np: Doubles Stage 1 — Dragontown — Salamencite Suspect Discussion IT'S BANNED

[qsns]

OK you can keep saying you get free turns with your special mence but that doesn't mean it's good lol. it has a huge opportunity cost considering LO special mence hits harder with Draco, keeps intimidate, and doesnt take up your mega slot. hyper voice does not hit hard and it's definitely inferior to the physical set.

 

[whissp]

If we want to talk about comparative competency, Mega Salamence is better than Rayquaza. Megamence is faster both pre- and post-mega, and tougher too: 95/130/90 is a fair bit hardier than 105/90/90, at least physically. Intimidate to Aerialate is a lot more frequently relevant than Air Lock, too. While Rayray has a better movepool, Megamence hits harder physically due to Aerialate and has an incredibly spammable special STAB with spread, also due to Aerialate. We'd have to consider bringing Rayray down if we keep Megamence, which is kinda screwed up.​

Ray can have an item and has espeed + vcreate. Also air lock shuts down rain like nothing else.

 

[qwerts]

If we want to talk about comparative competency, Mega Salamence is better than Rayquaza. Megamence is faster both pre- and post-mega, and tougher too: 95/130/90 is a fair bit hardier than 105/90/90, at least physically. Intimidate to Aerialate is a lot more frequently relevant than Air Lock, too. While Rayray has a better movepool, Megamence hits harder physically due to Aerialate and has an incredibly spammable special STAB with spread, also due to Aerialate. We'd have to consider bringing Rayray down if we keep Megamence, which is kinda screwed up.​

Please please please please tell me you are kidding

 

[Lord Alphose]

Yeah, let's stop talking about Kangaskhan/Azumarill/Rayquaza and talk about how Salamence fits with the metagame.

 

[whissp]

Edit@below: your conclusion makes sense, but your first sentence is misleading. I also generally don't understand how 2 loosely centralizing mons in a metagame (mence + kanga) is better than one (just kanga), which your conclusion indirectly states.

The more centralizing mons there are, the less centralized whole meta is. Imagine you are up against someone in a tourney. In meta with mega sala, you gotta play mindgames which team to bring - the one that can handle mega kang or mega sala...(or jack of all trades, master of none team)? In meta without mega sala, you just gotta be prepared for mega kang and any other mega your opp brings is mostly just garbage you don't even consider preparing for and you beat it with brute force.

 

[Stratos]

Not mine. I revel in the essentially free turns Will-o-Wisp gives me, and how few intimidators can take Hyper Voice.

I do appreciate people saying special megamence is bad, though. It means people keep trying to intimidate and burn mine.​

we get it, u are da ebin trole x) i await the day i too am conquered by your mastrfil mind games and skill

As often as I've gotten my Megamence trick roomed I just sorta chilled through it. Though speed is an important asset to Megamence it's hardly the only thing going for it, and setting up and utilizing Trick Room is hard when Megamence is murdering.

probably the best TR setters in ORAS are Aromatisse and Cresselia; are you just chilling through those guys? Many things can beat Mence if they get the first hit in. The problem is that you can't hit mence because of its speed+power and redirection. I will give you that setting up TR against mence is kind of hard, especially if mence's Rachi is packing TR to undo it.

If we want to talk about comparative competency, Mega Salamence is better than Rayquaza. Megamence is faster both pre- and post-mega, and tougher too: 95/130/90 is a fair bit hardier than 105/90/90, at least physically. Intimidate to Aerialate is a lot more frequently relevant than Air Lock, too. While Rayray has a better movepool, Megamence hits harder physically due to Aerialate and has an incredibly spammable special STAB with spread, also due to Aerialate. We'd have to consider bringing Rayray down if we keep Megamence, which is kinda screwed up.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-doubles-stage-3-5-—-mama-said-knock-you-out.3509279/page-5#post-5837407

(whissp read this too)

edit: ok i have to respond to this:

