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

[Pyritie]

Ok you know its LO and may have flash cannon, so you don't want to send in your mandibuzz. Then what exactly do you send in? Unless your running 3+ aegis checks your already in a bad position.

You could predict that he'll predict the mandibuzz switch in and use lava plume while he hits you with a piss-weak flash cannon. See? Predictions! You know, the things you do in pokemon battles!

Since Heatran normall beats aegis, the heatran player would assume aegis would switch out, hence a great opportunity to set up SR. If you did protect or lava plume you essentially just gave keldeo or whatever a free switch in.

Only at full health though, which aegislash can easily bulk if it's slower. The aegislash player knows if his aegislash is faster than standard heatran or not, and if it's faster, using sacred sword against heatran is pretty risky because then heatran can just OHKO back with lava plume. And if it's slower, two lava plumes will KO aegi.

And isn't using rocks also giving keldeo or whatever a free switch in?

It all comes back to the 50/50s aegis causes.

Please stop using "50/50s" as an argument, it's the same as saying "I hate having to use prediction and evaluate risk/reward scenarios in order to win". "50/50s" are everywhere in pokemon and aegislash is no exception.

Is that keldeo going to use hydro pump or secret sword? Am I safe to switch in my m-venusaur? Is this thundurus defiant or prankster? Does this landorus have psychic or not? Can I EQ this skarmory that could roost? Can I switch my bisharp into this lati@s or will it have HP fighting? Should I sucker punch or pursuit this gengar?

 

[Shirou Saberfox]

Please stop using "50/50s" as an argument, it's the same as saying "I hate having to use prediction and evaluate risk/reward scenarios in order to win". "50/50s" are everywhere in pokemon and aegislash is no exception.

The only problem with this is that in Aegislash's case, the 50/50's he causes are far more advantageous in his case, than in the opponents case. Thats what I have gathered through reading this post, and playing with/against an Aegislash, its not hard to see why.

Factoring in 50/50's, the power of Kings Shield, Aegis bendable base stats, versatile stats, and how he can fit on any team, its not hard to see why the pro ban side wants to see him banned.

 

[Talpr0ne]

The only problem with this is that in Aegislash's case, the 50/50's he causes are far more advantageous in his case, than in the opponents case. Thats what I have gathered through reading this post, and playing with/against an Aegislash, its not hard to see why.

Factoring in 50/50's, the power of Kings Shield, Aegis bendable base stats, versatile stats, and how he can fit on any team, its not hard to see why the pro ban side wants to see him banned.

It actually depends from the Pokémon that Aegislash is facing. Against stuff like Diggersby, Bisharp or Mega Gyarados(or almost anything that does run a supereffective non contact move really) King's Shield does next to nothing, and using it might actually be a liability as they could capitalize of a predicted King's Shield/switch to boost theirself

 

[Shirou Saberfox]

It actually depends from the Pokémon that Aegislash is facing. Against stuff like Diggersby, Bisharp or Mega Gyarados(or almost anything that does run a supereffective non contact move really) King's Shield does next to nothing, and using it might actually be a liability as they could capitalize of a predicted King's Shield/switch to boost theirself

Thats conditional on the pokemon its facing. And a misprediction from Bisharp, for example, will result in a Sacred Sword to the face. With Aegislash on your side, you always know what you can lure out, and what you can't. Its always an big advantage to run one on your team for that purpose.

50/50's is just one of the many reasons this pokemon is so good. You can damage the 50/50 argument a bit, but you still have to deal with all the rest of the reasons that its just ridiculously good.

 

[Super Mario Bro]

Since both sides are rehashing the same tired arguments, which tends to happen when suspect tests wind down, I thought I would reference a compelling post written by Clair in the VR thread that has had very little discussion. I happen to share her viewpoint:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...tory-road-version.3511650/page-2#post-5610386

 

[Jin White]

Got my reqs. The criteria for my vote:

Does Aegislash automatically make a team overpowered, impossible to deal with, or give a player an unfair advantage over a team without Aegislash? Does every high ranking team need to run an Aegislash just to remain competitive? Does Aegislash's presence in the meta make my experience of the game inherently worse, because it's based simply on "which team got lucky using Aegislash"?

This wasn't apparent before the suspect & while the suspect ladder was interesting because it was different, it wasn't really better. People who didn't play on the suspect ladder need to stop pretending they know all about a metagame without Aegislash. It was mostly sand offense and the same threats Mr. Goodra mentioned: not some golden era of new stability. A ban on Aegislash isn't necessary so soon after the ban on the Deoxys formes, which had contributed indisputably to its dominance.

Many players are suggesting that adding Aegislash to literally any team makes the team too good, which is ironic, because one would expect these same players to have been propelled up the ladder by now with the help of Aegislash. Other players are suggesting that Aegislash decides every match with one single coin flip, which is also ironic, because the ladder on the whole hasn't reflected this chaos and players are still able to achieve top ladder ranks with relative consistency. There's a notable lack of Aegislash on a lot of high ladder teams, just like there was a pretty notable lack of Aegislash on the majority of winning WCOP teams, and the viability rankings aren't reflecting niche Aegislash checks as being more viable than other well-rounded, consistent Pokémon who can also answer to Aegislash.

I'd rather see another Aegislash test down the road, after the more pressing suspects are dealt with, rather than ban it now when we're so far from consensus.

