout the suspect. On paper, this is a fine enough argument because I do think check overlap across playstyles that makes it easy to slot them on without impeding synergy is a fairly organic weakness that often balances centralized offensive threats. Of course, naturally, certain styles will definitely thrive more on average in the face of Pokemon like Volcarona which is a more dedicated setup sweeper as opposed to an actual wallbreaker. Obviously stall and fatter structures do better into it, which isn't necessarily a sign of unhealthiness for the suspect target if there are still organic options to work with. If that were the case, we'd be looking at Iron Boulder or Iron Moth which are far from broken but still solidly potent win conditions.

However, this argument is one that really needs to consider check overlap across a vast majority of playstyles as opposed to a few. Stall and fat in general have access to Pokemon like Clodsire and Blissey that don't consistently impede their gameplans, and while you could theoretically use them on other playstyles, using them on something like offense actively damages tempo and their gameplan. Defensive checks require salience with the composition itself, and when you don't have that, you have a team that is wildly inconsistent and volatile to pilot. In other words, reliable options should organically exist across playstyles regardless of if one style is more effective at handling a specific Pokemon over another. However if your only consistent way to stop a setup sweeper from getting out of hand are Pokemon that are not easy to slot onto teams, that imposes a dynamic that actually does damage the tier. Especially in a unique case like Volcarona where prepping for all of its sets is essentially impossible without a fat blob of a Special wall, that really isn't reasonable.

This user wanted some dynamics in practice, so I'll illustrate some. Volcarona on paper has qualities like Iron Boulder and Iron Moth as a setup sweeper, being solid win conditions that struggle more innately into stall but can still be handled across playstyles, but its unique dynamic with Tera creates a setup sweeper that cannot truly be blanket checked, and that really does create some really toxic dynamics in practice. Quiver Dance is a genuinely nuts move, with Fire-STAB to round off Tera Blast-granted coverage, and this synergy is so insanely versatile that it expands beyond a reasonable pool of checks across playstyles. It smites offense with Ground- Fairy- and Dragon-, Balance with Water- Ground- and Bug-, and there are even more options that it viably wrecks some offenses with with like Tera Grass with Giga Drain for offensive sustain, and that doesn't even mention Morning Sun, Substitute, Psychic, Giga Drain, and Bug Buzz as other options. Offense especially has to account for these widely spanning options and their almost juxtaposing applications, to a point where predicting and playing around a potential Tera is never really a certain endeavor. This often means that, to not have the situation where you lose important Pokemon out of nowhere, you have to make progress against it more carefully. However, because of Quiver Dance's snowballing nature and Volcarona's consistent defensive profile, playing footsies with the Tera type is not feasible. Paralyzing it with Galarian Slowking or Hatterene, for example, is not really enough to temper it, and all the while you're letting it stack Quiver Dance boosts and restore the Speed boosts it loses from the paralysis drop. Encore, also, doesn't really do enough. Iron Valiant and Teal Mask Ogerpon already lose the 1v1, and Hisuian Samurott/Wellspring Ogerpon can just get deleted before they get off the Encore, or set up against in the latter's case depending on the Tera type. The only generally reliable ways to stop it without fat blobs are with Toxic or phasing, the former of which can even be stiffled by Substitute variants which aren't even that uncommon and the latter also potentially being stiffled by the main users (Tera'd Zamazenta and Ting-Lu) being overwhelmed easily by its teammates. Flame Body is also a factor and I haven't even mentioned it!

Volcarona in its current state is not like any other setup sweeper. Its dynamic with Tera as a result of its fundamentals and Quiver Dance are just far too unreasonable to reliably check and account for across most structures. Even if it has some counters, those counters are so specific as a result of its insane versatility with Tera and Quiver Dance that in practice, it imposes a disgusting dynamic in-game that takes far more than it gives imo. Ban.

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Before I end things off, I want to just say: for those who believe Tera Blast to be the core reason behind Volcarona's brokenness, I implore you to still vote to ban Volcarona. In general, even if you believe that something else is the main problem but you still think the suspect target contributes to it, don't vote DNB just because it isn't the target you wanted. I believe it's because so many people have differing beliefs as to the root problem of the tier that a lot of people are hesitating to take action on something they aren't 100% sure about, and that hesitancy is essentially creating a situation where no change can actually happen due to the supermajority required to ban Pokemon. However, at the end of the day, actions can always be revisited and offensive saturation is a nuanced issue that many Pokemon contribute to in one way or another right now. If you believe Volcarona in and of itself is problematic, even if it isn't the most broken thing to you right now, please vote to ban it.

Thanks.