I'm not going to use pictures this time because apparently that causes people to disregard the content.
Rude. But also potentially true ;)
Meditite does not have reliable counters because it can use moves that allow it get around all of them. However, it can only run four moves on a set so the options are cramped. There are many variables that can prevent Meditite from being offensively potent in battle, depending on which moves it runs (and doesn't run) and which counters it runs into. While this does indeed mean that Meditite has the capability of getting around all of them by altering its moveset, the fact that it will oftentimes lack the move it needs when faced by something important holds it back. Meditite can only be a somewhat overpowering force if all the conditions are satisfied in battle depending on the limitations it places upon itself with the moves it decides not to run.
Meditite is countered by Slowpoke IF it doesn't have Thunder Punch.
Meditite is countered by Spritzee IF it doesn't have Poison Jab or LO Zen Headbutt.
Meditite is countered by Honedge IF it doesn't have Fire Punch.
Meditite is countered by Exeggcute IF it doesn't have Poison Jab or Fire Punch.
Meditite is countered by Elgyem IF it doesn't have LO High Jump Kick (only an 11.3% chance without hazards, not too reliable).
Meditite is countered by Drowzee IF it doesn't have Life Orb, and even then, it only has a chance of 2HKOing with a non-STAB move.
Meditite is countered by Wynaut IF it doesn't have Baton Pass.
I have a few issues with this. First, I bolded/underlined/italicized the part that I think this entire argument should start and stop with. You can potentially counter it
, but as you said, you can't
reliably counter Meditite.
The other thing is the table.....I mean its a bit of a nitpick but most of those moves are overlapping. For example, Fire Punch is used: Exeggcute and Honedge are no longer counters. If Poison Jab is used, Exeggcute and Spritzee are no longer counters, if LO is used, Elgym, Exceggcute and Drowzee are no longer "counters".
Additionally your use of the word limitations is implying it's actually a bad thing that Meditite can use the moves and further it's implying that any of those moves are necessary for Meditite to be considered broken.
By looking at these statistics, one might think "Oh, well Meditite can beat a lot of that shit if it uses Life Orb and High Jump Kick, which is what people are really using anyway".
According to LC C&C in Meditite's analysis writeup (QC 3/3), Eviolite is the most common and viable set. The LC community and LC Quality Control have already decided that Eviolite Meditite is more viable than Life Orb Meditite, which means that its most common and viable set, by definition, is the one that prevents it from 2HKOing more of its potential counters.
Also, keep in mind that by running Life Orb, Meditite is OHKOed by everything that Eviolite allows it to survive, and that list is quite extensive. This might not be that big of an issue for Meditite if it weren't so slow, but its defensive limitations do hold significant weight here in exchange for what it gains offensively by using Life Orb, and it gives an opponent plenty of opportunities for free damage or setup as it keeps having to switch out because of this.
100% agree. I will not be talking much about Life Orb Meditite unless it is somehow relevant. However, you cannot disregard then, that the LC community has also decided that it is not worth it to use Pokemon like Solosis, Baltoy, and Elgyem, to counter Meditite which is the bulk of your argument.
Baltoy can't really do much offensively and I already acknowledged that in this thread before people felt the need to tell me, like I didn't know. Meditite can only 2HKO Baltoy with Ice Punch or LO High Jump Kick, as it resists every single attack Meditite can think about carrying in the current metagame. What Baltoy is useful for is team support and/or disruption. It has access to Trick to cripple switch-ins that come in as Meditite flees. It also has access to dual screens (Reflect pretty much neutralizes Pure Power), Stealth Rock, and Rapid Spin.
Trick cripples setup sweepers such as Misdreavus and Scraggy that think they can come in freely to set up for a sweep, giving them a Choice item as they switch in and before they can act. If they decide to switch out, this gives Baltoy yet another free turn to use a support move. If they decide to kill off Baltoy instead, the player using Baltoy gets potentially another a free turn, and a ton of momentum and can bring in a Pokemon that resists or is immune to the move that the enemy is now locked into. This is a win-win situation if setup sweepers attempt to take advantage of Baltoy's presence once it gets in against Meditite, regardless of Baltoy having to faint in the process. Memento, for example, causes the user to faint in the process, but is a hell of a move that really shifts momentum. Same thing with Healing Wish. That principle also applies here.
