ok here we go
In other words, you're assuming we A. mispredict and end up in the worst situation possible, and B. are incapable of bringing our check into a predicted Sigilyph switchin. Nobody said we had to be using a 208 HP spread either, you just made that up.
No, you're assuming that we A. happen to have the best counter to the sigilyph set that we're facing in all matches or B. are capable of double switching every time Sigilyph comes in. Also, just because "no one" uses that spread doesn't mean it's incapable of running it, and doesn't make it any less effective. It just proves that your Sigilyph "counter" can't actually counter Sigilyph at all since it loses to bulky variants.
Right, so at this point instead of saying "Hey, maybe I should go to Spiritomb to avoid the incredibly obvious Psychic coming my way", you decide to stay in and deal some damage with the hardest hitting attack you've got. 91% max damage isn't a OHKO, but at least you managed to lower it to a point that any other Pokemon on your team can finish it off. And if you are capable of keeping Stealth Rock off of your side of the field, you can guarantee beating it with Fire Blast. Considering that I didn't list this as a counter, however, whether or not it functions as one is irrelevant.
What if you go to Spiritomb and take a nice +1 Dazzling Gleam? It's this kind of insecurity vs Sigilyph that makes it a pain to play against.
91% might put Sigilyph relatively out of commission, but the problem is that can always come back in, find a slower Pokemon that can't 2HKO it, and Roost. And at this point your Sigilyph check is dead, so you're in another tough spot. Also js Eruption is less powerful after SR so it'll actually do less.
What you're looking for is not checks but simpleton counters- Pokemon that can beat Sigilyph singlehandedly with no prediction against the vast majority of moves it will be making from practically any set.
So basically what you're saying here is that if a Pokemon can be checked but not countered, it's ok, and you're content with losing a mon every time it comes in?
Against other ordinary Pokemon, "simpleton counters" do exist. Vileplume is a simpleton counter to Sceptile, Steelix is a simpleton counter to Swellow. But simpleton counters don't exist for the exact reason you said: Sigilyph has a vast movepool to choose from to beat out most Pokemon.
Fair enough, I can find some of those since you apparently need them:
Sure, I will tell you why they aren't simpleton counters.
Scarf Luxray- can tank any hit Sigilyph throws at it, OHKOs with Wild Charge, doesn't care about about burn cause of Guts
Walrein- easily tanks any hit even at +1, can OHKO with Frost Breath afterwords no matter how many boosts Sigilyph has
Musharna- Walls Sigilyph's standard moves and can easily Calm Mind up alongside it, eventually winning a Psyshock war thanks to its superior bulk. Can even beat it with Skill Swap + Toxic if you're feeling trolly
Specs Lanturn- Tanks any move and OHKOs with Thunder, can even tank a +1 Energy Ball on the random sets that have it
Swoobat- Switches into any hit and can set up Calm Minds twice as fast as Sigilyph. Swoobat hits +4/+4 the same turn Sigilyph hits +2/+2, and can proceed to 2HKO it with Shadow Ball. Unaware sets can also counter it with a similar setup.
Articuno- works similarly to Walrein but needs SR off the field to work 100% of the time, can tank even +1 Heave Waves though
Specs Raichu - tanks a hit, OHKOs with Thunder
Lapras - works like Articuno/Walrein. I think we're seeing a pattern here
Regice- easily tanks any hit, even Heat Wave, at +1 after Stealth Rock damage. OHKOs with Ice Beam/Blizzard if you're running a Specs set
Specs/LO Probopass- Barely dented by any of Sigilyph's standard moves, can 2HKO with Power Gem even after a boost
Xatu (honorable mention)- Switches in easily and can pretty much neutralize it with Haze + Light Screen, allowing a teammate to easily finish Sigilyph off
Scarf Luxray: 1) it sucks, 2) it cannot switch in repeatedly
Walrein: it sucks and loses to Energy Ball sets
Musharna: it can eventually be stalled out with Flame Orb CP sets, although it'll take a while
Specs Lanturn: lol Thunder
Swoobat: can't take hits at all, Ice Beam flat out destroys it and Heat Wave takes a massive chunk off it
Articuno: so you'll need to give your counter support now, in an environment where spinning is as difficult as it is?
Raichu: lol Thunder, also cannot take repeated hits
Lapras: Sigi 2HKOes with Energy Ball after rocks
Regice: ok I'll give this one to you but unless it's running Frost Breath it still loses
Probopass: Sigilyph can reach +2, Roost and keep boosting because Power Gem is neutral when Roosting. Not only does it lose, it's actually setup fodder lol
Xatu: standard sets lose to Ice Beam and the one you mentioned is so specialized and restrictive
as you can see those simpleton counters you mentioned are either 1) not simpleton counters or 2) too restrictive on teambuilding. What I mean by 2) is that I'm forced to run Frost Breath on Regice if I want to beat it, or Haze + Light Screen on Xatu because no one else can simpleton counter it.
"But Vryheid," you say, "Swoobat is lame, and how can I run my generic bulky Lanturn set if its not running Leftovers? Also, if they're running X spread with Y obscure coverage move, and make a perfect prediction on the switchin, some of these counters won't work!" Yes, yes, young Padiwan, this Pokemon is pretty dangerous- luckily, we have plenty of revenge killers that rip Sigilyph a new one even if your initial switchin fails. They just can't take being hit by certain moves as they switch in. Choice Band Zebrastrika, Archeops, Scarf Vanilluxe, Scarf Pangoro, Scarf Ramparados, Regirock with a Lum Berry, Dread Plate Liepard, Specs Cryogonal and Lum Berry Gigalith, all outspeed Sigilyph and threaten to OHKO it even after a boost (with the exception of Regirock and Gigalith, who aren't listed as counters simply because they can't afford to get burned twice). There are some other sets like Swellow who usually beat it or take it down the brink of being KOd, but there's a chance they can get knocked out themselves in the process. Another approach is to soften up Sigilyph with a Volt Switch from something like Rotom and finish the job with practically any hard hitting Pokemon with a supereffective move.
