np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 5 - Run The Jewels

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gamer boy STAGs scope of what it is able to trap and the users of it is a higher extreme than the implication that all trapping falls under the same spectrum as STAG, hint, they don't.
This is true, but everyone knows its job by now. It goal is to trickscarf a stall or set up poke, unless it can't because its a mega, then they click T-wave and drop its speed for something else to outspeed or psychic to chip or KO. Again going back to the Magnazone argument stating we have to run shed shell on our Steels, why should you not have to use shed shell on your set up sweepers.
 
Subject 18 Edit: removed the portions that were just straight up dumb and lacked substance.

On the other hand Gothitelle can fuck off, since it removes one fundamental aspect of competitive Pokemon, switching, AND is able to set up and shit on a ton of walls and possibly 6-0ing the opposing team or leaving it wide open. Unlike Wobbuffet, which has a lot of problems (no movepool, really), Gothitelle is aids to the metagame. It should be banned.
 
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As a Wobb user, I would say that it is far from broken. People don't seem to realize that it fits best on HO, due to its ability to trap and remove things for your win condition; however, its use is relatively limited. For starters, it cannot wreck stall and balance to the same degree as Gothitelle and it has no hope of switching in if you want it to effectively do its job of trapping and defeating checks and counters. It also has no means of killing passive Pokemon, as it can only realistically encore them into a status move for something else to setup on. It also lacks reliable recovery and it must take damage to KO opposing Pokemon. It does; however, have custap + destiny bond.
As implied in your post, wobbuffet is actually quite poor at outright removing things. Even if wobb removes something, he will immediately forfeit all momentum just because Wobb is super easy to check (just can't really be countered due to STag). The strongest move with Wobb is often times doesn't involve killing your opponent at all, but instead locking your opponent into an easy move to swap into (e.g., lock your opponent into toxic and then send in SD Bisharp to get a free swap AND a free SD / Knock Off). Giving your setup sweeper a free swap in and setup turn can outright win the game even more often then trying to play the countercoat game with your opponent (which, as you say, is unreliable af).
 
I get what you said, but the point of this is to say isn't SR to hindering for a lot of stuff to stall? ... Whats the point of allowing SR all the time when it just worsens match up even more?
This isn't just you but a lot of posts in general that I'm somewhat confused about... What on earth makes you think a good stall team is just going to allow those hazards to stay on field all the time? On the other spectrum of MSable stall you do have Goth stall, which does not utilize MSable -- which I am sure you can easily find examples on the RMT that have topped the ladder. Even prior to this we do have XY metagame etc... The hazard game is a lot more interactive than you're giving credit, or should be more interactive than it usually is right now. For one, setting hazards means free recovery or you can set your own, or proceed to bring in defogger/spinner... etc you're not bereft of options.

Regardless, there seems to be an misconception that without MSable the hazard game is immediately lost by stall, which honestly isn't the case. Or have people forgotten about defog and rapid spin, not as optimal as magic bounce but it's not like you can't succeed with it.

Another thing is what makes you think other play styles aren't as bothered by hazards as well? Volt-turn offense, which is fairly popular, absolutely despises SR as it is easily worn out. Offensive teams are more prone to carry a mon 50% weak to SR, or at least 25%, so it is not as if they'd appreciate hazards any more than stall -- especially when their mons lack recovery.

Edit: I am trying to keep an open mind regarding MSab but... I don't think the whole equation is as one sided with regard to hazards.
 