The more centralizing mons there are, the less centralized whole meta is. Imagine you are up against someone in a tourney. In meta with mega sala, you gotta play mindgames which team to bring - the one that can handle mega kang or mega sala...(or jack of all trades, master of none team)? In meta without mega sala, you just gotta be prepared for mega kang and any other mega your opp brings is mostly just garbage you don't even consider preparing for and you beat it with brute force.

the fuck? You're basically saying you're ok with games being won or lost at team preview. but youre also saying you can't have a team that handles mence and kang at the same time. you're also saying that kang was the only good mega in XY despite the fact that I personally had like six tourney-viable teams and none of them had kang. this post is just retarded.

 

[whissp]

the fuck? You're basically saying you're ok with games being won or lost at team preview. but youre also saying you can't have a team that handles mence and kang at the same time. you're also saying that kang was the only good mega in XY despite the fact that I personally had like six tourney-viable teams and none of them had kang. this post is just retarded.

nobody cares about your teams tbh. also i said "In meta with mega sala, you gotta play mindgames which team to bring - the one that can handle mega kang or mega sala...(or jack of all trades, master of none team)?"... I really dont know whats unclear here... by jack of all trades master of none i meant that you dont have full team of counters.

 

[Lady Gaga]

Checking the Mega Salamence is not a problem. With intimidate/will-o-wisp spam from Pokémon like Landorus-Therian, Hitmontop, Mew, Rotom-Wash, and many more, Mega Salamence may not get away with a +1 Double Edge so easily. The main issue I have is figuring out whether the Salamence is actually a Mega Salamence and not a Special Salamence. Common checks to a Physical MONSTER like Mega Salamence may include Landorus-Terian, Rotom-Wash, and Ferrothorn but if the "Mega Salamence" turned out to be a Special Salamence, your check to the wrong type of Salamence will be dead. If you guessed that it was a Special Salamence but then realize you were wrong when the Salamence used Dragon Dance, you may be in deep trouble.

 

[Laga]

whissp you need to start using arguments that work, or at least explain your current ones better.

The post pwnemon replied to sounds exactly like pwne described it; one where you imply that losing or winning by team matchup is an ok thing for a metagame. The following things also make no sense:

If you believe that removing mega mence will make other shitmons like mega Pidgeot or Beedrill viable, then go play pokemon amie.

This one makes me think you have no idea why anyone ever bans anything from any tier. You don't ban anything to make other pokemon more viable, you ban them if they're too strong. In some cases, this might be relevant, but it would never be the sole reason to ban something!?

Also I remember few generations back Arcanine used to be very good mon, however new pokemon came out and outclassed it / countered it. Should we now ban all those pokes?

We agreed that comparing mence to other mons in the meta was irrelevant. What does that make comparing it to mons from other generations? Irrelevanter.

If we ban mence, then we will be back in kang meta.

If this statement was 100% accurate, it would be more relevant for pro ban, and would actually effectively suggest banning both. Kanga and Salamence are the only mons that truly centralize defensive teams, with Landorus-T coming in a lot further behind (although lando-t is overall better because of the insane utility).

Basically, your posts push me overall towards pro ban, and your persistency in arbitrary "facts" that aren't even necessarily anti ban confuses me.

 

[Bughouse]

Mence in several ways is actually making Kanga better lol. It's made the usage of Musketeers, Hitmontop, and Scrafty plummet. Landorus-T is also less common. So anyone saying Kanga is better than Mence right now is missing the overall metagame trends. By the end of XY we knew how to handle Kanga pretty well (although it was undeniably still very good). Mence has substantially altered viability in the meta. Just look at everyone promoting shit like Milotic and Darkrai in the viability thread. I've also noted elsewhere how hard it is to build a team that stands up to Mence and Diancie. Throw in Kanga too and it becomes nearly impossible.

This is a long way of saying that it has substantially unbalanced the metagame and this is a meta that was previously so balanced it didn't ban a single mon in XY.

