np: SM UU Stage 4.2 - Paper Planes (Latias-Mega Banned)

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Personally I don't find Mega Latias by itself to be unmanageable or broken, but rather it makes dealing with Latias in general a lot more difficult because it's one of the very few megas that doesn't straight up outclass the original mon but instead provides it a whole new arsenal of viable sets to go long with what was already one of the best Pokemon in UU prior to the drops. Bulky Toxic mons might be good at ruining MLati's day but a lot of them don't handle a +1 Z-Draco very well, nor do they like switching into the rare Scarfed Trick Lati. It feels like you're always very pressured right from the start of the game to keep any potential Lati checks as healthy as possible until you learn exactly what it's set is and who you'll need to beat it. And while it's definitely possible to make an educated guess as to what set Lati is running based on it's teammates, things can still go south in a hurry if that guess turns out to be wrong.

Also a legit question here, if clicking Toxic is the most effective and common way to deal with it, then surely MLati users can adapt to this by either simply pairing it up with a cleric or by running Refresh/Psycho Shift/Substitute, right? Some are already running Reflect Type to deal with a few of it's checks, so it's not like MLati can't find the room for the odd support move.
 
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but the current cutoff came from Antar doing some math and determining that 3.4% was the likelihood of seeing something at least once in 20 games
You're mostly right, it's not just some arbitrary number that we can change around. If antar wants to go lower, that's more math, and there's no need.
 

Amaroq

Cover me.
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I've been following this thread and finally had the time and energy to respond to a bunch of stuff all at once, so this might get a little long.

Before talking about mega latias, I'll give my opinion on how the uu suspect process is going, now that we are 3 suspects in since the release of s&m.

This suspect process has been excruciatingly slow, taking a full month to complete each suspect test. The process is two weeks of suspecting, one week of voting, 3 days for uu suspect ladder to switch back to uu, and 5 more days for the banned pokemon to get taken off the ladder. We are now approaching a full year of S&M, and uu is unbalanced due to being unable to keep up with drops. If this extremely slow suspect process continues after the release of Ultra S&M, uu will remain unbalanced for the rest of this year and into next year. There a few ways to shorten this suspect process. One way is to suspect multiple pokemon at once. I thought the heracross / mgarde double suspect went well and saw no problem is suspecting multiple pokemon. Another way to speed up suspect tests is to allow people to vote as soon as they get their reqs, so that there doesnt have to be a full week for "voting." (Xurkitree, mgarde / heracross, and weavile's voting periods were all a full week).
While I understand your concerns, both of these proposed solutions are impractical. Suspecting multiple Pokemon at the same time makes it harder for us to isolate problems and increases the risk of banning something that isn't broken or not banning something that is broken because another Pokemon being tested at the same time skews the voters' perceptions.

Allowing people to vote as soon as they get their reqs causes far more problems than it solves. The suspect process requires that a vote achieve a certain majority in order to ban a Pokemon from UU or unban a Pokemon from BL. Allowing people to vote as they get their reqs instead of after the suspect period either means that the first voters decide the outcome or that we still have to wait for an arbitrary number of voters to achieve reqs and cast their vote. The second situation essentially already exists (the current "arbitrary number of voters" is "enough voters out of the players who earned reqs within the two week period to mathematically decide the result one way or the other"). Allowing users to vote earlier doesn't change the fact that the end of the voting period is still the earlier of either the voting deadline or the moment that the vote is mathematically decided and a TL is available to tally the votes and announce the result unless you want to restrict the vote to a certain number of people (the first [x] users to earn reqs), which defeats the point of having a deadline to begin with, prevents players who don't have time to ladder early and often from voting, and isn't fair to people who don't earn reqs until later on in the suspect period, whether this be because they don't have time to ladder early, need more games to reach the requisite COIL, just don't feel like playing until the Saturday before the deadline, or whatever other reason they may have for laddering late. Additionally, since the Tier Leaders have to grant users permission to post in voting threads, your proposed system also creates more work for the Tier Leaders by forcing them to adjust individual user permissions as users earn reqs instead of just doing so in one big batch when the thread goes up.

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the m-latias. I'd like to make a suggestion though.
For the OU By technicality (Garchomp-Mega, Latios-Mega), I wonder if it would be a good idea to allow that pokemon in a lower tier but it would HAVE to hold that megastone (illegal w/o the megastone, legal with that megastone). Mega Latios would be easier to handle (less defenses, although slightly higher SpA could be an issue). Still be good, but not banworthy.

