np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Ghost of Perdition

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I managed to read through the majority of the posts, so I thought I would be nice to share my own opinions (and to point out what has already been stated n_n)

The best switch-ins on Aegislash are Mandibuzz and Chesnaught, according to many players. The reason why I strongly disagree with this statement is that a SubToxic set would easily cripple those "counters". And uhm, do you really think Mandibuzz/Chesnaught would fit on every team? Or better, do you think every team should ALWAYS dedicate a slot to these two pokemons? At last, remember that Aegislash can run some gimmicks, such as Head Smash or Flash Cannon...it seems to me that these options are perfectly viable, as many top tier sweepers benefit from the elimination of Mandibuzz and Gyarados.
Same goes for Hippowdon and Amoonguss, which can be easily worn down by a SDef drop (luck based situation!). Oh, right, shall I remind you that Amoonguss (which has been awarded the title of "best overall counter") can do NOTHING to Aegislash, except for sleeping it?

But then, a problem comes up. What could offensive teams possibly do against such a beast? Many players' answer is Bisharp or Diggersby. Regrettably, both of them are OHKO'd by Sacred Sword; the only support required is Stealth Rocks...shameful, isn't it? Nceedles to say, when the these pokemons are ko, the average offensive team MUST sac a pkmn, or have one severely damaged.

Of course, Aegislash does not always face an advantageous situation. Sometimes it has to face some good revenge killers, such as Landorus or MCharizard-X. In this situation, a 50/50 occurs. The casuistry has already been explained in detail, except for one event. What if the Aegislash team runs a solid switch-in to the aforementioned pkmns? Now, I do realize that it is hard to switch in Charizard and Landorus, but they are certainly easier to rkill. So, while the opposing team has few chances to kill Aegislash, the Aegislash on the other team can come in and threaten with a kill.

At last, I would like to point out why the King Shield mechanics are so broken. Apart from the 50/50 that occurs when using that move, I find it insane that most "shaky checks" lose all their opportunity to kill Aegislash because of an attack drop. Oh, and remember that a -2 Atk pokemon is an easy set-up field for a great part of the entire metagame.

Further thoughts regarding the balance of the metagame will come soon n_n
 

Inflikted

Orco2
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Oh, right, shall I remind you that Amoonguss (which has been awarded the title of "best overall counter") can do NOTHING to Aegislash, except for sleeping it?
Amoonguss has access to Foul Play and is slower than Aegislash, meaning that if Aegi attacks, it will be hit in blade forme and OHKOed, js.

I'm really close to getting reqs; I read sooo many posts in this thread and I don't think I have anything to really add do this discussion, so I will share my thoughts briefly.

While Aegislash is centralizing, I don't really think it's overpowered for the tier; saying it has checks is not an argument, i know, but aegislash's checks are actually good in this meta outside of their "role" of Aegislash checks, and that's actually pretty important in my opinion. I'm on my mobile atm and I'll expand later.
 
A common sub variant can deal with amoonguss easily. Also, the standard amoonguss takes 44.6 - 52.7% from shadow ball (not a solid switch-in really).
Taking 1vs1 scenarios into account when considering the possible counters of a pokemon is dumb, in my opinion :/
 
One of the main arguments for banning of Aegislash is that more and more Pokemon will be viable, and teambuilding will have a much greater degree of freedom.



Deoxy-D's suspect testing was done on the grounds of overcentralizing the metagame around hyper-offense, which is literally the same thing Aegislash is being banned for; overcentralizing the metagame to find ways to defeat this sentient piece of medieval weaponry. So many Pokemon like Dragonite, Mega Pinsir, Tyranitar, and Terrakion are basically forced to run Earthquake due to the mere existence of Aegislash and its signature move King's Shield, when they could be running much more useful moves and 'spicing' up the metagame. Aegislash's presence forces almost every offensive Pokemon to run obscure coverage moves JUST to hit Aegislash, and this makes for an extremely stale metagame.