 

[Joim]

Please don't mention Sucker Punch as a reliable priority attack. It's not. It's also not doing much against Fighting-types and even raising the attack of the musketeers.

You are all here running calcs, but you seem to ignore the fact that mence can run a bulky set, wait for its Team to get rid of counters and come in later in game, tank an attack and sweep.

Also a long list of mons that in a specific scenario can beat mence is pretty much adding nothing to the discussion. We can do one for most of the banned mons lol.

While I agree mence is manageable, though, look at what it did on the meta. There's much more ice attacks, all Fighting-types dropped dramatically in usage, there's less landoges and overall genies due to the raise of ice attacks and, even that way, a good mence team can win through sheer power. Or you just run mega-k as its counters are nowhere to be seen.

 

[Hashtag]

I wanna say that trick room and speed control aren't very good ways to beat mence, as that argument seems to imply that only the player facing mence gets to have team support, whereas in reality mence teams generally deal with this very nicely, sometimes containing their own tailwind users, and always carrying trick room stops.

 

[koolkranny]

Now that I have had a chance to test it out, both using and against, I think I've made my decision.

I have been using Mega Salamence and the only time I have ever actually had a problem beating a team with it, was a bulky choice band Gyrados. And that isn't exactly the most common mon or set.

To fully understand what is going on with Mega Mence, I'm going to break down what makes people want to ban it.

A big problem is that Salamence is viable as either a mega or a non mega. And even if you know it is a mega, you can't be certain if it is the special set or a physical set. It's unpredictability is the first major qualm everyone has with it.

Then comes the abilities. Before it mega evolves it intimidates the opponents. When you factor in how much physical bulk it has (95/130/90, thats better than Skarmory) then you realize that it can switch into a physical opponent, mega evolve and set up a dragon dance while they switch out or futilely try to break him, and then proceed to sweep the opponents entire team, only getting out-sped by priority. Aerialate is mega Mence's ablility, which makes normal type moves become flying, and gives them a boost of 30% in addition to the stab gained. There have been enough calcs on this thread to emphasize the amount of power a return or double edge does.

Another problem is that Mence has menacing stats before he mega evolves, and even more menacing stats after. As a pseudo-legendary, Salamence starts off with a BST of 600. They are spread mostly evenly with an emphasis on ATK and SPA. 100 Speed allows it to tie with most of the XY megas. After Mega Evolution, its BST becomes 700, putting it above cover legendaries such as Ho-oh, Palkia, or Xerneas. It's ATK goes up, its DEF becomes tankish, and its speed (120) allows it to go faster than most of the meta.

The fun doesn't stop there however, its typing is the icing on the cake. Dragon/Flying gives it extraordinary coverage options, allowing it to hit most everything neutrally with stab. Or it can drop the dragon stab move and use earthquake instead, allowing it to hit steel types. This leaves only flying/electric or levitating electric types able to resist it's moves.

Down sides to Mega Mence:
4X weakness to Ice means that anyone who can go faster and has decent SPA investment can KO with an ice beam.
252 SpA Deoxys-A Ice Beam vs. 144 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 548-648 (149.3 - 176.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Fairy weakness means that most Hyper Voices OHKO even through a substitute. Some redirection on the opponents side plus specs Sylveon was a common strategy before ORAS, and still has the ability destroy teams.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 144 HP / 0 SpD Salamence: 612-720 (166.7 - 196.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Trick room completely shuts down Mence's ability to sweep, requiring teammates to stall or defeat the Trick room team. Prankster paralysis is also common and can also do the same thing.



I will hold out judgement until I can get a good handle on how Mega Salamence works in the new meta. It isn't invincible, but it is giving Mega Kangaskhan a run for her money.

