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There is no reason in the world why mmeta can't run hp investment, he certainly has the bulk to get away with it (megazor has very similar stats, barring speed to mmeta and gets away with it just fine, so why not mmeta?). Having a good base speed does not bar him from running defense investment, especially not with defensive stats like his. Lefties and KS are significant though, agreed.
Yeah, aegis has some versatility that meta doesn't have, namely the ability to run special sets, setup sets, and sub-toxic. His typing is also much better then mmetas from an offensive standpoint (defensively they're about the same). I think you're overrating his SD set a bit, even at +2 he's not breaking much due to low speed and his poor defenses in blade form. Shadow Sneak helps, but it's still not impressive from anything other then a wallbreaking standpoint.
I will grant that Aegislash is probably more broken then Mega Metagross (though I don't think mmeta's potential is as fully explored as aegis' was, for example there really is no reason why it can't run bulky), and I apologize if I implied otherwise. However, I still think that mmeta still fits my definition of "broken", because he usually is dealing a fair bit more damage then he is taking.
How to Mega Metagross:
1. Swap him into a resisted hit, taking about 20-30% in the process.
2. If your opponent doesn't have a "good" swap in for his STABs, pick a STAB, dealing anywhere between 50-60% to the swap in.
3. If your opponent does have a good swap in, either A. hit him with a STAB and then follow up with a coverage move, or B. predict the swap and hit with a coverage move. Either choice, in all but a few circumstances, will result in a KO/forceout.
4. If you can't force the opponent out(whether it be through bad prediction or getting countered), just swap out and come back later.
Mmeta can do this 2 or 3 times in a game, due to his constantly mentioned bulk. Each time, he metes out a solid 30-100% worth of damage to the opponent's team. Under most circumstances, mmeta is dealing far more damage then he takes unless his opponent is running one of the handful of mons considered to be his "counter". Even if his opponent is running a counter though, these mons are incredibly passive, allowing mmeta to swap out to one of his dangerous teammates for free, which is always a very powerful move that can outright win games (only a fool would expect mmeta to outright sweep the enemy team, again much like aegislash).
While Mega Metagross certainly could start running defensive sets or just defensive investment, it loses out on a lot of what makes it so damn useful in the meta: its high speed and power. If you run any speed lower than base 100, Mega Charizard starts countering. Any speed at all not invested results in Gengar always winning, the Latis getting in more hits, and Mega Diancie winning with earth power. Running less attack investment means losing to more things, especially stuff like Landorus-T who you need to essentially run max defenses to possibly avoid a 2HKO. Even then, lack of any form of recovery hurts a lot.
Aegislash's typing is actually much, much better than Metagross' defensively. Aegislash has three immunities as opposed to MegaGross' one, an added resistance to bug, and no extra weaknesses. Metagross has what, a quad resist to psychic as opposed to a normal resist? Not particularly compelling to me. The SD and Autotomize (that was interesting to face) sets were threatening mostly because it could run them and suddenly turn 3HKOs into 2HKOs or essentially an OHKO due to shadow sneak, and gave up very little, unlike AgiliGross. The sheer diversity of its sets let it beat so many counters that it was a bit like Mega Lucario's ambiguity between special and physical. Metagross lacks that, actually making it more like Mega Mawile, and MegaGross is nowhere near as powerful.
MegaGross is strong, certainly, and deals out a lot of damage, but on the other hand we also have others who deal out tremendous damage but in return take little enough (wallbreakers) or things that just kill every single member of the opponent's team, taking minimal damage in return. Are they broken? The issue is that the portrait can only guide us, and is unable to really take the whole picture of recoveryless bulk. If Metagross often switches in and out it racks up damage quickly, until it's dead.
As for the edit, which I just saw, you forgot that rotom has Pain Split, which instantly puts MegaGross much further down and Rotom back to enough to beat Talonflame.
Edit: trillyntruly you misunderstand. Aegislash is damaged normally by two types, is weak to four, resists nine, and is immune to three. Metagross is damaged normally by four, is weak to four, immune to one, and resists nine. Scrappy included, Aegislash has ten resists and five weaknesses, but of course not all fighting type moves have scrappy.
By no extra weaknesses, I meant ghost has no weaknesses psychic does not share.
um...their typings are extremely similar and ghost does bring it extra weaknesses, namely dark and ghost....the 2 primary weaknesses megagross's psychic typing gives it. aegislash's defensive typing is better by a very tiny amount (due to a quag resist to bug rather than psychic i guess? and an immunity to normal/fighting? even though the most prominent normal types in the tier can still hit it (lopunny, diggersby, etc)).
also even though i agree with you about bulky megagross, i assume it would still beat diancie 1-v-1 due to bullet punch definitely being a staple on bulky sets in order to not just lose to diancie
There doesn't seem to be a strict definition, but a number of things appear to hurt the metagame for obvious reasons.
1) Overcentralisation. Don't need to elaborate on this one.
2) Matchup based metagame. This essentially means that players lose on team preview more often than having an even chance battle relying on the skill of the players and instead the teams they brought to the match. This clearly hurts the metagame as it defeats the point of a competitive game.
3) Too many relevant threats because this in itself leads to a matchup based metagame.
and so on and so on. I can't find some "definition" of a healthy metagame, but I can tell you what's obviously bad for a metagame and why this is the case.
If a number of things become overpowered after a ban (literally this won't happen. MAYBE Diancie, but where did this "number of things" come from?) Can't we just ban them? When we banned Aegi we weren't afraid to take the "risk" so why should we be here when we can solve these problems later down the line?
Ok I had to log in to reply to this, mainly your point #2. You (and as far as I can tell, quite a few people here) have clearly NEVER played a competitive game in their lives. From everything to fighting games (Street Fighter, Tekken) to card games (Magic: The Gathering, etc.) there is matchup dependency. Some strategies, characters and in this case teams will ALWAYS have a favorable matchup against others. Even the very best are stopped by something.
And THAT is where player skill and creativity come into play. What determines how good of a player you are, is how prepared you are for these matchups, wether by developing a strategy or putting an uncommon move on one of your poke. Right now the meta is diverse, especially compared to older gens. By banning unbroken things (like metagross) we are developing a meta where fewer and fewer viable mons exist. In the end we will just have the same 6 mon on every team. Is that really what we want?
None of these Pokemon that beat Mega Gross are actually counters. Counters are Pokemon that stop another Pokemon cold. For example, Celebi counters Breloom because it is immune to Spore, wall both of Breloom's STABs, and proceed to take advantage of it. Most of the Pokemon that Mega Gross has troubles with are checks: they can beat it one on one, but cannot switch into it. Aegislash had numerous checks, yet it was still problematic, because Aegislash could easily tweak its set to beat any particular set of checks. While Mega Gross is not as good as this as Aegislash, none of its checks stop it cold: Lando-T is stopped by Ice Punch, Slowbro and Hippowdon by Grass Knot, etc.
If something has counters that does NOT mean it isn't broken.
What I see is a failure and lack of understand to see the pokemon in practice and when teambuilding rather than just looking at it on paper. Everything has a counter, but if you're forced to run said counters on your team then you have a problem.. a pokemon battle shouldn't be matchup reliant to the point where it's GG if you're running anything that does not include a metagross on it. We can all run counter skarmorys and arcanines on our team.. but is that really the metagame we want? Just pulling mediocre or flat out shitty lower tier mons out of our ass just to handle this monstrosity? I don't think so... and while yes counter skarm is a thing in OU, I personally can't see myself using it other than for a niche reason like gallade (which is threatened by the much better brave bird) and bisharp. The opportunity cost of using these pokemon are surprising really big too, skarmory doesn't have the best longevity, chances are late game it's going to be low enough to the point gross can just take it out and it failed at it's job.
