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

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jpw234

Catastrophic Event Specialist
It's arguably not broken on Aegislash either. If we decided to ban it, we'd probably justify the ban on the premise that forcing 50/50 situations detracts skill from the game, while favoring luck.
Very hard to coherently explain why King's Shield is any different from Sucker Punch...

fully support there being a third option of just banning ks. should this become official, ill probably actually get off my lazy ass for reqs just so i can vote for this option. i love the idea of having a mon in the tier that centralizes it in a healthy way, and i feel aegislash does that to an extent, but ks really is a broken move, and removing it from aegislash would remedy a lot of the issues people have with it, with the most notable one being the excessive 50-50s it causes. even without ks aegislash would still be a dominant pokemon, but in more of a healthy way. no longer would it be able to stance dance on a whim, and it would actually take more brainpower than just clicking buttons if you mess up with an attack or w/e. i realize this is a bit of an exaggeration, but honestly, ks is what makes aegislash so easy to use. removing the most influential piece of this mon is a good thing, and would allow ou to have the best of both worlds when it comes to aegislash -- the ability to keep a multitude of mons in line, but not forcing excessive 50-50s that makes aegislash so unhealthy in the first place. it far harder to argue that aegislash is broken when the move that makes it so great is taken out of the picture.
Obviously the (incorrect) retort will be "that's a slippery slope argument" but you can literally swap in Blaziken or Greninja to get the exact same reasoning.

Suspecting KS on its own is a pretty bad idea imo, it's not a broken move, it just magnifies what makes Aegislash so good already. Plus, it's incredibly apparent with Stance Change that King's Shield is what makes Aegislash by the intent of the designers. Removing King's Shield moves us uncomfortably into the territory of creating our own game rather than developing a metagame for Pokemon. We aren't creating a Pokemon that fixes the metagame (and when you read Clone's post you really get that vibe), we're voting on the brokenness of a Pokemon.

In fact, I'm against suspecting unique elements in general (e.g. King's Shield, Dark Void, Spiky Shield, Parental Bond). They're clearly tied to a single Pokemon, and skating around banning the Pokemon itself by targeting the unique move/ability seems antithetical to our banning philosophy.
And if anybody comes at me with "b-b-b-but Smeargle", I want you to stop, think a second, and then delete your post.
 

Clone

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obviously the (incorrect) retort will be "that's a slippery slope argument" but you can literally swap in Blaziken or Greninja to get the exact same reasoning.
not sure what you mean by this, but i think what you may be saying is that greninja w/o protean or blaziken w/o speed boost would be healthy, but idk. not gonna argue with this because i dont agree with that and i dont want to go off topic.

Suspecting KS on its own is a pretty bad idea imo, it's not a broken move, it just magnifies what makes Aegislash so good already. Plus, it's incredibly apparent with Stance Change that King's Shield is what makes Aegislash by the intent of the designers. Removing King's Shield moves us uncomfortably into the territory of creating our own game rather than developing a metagame for Pokemon. We aren't creating a Pokemon that fixes the metagame (and when you read Clone's post you really get that vibe), we're voting on the brokenness of a Pokemon.
part of the reason why aegislash is being retested is because we want to fix this metagame. many players from varying levels of skill have complained that the oras ou metagame is not ideal (i dont necessarily agree with this but w/e), and that we need to do something to fix it. we all know that aegislash was designed with ks and stance change in mind. however, what we are trying to do is fix the metagame to make it more enjoyable for everyone. banning ks on aegislash may just be what the metagame needs. sure, this is going into the territory of "creating our own game", but we arent changing game mechanics with banning ks. this does probably go against what gf had intended with aegislash, but then again the same thing can be said about any ban, because im sure gf didnt "intend" for anything to be banned that isnt banned in their official formats. so long as we do not go in and change actual game mechanics, i dont see anythign wrong with doing everything we can to make this game better and more enjoyable. if this means banning a move to make a broken pokemon not broken, im perfectly okay with this so long as it positively affects the meta and does not set a dangerous precedent. as it stands now, i dont see a ks ban setting a dangerous precedent because haunter said it would be a blanket ban; i also this an aegislash w/o ks would be healthy for the metagame.
 

