Metagame - SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [OLT CYCLE 2] (2024)

The problems of great tusk

I was originally going to post this in the viability rankings thread, but I thought it would be better here since it is worth discussing. In my opinion, great tusk is still a strong metagame staple, but it is no longer the ultra-splashable god of OU that many would predict it to be at the start of the generation. This is due to several factors, which I will list here, but many of them are linked to actually fitting it to the teambuilder.

What great tusk does

I know many of you already know what great tusk does, but I will just list this out anyways. Great tusk has high physical bulk and great attack. It is mainly used as a utility Pokémon, with moves like knock off for forcing progress and stealth rock, and most importantly, rapid spin, which is extremely useful in a hazard-filled metagame where the majority of teams have stealth rock and spikes. In addition, you have lots of offensive options like Earthquake, Close Combat, Headlong Rush and Ice spinner to nail a common knock off absorber, Gliscor. However, it can also be used with Bulk Up, either as an offensive sweeper/wallbreaker or a defensive backbone against many threats, most notably Kingambit, which great tusk is one of the most reliable answers to. However, great tusk is extremely customisable, with options like Choice Band and Eject Pack having success.

Longevity

This is the first problem that is the least linked to the teambuilder (although it certainly is a factor there). Great Tusk is a hazard remover, but it can quickly get worn down often. It does not have the worst longevity, but it often has to come in over and over again to spin and remove hazards. Great Tusk lacks a reliable recovery, and is often stuck between a rock and a hard place on item choice. It must either choose leftovers or heavy duty boots in many scenarios. With leftovers, it has gets worn down by Spikes that it is tasked to remove, while with boots, it is extremely hard to hard-switch into mons AND play the long game, something that you would wish to do, for example, it is regularly worn down by Blissey's seismic toss. Additionally, it is vulnerable to burn and poison, which can wear it down rapidly. However, long-term survivability is not the only factor. Sheer bulk does not automatically give a mon insane longevity, but you cannot dismiss it as a factor. Ting-Lu suffers from most of the same problems, but it is extremely bulky, giving it decent longevity to act as a stopgap to many threats and setting hazards repeatedly. Great tusk has good physical bulk, but 1: it has poor special bulk and 2: it often has to remain at high health to be able to answer the ubiquitous Kingambit. 1 can be easily answered by pairing it with a specially bulky mon, while 2 technically can by pairing it with other Gambit checks like Dondozo, but then it will not be splashable, which is required to be the very top tier. You can solve this with rest, but great tusk suffers from 4MSS. I would not consider 4MSS to be a true problem since you are supposed to cater it to your team, but it must be mentioned, making it annoying to try to fit certain moves.

Competition (as a ground utility mon)

Whether competition is a drawback of a mon or a non-factor depends on the context. It would be foolish to say "Blissey is an awful mon because it is outclassed by Ting-Lu as a special sponge on bulky offense teams", but what we are talking about is whether Great Tusk deserves to be S tier. An S-tier should be able to fit in a lot of archetypes, and thus competition is a factor here. Firstly, I will discuss the competition as a ground utility mon.

Landorus-Therian

Lando-T competes with Great Tusk for a spot on bulky offense teams. It is far less reliable at checking kingambit, cannot remove hazards, lacks item removal, but it has upsides too. It has the combination of intimidate and U-turn, and another immunity, allowing it to increase its team’s mobility. It also has usable special bulk, allowing to take 1 neutral or resisted hit in a pinch. Great Tusk has item and hazard removal, but Landorus-Therian is far more mobile.

Of course, Great Tusk is not STRICTLY competing with Landorus-Therian. I have seen successful teams which use both on the same team, and they have synergy in filling out all of the team’s utility in 2 slots. However, they stack weaknesses, meaning you have to accept a vulnerability if you would use them together, making it harder to fit both. Therefore, you will often have to choose only one of them, making it competition nonetheless. This applies to all other competitors.

Gliscor

For bulkier builds, gliscor is the competitor. It has knock off like great tusk while having landorus-therian’s typing. However, it also has poison heal, giving it amazing longevity despite lacking a reliable recovery, and it also has other utility moves. It lacks rapid spin, but it has spikes, which it can use a lot because it walls many Pokémon, and pairs well with its own knock off, along with the more niche, less reliable but potentially devastating toxic spikes. While it is weaker than great tusk based on raw attack and base power moves at first glance, it has offensive sets which use swords dance, in conjunction with facade and/or knock off to break many balance teams, and defensive sets use something it has over it, toxic, to reduce their passivity. It is arguably holding together balance in this metagame. It acts as a strong knock off absorber, and generally packs a ton of value in one slot.

