np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 3 - Wandering Ghosts [Aegislash remains in Ubers]

[Mr. Goodra]

Also:
For those advocating Aegislash OU, so that it centralizes the metagame and hopefully helps the matchup problem by making a bunch of specific 'mons more useable while at the same time nerfing a bunch of stuff, are you sure it does? I remember back then that the 1825 stats had Aegislash first with a "low" 20% usage stat, compared to the 35% peak Landorus Therian had in late XY or Garchomp this last month (27%).

If anything, I feel the statistics you've provided here are a reason why Aegislash should be welcomed back to OU. Yes, being in the tier does mean that mons have to use more coverage and can't cover everything in two moves anymore (never understood why people complained about Aegi ruining Terrakion, since even with dual STAB EQ it could do whatever it wanted with the last slot).

If Aegislash was truly this borked mon, and a glue that makes any other glue outclassed, it would have been sitting at a way higher rate than its XY peak of 29%, and that's when even more insane shit was legal in OU. To me, that shows that Aegi isn't as powerful as some users have been implying. 71% of teams found 6 mons they wanted to use over it, or mons better suited to a certain role. Whilst I know useage doesn't equal viability, I think we'd have seen more Aegi if he was as flawless as people are making out.

I take those statistics to mean that Aegislash is a powerful and high tier mon, but not to the extent that it is mandatory to build a successful team. In my eyes the situation is currently crazy mons require more coverage and as such have more answers, and in return we have one more mon in the tier that is a centralising but by no means overwhelming force. The trade off to me is worth it.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

If anything, I feel the statistics you've provided here are a reason why Aegislash should be welcomed back to OU. Yes, being in the tier does mean that mons have to use more coverage and can't cover everything in two moves anymore (never understood why people complained about Aegi ruining Terrakion, since even with dual STAB EQ it could do whatever it wanted with the last slot).

If Aegislash was truly this borked mon, and a glue that makes any other glue outclassed, it would have been sitting at a way higher rate than its XY peak of 29%. To me, that shows that Aegi isn't as powerful as some users have been implying. 71% of teams found 6 mons they wanted to use over it, or better suited to a certain role. Whilst I know useage doesn't equal viability, I think we'd have seen more Aegi if he was as flawless as people are making out.

I take those statistics to mean that Aegislash is a powerful and high tier mon, but not to the extent that it is mandatory to build a successful team. Some mons require more coverage and as such have more answers, and in return we have one more mon in the tier that is a centralising but by no means an overwhelming force. The trade off to me is worth it.

It's a shame usage =/= viability/"brokenness"/centralized mon.
mMaw didnt have the most usage either, it must not have been broken either since it wasn't used on like every team right? Of course it was. So why would that apply here?

Maybe 4 of those 6 mons were devoted to taking out aegi, maybe it was when BP chains were a thing, and swagplay was running rampant. See, the xy usage was a bit skewed because there was so much broken shit running around. Hard to base "brokenness" off usage.

 

[The Goomy]

Aegi doesn't change the team matchup element though. All it does is force a load of mons who are good right now in the meta to use weird coverage moves so they are not Aegi weak. Hawlucha, MMedicham, MGallade, Starmie, Jirachi etc become basically unusable unless you start using strange sets to get around Aegi. There is still a matchup element, and all Aegi does is remove a few mons, mainly psychics, from the meta.
Aegi is simply too overcentrilising for the meta. The amount of pokes that became viable purely because of Aegi's banning proves that Aegi does nothing but make the meta stale. I prefer a matchup based meta to a stale one any day.

E at below: It is simply impossible to remove matchup unless everyone runs the same 6 pokemon and sets. Since you can't remove it, there is no point removing as much as possible until you get a boring, no fun to play meta.

b/c Hawlucha is used so much right now anyway.

 

[Kyuzeth]

If anything, I feel the statistics you've provided here are a reason why Aegislash should be welcomed back to OU. Yes, being in the tier does mean that mons have to use more coverage and can't cover everything in two moves anymore (never understood why people complained about Aegi ruining Terrakion, since even with dual STAB EQ it could do whatever it wanted with the last slot).

By running specific coverage just for Aegislash, coverage it even has a way around due to Magnet Rise, any such Pokémon will lose a great deal of versatility. Said coverage moves are nigh-mandatory considering how extremely dominant Aegislash is and, in turn, make any Pokémon that need to adapt their coverage to Aegislash exceptionally easy to exploit. As for getting a way around coverage; Aegislash can easily run Magnet Rise and continue walling many Pokémon that start to run Earthquake to beat it, e.g. Terrakion, Mega Metagross and Mega Pinsir. Somewhat the same (though less the case) with Earth Power.

If Aegislash was truly this borked mon, and a glue that makes any other glue outclassed, it would have been sitting at a way higher rate than its XY peak of 29%. To me, that shows that Aegi isn't as powerful as some users have been implying. 71% of teams found 6 mons they wanted to use over it, or better suited to a certain role. Whilst I know useage doesn't equal viability, I think we'd have seen more Aegi if he was as flawless as people are making out.