 

[Andrew Gudonis]

As someone who loves the darn thing, I really do think alot of Pokémon cannot shine because of this physical attacker breaker, including Metagross, Lucatio, Machamp, etc. It is too versatile for teams, as it can fit so many roles universally. It can stall, sleep talk, bulky sweep, choice sweep, subtoxic, and more. If it had any healing move it would be in ubers now. The only true counter for Aegislash it can't work around as well is another Aegislash. Automize/Weakness Policy Aegislash breaks the game.

However, Aegislash is a glass cannon. 1 wrong predict on the user can end up with a very dead Aegislash. A 60/50/50 defense is not going to survive anything major. Its steel typing gives it 2 of the most common weaknesses, and even in Shield Forme takes major hits from Earthquake, Flamethrower, Shadow Ball, etc. However, its benefits far outweigh

I am sick of many teams I made being trounced by this family crest.

As much as I love this Pokémon, ban him from OU.

 

[alexwolf]

I mean now what do you do? Congrats you have now effectively scouted that it is a Mixed LO variant, and you now have no switchins so every time he comes in he will get a kill. I mean I really dont think this situation is too farfetch'd, I personally think the head smash argument is retarded and gimmicky, LO flash cannon is the way to handle mandibuzz if you want to kill it.

Pick two checks that cover all Aegi sets, instead of having two slow checks that get wrecked by the mixed set? This is no versatility problem you mention, this is you lacking any answer at all to mixed Aegislash, so what you expected? Mixed Aegi is supposed to break through defensive cores, so if you don't have a hard counter to it you should pack some faster checks, that's how it works. If instead of Heatran and Mandibuzz you had Heatran and Garchomp, or Mandibuzz and Garchomp, this problem would have been solved.

 

[Synchronation]

Ok I need to clear up another argument that the anti-ban side is clinging to that seems largely irrelevant to me.

It goes something like this" Aegislash can only run one set so it can not handle ALL of his counters, just scout out what set it is and he is easy to stop"

Before I get into this I would like to say that I do not think aegislash having 0 full counters is a reason to ban him, because I could argue the same thing for other pokemon, like I have said numerous times it is a summation of traits, not a single one.

So back to the argument, that argument pretty much means you need at least 2 Aegislash counters/checks to effectively scout him out, and if you guess what set he is wrong something is hindered immediately, and I hear some people say "so what mandibuzz got poisoned?" well the so what part is, is Aegislash has team-mates, and that is the thing people arent factoring in, and it has to be done because we are not pushing for an Aegislash ban because he is a pokemon that can sweep teams single-handedly, we are pushing for it because he is the absolute best at what he does, and what he does includes SEVERAL very important roles on a team, and he accomplishes all of them and only takes up one spot.

People then go on to say that he only has 4 moveslots and can not beat all his counters at once, I just do not even understand that argument, I mean so what? Obviously if Aegislash could beat every single one of his counters he would have been quick banned. The whole point is that Aegislash can get slapped on to any team and judging by what the team is struggling with he can just adjust his set to perfectly beat whatever the problem pokemon is/are.

Now comes the scouting part that people are making seem way easier than it actually is, personally I think the 2 best aegislash switchins are spdef heatran and taunt mandibuzz, so lets just say you have BOTH of them on your team, it is a decent enough hazard core and both of them could potentially handle Aegislash so lets see how scouting him would play out. So I will paint the picture as realistically and unbiasedly as I can.

You lead with heatran, he leads with Aegislash
He outspeeds and goes for a LO sacred sword, and you went for rocks
4 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 229-270 (59.3 - 69.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
(at this point you think you know his set)
you switch to mandibuzz, he makes the retardedly easy prediction and goes for flash cannon
252+ SpA Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mandibuzz: 218-257 (51.4 - 60.6%) -- 91% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers
recovery

I mean now what do you do? Congrats you have now effectively scouted that it is a Mixed LO variant, and you now have no switchins so every time he comes in he will get a kill. I mean I really dont think this situation is too farfetch'd, I personally think the head smash argument is retarded and gimmicky, LO flash cannon is the way to handle mandibuzz if you want to kill it.

So to sum this up, if you want to mention how Aegislash only has 4 moves, or has low base power moves please refer back to this post. Where I used two of the best Aegislash answers and shown how he can easily dismantle them and soften up the rest of the team for an easy sweep, since Aegislash just decimated that teams special and physical walls. I wish some of you would realize that all of us truly want the meta to be the best it can be, we are not against each other we are supposed to be working together, I just do not see one reason that this meta is better with Aegislash in here other than he checks some broken mons, but we can work on that later.

I was waiting for such a post, this is really nice and well-described.

First off, I agree the "no Aegislash can handle all of its counters at the same time" argument is not really a good one because this is true for many Pokemon. No Pokemon can handle all of its counters with one set.
I would like to make an example with my favorite (not) Pokemon: Tyranitar
You said that you need at least 2 checks/counters to scout which Aegislash your opponent has. If we ignore any team preview guesses then it is true. Same I could say about Tyranitar. Imagine a situation like this:
Opponent leads off with Tyranitar, you with Landorus.
Landorus is your answer to Tyranitar, and since it is a typical lead you can lead with Landorus.
Now comes the problem: Is it special defensive and has Ice Beam? Or is it scarfed? Without closer team preview you're pretty much forced to guess what Tyranitar that is. It could easily defeat your Landorus and then Tyranitar would be a problem to your team.
Still, it isn't that difficult to guess its set for most people. Because of team preview. A good player will see the roles and weaknesses in the opponents team and can make an educated guess of what he is running.
In comparison with Deoxys-S, that was really difficult. You could see the team and can assume a supporter with screens, but then it was a revenge-killer! The team didn't even loose this much by running it even if screener would be better. It was still very good and can give you free kills because you could catch your opponent off guard.
It is getting even worse: Even WITH team preview it was a hard task to guess its moveset (assuming you know now it is LO revenge-killer). Thunderwave, Superpower, Stealth Rock, Knock Off, the list goes on! Altering the moveset of Deoxys for your team was so good, because depending on your team you can support and eliminate threads without risking anything. You're giving your opponent so much headache from guessing the moveset that only a few players could really guess it right most of the time.