I thought metagross was borderline broken at first.. I only seen a few sets and none of them particular threatened me.. however as a cartridge player rather than a ladderer, these are the things you expect.. pretty much everybody is mediocre. However as I began encountering more skillful metagry with agility on live streams, they completely shred my team late game if all 4 of my checks are already dead. Like WebBowser has pointed out, I really don't want to get harsh pointing at mediocre players, but mediocre players aren't going to see metagross's full potential as seen on the ladder.. even higher on the ladder, we have not seen absolutely possible defensive sets, sub sets, and even a mixed set or two is starting to show up for slowbro. Where's HP fire lure gross to deal with skarmory? That could see some niche potential! Likewise with aegislash, we only seen autotomize and stance dance at the beginning of x/y.. we didn't even know sub-toxic or even head smash would become new standard sets, metagross is going to see that same path soon, we just haven't had him long enough to experience it ourselves. The problem with metagross is the options he has that he isn't using yet, if counter skarm becomes the new meta, then HP fire gross would become the new metagrossgame.
The whole aegis = megagross is really biased, I personally see 0 comparisons between the two other than their development as the meta changes.. but that could just be my part of the controversy as I see neither negative overcentralization or brokenness in aegislash but I'll save that discussion for another time when we're not suspect testing another pokemon not named aegislash.
If something has counters that does NOT mean it isn't broken.
What I see is a failure and lack of understand to see the pokemon in practice and when teambuilding rather than just looking at it on paper. Everything has a counter, but if you're forced to run said counters on your team then you have a problem.. a pokemon battle shouldn't be matchup reliant to the point where it's GG if you're running anything that does not include a metagross on it. We can all run counter skarmorys and arcanines on our team.. but is that really the metagame we want? Just pulling mediocre or flat out shitty lower tier mons out of our ass just to handle this monstrosity? I don't think so... and while yes counter skarm is a thing in OU, I personally can't see myself using it other than for a niche reason like gallade (which is threatened by the much better brave bird) and bisharp. The opportunity cost of using these pokemon are surprising really big too, skarmory doesn't have the best longevity, chances are late game it's going to be low enough to the point gross can just take it out and it failed at it's job.
I thought metagross was borderline broken at first.. I only seen a few sets and none of them particular threatened me.. however as a cartridge player rather than a ladderer, these are the things you expect.. pretty much everybody is mediocre. However as I began encountering more skillful metagry with agility on live streams, they completely shred my team late game if all 4 of my checks are already dead. Like WebBowser has pointed out, I really don't want to get harsh pointing at mediocre players, but mediocre players aren't going to see metagross's full potential as seen on the ladder.. even higher on the ladder, we have not seen absolutely possible defensive sets, sub sets, and even a mixed set or two is starting to show up for slowbro. Where's HP fire lure gross to deal with skarmory? That could see some niche potential! Likewise with aegislash, we only seen autotomize and stance dance at the beginning of x/y.. we didn't even know sub-toxic or even head smash would become new standard sets, metagross is going to see that same path soon, we just haven't had him long enough to experience it ourselves. The problem with metagross is the options he has that he isn't using yet, if counter skarm becomes the new meta, then HP fire gross would become the new metagrossgame.
The whole aegis = megagross is really biased, I personally see 0 comparisons between the two other than their development as the meta changes.. but that could just be my part of the controversy as I see neither negative overcentralization or brokenness in aegislash but I'll save that discussion for another time when we're not suspect testing another pokemon not named aegislash.
Not gonna lie, if you have 4 checks and they're all dead, I'm pretty sure that means you got outplayed. And considering you only have 2 pokes left, you really don't have much of a team left to shred.
Edit: I should also point out that there have been plenty of mentions of viable and useful mons that check and counter MMeta in this thread.
There's a reason every team has always more than one "reliable answer" and that's because it's the largest threat in the metagame and drastically restricts teambuilding as a result. Yes, we can use perfectly viable OU Pokemon, but as the ones you listed are shaky checks you cannot compare them to P2 coutering Greninja as they aren't full counters like P2 was; Greninja had a lot of "dependant counters", but the important thing is that as some of these begin to get more use than the others, by using different coverage move Greninja would've adapted back and this cycle is really unhealthy for the metagame. On a smaller scale, Metagross is capable of the same thing. Secondly, it's not the Pokemon we have to use that's the issue, it's the extent we have to use them to. Literally any half decent team needs 2/3 solid checks and a shaky counter to stand a chance in this metagame and even then a MMetagross running a different coverage move could beat said team. It just adds to the fact how matchup based this metagame is and that's not a good thing. By banning MMEta, we're making a less matchup based metagame, which is a healthier metagame. Lastly, those team slots lost to MMeta cockblocking is bad because of the ridiculous amount of threats in the metagame. Yes, no team is perfect, but it gets to the point where there's simply far too much to deal with in only 6 slots (even if you only cover 2/3 of the metagame) and this in turn makes the metagame really matchup based. All in all, it's easy to see how MMeta is making teambuilding a nightmare and is the leading cause of this matchup based metagame we have, and neither of these are healthy for the metagame at all.
You do realised that WE CAN BAN ANY BROKEN POKEMON TO IMPROVE THE METAGAME OMG. If Diancie really does turn out broken then we can ban it. It's that simple. Broken checking broken is unhealthy as all hell, and by banning MMeta and then MDiancie, we're just making the metagame more healthy and less matchup based in general. We won't regret anything as anything broken afterwards would be banned.
We should ban this metal arachnid because I'm terrified of spiders. Also, what I say here applies to any anti ban argument like these. I'm seeing them all the time and honestly it's quite disgusting because they're either just ignorant or untrue.
You don't get the point of my post, I'm saying that any team that isn't HO already has counters or checks built in for mega-metagross like Ferrothorn, slowbro etc. the fact that people have him in mind while teambuilding only amplifies that. And also the point that we can ban Diancie later is so stupid, why would we let ourselves sit through a shittier meta then we have now just for the sake of convenience? Would you take a shit and not wipe your ass after because it's more time consuming? I hope not.
You're missing the point that Rotom has ways to recover. A team with Clef + Rotom-W is likely carrying a wishpasser, as it will be a balanced/defensive team (non Flamethrower Clef is either SR or Cleric usually, lets say it's cleric), and Rotom can heal with pain split anyway. So if Clef wishpasses to Rotom, MMeta hasn't really helped SD Flame sweep, just forced the opponent to wishpass or Rotom-W to pain split a reasonably healthy poke.
You can't say MMeta is broken as it can ruin itself V a check and weaken the check enough to let your sweeper/cleaner who is checked by the same mon to sweep when the check has a form of healing (albiet the unreliable Pain Split) and list a teamate as a poke often used as a cleric. At least make a logical argument, this relies on correctly predicting a Clefable set, making sure you have pain split fodder and block any attempted wishpasses (which seem likely to be on a Clef + Rotom team, especially when non flamethrower Clef).
Edit: How you say failing to predict MMeta coming into what we're saying is defensive Clef is "pretty much perfect play" in the same sentence you say predicting the set of the said Clef is "0 prediction" is beyond me.
1. What's to stop the mmeta user from running a cleric/wish passer as well? If we accept that mmeta is bulky enough to come in multiple times during the game, then a wish passer would be an incredible partner for mmeta to further increase it's longevity.
2. mmeta has relatively low health(301 compared to rotom's 303 hp), took a moonblast, is burned, and has possibly taken hazard damage, leaving it at about 70% hp (give or take). Pain split will not allow rotom-w to win against mmeta (though it will allow him to get a bit more damage on him). Obviously chestorest beats mmeta handidly, but it's pretty telegraphed due to lack of lefties recovery.
3. I will admit I'm not a particularly good judge of good play vs. bad play. Still, does the opponent need to double switch every time he sends out a defensive fairy out of fear of giving mmeta a free swap in? That has it's own host of issues, as IIRC double swaps are incredibly risky plays that can easily backfire(for example, predicting the swap and going for scarf lando-t puts him at risk of getting hit by garchomp, which could potentially weaken his revenge killing abilities for later in the game).