USAGE =/= VIABILITY. I don't know how many times that's been stated everywhere on the forums, but that's pretty much a basic given and I'm tired of clarifying it to everybody in this thread. That's like saying Forretress is the best Pokémon in UU because it's the most-used, when it's not. Examples from other tiers aside, 29% is still quite significant, since that means over a quarter of ALL OU teams used Aegislash. Its usage is quite comparable to Landorus-T; what they have in common is that both are great team glues, but Aegislash has much more on top of that, mainly that it blanket checks half the fucking tier and blanket counters a small portion. I'm sorry, how is a blanket counter healthy for the meta?

I take those statistics to mean that Aegislash is a powerful and high tier mon, but not to the extent that it is mandatory to build a successful team. Some mons require more coverage and as such have more answers, and in return we have one more mon in the tier that is a centralising but by no means an overwhelming force. The trade off to me is worth it.

Nothing's wrong with adapting your Pokémon to beat a key threat, but if you need to do this for every Pokémon on your team and the threat you prepare for can still easily take on your team despite all adaptations to your team, then something is wrong. That's what is called polarization. Yes, Aegislash is centralizing. It is too centralizing to be considered healthy for a metagame, something that is supposed to keep changing and evolving. Aegislash's mere presence influenced the viability of over twenty, if not thirty Pokémon in the tier. Taking the average of those numbers, that's very well half the tier influenced by one sole Pokémon. The Aegislash metagame was absurdly stagnant and stale, since you needed the exact same Pokémon on every team to deal with it. It is due to its unhealthily centralizing effect that Aegislash is without a doubt an overwhelming force. When you look at the great deal of Pokémon that suddenly skyrocketed in viability just because that one Pokémon was gone (see the shifts that occurred after its ban), there is no denying its awfully massive impact. Might just as well say this: the metagame actually developed once Aegislash left and kept on evolving ever since. Going back to a previous statement of mine, a metagame is something that continuously changes and evolves; Aegislash utterly crushes any growth the metagame might have.

 

[Strategywin]

But the issue is the fact that Aegislash covers so much that it renders a lot of Pokemon unviable simply of itss presence. All of the bulky Psychics in the tier, such as Celebi, Jirachi, and Slowbro suddenly get a lot worse just because Aegislash exists. Other Pokemon, such as Hawlucha, become a lot worse if they are unable to adapt to Aegislash alone.

BuT not all teams have an aegi/. Just because p2 was amazing at countering some things early oras didn't Bork it. Just because mega sableye beats stuff like gallaids doesn't make that op either. It means the meta is less cancer lmao.

 

[UltiMario]

For those that even glance at the characteristics of an uber: Time and time again, every suspect test for the past 5 years that someone brings up the characteristics of an Uber, and then are shot down every time for the same reason. Those are characteristics for an Uber mon in Gen 4. If we went off them, there's probably 15+ mons currently in the tier that we should ban. Lando-i, Gothitelle, Mega Sableye, and Mega Metagross are all very, very good and easy to grasp examples of Pokemon that violate one of characteristics of an Uber to a ludicrous extent. Those definitions are archaic and obviously have at best only a very small amount of relevance to the current metagame for the same reason they've been nearly irrelevant for probably the last 15-ish OU suspect processes. It's like trying to apply the laws of ancient Rome to the modern day world- there's some concepts that hold up but ultimately they're worthless to deal with more modern issues.

 

[Strategywin]

Also can we stop talking about the old aegi/ meta. Play the new ladder then pass judgment. Things have changed... Goth is used less, pinsir is used less, Landis are still rampant, new megas exist etc. Its a different world so the same arguments don't necessarily apply.

 

[Enki]

If anything, I feel the statistics you've provided here are a reason why Aegislash should be welcomed back to OU. Yes, being in the tier does mean that mons have to use more coverage and can't cover everything in two moves anymore (never understood why people complained about Aegi ruining Terrakion, since even with dual STAB EQ it could do whatever it wanted with the last slot).

If Aegislash was truly this borked mon, and a glue that makes any other glue outclassed, it would have been sitting at a way higher rate than its XY peak of 29%, and that's when even more insane shit was legal in OU. To me, that shows that Aegi isn't as powerful as some users have been implying. 71% of teams found 6 mons they wanted to use over it, or better suited to a certain role. Whilst I know useage doesn't equal viability, I think we'd have seen more Aegi if he was as flawless as people are making out.

I take those statistics to mean that Aegislash is a powerful and high tier mon, but not to the extent that it is mandatory to build a successful team. Some mons require more coverage and as such have more answers, and in return we have one more mon in the tier that is a centralising but by no means an overwhelming force. The trade off to me is worth it.