jpw234

Catastrophic Event Specialist
part of the reason why aegislash is being retested is because we want to fix this metagame. many players from varying levels of skill have complained that the oras ou metagame is not ideal (i dont necessarily agree with this but w/e), and that we need to do something to fix it. we all know that aegislash was designed with ks and stance change in mind. however, what we are trying to do is fix the metagame to make it more enjoyable for everyone. banning ks on aegislash may just be what the metagame needs. sure, this is going into the territory of "creating our own game", but we arent changing game mechanics with banning ks. this does probably go against what gf had intended with aegislash, but then again the same thing can be said about any ban, because im sure gf didnt "intend" for anything to be banned that isnt banned in their official formats. so long as we do not go in and change actual game mechanics, i dont see anythign wrong with doing everything we can to make this game better and more enjoyable. if this means banning a move to make a broken pokemon not broken, im perfectly okay with this so long as it positively affects the meta and does not set a dangerous precedent. as it stands now, i dont see a ks ban setting a dangerous precedent because haunter said it would be a blanket ban; i also this an aegislash w/o ks would be healthy for the metagame.
Banning King's Shield on Aegislash is clearly "changing game mechanics" in a way that banning Arceus from OU is not. Tiering is something we take up on our own, obviously GF has no involvement with it. But we are still tiering the Pokemon that GF gives us, and in some cases, other game elements (e.g. Swagger, Baton Pass, Sand Veil/Snow Cloak last gen). "Swagger", "Baton Pass", etc. are concepts that exist on their own and don't make any Pokemon what they are. "Aegislash without King's Shield" would be a very clearly Smogon-created phenomenon, and it would be arguably the first instance thereof (excepting possibly the unprecedented Drizzle/Swift Swim ban).

Maybe I'm playing with words and there isn't a clear line, but it seems obvious to me that banning King's Shield would be a scary step to take.
 
not sure what you mean by this, but i think what you may be saying is that greninja w/o protean or blaziken w/o speed boost would be healthy, but idk. not gonna argue with this because i dont agree with that and i dont want to go off topic.



part of the reason why aegislash is being retested is because we want to fix this metagame. many players from varying levels of skill have complained that the oras ou metagame is not ideal (i dont necessarily agree with this but w/e), and that we need to do something to fix it. we all know that aegislash was designed with ks and stance change in mind. however, what we are trying to do is fix the metagame to make it more enjoyable for everyone. banning ks on aegislash may just be what the metagame needs. sure, this is going into the territory of "creating our own game", but we arent changing game mechanics with banning ks. this does probably go against what gf had intended with aegislash, but then again the same thing can be said about any ban, because im sure gf didnt "intend" for anything to be banned that isnt banned in their official formats. so long as we do not go in and change actual game mechanics, i dont see anythign wrong with doing everything we can to make this game better and more enjoyable. if this means banning a move to make a broken pokemon not broken, im perfectly okay with this so long as it positively affects the meta and does not set a dangerous precedent. as it stands now, i dont see a ks ban setting a dangerous precedent because haunter said it would be a blanket ban; i also this an aegislash w/o ks would be healthy for the metagame.
Not sure how much my word means, but I think if we really do want people to be able to vote for No KS as an option, there should be a suspect ladder on which they can play such an environment as well.

Whether or not he'd be healthy, unhealthy, or inconsequential for the Metagame, KS-less Aegislash would obviously play and result in a very different Meta than all-out Aegislash. Plenty of people dismiss theorymonning as evidence, so I think there should be a means to see all three options in practice: No Aegis we've seen, ORAS Aegis is current, but we have no supported format for No KS Aegis replays yet.
 
I have to second (or third or fourth what we are at now) the idea that if we are going to seriously consider a King Shield ladder, we should have a ladder with the move banned.

Now as far as the idea goes, I am not sure how I feel about it, because well I am firmly against allowing Aegislash with King Shield into the tier, I have no idea how Aegislash without the move is. However, I do agree that the move in itself is a cancerous item that just creates 50-50s however, Sucker Punch is the exact same. So if we remove King Shield, I almost feel that we would also have to remove Sucker Punch.
 
I have to second (or third or fourth what we are at now) the idea that if we are going to seriously consider a King Shield ladder, we should have a ladder with the move banned.