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toshimelonhead

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Sableye (M) @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Dark Pulse
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover

Gothitelle (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 128 HP / 128 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Psychic
- Thunder Wave
- Rest

Skarmory (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Whirlwind
- Defog
- Roost

Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Seismic Toss
- Heal Bell
- Soft-Boiled

Quagsire (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Recover

Amoonguss (M) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 192 Def / 68 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Clear Smog
- Sludge Bomb
- Spore


"If you run goth sable stall on the ladder you are literal scum. i don't care how desperate you are for points. you are scum." - PokeaimMD

Let's get to the issue of what this test is really about. In the OLT, people were using ABR's team both in the knockout stages and on the ladder. People recognized it immediately, knew every single moveset...and couldn't do a darn thing to stop it. When a team becomes so dominant that even the best users cannot defeat it without a niche solution, we go to a suspect test. The same thing happened when dEnIsSsS took his BP teams and trolled the ladder for six months. In this case, we are not Suspect testing just Mega-Sableye or Shadow Tag. We are suspecting that team and determining whether it should be valid in OU, and if the team is invalid, what part of the team makes it impossible to beat.

Balance teams almost never have a good matchup against stall in any metagame. They only have a couple of realistic ways to beat it. One way is to have a dedicated setup sweeper that can break through stall. Another way is to win the hazard game and put the opponent in range so that their walls cannot recover or remove their hazards. Unlike many of the Venusaur full stall teams in XY that topped the ladder, ABR’s team can stop both setup sweepers with Scarf Gothitelle and prevent entry hazards with Mega Sableye. Like Baton Pass, it is possible to build a counter team with a stall breaker such as Shed Shell Togekiss and break through, although Togekiss is such a niche pokemon in OU and is not very useful when playing against other playstyles.

When building new ORAS OU teams pre- Suspect, the first thing I would do is take that team, analyze the exact roles I need on my team to beat that team (e.g. have a Dark- type with Pursuit, have a mon with Knock Off, etc.) and then start going through the Viability Ranking thread to make sure I have all of the main threats covered. The same mentality existed in the Baton Pass era: first make sure you aren’t embarrassed by someone running the team, and then build the rest of your team around your Baton Pass beaters. It is possible to build a good offensive team that can handle stall. It is also possible to lose turn 1 with an offensive team against stall that is not prepared to break certain walls.

Here is the one major difference between stall and Baton Pass. It takes a ton of mental energy to play a Stall team in a high stakes match. Frankly, even though it is mentally exhausting, I love playing against stall because of how much it makes you think in battle. Things such as good hazard management, setting up win conditions, hiding coverage moves, smart double switching, and good prediction skills matter much more because if you do not have these skills, you aren’t going to beat any type of stall. You might beat a balance or offense team with a few misplays, but one mistake against a stall team and you lose. It also takes a lot of effort to play with stall because it is not a very efficient way to ladder, and although stall does have some margin of error, if you let Chansey or Skarm faint your team is suddenly much less formidable. The best players in any metagame are the ones that can break stall with a balanced team.

Notice that I did not say Sableye / Goth Stall. Sableye makes hazard laying much harder simply because most of the Stealth Rock users do not like getting burned or are setup fodder for Sableye. Gothitelle makes setting up boosts much harder because once it gets a free switch, it can lock you into a move, whittle your HP down, Trick the scarf back, and kill you. Good luck setting up on that, let alone breaking through Unaware Quagsire and Clefable or whatever else stall has for walls.

So which is worse, Sableye or Gothitelle? Both on their own are not as viable by themselves. OU has more than enough firepower to break through 50 HP / 125 Def / 115 SDef. And while Prankster and Magic Bounce are great abilities, Sableye only has the chance to abuse both when it Mega evolves. Goth can function on balance teams, but it does not have the defensive sets to check anything nor the offensive firepower to get some key OHKOs. It’s only B+ on the viability ranking thread for a reason. Sableye is the better pokemon on paper, but Gothitelle is slightly more versatile as it can function as a designated stallbreaker for offensive teams. Together, they extremely limit the number of options balance and offensive teams have for beating stall. They can’t control the hazard game outside of a handful of niche pokemon that have better sets and inhibit bulkier stall breakers from setting up or preventing recovery. For the record I have not made my mind whether to ban either at this point. (To me, banning Shadow Tag means implicitly banning Goth because it's useless in OU without Shadow Tag.)

