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

[Immortal]

So after playing some suspect, I feel like a lot of my feelings were summed up really well by AlphaGiratina. It might not be totally bannable this time around, but it doesn't improve the meta either. I didn't feel any better about playing OU. The powerful Megas are easier to check, but they're still huge threats and now I have to worry about Aegislash. The burden of proof here is on the unban Aegislash side to prove why it would make the meta better, and I just don't see that. The biggest threats in OU (Landorus, Keldeo, Zard X, Altaria, Metagross) aren't overly troubled by Aegislash (Altaria gains a solid check even if it has fire blast or eq, Metagross has to run eq and Keldeo is more afraid to spam sacred sword, but they'd still be top tier threats in an Aegislash meta imo), and while Mega Diancie is more hurt than most even it has earth power. In short, why would we want to unban this thing? It makes some of the top tier threats easier to handle while adding itself to the list of arguably bannable mons in OU (for being over centralizing, not broken). Not only does the unban side have to prove that Aegislash isn't over centralizing to the point of being banned (a very close argument) but also that it would improve the OU tier. Otherwise, if it dropped, we'd have a shitty tier with a mon that's arguably bannable but we can't ban because we decided it isn't.


um wut. I think it kinda does

Here is the definition of check: Pokémon A checks Pokémon B if, when Pokémon A is given a free switch into Pokémon B, Pokémon A can win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax

Being able to survive a hit or two doesn't mean it can win every time. Also aegislash is often used as a bandaid switch-in, not a free switch which can makes things tough considering it's low speed.

Also the purpose of a suspect is to determine whether or not something is broken, not to determine whether or not it improves the meta in the opinion of some people despite not being broken

 

[MZ]

Here is the definition of check: Pokémon A checks Pokémon B if, when Pokémon A is given a free switch into Pokémon B, Pokémon A can win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax

Being able to survive a hit or two doesn't mean it can win every time. Also aegislash is often used as a bandaid switch-in, not a free switch which can makes things tough considering it's low speed.

Also the purpose of a suspect is to determine whether or not something is broken, not to determine whether or not it improves the meta in the opinion of some people despite not being broken

But if it can survive a hit or two does that not imply that it checks a mon? If it can take two earth powers from a Mega Diancie how does that not make it a check (for example)?

 

[Norne]

I have to agree here, coming in safely a certain number on times and forcing out the other pokemon in most scenarios is what makes them a check. He does that to a huge portion of the meta, that's why he is a blanket check.

Another small nitpick, I appreciate the effort everyone has put on their essays explaining the effects of aegislash, but it would have been better to just say that it forms good cores with certain top threats and given its glue like qualities makes it hard to form cores that don't revolve around him or those threats.

And after further testing in the ladder I'm seeing a rise in that magnet rise/sub hybrid sets, anyone experiencing this?

 

[Immortal]

But if it can survive a hit or two does that not imply that it checks a mon? If it can take two earth powers from a Mega Diancie how does that not make it a check (for example)?

I don't think it can but hypothetically if aegislash cannot 2hko it diance which is faster then it would still lose, meaning it did not check it as checking (per the smogon definition) implies that it would win

 

[MZ]

I don't think it can but hypothetically if aegislash cannot 2hko it diance which is faster then it would still lose, meaning it did not check it as checking (per the smogon definition) implies that it would win

But it can take two hits from most of these mons and kill them first, thus making it a check. You posted the official definition, you should know. Anyway, so this post isn't a total waste of time, air balloon aegislash is also really fun to use right now. Losing lefties and a boosting item is obnoxious, but that makes it much harder to predict and in general becomes a nice blanket check that you can use for more team support, plus I'm finding that people really don't expect it (although you do lose some important KO that I cant remember without spell tag)

 

[pika pal]

I don't think it can but hypothetically if aegislash cannot 2hko it diance which is faster then it would still lose, meaning it did not check it as checking (per the smogon definition) implies that it would win

252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Mega Diancie: 163-193 (67.6 - 80%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
4 Atk Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 58-69 (24 - 28.6%) -- 95.8% chance to 4HKO

The combination of that damage is 91% minimum, a KO after SR. And this is assuming Aegislash isn't running a Steel move, which isn't always dependable since Flash Cannon is his best option vs other check options like Mandibuzz and Chesnaught, and Iron Head is a STAB for boosting or AoA sets.

Diancie does 2HKO w/ EP, but it only manages a 2HKO if it uses EP both times (or gets max rolls on HP Fire + EP if it runs both for some reason)
252 SpA Mega Diancie Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 162-192 (50 - 59.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Mega Diancie Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 108-128 (33.3 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Aegislash can switch into any move besides EP, and then gets to fire off a 1-2 with Move + Shadow Sneak. So it does fit the definition of a check to Diancie.



On the matter of Aegislash, there's been plenty of discussion of Magnet Rise potentially giving it a way around generic EQ coverage, but how common is that in practice? I'm not sure how much of a difference the two make: Air Balloon only lets him avoid those if he hasn't been hit, which given his role as blanket check doesn't tend to be long. On the other hand, a moveslot is more of a cost, but can be applied multiple times at will. If Aegislash keeps it secret, he can net an extra turn from answers like Hippowdon, racking up hazard damage from the forced switch (given he spin blocks and checks some of the best removers, having hazards down is a strong possibility) and still firing off a Shadow Ball/Toxic/Whatever else the set is running.