Ok, I've had a chance to play with and against several Mega Mence teams, and I have come to the conclusion that the ladder doesn't help determine the viability of Mega Salamence. Now that that's out of the way, I did get the chance to play a few good players with and against MMence. And I'll be honest, Mega Mence Earthquake was underwhelming. It did only moderate damage to steel types (most of them were named Aegislash, Heatran was too much a coward to stay in when Mega Mence was on the field)

252 Atk Mega Salamence Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 124-148 (38.2 - 45.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252 Atk Mega Salamence Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 186-220 (57.4 - 67.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Salamence: 175-207 (52.8 - 62.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Mega Salamence needs that Dragon Dance or help from a partner to actually do significant damage to Aegis. But the ability to use wide guard allowes a partner mon to wreak havoc on mences team, or to knock out the redirection, or any other number of things. By playing that kind of mind game, you can deal some significant damage to Mence or the rest of it's team. By itself, Physical Mega Salamence cannot take out a wide guard Aegislash. Aegislash isn't a hard counter to Mega Mence, but it does cause serious headaches for the mence player.

Another problem with Mence is the move pool. Aerialate return or double edge does serious damage, but then you have to have dragon dance and Sub/Tect. That leaves one moveslot for coverage. Dragon claw for Flying/Electric mons, EQ for Steel, or Aqua tail if you don't want Mence to live long.

Combined with all the other counters mentioned in previous posts, I do not believe that Mega Salamence is unbeatable. It loses to common threats like SPA invested ice beam, trick room (yes, trick room is a problem for Mega Mence, if you don't think it is, then I want to see a replay of you beating a good player using a good TR team without breaking a sweat) and Fariy types (Sylveon, MMawile, MDiancie)

I am leaning very heavily towards no ban at the moment. I will need some seriously good evidence or a very good argument to sway me back.

 

[Roxer]

My 2 (figurative) useless cents:

1. This thing is fucking BULKY. It has insase physical bulk and his special bulk isn't bad at all. You need a hella of a lot of investment to kill it with non STAB Ice move, and most mons that get STAB Ice moves get insta gibbed. tl;dr: It's hard to kill.
2. It's fucking strong, Double-Edge/Return gets STAB + Aerilate boost, all of that coming from 145 Atk, its movepool is also insanely good, it can use EQ to insta-kill Heatran or Fire Blast to buttrape Ferrothorn. tl;dr it does a ton of damage to a ton of things.

My other 2 (figurative) useless cents:

1. It's very weak to Burn/Intimidate; A burned mega salamence is close to useless if it can't setup. (Side note: Most intimidaters can't even 2HKO salamence themselves after Mence's own intimidate.

• -1 252+ Atk Landorus-T Stone Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 138-164 (41.5 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
• -1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 44 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 220-261 (66.6 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
• I know that this calc is irrelevant since lando wins this fight anyway but this is here just to prove a point on how bulky he actually is.

2. Mence is very prone to double targetting, it can't kill 2 things at once, and tbh it won't be OHKOing a lot unless it is super effective damage. (Side note²: Because of mence's bulk he can survive most attacks, but that leaves him, most of the time, at half health, prone to being killed by other faster things.)

After thinking for a little bit of time I came to a conclusion (The same as TOTEMO's actually): Mega Mence itself is not broken but it is very easy to break. All of his weaknesses are easy to check, not only the ones I mentioned (Aggressive Speed control, Burn/Intimidate, Fast things that have Ice moves). Aggressive speed control can be mostly shut down by Taunt (for trick room and tailwind) or just being having a generally bulky partner (Like Cresselia, she can deal well with both TR and Tailwind). Intimidates and Burns are easy to handle, you can always use a special attacking mon or have Defiant to check intimidate (Braviary is OP), and ofcourse, you can switch to remove any stat changes. For the fast things you can 1. Slow them down 2. just switch out to a steel or w/e, Ice is an amazing offensive type but it sucks defensively, so it's easy to take down most Ice types. Since I'm not the most experienced player most of the things that I said might be bullshit so take them with a grain of salt. (At this point it just looks like I copied Blood Totem's post but I don't give a fuck lol)

pls ban.

you can always be a good player and use Para-SwagFlinch to counter mence but that's none of my business, or is it...?

