Metagame NP: RU Stage 7: Of Moons, Birds, and Monsters (BOTH SUSPECTS BANNED, DISCUSSING NEW META)

[Molk]

Hey guys, just wanted to post here so i can give you all a sneak peak at the outcome of the votes :).

As of now, there are only a few votes left to be submitted, and both Pangoro and Moltres will be banned.

Both Pokemon got banned by a supermajority again (although as of now it only takes a simple majority for a Pokemon to be banned), but i'd like to note that Moltres is by *FAR* the closest suspect test vote we've had since the start of XY, only just barely hitting the supermajority mark, and if any more do not ban votes come in before the vote is officially closed, it has a shot at becoming the first Pokemon to be banned in gen 6 RU by a simple majority and not a supermajority.

For the record, i'm going to be officially revealing the votecounts/closing the suspect test tommorow, until then, feel free to talk about what you think the meta will be like without these two :]

 

[Omfuga]

lol finally good fuckin lord

 

[Froggyboy]

lol finally good fuckin lord

A moment ago
3 likes already
people hated panda and moltres gd


Now let me act like a mod and say, What possible changes do you see to the meta now that these two are gone?

 

[Nova]

FREE MEGA BIG CHILL

ICE AGE

 

[Don Honchkrorleone]

Now if only a certain disgusting legendary psychic-type gets suspect... and banned...

Anyway I'm very excited for this new RU. Without Moltres and Panda, I expect Megalix to be even better than it already is since two of its greatest checks are gone. Furthermore, with Moltres gone, some Grass-types like Tangrowth, Ferroseed and Amoonguss are now easier to slap in teams. And Slowking no longer needs AV, being finally able to focus on the much better physically defensive and offensive sets. Can't wait to play it!

Seriously, Cresselia tho

 

[nv]

I don't wanna say everything I have already said again so Imma just link what I have to say about Cresselia. And I am sad to see Moltres go but I guess Grass-types and MegaLix (who just got banned from NU) will benefit from it anyways, lol.

 

[Cowtao]

A lot of steel / psychic-types are going to appreciate them being gone. Delphox especially since one of it's biggest competition is gone along with a strong check towards it.

As such, Dugtrio will gain a massive spike of attention once the tier starts with the two gone.

 

[Scienceandreligion]

As for the steels, I think Bronzing and Doublade in particular are going to rise to prominence. Both despised Moltres and Pangoro and having them gone elements what are possibly the two best switch-ins. They also don't mind dugtrio, who will also likely be popular. I think the Pokemon to watch will be Mega-Steelix and Emboar - both are positively impacted by the metagame changes and could foreseeably be big threats (or, in this case, even bigger threats). I'm actually very curious to see how Cresselia fares - I'm not convinced the metagame shift will be favorable for it yet, I'll have to see it in action first.

 

[Gary]

Hell yes I can finally build teams without AV King or random SpD shit.

Anyways, a lot of Pokemon suddenly become a lot more viable with the leaving of Panda and Moltres. Cobalion goes from being one of the best Pokemon in the metagame to practically THE best Pokemon in the metagame. Doublade and friends still give it trouble, but it lost a huge check in the form of Scarf Moltres, so Sub SD is a lot more potent. Other Steel-types such as Durant, Mega Steelix, and Doublade have also become a lot more effective; Durant no longer needs Rock Slide on the Scarf set and can now safely opt to run Crunch so it isn't walled to hell by Doublade.

I also except to see a surge in Grass-types much like Don said. Offensive Tangrowth and Rotom-C can now spam Leaf Storm much more effectively, while the former just got a whole lot better in general. Mega Abomasnow lost two big checks and Virizion is no longer a steaming pile of shit vs Scarf Moltres teams. Amoonguss also seems pretty cool now. Also, now I can stop running garbage AV Tops. Holy shit that thing was bad.

All in all, pretty much everything loves Moltres and Panda leaving. They restircted team building so much, and I expect team building to feel a lot more diverse.

 

[testsubordinate]

I'm new to this tier - how exactly DO you stop Cresselia other than by using Toxic or STAB Dark moves?

 

[Choice Banned]

I'm new to this tier - how exactly DO you stop Cresselia other than by using Toxic or STAB Dark moves?

Try to put a lot of offensive pressure on it, or like you said, use Toxic to whittle it down.

 

[aVocado]

I'm new to this tier - how exactly DO you stop Cresselia other than by using Toxic or STAB Dark moves?

You don't o.o either get a strong wallbreaker like CB Tyrantrum or CB Emboar to try and 2HKO, or something like SD Life Orb (Sheer Force) Feraligatr, other than that toxic + STAB dark type attacks/doublade is your best bet.

 

[tehy]

Also, try Escavalier or Durant, obviously any STAB bug-type attack can be helpful. Restalk SD is cool for defensive teams and offensive/balance can benefit from CB or AV

Any other Calm Minder can likely win, especially since it's either sans shock or sans recovery

Mega Steelix can Roar it away and also Heavy Slam the hell out of it. CurseRest lix is cool.

Curse Registeel eternally smashes it. So does Curse Quagsire a.k.a. swamp daddy the man the legend its all ogre when he arrives

Mega Banette can hit it physically and hard as hell, can't really take the hits it needs to but it's pretty o.k. as a short term answer

 

[phantom]

There's also Skuntank, Infiltrator Golbat + any Psychic resist, Houndoom, Fletchinder assuming no Psyshock, SD Mega Abomasnow (hails cuts off Moonblast and Cress can barely do anything back w/o HP Fire). Encore Whimsicott is also a softcheck depending on the situation.

Really though, including what's mentioned above, there's a lot of ways to beat Cresselia just because of how passive it is, in addition to its severe 4mss, and how unreliable of a recovery move Moonlight is.