The fact there are no true counters to Aegislash was part of the reason I was leaning towards the ban side of the argument. The mere fact that it counters and even makes so many Pokemon unviable like Mega Heracross, Mega Medicham, and Terrakion without having any real counters is actually quite frightening. Every single 'check' can be shredded to pieces if the player switches it into a different Aegislash set, leaving it down to pure luck on whether your opponent has brought the right Aegislash set. Diggersby and Terrakion get destroyed by the Air Balloon variants. SpD Hippowdon and Mandibuzz are dealt with by the SubToxic set. Bisharp gets annihilated if the player predicts incorrectly and switches into a Sacred Sword, and even if it gets in, the fast Life Orb set just outspeeds and snuffs it out anyway. I mean, sure its movepool isn't that good, but it literally has all the tools it needs to dismantle almost any Pokemon. I've switched Mandibuzz into Aegislash many times, forcing it out only to shit all over my team once something else kills my Mandibuzz, but on the few occasions I've been hit with a Head Smash, I die a little inside, knowing that this player only used it 'just to fuck mandibuzz lol'. There is literally no way to safely switch ANYTHING into Aegislash safely without scouting out its set first, and by that time half your team might already be dead.

Honestly, despite all this, I don't believe Aegislash is that banworthy by virtue of its movepool and versatility alone. If you do bring the right check, Aegislash is actually not that hard to deal with. SpD Hippowdon handles the standard special attacking set nicely, Mandibuzz walls most offensive sets without Head Smash, LO / Band Diggersby pops non-Air Balloon variants, Bisharp takes care of any non-Speed / Sacred Sword sets, etc, you get the gist. However, I do believe that Aegislash has an unhealthy effect on the OU metagame, turning predictions against Aegislash into basically coin tosses where skill is completely absent; like many posters before me have said. That said, I also believe that if Aegislash is banned, its banishment to Ubers would definitely breathe some new life into the metagame by breaking the chains that clamped on so tightly to moveslots, just for a coverage move which can deal decent damage to Aegislash before the said Pokemon goes down. Never before have I seen the sentences 'However, this set is still walled by X', 'without this move, it will get walled by X', or 'run -coverage move- to hit X' floating around as much as I have in regards to Aegislash. Personally, I don't think Aegislash is THAT banworthy, but I'd actually like to see it banned, just for the sake of making more Pokemon viable in OU (and by extension making it less stale and more fun / creative) and teambuilding less restrictive. Just my two cents,,,
I will repeat my point that Pinsir and Terrakion's preferred coverage is walled by the mere fact that Aegis has Steel/Ghost typing is a poor reason for overcentralization. Dragonite also runs EQ for Heatran, not just Aegislash. I'm not familiar with Mega Tyranitar but choice and support sets often ran EQ or Fire Blast traditionally so Aegislash is a moot point. I've said this many times, Aegislash should only be banned because he comes in easily and has no counters and causes 50/50s, not because overcentralization, which is the weakest and most debatable point.
 

horyzhnz

[10:02:17 AM] flcl: its hory xD
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I will repeat my point that Pinsir and Terrakion's preferred coverage is walled by the mere fact that Aegis has Steel/Ghost typing is a poor reason for overcentralization. Dragonite also runs EQ for Heatran, not just Aegislash. I'm not familiar with Mega Tyranitar but choice and support sets often ran EQ or Fire Blast traditionally so Aegislash is a moot point. I've said this many times, Aegislash should only be banned because he comes in easily and has no counters and causes 50/50s, not because overcentralization, which is the weakest and most debatable point.
They were examples, some poorly chosen, but basically some Pokemon have to run a coverage move to even survive. Also, I don't believe I said Aegislash should be banned for overcentralization; I said it would be nice if it were banned, so there would be less overcentralization.
 