 

[qwerts]

So I started this off pro-ban while seeing all the gung ho "mence is evil" posts that were going around but after playing against it and with it I've come over to the non ban side. The thing is that mence doesn't switch in with a sub, keep intimidate the whole game, switch in automatically with a DD, and i haven't seen one person actually carrying hydro pump and fire blast. Mence definently has a lot of possiblities, but so does kang with the elemental punches, and yet ice punch is the only one remotely seen. Also mence is not on the field with jirachi or a redirector 100% of the time. Not a long post, but just stating that while mence can run a lot of things, that doesn't mean it will, and it usually never does. (Unless you're using a shit special set) People need to remember that mence only has 4 move slots, and doesn't switch in already at +1 with a supporting partner hiding behind a sub.

 

[DDRMaster]

Burning Salamence doesn't even matter if you can't kill it.

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/smogondoublescurrent-195846065

Some things to note about that replay:
- No, it wasn't a very good battle, at all. The only part I'm concerned about is after Salamence switches in.
- That Rock Slide miss didn't matter. It would have only done around 10% after the Roost.
- Slowbro should have had Ice Beam, which would have made killing Mence a whole lot easier. Though, if it were something like Amoongus, this same scenario would have occurred.

And I do have another replay of my Burned/Intimidated Mega Mence getting free damage off as my opponent tried to keep switching around to lower my attack further. The thing still refused to die. My opponent said he thought about posting it here and I was fine with it but I guess he didn't want to reveal his team.

 

[Qazoo306]

Responding to particularly bad arguments. I've realized I just don't have time to respond to everything dumb being said in this thread. It's a flood.
1) While it has few hard counters (sets that can counter after a boost), Salamence has many checks from all over the spectrum of roles. Just adding to kale's list, Jirachi can counter Mence with follow me so a partner can check it, Togekiss can do the same, although a boosted double-edge will probably OHKO or 2HKO.
This argument doesn't actually work all that well in reverse. An example possibility (obviously depends on the sets). Mence Protects while Mence's partner Rachi uses TWave. Now, if Ludicolo's partner Jirachi gets paralyzed on any of the turns while trying to use Follow Me, Ludicolo gets donked. Even against your marvelous pairing (and I'm even giving Ludicolo rain and Mence no boosts...) Mence and Rachi can still come out on top.
Your argument relies on hax. Ludicolo OHKOes anyway.

2) It doesn't switch in and instantly be at +1 or +2
If the ultimate effect is broken, it doesn't matter what the initial state is.
If your battling a good player, it can be hard to get to that finial result.

3) WoW and Intimidate are always common, and physical sets don't like them
Intimidate and WoW can be blocked by Sub sets. WoW can actually be taken advantage of by Facade while still being stronk af even when not statused. On top of that, Mence really does not give two shits about most Intimidate mons. Hitmontop and Scrafty usage has just totally plummeted. I wonder why?
It is a monster after a sub, but it can be stopped from subbing via double targeting, taunt, being threatened out, etc

4) It has 4MMS. I've seen so many argument saying "fire blast varients" or "Aqua Tail Variants", or varients with EQ, or Hydro Pump, or special attacking ones. It can't do anything at once
While 4MSS can mean that a mon really needs 5 moves to be successful, it is often instead synonymous with unpredictability and having many options. It has never been an argument relevant to banning something or not.
After and return, it only has 3 slots to beat it's checks. Sub is common and so is Dragon Claw and protect. It can't beat everything at once.

5) ANYTHING can be broken with enough boosts / follow me support. We should ban everything that can boost it's own stats if your that worried.
Lol
I was only half joking when I said that. It seems that most arguments say that mence is broken if it has the perfect storm of 2 dragon dances, a sub and Jirachi out on the field. I think that that's the only way mence could be broken, and it isn't broken otherwise. Why not ban what's actually broken?

