Metagame np: Stage 5 - Eruption (Cameruptite and Typhlosion Banned)

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Sae

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I know I nitpicked your reasoning, but I do not understand this logic. It would only make sense is if mega-rupt was broken because typhlosion existed and vice-versa, why would you not ban both of them? Both of them can leave the tier if they are too powerful for the meta and if there are no clear stops to them if that's what you are saying. But banning 1 of them(camerupt) based on predicting that the other one (typhlosion) will be easier to check due to the other one leaving ignores the fact of how strong typhlosion was to begin with. If they are both banworthy right now, then they are both banworthy. If the tier feels like they can be reintroduced, that will most likely happen.
Yeah that was misworded on my part so I can see the nitpicking, but I digress because my main point still is that the removal of Mega Camerupt will show the checks that Typhlosion actually has won't be a liability to the team without the threat of eating an Earth Power namely stuff like Seismitoad, Ninetales, and Lanturn among other things.
 
These are my thoughts after this suspect, hoping that is not too late n_n

Typhlosion: beside its weakness to hazards and average speed it has great offensive capabilities when equipped with Choice Specs, being able to KO most mons in the tier with few hits; I think that Typhlosion is banworthy because most of his checks aren't actually reliable at countering it: they all take big damages from specs Eruption/Fire Blast (offensive mons that pretend to check Typhl, like Archeops or Samurott are 2hko by Specs Eruption, while most of the defensive mons like AVYama, Mantine or Lanturn can't take more than 3/4 hits and they lack of recovery moves, making difficult to them to repeatedly switch into Typhl attacks). In addition to that Typhl has great coverage and he can overcome its checks with some lure moves, like EQ for other fire types and Lanturn, HP grass for Seismistoad or WoW for Hariyama and so on.

Cameruptite: I found that Mega Camerupt is a very good mon in the current metagame, it has a quite good bulkyiness that compensates its poor speed, it also have some cool support moves like Stealth Rock and Will-O-Wisp; the problem with Mega Camel is similar to Typhlosion one: there aren't so many mons that can enter on its attacks and your only way to handle it its to predict the right move and let your Water mon/Check enter the battlefield to force it out. Mega Camerupt is even better than Typhlosion actually, it has better coverage (double STAB and Sheer Force help it to use a mixed set, empowering Rock Slide), and better bulkyness and type that let it to have more occasions than Typhl to enter the battlefield without taking too much damage (it checks a lot of mons in the tier, like Kling-Klang, Rotom, Vileplume and so on, also its ground type grants it neutral damage from SR) and still let him easily sets Stealth Rock thanks to all the switches that it can provoke. I think that it is definitely banworthy.
 
The vote is now over. Both Cameruptite and Typhlosion will be banned from NU. You can see the results here

Reasonings:

Typhlosion has been banned from NU due to the significant strain it puts on teambuilding, as the majority of its checks have no recovery and are weak to its coverage options. This strain, along with the sheer wallbreaking prowess Typhlosion possesses, and the decent utility of the Charcoal + Will-O-Wisp set, has caused it to be banned from NU.


As one of the two remaining megas in NU, Mega Camerupt is a huge threat just by existing. But Mega Camerupts Sheer Force boosted Fire Blasts and Earth Powers are simply to hard to switch into. This, combined with Mega Camerupts great bulk, solid defensive typing, and excellent utility options have led voters to believe that Mega Camerupt is broken in NU.


If you want more in depth reasonings for the bans on these Pokemon, feel free to read many of the excellent posts in this thread.

Do not complain about the bans in this thread, instead use it to discuss the new metagame.
 
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I think the fact that Typhlosion was so close is very interesting. It was an enjoyable suspect test, especially for someone like me who only participates in NU intermittently. Frankly, I consider it one of the more difficult tiers I've played - though I bet a lot of you would likely laugh at that haha. Something about the speed tiers really mess me up because a lot are so low.

That said, it's going to be cool to see a meta without either of them. The team I scummed from the building workshop to get reqs luckily had a win condition to make both not much of an issue for me, but I did have to specifically sacrifice or plan around both Mega Camerupt and Typhlosion to get to the situation I wanted (in this case, Rock Polish Torterra was the trick). Not having to account for titanic fire attacks is going to be fun, and frankly though I didn't think either was necessarily broken (full disclosure, voted no ban on both) I do think the meta will be perhaps more fun without them.
 