Aegislash is a smart, complicated pokemon. If someone can't deal with Aegislash it's most of the time because they didn't know how to handle it or didn't out predict.
I find Aegislash fun to both go up against and play because of this. It can be stopped by so many things too that I don't get why people are so scared. Burns, paralyzes, taunts, foul play, etc all stops it in it's tracks. Also even before it's ban; swagger...

I think it'd be sad to see Aegislash banned especially since it's to tactical. The very core of Pokemon is tactics so to see Aegislash go would be a huge bummer in my opinion.

Don't Ban.
 
I'm not a fan of banning Aegislash, but I can definitely admit that Aegi holds a ton on Pokemon back from running different sets. Aegislash is way too diverse, bulky, and powerful. A Pokemon that can hold back a good amount of other Pokemon from reaching their potential definitely warrants suspect testing.

However, in my own personal opinion and experiences, I've found that beating Aegislash has never proved to be a challenge at all. Maybe that's just me tho...

It's heads or tails at this point for my opinion of Aegislash's ban
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
Aegislash should be banned, but I'd still like to address a certain pro-ban point:

The people that are arguing that mons like Gardevoir, Pinsir, and Heracross will become a pain in the ass for stall aren't insinuating that Aegislash is on every, or even any, stall team. The point is that the presence of Aegislash on ANY team severely restricts the potential usage of these mons, indirectly easing the burden on stall teams by reducing the viability of the mons that would otherwise threaten stall.

Less of these pokemon = Stall has an easier time


However, this is still dumb. It's not as if these pokemon don't have other checks/counters. It's not as if these pokemon aren't already a burden to stall given their OU usage. If anything, the banning of Aegislash will not only ease the burden on mons like Mandibuzz and Hippowdon. It will also increase the popularity of these "troublesome" mons. While stall will now definitely need to prepare for them, this makes them even less threatening than they currently are given that an unprepared stall team would struggle far more against the occasional gardevoir than a prepared one will. It reduces the weight of team matchup, if only by a tiny margin.
 
What Pokemon make Aegislash viable (or unviable) is only relevant in that if there's a huge list of them, it's proof that Aegi is overcentralizing and therefore worthy of a ban. It's unhealthy for a tier of 50ish Pokemon to revolve around one.

Correct--and I never really had much of a problem with Swag Play aside from the 100 turns of confusion, personally. However, SwagPlay very clearly was uncompetitive, whereas Aegislash is not.

EDIT: Maybe I'm not really understanding your point, because I don't really see what Swagger has to do with Chesnaught being viable on stall.
My argument is that Swagger also helped defensive teams, but Smogon's users considered the benefits of Swagger to be way outmatched by the drawbacks.

Swagger and Aegislash actually have a lot in common.
 

Lady Alex

Mew is blue
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
However, in my own personal opinion and experiences, I've found that beating Aegislash has never proved to be a challenge at all. Maybe that's just me tho...
Comments like this always concern me, because, in cases where the pokemon isn't blatantly and obviously broken (kangaskhan, lucario as examples of pokemon that were inarguably overpowered), I've seen a lot of people refer to their own lack of difficulty with the pokemon in question in considering whether or not it's banworthy. The problem with that is when a pokemon like Aegislash makes the metagame revolve around it, as it does, more than any other individual pokemon right now, the standard by which a pokemon is considered good becomes "How well can it handle Aegislash?" If that's the standard that heavily influences the viability of many pokemon in the metagame, of course any solid team isn't going to find Aegislash to be some insurmountable obstacle. That doesn't make Aegislash's presence desirable for the health of the meta. An extreme example of the problem with the logic of "I don't personally find it difficult to deal with, thus I don't think it's broken" is, hypothetically, if we had a pokemon X that was an absolute free win unless you ran at least 1 of a handful of pokemon Y that could deal with it, everyone would have to run one of those handful of pokemon, otherwise it would be an auto-loss. Since everyone is running pokemon Y to deal with pokemon X, no one is going to have a significantly hard time against pokemon X, but it would still be wildly unhealthy for the meta.
 