While Mega Metagross certainly could start running defensive sets or just defensive investment, it loses out on a lot of what makes it so damn useful in the meta: its high speed and power. If you run any speed lower than base 100, Mega Charizard starts countering. Any speed at all not invested results in Gengar always winning, the Latis getting in more hits, and Mega Diancie winning with earth power. Running less attack investment means losing to more things, especially stuff like Landorus-T who you need to essentially run max defenses to possibly avoid a 2HKO. Even then, lack of any form of recovery hurts a lot.
Aegislash's typing is actually much, much better than Metagross' defensively. Aegislash has three immunities as opposed to MegaGross' one, an added resistance to bug, and no extra weaknesses. Metagross has what, a quad resist to psychic as opposed to a normal resist? Not particularly compelling to me. The SD and Autotomize (that was interesting to face) sets were threatening mostly because it could run them and suddenly turn 3HKOs into 2HKOs or essentially an OHKO due to shadow sneak, and gave up very little, unlike AgiliGross. The sheer diversity of its sets let it beat so many counters that it was a bit like Mega Lucario's ambiguity between special and physical. Metagross lacks that, actually making it more like Mega Mawile, and MegaGross is nowhere near as powerful.
MegaGross is strong, certainly, and deals out a lot of damage, but on the other hand we also have others who deal out tremendous damage but in return take little enough (wallbreakers) or things that just kill every single member of the opponent's team, taking minimal damage in return. Are they broken? The issue is that the portrait can only guide us, and is unable to really take the whole picture of recoveryless bulk. If Metagross often switches in and out it racks up damage quickly, until it's dead.
As for the edit, which I just saw, you forgot that rotom has Pain Split, which instantly puts MegaGross much further down and Rotom back to enough to beat Talonflame.
Edit: trillyntruly you misunderstand. Aegislash is damaged normally by two types, is weak to four, resists nine, and is immune to three. Metagross is damaged normally by four, is weak to four, immune to one, and resists nine. Scrappy included, Aegislash has ten resists and five weaknesses, but of course not all fighting type moves have scrappy.
By no extra weaknesses, I meant ghost has no weaknesses psychic does not share.
Oh, I never said that there weren't tradeoffs for running bulky metagross, but he gains some things too. I'm going to compare 3 sets real quick, just for fun.
At no speed invest, he outspeeds jolly tyranitar, adamant bisharp, and not much else(that has speed invest that is).
So how much does this improve his ability to take hits? I'm going to use mega heracross as our "standard" to measure by.
252 Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 195-230 (64.7 - 76.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 195-230 (60.7 - 71.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 195-230 (53.5 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
The bulk difference is noticeable, especially at full hp invest, but it's not enough to turn this particular 2hko into an 3hko. I'm sure if I looked really hard I could find a scenario where it would matter, but for now I'm simply going to say that a bulky set can have some real benefits in enabling mmeta to effectively check wallbreakers that has not been explored as of now.
The main difference between mmetagross and other wallbreakers such as mega heracross is that it's both much bulkier AND much faster. Folks like mhera and mmedi suffer from both speed and/or bulk issues meaning that they have a much harder time swapping in and staying in, which directly correlates into a decrease in damage dealt. Therefore I maintain that mmeta is more similar to aegis then mmaw (mmaw was a wallbreaker who happened to have sweeping capabilities due to absurdly strong priority, neither aegislash nor mmeta have access to the latter).
Without hp investment, mmeta's hp is actually very low, lower them rotom-w's actually, meaning pain split won't do much more then stall for a couple of burn turns.
Not gonna lie, if you have 4 checks and they're all dead, I'm pretty sure that means you got outplayed. And considering you only have 2 pokes left, you really don't have much of a team left to shred.
Edit: I should also point out that there have been plenty of mentions of viable and useful mons that check and counter MMeta in this thread.
I think you missed the point, I'm running several metagross checks, however they all are still handled by the vast majority of the metagame, by the time they come out to check metagross they're either in OHKO range or dead from the other pokemon that metagross has perfect syngery with. Even the revenge killers such as scarf keldeo and scarf lando, are still bonked when it gets an agility up.. the point of that statement is to show how teambuilding is very restricted and battles are very match-up reliant, no matter how many checks you have on your team they are all eventually worn down trying to do their job when metagross can either kill half of them with unforeseeable coverage options, or struggle/overwhelmed by the rest of the metagame. Metagross has 0 counters, and the checks all depend on his moveset.. having to run multiple checks, each dedicated to a different metagross set, is a huge strain on teambuilding.
Also being outplayed/predicted isn't a viable reason to not deem something broken if it pressures the team forcing careful playing.. if that was the case aegislash would still be OU just because, get gud and predict.
Before I begin, if somebody can give me a reasonable list of good posts from both sides that I should read in this thread by postnumber, that would be great because there is no way I'm reading 28 pages of namecalling and repeated arguments. Thanks.
Now, I would like to outline why I will be voting to ban metagrossite. I will begin with my general tiering philosophy, with which you may or may not agree.
My philosophy on tiering is and has always been that if two metagames exist, each with a different banning regime (i.e. one metagame has no ban while the other has a ban), then the best course of action is to adopt the regime used by the better metagame. I believe this should be the course of action irrespective of whether a pokemon is broken. Keep this in mind as you read my post, as this philosophy is the basis upon which I made my decision.
Mega metagross makes the metagame worse. As it currently stands, I do not believe it is broken outright, in the same way that mega kangaskhan, lucario, and others were. However, I believe it is powerful and versatile enough that 1. there is very little downside to using it, and even against an opposing team with "counters and checks," it will usually net more than one pokemon's worth in value and potentially much more and 2. its existence forces you to prepare for it in such a way that the metagame has become coinflip-esque: if you prepare hard for it and they don't bring it, you're screwed, and if you only pack a soft check or two and they bring it, you're screwed. That, in my opinion, is not a good metagame.
Mega metagross reminds me of other similar pokemon that were teetering on the edge of broken vs. not broken, that when banned created a much better metagame. In fact, I think there's a decent analog from every generation.
In gen 4, in the post-latias metagame, salamence ran wild. Sure, it had checks that were decently viable, and once you found out its set (much like metagross wrt pursuit vs gk vs weird coverage moves) you could beat it decently with swampert, skarmory, cresselia, and others. It was weak to stealth rock and sandstorm, killed itself with LO recoil, sat in an average speed tier, and was VERY easy to revenge kill especially after using outrage. These are all things that made it risky to use salamence, a risk that metagross does not carry. Yet, it still turned the metagame into an ugly coinflip where unless you were willing to use cresselia, you had to guess its set and either prepare for it and lose to other pokemon or be unprepared and play the set-guessing game or watch things die. Mega metagross is a bit more predictable than salamence; you can count on it carrying its stab moves and hammer arm, but most would-be counters are outright steamrolled depending on its last move. In a sense, it trades a bit of predictability for a much lower risk of use (mega metagross has almost zero drawbacks, where salamence had many). After the salamence ban, the metagame became much more stable, and the awful coinflips it created disappeared. Anyone who was there will agree that post-mence DPP was much better than post-latias DPP. I believe banning metagross will have a similar effect.
In gen 5, at the beginning of BW after aldaron's complex ban, the metagame was centered around sand+excadrill. I know that this analogy has already been made, so I will instead of re-hashing it simply quote McMeghan's post, as you guys shouldn't have to read the same argument twice:
I've been reading and discussing quite a bunch about OU and its current state as a competitive tier for a while now, and I want to share my thoughts on the matter.
As usual, I'd like to mention that what I'm gonna advance is only my personal point of view and I'm the only one bound by this view, I don't mean it as an established fact.
As usual, the OU tier loses its stability when we move to a new generation or when a lot of big changes are brought in at once (read: lot of new top tiers, usually due to the release of a new cartridge). The tier kinda turns upside down for some time. It's been the case with ORAS and Mega-Salamence/Greninja got pretty much unanimously and rigthfully banned because they were way too good at what they could do.