Tricking

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World Defender
Say hello to the best Fire-Type in the tier after the recent bans...



Magmortar @ Life Orb / Expert belt
Ability: Vital Spirit
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest/Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Psychic / Will-O-Wisp
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Thunderbolt

This will be the best Fire-Type and probably the newest introduction in the tier. It is a powerful wallbreaker and it can get rid of Lilligant thanks to its Ability which maybe will be forced to run Hidden Power [Ground] to set up on it.
Grass-Types, Mesprit, Uxie, Articuno, Cryogonal, Ninetales will be some of the most-interesting Pokemon that will increase their usage in the tier. I'm sure this'll be a fun Metagame and I'm looking forward to try this.
 
I'm extremely surprised that Typhlosion was so close. Specs Eruption is just so obviously overpowered in NU... hell, it'd probably be pretty OP in most tiers with the right Pokemon behind it.
 
I'm not totally convinced that Typhlosion and Camperuptite were strictly broken, but they did make the metagame so cookie-cutter that I stopped playing NU. I might hop back in now.
 
It will be interesting to see what teams people will come up with now that these two splashable Fire-types are gone... Possibly SpikeStack now that it's safer because you don't risk giving your opponent a free Specs Eruption and what not. Also Mantine and Pelipper usage will naturally drop, which is two less Defoggers to worry about. Magmortar is definitely going to take the place of Typhlosion and to a lesser extent, Pyroar. But the first seems really hard to counter, might get suspected at some point as well. Either you have a really fast team or stall or else it's going to do a lot of damage with its raw power and even better coverage than Typhlosion.

But yeah, we'll be seeing a lot of spikestack and Fighting/Psychic/Dark teams I think. Sawk and Mesprit both disliked Typhlosion because it outsped them, now that's no longer an issue. Worth noting that Jolly Sawk outspeeds Timid Magmortar, although it's usually Adamant CB. We might be seeing some different Sawk sets like Expert Belt or just Scarfed.

Mega Audino is going to be troublesome but not unstoppable. CM Xatu is very splashable and hard counters it, there's also Garbodor and Klinklang. But yeah every team is going to need to bring a dedicated counter if they don't want to get swept by Crodino which might become centralizing but we'll see.
 
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Just gonna say that while I was quite torn on Typh, I think that NU will be less stale and have more versatility in teams (honestly it felt quite one-dimensional in terms of team variety...). I'm really looking forward to this meta and it should be quite fun to play. Just a few quick thoughts:

  • Mantine might not be used solely as a Firespam check now that Pyroar and Magmortar (which while devastating in their own right don't bring that immediate pressure) are really the only threatening Fire-types; a physically defensive set w/ Bold might become better maybe?
  • Yama takes a HUGE hit from not having the two things it /checked/ gone.
  • Vileplume seems to be better (and more annoying >:/) with the meta being less Fire-saturated. Klinklang rlly likes having Megarupt gone. In general I expect to see the "at least 2 fire resists on 90% of teams" building process to severely reduce.
  • Lilligant loves not having the threat of a scarf typh, Xatu likes having an SRer that easily beat it out of the tier.
 
In my opinion, it was pretty obvious that Mega Rupt was going to be banned. I did not think Typh would be banned, but since it is, there's a few new fire types in the house:

Magmortar's amazing special attack and movepool gives way to a threat that anyone can use. Scarf boosts it's speed, or Life Orb to just pack damage. Oh, you like Mantine? Nope, Thunderbolt. Regirock? Nope, Focus Blast. Magmortar will check many common threats and will possibly be an NU staple. Pyroar would also help too with Hyper Voice and Fire Blast. Specs also deals damage. Life Orb also packs damage. Like Magmortar, this is a case of coverage that anyone can use.
 
Heck yeah, this is the part where Magmortar breaks through with crazy good coverage
Yama can go hibernate with its fat legs for a while
Mawile is as happy as the kawaii dancing one
Klinklang is gonna shift it's way up the ranks boi
Oh and mantine prolly get less use, but maybe not. Still a good SpD wall with defog and haze

Oh and the Agility EmolgaPass to Camerupt can go to hell, that was stupid
We still have Emolgapass to Eggy tho >.>
 
What IS a good defensive answer to Magmortar? Seems like it has the right move to hit pretty much anything. And figuring out its set will probably come with some significant bruising thanks to that high SpA.
 