 

[darkrai147]

Gonna share some of my thoughts after playing quite a few ladder games. When I first heard about this suspect, my first thought was that it didn't make any sense, it will just give us another centralizing threat to have to address in teambuilding. And my laddering supported that first thought. It might help keep some of the bigger threats a little bit more in check, but a lot of them have ways around it. For example Mega Metagross can run EQ instead of Hammer Arm and hit it on the obvious switch in, and Mega Lopunny can run things like Encore or Sub to beat it 1v1 with mind games. So it doesn't really make these these mons balanced, it just forces them to adapt to the metagame a tiny bit. The other thing I noticed while laddering which I wasn't quite expecting, was how many sets this thing can run. I think I've played roughly 75 games across a few alts, and I've seen: Lefties Mixed 3 attacks, Weakness Policy Mixed, Lefties SD, Weakness Policy SD, Pursuit, Sub Toxic (which makes stall a ton better), Life Orb 3 attacks. It has a ton of sets it can run and all of them are more or less equally viable, and they all can fit on any style of team, which makes it impossible to predict what it's gonna do when it comes in. The last thing is that since Aegi is very popular on this ladder, so is RP Lando-I and the LAST thing this meta needs is one more thing for that to set up on. So all-in-all, I would say that Aegislash is not necessarily broken, however it is very unhealthy for the metagame, so I will most likely be voting not to unban. I do think the council has the right idea of trying to balance things without banning too many pokemon, though.

 

[Immortal]

252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Mega Diancie: 163-193 (67.6 - 80%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
4 Atk Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 58-69 (24 - 28.6%) -- 95.8% chance to 4HKO

The combination of that damage is 91% minimum, a KO after SR. And this is assuming Aegislash isn't running a Steel move, which isn't always dependable since Flash Cannon is his best option vs other check options like Mandibuzz and Chesnaught, and Iron Head is a STAB for boosting or AoA sets.

Diancie does 2HKO w/ EP, but it only manages a 2HKO if it uses EP both times (or gets max rolls on HP Fire + EP if it runs both for some reason)
252 SpA Mega Diancie Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 162-192 (50 - 59.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Mega Diancie Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 108-128 (33.3 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Aegislash can switch into any move besides EP, and then gets to fire off a 1-2 with Move + Shadow Sneak. So it does fit the definition of a check to Diancie.

that whole thing was a hypothetical discussion about the definition of a check where one pokemon can take one or two hits to die and still lose meaning it is not, he just randomly chose diance and aegislash instead of pokemon A and B. I wish we had said A and B because unless you read carefully it makes us look dumb and in reality aegislash checks diance just fine

also I agree that it probably shouldn't spend a movespot on magnet rise when it can carry an air balloon. It's just a way for people to pretend aegislash got better when it is an almost completely irrelevant addition to its movepool

 

[ShadowMarioGalaxy64]

Wall of impressive text

Basically, this is some strange Catch 22 situation we have here.

If Aegislash remains banned, it'll likely mean Suspect tests of the more popular Pokemon will rise. If Aegislash is unbanned, a whole slew of new problems arise. If Aegislash is unbanned but King's Shield is banned--let's not think about that. Before we jump to even more conclusions with King's Shield, we need to take this Suspect Test to another level. Personally, I'd suggest three different OU Tier battlements: The regular one, the Suspect with KS, and the a second Suspect without KS, with free ability to test with and without said move. This way, we can EASILY determine whether or not the move is completely necessary for it to function. How do I see it? I ran Aegislash without King's Shield. Sure it required more support, but it was still a fantastic member of the team. Times have changed, though, and it might not hold up as well. Nobody knows because we can't have a proper testing ground for it.

 

[WebBowser]

Here is the definition of check: Pokémon A checks Pokémon B if, when Pokémon A is given a free switch into Pokémon B, Pokémon A can win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax

Being able to survive a hit or two doesn't mean it can win every time. Also aegislash is often used as a bandaid switch-in, not a free switch which can makes things tough considering it's low speed.

Also the purpose of a suspect is to determine whether or not something is broken, not to determine whether or not it improves the meta in the opinion of some people despite not being broken

First off, you are no authority on what this suspect test is and is not about. For some people, this suspect is indeed about improving the metagame. For others, it's a simple double-check to make sure that aegis really ought to be banned, for still others, this is a chance to clean up the mess surrounding the vote changing fiasco during the first aegis suspect. These are all legitimate reasons for this suspect to be occurring, and will likely factor into their ultimate decision on whether or not he's banworthy.

As for me personally, the purpose of this test is to see whether or not aegis is broken, simple as that.

Moving on now, my initial thoughts on aegislash!

So I just spent an evening playing the ladder, and frankly I don't have much to report on aegis himself. I am, of course, up to my usual shenanigans, and I've found that with a few minor adjustments to my team, aegis really doesn't bother it too much. I've seen LO aegi swap into CM espeon and fail to 1v1 it, and it utterly crumbles to mega sable if it has even a modest amount of spdef investment. Given the fact that my team runs 3 bloody psychics and still fails to take issue with aegis makes me question just how overpowered this guy is. Of course, I consider Scolipede, and by extension my team, to be utterly broken, so that will obviously cloud my experiences on the ladder.

For the time being, I am for aegislash in OU, and I will remain so in absence of a strong argument for him being broken in some way or another. Simply reducing the number of viable threats is not enough, as that was the goal anyway. Nor is it enough for it to make a handful of top mons better, ttar's been doing that for years now (remember those good ole LKT cores in gen 5?).

Lastly, if aegislashe's presence causes metagame shifts that make a currently unbroken mon broken, we can ban that. I do not see being able to effectively abuse the support of a non-broken mon makes the latter broken (for example, ttar made excadrill broken in gen 5, but ttar himself was not broken by any stretch).