Ting-Lu

Ting-Lu is a very useful support mon, capable of fitting into almost any balance team and certain BO and stall teams. It is not a blob meant to take hits forever while healing them off with recovery, it is meant to be a bastion against setup sweepers, which also happens to last throughout the game. It uses the free turns from forcing out threats by setting hazards, and wearing down switchins with ruination and STAB earthquake. At first glance, it’s unimpressive, since all it does is switch in, take a hit and then phaze the other Pokémon out or do the aforementioned things, but it happens to be a powerful stopgap against much of the metagame, and the aforementioned things are incredibly useful. It is different from great tusk, but the weakness overlap is a factor though.

Hazard Control

Hazard removal is important in a metagame with a mon that blocks defog, reduced defog distribution and increased hazard distribution (why does hydreigon get stealth rock now? Makes 0 sense). This is the main reason why great tusk rose in usage at the start of the generation, since it can remove hazards while being able to threaten Dragapult and Gholdengo. The occasional Garchomp gets threatened by ice spinner. Great tusk's main competition in Hazard control is actually Heavy Duty Boots. Another way people adapted to this meta is by running team structures with a few knock off absorbers like Skarmory, Gliscor or Clefable along with Heavy Duty Boots on the rest of the Pokémon in their party. This removes the need of hazard removal, allowing for the teams to run almost anything they wanted, since they do not have to add great tusk or lose to Gholdengo hazardstack. Actual hazard removal competition is limited to only defog users and Iron treads. However, Hatterene is also massive competition, it can either run a calm mind set which can be annoying to deal with, or an eject button pivot. Additionally, bulky offense have been using weird but effective cores to deter hazards, like Iron Crowns + Lando-T. While great tusk is undoubtedly the best hazard REMOVAL, it has competition for the best hazard CONTROL.

Kingambit Answer

Every team needs a kingambit answer, and great tusk is the most reliable one. However, it is far from the only answer. Zamazenta is the most direct. It is easier to fit on a team alongside tusk’s aforementioned ground competition, and exchanges hazard and item removal for different utility in speed control. Zamazenta can be used on balance, bulky offense and hyper offense teams too, meaning it is quite splashable, some can make an argument that it is even more splashable than great tusk. Dondozo is another option for stall and fat balance. It not only answers kingambit, but it blanket checks almost all of the physical metagame in the tier. Iron Valiant allows HO teams to forgo great tusk. It quad resists sucker punch and can hit it back hard, making for a good revenge killer.

Great Tusk in the metagame

Great tusk feels less important in the metagame. It has alternatives to many of its roles. Especially spinning, which feels less mandatory due to how many alternatives there are. Additionally, despite its customisability, it is also very predictable. It has to run Ice Spinner to not get walled by Gliscor and Dragonite, among other things, and on top of that, it almost always has rapid spin on top of that. The metagame is also harsher towards it, for example Balloon Gholdengo rising in usage, which is an annoyance, and it is easy to adapt to it. That said, it is still great tusk. Its offensively-oriented sets provide useful role compression for offensive teams. After all, these teams also need a hazard control method and a kingambit answer, and their face pace helps get around its longevity issue because games are usually shorter. It can only perform its roles for so long during a match, but offense doesn’t need to care. Additionally, some balance teams can use defense tusk, which is arguably the most solid kingambit answer out there, while allowing them to forego boot spam, which is notable for collapsing after one misplay into a knock off. Even stall teams may want tusk, as a removal option that Gholdengo doesn’t want to come near, as well as relieving pressure from Dondozo.

Conclusion

This post is not saying that Great Tusk is bad. This post is saying that Great Tusk is not the best Pokémon around, because it is not as splashable as some people say. Great tusk does have its flaws, but every Pokémon does, and great tusk provides benefits to some teams. Just because it doesn’t benefit all teams, doesn’t mean it’s a bad Pokémon. It is just far less splashable, making it more of an A+/S- type of mon. What are your thoughts though?