Vibrava is about the best stop to it in the tier (Regirock gets a cool mention). But the thing about it is that it's meant to break walls. So you don't beat it by using walls, you beat it by running offensive mons that abuse it's low speed tier and kill it/ force it out. It's very effective at its job
 
What IS a good defensive answer to Magmortar? Seems like it has the right move to hit pretty much anything. And figuring out its set will probably come with some significant bruising thanks to that high SpA.
Nothing lol.

Non thick fat Hariyama takes huge chunk from Fire Blast, thick fat hates willo-wisp, Lanturn hates Earthquake, Zweilous hates Focus blast, water types hate Thunderbolt, opposing AV magmortar hate die to Earthquake because they run less speed. With appropriate move it can dismantle stall. Thankfully it is slow and can't run all of those moves.
 

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To be honest, the two main fires leaving do open the door for Magmortar and Pyroar, to a lesser extent, to see increased usage and viability as they are no longer outclassed or seeing significant competition in fulfilling roles and specific niches on teams. While Magmortar will never be able to hit as hard as Specs Typhlosion, it is able to abuse high special attack in conjunction with strong fire STAB and coverage (which it has more of than Typh, to compensate for the inability to spam fire STAB due to less speed and strength than something like Specs Eruption Typhlosion). Thunderbolt, Focus Blast, HP Grass, Psychic, even Earthquake, and of course Fire Blast are all at the disposal of Magmortar which allows it to use AV or even LO, EBelt, etc. to take advantage of its coverage. Unlike Typhlosion, it's not the best option for a choice scarf or specs user (both are viable, but borderline mediocre, imo) as it is so much better when it can Thunderbolt a Mantine, HP Grass a Seismitoad, or Focus Blast a Regirock without having to make a risky prediction and lock-in to that move. Overall, it really has specially offensive capabilities that are arguably unparalleled in the tier and now it's untapped potential is being exposed at full force.

At this point you may be thinking, "damn, Magmortar must be even harder to deal with Typh. Should this get suspected now?" to which my answer would certainly be no.

Magmortar has 83 speed, compared to Typhlosion's 100 speed, which is lackluster in this metagame considering all offensive teams should at least have 2-3 quicker pokemon while all defensive teams should have 1-2 quicker pokemon (running full stall without a scarfer or at least a fast pokemon is never optimal in this day and age). It is prone to being "played around" which may be a generally weak argument as prediction is a two-way street and Magmortar doesn't lock into a move often as referenced above, but when there are so many things quicker and it has a hard time getting in healthily in the first place, Magmortar's window to offensively threaten fast teams is small. Likewise, it is still prone to being checked by the somewhat less common, but still noteworthy AV Hariyama (Psychic doesn't 2HKO iirc and it doesn't always run Psychic, either) and a few other pokemon, too.

The lack of speed wouldn't he as crippling an issue if it had above average bulk to compensate, like Mega Camerupt, but it has 75/67/95 bulk, which is pitiful on the physical side and a bit above average on the special side, especially with an AV equipped. The problem is that when a pokemon is SR weak in a tier with a lack of convenient hazard removal in comparison to most other metagames (Prinplup is ok, but not the best thing to throw into a team, Claydol is decent and it can run some helpful coverage, but it's no godsend, Mantine is not too hot currently, Pelipper is nice with U-turn and physical bulk, but otherwise underwhelming, etc.), it already has survivability issues. With the vulnerability to physical attacks that Magmortar has, it is even worse.

Generally speaking, for a pokemon to be 'too good' for a tier offensively, it has to have either insane uncounterable offensive capabilities (see: Genesect in OU) or near top-tier offensive capabilities in conjunction with either good speed or bulk, which Magmortar has neither of and it certainly isn't potent enough to fit the former characterization of being uncounterable, either.