*edit*

note that I'm not high enough on the ladder to post high level replays yet. Expect to see those eventually.

 

[LeapsFrog]

I realized that haunter mentioned that only 2 pokemon would lose out on King Shield if it were banned. Wouldn't that be the same for banning Protean. That exact logic could be used to unban Greninja. Only Kecelon and the Greninja family have Protean. Kecelon is BL4 way out of OU so it has no impact on the metagame. Speed Boost actually has decent usage from Scolipede so that logic does not work on Blaziken though. This thought makes me wonder if we vote to ban King Shield if it opens the path for Torrent Greninja in OU or even UU. This also seems similar to the Evasion Abilities Clause from Gen 5 which brought in Rough Skin Garchomp. So unbanning KS is not as obscure as you would think. I also totally bet any newcomer to the site who plays Smash Bros would be dissappointed to find the fate of Greninja.

 

[Punchshroom]

The problem I have is that banning King's Shield is liable to be biased right now towards the idea of letting Aegislash back into OU. If a suspect had been on the move before this test came to be, I'd accept that, but the introduction of the option seems more like an attempt to nerf Aegislash enough to drop more than the move itself being an unhealthy tool in the game, which has been the root of every other move/ability ban in Smogon's history to my knowledge.

This so much.

I realized that haunter mentioned that only 2 pokemon would lose out on King Shield if it were banned. Wouldn't that be the same for banning Protean. That exact logic could be used to unban Greninja. Only Kecelon and the Greninja family have Protean. Kecelon is BL4 way out of OU so it has no impact on the metagame. Speed Boost actually has decent usage from Scolipede so that logic does not work on Blaziken though. This thought makes me wonder if we vote to ban King Shield if it opens the path for Torrent Greninja in OU or even UU. This also seems similar to the Evasion Abilities Clause from Gen 5 which brought in Rough Skin Garchomp. So unbanning KS is not as obscure as you would think. I also totally bet any newcomer to the site who plays Smash Bros would be dissappointed to find the fate of Greninja.

See, bans have always been implemented in such a way that only the truly broken (or uncompetitive) culprit gets removed from the equation, so as to avoid unnecessary collateral damage (why should Kecleon also be nerfed just for the sake of keeping Greninja OU? Lower tiers that actually appreciate the Pokemon exist you know). Banning Protean would imply that the ability itself is broken, when one can easily see that isn't the case when comparing the effectiveness between Greninja and Kecleon as a whole. Even move combinations assess the Pokemon first and foremost: Venomoth was banned from UU instead of QuiverPass as the combination of moves isn't broken on every mon that gets it (Masquerain). Cases where the ability itself is the broken / uncompetitive aspect include Moody, Sand Veil + Snow Cloak pre-Gen 6, and Shadow Tag UU and below.

As for broken moves themselves, there's the obvious evasion and OHKO moves (though those are banned because they force luck-based situations rather than being outright borked), and then Stealth Rock and Scald have received their own suspect ladders because the moves themselves are terrific regardless of user. King's Shield does not fit this category, as does say Dark Void or Seed Flare or Serene Grace Air Slash or something; it's the specific user that is the problem, not the move itself. Next you'll tell me V-Create would be banned on Victini in UU and below just to allow it there.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is most likely the umpteenth time I've said this already: I believe Aegislash would streamline teambuilding (which is probably what this suspect intends), but will do so in such a way that the meta instead becomes stale and teams begin to look 'samey'. Due to Aegi's versatility, there is no reason not to run Aegislash on any team (this has more or less been proven). And this is if Aegislash would actually check the problematic threats enough to help stabilize the meta, but as Aegislash just so happens to pair well with them in turn, there's a good chance that their presence would likely not be curbed. So basically, Aegislash's reintroduction is near guaranteed to make the meta more stale, and there's even a possibility it might not even achieve the desired effect of lessening the impact of team matchup.

That said, Aegislash isn't really so much broken rather than being so damn universally good, so I don't blame people for trying to vote for it to stay. However, do keep in mind the impact Aegi will have on the meta: you're basically resigning yourself to encounter Aegis on a disgustingly large majority of teams you face, and if the threats Aegi is supposed to check still remain at large, this decision has the potential to backfire and the meta would take an even longer time to stabilize itself.

 

[thesecondbest]

I also totally bet any newcomer to the site who plays Smash Bros would be dissappointed to find the fate of Greninja.

....
In more important news, I can now post a more informed opinion now that i'm 5-0 on the ladder on my main, and i've seen my friend play many battles; he's at 1256 on the ladder.
Aegi/ is too slow to effectively use joke sets like magnet rise. I don't know why anybody would run that. The only issue with it is whether it is too good defensively or not, so I don't think banning King's Shield makes any sense either. It can get off the one strong hit and tank the first won regardless. I thought that was a joke too, but some people are taking that seriously as well. Weird.
So we all agree that aegi/ is good at what it does: checking psychics, fairies, fightings, etc. Now we can beat altaria without a mega venu, terrak that doesnt have eq and all that good stuff. But does it beat too much to warrant it being broken? I still don't think so, but i can see why people think it should go.
If it remains banned, then all sorts of crap will go, or we retain our current stupid tier with too many threats, like megagross, altaria, landorus, and friends. If we legalize it, then it and lando are the culprits. (I personally don't see lando as broken, but we'll cross that lake when we come to it.) The real question is does aegi/ it beat too much of the meta?
S rank: beats 2: wait it doesnt even do that, megagross eq 2shots, alt's fb hurts and it doesnt get reliable recovery. Non air balloon loses to lando, and it doesnt like repeated hydros from keld and cant ko back
A+ rank: beats scizor, diancie=megagross, lopunny is 50-50 central with KS, otherwise it loses, sableye beats it but doesnt counter it, beats azu with ks, beats clef with flash cannon, vs gengar, gars sball almost kos but sneak doesnt kill, beats lati.
Loses to bisharp, chars, loses to gliscor, tran, lando, tflame, thundy idk.
You see the matchups? It's not like it beats the whole tier. But it helps to check gard alt and other things. Def sets are crippled by no recovery and are completely gone without ks, and mixed sets are hard to switch into, BUT THAT IS HOW OU WORKS. Name one switchin to kube besides ferro. Note: Kube gets iron head. But you can deal with it! So why should aegi/ be banned?
I never believed the hype behind "SmogonSword." it doesn't beat that much stuff at the top, so i don't see why it shouldn't be freed.