Now we're coming to your example:
Turn 1: Aegislash uses Sacred Sword, you use Stealth Rock.
Information: Aegislash is faster (not bulky), is special invested (calcs) and have LO. With this given (without team-preview), why would you switch NOW to Mandibuzz? This is pretty sure a fast allout-attacker with 4 attacks and no Kings Shield, you can even just look at the 4 standard-sets of Aegislash. Sacred Sword + Flash Cannon is only on this set because giving up Shadow Sneak or Shadow Ball is not really good most of the time. At this point I would look at my opponents team. If I can detect a huge Mandibuzz-weakness then it is pretty sure a lure set with Flash Cannon. Maybe I'm playing too much with Aegislash, but in comparison to Deoxys it is still not too hard to make out this set. And even without thinking too much of his set, my next move would be:
Turn 2: Heatran uses Protect, Aegislash Flash Cannon
And now I know for sure. Aegislash with Sacred Sword and Flash Cannon is pretty rare so I have to say it is not that easy to predict a lure for Mandibuzz, but like you said: Aegislash is most of the time adjusted for the team. The difference between him and Deoxys-S it is way easier to guess its moveset since its bulk OR speed are different. Bulky sets have to carry Kings Shield to function correctly, fast sets don't. Fast sets are for luring typical checks like Mandibuzz and Heatran while bulky sets are for scouting, tanking hits from Lati@s or similar Pokemon and dealing damage.
So in the end you know its a fast attacker with no bulk, so it cannot come in that often as usally. Taking many hits cause problems for Aegislash and you can wear him down. If its now a question "when not switching to Mandibuzz, to what then?" Even the frailest offensive Pokemon should be able to take a hit and scare it out. I'm still convinced it is pretty impossible to build a team which is completely weak to Aegislash except for two Pokemon. Yes, Aegislash did a good job and damaged your Heatran and one of your offensive Pokemon, but if Mandibuzz was his plan to get killed, you have your best Pokemon against him at full health.

Now I have finally a good idea why the pro-ban see Aegislash as problem. I'm still not thinking it causes that much of a problem like Deoxys because of the poor movepool. I really recommend to let Aegislash be and wait for the move tutors of this generation. And if Aegislash gets new toys to play with we should retest it and look at it again. Right now it is still too stale and doesn't have a big movepool like Deoxys-S to play around.

That said, this is probably my last post in this thread. Good luck everybody! :D

 

[Halcyon.]

Yeah I've laddered on the suspect more than enough to formulate my opinion, and I probably won't be gettin reqs cuz of this.

Being the defensive/balanced player I am, with the loss of aegislash I just see the suspect ladder spamming the shit out of mega medicham, mega heracross, and mega garde (lets refer to them collectively as HMG (hera, medi, garde)). When it comes to teambuilding, my goal is to have a counter or two soft checks to every threat, and atleast one of those soft checks needs to be able to switch-in atleast once. So if I was to ever build a somewhat respectable team on the suspect ladder, it'd basically NEED to have a max defense unaware clefable (closest thing to a mega hera counter), a Slowbro/Mew (mega medi counter), and either a mega zor (doesn't always work cuz wisp), bronzong or rachi (sucks penis), or a combination of heatran and chansey (two soft checks). Before I even get started about including offensive presence, having an easier time against stall, or just beating the annoying sp. def gliscor/taunt wisp mew, I already have basically 4 mons I'm required to carry. I haven't even gotten a hazard remover or checks to the other half of the entire goddamn tier and 2/3 of my team is already decided for me should I even attempt to ladder. That's kind of stupid.

I'm not saying that putting aegislash on my team would solve all these problems, and I'm not trying to suggest that HMG are broken. But HMG are all beyond broken against balanced and defensive teams, even though offensive teams breeze through them, and this just promotes more offense in order to beat HMG. But the thing is that the mere presence of aegislash in the tier is enough to discourage insane levels of usage of HMG, which is what we see in OU currently. You don't have to prepare for them THAT much because the threat of aegislash already requires extensive support for HMG to work around, which just keeps usage levels down and imo stall healthy.

Now some of you may argue that "well HMG are stallbreakers, when you decide to build stall you decide to be weak to atleast one of them!" This is true, but only to a certain extent. At the level of usage HMG sees on the suspect ladder, its basically a 1/3 chance to see if you lose at team preview. You choose to be weak to mega garde, fine, but when 1/3 of the teams you even face contain a mega garde it gets stupid. Fine, so lets just use a mega zor over my slowbro. Now the other 1/3 teams that you beat b/c you had slowbro you know lose to because you chose to prepare for garde instead. Yes, I realize that this basically applies to every threat in OU out there, but the sheer power of HMG just sets them on whole different level. The lack of reliable counters to ONE SET that HMG run is just sad. Again, each of HMG only run ONE SET, which means that there's counters depending on what they run or something. You can't just scout for psychic on thundurus and once you see focus blast just dump amoongus and be safe. HMG don't need to be versatile because the sheer power of their STAB moves is enough to limit the pool of counters down to 1 or 2 mons, which balance/stall teams are forced to run lest they be destroyed in an insane amount of matches.