 

[col49]

yeah, i really hope we aren't using these recent sets of bans as an excuse to throw suspect unto cresselia, as if anything, it has lessened the load on teams to handle it. particularly with pangoro leaving, many of cresselia's strong checks, counters, etc. have gained more leg room in the tier; reuniclus (a pokemon that will essentially always win cm wars with cress bar a very speedy crit from cress' end) has one less reason to be constantly sweating concession of free turns to a monster beater, as is the case with curse steels, and even non-boosters such as skuntank don't have to go as far out of their way here. with this shift, balance and defensive builds have tons more breathing room to handle cress on a highly consistent basis, leaving the main playstyle to be irked on any significant level to be offense, who even still retains a bunch of options for it that are solid in their own right (drap, doomer, fletch, sd aboma, esca, durant to some capacities, doublade, etc.). i see great need to address cresselia at this time, given the circumstances of the current tier.

 

[g]

Say hello to the new overlord of the RU metagame.

 

[Froggyboy]

Overlords you mean. Both got really good thanks to the bans.

 

[Cowtao]

Glalie might take a dip because of how popular steel-types are gonna be but, after that settles Mega-Glalie is gonna be a force to be reckoned with. Same applies with Mega-Snow.

Though that Snow is a basic bitch. RELEASE MEGA BIG CHILL

 

[Nails]

yeah, i really hope we aren't using these recent sets of bans as an excuse to throw suspect unto cresselia, as if anything, it has lessened the load on teams to handle it. particularly with pangoro leaving, many of cresselia's strong checks, counters, etc. have gained more leg room in the tier; reuniclus (a pokemon that will essentially always win cm wars with cress bar a very speedy crit from cress' end) has one less reason to be constantly sweating concession of free turns to a monster beater, as is the case with curse steels, and even non-boosters such as skuntank don't have to go as far out of their way here. with this shift, balance and defensive builds have tons more breathing room to handle cress on a highly consistent basis, leaving the main playstyle to be irked on any significant level to be offense, who even still retains a bunch of options for it that are solid in their own right (drap, doomer, fletch, sd aboma, esca, durant to some capacities, doublade, etc.). i see great need to address cresselia at this time, given the circumstances of the current tier.

Stall and defensive builds never struggled with cresselia. Anything except subcm gets scald burned/toxiced and dies to lack of moonlight pp (and knocked off, etc) while subcm is a bigger threat you can still pursuit it or find a way to get status down, or encore lock it, etc.

Honestly not giving 2 shits about cresselia was one of the stronger points of stall teams in the past meta. See my spl game vs bouffalant for how much stall cares about cressy.

 

[atomicllamas]

I pretty much agree with Nails about playing Cresselia with a defensive team, in fact I find that it is easier to fit a Cresselia check on to defensive teams because you need one for Reuniclus and Meloetta anyways. However, if bouffalant used a Cresselia set that didn't give me AIDS (seriously just use sub cm, cresselia doesn't need reflect .-.) then I think he could have given your team some trouble, given how passive it was, lol. I don't oppose a Cresselia suspect in the long term, but given that all of its Counters just got a whole lot better (Meloetta, Escavalier, Durant, Drapion, Mega Steelix, and Registeel all really appreciate either Panda or Tres leaving (or both)). At the moment if a suspect test were to be run I couldn't see myself voting ban, but we'll see what the tier looks like after a week or two n_n.

 

[Nails]

Probably. My best strategy would've been taunt with qwilfish -> repeatedly pass it wishes with mola to burn through its moonblast pp. Non-sub sets get dtailed by slowking.

Cresselia really likes having reflect though :(

 

[Kawaii Kyouko]

What's up with people having issues with Cress out of a sudden? All it does is tank hits. It is so fucking passive beyond that. Like, throw a toxic/twave here and there once in a while or weak unSTAB moonblasts. The subCM set might be an issue for balance, but it doesn't tear the playstyle apart. It doesn't hurt defensive builds at all, much unlike Reuniclus which 6-0s stall teams easier than anything else, and offense only wastes some extra move pp on it.

It really just sits there. It's really good at that, but still.

 

[Molk]

And, with that, voting is over! Big thanks to everyone who participated!

Here's a link to the official results: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ru-stage-7-suspect-voting.3531095/page-4#post-6080142

 

[Nails]

What's up with people having issues with Cress out of a sudden? All it does is tank hits. It is so fucking passive beyond that. Like, throw a toxic/twave here and there once in a while or weak unSTAB moonblasts. The subCM set might be an issue for balance, but it doesn't tear the playstyle apart. It doesn't hurt defensive builds at all, much unlike Reuniclus which 6-0s stall teams easier than anything else, and offense only wastes some extra move pp on it.

It really just sits there. It's really good at that, but still.

It can stall out teams by itself given the right matchup. Offense without boosters really, really struggles to deal with defensive Cresselia. Super effective attacks arent always enough to deal with it, and it just requires a lot of attention in teambuilding. I don't think it is broken because of that, but I think it's basically the same as Pangoro and Moltres in that respect and they both got ~supermajority bans, so draw your own conclusions. :^)

 

[Kawaii Kyouko]

It can stall out teams by itself given the right matchup. Offense without boosters really, really struggles to deal with defensive Cresselia. Super effective attacks arent always enough to deal with it, and it just requires a lot of attention in teambuilding. I don't think it is broken because of that, but I think it's basically the same as Pangoro and Moltres in that respect and they both got ~supermajority bans, so draw your own conclusions. :^)

Eh, I guess. Well, I'm not one to jump straight onto "who do we suspect now" trains straight after a suspect is over. Let's see how the meta shapes up first.