 

[zbr]

....
In more important news, I can now post a more informed opinion now that i'm 5-0 on the ladder on my main, and i've seen my friend play many battles; he's at 1256 on the ladder.

im 12-3 on the ladder rn and even then i don't feel educated enough to make a stand but i understand where you're coming from.

Aegi/ is too slow to effectively use joke sets like magnet rise. I don't know why anybody would run that. The only issue with it is whether it is too good defensively or not, so I don't think banning King's Shield makes any sense either.

Starmie is too fast to use analytic as well, but why do people still use it? o that's rite, cause it works by forces switches.. the main idea with magnet rise aegi is that you want to be forcing switches in and out and then wearing your opponent's team down with it's powerful hits. im not saying tht magrise aegi is good and stuff, just saying that it has it's uses. secondly, i don't think main point is how defensive it is, but rather how impactful it will be as a "i can be any role you want me to be" mon on any team.

It can get off the one strong hit and tank the first won regardless. I thought that was a joke too, but some people are taking that seriously as well. Weird.

don't quite understand this statement.. sorry ;;

So we all agree that aegi/ is good at what it does: checking psychics, fairies, fightings, etc. Now we can beat altaria without a mega venu, terrak that doesnt have eq and all that good stuff. But does it beat too much to warrant it being broken? I still don't think so, but i can see why people think it should go.

this is such a silly statement. yeah it's typing allows it to check fairies, psychics, fightings and to an extent it is a blanket check to all contact based physical mons in the tier. but what makes it really borked is that it is too versatile to the point where there is literally no reason as to why you wouldn't run it on any team. the difference between aegi and something that receives consistent high usage (eg lando, chomp, rotom-w...) is that is good in whatever role you decide to give it and you don't lose any advantage by just slapping on an aegislash on your team. the adaptation the tier has to make just to re-fit this mon back into the tier is insane, much like when it left the tier. it can shit on half the tier just by purely it's typing alone (gengar tells you a lot when it comes to ghost type being an offensive stab) and it can shit on the other half with it's somewhat limited movepool. i don't think we can just say "it's not broken" at this stage. a lot more needs to be looked as well like how the top threats interact with it as well as how it helps certain team archetypes. right now, with aegi back, it's just purely "aegi + lando + 3 filler + 1 dedicated rocker" mirror matches.

If it remains banned, then all sorts of crap will go, or we retain our current stupid tier with too many threats, like megagross, altaria, landorus, and friends. If we legalize it, then it and lando are the culprits. (I personally don't see lando as broken, but we'll cross that lake when we come to it.)

so the idea of bringing something that can potentially warp the tier to the degree that giratina-o in ou doesn't look like a joke, is good to you then something is really wrong in the tier. having things leave the tier is much more beneficial to the game because as it stands, matchup is already such a heavy problem. by adding aegi into the mix, the problem intensifies a lot and the real problem of having too much threats in the metagame is masked in the process.

The real question is does aegi/ it beat too much of the meta?
S rank: beats 2: wait it doesnt even do that, megagross eq 2shots, alt's fb hurts and it doesnt get reliable recovery. Non air balloon loses to lando, and it doesnt like repeated hydros from keld and cant ko back
A+ rank: beats scizor, diancie=megagross, lopunny is 50-50 central with KS, otherwise it loses, sableye beats it but doesnt counter it, beats azu with ks, beats clef with flash cannon, vs gengar, gars sball almost kos but sneak doesnt kill, beats lati.
Loses to bisharp, chars, loses to gliscor, tran, lando, tflame, thundy idk.

what you are viewing the game is through a tinted lens of 1v1 scenarios that have a low or medium chance of happening. most of the mons don't even stay in aegi because what they potentially carry. the good side to having aegi back in the tier is that we have a mon that is incredibly good and versatile in all of it's roles and will always be able to pressure your opponent just by it's presence due to it's versatility. the bad side is that it incredibly skewers the tier to the point where teams have literally zero reason not to run it on any archtype of teams. stall, balance, offense, all benefit heavily just by putting it on teams.. is this type of centralisation healthy for the tier? it left back then because it made the whole game more matchup based and more "aegi + 5 filler" mirror matches. but from my experience with aegi as of now, i don't think it should come back because it's too much centralisation for the tier to be healthy.

You see the matchups? It's not like it beats the whole tier. But it helps to check gard alt and other things. Def sets are crippled by no recovery and are completely gone without ks, and mixed sets are hard to switch into, BUT THAT IS HOW OU WORKS. Name one switchin to kube besides ferro. Note: Kube gets iron head. But you can deal with it! So why should aegi/ be banned?
I never believed the hype behind "SmogonSword." it doesn't beat that much stuff at the top, so i don't see why it shouldn't be freed.

subtox aegi was actually it's best set prior to it's departure in xy so idk why "crippled by no recovery" is a major issue. and no, ou doesn't work on matchup, we don't want to make a tier that is incredibly matchup based and has the potential for you to lose right from the get go just from team preview. we still want to have some form of skill in the game right now so i don't think putting it back into metagame is the best idea.. it's still as impactful and strong as ever and is amazingly mouldable, and it's speed tier is such that it benefits a lot from..