Mega Garchomp on the other hand might be too much. Seems like a diggersby or mega heracross in that it is a medium-slow but VERY HARD hitting physical attacker. Costs the mega slot though, and 4x ice weakness and 2x fairy weakness really hurts.
This is legal: the thing on the bottom. (Same with mega-chomp under my proposal)

Anyone like my proposal? (OU by technicality can go to UU but those pokemon HAVE to hold the megastone).
This has been proposed multiple times through various avenues (the forums, the UU room on PS!, the official UU Discord server, etc.) and been shot down every time. If we allow, say, Mega Garchomp in UU under the specified conditions, nothing stops a player from just never clicking the Mega Evolution button and having what is essentially an itemless Garchomp that takes reduced damage from Knock Off. There's currently no way to force a player to Mega Evolve a Pokemon (and there shouldn't be, as strategically choosing when to Mega Evolve is an important aspect of using Pokemon like Mega Sharpedo, Mega Manectric, and Mega Steelix), so this proposal comes way too close to the "[Pokemon] isn't broken without [item/move/ability]" argument used in favor of complex clauses that run counter to Smogon's established tiering philosophy.

I just find it disturbing that they let you be in charge of the VR thread.

Also this: It is disturbing that a balance staple that is supposed to be a good special and Dragon check in Sylveon gets completely dismantled by Latias Mega.

It doesn't get completely dismantled. Things will look scary if you analyze them in a vacuum, but you have to see things from a big game perspective i.e. Rocks, prior damage, which phase of the game you're in to fully make a judgement on MLatias. Hogg and co have analyzed MLatias from this position, whereas you posted calcs and theoretical situations that rarely reflect reality, Boris Johnson.
Personal attacks don't make people take you or your arguments more seriously. Be civil, please.

Couldn't we just reduce the amount of pokemon dropping to UU by changing it so that only pokemon with a usage rate of (insert lower percentage here) or below drop?
Not to contradict Hogg, but this is technically possible. However, it's a decision that would impact Smogon's tiering philosophy as a whole and thus must be made at a higher level than the tier leadership. There's no real need to alter the sitewide tiering system in order to correct a situation we already have the tools to rectify.

Anyway, I'm of the opinion that Mega Latias's combination of bulk, power, speed, and versatility make it too strong for the tier. While every set techically has counterplay, it's much harder to include reliable counterplay to Mega Latias on a team because it can run so many sets, each of which have different answers, and those options may not be able to handle Z-Crystal or Life Orb Latias sets, which still represent significant threats in the current meta. This metagame is already oversaturated with threats and Mega Latias significantly exacerbates the problem.
 

david0895

Mercy Main Btw
This has been proposed multiple times through various avenues (the forums, the UU room on PS!, the official UU Discord server, etc.) and been shot down every time. If we allow, say, Mega Garchomp in UU under the specified conditions, nothing stops a player from just never clicking the Mega Evolution button and having what is essentially an itemless Garchomp that takes reduced damage from Knock Off. There's currently no way to force a player to Mega Evolve a Pokemon (and there shouldn't be, as strategically choosing when to Mega Evolve is an important aspect of using Pokemon like Mega Sharpedo, Mega Manectric, and Mega Steelix), so this proposal comes way too close to the "[Pokemon] isn't broken without [item/move/ability]" argument used in favor of complex clauses that run counter to Smogon's established tiering philosophy.
The server could be coded to force the mega evolution in the moment you decide to attack, but the real problem is that if you switch, for example, a Rough Skin Garchomp on a Scizor's Bullet Punch, the latter has taken damage from an ability of a base Garchomp
 

Deleted User 400951

Banned deucer.
Alright, I said I'd write more, I'm writing more.

First of all, that OU by technicality proposal, for reasons Amaroq already explained, isn't going to happen afaik.
Couldn't we make it even lower than before though?
Why would we do that for just one tier? We already have options available to fix the tier, and frankly I don't see why we should compromise the whole philosophy for just one tier in one gen. That doesn't make sense.

Anyways, as I stated, I'm definitely pro-ban on this thing. PIF made some actually strong points. It's not about whether it's broken; it's about how it's unhealthy and forces to metagame to adapt in unhealthy ways. A couple of mons running HP Fire for Scizor isn't unhealthy, but almost every team being forced to run Toxic somewhere for Latias-Mega is. It's just too versatile, and then you factor in regular latias's sets and you just question why the hell it's still in the tier.