Aegislash should be banned, but I'd still like to address a certain pro-ban point:

The people that are arguing that mons like Gardevoir, Pinsir, and Heracross will become a pain in the ass for stall aren't insinuating that Aegislash is on every, or even any, stall team. The point is that the presence of Aegislash on ANY team severely restricts the potential usage of these mons, indirectly easing the burden on stall teams by reducing the viability of the mons that would otherwise threaten stall.

Less of these pokemon = Stall has an easier time


However, this is still dumb. It's not as if these pokemon don't have other checks/counters. It's not as if these pokemon aren't already a burden to stall given their OU usage. If anything, the banning of Aegislash will not only ease the burden on mons like Mandibuzz and Hippowdon. It will also increase the popularity of these "troublesome" mons. While stall will now definitely need to prepare for them, this makes them even less threatening than they currently are given that an unprepared stall team would struggle far more against the occasional gardevoir than a prepared one will. It reduces the weight of team matchup, if only by a tiny margin.
One thing that you didn't address is how it's extremely difficult to prepare for those Pokemon alongside the tier's top mons and powerhouses in Mega Mawile and Landorus-i.
 

Lady Alex

Mew is blue
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
One thing that you didn't address is how it's extremely difficult to prepare for those Pokemon alongside the tier's top mons and powerhouses in Mega Mawile and Landorus-i.
There's nothing to address. Stall already has to prepare for mawile and landorus-I. He is saying that Aegislash being banned takes a lot of pressure off of pokemon like Mandibuzz and Hippowdon, allowing stall to have breathing room to prepare for pokemon like Gardevoir.
 
There's nothing to address. Stall already has to prepare for mawile and landorus-I. He is saying that Aegislash being banned takes a lot of pressure off of pokemon like Mandibuzz and Hippowdon, allowing stall to have breathing room to prepare for pokemon like Gardevoir.
The amount of pressure that Aegislash leaving alleviates is nowhere close to what it gains by the increased popularity of those mons.
 
What Pokemon make Aegislash viable (or unviable) is only relevant in that if there's a huge list of them, it's proof that Aegi is overcentralizing and therefore worthy of a ban. It's unhealthy for a tier of 50ish Pokemon to revolve around one.



My argument is that Swagger also helped defensive teams, but Smogon's users considered the benefits of Swagger to be way outmatched by the drawbacks.

Swagger and Aegislash actually have a lot in common.
You could also say Skarmory makes a lot of things unviable and forces physical sweepers into confined sets. A lot of centralization arguments about Aegislash can be applied to Skarmory or Mega Venusaur.
 
You could also say Skarmory makes a lot of things unviable and forces physical sweepers into confined sets. A lot of centralization arguments about Aegislash can be applied to Skarmory or Mega Venusaur.
Exactly aegislash has the same qualities as those high tier defensive pokemon, but then has the ability to hit as hard as high tier offensive pokemon.
 
The Megas of Gardevoir, Medicham and Heracross are very unlikely to be S rank if Aegislash is gonna to get banned.
I agre that stall teams has prolems with this species but they aren't the only ones that cause problem with stall teams. I think that Aegislash is more a problem for stall teams than any of those three pokemon.

Exist an option to deal with them:if you have problem with one of them, use one offensive pokemon, two semi-offensivee pokemon or one offensive + one semiffensive pokemon. Some of them doesn't fit (like Weavile, Medicham, greninja, Alakazam or Mega Absol) but many others are usable (like Mega Gyarados, Keldeo, Mega Charizard X/Y, Mega Aggron, and even options like Thundurus) or we can use offensive (or bulky offensive) variants of common stall pokemon (for exmaple, Heatran).

I think that the reason why Aegislash is uncompetitive is because the combination 1) the nasty effect of King's Shield (the -2 Attack that we didn't talk too much), 2) causing that many pokemon.