Stall has a place in the current metagame, and can adapt with losing either. I just question whether offense and balance teams have enough tools to break stall and whether players can create enough new options that can beat stall.
 
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IMO, Shadow Tag shouldn't be banned.

There is enough Checks and Counters in the OU tier to deal with Pokemon like Gothitelle.
Problem with STag is the fact that the moment the STagger faces you, you lose a Pokemon or have it crippled for the remainder of the match. Goth couldn't care less about what happens after that as it has already done its job. Only way to prevent that is if you Pursuit Trap it and even then it involves winning a 50/50 where the risk/reward is skewed in the favour of the STag user.
 
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Gothitelle (or STag, whatevs) needs to be banned before we do anything about Sableye. Even without Sableye, Gothi can be a complete pain in the ass for all sorts of balance/bulky/offense teams. The most notable pokemon it can remove are:

Heatran
Clefable
M-Venusaur
Ferrothorn

Of course there are other walls it can trap, but the most important point I can contribute is that even without Sableye, Gothitelle can gurantee a trap on one of these pokes and then proceed to allow teammates to win the battle. Even outside of stall, teams can be engineered to have a weakness to Heatran, Ferrothorn, or Clefable while covering everything else extremely well and then immediately patch that hole with other attackers. For instance, Talonflame, Skarmory, Clefable and M-Scizor all hate Heatran, but with Gothitelle around it's as simple as trapping the Heatran, fogging the rocks for Talonflame, maybe setting up some spikes, and then proceeding to get one of your other win conditions set up. While you don't usually see that kind of team using Gothi, it's not just cancerous because "lol stall is evil". It's cancerous because it lacks checks/counters in its own right and removes the element of skill from the matchup.

Going to echo another point re: hazards now,

Sableye's dominance of the hazard game is not banworthy. It's not hard to put together a mindless hazard-stacking team (DeoxysD/Bisharp was the pinnacle of this) and then beat ladder players and pat yourself on the back for being good. Strategies like Wisp/Toxic + Taunt also aren't really high-skill responses to stall either... Basically, how hazards and hazard teams fit into our metagame shouldn't be outside the realm of discussion. Hazard teams are unhealthy in the sense that there are very few spinners/defoggers in the tier, and the ones that do exist can either be eliminated early in the game by Pursuit users or being worn down to the point of fainting after performing their anti-hazard trick once.

There's no reason these teams should get a privilege over any other - just because a pokemon blocks a certain team archetype doesn't make it any more or less healthy for the metagame. I also don't think it's right to consider M-Sableye in the vacuum of stall - while that is the reason we're discussing it now, that's not its only purpose. Ironically, M-Sableye is also a great tool against stall, preventing status, hazards from the likes of Quagsire/Skarmory/Chansey and knocking Leftovers off of walls like it's no one's business. And, as everyone has realized by now - the main reason it's so effective is because of Gothitelle.

TL;DR - M-Sableye just isn't as dominant as its haters make it out to be, nor is its function inherently cancerous, while Gothitelle is uncompetitive and effective covers loads of M-Sableye's checks/counters. Without Gothitelle, M-Sableye would be far less of an instant win button for stall.
 
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Again going back to the Magnazone argument stating we have to run shed shell on our Steels, why should you not have to use shed shell on your set up sweepers.
I think it's different, as by running a shed shell on sweepers you're majorly inhibiting their offensive capabilities by making them run an inferior set. For the common OU steels, using a shed shell isn't a huge problem for them - Ferrothorn can still get passive recovery with Leech Seed and Skarmory can Roost, because of this they are not dependent on their items for function. Scizor can U-turn on offensive sets so they don't get trapped, and can again Roost on the utility sets and run a shed shell if they wanted (though again, they're likely to favour U-turn).

Saying that an entire tier should possibly run shed shell on a sweeper when they're going to miss out on crucial fire power (usually changing 2HKOs into OHKOs) is a very big ask, and to me at least is a different kettle of fish to about two possibly three OU steel pokemon running the same when it doesn't really harm them to do so in the first place (if it did, you would never see rocky helmet Skarmory or Ferrothorn, they would all be running leftovers because they needed the recovery).