As for Sacri's post regarding Snake, just note that Umbreon is honestly not a great pokemon and that it being relevant purely because of latias-mega isn't exactly a sign of "it's easily prepped for" but rather "it's overly constricting". Also the lures are not a sign of it being healthy either, since imo pursuit lax is legit shit outside of that and maybe chandelure (tho tbh chandelure isn't all that great itself).

However, that being said, people are exacerbating how bad UU is right now. There's a reason I still play this tier over the others, and that's because it's honestly not that unbalanced. It can get stale at times with the hazard stack and Volt Turn everywhere but it doesn't make the other archetypes unviable. I think that Latias-Mega is the last ban we'll need for now, but it's a ban we still need. Ban Latias-Mega.
 

Punchshroom

FISHIOUS REND MEGA SHARPEDO
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The server could be coded to force the mega evolution in the moment you decide to attack, but the real problem is that if you switch, for example, a Rough Skin Garchomp on a Scizor's Bullet Punch, the latter has taken damage from an ability of a base Garchomp
Even if that were possible (and I have high doubts), 'messing with game mechanics' only applies if there is some sort of precedent from existing mechanics, such as Sleep Clause being enforceable due to the Pokemon Stadium games setting the precedent. There is currently no in-game mechanic that forces Mega Evolution, so this rule cannot be implemented even if it were possible.
 

david0895

Mercy Main Btw
Even if that were possible (and I have high doubts), 'messing with game mechanics' only applies if there is some sort of precedent from existing mechanics, such as Sleep Clause being enforceable due to the Pokemon Stadium games setting the precedent. There is currently no in-game mechanic that forces Mega Evolution, so this rule cannot be implemented even if it were possible.
oh, I didn't know about this. Thanks
 
After doing several battles in the current meta, I have changed my previous viewpoint. The one thing that still stands is that I still believe M-Latias should be banned. The other pokemon that I think needs a closer look and a potential suspect is one that I thought of for a long time.


Sharpedo-Mega @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Psychic Fangs
- Protect
I've always wondered how this guy has slipped under the radar for so long. Speed Boost lets it increase its speed with extreme ease. Choice scarfed revenge killers don't work 90% of the time thanks to the ease at which Sharpedo reaches +2. It can switch in on a latias after a volt switch or a teammate has been sacked, and click protect. If they switch out, protect doesn't activate, and you get another turn to use protect. If they stay in, you protect, then hit them with a crunch. Similar situations can occur with other popular pokemon such as gliscor. Either way, stopping it from getting to +2 is near impossible most of the time. However, speed doesn't mean power. With Sharpedo, it does. Sharpedo hits about as hard as conkeldurr, a pokemon banned at 45 speed. Now with speed boost in the picture, you get where this starts getting problematic. I've literally broken hardcore stall teams solely with M-Sharpedo. Malt dropping down creates a new check to M-Sharpedo, however, it gets 2hkoed by Ice Fang, and is a large teambuilding constraint, given the variety of other viable megas. Alomomola works to an extent, but this gives serious problems to balanced offense teams, as well as offense teams in general, who can't handle this thing once rocks are up. Klefki also makes this more ridiculous, stacking a layer of spikes or 2 makes a Sharpedo sweep near impossible to stop.It can also be abused with toxic spikes as well. Manectric-M is a funny check, constrains mega slot as well. Overall, this guy is a monster, only stopped by Klefki for offense,somewhat checked by certain megas, and alomomola. This guy really deserves a suspect test.
 

roman

Banned deucer.
After doing several battles in the current meta, I have changed my previous viewpoint. The one thing that still stands is that I still believe M-Latias should be banned. The other pokemon that I think needs a closer look and a potential suspect is one that I thought of for a long time.