 

[Chopin Alkaninoff]

subtox aegi was actually it's best set prior to it's departure in xy so idk why "crippled by no recovery" is a major issue. and no, ou doesn't work on matchup, we don't want to make a tier that is incredibly matchup based and has the potential for you to lose right from the get go just from team preview. we still want to have some form of skill in the game right now so i don't think putting it back into metagame is the best idea.. it's still as impactful and strong as ever and is amazingly mouldable, and it's speed tier is such that it benefits a lot from..

The bolded part is exactly why Aegislash is being tested in OU. The OU metagame currently is VERY matchup based, because it has too many threats right now to prepare for. By adding Aegislash, there are pokes that would be less viable because of it presence. Because of this, we would have less threats to prepare for, makes teambuilding easier. Question is, do people want this matchup based meta turn into centralized meta? Again, that goes back to the question in my post four pages ago.

I personally see that Aegislash ban vs unban is like people who says like, "teambuilding is fking ridiculous. Too many threats. Let's unban Aegi to reduce this matchup based meta" vs "screw Aegislash. I want more pokes to be viable. Who cares if its too matchup based?"

The question is, does teambuilding REALLY gets easier when there is Aegislash? I don't know. Aegislash makes many pokes become less viable in this meta, but because of that, we have less threats to consider when teambuilding. Logically, less threats to consider makes teambuilding easier. Question is, does majority of people want it like that?

Its up to people who decides this "easier teambuilding, centralized metagame" vs "diverse but rock-paper-scissors based metagame."

 

[bludz]

Threats being less viable doesn't mean they aren't viable though. I mean yeah people don't prepare for Double Dance Thundurus-T because they unknowingly already did by adding AV Raikou to the team (for example) but that doesn't mean it isn't a threat when it sets up. It'll be the same for mons that Aegi makes less viable - it's not actually removing threats from the equation it's just reducing the effectiveness of some and increasing the effectiveness of others. The problem is that many of the pokemon hurt by Aegislash's presence are mons that were already helping to balance stuff out like Jirachi and Celebi (admittedly it hurts Metagross a bit but it's not even that amazing of a check to Altaria and Landorus just steamrolls it), while its actually making Bisharp, Keldeo and Mega Lopunny - some of the most threatening pokemon in the tier - even better. So yeah this centralizes the tier which we wanted to a degree but it makes it really top-heavy and doesn't seem to reduce the matchup problem the way we want it to (IMO) and furthermore it really doesn't "unbreak" potential broken pokemon that we already have running around.

 

[bsu]

after like 50 games using aegis lash + lando and ngl aegi has been pretty underwhelming. while it can "blanket check" a lot, as a result it can't really check anything since it gets so easily overwhelmed. I might also be getting outplayed but I'm at like 2150 coil so idk. a lot of mons can also easily (soft) check aegi, pretty much all u gotta do is slap an assault vest on a mon and it pretty much checks most aegi nicely. its power w/o life orb is also deceptively low, not being able to 0ko a lot of frail-ish mons reliably after rocks. I guess you can say it can put in work on a weakened team but thats the same for any mon really.
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 224-266 (69.1 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
like it doesn't even 0ko other aegis lash
idk also though the suspect meta is tailored towards countering aegi and all that so it makes sense that in practice it might be underwhelming
just something to keep in mind i guess

 

[Mr. Goodra]

Well I'm up, and would like to just add some thoughts about judging Aegislash on the basis that it is a metagame 'solution.' Personally, I feel this is the wrong way to look at things.

Burdening one mon with the responsibility of returning to OU and turning the meta into a stable metagame is a completely unfair expectation of him imo. There are still mons like Lando-I that haven't at the very least been suspected. It is not Aegi's fault that it makes a potent pairing with a mon that is already ridiculously tough to answer, and Aegi shouldn't be judged for that, Lando-I should.

Furthermore, Lando-I can be tested afterwards if he's that ridiculous, so unless Aegi pairs with many other mons to tier breaking levels, this point should be dropped in my opinion.

I've always looked at tests as whether or not a mon is broken, and even some of the pro-ban side seem to acknowledge that Aegislash isn't. If that's the case, why are we using the fact that he doesn't fix OU as a reason to keep him Uber, if he isn't actually Uber? If he's not broken, he should be allowed back down even if he doesn't perfectly fix things (and he won't because as I say in practise he's not the deity people accuse him of being).

All of this talk about the ideal metagame is subjective, and I do think it's fair to say Talonflame has a similar effect of greatly reducing the potential viability of many mons. Why is a mon like a Talon not subject to the same criticism, especially when like Aegi it's diverse and can respond to its own checks? I know Aegi is even more diverse but there are gaping flaws to sets like Head Smash (dies in about 4 seconds to take out 1 usual-counter), and as Synchronation higlighted, offensive sets lose many of Aegi's attractive qualities.

Synchro summed my thoughts up perfectly imo and that is exactly why I'm going to try find the time to get reqs and save it.