The statistics I posted were an answer to the "Aegislash centralizes the metagame, thus makes the game less matchup reliant and more skill dependant" which is not true, and the suspect test won't help solve the matter, since Aegislash being suspected it will be used much more than usually.
I don't consider Aegislash "broken" as a matter of fact I didn't even consider stuff like Greninja broken (but I was still up for the ban js, and really stuff like broken as it stands seems "outdated" I don't think we would have seen a 'mon like Charizard rampaging around without the sudden power creep we [seem to have] accepted[yes, Charizard, not Charizard X or Charizard Y, but Charizard X AND Y] a powered up version of DPP Salamence), I felt (and feel) that Aegislash's presence in the metagame is toxic, nothing really good has arrived on ORAS that can really change things about it, Mega Sableye doesn't like coming in on Shadow ball and is slower, Mega Lopunny is forced to run on stupid weak moves like Drain Punch and even then you still get KS'd, not to mention, all these "new things" are mega slot, not stuff that we can throw on all teams, so even if ORAS had serious solution for it, and the coinflips it creates (which to be honest Aegislash CREATES coinflips, it's not the same deal as U-turn or EQ on scarf Landorus, Aegislash pratically requires to create coinflips in order to work) they would still be pretty limited.
if anything, Aegislash has become even better, with all these new Mega Evolutions suffering from KS/Aegi's type and stats, and ALSO losing Greninja as a check; it doesn't end on Aegislash, many pokemon, who are already too good like Keldeo, Landorus-Incarnate and Bisharp likes Aegi's presence.
Oh, and Magnet Rise, which let it troll Hippowdon, Landorus, and other stuff I'm forgetting right now, as pointed by AM.
So, I'll be honest, I don't really care if Aegislash is "broken" "borked" or whatever buzzword we can come up with, the question remains: is now possible to stop Aegislash's warping (not to confuse with centralization) on the metagame? Are Aegislash benefits outweighing the problem it brings? Why should we care if something is "borked" or perfectly "sane" in ou but it's banned, when we have still a lot of work to do here?
From the OP:

We believe that a Pokémon like Aegislash, while being potentially overcentralizing, could provide a reliable and all-round check to many of the aforementioned threats, thus giving some stability to a tier that's currently heavily influenced by the match up component of the game.

^This should be the reason, if Aegislash's presence helps dealing with the matchup issue (and it doesn't bring too much trouble in the process), not because it was banned by a bunch of "guillible" voters who changed their vote during the previous suspect test and boo that was oh so unfair, yet late XY (http://sweepercalc.com/stats/ou1760.html) was more centralized and less matchup reliant than mid XY with Aegislash, and even if by chance now the metagame miraculously becomes more centralized than before, you still don't get a way around the King Shield bullshit.

 

[Alfalfa]

BuT not all teams have an aegi/. Just because p2 was amazing at countering some things early oras didn't Bork it. Just because mega sableye beats stuff like gallaids doesn't make that op either. It means the meta is less cancer lmao.

Not all teams need to include a potentially problematic Pokemon to make that Pokemon overwhelming (just look at GeoPass and SwagPlay + Ditto.....). Greninja was not used on all teams. Neither was Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Salamence. Yet, they were proven to be problems in their own right. While these banned Pokemon made teams a hell of a lot better, they did not need to be used on all teams to dictate team building, because the threat of them being on a team, in tandem with the exorbitant pressure they put on the metagame, was enough for teams to prepare for them.

 

[pika pal]

If anything, I feel the statistics you've provided here are a reason why Aegislash should be welcomed back to OU. Yes, being in the tier does mean that mons have to use more coverage and can't cover everything in two moves anymore (never understood why people complained about Aegi ruining Terrakion, since even with dual STAB EQ it could do whatever it wanted with the last slot).

If Aegislash was truly this borked mon, and a glue that makes any other glue outclassed, it would have been sitting at a way higher rate than its XY peak of 29%. To me, that shows that Aegi isn't as powerful as some users have been implying. 71% of teams found 6 mons they wanted to use over it, or better suited to a certain role. Whilst I know useage doesn't equal viability, I think we'd have seen more Aegi if he was as flawless as people are making out.

I take those statistics to mean that Aegislash is a powerful and high tier mon, but not to the extent that it is mandatory to build a successful team. Some mons require more coverage and as such have more answers, and in return we have one more mon in the tier that is a centralising but by no means an overwhelming force. The trade off to me is worth it.

At the same time, how much can we confirm about what those 71% of teams were running?

Aegislash is so versatile and influential in the Meta that failing to prepare extensively for him can auto-lose even moreso than the current team Match-Up issues people discuss would entail. Failing to pack multiple checks to Garchomp did not mean auto-losing to 27% of teams. However, it is feasible to believe lacking appropriate checks to the opposing Aegislash set meant losing to 20-29% of teams in XY, because Aegislash was ridiculously potent at blocking offensive threats or breaking whatever specific threat a team's sweepers/wallbreakers needed removed.

Aegislash didn't need to break anything like 40% usage; the fact that he could show up on a team and instantly invalidate a mon's effectiveness if he was made several mons drop out of viability. Garchomp and Lando-T force you to play carefully if you have some mons weak to them, but it's significantly less likely to make an entire team weak to them compared to a team weak to Aegislash.