There are various pokemon affected by Aegislashcompared the Gen V ranking to the Gen Vi ranking, and see the most extreme cases):
-Tornadus-T: (from Uber to B+):Oviosuly it's affected by the rain nerf. But it's also checked by Aegislash.
-Jirachi (S to D): Aegislash is a big part of why Jirachi doesn't have an analyses. However, it has a lot of other problems. in gen VI, but could rise in ranking without Aegislash.
-Keldeo (S to A+). Rai nerf and Choice-locking into Aegislash, which is a terrible idea.
-Alakazam (A+ to C+). And the Mega is in B-. Aegislash is one of the few counters of Alakazam Gengar is weak to Psychic, and many Dark/Steel are dealth with Focus Blast.
-Celebi: (A+ to C): The Dark and ghost buff affect it, but one of the few Ghpst relevant are Aegislash. Tyranitar isn't new and Bisharp doesn't counter Celebi.
-Kyurem-B (A+ to A-): One of the pokemon walled by Aegislash with risk of King's Shield.
-Starmie (A+ to C+): Aegislash is possibly the only Ghost you can wall it.
Jellicent (from A to E): With Aegislash, all Ghost are inferior. Noted that it's affected by the rain nerf and Defog.
tentacruel (from A to C-): afected by the unbanning of Thundurus-I

the pokemon who were originally B and lower in hide tags to not occupy to much space.
-Forretress (from B+ to E): Not being able to spin against Aegislash is huge. Specially when you can do nothing to overcome it. It has another problems.
-kyurem (from B+ to C-): It's weak to Aegislash and it's lmost walled by it.
-Bronzoing: (from B to E): Walled by Aegislash. But it also have lack of offensive presure, many competition and the nerf of Steel.
Abomasnow (from B to E): afected byA egislash. however there's the weather nerf.
Reuynuiclus (from B to D): Obviously because it's walled y Aegislash:
Cloyster: From B- to D. Affected by priority AND walled byA egislash even after Shell Smash.
-Espeon: From B- to ??. Walled by Aegislash.
-Mienshao: From B- to E: Walled by Aegislash, even eithout Knock off.
-Azelf: From C to C-: Checked by Aegislash evne with Fire moves.
-metagross: From C to E. Steel nerf, walled by Aegislash (who can tank and EQ).
-Shaymin. From C to C-. Walled byA egislash even with earth Power.


Pokemon that are nerfed because Aegislash: Jirachi, Keldeo, Alakazam, Celebi, Kyurem-B, Starmie, Jellicent, Tentacruel, Forretress, Kyurem, Bronzoing, Abomasnow, Reuniclus, Closyster, Espeon, Mienshao, Azelf, metagross, Shaymin.

Other pokemon that are checked , hard checked or countered by Aegislash: (mega) Scizor, Gengar, Latias, Latios, Terrakion, Breloom, Chansey, Skarmory, (Mega) Gardevoir, Mga Medicham, Tornadus-T, Gothitelle, Slowbro, Mew, Sylveon, Staraptor, Sharpedo, Togekiss, Chandelure, Mega Banette, Gourgeist-S, tornadus-I, Venomoth, Hawlucha, Roserade, Cofagrigus, Froslass, Toxicroak.
 
Who the hell would run a set like that? Trying to run Special Attack, Physical Attack, and stalling all on one pokemon?
That was exactly what I was saying, albeit in a more cordial tone. No one runs such a set successfully (I have seen it attempted once or twice, and it failed miserably). I was giving an example of something that would never work to emphasize Aegislash can only perform one or possibly two roles, each role has only a few common move options, and a counter exists for all three of those jobs. Once you determine what type of Aegislash it is, you can counter it.
 