 

[Alfalfa]

....
In more important news, I can now post a more informed opinion now that i'm 5-0 on the ladder on my main, and i've seen my friend play many battles; he's at 1256 on the ladder.
Aegi/ is too slow to effectively use joke sets like magnet rise. I don't know why anybody would run that. The only issue with it is whether it is too good defensively or not, so I don't think banning King's Shield makes any sense either. It can get off the one strong hit and tank the first won regardless. I thought that was a joke too, but some people are taking that seriously as well. Weird.
So we all agree that aegi/ is good at what it does: checking psychics, fairies, fightings, etc. Now we can beat altaria without a mega venu, terrak that doesnt have eq and all that good stuff. But does it beat too much to warrant it being broken? I still don't think so, but i can see why people think it should go.
If it remains banned, then all sorts of crap will go, or we retain our current stupid tier with too many threats, like megagross, altaria, landorus, and friends. If we legalize it, then it and lando are the culprits. (I personally don't see lando as broken, but we'll cross that lake when we come to it.) The real question is does aegi/ it beat too much of the meta?
S rank: beats 2: wait it doesnt even do that, megagross eq 2shots, alt's fb hurts and it doesnt get reliable recovery. Non air balloon loses to lando, and it doesnt like repeated hydros from keld and cant ko back
A+ rank: beats scizor, diancie=megagross, lopunny is 50-50 central with KS, otherwise it loses, sableye beats it but doesnt counter it, beats azu with ks, beats clef with flash cannon, vs gengar, gars sball almost kos but sneak doesnt kill, beats lati.
Loses to bisharp, chars, loses to gliscor, tran, lando, tflame, thundy idk.
You see the matchups? It's not like it beats the whole tier. But it helps to check gard alt and other things. Def sets are crippled by no recovery and are completely gone without ks, and mixed sets are hard to switch into, BUT THAT IS HOW OU WORKS. Name one switchin to kube besides ferro. Note: Kube gets iron head. But you can deal with it! So why should aegi/ be banned?
I never believed the hype behind "SmogonSword." it doesn't beat that much stuff at the top, so i don't see why it shouldn't be freed.

Cresselia switches into Kyurem-B quite well. Aegislash is naturally not going to beat the entirety of OU, but it does get Magnet Rise with ORAS, which enables it to turn the tables on Ground-types like Gliscor and Landorus, so saying it loses to them is leaving out an important detail. If Aegislash beat the entirety of OU, then we would not have bothered suspecting it; it would have stayed banned.

 

[yuruuu]

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.

This really shouldn't be the reason for banning or anti-ban. I can understand wanting a desirable metagame, maybe you prefer centralized over match-up meta (I personally do), but change for the sake of change should not be the way to go about it. By this reasoning you're likely to want a suspect test every month or so.

 

[Synchronation]

Talonflame's presence does not force several Pokemon to be completely unviable because it exists. While you could argue that it made Pokemon like Volcarona unviable in XY, Volcarona suffered from more than Talonflame's existence in the metagame.

You are missing the pro-ban point. Aegislash makes the top threats of the metagame stronger by being able to deal with their checks. That is why everybody viewed Zard X and Thundurus as viable options to suspect post-Aegis until metagame development showed that they had a reason to stay. Likewise, in a metagame where players are relying on bulkier builds, Aegislash is able to cripple many of these more defensive Pokemon, although not all with one set. It doesn't need to anyways; it only needs to target and whatever it teammates needs targeted. It is not just Landorus that Aegislash makes better; it makes literally the entire list of top-tier Pokemon that aren't screwed over by Aegislash better. Aegislash can dismantle almost any defensive check a Pokemon would want removed, and while it cannot target all of them, being able to do such IN TANDEM with being able to blanket check half of the metagame is what pushes Aegislash over the edge. Sure, Aegislash can be worn down, but if you play correctly, Aegislash will have done its job by the time it gets KOd 90% of the time anyways.

EDIT: Just to clarify, Aegislash is not dismantling defensive Pokemon through offensive coverage. SubToxic exists for a reason. Forfeiting either or can easily be built around, and saying that it cannot target everything in one slot is not a valid excuse because Greninja could not target everything either, and yet its ability to handle whatever its teammates needed it to handle, with the exception of a few defensive Pokemon, was enough for it to get banned.

Just like Volcarona Charizard X and Thundurus suffer from more than just being in a metagame without Aegislash.
Charizard X lost one of it's best sets thanks to Sableye, Gyarados got Crunch which turned it into an even more fearsome dragondancer, the introducing of Mega-Altaria and Slowbro and the rise of Hippowdon are all a hindrance for it. Besides Slowbro, Aegislash can't deal with any of these, so how exactly does it improve Charizard X? It was way better in XY than it is now since there were less megas and less Pokemon who resisted it's STAB-combination. I highly doubt that it will get broken, it wasn't even overpowered during the Aegi-meta.
Thundurus's perfomence is linked to the metagame it is in. It prefers a fast one thanks to Prankster-Thunderwave and since bulky-offense is the standard right now it suffers a bit. Not only do I doubt that Aegislash would lead to a fast metagame, I don't agree with banning Pokemon to keep others in the tier. I'll quote myself here:

Aegislash is not even broken in the support-characteristic. Albacore tried to explain that Landorus-I could be even more broken in an Aegislash-meta. I don't think that is a valid point simply because we shouldn't ban Pokemon so just others become more/less viable. It is the same reason we don't let broken stuff unbanned to check other broken stuff. We ban both. If you fear that Landorus-I could be an even worse threat thanks to Aegislash then we ban it afterwards (it should be banned regardless but that is for another day). We banned Aegislash to let Pokemon like Starmie or Jirachi become more useful and this was a mistake and is still a mistake. I don't go around and scream "ban Talonflame it makes the life of my Pinsir harder". The same goes for Aegislash.