Baltoy doesn't last forever and will eventually end up dying without accomplishing much damage-wise, but Trick and its support moves can be game-changers. It would be ignorant to call this sacrificing a Pokemon when its job isn't to live forever. It has many things it can do to help its team and punish the opponent, with the turn it gets as non-Life Orb Meditite flees. Now, if the Meditite in question is in fact Life Orb Meditite and does in fact hit Baltoy with High Jump Kick on the switch-in, it is ruined. But it must have those things and also select the right move in order to do so. Please note that I am not over here just pushing the shit out of Baltoy (I much prefer Wynaut, Elgyem, and Exeggcute), but I have used it to good effect thanks to Meditite's existence, and it is a great team supporter if used properly.
First of all, without Eviolite Baltoy is potentially KOed by Ice Punch (especially if its invested in Speed). It also is 3HKOed by Drain Punch and can only 3HKO with Shadow Ball (due to Drain Punch). Meaning the only Baltoy that's going to deal with Meditite is going to be Eviolite which can't trick shit and is still set up bait (and loses to Ice Punch).
Solosis (105 base Special Attack) is a new potential Meditite counter I tried after speaking with Dracoyoshi8 on IRC, and it actually counters Meditite if it doesn't have Life Orb. It does basically the same thing as Elgyem, but its advantage over Elgyem is that it gets Regenerator like Slowpoke and can still resist both of Meditite's STABs without being weak to Thunder Punch like Slowpoke is. The catch is that Solosis is significantly less bulky than Elgyem and is 2HKOed by any elemental punch Life Orb Meditite uses. Elgyem is much better but Solosis can work against the Eviolite set perfectly and punish switch-ins with Thunder Wave or HP Fighting, as Elgyem also does.
Let me also reiterate that Elgyem (as well as Solosis) has Recover, which grants it the same advantages here as Slowpoke without being weak to Thunder Punch. Elgyem is actually a more reliable counter to Meditite than Slowpoke in the current meta because Meditite cannot hit it super effectively. Slowpoke has Regenerator and Scald over Elgyem, but Elgyem has Analytic, which makes its STAB Psychic sting like hell against even neutral targets, without even requiring Special Attack investment. People only say Elgyem sucks because they haven't tried it; it's true that it would be less viable without Meditite's existence but it forms a reliable core with Trubbish whether it faces Meditite or not. I'll be reiterating that in this post as well.
I actually like Solosis but you are at this point dedicating a Pokemon who would otherwise get its ass-kicked by the other 49 of the top 50 Pokemon unless you are using a TR team, in which case I don't think you would want to say that "Meditite is fine, just use a TR team".
Also we forget Choice Scarf Meditite a lot when talking about counters (you mention it basically in passing later....).
Lots of Pokemon in Little Cup are subject to being revenged after they knock something out, so I'm not seeing what would make that unhealthy only in this situation; that is a part of Pokemon. By Meditite knocking a Pokemon out, it actually becomes an enabler for two of Little Cup's most threatening setup sweepers to come in and shift momentum.
Misdreavus and Fletchling are two prominent threats in Little Cup that would be prominent threats even if Meditite did not exist, which means they would be found on a good number of teams either way and also means they do not solely exist for revenging Meditite and are not forced onto teams because of Meditite. With that in consideration, Meditite killing something gives one of them the chance to come in afterward and immediately apply a ton of pressure, and this is especially true with Meditite's Life Orb set because it is guaranteed to die to Missy's Shadow Ball or Fletchling's Gale Wings Acrobatics if it stays in. If it thinks about switching out here to be safe, that comes with letting Misdreavus get a free Nasty Plot boost or letting Fletchling get a free Swords Dance boost. Both of these Pokemon severely punish Meditite's existence in this manner and can quite possibly come back and score two or three KOs to Meditite's one as a result.
One might say "Well a smart player isn't going to kill something with Meditite while an opposing Missy or Fletch is alive and in good health so this won't happen for good players".
Well, anyone with an idealism like this that defines how Meditite should be played is already acknowledging the limitations and consequences I just pointed out.