Remember, I'm setting aside atleast half of my team just to make sure I don't get swept by 3 pokemon. I still have to deal with bullcrap like mega mawile, mega tyranitar, specs keldeo, thundurus, landorus, mega gyarados goddamit I could go on forever, and basically none of my current team members even handle any of the above pokemon totally safely.

To summarize, HMG aren't broken, but when you remove aegislash the usage levels of HMG skyrockets, and as a result the viability of balance/stall teams plummets, which encourages more offense in order to deal with HMG. Thus, keep aegislash.

This post makes them seem textbook broken to me. Don't keep aegi just to prevent these mons from "destroying stall/balance" (which I don't even think they would). If they end up destroying stall and balance then I am SURE the council wouldn't hesitate to suspect them.

 

[The little peanut man]

hmm. I'm laddering, but I don't have thoughts yet on what should be done. On one hand, if Aegislash goes, HMG becomes more popular, and full stall will be ridiculously matchup based. I personally don't think that HMG will be broken if Aegislash leaves, because they are already beyond broken vs stall. On the other hand, if Aegislash stays, we can expect the meta to not develop until ORAS comes out. I like a dynamic metagame, so I would like Aegislash to go. Aegislash is such a centralizing force in the metagame, that it just holds it in place as long as its with us. I personally feel thats enough of a reason for it to go, because it just centralizes way too much. Nothing can change my view, I just want to put my opinion out there.(ofc this is the internet and opinions get you attacked, but i have a thick skin so i don't really give a fuck)

 

[MikeDawg]

4 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mega Venusaur: 190-226 (52.1 - 62%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Venusaur: 191-226 (52.4 - 62%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Venusaur: 286-339 (78.5 - 93.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Charizard X: 307-361 (85.2 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Charizard X: 460-541 (127.7 - 150.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Charizard X: 304-359 (84.4 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252- Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Mega Charizard X: 416-491 (115.5 - 136.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 268-317 (68 - 80.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Clefable: 218-257 (55.3 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 100 SpD Mega Scizor: 322-380 (93.6 - 110.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 312-369 (88.6 - 104.8%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 175-207 (49.7 - 58.8%) -- 67.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 286-338 (81.2 - 96%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Hippowdon: 476-562 (113.3 - 133.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mandibuzz: 377-447 (88.9 - 105.4%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 324-382 (106.5 - 125.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 250-296 (82.2 - 97.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Dragon Claw vs. 0 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 302-356 (47.1 - 55.5%) -- 75% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 0 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 452-534 (70.5 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Fusion Bolt vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Skarmory: 221-260 (66.1 - 77.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Skarmory: 265-313 (79.3 - 93.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO



Darn! No counters. Looks like stall is dead! Sorry, guys.

inb4 "but ________." Gtfo. The point is that there are already VERY strong mons in ou (last I checked, hera and medicham are currently ou as well as we speak...). Many of them give stall a very poor matchup. What else is new? Did we not come to an acceptance of matchup-based advantages via gen 5? There's a billion and a half pokemon; matchups will come in to play. If your team cannot deal with one of these mons, then it is either built poorly, one of them is broken, or you are simply falling victim to the ever-growing concern of having too many mons to check. As mentioned by lots of people, you aren't running aegislash on stall teams anyway. That doesn't mean it's an insta-lose whenever a gardevoir or hera or cham comes in (which is why that above argument by Srn9130 that you now need a scizor or rachi or whatever is bullshit, because you need those anyway if you want to stand up to these threats. you have no aegislash on your team to switch in to them typically). Aegislash may make them less prevelant, but they still exists regardless (and aren't all that uncommon)


Should I calc Landorus, Mawile, Mega Chomp, and Keldeo? Maybe Gothitelle? Sub CM mons? Exploud? There are numerous ways to beat stall, and there are numerous mons that are "uncounterable" (I thought we stopped caring about that ~mix mence times?). These existed and will continue to exist. Similarly, there are mons that offense struggles very heavily against. If any of the (already existent) mons become too much to handle, then they will be suspected. That's all there is to it (if there even is a heracross uprising, that is. This argument is complete theorymon anyway so idg why it is taken so seriously)

 

[Flexxen]

After getting the reqs and following the discussion for quite some time now, I want to add my thoughts on this discussion as well.

To me it seems like both sides exaggerate Aegi's strengths and its flaws respectively.
For example, I've been using Mandibuzz a lot in OU, so seeing people talking about how Aegi wrecks Mandibuzz with SubToxic or Head Smash seems kinda off to me because in actual practice, in 9 out of 10 times, my Mandibuzz didn't really have any problems dealing with Aegi whatsoever. Once you realize it's SubToxic you can shut it down with Taunt and fast Head Smash variants loose up to 190 HP (~73% of Aegi's health with no HP investment and no rocks up on Mandi's side of the field) just from Head Smash Recoil + the 10% from LO recoil twice since Head Smash doesn't OHKO Mandi at full health. Congrats you just killed one of your best checks, it only cost you over 90% of your health. That's of course the worst case, with Mandibuzz at full health and Stealth Rocks up you still loose over 70% of your health. But enough numbers, the point is that running Head Smash just to lure out and kill Mandibuzz is just not worth it because of all the recoil on a Mon, with low base HP and a set without HP investment.