I see now! Obviously Mega Lucario wouldn't be broken in OU because we can all sac a mon every time it comes in, revenge kill it, and if it switches out just repeat!
ok that is an exaggeration but I hope it showed you why just because you can revenge something doesn't mean it's not broken.
Finally, you can simply run counters to each individual Sigilyph set (the defensive Cosmic Power set loses to Magmortar, for instance, while the Life Orb set loses to Sucker Punch Spiritomb). This is honestly what most people are doing right now, and for the most part it seems to be working, at least for players prepared for it.
Ok I'll now fit a Spiritomb and Magmortar. Sigilyph is in the field. Which do I switch in? I don't know, because if I switch into the wrong move, something dies.
Yeah, that's pretty much obvious, otherwise people wouldn't be complaining about it being so hard to check/counter. Scarf Luxray isn't even that crazy, it was a
standard set last gen.
that analysis is horribly outdated though. Scarf Luxray is kinda bad because the Speed is rubbish for an Electric-type and it can't revenge kill most Speed boosters.
I had to go through every Pokemon in the NU tier to find ones that could actually beat Sigilyph reliably. I doubt the average player would really be willing to go that far just to deal with one Pokemon, but I'm simply showing that it can be done. I think all of those sets can be useful outside of checking Sigilyph as well.
Walrein useful outside of checking Sigilyph?
You mentioned you had to search long and hard for checks to Sigilyph. The problem is that 1) most of them are rather outclassed otherwise and 2) most of them can be dealt with with the appropriate coverage move. Even if they can't be OHKOed, their lack of recovery means that they cannot switch into Sigilyph more than once.
Does that mean everyone who's facing Sigilyph regularly has to choose one? No, but if their team is severely weak to it they might consider picking one.
So I either 1) pick something totally obscure like SpDef Light Screen Haze Xatu or 2) lose to one of sigilyph's sets.
Came about originally as a hard counter to Venemoth before it was banned, still works as a nice way to stave off the overwhelming special sweepers present in the tier. Light Screen is nice and Haze stops stupid BP shenanigans. You probably don't need it if you have other answers to Sigilyph but it's simply one option available.
I'd like to hear a few more Pokemon in NU that can safely switch into all Sigilyph sets. You mention Xatu, but if it means that if I want to counter Sigilyph, I'll have to run SpDef investment on every Xatu, Light Screen on every Xatu, and Haze on every Xatu?
I wasn't trying to imply this should be a standard strategy on every single team, I was simply using it as anecdotal evidence against the implication being made in several previous posts that Sigilyph is quite literally impossible to counter with any degree of consistency. It can be done without "guesswork", it can be done without "50/50 scenarios", and it can be done without requiring the loss of several Pokemon in the process.
I want to question how you do that without resorting to restrictive movesets like the Xatu you mentioned. The problem is that I can't even switch in something like Pangoro without fearing Air Slash or Dazzling Gleam, I can't switch Spiritomb in without fearing a burn or a LO Dazzling Gleam, I can't switch my Audino in without getting set up on. This means the most reliable way to defeat Sigilyph is to revenge kill it. Do you think it's healthy when a fast threat that cannot be worn down cannot be defeated unless you sac something yourself? And then the Sigilyph user can always switch out and come in later, which means you'll have to sac something else. Of course at this point you might have figured out its set but the point is that it's virtually impossible to counter a Sigilyph until you figure out which of the many moves it is running.
By extension, if you want to adequately prepare for Sigilyph, you need to ensure you have enough Pokemon that take Psychic + Heat Wave + Energy Ball + Ice Beam + Dazzling Gleam + Psycho Shift.
Is that a bad thing? Is there some rule engraved in stone somewhere that requires stall and bulky offense to be equally viable as hyperoffense in every single meta? Because I could really care less if stall is dead in NU. Maybe this is just a defining trait of the tier, sort of like how stall isn't a huge force in Little Cup right now either. You have plenty of other metas to pick from if you want to play stall that badly, OU and UU being great examples.
Not necessarily bad that Sigilyph breaks stall, but it IS bad when running a stall team becomes a liability due to that Pokemon. There's a difference between "Sigilyph can beat stall teams" and "Sigilyph's presence in the tier means that if you run a stall team, you're dead from team preview". Yes, there are several checks that stall can use, but they once again cannot cover all possible Sigilyph at once and it is extremely
restrictive for stall to try and do so.
Except it doesn't matter whether it would "hurt" or not, because Raseri already announced that there's going to be a suspect test no matter what. It's obvious that the overwhelming majority of players here want this thing to be banned, but I still feel like there isn't very good evidence against it and it would be a shame to ban things left and right simply because of what flavor of the week people think is annoying to deal with.
The past two pages have been giving you evidence on why it is broken. We've told you that Sigilyph cannot be countered without revealing its set and you're likely to lose a mon trying to scout it out; we've told you that Sigilyph has so much coverage at its disposal that it chooses its counters; we've told you that Sigilyph is fast enough to take advantage of this; we've told you that Sigilyph cannot be worn down and steamrolls through stall. You've not attempted to counter these, yet you feel it's not good evidence enough? All you did was bring up a few things that either switch into a specific set/move or are restrictive.