Wait, isn't malamar an aegislash check? It isn't OHKOed by shadow ball + Shadow sneak, night slash OHKO's Aegi in blade form and night slash increases malamar's attack on a KS. I know this is not the ideal pokemon and that forcing people to use obscure counters/movesets in grounds for banning, but he is a counter. Also, resists head smash some carry, and isn't SO concerned about toxic because it shouldn't live more than a few turns anyways.
Yeah, but thing is malamar is useless outside of aegislash then.. it's a pokemon unviable in OU as it can't do much else if sticky web isn't on your side of the field.

However on that note.. one reason why baton pass and deoxys, etc.. were banned is because the checks and counters were only pokemon who were unviable in the OU enviroment and were dead wieght against standard OU teams lacking what their built to counter. Quaqsire with haze for example was possibly the only true counter to BP.. but even so the pokemon couldn't do nothing else when not fighting a BP team.

Aegislash on the other hand.. with it's checks/counters being top OU like bisharp, mawile, excadrill, garchomp, landorus, mandibuzz, etc.. it ain't like it forces alot of pokemon to be used from lower tiers to counter it.

Starmie was frail and spin blocked easily by non-aegislash ghost like jellicent last gen.. even it's thunderbolt coverage can't break the stalling recover spam. Aegislash is in no way the only reason starmie can't survive.. even excadrill with sand 1v1 can kill starmie and hit special walls.. which all spin blockers happen to be most of the time.
 
What Pokemon make Aegislash viable (or unviable) is only relevant in that if there's a huge list of them, it's proof that Aegi is overcentralizing and therefore worthy of a ban. It's unhealthy for a tier of 50ish Pokemon to revolve around one.



My argument is that Swagger also helped defensive teams, but Smogon's users considered the benefits of Swagger to be way outmatched by the drawbacks.

Swagger and Aegislash actually have a lot in common.
Forgive my laziness for not going back to find the exact post, but alexwolf said himself that it's not unhealthy for the tier to revolve around one pokemon so long as it's not broken. I personally don't think he's broken, but as we've established, that's quite a subjective argument. Briefly addressing your Swagger argument, as I said, it was considered uncompetitive by everyone--not just offensive players.

Regarding the main arguments of this thread…I feel like the only Pro-Ban argument worth a damn is that Aegislash is making the metagame stale. I tend to agree with that, and even though I like Aegislash (thanks to his indirect support), I can totally jump on that bandwagon if that's truly what the rest of the community (or at least 60%) feels. The "no true counter" argument is false, however. I think what Stoo and I were talking about is more correct--the counters for Aegislash aren't really at home on offensive teams. They are, however easy to use and throw on teams for stall, which is why I never have a problem with Aegislash. I'm not going to say much about the "50/50s" argument, as that really has been beaten dead, and I don't have anything to add.
 
What Pokemon make Aegislash viable (or unviable) is only relevant in that if there's a huge list of them, it's proof that Aegi is overcentralizing and therefore worthy of a ban. It's unhealthy for a tier of 50ish Pokemon to revolve around one.

My argument is that Swagger also helped defensive teams, but Smogon's users considered the benefits of Swagger to be way outmatched by the drawbacks.

Swagger and Aegislash actually have a lot in common.
No they don't. It's a little off topic to argue about this but Swagger and Aegislash are totally different beasts. If Aegislash ends up banned, virtually no one will have voted for it with the same reasoning they banned Swagger.

So once again the 50/50s are totally different and this time Aegislash's are way less devastating... I think anyone will piece that together with out me elaborating.

But I think your argument is based around the concept that both these forces have the same impact on the balance between offense and defense....

...first, and I want to say this isn't directed at you or anyone in specific, but I feel that a lot of the topics people post about are points and arguments that the posters are only informed about to the extent a person would be if all they did was read this thread. I'm not claiming to be all knowing myself, but I am taking a lot of what I see here with huge grains of salt because I think someone can read what they see here, think they've learned something about Aegislash, and then go on to basically re-post what they read thinking they're making informed statements. But in truth it's like a fad diet. Where everyone thinks fat free is good for you even though fat provides a lot of important neutriton, but everyone says its good so they do it without any concept of how their body is metabolizing.... Basically there are these sort of "fad opinions" of Aegislash that build because they keep getting repeated and people see them over and over and think that it's true after they read it 5 times so they say it them themselves and it keeps spreading....