6) The meta is really prepared for it right now
Really a suspect test meta is prepared for the thing being suspected? That's never happened before, has it? Oh wait. It happens in almost every suspect test.
What I meant in saying that was that a lot of centralization arguments are kinda moot because when smogon says this may be broken, everyone freaks out and runs anything they can think of to counter it.

7) Strong =/= Broken
Lol
What likes switching into a CB outrage from Kyurem-B that isn't a fairy or steel type? What likes switching into a Psycho-Boost from Deoxys that isn't psychic, dark, or steel? Nothing, and yet they aren't broken. A similar thing applies to mence, because although few things like switching in on it, many things can still beat it.

8) It has common weaknesses
It does indeed have a few weaknesses. Common weaknesses make a mon bad, right? That's why Terrakion is terrible. It's weak to Water, Ground, Fighting, and Fairy (not to mention Psychic, Steel, and Grass). In reality, Mence's type weaknesses are more than made up for by its awesome resistances, which make setting up on numerous mons in Doubles possible, even without redirection.
Nearly every team has at least ONE ice, fairy, dragon or rock move that can at leas scare mence into switching or protecting for a turn leaving it open for later.

9) It is very susceptible to speed control. Tail Wind and TR both can halt sweeps if timed right, as many checks become counters now that they outspeed.
I've addressed this before and a mon that redefines speed tiers and can boost its own speed easily just ISN'T vulnerable to speed control. Everything in Doubles is to some degree, but Mence is less so than anything else offensive in the tier except for Talonflame.
Back in XY, Kang defined speed tiers because it was considered fast back then, but it actually had ways of beating Tail Wind (with priority) or Trick Room (with hammer arm). Mence has no way to beat Tail Wind without having set up previously, and has literally no way to beat TR due to its lack of priority or speed lowering moves. It's also outspeed and OHKOed or 2HKOes by many common scarfers like Landoge and Hydreigon.

10) Saying "I need to run this or I loose" is a bad argument. In XY, you needed a strong fighting attack to check or counter Kang, and you needed a strong ice attack to check Landoge. If you didn't run those, then say GG from team preview. If that didn't mean broken with the 2 strongest mons last gen, then it may not be broke this gen
I had many teams without a Fighting attack that handled Kanga just fine. Plenty of teams without an Ice attack. What kind of meta were you even playing?! And if they actually were that centralizing, guess what? They WOULD have been banned. "I need to run this or I lose" is literally the definition of overcentralization, which merits banning. It's really, REALLY hard to take anything you say seriously when you conclude with something this clueless..
First, ROOD. And second, I meant you needed a check, and I listed the easiest methods of checking them. A strong fighting move is by far the best way to beat Kang, and an ice move beats Landoge. If you need to consider something in teambuilding, do that mean that it is broken? No! It means it is a threat. Teams have weaknesses to specific pokemon or play styles, so you need to be able to beat them. It's part of the balance of the game, and IMO promotes creativity to an extent.

My comments are italicized.

 

[qwerts]

- No, it wasn't a very good battle, at all.

Then why in the world is it relevant?

 

[trc]

regardless of the fact that in 34 battles on the current ladder i saw literally 0 mega salamence i might as well post here since most of the anti-ban arguments have been kinda bad outside of a select few posters. from what i've seen in replays and from other people's arguments, mega salamence seems banworthy. people are quick to jump at many of the mentioned calcs being at +1 or revenge killers being unable to ko a +1 mence due to the fact that setup is involved and that's not guaranteed, but i think people are really underestimating how easy it is to setup with mega salamence. notwithstanding the possibilities of redirection and fake out, salamence has intimidate in its base form and incredible physical bulk, in any game i've seen it rarely struggles to setup and every calc in the world has been posted in this thread showing what it can do after it sets up.