Now as far as the idea goes, I am not sure how I feel about it, because well I am firmly against allowing Aegislash with King Shield into the tier, I have no idea how Aegislash without the move is. However, I do agree that the move in itself is a cancerous item that just creates 50-50s however, Sucker Punch is the exact same. So if we remove King Shield, I almost feel that we would also have to remove Sucker Punch.
Even as someone who's Pro-Ban altogether, there's a much bigger difference in the scenarios the moves create.

Sucker Punch deals a hard hit if you guess right, ends with you gaining nothing if you guess wrong (ignoring what move your opponent used).

King's Shield splits almost always tend to have a benefit for the Aegislash user: There's a bit of uncertainty if he doesn't go for King's Shield, but if Slash picks King's Shield, no matter what the opponent chose, he's back to having his Shield Bulk again, independent of whatever the opposing action was.
 
Even as someone who's Pro-Ban altogether, there's a much bigger difference in the scenarios the moves create.

Sucker Punch deals a hard hit if you guess right, ends with you gaining nothing if you guess wrong (ignoring what move your opponent used).

King's Shield splits almost always tend to have a benefit for the Aegislash user: There's a bit of uncertainty if he doesn't go for King's Shield, but if Slash picks King's Shield, no matter what the opponent chose, he's back to having his Shield Bulk again, independent of whatever the opposing action was.
That is true. King Shield does always benefit you in that form. However, there is no denying the vast similarities between the two moves.
 

jpw234

Catastrophic Event Specialist
Even as someone who's Pro-Ban altogether, there's a much bigger difference in the scenarios the moves create.

Sucker Punch deals a hard hit if you guess right, ends with you gaining nothing if you guess wrong (ignoring what move your opponent used).

King's Shield splits almost always tend to have a benefit for the Aegislash user: There's a bit of uncertainty if he doesn't go for King's Shield, but if Slash picks King's Shield, no matter what the opponent chose, he's back to having his Shield Bulk again, independent of whatever the opposing action was.
But that's a reason that Stance Change is problematic. Which itself is a reason that Aegislash is problematic.
 

Aberforth

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I wasn't around for the Aegislash era of XY, so I wont bring up what it was like then, because there are significantly more people who were actually around then who actually know what they are saying. As an ubers player, it does make me happy that OU is willing to test things from ubers that may not be broken.

Onto Aegislash, I've played about 30 games on the suspect ladder, and my initial thoughts are that I dont know what I should be basing my vote off of, overcentralisation (which I will not do unless I am told I am meant to) or brokenness. If it is the former, Aegislash should probably stay as an ubers only pokemon, but if it is the latter, I am much less certain about that. It does provide a great blanket check to 1/2 of the meta, and it is insanely splashable however I do not believe that it itself is broken. While it does blanket check the metagame, it's lack of reliable recovery does hinder it, considering that the number of things he has to check are so common, using only him to handle them is a generally bad idea, because eventually one would break through via coverage moves and the fact that aegi only gets leftovers for recovery without very good play with a wish-passer.

I am currently leaning towards no-ban, but would like to ask for clarification on whether or not we are supposed to be voting based on brokenness or on overcentralisation capabilities, because there is no-doubt aegislash would be very centralising.
 
I wasn't around for the Aegislash era of XY, so I wont bring up what it was like then, because there are significantly more people who were actually around then who actually know what they are saying. As an ubers player, it does make me happy that OU is willing to test things from ubers that may not be broken.

Onto Aegislash, I've played about 30 games on the suspect ladder, and my initial thoughts are that I dont know what I should be basing my vote off of, overcentralisation (which I will not do unless I am told I am meant to) or brokenness. If it is the former, Aegislash should probably stay as an ubers only pokemon, but if it is the latter, I am much less certain about that. It does provide a great blanket check to 1/2 of the meta, and it is insanely splashable however I do not believe that it itself is broken. While it does blanket check the metagame, it's lack of reliable recovery does hinder it, considering that the number of things he has to check are so common, using only him to handle them is a generally bad idea, because eventually one would break through via coverage moves and the fact that aegi only gets leftovers for recovery without very good play with a wish-passer.

I am currently leaning towards no-ban, but would like to ask for clarification on whether or not we are supposed to be voting based on brokenness or on overcentralisation capabilities, because there is no-doubt aegislash would be very centralising.
It's a matter of wich meta we want. Some argue this is a team match-up reliant meta, other that it's varied with some cancerous elements like Lando I.