And I know you're not saying that every sweeper should run a shed shell, but the fact that Gothitelle can make people do that is indicative of its influence and the extent to what it makes people over-compensate. That it has lead to some people with high ladder teams run a shed shell sweeper which makes them less able to handle other threats on the tier is a little crazy.
 

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Again going back to the Magnazone argument stating we have to run shed shell on our Steels, why should you not have to use shed shell on your set up sweepers.
Shadow Tag really cannot be compared to Magnet Pull, even though their purpose are the same. Jojobobo already replied to this above about how OU's Steel walls can still function well even without their passive recovery, but there's also the fact that if you see a Steel trapper on the opposing team, you know that your Steel Pokemon in particular are in danger of becoming trapped and can thus weigh your options accordingly. Gothitelle, on the other hand, can trap every single member of your team which isn't a ghost type, making it significantly more pressuring for you to make correct plays. One might be able to deduce which one of your Pokemon is of the biggest threat to their team and can thus expect Gothitelle to target it, but the fact remains that the Shadow Tagger puts immense pressure on the opponent with its existence alone, while the one with the trapper can play much more safely.

As another example, Dugtrio can trap many Pokemon with its Arena Trap, but unlike Magnezone and Gothitelle, you'd rarely see it switch directly in because of its horrendous bulk and not always being able to activate its sash when hazards are about, thus making it much more reliable on VoltTurners. And apart from Toxic, Dugtrio lacks any means of disabling their opponent, as it lacks paralyzing moves and Trick/Switcheroo, essentially forcing it to be an all out attacker (and even then it may not be strong enough). Gothitelle, however, not only can find plenty of opportunities to switch in directly thanks to its respectable bulk, but can also cripple its target with either Trick or Thunder Wave, which still allows it to perform its job even if it cannot faint its prey directly.

So yes, while trapping exists in other forms, none of them are as limiting as Shadow Tag, particularly so as its best users are able to find opportunities to directly switch in, but also because of how they can create momentum for the rest of their team even if they're unable to dispose of the threat directly.
 
...I'm just over here wondering why these two are being suspected at the same time lol. Suspect Goth/STag and then MSableye.

...But, if we HAVE to do this,

I'd be for a BAN THE COMBINATION OF THE SABLENITE AND SHADOW TAG ON THE SAME TEAM

Both sides have legitimate points. Without MSab, hazard stacking becomes WAY fucking easier and it becomes so much easier to beat balance and stall, so this is heavily biased in favor offense users, which is unfair for the meta as a whole, seeing as how that's ONE playstyle. And while I think Goth is absolutely stupid, there are legit reasons why it shouldn't be banned. Stall has very, VERY few answers to Manaphy or other extremely powerful set up sweepers that destroy Stall, and Gothitelle can stop some of these by tricking it and then PP stalling it. Yes, I know this is fucking obnoxious to face, but it's a reliable and legitimate strategy. The argument of it being competitive, however, is different. I do think Gothitelle is competitive as being an "Eye for an eye" type mon. It's almost guaranteed to get a kill on a set up sweeper, but after that, it's usefulness really dwindles and might as well be a sac from there on out. Wobbuffet does almost the same thing (But isn't NEARLY as cancer). I think something a lot of people forget is that Mega Sableye really only stops Stealth Rockers and Statusers... That's mostly it, as a lot of strong attackers on Offense can muscle past it. Hell, Offensive Lead Garchomp beats Sableye one on one with a Lum Berry (Which isn't even all that uncommon), so that's something to remember. Also note that Offensive Heatran variants can beat Mega Sableye, which is ANOTHER Stealth Rocker that can beat Sableye, so there are viable options to get up rocks against it that aren't niche or unviable. It's just something to help keep hazards off your side of the field. Mega Diancie does this for Offense as well, but I get the idea. Mega Sableye beats a lot of Stealth Rockers 1v1 and that apparently makes it unhealthy for the entire meta or something. I honestly think that neither of these two things are broken on their own, however together they're completely absurd and I do think the combination warrants a ban; Not one or the other. I still think we should suspect these separately but oh well. And for those saying a complex ban is impossible, complex bans HAVE happened, they ARE possible, and this wouldn't necessarily be a huge one at that. I mean what the fuck do I know, I'm not gonna take part because I don't care what the result is, but I want people to see every perspective on this issue before they make a decision.
 