Sharpedo-Mega @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Psychic Fangs
- Protect
I've always wondered how this guy has slipped under the radar for so long. Speed Boost lets it increase its speed with extreme ease. Choice scarfed revenge killers don't work 90% of the time thanks to the ease at which Sharpedo reaches +2. It can switch in on a latias after a volt switch or a teammate has been sacked, and click protect. If they switch out, protect doesn't activate, and you get another turn to use protect. If they stay in, you protect, then hit them with a crunch. Similar situations can occur with other popular pokemon such as gliscor. Either way, stopping it from getting to +2 is near impossible most of the time. However, speed doesn't mean power. With Sharpedo, it does. Sharpedo hits about as hard as conkeldurr, a pokemon banned at 45 speed. Now with speed boost in the picture, you get where this starts getting problematic. I've literally broken hardcore stall teams solely with M-Sharpedo. Malt dropping down creates a new check to M-Sharpedo, however, it gets 2hkoed by Ice Fang, and is a large teambuilding constraint, given the variety of other viable megas. Alomomola works to an extent, but this gives serious problems to balanced offense teams, as well as offense teams in general, who can't handle this thing once rocks are up. Klefki also makes this more ridiculous, stacking a layer of spikes or 2 makes a Sharpedo sweep near impossible to stop.It can also be abused with toxic spikes as well. Manectric-M is a funny check, constrains mega slot as well. Overall, this guy is a monster, only stopped by Klefki for offense,somewhat checked by certain megas, and alomomola. This guy really deserves a suspect test.
You can't seriously sit there and make an absurd claim like that without providing us with any replays. Stall has staples such as Alomomola and other good stall mons like Umbreon which literally just hard counter it (not sure what "Alomomola works to an extent" means). You also really oversell it's matchup against offense. Klefki is by no means offense's only way around Mega Sharpedo as it has options such as Infernape (Scarf and NP (if slightly chipped)), any healthy form of Scizor, Cobalion, Klefki, Mega Manectric, Mega Altaria, Primarina, etc. This isn't even including Pokemon such as Offensive Rotom-W, Hydreigon, etc. that can all tank hits from Mega Sharpedo if hazards aren't up. Of course many of these mons can't directly switch in on it, but can only revenge kill which is more than adequate in Mega Sharpedo's case as forcing it out makes it almost useless against offense teams as it has trouble getting kills without the speed boost.

You can't post something like this and expect to convince an audience especially if you have no evidence [valid replays] to support your claim and don't even bother to type up more than what seems to be a rushed paragraph.
 
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HotFuzzBall

fuzzy-chan \(ㆁヮㆁ✿)
is an Artist
alright can we just like focus on the subject (aka Mega Latias) and stop bringing up random solutions to UU's constant suspect testing and other Pokemon you deem worthy of a suspect (I mean if you're going to do that at least provide some evidence, and no, a wall of calc don't count as evidence unless you back it up with good replays). Like I have been following this thread pretty closely and as of now, there is like 50/50 between random weird ass solutions / people addressing why those solutions are unnecessary and actual good content.

Anyways, personally I don't have the patience to ladder so I may or may not actually climb for Reqs but, I will like to see Mega Latias banned. At first I knew I was pro-Mega Latias ban, then after reading Christo's thoughts via Discord and some other posts (specifically Cake's I moved onto anti-ban. Now that I've actually adapted and changed my teams (this was just me being a lazy ass), I now believe that Mega Latias does need to go in order for UU to progress forward into the right direction.

The main problem I have with Mega Latias is it's pretty much the perfect Pokemon in UU (not necessarily a reason to ban a Pokemon since ya'know we survived with Clefable but... Mega Latias is maybe too perfect in my book), the combination of that speed/bulk/power along with a diverse movepool makes it very hard to stop. I mean Mega Latias does have counters, the biggest 2 being A-Muk (personally I view A-Muk as a hard check due to lack of recovery but, balance teams tend to have a way to remedy that with Wish support) and Toxic but, it isn't all that hard to support. Gliscor is rising in popularity and is a great compliment to Mega Latias since it helps check Toxic Klefki and is a solid counter to A-Muk, Sylveon is rising in popularity and functions as a great cleric (Toxic removal) and Dark-type check for it. Also the number of offensive sets/options it can run (BoltBeam, Stored Power, Surf, Offensive Dragon Pulse/HP Fire) already makes it difficult to pin down since it can tailor its sets to deal with it's own counters (I mean this idea isn't anything new but, on a Pokemon with a great movepool and stats, I think it matters a lot). For example, (using Pif's example) Fairy-types such as Prima and Sylveon can check the somewhat uncommon (according to what I've seen) D-Pulse + HP Fire set but, they struggle against BoltBeam or Surf/Stored Power Mega Latias despite the type advantage.

Overall, Mege Latias is a centralizing force (not necessarily a bad thing to be centralizing but, I feel like Mega Latias's centralization isn't healthy since it forces teams to adapt in a weird way) that needs to be gone in order for UU to move forward in the right direction
 
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yeezyknows

Banned deucer.
Yeah i'm voting ban

This mon is just lame. Borderline unkillable with cleric support and insanely problematic for literally every build that doesn't have both sciz and muk together. Even then, both lose to reflect type and sciz loses to hp fire.

If you have something faster, it probably can't kill it, and if you have something that can kill it, it's probably not faster.

Legitimately which mons can beat reflect type m-lati if you have cleric support in the back?