Also, the Terrakion argument is a perfect example of what that one moveslot can cost a mon. Terrakion's Gen 5 sets consisted of
- Banded
- Scarfed
- Double Dance
- Sashed Lead
- SubSD

All 5 of these sets take a hit with Aegislash around.
- Choice Sets outright forfeit all momentum to an Aegislash the moment they click anything besides EQ,
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 228-270 (70.3 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Which Aegislash could potentially tank, leaving Terrakion locked into a move with an EXTREMLY exploitable immunity

- Lead took a hit in general with Defog, but losing Taunt severely worsens its match-up against opposing leads like Garchomp
- And the Boosting sets were outright unusable since those depended on Terrakion having 2 free moveslots

So a Pokemon ranked A+ in Gen 5 for set variety lost 2 sets, had 2 more take a severe hit, and the last one still had Aegislash as a contributor amongst negative factors. Granted, Terrakion's been on decline even after Aegislash left, but that's still a very dramatic impact for Terrakion, who DID have moveslots to spare. Now consider others like Pinsir or Heracross, who outright had to give-up otherwise superior options (Close Combat) to avoid being walled and exploited by the sword.

Jirachi, Celebi, and Starmie (All A ranked or higher) fell off, the former 2 offering no defensive synergy that Aegislash didn't while lacking other supportive options to make them still worth choosing over it, the latter inhibited in its main job and forced into a very precarious position to try and still do it. To ramble off some other things taking a severe hit: Breloom, Dragonite, Alakazam (Normal and Mega), alongside the obviously noted examples like the Latis and the Mega Wallbreakers.

Aegislash doesn't have to be on every team in order to centralize the metagame. Being as common as he was then made him a threat that had to be considered, and when considering him, you realize half the Pokemon currently OU end up deadweight against 20% of teams without anti-Aegislash support.

I'm not convinced Aegislash is going to make Teambuilding fun or less. It just seems like the Meta would go from "who's more prepared for the opponent's team and strategy" to "who's more prepared for the opponent's Aegislash and his merry band of sidekicks". It's no less possible to lose because at that point it comes down to which side is better equipped to deal with the opposing Aegislash, who's more prepared to break the glue holding the opposing team together.

There is very little in the game that is not inhibited in some way by the presence of Aegislash, since even checks to some of hits sets are free turns for other ones. The only mons that immediately come to mind as better in a Slash meta are Bisharp (playing around SS) and Landorus-I (Slash eliminates a lot of his checks/counters, whether directly in battle or by tanking their usage and viability), and I'm not sure we're at a point where we want the latter to be even better than it is without a partner like that.

Also can we stop talking about the old aegi/ meta. Play the new ladder then pass judgment. Things have changed... Goth is used less, pinsir is used less, Landis are still rampant, new megas exist etc. Its a different world so the same arguments don't necessarily apply.

Goth is used less because Aegislash not only destroys Psychics, but because he's a defensive Glue for stall teams already that is immune to trapping, which breaks Goth's biggest niche in dismantling Stall cores. Pinsir was already taking a hit in ORAS, seeing less usage than he did in XY, so I don't find the lack of him that surprising, but Aegislash would be the last nail in the coffin for him. Why would the Landi's drop off, when it's already been established that Aegislash is barely an obstacle to the two and makes an extremely powerful partner to I? The entire reason Aegislash was chosen for this suspect again is because he beats most of the new Megas, so their existence is a benefit since it gives him even more to block when "considering" him for your team. More to the point, Megas aren't the most splashable mons, if only because you only get one of them per team, so that's still serious centralization right there.


And the last thing I will say, having played both the current Meta a bit and the Aegislash meta, is that I just think ORAS right now is more enjoyable than I found the last Meta with Aegislash. Yes, there's a ridiculous number of threats to prepare for, but part of the fun I have is pulling from a huge pool of options and seeing how many things I can cover at once. Teambuilding is as much of a skill as prediction and strategy in battle, and assuming you're sufficiently good at either, proficiency in one mitigates the other to a degree.
When Aegislash was around, I just got bored after a while because every team I built started to feel samey after a while. Yes, the matches were much less reliant on team matchup, but I just got bored of using teams that just lacked variety and not having enough viable pieces to experiment with different builds. After a while, I kept watching dicussions, but I just didn't find myself playing anymore.

Aegislash hampers the ability of the metagame to evolve or innovate, because the tools he's given make it much easier for him to adapt to new threats than for the metagame to adapt to him. Aegislash was initially famous for the Crumbler set, which certainly proved effective: people found Mandibuzz and Chesnaught could answer that, Aegislash simply begins using Flash Cannon, 2 counters handled; mixed Hippowdon proves a problem, Aegislash gets his new SubToxic set, another option down. Unlike most top threats, a typical cycle of:
- "New Counter to Top Mon appears"
- "Top Threat adapts to new counter"
- Repeat

Found more roadblocks at the first step than the second with Aegislash, who narrowed the list of potential options by traits independent of his set, and then further narrowed them as more sets came into experimentation. Keldeo's SubCM set was an adaptation to Stall and Balance finding answers to his Choice sets, but unlike Aegislash, the two sets usually have a very different LIST of answers, compared to Aegislash whose actions shuffle around or even simply narrow the very few answers he already has (SubToxic handled most of his problem mons, only trading off Bisharp and Mega Venusaur).

 

[The Goomy]

Hide

At the same time, how much can we confirm about what those 71% of teams were running?