The thing about these speedy LO sets on Aegi is that they put more offensive pressure on your opponent, especially on more defensive teams and their usual answers to Aegi, but it's also much easier to put offensive pressure on the Aegi user. Without the HP investment and the LO recoil, super effective attacks from faster and strong Mons are much more threatening to Aegi and can put quite some pressure on the Aegi user depending on the switch-ins he has left, since Aegi obviously has to switch out in these situations unless you want to sack it.

The standard KS + 3 attacks Sets with Lefties on the other hand are not only checked but countered by the likes of Mandibuzz, SpDefHippo and SpDef Gliscor and checked by even more but Aegi usually still finds a way to do its job relatively well despite these Mons being present and really good if they're not, which shows how good of a Pokemon he is.

Aegi's versatility and the amount of sets you have to worry about when facing him is also something that doesn't really make him banworthy, there are Pokemon as versatile as Aegi in OU, like Tyranitar, Thundurus or Charizard, where you face the exact same problem.

Then there are the 50:50s caused by King's Shield, where I tend to agree more with the pro ban side. Aegi can cause plenty of these 50:50s with King's Shield, I personally don't really see how this can be argued. Unlike some others I wouldn't say it causes an excessive amount of 50:50s (Bisharp and Mawile, especially at +2, are way worse in this aspect IMO), since it's not really a 50:50 when Aegi's opponent has a super-effective non-contact move, the opportunity to status it or just a pretty good match-up against Aegi in general, like Zard X. The problem is that Aegi is a mon, which usually finds many opportunities to switch in during a match, so you can't expect to always have something in against Aegi with a status or a non-contact move to properly damage it and simply switching it in when Aegi is already in and can attack is incredibly difficult. Especially late-game when your mons are weakened and you are out of opportunities, the chances of these 50:50s occuring become bigger by turn and it's not unlikely that loosing the 50:50 at this point will cost you the match and that's not really in the spirit of a competitive metagame. It obviously doesn't happen all the time but it still can.

On the other hand, these 50:50s can occur even without Aegislash being present just as easily. Ironically the last match I won on the suspect ladder, getting me past 2700 COIL came down to a 50:50 in the end, it was my scarfed Excadrill vs an almost dead LO Breloom, I still had Thundy at a good amount of health in the back, my opponent still had a MegaMan. If I switch and the Breloom goes for Spore/ Rock Tomb or stay in on the Mach Punch, I loose if I stay in and EQ on him using Spore/Rock Tomb (which actually happened) or switch into Thundy on his Mach Punch, I win. Classic 50:50 and it happened in a metagame without Aegislash.

Looking at every trait of Aegislash individually doesn't really make him look broken but Mega Scizor really has a point by saying it's how well Aegi can perform several roles, depending on what the team needs. Aegi is undeniably really good at what he does but I'm still struggling to say he is too good at what he does, like Genesect and the Deos were. Something similar goes for the 50:50s, I'm still struggling to say the amount 50:50s is high enough and thus unhealthy for the Meta therefore making Aegi banworthy. Just for the record this is coming from someone who went into the suspect test set on not banning Aegislash but now I'm kinda struggling with my decision.

However, I feel like Jin White's stand is probably the most convincing so far for me. Once Aegi gets banned, it's gone for good and I also tend to say it might be better to keep Aegislash around at least for a while longer and take a close look on his influence on the OU metagame again after the presumably upcoming changes from other suspect tests (and bans) and OR/AS. At this point, we'll hopefully be able to assess Aegi potentially being broken and/or unhealthy more clearly and with less controversy.

 

[Srn]

4 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mega Venusaur: 190-226 (52.1 - 62%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Venusaur: 191-226 (52.4 - 62%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Venusaur: 286-339 (78.5 - 93.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Charizard X: 307-361 (85.2 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Charizard X: 460-541 (127.7 - 150.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Charizard X: 304-359 (84.4 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252- Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Mega Charizard X: 416-491 (115.5 - 136.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 268-317 (68 - 80.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Clefable: 218-257 (55.3 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 100 SpD Mega Scizor: 322-380 (93.6 - 110.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 312-369 (88.6 - 104.8%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 175-207 (49.7 - 58.8%) -- 67.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 286-338 (81.2 - 96%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Hippowdon: 476-562 (113.3 - 133.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mandibuzz: 377-447 (88.9 - 105.4%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 324-382 (106.5 - 125.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 250-296 (82.2 - 97.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Dragon Claw vs. 0 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 302-356 (47.1 - 55.5%) -- 75% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 0 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 452-534 (70.5 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Fusion Bolt vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Skarmory: 221-260 (66.1 - 77.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Skarmory: 265-313 (79.3 - 93.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO



Darn! No counters. Looks like stall is dead! Sorry, guys.

inb4 "but ________." Gtfo. The point is that there are already VERY strong mons in ou (last I checked, hera and medicham are currently ou as well as we speak...). Many of them give stall a very poor matchup. What else is new? Did we not come to an acceptance of matchup-based advantages via gen 5? There's a billion and a half pokemon; matchups will come in to play. If your team cannot deal with one of these mons, then it is either built poorly, one of them is broken, or you are simply falling victim to the ever-growing concern of having too many mons to check. As mentioned by lots of people, you aren't running aegislash on stall teams anyway. That doesn't mean it's an insta-lose whenever a gardevoir or hera or cham comes in (which is why that above argument by Srn9130 that you now need a scizor or rachi or whatever is bullshit, because you need those anyway if you want to stand up to these threats. you have no aegislash on your team to switch in to them typically). Aegislash may make them less prevelant, but they still exists regardless (and aren't all that uncommon)