If Thundurus would really become broken thanks to reintroducing Aegislash we ban it afterwards. Focusing on other potentially broken Pokemon is not a good way of looking at a suspect. Again, you should not underestimate Talonflame's influence on the metagame because it is possibly the biggest reason why Lopunny is not broken right now.

You are missing the point of the anti-ban side. The support Aegislash offers is NOT DIFFERENT than the support of other Pokemon that we already use. Charizard Y, Keldeo and Lopunny are already having Pursuit-partner to deal with psychic-types and Lati@s. You also overestimate Aegislash's ability to "check half of the meta". In comparison: Hippowdon can check Bisharp, Talonflame and Charizard X individually, but against all 3 of them it goes down (even with its recovery!). Aegislash is in a much worse spot, as it is maybe able to deal with the Gardevoir on the oppoising side, but after taking the hits Serperior will just break through it since it couldn't recover. Stop treating it like Arceus 2.0, the Aegislash-user is not the only one you can play correctly. Prediction goes both ways.

Comparing Greninja to Aegislash is invalid since all of Greninja's sets were basically the same besides some moves. Aegislash uses different items and EV-spreads on top of that which makes it easy to scout. Sub-Toxic is WAY overhyped, since it relies on Wish-support to do its job constantly and can be exploited rather easy. Nobody argues that Aegislash isn't broken because it cannot run all sets at once. The point many people are missing is that every set is not difficult to scout and some of them need alot of team-support to actually function. You can not slap SubToxic on it and call it a day, it was mostly used on stall-teams only, since they have easy access to Wish.


After a bit more thinking about it, I kind of changed my mind in regards of banning King's Shield.
King's Shield doesn't involve luck, but it is argubly still an uncompetitive move due to the fact that it can stop sweeps it isn't supposed to stop. It is really amazing (and ridiculous), that a Ghost-type can stop the sweep of a Mega-Sharpedo just by protecting itself. Just imagine a Gliscor who can half the attack of Azumarill while protecting itself from damage. However, without an actual ladder in which we can test the absence of this move everything would be based on theorymon and this can't lead to a satisfying conclusion. I hope that Haunter will include a ladder or an own suspect test for King's Shield.

Edit: Magnet Rise isn't that great either since you give up important coverage or priority which is a very high opportunity cost. In addition, you have to predict the switch correctly because Aegislash is slow and doesn't have Prankster like Klefki who can actually use this move effectively. If you really want ground-immunity, use Air Ballon, it is way safer and doesn't cost you a turn.

 

[Imperator Romanum]

Damn, can we move on with the making other pokemon unviable argument; here are so facts.

Aegislash will make certain pokemon less viable

Aegislash will increase usage of certain pokemon

Aegislash is a mere check to most of these pokemon, they can't outright kill it but they can either damage it or cripple it

--

Pokemon in OU are all so diverse, that's what makes them so good. They all(most) have ways to go around their counters, for example;

Gardevoir has access to Will o wisp and shadow ball, both are via le ways to deal with aegislash.

Celebi has access to Thunder wave, Earth power or Baton pass all of which are viable ways to cripple or damage aegislash.

Starmie has access to Analytic Lo boosted Hydro pumps, which will be dealing good damage.

Jirachi has the most ways to cripple Aegislash, it has access to: trick, u-turn, fire punch and thunder wave. Aegislash doesn't want to come in on any of these attacks and they're all viable.

Let's move on from these atleast for the moment, rather focus on its gamebreaking stats, unpredictability and 50/50s it will probably strengthen your argument more.

 

[Gloom]

Damn, can we move on with the making other pokemon unviable argument; here are so facts.

Aegislash will make certain pokemon less viable

Aegislash will increase usage of certain pokemon

Aegislash is a mere check to most of these pokemon, they can't outright kill it but they can either damage it or cripple it

--

Pokemon in OU are all so diverse, that's what makes them so good. They all(most) have ways to go around their counters, for example;

Gardevoir has access to Will o wisp and shadow ball, both are via le ways to deal with aegislash.

Celebi has access to Thunder wave, Earth power or Baton pass all of which are viable ways to cripple or damage aegislash.

Starmie has access to Analytic Lo boosted Hydro pumps, which will be dealing good damage.

Jirachi has the most ways to cripple Aegislash, it has access to: trick, u-turn, fire punch and thunder wave. Aegislash doesn't want to come in on any of these attacks and they're all viable.

Let's move on from these atleast for the moment, rather focus on its gamebreaking stats, unpredictability and 50/50s it will probably strengthen your argument more.

shadow ball would still maim gardevoir if aegi gets wisped, also aegislash seems slower than starmie in any way to me so idk how analytic would be useful there. and if it's faster then that just means your starmie dies. and why can't aegislash come in on a u-turn or firepunch from jirachi? maybe i'm totally wrong but? all of these mons in some way or another aren't safe 1v1. i'm not saying they can't do anything against it but it seems a bit of a stretch to me. also, i feel like the 50/50 is a bit of an iffy argument. there's more of those in the metagame already and it's a 50/50 for both sides.

 

[Yveltal99]

shadow ball would still maim gardevoir if aegi gets wisped, also aegislash seems slower than starmie in any way to me so idk how analytic would be useful there. and if it's faster then that just means your starmie dies. and why can't aegislash come in on a u-turn or firepunch from jirachi? maybe i'm totally wrong but? all of these mons in some way or another aren't safe 1v1. i'm not saying they can't do anything against it but it seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Maybe hit Aegislash on the switch-in (since Analytic activates on switch ins)? Other than that though, I agree with mostly everything you said. All these would be predicted switch-ins (like WoW Gard on Aegislash). If it were to be 1v1, Aegislash beats all mentioned. If it were a predicted switch-in, then these would win some damage/cripple it.