Only legit counterplay is toxic, which is actually just stupid- would lugia not be banned in UU? After all, toxic does gets rid of it.
 
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Hey there everyone, I suppose it's about time for me to drop my own opinions about Mega Latias since I ended up not doing such for Weavile and it's about time that I actually do something akin to participating in these debates. I haven't started on reqs yet but hopefully I can get them done before the deadline if I try. I already somewhat solidified my opinion on this mon in the last suspect test as I spammed it and got reqs pretty easily for once in my life.

Mostly I've been seeing pro ban arguments as "it's (most of which were mostly aimed at Reflect Type) is too hard to kill" and "it's forcing things to run Toxic which is dumb". I've made my opinion public in some places but if it wasn't already clear, I strongly disagree with some of these sentiments. While I do agree that Reflect Type can be a massive pain for some unprepared offenses, by running Reflect Type the Latias user is resigning themselves to a single attack (unless you're running 2 attacks which forces you to give up Calm Mind or Recover which I shouldn't have to explain why that would be flawed). Continuing on flawed ideas, even if the worst case scenario does occur and it does get the Reflect Type off on Klefki or Muk, I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one that'll tell you that your team is flawed in itself if Mega Latias can sweep through your team with only one of Stored Power or Ice Beam. Dark/Poison or Steel/Fairy with a Ground immunity might be a real annoying mon to take down but I've never had it break through an entire team of mine. Once it reveals its gimmick (not the best word since Reflect Type is a legit set but I can't think of a more fitting one) it becomes not very hard to phaze or even set up on with Cobalion or something. Reflect Type is good but at the end of the day it's just a way for a really good mon to circumvent its most standard checks while forfeiting its matchup against other threats; this is nothing new and it's been prevalent in every generation of Pokemon. GSC Snorlax, ADV Tyranitar and Kangaskhan, DPP and BW Jirachi, are some examples off the top of my head- all of them can probably can beat any given Pokemon in a 1v1 with the right set. Same goes for Mega Latias; Reflect Type is gonna be winning 1v1 against Muk and Klefki, Refresh Stored Power is gonna win against Blissey and Quagsire, HP Fire is gonna beat Scizor. If you slap the same check to a top-tier threat on your team over and over you're bound to get punished eventually. Anyone who saw my Weavile ladder run (still looking for the guy who saved the last 15-ish replays for no apparent reason, I just wanna know why ;_;) saw a metric fuckton of offensive Scizor get thrown in without a second thought and drop to HP Fire. I am actually a fan of how Mega Latias, among other threats like Mega Altaria and and Rotom-Wash are redefining how we check a lot of the top threats, as we have been slowly been inching away from the general "Rocks + a random Toxic/Thunder Wave or two + offensive pressure" mentality that people have seemed to have when building bulky offense. Maybe at some point we can use legitimate long-term checks to stuff to a decent degree of success again.

The conclusion to my thoughts on Reflect Type are actually a decent segway into my next point - the massive prevalence of Toxic in our metagame. I think Mega Latias is hardly to blame for this trend. I haven't legitimately liked any iteration of UU in SM so far which is mostly due to the current nature of building. The metagame is and has been more in favor of slapping offensive blanket checks to stuff and a few emergency buttons on a team rather than legitimate long term checks to top threats, which is something I often did in my earlier days of building and now dislike. This isn't exactly anyone or anything's fault; people are just using what's good, and what's easy to use. Playing offensively suits this metagame; I'm sure a lot of us, myself included, can attest to trying to run a more passive balance team only to fall behind very quickly in the wrong matchup and get simply overwhelmed. These "emergency buttons" have been gaining a ton of traction since trying to win games as quickly as possible is better a large majority of the time. You see them everywhere nowadays; strong priority moves, Toxic, Thunder Wave, Pursuit, fast Choice Scarf users, etc. Now at this point it may just seem like I'm rambling about how much I hate the meta but believe me, I've done it more than enough of that and I'm actually trying to make a point. Toxic is available on most Pokemon, making it easy to throw on a variety of teams that need it; we've been doing this long before Mega Latias entered UU. The most apparent example I can think of is Toxic on Swampert. It's fairly common at this point in the meta (though at this point we're probably gonna steal Seismitoad from NU). Why wouldn't it be? Swampert (and Seismitoad) are both extremely hard to OHKO without a Grass-type move and they can block Volt Switch, get up Stealth Rock, and then throw off a crippling Toxic on something, potentially leaving an otherwise devastating threat to your team on a timer and open your path to victory. This was bewildering to me at first, but I've come to accept it as a viable teambuilding choice over time. Toxic Swampert would never appear in 99 out of 100 ORAS UU games worth watching; it's just how the meta has adapted to dealing with an ever-increasing amount of threats. It's been popularized on Tentacruel, Empoleon, Gliscor, and even some new stuff like Sylveon (blame Killintime) and Rotom-W. This is one of the reasons that Klefki and Gliscor are both so good at the moment. They have access to these emergency buttons, and make excellent use of them. They also have tools like Spikes, Taunt, and Stealth Rock which they can utilize quite easily, which help you win games as quickly as possible. Don't blame Mega Latias, Toxic has been a stupidly good move since Generation 2 and it just happens to be the most effective against a top metagame threat.