Greninja has been banned for a good month now, and I feel that ORAS is genuinely unstable right now (I repeat: this is only my opinion here). Not only did I feel it through my own experience on the tier (by playing and building in it), but I also noticed a lot of players shared my point of view on the matter, whether they are ladder heroes or tournament players. It seems that the general consensus is that ORAS is a tier where match-up is a huge issue, and that it's hard to avoid it, even if you do your best to adapt to it from a teambuilding point of view. There are also very few players who manage to get inherently better and more consistant (tournament-wise) in ORAS (unlike XY), which is typically a major problem you can observe when a tier is unstable.
This is very important, it's the main reason that pushed me to "launch" a suspect after some discussion with the Council members as well as many players beforehand. My opinion emerges from the principle that ORAS shouldn't stay in its current state, and that something must happen to cause some changes that will, hopefully, turn out to be steps in the right direction.
Where should we start though? After spending quite some time conversing on the matter, I reached the conclusion that Mega-Metagross is currently one of the most annoying Pokemon to deal with, from both a playing and teambuilding standpoint, and for a multitude of playstyles. Consequently, I -as well as the Council- thought that it deserved to be the first suspect as an attempt to fix the tier.
As for MMetagross itself, I'm 100% for its ban. However, I'd like to mention that I don't think Metagross is outright broken, like the previously banned Pokémons before it in XY/ORAS (think Mawile, Aegislash or Greninja). I just think it's one of the main culprit behind the match-up issue that I described earlier (and I'd like to to add that I personally think Sableye is absolutely not at Metagross level in this regard, but let's disgress).
I'd like to compare Metagross to Excadrill in BW1, not for their inherent traits as Pokémons, but rather for their influence on the tier and particulary its development. Excadrill was one of the best Pokémon in BW1. As such, everyone was rightfully prepared to face it. There were "classic" checks/counter which were clearly overused like Gliscor, Rotom-W or Skarmory, and there were more obscure checks/counters such as Bronzong or Virizion, to only name a few. Excadrill was still a top-notch Pokémon, but wasn't (in my humble opinion, I insist) as broken as the previously banned Pokémon. Yet, I was completely for its ban for the simple reason that it was totally blocking the metagame evolution because of its weight on the teambuilding (on top of everything else that was popular obviously) and its faculty to be amazing against pretty much every Offense and a good amount of Balance (and you could even argue Stall didn't like facing the Air Baloon SD Set at all).
I think MMetagross is one of the threat preventing the tier to evolve to a more stable state, and that's why I want to ban it (not for its individual qualities, albeit they're excellent, but many people have touched upon them already in the thread).
I'd also like to think that MMetagross leaving will increase the utilization of fairy-type, which should make people thinking Mega-Sableye is still a potential suspect think twice about it. In general, I'd like to see how the metagame and teambuilding will evolve once we will be freed from Metagross's heavy shackles (I hope, and I believe we can reach a more stable ORAS, a la XY, with some changes, even if I know some people don't share my opinion here).
Finally, and I believe this is the most relatable comparison, I think metagross is a lot like aegislash in many ways. I begin with the main difference: aegislash, unlike metagross, was more or less broken and it was hard to dispute (though you will see just as much anti-ban discussion as you do here), whereas it is much less clear if metagross is actually broken. Despite their difference in power, they shares many qualities in their effects on the metagame. Both have just about 1 or 2 dominant sets with some fringe anti-counter sets seeing less use but being equally viable. Both force their opponents to prepare to a large degree for them, while still having a decent number of checks and counters (mandibuzz, chansey, bisharp and others in aegi's case, scizor, counter skarmory (non-counter loses to hammer arm, btw), and bisharp himself again though you have to win a 50/50, in metagross's case). As a result of this, both create something of a coinflip metagame. I can't quantify my feeling exactly, but the metagross metagame feels EXACTLY like early XY (post-kanga/lucario) did. Finally, they both check many pokemon that may otherwise be very powerful or broken. In aegi's case these were the big 3 stallbreaking megas (garde, hera, cham) and in gross's case I think people mainly think about diancie and altaria. After aegislash was banned, a few more bans took place and all of a sudden the XY metagame stabilized. Late XY was very pleasant to play. I believe that banning mega metagross will have a similar effect, if we allow it to.
In summary, I believe mega metagross makes the metagame bad. I don't really bother with a heavily theoretical argument here instead just touching on it, but maybe I will make that argument later. TL;DR I believe he turns it into coinflip metagame. The main meat of this post is historical comparisons and the results of similar bans to metagross's. There have been several coinflip metagames in the past, and in all cases banning the pokemon that caused it, irrespective of whether it was broken or not, improved the metagame. Historically, banning the coinflip mon has almost always (if not always, I'm too lazy to check) made the metagame better. Since I am in pursuit of a "better" metagame, I will vote ban.
None of these Pokemon that beat Mega Gross are actually counters. Counters are Pokemon that stop another Pokemon cold. For example, Celebi counters Breloom because it is immune to Spore, wall both of Breloom's STABs, and proceed to take advantage of it. Most of the Pokemon that Mega Gross has troubles with are checks: they can beat it one on one, but cannot switch into it. Aegislash had numerous checks, yet it was still problematic, because Aegislash could easily tweak its set to beat any particular set of checks. While Mega Gross is not as good as this as Aegislash, none of its checks stop it cold: Lando-T is stopped by Ice Punch, Slowbro and Hippowdon by Grass Knot, etc.
Many things in this meta don't have actual hard counters, or hard counters that are easy to fit on a team. Mega Metagross has enough checks to the point where you can unintentionally stack multiple of them and your team will rarely have a problem with it. If I'm using an offensive team and not relying on things that can switch in, I can very easily make a team where it simply has no good opportunities to switch in.
There is no reason in the world why mmeta can't run hp investment, he certainly has the bulk to get away with it (megazor has very similar stats, barring speed to mmeta and gets away with it just fine, so why not mmeta?). Having a good base speed does not bar him from running defense investment, especially not with defensive stats like his. Lefties and KS are significant though, agreed.
Running bulk means you're making a sacrifice in either Atk or Spe EVs. Speed is especially a selling point of Mega Metagross, for example if you can't outpace base 100's, you're definitely not being as effective as you could be. Mega Metagross also doesn't have the recovery or boosting moves to take advantage of more bulk.
I will grant that Aegislash is probably more broken then Mega Metagross (though I don't think mmeta's potential is as fully explored as aegis' was, for example there really is no reason why it can't run bulky), and I apologize if I implied otherwise. However, I still think that mmeta still fits my definition of "broken", because he usually is dealing a fair bit more damage then he is taking.
How to Mega Metagross:
1. Swap him into a resisted hit, taking about 20-30% in the process.
2. If your opponent doesn't have a "good" swap in for his STABs, pick a STAB, dealing anywhere between 50-60% to the swap in.
3. If your opponent does have a good swap in, either A. hit him with a STAB and then follow up with a coverage move, or B. predict the swap and hit with a coverage move. Either choice, in all but a few circumstances, will result in a KO/forceout.
4. If you can't force the opponent out(whether it be through bad prediction or getting countered), just swap out and come back later.
Mmeta can do this 2 or 3 times in a game, due to his constantly mentioned bulk. Each time, he metes out a solid 30-100% worth of damage to the opponent's team. Under most circumstances, mmeta is dealing far more damage then he takes unless his opponent is running one of the handful of mons considered to be his "counter". Even if his opponent is running a counter though, these mons are incredibly passive, allowing mmeta to swap out to one of his dangerous teammates for free, which is always a very powerful move that can outright win games (only a fool would expect mmeta to outright sweep the enemy team, again much like aegislash).