For those that want to tone down the powercreep releasing superglue blanket check seems like a good deal to stabilize the metagame... However this is my opinion. Aegislash actually got better, it now predominantly shuts down an even bigger portion and hinders team building more. So yep I'm on the overcentralizing argument here as I enjoy team building as much as the next guy and aegislash being a team building crutch and deterrent to proper originality on team building are a big no, but that's my bias as I honestly hate our suspect test ladder at the moment.

The travesty of KS ban is also getting on my nerves as this feels like slaking 1.5(free switch ins XD) for PR reasons and avoiding further suspects, but again that's my bias. It honestly feels that doublade does it better than that "one switch in wonder" joke that is being passed as OU saviour.

It's up to your experience and what metagame you enjoy the most at this point.
 
ks is an important factor but a lot of the time aegislash just comes in on one of the various pkmns it invalidates with its typing/bulk, then fires off attacks which are incredibly difficult to switch into. ks doesn't really change this
It doesn't but it does give him other viable options, and inherently the problem stands that King shield reacts uniquely to Aegis because of his ability so a blanket ban wouldn't be very ethical in so much that king shield does not have the same effect or arguable "broken" aspect other mons - well Smeargle... A blanket ban I believe shouldn't be inherently biased towards a specific target, if you have something in mind then why go walk on egg shells and complicate the matter? I mean that was the whole big debate with sand veil and the lower tiers being hit.
 
To begin, I went into the ladder biased towards keeping Aegi banned due to the theory that it blanket checks a lot of mons, and that I personally did not mind the way current OU match process worked. I enjoy the prediction needed and the knowledge required to scout for potentially different sets of common threats, a common example is the CM Keldeo set countering some of its usual checks. That being said, after I started to latter, I realized that the matchups I envisioned in my head happened much differently. Unless in the hands of a moderately skilled player, Aegislash is worn down significantly quicker than I first thought. Although it has titanic defenses, it was usually my opponents only answer to my Mega-Metagrosses meteor mash, which I then switched into my assault vest shadow ball Raikou, forcing it out. If you can manage to have entry hazards on the field, Aegi just stands there and keeps taking hits, without being able to dish anything out in return. The best way I can relate is when I thought that quiet Diancie lead would tank hits like a truck, and what I came to realize is that it was worn down very quickly, much more than was worth it (it essentially became a stealth rock sacrifice in some cases). I realize the typing and team synergy is completely different, but it's the best comparison I can come up with off the top of my head. So my initial point to make is that Aegislash DOES NOT make inexperienced players better by any means. As to if it should stay banned, I have not encountered enough experienced players to make a worthwhile judgement.
 

AM

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part of the reason why aegislash is being retested is because we want to fix this metagame. many players from varying levels of skill have complained that the oras ou metagame is not ideal (i dont necessarily agree with this but w/e), and that we need to do something to fix it. we all know that aegislash was designed with ks and stance change in mind. however, what we are trying to do is fix the metagame to make it more enjoyable for everyone. banning ks on aegislash may just be what the metagame needs. sure, this is going into the territory of "creating our own game", but we arent changing game mechanics with banning ks. this does probably go against what gf had intended with aegislash, but then again the same thing can be said about any ban, because im sure gf didnt "intend" for anything to be banned that isnt banned in their official formats. so long as we do not go in and change actual game mechanics, i dont see anythign wrong with doing everything we can to make this game better and more enjoyable. if this means banning a move to make a broken pokemon not broken, im perfectly okay with this so long as it positively affects the meta and does not set a dangerous precedent. as it stands now, i dont see a ks ban setting a dangerous precedent because haunter said it would be a blanket ban; i also this an aegislash w/o ks would be healthy for the metagame.
This isn't really directed towards you more so just a general idea of why I think bringing back Aegislash in general isn't going to help fix the meta. Our meta right now if we're speaking on the terms of providing it some remedy is in need of actual bans, not re-tests. These match up issues that people love to bring up are established because of the power creep from ORAS to XY of individual threats that are borderline too strong for OU. We gained very powerful threats from this transition and each threat in their own right has been able to dictate the way certain playstyles have shifted in terms of what mons are being used and how effective or ineffective others can be. You see the increase of tank chomp to counter act the plethora of physical threats so that teams aren't totally floored by offensive behemoths such as M-Metagross and M-Lopunny. This is really just one example of many and it more or less correlates to each of our top tier threats both old and new that some have considered to be overbearing to the tier. Our meta is becoming more and more offensive little by little in order for us to alleviate match-up issues and to counteract the threats that been presented to us in ORAS. This is why many players will choose to go Bulky Offense or Hyper Offense in a lot of games which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's pretty clear that this has been the result of the centralization some of these top tier threats bring to the table in order to not lose momentum. You see this with Landorus being able to easily break fat balanced builds easily, the increase of spikes to maintain this momentum on opposing teams to alleviate pressure from these behemoths.