With this said, I think the recent suspect fixed the fire "problem" that the tier had and remedied the restriction offensive fires had on team building in the past metagame. I don't think that NU has reached a balance yet, but it is improved from the past meta which is better than MegaLix + Helio meta, so we're working in the right direction for sure (although I'm not too sure if anything else is banworthy or suspect-worthy currently). Hopefully the next tier change won't deprive the tier of anything vital and won't give us anything unreasonable.
 
I should be honest, when I read suspect thread I realized that many players were for banning them. Also, I see Typhlosion was so close, I thought the contrary because I think Mega Camerupt was easier to deal.

To be honest, the two main fires leaving do open the door for Magmortar and Pyroar
[...]
I think Typ and Mega Camerupt leaving open the door for Lillegant (above all) and Samurott. They could become really crushing. Their boosting have two less enemies.
 
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Orphic

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Ok so here's my thoughts following the bans of Typhlosion and Mega-Camerupt. I've decided I'll move on from the obvious "Pyroar and Magmortar usage will rise" and "omg watch out for Klinklang". Let's consider the rise in usage for Lilligant and Vivillon, Cradily checks both but is somewhat passive especially in checking lilligant so here's my answer:



Bouffalant @ Leftovers
Ability: Sap Sipper
Happiness: 0
EVs: 156 HP / 252 Atk / 100 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Frustration
- Earthquake

Bouffalant is blessed with a fantastic ability in Sap Sipper which allows it to counter Lilligant as it absorbs Sleep Powder and Giga Drain as well as absorb Sleep Powder from Vivillon as well, not only this but it's Sap Sipper gives it the +1 boost a Choice Band would give it on top of it's already huge 350 Atk. Additionally, Bouffalant has a very respectable natural bulk of 95/95/95 which means Lilligant even with a +1 or +2 Hidden Power Fire cannot touch Bouffalant, and the same goes for Vivillon again. The 100 Speed EV's are to outspeed Lanturn, to avoid Scald burns and OHKO with an Earthquake.
Other important calcs:
252+ SpA Life Orb Magmortar Fire Blast vs. 156 HP / 0 SpD Bouffalant: 261-308 (70.5 - 83.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (Life Orb, which isn't even the most common set).
252+ Atk Bouffalant Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Magmortar: 328-388 (112.7 - 133.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

So Bouffalant beats Magmortar one on one, which could prove to be very important in the upcoming metagame.

252+ Atk Klinklang Gear Grind (2 hits) vs. 156 HP / 0 Def Bouffalant: 156-186 (42.1 - 50.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Bouffalant Earthquake vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Klinklang: 190-224 (66.9 - 78.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Bouffalant also beats Klinklang one on one, even if it decides to shift gear, Bouffalant 2HKOs.

Anyway, let's see some Bouffalant damage on the ladder~
 
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Well it's worth noting that even if Bouffalant beats Magmortar 1 vs 1, it gets maimed in the process. LO Focus Blast is an OHKO after SR as well, guaranteed at full with Modest.

If Klinklang crits on even one of those 4 Gear Grind hits Bouffalant is also down for the count.

That said Bouffalant is really good. I believe SubSD is by far the best set as it takes advantage of switches and its solid bulk. Considering you come in freely on stuff like Lilligant getting a free Sub isn't hard at all. Not the best Vivillon switchin though. Then again, good switchins to that thing are rare. I've seen nothing but Sash Vivillon, and I'd argue it's the most viable set too. Let's say you bring in Bouffalant on the Quiver Dance. Hurricane 2HKO's easily, and confusion hax is enough for a GG because then you can't even break the Sash and it has a QD boost. Vivillon is often in the lead spot as well so keeping that Sash is not even hard. But I suppose Bouffalants immunity to Sleep Powder and ability to tank a +1 Hurricane are nice to have in a pinch.
 

marilli

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What is really notable about that damage calc is that Klinklang Gear Grind fails to break Bouffalant's Substitute without a boost. Focus Blast Magmortar OHKOs Bouff after SR according to ur calcs then x4/3'ing the damage, so that's less relevant. It's rather hard to OHKO Bouff with anything other than a Fighting-type move, though, so it's always a great Pokemon that can always chip in damage, and even if it doesn't outright sweep or kill, allow you to play long-term by always getting damage on something. Bouff allows offense to have a last line of defense vs. a threatening offensive presence by not getting OHKOed. And against bulky teams, it destroys.
 
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