Being able to consistently do >100% damage to the opposing team is not something I consider worthy of a ban, or even unusual. Every battle I win there's usually going to be an "MVP" who did far more damage than they took, over the course of many battles I'm usually going to find that one or two of my team members are usually the MVP. Because I built the team that way. Some may know I use Rain a lot; Kingdra+Omastar are going to dish out significantly more than 200% damage, almost every match. Only exception is when they have a small number of really specific pokemon. Often, just one of them is going to cause a ton of damage. It's not the best example cause Swift Swimmers are hard to combat in the first place but it's one I'm familiar with, and I've gotten the same, consistent >>100% performance from great pokemon like Mega Lopunny, Latios, Thundurus, Talonflame, and SR Excadrill. Mundane things like bulky Garchomp can easily exert more than 100% damage. Even uncommon things like Diggersby, Hawlucha and Suicune can do it pretty consistently in my experience.
Now I'm not saying these are as good as Mega Metagross, as easy to switch in, or that they won't find themselves up against team where they fail to perform more often than Mega Metagross, but I do think it's a poor metric for determining what is broken and what isn't. In every single battle, the winner is going to have a pokemon that did more than 100%, and many teams are built to allow one or two or three of their members to accomplish far more than that. And many pokemon are able to do it because they're difficult to check or are simply very good at sweeping when their checks are weakened/gone.
As for "Swap him into a resisted hit, taking about 20-30% in the process"; in all honesty, how many common pokemon can it do that against? Not counting passive walls like Fire-less Clefable, Celebi or mono-MAltaria, nor prediction e.g. "well I'll just switch Metagross in on Lando-T's Stone Edge." Powerful resisted hits like Latios' Draco Meteor or M-Gardevoir's HVoice are doing 40% or more, and if it hasn't mega evolved yet it has to take that damage twice (and has lower bulk, too).
Just because a mon has no counters doesn't mean it is broken, you can look at BW2 Hydreigon and it could get past literally everything, but it was nowhere near broken. Mega Metagross not only has counters, but also is still easier to play around IMO as it is somewhat more predictable(Hydreigon could run many items and many moves, but its always Mega Metagross and you know it carries Meteor Mash, Hammmer arm, etc). Keep in mind also there were no fairies back then. Although base 98 speed back then probably is still worse than base 110 speed now, keep in mind there are a bunch of new ways to revenge Megagross(ie swift swim, excadrill, most scarfers etc). Metagross is also kind of easier to switch into, as each time Metagross takes a hit even from hazards its permanent, and then if it mispredicts and gets forced out(which is easy if you just use the wrong move, as many of its moves are resisted by a lot, stuff comes in for free all the time on grass knot). Although I get that they are not really comparable, Metagross is still a lot easier to switch into as long as you predict right. There are several hard counters to Megagross, such as Counter Skarm. Sure you could go HP Fire but then that leaves you walled by Slowbro. Greninja and Aegislash could beat almost everything while still having a lot of flexibility(ie extransensory ninja and head smash aegi) I know this has been brought up like 10 times, but its pretty important that Megagross is not as splashable, as it takes up a mega slot and has opportunity cost. As the number of viable megas increases, this will only hurt it more. Atm there are a lot of viable megas, and this really hampers it.
RoyalDispenser I never meant to imply Aegislash = Mega Metagross, I brought aegis up because a lot of his strengths and weaknesses are analogous to mmeta's, making him a useful point of comparison (a heck of a lot more helpful then Greninja). I apologize if I made it seem like I meant otherwise.
Running bulk means you're making a sacrifice in either Atk or Spe EVs. Speed is especially a selling point of Mega Metagross, for example if you can't outpace base 100's, you're definitely not being as effective as you could be. Mega Metagross also doesn't have the recovery or boosting moves to take advantage of more bulk.
Diverting EVs from speed/attack to bulk certainly changes what it can beat and what it cannot beat, to be sure. I admit that I have not done a super-detailed analysis on various benchmarks that mmeta users should be looking at when deciding how much bulk is worthwhile (I did a brief examination of full speed vs. speed creeping jolly base 100s vs. full hp invest in a previous post though). The entire point of the post was to state that the reason why aegis usually ran bulk over speed was that its speed sucked. Mmeta's speed doesn't suck, giving it the option to run speed, but many people forget that he has enough bulk that he can run a bulky spread without any real difficulty as well.
IIRC, SD aegis was fairly rare and anatomize aegis was even rarer, so I think we can safely say that there were plenty of reasons for aegis to run bulk investment other then to take advantage of boosting moves or reliable recovery(which it didn't have).
Being able to consistently do >100% damage to the opposing team is not something I consider worthy of a ban, or even unusual. Every battle I win there's usually going to be an "MVP" who did far more damage than they took, over the course of many battles I'm usually going to find that one or two of my team members are usually the MVP. Because I built the team that way. Some may know I use Rain a lot; Kingdra+Omastar are going to dish out significantly more than 200% damage, almost every match. Only exception is when they have a small number of really specific pokemon. Often, just one of them is going to cause a ton of damage. It's not the best example cause Swift Swimmers are hard to combat in the first place but it's one I'm familiar with, and I've gotten the same, consistent >>100% performance from great pokemon like Mega Lopunny, Latios, Thundurus, Talonflame, and SR Excadrill. Mundane things like bulky Garchomp can easily exert more than 100% damage. Even uncommon things like Diggersby, Hawlucha and Suicune can do it pretty consistently in my experience.
Now I'm not saying these are as good as Mega Metagross, as easy to switch in, or that they won't find themselves up against team where they fail to perform more often than Mega Metagross, but I do think it's a poor metric for determining what is broken and what isn't. In every single battle, the winner is going to have a pokemon that did more than 100%, and many teams are built to allow one or two or three of their members to accomplish far more than that. And many pokemon are able to do it because they're difficult to check or are simply very good at sweeping when their checks are weakened/gone.
As for "Swap him into a resisted hit, taking about 20-30% in the process"; in all honesty, how many common pokemon can it do that against? Not counting passive walls like Fire-less Clefable, Celebi or mono-MAltaria, nor prediction e.g. "well I'll just switch Metagross in on Lando-T's Stone Edge." Powerful resisted hits like Latios' Draco Meteor or M-Gardevoir's HVoice are doing 40% or more, and if it hasn't mega evolved yet it has to take that damage twice (and has lower bulk, too).
This is a legitimate criticism with my proposal that I will try to address. The main difference between sweepers like Omastar or Kingdra and Mega Metagross is that your rain sweepers need some fairly specific conditions in order to pull their weight. They need rain, a free swap in (because neither of them are particularly bulky), and they need their hard counters removed/weakened (stuff like latis, ferro, and rotom-w). Furthermore, their options are much more limited. If your opponent has a mon that isn't 2 shotted by your omastar and sends him in(say, phys defensive rotom-w), your only options are to either swap out or risk getting one shotted yourself. Mega meta is not so easily forced out by his counters and has the option of either swapping out or sticking around and dealing some more damage, then swap out.
It is absolutely true that in every battle, the winner is going to have a mon who pulls double, or even triple his weight. The question boils down to consistency. If a mon can consistently deal far more damage then he takes, then we need to wonder if he's actually broken. I argue that Omastar is not broken under this definition because for every Omastar sweep that gets pulled off, I'm sure ther've been games where he simply dies to an excadrill or gyarados without doing anything.
That being said, I appreciate the criticism, an important part of developing any definition of broken is to take a mon that's generally agreed to not be broken and "test" him under said definition.
As for how MMeta is any different, it's that he can swap into large portions of the metagame with reletive ease (the fact he takes only 30-40% from M-Gard and Specs Sylveon is almost unprecedented for such a fast offensive mon). He can also swap into opposing non-EQ mmetas, lati@s, most defensive mons not carrying burn, EQ, or TWave, azumaril, breloom(barring spore), magnezone, hawlucha, non-EQ terrakion, and more then a handful of other OU mons. In fact, the fact that most of this thread is dedicated to what he can't swap into should be testimony to how easily he gets switch in opportunities.
I argue that the his ease of swapping in is what gives him the edge over your typical wallbreaker/sweeper and pushes him into broken territory.
Anyone is free to call me out if I missed any good ones, or if there are better posts to represent any of the sides I've listed, but these seem to be the main ones as far as I'm concerned.