Should I calc Landorus, Mawile, Mega Chomp, and Keldeo? Maybe Gothitelle? Sub CM mons? Exploud? There are numerous ways to beat stall, and there are numerous mons that are "uncounterable" (I thought we stopped caring about that ~mix mence times?). These existed and will continue to exist. Similarly, there are mons that offense struggles very heavily against. If any of the (already existent) mons become too much to handle, then they will be suspected. That's all there is to it (if there even is a heracross uprising, that is. This argument is complete theorymon anyway so idg why it is taken so seriously)

See, kyu-b and all the other mons you listed (cept mawile) are a little different from HMG because they run different sets. Clearly, the calcs that you posted about kyu-b are not all referring to just one kyu-b set. You can scout out its moves and try to check it with one of your mons; once you figure out what its running there are plenty of counters to each set.
The same doesn't apply to HMG because their STABs are simple so ridiculously powerful and spammable that their sheer power is enough to just limit their pool of counters to 1 or 2 mons. There's no scouting if mega garde is running that move, this can counter it and if its not running that move, then I have this to beat it. There's nothing like that with HMG, you either have a counter to it or you get utterly destroyed.

As for the difference in usage levels, I think you're underestimating that a bit. They are super common on suspect ladder as they require less support to use, and they require much more support and thus have much less usage on the normal ladder. Perhaps its just my luck and the certain players online when I am, but literally all of my matches include one of Mega hera, mega cham, or mega garde, and if I'm using a defensive/balanced team without the one solid counter to it, then I can pretty much guess that I've lost at team preview. This definitely isn't theorymonning because I've played well over 100 matches on the suspect ladder with balanced/stall teams and have failed to win due to matchup based advantages.

I'd like to think that we try to develop a metagame without match-up based wins and losses, and I think keeping aegislash is a good way to do that. Cuz the presence of aegislash reduces usage of HMG, which reduces either the strain of teambuilding on balanced/stall teams to check HMG or reduces the chance that you lose from matchup. You act like the "ever-growing concern of having too many mons to check" is invalid or something, but to a defensive player like me its a legitimate concern. Sure, I would go with your attitude that these mons give stall a poor matchup and I should just suck it up and try to play around it with my half-assed checks. But these mons are literally on every other team!!! Its quite difficult to use a balanced/stall team that's weak to mega cham (remember there are just too many mons to check, according to you you have to be weak to one of them) when 1/3 of your games are against mega cham. This doesn't hold true for the OU ladder because HMG is FAR less common, and is thus less of a concern, which in turn is less prepared for, which in turn affects stall and balanced teams less.

However, I am looking at things from a ladder-based perspective. When it comes to tour play, you're right. You can't really judge something based on usage (which is what I'm doing) if its tour usage because there are so much less games in a tour in comparison to a ladder. When it comes to using stall in a tour, you are correct in that you just have to mildly prepare for wallbreakers and hope you can play around them, as we always have.

 

[Toljik]

inb4 "but ________." Gtfo. The point is that there are already VERY strong mons in ou (last I checked, hera and medicham are currently ou as well as we speak...). Many of them give stall a very poor matchup. What else is new? Did we not come to an acceptance of matchup-based advantages via gen 5?

If we did, then we decided not to accept matchup-based advantages in Gen 6: It's one of the reasons why Baton Pass got nerfed and Swagger banned.

If your team cannot deal with one of these mons, then it is either built poorly, one of them is broken, or you are simply falling victim to the ever-growing concern of having too many mons to check.

If Aegislash is broken, it should be banned. If there are too many mons to check, then banning the most powerful one (Aegislash) would make sense. There is no reason why the various stallbreaker Megas can't be suspected when the time comes.

 

[MikeDawg]

^p sure that you misread my post

See, kyu-b and all the other mons you listed (cept mawile) are a little different from HMG because they run different sets. Clearly, the calcs that you posted about kyu-b are not all referring to just one kyu-b set. You can scout out its moves and try to check it with one of your mons; once you figure out what its running there are plenty of counters to each set.

Actually, I had included multiple calcs for each pokemon in an attempt to show that many sets of kyu-b can handle each one

(ie. uninvested ice beam/invested dragon claw. or invested ice beam for venu. Invested dragon claw or invested earth power for charx, etc. The only questionable ones imo are hp fire and iron head, but those aren't as absurd as you may think. If your team struggles with clefable, iron head is nice. If you hate ferro/scizor, hp fire is good, as well as if you dont have a need for ep)


And if it seemed as if I dismissed the growing pool of pokemon as an issue for stall teams, that wasn't my intention. The solution to counteract too many pokemon isn't to add more pokemon (problematic ones at that via aegislash), it is to either adapt or get rid of any that are truly problematic (possibly hera or medicham).

Keeping aegislash doesn't help that problem in the slightest, as these mons are still 100% viable. In fact, aegislash causes even greater matchup reliance, as facing a team with aegi will be far more disadvantageous to facing a team without it in the case of these mons. Similarly, a stall team is typically less prepared for them because they are less prevelant, but if they do actually encounter one they will struggle even more.

 

[Karxrida]

If we did, then we decided not to accept matchup-based advantages in Gen 6: It's one of the reasons why Baton Pass got nerfed and Swagger banned.