"Don't kill anything with Meditite until Missy and Fletch are dead" translates to "Meditite is held back by common threats and requires help from teammates in order to be effective".
While I would say your other arguments are passable in regards to using Pokemon that do somewhat deal with Meditite, even if they are bad in every other sense, I see them as valid arguments. This one, on the other hand, I don't believe I could say the same.
1) They don't necessarily force it out.
196+ Atk Fletchling Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 116 HP / 156 Def Eviolite Meditite: 18-24 (85.7 - 114.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
(18, 18, 18, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 24)
196+ Atk Pure Power Meditite Drain Punch vs. 156 HP / 92 Def Fletchling: 19-24 (82.6 - 104.3%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
(19, 19, 19, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 24)
Fletchling fails to KO while Meditite can Drain Punch its ass and Bullet Punch (since bulky Fletchling is slower) and non bulky Fletch is KOed.
236 SpA Misdreavus Shadow Ball vs. 116 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Meditite: 18-24 (85.7 - 114.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
(18, 18, 18, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 24)
Similar situation here but Meditite doesn't cleanly KO with BP + ZHB and I'll admit Misdreavus is a very reliable check to Meditite. However it's important to note that it makes your argument into "Meditite can only KO a Pokemon and deal ~90% to its most reliable check so it's fine!" which I think speaks for itself.
2) Fletchling in particular is easy to switch into and while Misdreavus is less so, it is still not as hard to switch into than Meditite (which is an important criteria in my opinion) and doesn't get a free set-up due to being nearly KOed.
Anyway, this is an awful lot of limits and conditions that must be met for Meditite to be considered a problem, so I don't find it to be overwhelming. The Eviolite set misses out on several important 2HKOs against Meditite-resistant Pokemon but has more survivability; the Life Orb set scores many important 2HKOs that the Eviolite set misses out on, but is defensively horrible due to its sub-par Speed and lack of bulk, which is easily exploitable. It can be said that Meditite's enemies are disadvantaged since they don't know which item it's running, but it's easy to tell whether it's Eviolite or Life Orb by either seeing it attack once or by gauging the damage it takes from any direct attack. Choice Scarf sets shouldn't be switching into anything except Fighting-types (and even then, only if it has to really because taking a Knock Off would suck) and its item is also revealed most of the time once it attacks, because a large amount of the metagame outspeeds it naturally. After discovering Meditite's item, a player can identify many of the set's limitations and can process that information to formulate a plan of action against it, whether the player has a full-on counter that works against it or not. Meditite has its moves that it wants the most as well, it's not super unpredictable just because it has options. It wants to beat Slowpoke and Spritzee a lot more than it wants to beat Honedge. Players have preferences that open up opportunities for it to be walled by important Pokemon. I mean, running Baton Pass gives Meditite a handicap if it doesn't face Wynaut. It can't use the move for dry-passing/switch advantage because it's so slow and prone to damage that it would rather switch out manually so that it doesn't get hit. The only set that could comfortably use Baton Pass for switch advantage is the Choice Scarf set, and it already runs Trick, leaving it only two options for attacks. If it doesn't run Trick, it cannot cripple its switch-ins.
This is the meeting point of Meditite's pros and cons, I believe. The asset is that Meditite has ACCESS to so many moves that allow it to get around things that would wall or counter it otherwise. The liability is that Meditite ONLY gets to choose four, and it needs so many for its own security.
What "limits"? I have proven over and over again these "limits" or "liabilities" you are keep stating are just simply "lessened advantages". When one of the arguments is "Meditite has access to moves to bypass certain counters" and the counter argument is "Meditite can't bypass all of its counters" it is not in any way making it a liability it is just pointing out where the arguments validity ends. It is a valid point and a reason against banning Meditite for the sole reason that it bypasses its counters but it isn't changing the main argument (access to moves) from a pro to a con. This is shit is getting old and I don't want to say it again.
Pros:
Meditite has access to moves to bypass a few would-be counters but can't bypass all of them on one set.
Cons:
Nothing.
You even said it yourself:
Meditite does not have reliable counters because it can use moves that allow it get around all of them.
And I'll add your point: "but it can't run all of them at once".
This is where this one barely important argument should start and end.
Can we start talking about the important things now?