Aegislash is so versatile and influential in the Meta that failing to prepare extensively for him can auto-lose even moreso than the current team Match-Up issues people discuss would entail. Failing to pack multiple checks to Garchomp did not mean auto-losing to 27% of teams. However, it is feasible to believe lacking appropriate checks to the opposing Aegislash set meant losing to 20-29% of teams in XY, because Aegislash was ridiculously potent at blocking offensive threats or breaking whatever specific threat a team's sweepers/wallbreakers needed removed.

Aegislash didn't need to break anything like 40% usage; the fact that he could show up on a team and instantly invalidate a mon's effectiveness if he was made several mons drop out of viability. Garchomp and Lando-T force you to play carefully if you have some mons weak to them, but it's significantly less likely to make an entire team weak to them compared to a team weak to Aegislash.

Also, the Terrakion argument is a perfect example of what that one moveslot can cost a mon. Terrakion's Gen 5 sets consisted of
- Banded
- Scarfed
- Double Dance
- Sashed Lead
- SubSD

All 5 of these sets take a hit with Aegislash around.
- Choice Sets outright forfeit all momentum to an Aegislash the moment they click anything besides EQ,
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 228-270 (70.3 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Which Aegislash could potentially tank, leaving Terrakion locked into a move with an EXTREMLY exploitable immunity

- Lead took a hit in general with Defog, but losing Taunt severely worsens its match-up against opposing leads like Garchomp
- And the Boosting sets were outright unusable since those depended on Terrakion having 2 free moveslots

So a Pokemon ranked A+ in Gen 5 for set variety lost 2 sets, had 2 more take a severe hit, and the last one still had Aegislash as a contributor amongst negative factors. Granted, Terrakion's been on decline even after Aegislash left, but that's still a very dramatic impact for Terrakion, who DID have moveslots to spare. Now consider others like Pinsir or Heracross, who outright had to give-up otherwise superior options (Close Combat) to avoid being walled and exploited by the sword.

Jirachi, Celebi, and Starmie (All A ranked or higher) fell off, the former 2 offering no defensive synergy that Aegislash didn't while lacking other supportive options to make them still worth choosing over it, the latter inhibited in its main job and forced into a very precarious position to try and still do it. To ramble off some other things taking a severe hit: Breloom, Dragonite, Alakazam (Normal and Mega), alongside the obviously noted examples like the Latis and the Mega Wallbreakers.

Aegislash doesn't have to be on every team in order to centralize the metagame. Being as common as he was then made him a threat that had to be considered, and when considering him, you realize half the Pokemon currently OU end up deadweight against 20% of teams without anti-Aegislash support.

I'm not convinced Aegislash is going to make Teambuilding fun or less. It just seems like the Meta would go from "who's more prepared for the opponent's team and strategy" to "who's more prepared for the opponent's Aegislash and his merry band of sidekicks". It's no less possible to lose because at that point it comes down to which side is better equipped to deal with the opposing Aegislash, who's more prepared to break the glue holding the opposing team together.

There is very little in the game that is not inhibited in some way by the presence of Aegislash, since even checks to some of hits sets are free turns for other ones. The only mons that immediately come to mind as better in a Slash meta are Bisharp (playing around SS) and Landorus-I (Slash eliminates a lot of his checks/counters, whether directly in battle or by tanking their usage and viability), and I'm not sure we're at a point where we want the latter to be even better than it is without a partner like that.


Goth is used less because Aegislash not only destroys Psychics, but because he's a defensive Glue for stall teams already that is immune to trapping, which breaks Goth's biggest niche in dismantling Stall cores. Pinsir was already taking a hit in ORAS, seeing less usage than he did in XY, so I don't find the lack of him that surprising, but Aegislash would be the last nail in the coffin for him. Why would the Landi's drop off, when it's already been established that Aegislash is barely an obstacle to the two and makes an extremely powerful partner to I? The entire reason Aegislash was chosen for this suspect again is because he beats most of the new Megas, so their existence is a benefit since it gives him even more to block when "considering" him for your team. More to the point, Megas aren't the most splashable mons, if only because you only get one of them per team, so that's still serious centralization right there.


And the last thing I will say, having played both the current Meta a bit and the Aegislash meta, is that I just think ORAS right now is more enjoyable than I found the last Meta with Aegislash. Yes, there's a ridiculous number of threats to prepare for, but part of the fun I have is pulling from a huge pool of options and seeing how many things I can cover at once. Teambuilding is as much of a skill as prediction and strategy in battle, and assuming you're sufficiently good at either, proficiency in one mitigates the other to a degree.
When Aegislash was around, I just got bored after a while because every team I built started to feel samey after a while. Yes, the matches were much less reliant on team matchup, but I just got bored of using teams that just lacked variety and not having enough viable pieces to experiment with different builds. After a while, I kept watching dicussions, but I just didn't find myself playing anymore.