The concept that Aegislash aids defense but constrains offense... I think there's probably some truth to that. But teams fall into a spectrum and not every team is either hyper offense or stall... And Aegislash is a good teammate on lots of different team formats... I can't always shake the feeling that a really skilled and informed player made a statement like that that has some truth to it... but I think now it's becoming a meme growing out of context. Isn't Aegi's ability to check/counter these wall breakers based on it's ghost typing generally? and doesn't Aegi's presence keep a lot of ghosts in lower usage?... idk, I can't say I play at high enough levels to be certain I know what I'm talking about, but I think that we all need to be careful that just becasue something gets posted a lot here doesn't mean it's 100% true.

But if nothing else... Swagger didn't aid defense it just gave the finger to everyone who wasn't itself. Even if defensive teams take less damage from confusion and foul play that doesn't hold up as much once they're at +4 or +6. And don't forget about all the free turns the SwaggerPlayer gets to set up crap while the defensive mon slowly beats itself to death. I would argue offensive teams stand a better chance becasue at least when they win the coin flip they actually have chances to KO the frail prankster mons. Deffensive mon run out of recvoery PP and die without being able to inflict status on whatever is behind it's prankster substitute.

I don't think there's any grounds for any type of comparison between Aegislash the Pokemon that is competitive but with numerous good traits that make it maybe too centralizing. And Swagger the move that makes battle uncompetitive and turns everything into coin flips.
 
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It has been said before, aegislash is as much as a coin flip as sucker punch.. both cause mindgames and good prediction. 50/50 is just the game itself whether it's double switching or just predicting a pokemon's moveset in general. We never banned sucker punch so that argument about aegislash should be forgoten.
 

LeoLancaster

does this still work
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
1. Greninja's Hydro pump. 2hkos Aegislash just like Dark pulse, which isn't run for this reason.

Edit: Woops, I got misinformation from the Greninja thread that Hydro Pump 2hkos Aegislash and have no access to calculators currently to confirm. Dark Pulse is still a nice spam move but I guess Greninja doesn't need it if not for Aegis.

2. Pinsir has to choose between hitting Aegislash with Earthquake or hitting Skarm and Rotom-w with CC. It's a matter of picking your poison, which applies to a lot of sweepers.

3. Terrakion is in a similar situation as Pinsir. It already had good coverage and was known for having a free move for hitting a threat.
If Steel/Ghost cockblocks Pinsir and Terrakion's preferred coverage, it's obviously not Aegislash's fault and using it as reasons for overcentralization is an unhealthy precedent.

4. Okay this one is legitimate, but Heracross having one popular counter is nothing wrong, especially when birdspam is more threatening to MegaHera's viability.

In summary, you aren't forced to run coverage for Aegislash; people choose to because it is popular. Right now overcentralization arguments sound like excuses to avoid having to choose counters to sweepers, a reasoning that could apply Skarmory for example.

Also, I am leaning towards an Aegislash ban, but having it banned for the wrong reasons could set unhealthy precedents for later suspects.
1. :)

2. It's not "pick your poison" because Pinsir has no choice; Aegislash is too important to pass up, even if it means giving up coverage on two Pokemon instead of one. "Pick your poison" would apply to Medicham in an Aegislash-less meta: Ice Punch for Landorus-T, or ThunderPunch for Slowbro. In this case Medicham does have the option of hitting either target. But with Aegislash around, Pinsir cannot give up Aegi coverage.

3. Terrakion isn't the best example, I acknowlege that.

4. I agree that there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but the problem is that Aegislash does this to an excessive number of 'mons.