I don't know why we are OK with hand picking otherwise less than useful Pokemon that basically have no other merits when there are actually powerful, threatening, and commonly used that Meditite DOES deal with. I'm not going to be hand-picking these, they are straight from the top of the usage chart. I'm
just using this Meditite for this: 116 HP / 196 Atk / 156 Def / 36 Speed, Adamant nature @ Eviolite. Fake Out/Bullet Punch/Drain Punch/Zen Headbutt.
Mienfoo/Timburr/Scraggy
I don't think I'm required to give calcs for this. Meditite can switch into any of Mienfoo/Timburr's moves even after its Knocked Off and OHKO back. Hell, even Life Orb Meditite can switch into this.
Pawniard
Meditite can actually check Pawniard even
after a Swords Dance which makes a huge impact in a game. To top it off, it can check it with Drain Punch, meaning its healed up some of its HP (meaning it can still check things like Mienfoo and Timburr). This is where I think Meditite shines, it can check so many things but keep its HP high enough to keep doing it for more than one Pokemon per game.
Dwebble/Tirtouga/Carvanha
These Pokemon are insanely dangerous as I'm sure everyone can agree. After a Shell Smash, they OHKO a shit load of the metagame. What don't they beat? Meditite. Meditite with Fake Out can even switch into the smashers to break Sturdy and KO afterwards with Drain Punch. Again, to put the icing on the cake, it
retains its HP (and item).
Chinchou
Chinchou needs lots of investment to avoid being OHKOed by Drain Punch (or Eviolite) and doesn't 2HKO back due to Drain Punch doing so much damage. I'm not using the spread, but Meditite can easily switch into Chinchou with SpD investment. It retains its HP and item once Chinchou is dead.
Magnemite
Fake Out + Drain Punch heals Thunderbolt/Flash Cannon's damage and KOes Magnemite. It can even switch into the common Thunderbolt-less variant.
Trubbish
Trubbish is a huge pussy and is OHKOed by ZHB.
Porygon
Porygon can deal some respectable damage to Meditite but not enough to KO it before it loses to Drain Punch.
Ferroseed
No need to explain. It hates Thunder Wave but it KOes it and keeps its HP and item.
Diglett
I might be digging but I'm honestly just going through my teams and stuff. This thing can only 2HKO with Life Orb and Drain Punch makes sure it doesn't. It can revenge kill it with low HP but it loses a bunch of its own HP. Also Blarajan's -2 Meditite likes to roll 1/16 and get the max damage to KO a low HP Diglett.
Munchlax
Can switch into any move and KO with Drain Punch.
Archen
Non acrobatics Archen can't touch Meditite and gets destroyed by Drain Punch + Bullet Punch. Acrobatics can be bypassed by Drain Punch and Bullet Punch, since it survives Acrobatics with item or Defeatist.
Fletchling
Yea I'm going there. It can't reliably check this due to Stealth Rock but it fucks it right up with max HP.
Abra
Fake Out + Bullet Punch, though Life Orb does revenge Meditite with Shadow Ball or Dazzling Gleam iirc.
I'm sure I could dig for more and STILL get more competitively Pokemon than Solisis, Baltoy, and Elgyem combined. Unlike the hand-picked "counters", there will be at LEAST 1-2 of these Pokemon on basically every viable team. Probably more like 4, if we are being honest. The Speed argument also takes a bit of a beating here because of its arbitrary nature. This list shows that while its slow, it survives the faster Pokemon's moves and KOes back. It outpaces the Pokemon that would KO it and heals itself back.
So I'll present both sides, with weakening agents in brackets.
Here are the pro-ban arguments:
- Meditite can check and counter a large part of the metagame WHILE retaining its ability to continue doing it for the majority of them.
- Meditite can bypass some of its counters if required (but only a few per game).
Here are the anti-ban arguments.
- It's slow (but only a few Pokemon that outpace it can actually KO it).
I mean the arguments look pretty stacked, especially in terms of the weight of the arguments, for the banning side. But again, deciding if the sheer weight of those arguments pushes over the banning line is still subjective and I'm still on the fence, I just wanted to set the record straight and make sure we aren't voting purely on whether Elgyem can counter Meditite or not.