Aegislash hampers the ability of the metagame to evolve or innovate, because the tools he's given make it much easier for him to adapt to new threats than for the metagame to adapt to him. Aegislash was initially famous for the Crumbler set, which certainly proved effective: people found Mandibuzz and Chesnaught could answer that, Aegislash simply begins using Flash Cannon, 2 counters handled; mixed Hippowdon proves a problem, Aegislash gets his new SubToxic set, another option down. Unlike most top threats, a typical cycle of:
- "New Counter to Top Mon appears"
- "Top Threat adapts to new counter"
- Repeat

Found more roadblocks at the first step than the second with Aegislash, who narrowed the list of potential options by traits independent of his set, and then further narrowed them as more sets came into experimentation. Keldeo's SubCM set was an adaptation to Stall and Balance finding answers to his Choice sets, but unlike Aegislash, the two sets usually have a very different LIST of answers, compared to Aegislash whose actions shuffle around or even simply narrow the very few answers he already has (SubToxic handled most of his problem mons, only trading off Bisharp and Mega Venusaur).

Wait, why is Terrak a relevant argument? It's not even OU by usage WITHOUT Aegi. rofl

 

[pika pal]

Wait, why is Terrak a relevant argument? It's not even OU by usage WITHOUT Aegi. rofl

Terrakion was mentioned as an example by Mr. Goodra that wasn't hurt as much by Aegislash forcing Earthquake coverage because it already had 2 moveslots.

I went with that to maintain the same context and explain how losing one of those two moveslots cut into Terrakion, and by extension how it could cut into Pokemon without that many moveslots to spare despite being more viable than Terrakion (like Mega Pinsir, Mega Heracross, Mega Gardevoir using Shadow Ball, Latios essentially limited to EQ/HP Fire for his coverage option, etc.)

Terrakion's not the most viable in OU right now, but that doesn't mean Aegislash didn't cut into him even moreso while it was here.

 

[Sergeant Spooky]

Without Aegislash: you might lose "at team preview" (if you suck kek) to specific things your team is weak to

With Aegislash: you might lose to extremely solid Aegislash+[thing whose checks are all checked by Aegislash] cores, as well as lure Aegislash sets

sounds like a big improvement, let's unban it

Though in seriousness:

Pros of unbanning Aegislash:
-makes available a blanket check to a ton of shit

Cons of unbanning Aegislash:
-we'll have an all-star pokemon that immediately improves and functions on any team it is used on, with basically no cost in using it. Very low risk, incredibly high reward pokemon where it's hard to justify not using it. (con imo)
-makes a ton of otherwise decent to great pokemon struggle or just become unviable
-introduces more guessing games with King's Shield
-choice items become a liability on physical attackers and special attackers that can't hit Aegis neutrally without a specific move, choice scarf becomes a liability on basically everything
-while Aegislash might prevent your team from being weak to some pokemon... good luck not being weak to at least one or more Aegislash sets

So Aegislash being a good blanket check will mean teams (that have Aegislash on them) will be able to avoid "team match-up" issues (again, kek), but then you run into the issue of incredibly solid Aegislash cores that are ridiculous to handle without specific pokemon.

Honestly if we want to ease the "team-matchup" issue we're much better off banning Lando-I

 

[Mr. Goodra]

Yeah in retrospect, I concede that my logic was fairly weak when bringing up Terrakion. He came to mind as an example of the forced coverage argument made in the old ban thread, but he's by no means relevant now and even if he was, there's been some sound arguments here as to why one move can still greatly reduce the effectiveness of multiple sets for multiple mons. I still feel Aegi is fine in OU, the arguments for that I made in my initial post, but I can respect there's a knock on effect to coverage changes which pika pal argued well.

I never made the argument that useage equals viability Kyuzeth, in fact I believe I acknowledged that in my post. What I meant by the statistics discussion is that there's a great deal of hyperbole in this thread about Aegi being theoretically unstoppable and in practise that's not the case, which his useage somewhat implied (and implied only admittedly). The impact on the metagame is the key concern and that's where the strongest arguments for pro-ban are imo.

 

[Machi]

Regardless I think celebi still had BP on that set. Since you brought up the fact celebi has an answer to aegislash on it's own as well as being able to baton pass, I don't see it's viability being hurt as badly as many say it will now.

If you read earlier the problem isn't so much Celebi/Jirachi/Victini/Slowbro having issues necessarily performing their role but rather the defensive synergy they have to offer is eclipsed by Aegis, who more or less covers the same things and more while having common weaknesses shared but to a lesser degree.

Things like Celebi and Jirachi didn't simply rise because they could set SR, Parahax, or BP but rather because their typing was useful in response to checking threats, e.g. fairy/fighting types, that Aegis used to blanket check. Just to put into perspective you use Jirachi more often than not because it gives you a relatively safe switch in to hard hitting mons like Specs Sylveon/MGarde which tends to demolish defensive or slower teams.

 

[BlueLobster]

b/c Hawlucha is used so much right now anyway.

I don't see the logic in this response. Maybe it isn't used much, but the amount of Hawluchas I've seen since Aegi's banning more than tripled. And can you deny all the psychics who were sitting in UU or BL have risen to OU? Maybe becuase it is used less it becomes more improtant; a poke with a bit of viability, but not much becoming basically unviable due to the unbanning on 1 mon is huge.
If one mon dropping to OU makes a whole bunch of relevant threats like the psychics drop a tier, and block the viability of some mons who have some viability, the mon is overcentrilising.