What you're doing with Aegislash is that you're adding on a threat with the illusion that it's suppose to fix the issue with matchup when just by playing against a competent player or even taking notes of what's been being discussed in the OU room with knowledgeable players, as in not the dumbass in the low ladder running Weakness Policy SD, Shadow Sneak, Sacred Sword, King's Shield, you'll start to realize that in the context of the meta-game Aegislash will be actually increasing the matchup problem by enhancing the capabilities of these already powerful threats in our meta-game. Aegislash with its typing, access to King Shield, and its variations is how its partners are able to foster in the meta-game. So as a support Pokemon in how it impacts the entirety of OU this needs to be looked at when discussing Aegislash instead of establishing the illusion that suspects should be removed from the meta-game simply by their own individual potential. We know this is an unrealistic way to look at suspects in order to create a better metagame and I know talking to you in OU room you can at least agree with some of my points here.

Now the part about looking at King's Shield is what I want to address. Once haunter and tier leaders have basically told us that the idea of King's Shield being removed is now on the table in the hopes that Aegislash or some sort of centralizing force is what will fix the matchup issues being described in this current suspect, that's the cue right there that we're now desperate to fix a problem with the meta in a very destructive and arbitrary way. At the cost of decreasing the viability of so many Pokemon and to basically take 5 steps back and recreate aspects of the unhealthy meta we had before we're now at the point where tier leaders are seriously considering to alter the mechanics of Aegislash itself in order to create a balanced metagame to counteract the threat level we currently have in the meta. This wasn't even being considered during the former suspect of Aegislash and such a specific way to go about banning in the 6th gen was only as close as our current BP clause we have now. What this is telling me is that whether they want to admit this or not they know there are very powerful threats in the meta and are seeking an answer to alleviate the problems these threats have. So may I ask why are we not considering removing these unhealthy aspects to the meta-game instead of adding another with the illusion this is what will fix the meta? Of course suspect tests are put forth to see the Pokemons impact of the meta or lack of, if we're talking about suspects where we remove them to see their lack of influence. Sure this might be a tedious process but in the end isn't that how late XY turned out, a manageable meta-game where even some presumed broken pokemon like Charizard-X and Thundurus were not so extremely unbearable when they lost the support of our currently banned pokemon. To whoever tier leaders read this if you're serious about creating a balanced ORAS OU metagame that has a reduced amount of matchup problems I believe it's time to consider not adding stuff back in but removing and doing so in a timely fashion. It's been known that we can suspect and not ban stuff, we've seen this with M-Metagross so why is it that we can't consider at least looking at these powerhouses in our tier to see their impact and to reflect on if they're truly overbearing or not?

Aegislash is just another offender of matchup due to improving already great Pokemon into fantastic threats that create even more matchup problems. The aspect of removing King Shield is nice and all but at the end of the day Aegislash still maintains that offensive potential that made it dangerous in the first place, being able to fire off powerful moves while having many opportunities to do so due to its typing and initial high defenses prior to attacking couple in with its low speed to maintain this defensive trait before firing off a move. With various items and variations of moves at its disposal it is a very low opportunity cost Pokemon that provides more negative traits than positive, in a meta that is already oversaturated with threats to begin with. I personally don't support bringing Aegislash back to OU as I don't want to play a meta that come 7th gen I look back and tell myself that we could've done better than simply adding in an overcentralized aspect to lie to ourselves and say we were able to nurture the threat level when it'll still be there just masked under an unhealthy centralized aspect. I know some want a certain amount of centralization to maintain stability to the tier, but this isn't the stability that should be encouraged.
 