1. What's to stop the mmeta user from running a cleric/wish passer as well? If we accept that mmeta is bulky enough to come in multiple times during the game, then a wish passer would be an incredible partner for mmeta to further increase it's longevity.
2. mmeta has relatively low health(301 compared to rotom's 303 hp), took a moonblast, is burned, and has possibly taken hazard damage, leaving it at about 70% hp (give or take). Pain split will not allow rotom-w to win against mmeta (though it will allow him to get a bit more damage on him). Obviously chestorest beats mmeta handidly, but it's pretty telegraphed due to lack of lefties recovery.
3. I will admit I'm not a particularly good judge of good play vs. bad play. Still, does the opponent need to double switch every time he sends out a defensive fairy out of fear of giving mmeta a free swap in? That has it's own host of issues, as IIRC double swaps are incredibly risky plays that can easily backfire(for example, predicting the swap and going for scarf lando-t puts him at risk of getting hit by garchomp, which could potentially weaken his revenge killing abilities for later in the game).
Oh, I never said that there weren't tradeoffs for running bulky metagross, but he gains some things too. I'm going to compare 3 sets real quick, just for fun.
At no speed invest, he outspeeds jolly tyranitar, adamant bisharp, and not much else(that has speed invest that is).
So how much does this improve his ability to take hits? I'm going to use mega heracross as our "standard" to measure by.
252 Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 195-230 (64.7 - 76.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 195-230 (60.7 - 71.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 195-230 (53.5 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
The bulk difference is noticeable, especially at full hp invest, but it's not enough to turn this particular 2hko into an 3hko. I'm sure if I looked really hard I could find a scenario where it would matter, but for now I'm simply going to say that a bulky set can have some real benefits in enabling mmeta to effectively check wallbreakers that has not been explored as of now.
The main difference between mmetagross and other wallbreakers such as mega heracross is that it's both much bulkier AND much faster. Folks like mhera and mmedi suffer from both speed and/or bulk issues meaning that they have a much harder time swapping in and staying in, which directly correlates into a decrease in damage dealt. Therefore I maintain that mmeta is more similar to aegis then mmaw (mmaw was a wallbreaker who happened to have sweeping capabilities due to absurdly strong priority, neither aegislash nor mmeta have access to the latter).
Without hp investment, mmeta's hp is actually very low, lower them rotom-w's actually, meaning pain split won't do much more then stall for a couple of burn turns.
While Pain Split V halfdead MMeta might not be too good, Rotom does snatch a good bit of health back, but the main point on Rotom's healing is it is meant to force Meta into uselessness and when it switches to something to take out Rotom, you pain split the healthy foe, allowing you to continue checking other pokes (although this is harder V Offensive teams).
As you said, a wishpasser is fabulous with MMeta on balanced teams, and had I been active on PS! during ORAS (I took a break 'cause I felt like it), I'd have made an offensive bias balance team with MMeta and a wishpasser (basically what I normally use, but with MMeta as my mega).
Bulky MMeta is reasonably viable, but it normally values the speed far too much to lose it. It is very much like bulky Bisharp, it has viability but is normally better to go fast.
Since MMeta is normally on offense/bulky offense, fast variants with offensive partners are disussed, but rarely defensive. However, I think balanced MMeta teams are possibly more threatening than full offensive MMeta teams.
Yeah, past the Rotom part I kinda went off track. Skip this if you're not fond of textwalls/reading.
Diancie has check, it's true. But the fact is that the metagame will be dominated by Diancie (and Balanced teams). It's not only a typing concern, it's a Pokémon / teambuilding restriction concern.
This was already the case higher up the ladder prior to this suspect test with many high ladder players utilizing MDiancie or MGarde, if you looked at the replays or matches you'd notice one of these two fairies in the teams vying for top ladder. Just saying that MGross did nothing to curb this trend higher up, and this is also why you saw some unusual steels higher up like Empoleon/Jirachi or stall that runs MScizor (rather than MSable). I can't particularly say one is more restricting than the other when this trend had more or less already started regardless, and the rise in their viability in the rankings as well as presence in the SPL is a pretty good indicator of that.
That said I never particularly found that adaptation to be unhealthy whatsoever, since these mega fairies have very clear flaws in their defenses (and match ups as well).
After laddering a lot and experiencing the OU suspect test metagame, I have to say my opinion on whether or not Metagrossite should be banned was decided very easily. I'm not going to discuss the supposed checks/counters to Mega Metagross because many people have done that already, but rather discuss the massive impact Mega Metagross has, and, will leave on the metagame.
I'm sure most users would agree that the main change from with to without Metagrossite is the prominence of mega Fairy types roaming around now (some being borderline broken, but that is for another time). What this implies is the current metagame with Mega Metagross is just a 'broken checks broken' scenario and is obviously not ideal, and unfortunately, it could not be prevented due to the influx of megas ORAS gave us. With that said, if Metagrossite is left to roam in this meta, OU will not progress to a better state but rather to be highly match-up reliant purely because of the 'broken checks broken' problem. A user posted a picture some pages ago dictating the love triangle between Mega Sableye, Mega Metagross and Mega Diancie(/Altaria), and in reality, this just shows the 'broken checks broken' scenario I mentioned above (not to say they are all blatantly broken, just extremely centralizing).
Overall, the metagame will be on the road to recovery once Metagrossite is banned. It is extremely over-centralizing and it leaving the meta will promote diversity and reveal the broken threats it was checking, ultimately getting us closer to a balanced metagame. I will be definitely voting ban.
So after laddering like 140 games and getting the reqs, I see that the meta will be healthy without Mega Metagross, because Mega Metagross has counters regarding it's set, therefore it is really hard to take down on Stall teams. On the HO side, it outspeeds a lot of things because of it's amazing 110 Base Speed while tanking hits due to its incredible bulk and hits so hard destroying them. Also, it has a wide movepool and you sometimes need to sack something or dent while figuring out the set. With it gone the meta will be more diverse and will lead to newer trends, which I believe will be healthy for the metagame. I'm voting ban.
I see that the meta will be healthy without Mega Metagross, because Mega Metagross has counters regarding it's set, therefore it is really hard to take down on Stall teams.
oh? really? Sableye-Mega is not enough? Bulky Mega Scizor is not enough?
inb4 "Mega Sableye fears Meteor Mash on the switch", yeah it's true, but you are a stall team, you also have a Skarmory and a Quagsire or even a Slowbro to make him hard to opt for a Meteor Mash on the switch-in. It's up to predictions.
On the HO side, it outspeeds a lot of things because of it's amazing 110 Base Speed while tanking hits due to its incredible bulk and hits so hard destroying them.
I've said it earlier, but I guess you didnt read the whole thread (which is normal).
I have a standard HO team using Garchomp / Bisharp / Manec / Lando-t. It's a pretty standard and well-known Volt Turn core.
Metagross can't switch safely in all of them, so more than half your team is checking Metagross without even considering it.
It's not that hard for an HO team to deal with Metagross. And it's not the only one possibility, a standard HO with M-Scizor / Lopunny won't have an hard time with Metagross, or at least it will just depends of the mon you will use, and none of them won't bu used just for Metagross (Thundurs / Raikou for example)
Not really, as I said before, the metagame will turn into a full balanced-build metagame centralized around Diancie/Altaria. And they already exist. The metagame will neither be more diverse or counting newer trends at all.
I find it kind of sad; because what many people dont really understand at times is that "broken checks broken" is an invalid statement by far because MMeta isnt broken, MSab isnt broken, and MDiancie isnt broken. In fact, they all have checks: Its not like they rule the meta.
Also with MMeta gone Stall gets the short stick due to MDiancie and many stallbreakers coming out, and Balance really got the short stick imo too. Thats an unhealthy meta for a pokemon who isnt even on the same level as past suspects and has more counters/checks than some other common pokemon. Sure, counters/checks really dont matter at times, but MMeta has its flaws and its far from a broken thing that destroys the metagame. In fact, I actually found it good for the meta. I hate the non-mmeta metagame imo, because everything gets the short stick besides Offense.