 

[Haki]

Hmm, after mainly being on the anti-ban side and seeing good arguments from multiple people, I am starting to become a little more moderate in this discussion. In a close battle against Shaian, I was winning 5-2, but then Mega-Salamence ended up sweeping almost my entire team. Not only that, at one point I had a 2-1 advantage, but continuous Roosts from Mega-Salamence screwed me over and I ended up losing to a bulky MegaMence. I acknowledge that MegaMence is very versatile and can run multiple sets (physical, special, and bulky). However, I still believe that it is not a daunting task to defeat Salamence, as it still possesses many weaknesses and can be stopped in some situations with speed control.

 

[Arcticblast]

Hmm, after mainly being on the anti-ban side and seeing good arguments from multiple people, I am starting to become a little more moderate in this discussion. In a close battle against Shaian, I was winning 5-2, but then Mega-Salamence ended up sweeping almost my entire team. Not only that, at one point I had a 2-1 advantage, but continuous Roosts from Mega-Salamence screwed me over and I ended up losing to a bulky MegaMence. I acknowledge that MegaMence is very versatile and can run multiple sets (physical, special, and bulky). However, I still believe that it is not a daunting task to defeat Salamence, as it still possesses many weaknesses and can be stopped in some situations with speed control.

I honestly hate the "Mega Salamence swept me from a 5-2 lead!" argument (you're not the first to use it Pinoy, not a personal jab) - coming back from a 5-2 or 6-2 really isn't as hard as it seems if you just get the right Pokemon on the field at the right time. Here's me smashing champetero with special Blaziken as my counterargument. Through a series of terrible plays I ended up down three Pokemon with nothing to show for it but an Aerodactyl getting brought down to its Sash, then proceeded to crit my own Hitmontop with Earthquake. I then clutched with Blaziken and Sub Mega Chomp.

real post coming eventually.

 

[Haki]

Okay, here's a replay of me playing against a MegaMence team and dominating, and this was a Doubles room tour finals match:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-195897341

I would just like to point out that MegaMence isn't unstoppable, and yes it can set up for a +1 and sweep, but that's not always going to be the case. Also the argument of saving Mega Salamence until the end, it's just like any other Doubles threat that can be saved for late-game sweeps.

 

[Bughouse]

Okay, here's a replay of me playing against a MegaMence team and dominating, and this was a Doubles room tour finals match:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-195897341

I would just like to point out that MegaMence isn't unstoppable, and yes it can set up for a +1 and sweep, but that's not always going to be the case. Also the argument of saving Mega Salamence until the end, it's just like any other Doubles threat that can be saved for late-game sweeps.

Congrats you beat a team massively weak to Kyurem with a Kyurem. I have no idea what else that replay shows.

 

[trc]

Okay, here's a replay of me playing against a MegaMence team and dominating, and this was a Doubles room tour finals match:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-195897341

I would just like to point out that MegaMence isn't unstoppable, and yes it can set up for a +1 and sweep, but that's not always going to be the case. Also the argument of saving Mega Salamence until the end, it's just like any other Doubles threat that can be saved for late-game sweeps.

your opponent played badly and you beat the mega salamence with an ice-type move. not really getting the point of the replay.

 

[Haki]

your opponent played badly and you beat the mega salamence with an ice-type move. not really getting the point of the replay.

Exactly. It has a 4x weakness to ice meaning it's not that hard to kill. I could list on and on how many mons run Ice Beam for utility and even Ice Punch (which I use on Mega Kangaskhan). Oh sure, MegaMence has an annoying redirector in Jirachi to resist Ice-type moves, but no one has acknowledged the fact that the mon using Ice Beam also has a partner. Redirectors can be interrupted with Fake Out or shut down with Taunt, Spore, etc. Heck, redirectors such as Togekiss and Jirachi are OHKOed by Bisharp, with Amoonguss getting rekt by Talonflame. And don't forget the Fairy-type spread moves, the Ice-type spread moves, and even Mega Diancie's Diamond storm. I understand MegaMence is a powerful mon, but it is not overcentralizing to be completely honest. Please note that am I still unsure of what side I will choose over this suspect after seeing plenty of strong arguments.