I don't think Aegislash should be banned; King's Shield is an insane move that can play serious mind games with the opponent as well as seriously cripple a physical attacker. As said in the intro, the 150/150 stats are also very threatening, and Aegislash's relatively slow speed stat allows it to capitalize on both the defensive and offensive capabilities of its formes and easily revert back to Shield forme with King's Shield. Even with the new additions of Mega Metagross, Diancie, Gallade, and Lopunny, Aegislash still poses a threat to just about anything you throw at it in OU and will have to once again have teams built specifically to at least check it.
 

toshimelonhead

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My first concern with the King's Shield proposition is its ability to create a split vote. If we are voting on King's Shield as well as Aegislash, are these going to be two separate votes or combined in one poll? The second part of concern regarding King's Shield is that it is no longer a(s much of a) risk free move on Aegislash. Lopunny can now Encore on a predicted King's Shield, rendering Aegislash useless. It's not common (yet), but it's definitely a metagame trend to watch. More to come as I ladder more.
 

MZ

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Probably late but aegislash still does most things without Kings shield. No more excessive 50/50s but it's still the same well typed versatile support mon without a counter, I don't think banning ks makes any sense
 
For people wondering why banning King Shield may be a bad idea and what the slippery slope argument is I suggest reading this thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ean-instead-of-greninja.3526563/#post-5975896
It is asking why not ban just Protean instead of Greninja. There is a lot of good posts in there by intelligible members with much experience.

Honestly I do not believe KS Aegis to be broken, but by banning that we open the door to many other bans:
Protean on greninja
Speed Boost Blaziken
Dark Void Darkrai
U-turn on Genesect
Geomancy Xerneas
Bug Plate Arceus
Level 70 and below Kyogre

Where do you draw the line? By strictly banning only banning pokemon and moves that are broken on all pokemon like double team, fissure, and swagger we keep bans nice and simple. If you would like to open the door to all complex bans above feel free to vote to ban KS, because Smogon is kidding itself if they don't think this is a complex ban.
 
Im surprised no one brought this up yet but lets say that we allow aegislash and ban king shield...
it still gets PROTECT, while protect doesnt have the minus attack as king shield does when u make contact with it, it does everything else the same and also protects it from things like twave willo etc,,, banning king shield is not the answer
 

Lord Wallace

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The only thing that makes me want to bring back Aegislash is to finally have some change in the tier.
OU has been completely stagnant since the Greninja test, that was a long ass time ago. We kept Metagrossite OU, and then the next "test" turned out to be a complete waste of time. So I can completely understand the sentiments of those wanting to bring back Aegislash simply because they're desperate to see a change in OU.
Whether that change is for the better or worse, well, that's technically what the suspect ladder is supposed to be for (finding out if the change is positive or negative), but for reasons that I sum up in my last post the suspect ladder has so far failed at showing us this, and not just for this test but several tests before it as well. The fact that the suspect ladder is very often NOT an accurate representation of the metagame with/without the suspect really puts a hamper on the process and on discussion of the suspect. Unfortunately it's not an easy problem to fix, and some may say it's impossible to fix, but we should at least go into the discussion with that flaw in the process in mind, instead of assuming that everything we see or experience on the suspect ladder is absolute and vote based on that.
This is why I'm particularly excited for Suspect Tours (shoutouts to McMeghan), since it might encourage people to actually build for the suspect meta and help the process instead of hurting it.

As for KS, let's stop kidding ourselves, it's not a broken move by itself, and it is absolutely tied to Aegislash. It's potentially broken with Aegislash, and we're wanting to test it to try and nerf Aegislash and that's the bottom line. But should we? I say no, either Aegislash comes back with King's Shield or it doesn't at all. King's Shield is not even close to the most defining aspect of this Pokemon, and honestly if we wouldn't bring back Aegislash with KS why would we bring it back at all? It makes such little difference, it's still really really good without KS.
 

bludz

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AM won this thread close it now. Just kidding but in all seriousness he kinda just killed it. The concept of balance by bringing something down isn't a bad idea in itself but in the current metagame I think many people believe that we have one or multiple broken threats that actually need to go and this isn't addressing that problem. Personally I think Landorus is probably broken and Aegislash isn't helping with that at all plus it's just making certain mons like Mega Lopunny and Keldeo even more difficult to deal with. I'd argue that other mons like Mega Altaria should probably see a suspect as well and despite Aegislash sort of checking it, it's not a hard counter by any means.