It's not a bad precedent, because it's basically overcentralization. The unique aspect is that Aegislash just rides the border of overcentralization and acceptable centralization. We also have to ask ourselves if, even if the borderline-overcentralization is technically beneficial, is it healthy in the long run?

You could also say Skarmory makes a lot of things unviable and forces physical sweepers into confined sets. A lot of centralization arguments about Aegislash can be applied to Skarmory or Mega Venusaur.
Skarmory and MVenu force less Pokemon into using otherwise sub-optimal coverage. Again, it all depends on where you draw the line between centralization and overcentralization.
 
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For all of those who believe Kings Shield causes fair 50/50s watch this replay. It's sorta like SwagPlay, while it is a 50/50 the user has a much smaller drawback if the 50/50 goes the other way, likewise if it goes their way they get a much bigger reward.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-143005243

Edit: To add on to what I was saying before, the 50/50s are generally to the Aegislash's users advantage. Lets say Aegislash is against a Swords Dance Kabutops under the rain. If the team Aegislash is on has a good check/counter to a +2 Kabutops it is almost always a better option to Kings Shield. This way if Aegislash loses the 50/50 there are few drawbacks since the team can deal with Kabutops. Even if the team couldnt deal with Kabutops and Aegislash lost the 50/50, Aegislash could always attempt to Kings Shield again which has a 50% chance of success. However, if Kabutops loses the 50/50 its either dead or close to it. Through the same concept, one could argue that Kabutops should always attack (assuming Aegislash is weakened enough to OHKO) if its team has a good Aegislash counter who can switch into a Shadow Ball if it loses the 50/50. However, Aegislash is a very hard pokemon to counter and its counters depend on the set it is running, which makes things difficult if you havent figured out its set. Aegislash's sheer versitality, its effectiveness, and the 50/50s it forces combine to make it broken in my opinion.
 
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For all of those who believe Kings Shield causes fair 50/50s watch this replay. It's sorta like SwagPlay, while it is a 50/50 the user has a much smaller drawback if the 50/50 goes the other way, likewise if it goes their way they get a much bigger reward.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-143005243
You missed two hydropumps.. will-o-wisp.. both things nor you or aegislash can control.. went for a dragon claw of all things.. how the hell is aegislash to culprit for bad misplays and RNG? you would've killed it if you just flare blitz..

If heatran was switching in on the dragon claw that's just normal prediction not just cause aegislash is in the match..

Heatran and venasaur were more broken in that situation.
 
Ok, my opinion on this is that Aegislash definitely belongs in ubers. Heck, its pretty much got ubers stats. It can switch between having 150 defense and special defense, which most ubers don't even have, to 150 attack and special attack. Heck, it even has kings shield, able to protect it from moves AND harshly lower the attacker's attack. Another problem with it is its typing and moves. With 150 defense and special defense it will take almost ANY non-boosted super effective move. Add swords dance/weakness policy to the it, and you're shadow sneaking your way to victory. Its typing helps it a lot too, its ghost and steel typing means lots of opponents need to switch out on you if you switch it in on the right Pokemon. Easily getting you a swords dance in.

Some may even argue that its speed is the thing letting it stay in ou, i think with its ridiculous defense, getting a shadow ball in without a scratch is quite the easy feat. Also, theres shadow sneak. We can all relate how many countless times some guy got a +6 attack aegislash on us and shadow sneaked everything and won. Everything that takes neutral damage from shadow sneak dies. The only type that resists shadow sneak is Dark, and normal. WHICH BOTH ARE WEAK TO ITS SKULL CRUSHING SACRED SWORD.

I mean you don't even need skill to use this thing! So many people who just swords dance away with this thing win battles they shouldn't have. It quite angers me when someone switches their Aegislash on me, and i have a horrible match up and need to switch out, and they pull a swords dance on me. And the weakness policy boost while in shield form can completely win you the game. I think this Pokemon is very cheap in ou, and seeing it gone would make the tier much more fun.
 
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