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BAN THE COMBINATION OF THE SABLENITE AND SHADOW TAG ON THE SAME TEAM
...

So a couple of things I've seen.

We're not banning Sableye + Goth together as described here.
Not doing that. One, the other, none, or both. Those will be the options.
We're not banning the combination of M-Sab and Goth on the same team.

Stop suggesting that for the last time.
Ok people keep bringing this up so let me address it and hopefully we can move on, and to preface no we're not changing what's set in place in the current test now. This is going to address the like 4-5 comments I'm about to see above my post that we've already answered more or less but we're going to do again so you guys can hopefully get it.

We removed Sableye but kept the users of STAG to see if STAG still is considered a problem when M-Sabs presence is removed. Everyone keeps saying "they're broken together" "only one is broken, not the other" etc. etc. M-Sableye we considered, as Ultimario pointed out granted like his statement, was the catalyst / pandoras box to all of this that even made STAG relevant enough in ORAS and higher level play to begin addressing it. Funbot28 we're not splitting up the suspect process, I deleted your post the first time because that's not what is going to be happening yet you and others seem inclined to state it again as if this was going to change by saying it twice. This isn't really to sound rude but I think after 5+ statements by OU council guys as to why or why not stuff is being done we would like to think we're getting the point across which can be accepted or taken with a grain of salt. We wanted the suspect test to remove what we considered based on what we've seen to be the problematic element here, M-Sabs centralization. STAG is a much trickier concept to just throw off the table for the suspect test because what this thread is for is to debate on the element of Shadow Tag while the ladder can convey a non M-Sableye meta where theoretically STAG is still allowed.

You're given 4 choices if you achieve requisites for this test, we went ahead and chose one of those theoretical options to demonstrate the suspect test because much of the arguments for STAG not being an issue comes from a lack of understanding or practicality of it all, can tell by some of the posts I can see.

PDC's points still stand you may argue however you feel inclined to do so but be aware we've addressed this multiple times we are not going to be changing how this suspect test will proceed mid-way to appease all the theoretical in this thread. Had we banned both it would've been argued to ban one to see the effects of one and vice versa. We chose this option and we stuck with it, we realistically will not make everyone happy but we're at least providing a platform to address issues that have been argued in multiple PR threads and amongst a variety of its OU community.

That's really all I have to say for now.
gamer boy STAGs scope of what it is able to trap and the users of it is a higher extreme than the implication that all trapping falls under the same spectrum as STAG, hint, they don't. Pretty much every point you stated we acknowledged when deciding what to actually suspect. For the betterment of the meta we're reviewing STAG along with M-Sableye. There's been plenty of valid points but implying a complex ban isn't one of them.

This is, 4th + time I've addressed this? Yeah, mods can direct users to this and my previous comments when they refer to complex banning here whichever feels suitable to provide reasoning. I won't be responding to posts similar to gamer boys post about asking for complex bans or anything similar.

Ladder and get reqs, that's what matters here in the end.
So yeah in summary I think it's possible that a complex ban isn't going to happen.
 