After refreshing my mind on Agei in the suspect ladder, I still think it should be banned. It can switch into anything that can't hit it SE, and can even switch into some that can. A bad matchup with Aegi means so much more than a bad matchup with Keldeo, who is an S rank threat. It has too many different sets to find a reliable switchin alot of the time, and can simply destroy the viability of some mons.

 

[Karxrida]

While usage does not equal viability absolutely, you cannot disregard the fact there is definitely a connection between the two, especially when our entire fucking tier system is based off of usage. Some Pokemon get more usage because they are far more consistent and/or splashable than others, which Mr. Goodra was talking about. I'm getting tired of people disregarding others' points because they don't seem to understand that. No it's not the basis of an argument because some broken things like Full Baton Pass barely had any usage, but it can still be a very valid point of reference to bring up that you can't ignore all the time.

 

[haunter]

After further discussion about Aegislash's impact on the OU metagame with other tier leaders, a new idea popped up: unban Aegislash but ban the move King's Shield. It seems that most of the arguments made against Aegislash's return in OU are based either on King's Shield forcing many 50/50 scenarios or Aegislash's virtual 720 total base statistics.

Banning the move King's Shield would solve both of the aforementioned problems, since Aegislash wouldn't be allowed to revert into Shield form after attacking, while theoretically still providing a solid check to a plethora of offensive threats.

We're considering giving qualfied voters the possibility to opt for a third option: "ban King's Shield", other than the standard "ban" and "do not ban". Before someone objects that this is a complex ban, let me clarify that we're not considering the ban of King's Shield on just Aegislash, but a blanket ban on the move King's Shield (which is only learnt by Aegislash and Smeargle anyway).

Do note that, at the current moment, this is just an idea. Take it into consideration and give us your feedback.

 

[Astra]

Boy I'm just waiting for people to finally realize that Aegislash got Magnet Rise come ORAS.

Magnet Rise on Aegislash? Oh shit, that can remove many checks, and maybe even counters! This takes up a moveslot though, so it would be hard trying to fit it on its moveset. I've came up with a moveset with Magnet Rise, but I know it's not perfect, since I made it in 5 minutes. :P

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def/ 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Magnet Rise
- King's Shield
- Sacred Sword

The set removes the ability to set up with Sword Dance in exchange of being immune to Ground-type attacks. King's Shield seems odd on this set, as it seems to have no use without the ability to set up. But it's used to set up Magnet Rise without the high chances of getting OHKO'd. Iron Head and Sacred Sword were my choices as moves because Iron Head for STAB and Sacred Sword for things that might predict an Iron Head or even a Ghost-type move. Leftovers over Weakness Policy because with Magnet Rise the only weaknesses are Dark, Fire, and Ghost. It may seem like a bad idea, but if paired up with Mega-Lopunny, it would only need to worry about Fire. Weakness Policy is still an good item to use, as seen from Aegislash from Pre-ORAS. EV's and Nature are understandable, a Physical Attacker.

Sorry if anyone mentioned this, but I believe Mega-Lopunny is a great partner and check for Aegislash. It can defeat other Aegislash, which could threaten your own, and can decrease your Aegislash's weaknesses to Fire and Ground (Ground's not a problem with Magnet Rise, however) if Lopunny is not weakened. So if Aegislash is unbanned, it with Mega-Lopunny would be a popular core for new and experienced players in my opinion.

Edit: My luck sucks, right when I posted the set, haunter mentions only banning King's Shield. Ugh, back to the workshop.

So if only King's Shield gets banned, I changed the original set a bit:

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def/ 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Magnet Rise
- Swords Dance
- Sacred Sword

Everything in the original set remains on this set minus the part's about King's Shield. King's Shield is very important for Aegislash. Without it, its moveset possiblities decrease. It won't be able to transform back to Shield-Forme. But, if you Swords Dance and Magnet Rise first, you could still be able to damage the opposite team in someway. Sadly, if something threatens you out (which is easier for Aegislash to get because King's Shield may or may not be gone) you would have to set up in the same fashion again and everytime you switch out. This would also remove the ability to use defensive sets, as King's Shield is a massive part in those types of sets (and any set really) unless you use no attacking moves.

 

[AM]

After further discussion about Aegislash's impact on the OU metagame with other tier leaders, a new idea popped up: unban Aegislash but ban the move King's Shield. It seems that most of the arguments made against Aegislash's return in OU are based either on King's Shield forcing many 50/50 scenarios or Aegislash's virtual 720 total base statistics.

Banning the move King's Shield would solve both of the aforementione problem, since Aegislash wouldn't be allowed to revert into Shield form after attacking, while theoretically still providing a solid check to a plethora of offensive threats.

We're considering giving qualfied voters the possibility to opt for a third option: "ban King's Shield", other than the standard "ban" and "do not ban". Before someone objects that this is a complex ban, let me clarify that we're not considering the ban of King's Shield on just Aegislash, but a blanket ban on the move King's Shield (which is only learnt by Aegislash and Smeargle anway).

Do note that, at the current moment, this is just an idea. Take it into consideration and give us your feedback.