 

[AM]

Just like Volcarona Charizard X and Thundurus suffer from more than just being in a metagame without Aegislash.
Charizard X lost one of it's best sets thanks to Sableye, Gyarados got Crunch which turned it into an even more fearsome dragondancer, the introducing of Mega-Altaria and Slowbro and the rise of Hippowdon are all a hindrance for it. Besides Slowbro, Aegislash can't deal with any of these, so how exactly does it improve Charizard X? It was way better in XY than it is now since there were less megas and less Pokemon who resisted it's STAB-combination. I highly doubt that it will get broken, it wasn't even overpowered during the Aegi-meta.
Thundurus's perfomence is linked to the metagame it is in. It prefers a fast one thanks to Prankster-Thunderwave and since bulky-offense is the standard right now it suffers a bit. Not only do I doubt that Aegislash would lead to a fast metagame, I don't agree with banning Pokemon to keep others in the tier. I'll quote myself here:

You're exaggerating the loss of one of Char-X's best sets when anybody who plays OU or understand the meta will tell you that the usage of M-Sableye has dropped significantly and that this set you're talking about, the Will-O-Wisp variant, is still perfectly legitimate. You're sort of missing the point that Aegislash created this offensive frenzy that amplified the effects of some of the top tier threats in the meta, which it's doing right now btw and Hippowdon benefits itself from a more balanced tier, the bulky offense you're speaking of. Thundurus and the majority of offensive power houses were enormous threats because of Aegislash and its pivoting abilities in the tier for these Hyper Offensive builds that lacked reliable switch ins. So yeh Thundurus gets better in the way Aegislash dictates the meta-game because Aegislash will create a faster meta-game where it has enough support traits to benefit so much more than you would think and you're sort of under selling it a this point.

If Thundurus would really become broken thanks to reintroducing Aegislash we ban it afterwards. Focusing on other potentially broken Pokemon is not a good way of looking at a suspect. Again, you should not underestimate Talonflame's influence on the metagame because it is possibly the biggest reason why Lopunny is not broken right now.

So why are we going to reintroduce an element that makes stuff even more broken that realistically aren't? Isn't that sort of hypocritical to the whole premise of banning as little as possible to create a stable metagame? No focusing on its impact in amplifying threats that most of the community know aren't ban worthy in the first place is pretty important. We ban to create a healthier meta-game not go backwards and try to fix something in the completely wrong way. Talonflames influence is in no way on the level of Aegislash when you take into account its typing, offensive and defensive capabilities, the legitimate answers to it, and all the effective variants involved. It's sort of silly people are assuming Talonflame creates the same amount of team-building constraint that Aegislash does to the point where it has me worried on the communities understanding of a meta.

You are missing the point of the anti-ban side. The support Aegislash offers is NOT DIFFERENT than the support of other Pokemon that we already use. Charizard Y, Keldeo and Lopunny are already having Pursuit-partner to deal with psychic-types and Lati@s. You also overestimate Aegislash's ability to "check half of the meta". In comparison: Hippowdon can check Bisharp, Talonflame and Charizard X individually, but against all 3 of them it goes down (even with its recovery!). Aegislash is in a much worse spot, as it is maybe able to deal with the Gardevoir on the oppoising side, but after taking the hits Serperior will just break through it since it couldn't recover. Stop treating it like Arceus 2.0, the Aegislash-user is not the only one you can play correctly. Prediction goes both ways.

These pursuit trappers don't come with a ton of variants and need to pick their poison more wisely due to their linearity while Aegislash has much more potential due to its mixed offensive and defensive traits, more much easily spammable STAB move in Shadow Ball. You're putting too much focus on Aegislash's pursuit capabilities and using that as the justification that this support is equal to that of Tyranitar while not taking into account the entirety of what offensive and defensive support it can provide. Serperior isn't exactly an Aegislash answer and Idk how it's a relevant point when it still doesn't change the fact it's pressuring so much starting from team-builder in the way it creates this warped team-building that unfortunately is hard to tell on such a terrible ladder with people spamming shitty ladder teams that unfortunately gives so little understanding.

Comparing Greninja to Aegislash is invalid since all of Greninja's sets were basically the same besides some moves. Aegislash uses different items and EV-spreads on top of that which makes it easy to scout. Sub-Toxic is WAY overhyped, since it relies on Wish-support to do its job constantly and can be exploited rather easy. Nobody argues that Aegislash isn't broken because it cannot run all sets at once. The point many people are missing is that every set is not difficult to scout and some of them need alot of team-support to actually function. You can not slap SubToxic on it and call it a day, it was mostly used on stall-teams only, since they have easy access to Wish.

Scouting an Aegislash set is waaaaay harder than you're actually making it out to be. You have to dance around the fact it has the capabilities for various lures to punish would be checks and counters just by being an offensive threat. Subtoxic can realistically be slapped on a defensive backbone and can be called a day lol. You just incorporated something that will provide a pivoting tool, a defensive spinblocker, enhancing your hazards and giving you one of the most consistent spinblockers in the tier with the option of mega and other partners still left.

I think the whole idea that if Aegislash comes back and we find more broken stuff that we'll ban it is really just silly when these aren't even all broken or overbearing without Aegislash in the tier. So now it's a bit ironic people who want Aegislash in the tier to balance the tier out yet just create broken elements that wouldn't even all be broken if it's not here in the first place.