To echo what Hikari said earlier, every metagame will have a best mon and Mega Latias will definitely be it if it does stay. I have no problem with Mega Latias being the face of our tier. Yes it is a big constraining force on the metagame and can run a lot of really good sets, but I find it far from impossible to deal with if you have the proper tools, all of which are far from unviable otherwise. Its presence surely isn't 100% at fault for the largely unlikable current trends, and in my opinion it's even providing a small start to push the UU metagame in the direction of something I think will be largely enjoyable in the future.
 

Manipulative

Camila <3
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I don't think that Mega Latias is as blatantly banworthy as our last three bans, but I do still think that it's an unhealthy presence that should leave for several reasons. I'll start with the most significant one.

A few people have already brought up the correlation between Latias and Mega Latias. I haven't seen much debate on this, but I think that it's a very crucial point to address. These are not two completely different Pokemon and they should not be seen as such. You need Latias in order to have Mega Latias. The moment you see Latias at Team Preview, you must take into consideration that it could very well be either of two forms and that it's not as if one form is significantly superior to the other. You may be able to infer which variant it is if the team carries another Pokemon that obviously needs to be Mega Evolved in order to be viable (such as Sharpedo or Aerodactyl), but I find that this isn't the case more often than it is. You also need to take into consideration that each form comes with its own share of viable/common sets. Essentially, the presence of Mega Latias in the tier simply gives Latias multiple new sets to run. When you look at it this way, the question should no longer be "Is Mega Latias broken/unhealthy?". Instead, it would be something along the lines of "Does Mega Latias make Latias as a whole broken/unhealthy?" In my opinion, the answer to the former question would probably be no, while the answer to the latter is absolutely yes. Fear not, as opposed to banning individual sets that make a Pokemon broken, banning just Mega Latias is not a complex ban.

In all honesty, I didn't find my laddering experience for reqs overwhelming, but I also took note of why I thought that was. Firstly, I think that every single Latias I saw was Mega Latias. Additionally, from the decent amount of games where I was using some form of Z-Move Latias, I noticed that many teams were unprepared despite being fine against common Mega Latias sets. I also tended to only bump into a few variants of Mega Latias, most prominently either Reflect Type or Defog + 2 attacks (usually boltbeam) and Roost. Surprisingly, I only ran into either CM + Stored Power or CM + 2 Attacks a handful of times. I also exclusively ran into bulky variants of Mega Latias. With offensive Mega Latias sets as well as base Latias being rare if not unseen, I wouldn't be surprised if other people found the suspect ladder to be underwhelming as well. However, I don't think the current state of the ladder is a good indicator of whether we should ban Mega Latias or not. If you haven't found the Mega Latias meta overwhelming now, you probably will when people stop focusing on just that specific form of Latias and only several variants of it. I think that Offensive Mega Latias will gain traction eventually and that people will revert back to using base Latias as well. You may be able to prepare for several sets, but you probably won't be able to make a good team that is prepared for all or even most of: Z-Move(multiple variants), Choice Scarf, Choice Specs, Defog (multiple variants), Reflect Type, Stored Power, Calm Mind + 2 Attacks (multiple variants), Offensive Mega Latias (multiple variants). I see that people like to focus on individual sets, but you likely won't find Latias broken unless you look at it as a whole. It also helps to note that Latias is now by far the most versatile Pokemon in the tier and Scizor isn't really comparable.