Haunter no offense but the points you mentioned are not exactly the stuff that really pushes the envelope of why Aegislash can be considered unhealthy while the 720 pseudo stats is simply a bad argument that doesn't enhance anyones argument because it's realistically untrue the way Aegislash works, even pro ban people will tell you that, and 50/50s have been always an exaggerated point in regards to Aegislash. If there is anything that holds merit in Aegislash being unhealthy it's how it creates already strong aspects to the meta even stronger. It still blanket checks plenty of the meta just as an offensive threat alone.

Granted this is hypothetical but you're giving us an aspect right now that you can't exactly test in practice while the idea of it is nice it's hard to take that into consideration when right now that's all theory while Aegislashes currently capabilities as of right now aren't theorymon. It's either looking at Aegislash or looking at King's shield it's gonna be a mess to try and justify to look both at once. You would know just by reading through this thread it's already hard enough for users to even make a coherent argument when there is already a singular established topic at hand. Trying to consider all of them at once makes it a bit problematic.

 

[Karxrida]

After further discussion about Aegislash's impact on the OU metagame with other tier leaders, a new idea popped up: unban Aegislash but ban the move King's Shield. It seems that most of the arguments made against Aegislash's return in OU are based either on King's Shield forcing many 50/50 scenarios or Aegislash's virtual 720 total base statistics.

Banning the move King's Shield would solve both of the aforementione problem, since Aegislash wouldn't be allowed to revert into Shield form after attacking, while theoretically still providing a solid check to a plethora of offensive threats.

We're considering giving qualfied voters the possibility to opt for a third option: "ban King's Shield", other than the standard "ban" and "do not ban". Before someone objects that this is a complex ban, let me clarify that we're not considering the ban of King's Shield on just Aegislash, but a blanket ban on the move King's Shield (which is only learnt by Aegislash and Smeargle anway).

Do note that, at the current moment, this is just an idea. Take it into consideration and give us your feedback.

I don't like it. Aegislash is completely worthless without King's Shield and is the only Pokemon that can abuse it because it's directly tied into Stance Change (Smeargle can't do the "50-50s" because it can't do shit back). Don't do this.

 

[ABR]

I think that this new proposal of banning the move King's Shield is a brilliant idea that many people, including myself, have brought up in the past. The main complaints about Aegislash are that it has amazing 720 BST essentially and it only forces 50/50s with King's Shield. As haunter said, banning this move would solve both of those issues. This would also not make Aegislash unviable, because it could still use Life Orb sets and can even use bulkier sets just now it cannot stay in for a long period of time. I strongly believe that banning King's Shield is the optimal way to bring out the benefits of Aegislash (checking some pokemon, spicing up the metagame while not being broken), while getting rid of the aforementioned negatives. This seems like the perfect way to balance Aegislash and I am 100% going to vote for this new third option of banning King's Shield.

 

[xzern]

After flailing around on the suspect ladder, facing and withstanding butterknife after butterknife of Aegislash's most certainly visible reign over the currently monotonous OU metagame, I'm leaning towards keeping this thing out of OU. The current argument for Aegislash staying in the metagame is that it would make it a lot easier to check threats in the meta. However, from what I have seen, this doesn't seem to be the case. Sure, Aegislash makes a lot of random Pokemon either less viable or completely unviable, but a lot of premier threats still run rampant. For starters, you still see Landorus, Keldeo, Mega Altaria, etc. However, it's not that you still need to prepare for those threats, but instead, it's very hard to prepare for those threats and Aegislash at the same time. Aegislash has a SpA stat that rivals Dialga, and when you combine that with Ghost STABs, the typing that only two other types can resist, you have an extremely deadly attacker. This makes it really hard to prepare for, and even harder to prepare for when a lot of Aegislash variants run Sacred Sword. Not only that, but with King's Shield, it goes from having 150 SpA to 150/150 defenses in just one turn, letting it take hits and make hits all in just a few turns.

However, just banning King's Shield could be interesting. Although, if you really are considering banning KS instead, we should have some kind of second suspect ladder where KS is banned but Aegislash isnt. I dont think that many of us could give credible input as to whether or not banning KS will fix the problem.

 

[Geotal]

I think that banning the move King's Shield an unbanning Aegislash is an excellent way of getting one step closer to a healthier metagame. Aegislash does a great job at checking many of the huge threats to the meta and synergizing with other Pokemon and has a large amount of Pokemon that check and counter it as well. The move King's Shield creates a whole new problem of "overcentralization" by making plays a 50/50 and allowing Aegislash to take on would-be checks simply at the click of a button and dropping the opponent's attack 2 stages, creating additional team building constraints and causing the metagame to be more match-up and luck based than before in addition to having the original threats that made ORAS such a match-up based tier. By removing the move King's Shield from competitive play, Aegislash will be able to preform his role in the meta without causing additional problems such as team building constraints, 50/50's, and anything else widely considered to be unhealthy for the meta.

 

[BlueLobster]

My issue with Aegislash is mainly the prediction, as well as the fact it's great defenses mean it's very hard to take down. I think that, without kings shield, Aegi wouldn't be quite so cancerous to the meta, but am undecided still. Some of the pokes that hate Aegi are harmed by KS, such as Victini and fire punch Jirachi, but others it makes no difference to, and hate Aegi, not specifically KS Aegi. This seems appealing, but not flawless.