If Aegislash is broken, it should be banned. If there are too many mons to check, then banning the most powerful one (Aegislash) would make sense.

That is one of the laziest reasons to ban something I've ever seen.

It does nothing but reinforce the negative sterotype of "we don't want to deal with something, so we should ban it" that I've been seeing recently on other websites I frequent and a really bad precedent to set. We should be banning something because it's broken, not because we don't want to deal with it.

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

Pick two checks that cover all Aegi sets, instead of having two slow checks that get wrecked by the mixed set? This is no versatility problem you mention, this is you lacking any answer at all to mixed Aegislash, so what you expected? Mixed Aegi is supposed to break through defensive cores, so if you don't have a hard counter to it you should pack some faster checks, that's how it works. If instead of Heatran and Mandibuzz you had Heatran and Garchomp, or Mandibuzz and Garchomp, this problem would have been solved.

What? I was just giving a hypothetical situation that included two common Aegislash checks, you can not just answer my question by proposing to change the very conditions of the situation. And what you are saying/admitting to is that you need two dedicated aegislash checks, but they can not just be any two checks they need to be complementary checks that can collectively handle the vastly different sets of Aegi, this limits the variety of pokemon to choose from even more....regardless if they serve other purposes on the team or if they are very good mons in the tier. btw garchomp cant even reliably switch into the Mixed LO variant, it usually dies to a shadow ball shadow sneak combo, but if you lead with garchomp then you would be in a good position, but then aegislash wouldnt have lead off in the first place then maybe keldeo woulda lead off and competely destroys garchomp and heatran and mandibuzz. This is why you cant just decide to change the hypothetical situation to better fit your arguement because then everything changes...



@ Srn(idk how to tag people) What you are saying is true to an extent, but you said yourself that with Aegislash gone it will encourage a more offensive style of play, and then you later said that HMG struggle against offensive teams, so once the meta settles out won't the usage of HMG drop again? I mean it does follow logic:
Aegislash limits usage of HMG
With Aegislash gone HO teams will be more prevalent
HMG struggle against HO teams
HO teams limits usage of HMG

Idk that might be flawed logic but it is what I was able to gather from your post and my own experience. I personally think Gardevoir and Heracross are too good with Aegi gone, but I do not talk about it because I am refusing to let that be a reason to keep Aegislash, I have said it once and will say it until this stops coming up. If there are more thing broken when Aegislash leaves we will suspect them too, no need to leave a big band-aid on the metagame, lets just rip it off and deal with the reality,

 

[alexwolf]

What? I was just giving a hypothetical situation that included two common Aegislash checks, you can not just answer my question by proposing to change the very conditions of the situation. And what you are saying/admitting to is that you need two dedicated aegislash checks, but they can not just be any two checks they need to be complementary checks that can collectively handle the vastly different sets of Aegi, this limits the variety of pokemon to choose from even more....regardless if they serve other purposes on the team or if they are very good mons in the tier.



@ Srn(idk how to tag people) What you are saying is true to an extent, but you said yourself that with Aegislash gone it will encourage a more offensive style of play, and then you later said that HMG struggle against offensive teams, so once the meta settles out won't the usage of HMG drop again? I mean it does follow logic:
Aegislash limits usage of HMG
With Aegislash gone HO teams will be more prevalent
HMG struggle against HO teams
HO teams limits usage of HMG

Idk that might be flawed logic but it is what I was able to gather from your post and my own experience. I personally think Gardevoir and Heracross are too good with Aegi gone, but I do not talk about it because I am refusing to let that be a reason to keep Aegislash, I have said it once and will say it until this stops coming up. If there are more thing broken when Aegislash leaves we will suspect them too, no need to leave a big band-aid on the metagame, lets just rip it off and deal with the reality,

You need to have complimentary checks to any big threat, that's the point of running two checks in the first place. If both checks get fucked up by the same set then you obviously did something wrong when teambuilding, and of course you need two checks for every single big threat in OU.

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

You need to have complimentary checks to any big threat, that's the point of running two checks in the first place. If both checks get fucked up by the same set then you obviously did something wrong when teambuilding, and no shit you need two checks for every single big threat in OU.

I just feel like you keep missing the main points of my posts and insist on nitpicking at details, my point was just to show how difficult scouting Aegislash can be even if you have two pokemon you feel have a good matchup against him. I mean obviously if you have two perfect checks that can handle all his sets you are in good shape but that harshly limits teambuilding in the same way sableye could shut down mega kangaskhan, but nobody wanted to have to run sableye on their teams. Maybe people dont want to have to run physically defensive garchomp and specially defensive heatran just to deal with aegislash.

Edit: I am not intentionally comparing the brokeness of mega kang and aegislash just using the example to show the limting of teambuilding

 

[alexwolf]

I just feel like you keep missing the main points of my posts and insist on nitpicking at details, my point was just to show how difficult scouting Aegislash can be even if you have two pokemon you feel have a good matchup against him. I mean obviously if you have two perfect checks that can handle all his sets you are in good shape but that harshly limits teambuilding in the same way sableye could shut down mega kangaskhan, but nobody wanted to have to run sableye on their teams. Maybe people dont want to have to run physically defensive garchomp and specially defensive heatran just to deal with aegislash.