Sure, we can ban other things, but im not waiting 3 months to suspect broken mons because you guys voted for ban. Just my opinion.
Sorry that I haven't been on in a while guys, I've been on vacation to the homeland in India and I finally got wifi. Here is the closest to a full post on Mega Metagross that I can manage right now:
- Lackluster speed and special defense before mega
- Stats can get dropped from SW/Intimidate after mega
- Weak to; dark, ghost, fire, and ground
- Can't break through tougher walls without SE coverage
- It chooses what counters it with the set it chooses.
My Opinion:
Mega Metagross is a prolific offensive threat that defines the metagame, but it is no more overentralyzing than any other A or S-rank threat. Most teams end up running at least 1 or 2 solid checks or counters to common metagross sets beforehand because there are so many top tier mons that check or counter it. Granted, the power and sweeping ability of metagross is something that everyone has to make sure that their team isn't weak to when they're done making their team, and they will get swept by it if they didn't have a solid counter to it anyways, but this is something that can be said for several different top tier threats such as; Keldeo, Talonflame, and Mega Sableye. The mixed attacking set (Grass Knot/Zen Headbutt/Meteor Mash/Hammer Arm) can cover a ton of mons that are viable in OU, but it is still walled by common Pokemon such as; Mega Scizor, Skarmory, and Victini that aren't too hard to fit into teams in the first place. Metagross has a weakness to Knock Off (Dark Type), Earthquake (Ground Type), Fire Blast/Flare Blitz (Fire Type), and Shadow Ball (Ghost Type). Also, for those who say Metagross is broken because nothing can switch in to it: If a mon has no switch-ins, that doesn't mean that it is broken. A common example of this is: BW Hydreigon having no switch-ins either. Another Flaw with Metagross is that he has to rely on super effective coverage to break through any physically bulky mons that don't have piss poor HP. Lastly, Mega Metagross has huge 4MSS because he basically picks what beats him based on his sets. Agiligross can beat faster threats like Talonflame and sacrafices coverage. Metagross doesn't force you to use obscure counters as long as you have 2 or 3 checks to it like many other top tier threats, but you cant just slap two random metagross checks on a team and expect to beat it every time that you face it.
Let's look at how the top 20 threats in the OU usage stats deal with him.
| 1 | Landorus-Therian | 31.581% | - Defensive Lando-T can kill basically any set lacking ice punch, and scarf lando has a 90% chance to OHKO after rocks. Has to look out for ice punch.
| 2 | Heatran | 22.858% | - Bulky Heatran can take one hammer arm and OHKO back with Fire Blast. Has to watch out for earthquake.
| 3 | Rotom-Wash | 20.049% | - Can take a hit and cripple mega meta with a burn barring hax, then the team can kill the weakened threat. Beware of flinch and/or misshax.
| 4 | Keldeo | 18.745% | - Specs Hydro Pump can OHKO after rocks about 20% of the time, but can't do much else but fish for a burn. OHKO'd by zen headbutt.
| 5 | Latios | 18.607% | - Can't do much except two hit with HP fire. Has to watch out for ice punch.
| 6 | Ferrothorn | 17.763% | - Can take a hit and cripple with Leech seed. Has to watch out for fire punch.
| 7 | Bisharp | 17.191% | - LO Adamant sucker punch can OHKO after rocks. Gets one hitted by hammer arm and one hitted by earthquake after rocks half of the time.
| 8 | Talonflame | 15.430% | - Banded Flare Blitz can one shot. Almost any move can OHKO after rocks.
| 9 | Clefable | 14.665% | - Only can 2HKO with max sptack fire blast and gets one shotted by meteor mash.
| 10 | Latias | 14.588% | - See Latios
| 11 | Scizor | 14.388% | - Mega Scizor can basically take any hit from metagross bar fire punch and 2HKO after rocks with bug bite.
| 12 | Azumarill | 14.347% | - Has to have a belly drum up to kill Megagross and gets almost OHKO’d after rocks by meteor mash.
| 13 | Metagross | 12.906% | - :/
| 14 | Slowbro | 10.789% | - Can take down Metagross with repeated scalds. Has to watch out for grass knot.
| 15 | Garchomp | 10.622% | - Adamant chomp OHKOs with EQ almost 95% of the time.
| 16 | Gengar | 10.561% | - Shadow Ball OHKOs
| 17 | Tyranitar | 10.494% | - Banded Crunch one shots, but it has to watch out for meteor mash and hammer arm.
| 19 | Thundurus | 9.639% | - Tbolt 2HKOs, can cripple with twave. and can take most hits from Metagross. Has to watch out for ice punch
| 20 | Skarmory | 9.116% | - Can tank hits all day, but has to resort to counter to do good damage. Can phase and weaken metagross quickly if spikes are out
Here are some calcs for the top ten on that list against standard Metagross with some move variations on Meta's end for things to keep in mind (I may add in the last ten later)
252 Atk Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 278-330 (92.3 - 109.6%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (death barring minmax hax)
-1 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Meteor Mash vs. 0 HP / 24 Def Landorus-T: 151-178 (47.3 - 55.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (can switch in if not severely damaged)
-1 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 24 Def Landorus-T: 340-400 (106.5 - 125.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO (death always)
0 Atk Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 234-276 (77.7 - 91.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (can't switch in and can OHKO with chip damage)
-1 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Landorus-T: 248-292 (64.9 - 76.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (can't switch in but is pretty decent considering it is 4x effective)
-1 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Meteor Mash vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Landorus-T: 111-132 (29 - 34.5%) -- 6.3% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (basically nothing)
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Hammer Arm vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 300-354 (77.9 - 91.9%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (one shots about one third of the time after rocks)
252 Atk Mega Metagross Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 452-532 (117.4 - 138.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (rekt)
0 SpA Heatran Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 272-324 (90.3 - 107.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (almost always killed)
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Hammer Arm vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 300-354 (92.8 - 109.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock (have to come on a free turn)
252+ SpA Heatran Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 362-428 (120.2 - 142.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (same as above)
252+ SpA Heatran Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 198-234 (65.7 - 77.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (can't switch in)
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Zen Headbutt vs. 248 HP / 216+ Def Rotom-W: 133-157 (43.8 - 51.8%) -- 69.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (don't recommend switching in, but allows rotom to take a hit and burn barring hax)
0 SpA Rotom-W Volt Switch vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 73-87 (24.2 - 28.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Rotom-W Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 114-135 (37.8 - 44.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
(Both can wear down Mega Metagross)
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Zen Headbutt vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 410-486 (126.9 - 150.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Keldeo needs to be faster)
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 246-291 (81.7 - 96.6%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (can be strong hit on switch)
252 SpA Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 165-195 (54.8 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (Can 2HKO and Metagross can't switch in)
Zen is same as above
All other sets can't really do anything but fish for burns on switches or from behind subs.