I still haven't played enough of the suspect ladder to definitively say Aegislash is bad for the metagame or broken but I'm already fairly certain that it isn't having the positive effect we were hoping it might. Also after thinking about the King's Shield ban I really just don't see this as a great answer since it isn't the entire problem with Aegislash. Sure it eliminates sets like SubToxic and Stance Change shenanigans but it still has the defenses in shield form to switch into lots of stuff and fire off a strong attack, and its unpredictable enough that it has few safe switch-ins. Unlike Landorus which often needs a free switch-in to start wreaking havoc, Aegislash can come in on offensive powerhouses such as Mega Gardevoir and turn the tables.
 

p2

Banned deucer.
For people wondering why banning King Shield may be a bad idea and what the slippery slope argument is I suggest reading this thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ean-instead-of-greninja.3526563/#post-5975896
It is asking why not ban just Protean instead of Greninja. There is a lot of good posts in there by intelligible members with much experience.

Honestly I do not believe KS Aegis to be broken, but by banning that we open the door to many other bans:
Protean on greninja
Speed Boost Blaziken
Dark Void Darkrai
U-turn on Genesect
Geomancy Xerneas
Bug Plate Arceus
Level 70 and below Kyogre

Where do you draw the line? By strictly banning only banning pokemon and moves that are broken on all pokemon like double team, fissure, and swagger we keep bans nice and simple. If you would like to open the door to all complex bans above feel free to vote to ban KS, because Smogon is kidding itself if they don't think this is a complex ban.
I don't see how a single move is a complex ban.
If you completely blanket ban KS, that's not complex, but if you ban it on Aegislash ONLY, then it's complex.
Protean wasn't banned because Kecleon would suffer horribly from it, if Protean was for Greninja only, it'd probably be a different story. Also, Swagger is completely banned outside of AG and I don't see anybody complaining that it's a complex ban.
 

xJownage

Even pendulums swing both ways
Will give my thoughts once and once only, respond if you want but I won't respond back.

Unban:
The OU meta is in a state of turmoil. The matchup reliance is extremely noticeable, and we are all having a very difficult time checking common mons in the tier due to the lack of blanket checks. This makes offense extremely difficult to effectively use, and due to the lack of speedy battles, there is a lack of diversity in teambuilding; the metagame has become stale. The two biggest blanket checks in all non-ubers mons; aegislash and genesect, were both banned in xy. The result has been a metagame where it is very difficult to check all the threats on one team without using very specific archetypes, and a lack of creativity has been pronounced. Unbanning Aegislash does something very useful for the metagame. First, it provides offense with a blanket check to a large portion of the metagames threats, which will subsequently bolster room for creativity and make HO viable again. Second, it provides stall a check to many common stallbreaking threats such as mega gardevoir and medicham, while forcing mega heracross to run earthquake making it also easier to wall. It also provides balance a blanket check to a lot of fast and/or unpredictable threats that trouble cores that have to guess sets or take more than one hit to get a chance to tough an opposing mon. This makes Aegislash a great addition to the tier that bolsters all playstyles, allowing more room for creativity while making many hard-to-check mons harder to mindlessly abuse.

Who believes this:
- Many offensive players will support this.
- Most people who support this are less restrictive in their banning philosophy. They tend to believe the metagame will adjust to the threats given if it can, but if it is unable to, will look to make handling threats easier.
- Many of these people believe Aegislash was never broken, and that 50/50s are inherent to pokemon itself and the king's shield shenanigance is just a manifestation of these natural 50/50s.

Stay Banned:
The OU meta is fine right now. Despite a large number of threats and difficulty checking them, teambuilding is not overly limited to the point where the metagame itself is unhealthy. Regardless, unbanning aegislash is not the right thing to fix a meta, because broken mon x among group of broken mons is not how to balance a metagame. Aegislash makes many currently common mons unviable, while countering a lot of them by default. Many stallbreakers, namely megacham, Mega Garde, and mega heracross are easily checked/countered by aegislash, or in hera's case, forced to run a moveset that makes it no longer ideal for breaking stall. These mons aren't necessarily problematic due to Aegislash's presence on stall, but rather, making them near deadweight against teams packing Aegislash. Many other viable mons go down the toilet, and there are some mons who become viable solely due to aegislash's presence (remember krookodile?). How easily it fits on almost every team archetype means its so overcentralizing it is unhealthy for the metagame.