Edit: I am not intentionally comparing the brokeness of mega kang and aegislash just using the example to show the limting of teambuilding

I get what you wanted to say but your examples weren't good. The point of having two checks is that if one fails, the other can deal with the threat you want, and if you want to cover Aegislash, having two slow checks won't do it, similarly to how having two checks to Talonflame that both lose to the BU Taunt set (Whirlwind Hippo and Toxic Heatran) means your team will have Talonflame problems. I won't argue about how difficult it is to scout for Aegi's sets (i have already done so and i don't want to repeat myself at such a late stage), just wanted to point out that your example was flawed.

 

[Zebstrika]

I'd like to think that we try to develop a metagame without match-up based wins and losses, and I think keeping aegislash is a good way to do that. Cuz the presence of aegislash reduces usage of HMG, which reduces either the strain of teambuilding on balanced/stall teams to check HMG or reduces the chance that you lose from matchup. You act like the "ever-growing concern of having too many mons to check" is invalid or something, but to a defensive player like me its a legitimate concern. Sure, I would go with your attitude that these mons give stall a poor matchup and I should just suck it up and try to play around it with my half-assed checks. But these mons are literally on every other team!!! Its quite difficult to use a balanced/stall team that's weak to mega cham (remember there are just too many mons to check, according to you you have to be weak to one of them) when 1/3 of your games are against mega cham. This doesn't hold true for the OU ladder because HMG is FAR less common, and is thus less of a concern, which in turn is less prepared for, which in turn affects stall and balanced teams less.

However, I am looking at things from a ladder-based perspective. When it comes to tour play, you're right. You can't really judge something based on usage (which is what I'm doing) if its tour usage because there are so much less games in a tour in comparison to a ladder. When it comes to using stall in a tour, you are correct in that you just have to mildly prepare for wallbreakers and hope you can play around them, as we always have.

I'm agreeing with what you're saying how these wall breakers are more common, and they definitely give stall headaches. I ran one stall team on the suspect ladder the whole way to reqs, and I even ran Mega Scizor as well as four Mega Heracross checks, none of them could switch in safely but could switch into certain moves, so these megas were manageable but I still felt their pressure when I ran into them. (Actually my team's weak spot giant gaping hole was against Manaphy, I guess that's just the price for being able to deal with those Megas decently. I feel you when you say that preparing for one threat feels like you're giving up on another.)

Most stall teams don't use Aegislash. Some do, but most don't, and those teams that don't are going to struggle with these wall breakers on the regular Aegislash-inclusive meta just as much (or arguably even more because they have to prepare for opposing Aegislash in addition to these megas).

But I don't see how banning or not banning Aegislash should help. Aegislash only makes these pokemon less common, but Aegislash does not make them easier to handle (unless there's an Aegislash on your team to throw in front of their faces). So if you aren't running Aegislash on your stall team, these wall breakers are just as powerful, and the only difference is they show up less often.

So if you're running a stall team without Aegislash, and the opponent shows up with a Gardevoir, and you get wrecked, none of that is Aegislash's fault. That's either your fault for not preparing/being outplayed or Gardevoir's fault for being broken. Keeping Aegislash doesn't solve the problem, it just means you run into it less (but you are still equally screwed when it shows up), and that's a horrible fix if Aegislash deserves a ban.

If you run Aegislash on your stall teams, feel free to disregard all that, obviously Aegi's ban will make these threats harder to deal with. But then you're sort of implying that stall needs to run Aegislash to keep these pokemon from overpowering which sounds like a problem of its own.

tl dr If we keep Aegislash that doesn't make the metagame any less matchup based, you'll just be relying on the ladder to give you less bad matchups, which isn't actually helping the underlying problem

 

[MikeDawg]

Yeah, you are acting as if aegislash prevents matchup related wins, but really it contributes more to them. If you use a medicham, for example, then against a non-aegi team you will be far more greatly advantaged than against an aegi team. This is true for most pokes, but especially so for aegislash given how much of a blanket check it is. Regardless, the argument is only barely relevant

 

[Shirou Saberfox]

You need to have complimentary checks to any big threat, that's the point of running two checks in the first place. If both checks get fucked up by the same set then you obviously did something wrong when teambuilding, and no shit you need two checks for every single big threat in OU.

I don't think you need to run two checks against one good pokemon in OU. I don't think there are other big threats in OU other than Aegislash that require two or more checks.

And this would mean that this pokemon is overcentralizing, right? It does in my mind.

 

[alexwolf]

I don't think you need to run two checks against one good pokemon in OU. I don't think there are other big threats in OU other than Aegislash that require two or more checks.

And this would mean that this pokemon is overcentralizing, right? It does in my mind.

- Thundurus: If you only have one check, Thundurus can easily bypass it. eg: Mega Venusaur with Psychic or Hidden Power Flying, Latios and Latias with Knock Off or just Life Orb Hidden Power Ice and some parahax, Hippowdon with Nasty Plot Hidden Power Ice, etc.

- Greninja: Azumarill, Rotom-W, and Keldeo are fucked by Hidden Power Grass, Ferrothorn by Hidden Power Fire or repeated Ice Beam hits, Mega Venusaur by Extrasensory, so you need multiple checks to play around it and bring in the right Pokemon to force it out.

- Keldeo: Mega Venusaur gets fucked by Scald + Hidden Power Flying, Azumarill is fucked by Scald, Latios and Latias are fucked by Scald and repeated hits plus they are Pursuit bait, Dragonite is fucked by Scald or Icy Wind, etc., so you need multiple checks to not eventually get overwhelmed by it.

I could go on and on, but almost every single big offensive threat forces you to run at least two checks (even if they are soft-checks, such as revenge killers).