ORAS OU Suspect Stage 7 Coverage: Sablenite

Just a few weeks before ORAS ended and SM was released, the OU tiering council decided to re-visit Mega Sableye, giving the community one last chance to decide its fate. Mega Sableye had been tested before, but it was at the same time as Shadow Tag, which many people felt overshadowed Mega Sableye, since everybody just wanted Shadow Tag out of the tier immediately. Basically, the main complaint came down to Mega Sableye + Pokémon with trapping capabilties (this evolved from Choice Band Weavile to Dugtrio instead) to remove the specific stallbreakers that can break through or at least heavily pressure these teams, such as Heatran, Kyurem-B, Mega Gardevoir, Choice Band Tyranitar, and so on. The idea of suspecting Dugtrio or Arena Trap was rejected by the OU council because Dugtrio wasn't the problem there; it boiled down to the restriction Mega Sableye places on building by making it difficult to apply pressure to these stall teams. Dugtrio just massively benefits from Mega Sableye's presence, but not to the point where it should be considered suspect worthy.

The Suspect

Sableye @ Sablenite: Ability: Prankster; EVs: 252 HP / 112 Def / 144 SpD; Careful Nature; - Fake Out; - Foul Play; - Will-O-Wisp; - Recover

Mega Sableye does what it has been doing for the past two years, providing extremely valuable and unique role compression to defensive teams in that it is a defensive Pokémon with access to recovery and Magic Bounce, allowing it to stick around over long games. This means it can switch in often and bounce back entry hazards and status moves including Taunt and Toxic, which makes it difficult for Pokémon heavily reliant on Taunt such as Mew and Gengar to touch these kind of teams. Furthermore, typical teammates heavily limit the ability of any stallbreakers to break these builds, especially when many great stallbreakers are liable to being shut down by trapping, whether by Pursuit or Arena Trap (think Tornadus-T, Gengar, Choice Band Tyranitar, Heatran, Mega Diancie, and Mega Gardevoir). This creates a very restrictive metagame with limited ways to reliably handle these kind of teams, since the lack of reliable entry hazard setters makes it difficult to apply any kind of pressure.

The main no-ban arguments boiled down to the fact that teams had simply adapted to Mega Sableye and that it just wasn't a problem in the tier. It came down to its lack of real bulk and over reliance on Recover to stay healthy, especially when it constantly takes chip damage from coming into the likes of defensive Landorus-T and Garchomp. Stealth Rock Clefable also saw a lot of usage, as it easily beat Mega Sableye and managed to set up Stealth Rock against forced switches. Again, as the meta adapted around Mega Sableye, sets such as Dazzling Gleam Alakazam, Swords Dance Life Orb Garchomp, and Lum Berry Bisharp all picked up usage; these sets could limit the effectiveness of Mega Sableye in a match, as they either lure it or just outright set up on it and apply immediate pressure. Other arguments brought up that Dugtrio and trapping were the main contributors to why Mega Sableye was so good, but even with Dugtrio gone, Mega Sableye builds are still very restricting.

Reasoning behind retesting Sablenite

The main reason Sablenite was revisited was because a large vocal majority of the community brought up an issue: matchup. Mega Sableye was one of the most matchup-influencing Pokémon in the tier because of its ability to bounce back status moves with Magic Bounce, meaning it shut down traditional methods of being able to pressure and break down stall teams such as using Taunt-based stallbreakers like Mew. Mega Sableye also shut out Stealth Rock setters such as defensive Landorus-T, support Tyranitar, and defensive Garchomp, and those that Mega Sableye couldn't take on such as Clefable, Earth Plate Landorus-T, and Lum Berry Garchomp were easily handled by one of Mega Sableye's best and most common teammates in Skarmory. Mega Sableye helped create extremely restrictive cores and teams in OU, since it reduced forms of counterplay to almost nothing. Ever since DPP, breaking stall teams has usually involved setting up Stealth Rock, or any other entry hazard, and applying pressure with wallbreakers, breaking down the opposing team slowly. This forces the stall user to play well in order to regain control of the game by either removing entry hazards or putting themselves into a good position through predictions. Mega Sableye removes this, as thanks to Magic Bounce, it becomes extremely easy for the Mega Sableye user to have total control over the entry hazard game, which forces people to use specific breakers if they want to have a chance against these teams. Meanwhile, trapping takes this restriction further, removing stallbreakers that have a chance against these teams such as Mega Gardevoir, Choice Band Tyranitar, and Tornadus-T. If Mega Sableye is removed, gaining control of entry hazards allows for effective stall counterplay, even if trappers are still running around.

The Suspect Meta

Since the suspect of choice is a defensive Pokémon, it usually creates a massive difference between the regular meta and the suspect meta. Mega Sableye holds back Pokémon such as Mega Medicham, Mew, Gengar, and suicide lead Skarmory, as well as Stealth Rock users such as Terrakion and Azelf, and Spikes users such as Skarmory and Ferrothorn. It also frees up slots on teams, so people don't need to run specific breakers or Pokémon to handle Mega Sableye teams.

As predicted by many, Psychic-types became better in the OU suspect meta; for example, Mega Medicham and Mew lost one of their best counters. Mew almost returned to its XY greatness, but the increased usage of Weavile hurts Mew a lot, since Weavile outspeeds it, unlike Choice Band Tyranitar, and also has Pursuit trapping capabilities. Mew increasing in usage was also a good thing, since it brought another Mega Medicham answer into the tier. Reuniclus also improved, since it no longer had Mega Sableye to worry about and could freely run Focus Blast to hit Dark-types.

Conclusion

After 71 voters were left to decide the fate of Sablenite, it eventually found itself banned with a supermajority, reaching 65.67% ban votes. Although ORAS has ended as the main generation, the format will still see plenty of games played in official Smogon tournaments such as SPL and WCoP. Many people are glad that the meta will finally become balanced by removing one of what was considered to be the unhealthiest components of the tier.

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