Who believes this:
- Many balanced players will support it staying banned.
- Most people who support this are very restrictive in their banning philosophy. They believe that if something makes a metagame harder to play, it should be banned to create a more healthy metagame. These people tend to be more idealist. and democrats.
- This is the majority that supported the original Aegislash ban. Many believe that Aegislash is so centralizing that it makes the metagame unhealthy alone, and its presence neuters teambuilding so that creativity decreases.


What I believe:

I believe that this metagame is very tumultuous and turbulent, it has no balance in terms of what to expect, kind of like the inheritance OM (its Other metagame of the month atm). Team matchup is extremely important, and building teams is extremely limited. While there is a good portion of mons that are usable, there is not much room for more niche mons to pop up. There is also a lack of a centralizing threat that I believe metagames like this need, something that makes teambuilders think more about how to beat each other. That centralizing threat prevents too many viable mons from popping up, because when there are too many, you have to check more, and creativity decreases. Therefore, it seems that this metagame proves the theory that diversity decreases creativity, because so many viable niches are already filled. Concluding whether or not the metagame is healthier with Aegislash, I believe, is much more simple when we look at it that way. People may be worried about Lando and all that, but TBH I don't really care. The presence of one extra mon that it beats doesn't suddenly make lando broken, and oh yeah, if it is we can just ban it. Maybe with Aegislash making many mons unviable, freeing room for creativity, and making other mons viable again, we will see lando's effectiveness decrease. There is only one way to find out and that is to wait and see. We can't theorymon stuff like that, so we shouldn't use it in our arguments. I firmly believe that Aegislash should be unbanned to balance the metagame.


Banning King's Shield:

Confirming that it will change to blade forme when it attacks, and not be able to change back until switch.
I think this is something that we can't afford to do. We have no idea where this might end up down the road. While you may thing that banning geomancy and unbanning xern would never happen, we have to go back to the old ubers bans. I believe it was Chaos or an old Ubers council member who said that "The swagger and moody bans were in no way supposed to be any precedent for a formal suspect test, but it seems that they were used as such anyways." Well, we don't know what banning a single move may end up bringing. Would x mon be broken without its sig move? I think geomancy is an extreme example, but you can see the point; swagger and moody bans ended up serving precedent to a formal suspect test of mega gengar, then shadow tag.

Move banning is a delicate area I would rather not see us attempt to traverse, therefore I would not support a king's shield unban.


The Question:

The entirety of this suspect test, imo, depends on this. We can't just think about is the current metagame with aegislash better than the current metagame without aegislash. We much ask ourselves: Can we make a metagame without aegislash more balanced than a metagame with aegislash? Which can we make into the most balanced metagame possible? With our current banning philosophy, I don't see this metagame becoming balanced, so I think we have a better chance with Aegi than without. If it doesn't work out, we can ban it again, but we have to try; our other option is to remain complacent and continue this stale, matchup-reliant metagame.
 
I don't see how a single move is a complex ban.
If you completely blanket ban KS, that's not complex, but if you ban it on Aegislash ONLY, then it's complex.
Protean wasn't banned because Kecleon would suffer horribly from it, if Protean was for Greninja only, it'd probably be a different story. Also, Swagger is completely banned outside of AG and I don't see anybody complaining that it's a complex ban.
Lets be honest here smeargle never uses KingShield and Smeragle has like 2% usage anyways. Why doesn't it use King Shield? Because its not broken on Smeragle in fact its not even good. According to current logic moves should only be banned if they are broken on every user of the move not just one.

Also really Kecleon can't use Protean is your only defense? Kecleon has probably .0002% OU Usage and is in who knows what tier. In the standard OU metagame only Greninja used Protean and only Aegislash used KingShield. Basically they were defining characteristics of those pokemon that dramatically made them better. No they aren't exclusive to those pokemon, but they are the only users in the tier we are focusing on. If there is some collateral damage to lower tier pokemon oh well that happens.

The overreaching point is by banning King Shield Smogon is admitting its willing to neuter pokemon that are broken instead of straight banning them. Whether you want this or not is up to you. I'd just would like everyone to know the implications.
 
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