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Meteor Mash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 256-303 (85.6 - 101.3%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (almost always one shots)
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 284-336 (94.9 - 112.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock (always one shots)
252 SpA Life Orb Latios Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 159-187 (52.8 - 62.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (gets two shotted but not much else)
All other sets are more or less the same
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Hammer Arm vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 212-250 (60.2 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (does a lot but has to worry about iron barbs+rocky helmet+leech seed stacking up, but it can't switch in)
0 Atk Ferrothorn Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 108-128 (35.8 - 42.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock (That's the best I could manage, but it can cripple with leech seed and stall out with protect)
252+ Atk Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 218-260 (72.4 - 86.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (does a lot and leaves meta very weak)
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Hammer Arm vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 632-744 (232.3 - 273.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO (ouch)
252 Atk Mega Metagross Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 238-280 (87.5 - 102.9%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (still pretty good damage, and can force it to stay in or become death fodder if it doesn't KO)
252+ Atk Black Glasses Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 264-312 (87.7 - 103.6%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (see eq on metagross)
Meta's calcs are the same
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 283-338 (94 - 112.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock (It is worth it to get the guaranteed kill)
Meta's calcs are still the same
252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 368-434 (122.2 - 144.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Note that this one shots jolly or adamant)
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Zen Headbutt vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Talonflame: 247-292 (83.1 - 98.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock (OHKO after rocks)
252 Atk Talonflame Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 224-266 (74.4 - 88.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (Meta can't switch in and can KO after chip damage)
+2 252 Atk Talonflame Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 446-528 (148.1 - 175.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO (nothing needed to be said)
+2 252 Atk Sharp Beak Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 134-158 (44.5 - 52.4%) -- 78.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock (nice if you nab him on a switch)
+2 252+ Atk Salac Berry Talonflame Natural Gift (100 BP Fighting) vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 136-161 (45.1 - 53.4%) -- 89.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock (nice if on switch)
Meta's Calcs are same as above
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Meteor Mash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 372-440 (94.4 - 111.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock (68.8% to OHKO if magic guard)
252 SpA Clefable Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 178-210 (59.1 - 69.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (nice damage but it gets killed by metagross too quickly)
I showed how the bulkiest set fairs because all the others always get outsped and OHKO'd by meteor mash no matter what.
Okay, first of all, you saying MMeta, MSab, and MDiancie aren't broken like it's a guaranteed fact due to them having checks is a non-argument. Aegislash had checks (Charzard-Y, Landorous-T, Jolly Bisharp) and Greninja even had checks (Bisharp, scarf-anything, Talonflame)...and while we're at it, so did Megemence with Scarf Ninja/Noivern, etc. Having checks does not make him good for the meta nor does it make him healthy nor does it make him unbroken.
On top of that to argue that stall gets the short stick due to MDiance is strange to me. With Megagross HO has the short end of the stick (of course Megagross can fit comfortably on HO/Balance which is something that helps them) in the sense that they have to sack or make predictions not in their favor every time Megagross finds itself in safely. We shouldn't prioritize one playstyle over the other. Also just because one threat that stall handles better is gone doesn't mean stall is getting the short end of the stick. If Megagross is preventing stallbreakers from being used then it's definitely for the best that it goes, if it isn't preventing stallbreakers then that argument doesn't make sense because stallbreakers are around to manage stall anyway. As far as Diancie goes, yeah don't get me wrong, MSableye will be used a bit less on stall probably but that doesn't mean that MSab is unusable nor does it mean stall can't handle MDiancie, especially since the more common Diancie sets give balance/HO trouble more than stall imo. Calm Mind Diancie is a nightmare for balance (and it can be rough for stall too but way more easily managed than for balance with an influx of mons that can boost alongside it, haze/phaze it, or just sit there with unaware) and Rock Polish is a nightmare for HO. Then there's protect+3 attacks which stall can certainly handle without question.
Also how in the world does balance get the short end of the stick? You can't slap MMeta on there anymore but other than that, Balance is now open to use a whole new host of defensive/offensive cores without having to worry about Megagross. It allows balance to do what balance does best in the first place: check the majority of the meta as comfortably as possible, while maintaining and offensive/defensive presence. Banning MMeta does wonders for balance imo.
Alright, I've stayed out of this thread for a while because as has been seen it eventually degenerates into anger, one-liners and the same arguments being repeated over and over, but coming back I am pleasantly surprised to see quite a few good arguments from each side; some of the anti-bans have even started convincing me to undecided.
But this is not one of them.
Aside from the very obvious fact that you shouldn't be making your choice based on the idea of broken checking broken... this sort of statement is incredibly silly regardless.
Simply put, you can't say it'll be dominated by Diancie. You honestly cannot claim to forsee exactly how the meta will turn out based on a two-week suspect ladder; as in those two weeks it'll be littered with bias in regards to teambuilding. The start of ORAS saw the new ORAS Megas being used most with next to no XY Megas ever being used, the post-Greninja meta saw a spike in Fairies, and post-Aegislash saw a spike in physical wallbreakers. Did these stay as complete trends throughout the entire meta? No, and if they did you could easily make an argument that they were in some way broken. Likewise, this two-week suspect ladder, ultimately, has mostly seen use of what will obviously get better should Metagross leave - fairies, physically frail 'mon, glass cannons etc. - which people are not yet prepared for. A meta without Metagross means taking time to adjust to it and changing your tried and tested teams from the previous Meta; a team which was tailored towards Metagross and didn't take into account Diancie as the main threat. Maybe Diancie will end up broken, maybe it won't, but you can't honestly expect to glean an absolute answer of this from a two-week suspect. This goes for those saying there should be a Diancie suspect at the same time as Metagross; that's absolutely ridiculous. It's not broken right now and you're only thinking it will be post-Metagrossite; calling for a suspect of something that might be broken in the future based on theorymon and a two-week suspect ladder is extremely silly and would cause far more harm than good.
Hell, I've never run Mega Metagross in my life - in retrospect it might have been fun to just blow through the lower ladder with it - and I've never had trouble facing down Diancie. Heatran, Scizor, Ferrothorn; it's like you're acting as if Mega Metagross is the only good steel in the tier and the only way to beat Diancie. If that was true we would have seen it as banworthy a long time ago. Hell, there's a ton of other good and viable Pokémon that beat it well like Azumarill and the aforementioned Diggersby.
And hell, since Metagross is being compared to Aegislash so much... after Aegislash was banned from OU, people were worried that Mega Mawile would dominate. And it did. And what did we do? Well golly gee, we banned it. If Diancite turns out to be unhealthy for the metagame should Metagrossite be banned, we'll just ban that too. There is absolutely no problem here.
uhh the non-suspect meta blows dicks, but the suspect ladder meta is actually playable. i think that speaks volumes as to how unhealthy megameta is. don't really wanna rehash the same arguments that have already been repeated throughout 29 pages in this thread, but it just seems like common sense to me, megameta should really leave, if only for the sake of improving the game, although it's not a farfetched idea to say this thing is blatantly broken tbh.
While I can certainly sympathize with the people worried about the probable dominance of fairy types I think it is just another thing this community has to adapt to. Fairies are much like gen 5 dragons in that they are overwhelmingly strong with few resistances and it is probably the best type overall when considering their offensive as well as their defensive attributes. However none of the fairies scream broken to me in particular, even Mega Diancie who is admittedly a force to be reckon with has her share of flaws such being forced to use protect to mega evolve safely.
However into the suspect in question I think I am leaning towards ban, A lot of people have summed up how overwhelmingly strong it is, it doesn't scream broken but nothing has the same combination of power, bulk, speed and coverage. It isn't invincible by any stretch but it's checks and counters are severely limited and honestly, most anti-ban posters have been grasping at straws to justify their point, some posts make legit arguments and I have beens seeing many pro-ban posters derail the thread and use non-important arguments but I think their case is stronger. I know we are starting to see this term used a lot in the suspect testing threads but I think Mega Metagross is our least obviously broken mon to be suspect tested up to date this gen, it isn't the center of the meta like Aegislash was, it doesn't hit as hard as Mega Mawile and doesn't destroy cores like Greninja but it is still such a force to reckon with that you are practically forced to use standard cores without much room of creativity. Some posters have been claiming we shouldn't jump into the slippery slope and ban whatever top-tier mon just to make teambuilding easier and I agree, we shouldn't do it just because the mons in question are top-tier mons but it is justifiable when the pokemon in question is unhealthy for the meta and everyone have to decide for themselves whether MetaGross is bad for the meta and I can sympathize with both sides, I just feel the meta has more room to grow without MegaGross.
With that said though I don't think I will be voting as I prefer voting when I feel strongly about something and MegaGross is the second mon to have me torn up like this in this gen (the other being the obvious Aegislash). And it doesn't help that unlike Aegislash who directly and indirectly rendered dozens of mons useless MegaGross simply forces difficult choices by being so gosh darn intimidating xP