Just one more point that I wanted to discuss. I think the fact that status is the most solid way to deal with Mega Latias is far more concerning than the anti-ban arguments seem to portray. For one, Toxic is the primary status that Mega Latias fears, as well as paralysis but to a lesser extent. Mega Latias will gladly take a burn, and even being just regularly poisoned isn't the worst thing in the world. This could lead to some pretty ridiculous scenarios, such as never clicking Will-O-Wisp with Rotom-Wash, or never clicking Scald (seriously, why else would you not click this thing?) with whatever other bulky water you're using so that you don't make the opposing Mega Latias immune to its main weakness. Also, carrying heal bell support is not a heavy amount of team support for any team archetype that's not offense. Balance has several good options for this in Sylveon (which is fairly underrated right now), Togekiss, and even Umbreon which seems to be gaining at least a little bit of traction lately. Stall teams of course have these same options as well as Blissey. Heck, a stall team that I was using for the last stretch of reqs even utilized Tsareena for Aromatherapy. Not that I'm trying to say it's a good mon or anything (though it fit the team). Also, as opposed to having to switch into strong attacks, switching into Toxic generally isn't as overwhelming. I simply don't think that Toxic being the main form of counterplay to Mega Latias is a good indicator of it being healthy for the tier. I'll definitely be voting ban when the time comes.
 
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Sacri'

the end is here
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I don't think that Mega Latias is as blatantly banworthy as our last three bans, but I do still think that it's an unhealthy presence that should leave for several reasons. I'll start with the most significant one.
A few people have already brought up the correlation between Latias and Mega Latias. I haven't seen much debate on this, but I think that it's a very crucial point to address. These are not two completely different Pokemon and they should not be seen as such. You need Latias in order to have Mega Latias. The moment you see Latias at Team Preview, you must take into consideration that it could very well be either of two forms and that it's not as if one form is significantly superior to the other. You may be able to infer which variant it is if the team carries another Pokemon that obviously needs to be Mega Evolved in order to be viable (such as Sharpedo or Aerodactyl), but I find that this isn't the case more often than it is.
I will only adress this part of your post because it is the main point your argumentation lays in.


These are the regular forms of the Megas that can be used in UU. Latias appears to be the only pokemon that is viable under both it's regular and mega form. This automatically implies that if you see both Latias and one of these regulars forms at preview, it is obvious that the mega slot wont go to latias thus meaning that the opponent will play knowing that Latias isn't the mega and will be able to play around it accordingly. Now, let me ask you something: if you're using regular latias for its offensive abilities, why would you not benefit from having a free mega slot to fill it with one of the other megas ? Here is the answer: you have no reason not to run a mega pokemon alongside regular Latias, they are just too valuable on teams not to use them. This means that if you face a team that has only Latias as a potential Mega pokemon, it is going to be mega because there's no reason not to run a mega on about 99% of the teams. Out of the 45 teams used in Snake, 42 were using a mega and the 3 that didn't have one werent using Latias either, mostly because Mega latias is an overall better pokemon, if your mega slot is free it is going to be better than regular latias in most situations. Furthermore, Latias and Mega Latias should be considered as 2 different pokemons as you'll almost always be able to find out which form is being used at team preview. I understand why some people want Latias to be banned but this specific argument isn't very valid in practice. :pirate:
 
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Manipulative

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Even if you can tell whether you're facing base form Latias or Mega Latias at team preview, these two forms of Latias are not two completely different Pokemon. As soon as you put Mega Latias into your teambuilder, you are also putting Latias into your teambuiler have the option to run any of the sets that are viable between each form. This applies to every Pokemon that has a Mega form. The only difference is that this has never been an issue before because Latias is the only Pokemon in the tier with a Mega form that is also completely viable in its base form and each form runs completely different sets. It also doesn't help that each form is a top tier threat. Effectively covering anywhere near all of the variants of Latias you can run between its base and Mega form with any reasonable team is practically impossible. If you insist on wanting to consider them two completely different Pokemon, sure. However, do note that unless we ban Mega Latias, we still have to deal with all of the variants between both it and base Latias. If we do ban it, then we only have to deal with the latter. Not that I'd support it, but banning just base Latias isn't an option either because you can't have Mega Latias without it, and would therefor be banning every variant of Latias between the two.
 
Let me try to clear up some of this confusion. I think what manipulative was trying to say was that some people might start running teams with zero megas, even with latias on the team. People will expect latias to be holding a mega stone (seeing that it is the only possible mega evolution on the team), but will be suprised when latias bops them with a z draco instead.
 

kokoloko

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k just made reqs and my position remains the same, if not more firm tbh

i’ve been running a team with scarf hydreigon, np bell togekiss, and bulky sd scizor, three things that should stop most mega-lati sets together, yes? nope apparently not because pretty much all my “legit” losses (those being non-hax related and/or games where i went full retard due to rust) were to it. like i said before, the combination of its bulk, speed, power, and the fact that it can run like 8 different viable sets makes it way too easy for this pokemon to be supported.

ps. the tier has been ok since before the weavile ban tbh. i still think banning mgard was a mistake, but since we’re going for broke, now you have to ban this thing too lol
 
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Ive said this since the beginning, and since then nothing has come in the way of changing it:

Mega latias invalidates any special attacker that isn't super effective and doesnt have specs. Only the likes of chandelure and primarina can even dream of breaking through lati after a CM, only to get bodied by a +1 tbolt/psyshock. This makes meta staples like scarf hydreigon borderline useless without 3 flinches or a crit, defensive fairies without toxic stand no chance, and even sceptile, the only thing as faster than lati and stronger than hydreigon, all completely useless. On top of this, physical pokemon need to somehow be stronger and faster than latias, an almost impossible feat in a tier like UU with such underpowered pokemon, or they risk dying to coverage, with scizor being a main example. Something fast like aerodactyl really has no hope besides crunch for dealing with latias, and this really sets the tone for how most of the tier performs against it. Either something is too fast but not strong enough to break it, or too slow and dies immediately. No one has really contested this fact, and instead tried to deflect this argument with another argument.

It is also funny how most of the banned pokemon were all keeping eachother in check, and after banning them it kinda created a domino effect. This speaks to the state of the meta quite a bit, because right now UU exists as an awkward pubescent child which is filled with the majority being slightly below average strength pokemon, whilst the top dogs heavily outweight and skew the power creep of the meta. If you take for example mega latias, you'll see how its stats are just out of this world compared to the average, and with a bulk, attack, and speed that good, it creates a dissonance from the rest of the tier. Latias has such good stats that it is no longer "that UU team and its mega latias", it's "That mega latias and its UU team". This has been a statement echoed for every powerful drop. At some point the decision needs to be made for whether we want to have "the megas and UU" or "UU and the megas" and after banning mega garde and stuff it doesnt seem like we can have the first option, so we really need to ban latias too.

Thus far, the arguments around toxic and reflect type and stuff are the only contentious ones, when there exists a tonne of other arguments for why it should be banned, leaving me wondering why people are still talking about irrelevant arguments.
 
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MANNAT

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I've been testing out a pretty wide variety of breakers on the suspect ladder, and I just wanted to talk about my favorite one to use while trying to get reqs (I've gotten like 3-4 alts into the top 50 but the random number generator is a piece of shit). This would normally be a post in the VR thread, but I don't have enough knowledge of the meta prior to the suspect ladder to nom this thing up.


Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 160 Atk / 96 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Icicle Crash
- Freeze-Dry
- Ice Shard
- Earthquake

I absolutely love Mamoswine right now. With Freeze dry, this thing has little to no switch ins and can completely blow through teams with relative ease. I've been pairing this thing with voltturn support and it's been working wonders, with the insane pressure it imposes on the opposing team coupled with having constant opportunities to pivot into the opponent. I love Mamoswine because it rewards good play and predictions, as aggressive doubles into it pretty much guarantee a kill in most match ups. Additionally, Mamoswine can occasionally Ice Shard sweep late in games after eliminating the Ice resist in many situations after minimal chip damage on mons neutral to Ice. Obviously this thing has a relatively lackluster speed tier and struggles to get switch ins vs teams like the physical breaker spam HO that rob made and struggles against HO in general, but this thing is super solid overall and one of my favorite mons to use on the suspect ladder.

Also, I'm of the opinion that Mega Latias should be banned, but I don't want to write up a full post on it until after I get suspect reqs. Thanks for listening n_n
 
Hey! I'm going to vote Do not ban on Latias-Mega. My reasoning will mostly align with sentiments brought forward by Hikari, Hogg, Sacri' and (to my surprise, if I'm honest) eaglehawk earlier in this thread, but I'll try to elaborate a little more.

Is Latias-Mega very good? Yes. Is Latias-Mega versatile? Absolutely. Is it impossible to prepare for Latias-Mega? No, not at all. It is established that Latias-Mega can run a multitude of different sets, but each of them has drawbacks that limit its overall potential. Please consider this when preparing your teams! If you're using Toxic Empoleon, then make sure you have a means of counterplay for when it turns out to be Reflect Type, for example. If you use a dedicated "Latias-Mega check" and rely on it to beat every possible set, you're gonna get caught. That's a team building issue, not a Latias-Mega issue, in my opinion.

Look, this thing is obviously incredible, but isn't that fine? I don't think Latias-Mega is broken or overpowered to the point where we have to ban it, I just think it's very good.
 
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