I'm tired of people looking at STag as needing to be "broken". It's getting quite annoying how often that word gets thrown around. Everyone has this mindset that a Pokemon needs to sweep teams with little to no effort in order to be banned. Not every suspect needs to be Mega Salamence people. I've been advocating for this suspect for YEARS, and everyone always shoots it down because "it's not broken". Well, you're right, these Pokemon cannot 6-0 teams, so I can't argue that. However, it is as noncompetitive as you can possibly get in this game, aside from stupid hax. Removing all control from the opponent is fucking stupid, simple as that. When you remove a key aspect to the game, there is a VERY clear cut problem. Preventing the opponent from switching and getting guaranteed Kills or severely hampering the One Pokemon on the opponents team that threatens you to your liking, is stupid. It's not even remotely difficult to do either. We should be trying to make the game as competitive as humanly possible (which gets harder and harder to do each Generation). We are suspecting Shadow Tag as an ability, because Shadow Tag as an ability is noncompetitive in nature. If something is noncompetitive and removes all autonomy from the player, it is pretty obvious what should be done. Regardless of whether or not it's sweeping teams.
 
I don't post on forums most of the time, but after reading through this thread, it feels like Wobbuffet is getting lumped into a ban unfairly. A lot of people seem to be going "Ban STag" when they actually mean "Ban Gothitelle". I see lots of writeups about how Gothitelle is cancer and should be banned, but not really complaining about Wobbuffet.

Would it be possible to seperate the votes on banning Shadow Tag into two seperate votes, one for banning the Gothitelle line and one for banning the Wobbuffet line? I feel it's only fair, since these are two pokes that play out quite differently and are by no means the same. If people decide that it's Shadow Tag that's broken and not just the Gothitelle line then so be it - if the voting results call for both lines to be banned, then the end result will still be the same.
 
I don't post on forums most of the time, but after reading through this thread, it feels like Wobbuffet is getting lumped into a ban unfairly. A lot of people seem to be going "Ban STag" when they actually mean "Ban Gothitelle". I see lots of writeups about how Gothitelle is cancer and should be banned, but not really complaining about Wobbuffet.

Would it be possible to seperate the votes on banning Shadow Tag into two seperate votes, one for banning the Gothitelle line and one for banning the Wobbuffet line? I feel it's only fair, since these are two pokes that play out quite differently and are by no means the same. If people decide that it's Shadow Tag that's broken and not just the Gothitelle line then so be it - if the voting results call for both lines to be banned, then the end result will still be the same.
Did you read through the thread? You sure about that?

Regardless, we are suspecting the Ability. Not the Pokemon.
 
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AM Edit: Comment you replied to was deleted.

Now to focus on the problem here, stall, which almost always runs Sableye (standard), is suffering from it's own demise and that if your stall team doesn't have a shadow tag Gothitelle it's ultimately going to lose. What makes shadow tag so unique is that other shadow tag users can't be trap, along with ghost types making it centralizing for stall playstyle to run both Sableye and Gothitelle to have any success against opposing stall teams (they both ignore shadow tag). Magnezone and Dugtrio on the other hand are good trappers as well, but they are limited and that they trap other magnet pull/arena trap users. They aren't getting the usage they deserve because of Gothitelle.

I think it's fair to say shadow tag is the problem. I know Wobbuffet hadn't done anything wrong but it's with team rocket so it's evil anyways. Who knows what shadow tag user Game Freak will come up with for us to abuse. Ban shadow tag.
 
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I'm just going to address a few of the anti-ban posts for Sableye.
Yeah about sableye "fucking teambuilding". Who cares if it stops mindless centralizing shit like spikes stacking offense that resemble cancer deosharp?
Alright, well I can only assume that you are talking about Klefki, because that is the most common spike stacker used on very offensive teams. Klefki doesn't let you start off the game with 2 layers of hazards guaranteed in the same way that DeoD did, so in case it wasn't already obvious, one isn't nearly as effective as the other. In the event of spike stacking being broken, then one mega which only particularly bulky teams can make use of isn't exactly an effective way of keeping them in check. Provided that Sableye is uncompetitive, which is what I have been trying to prove, then spikes Klefki being broken if it is gone isn't a good argument for it to stay, because the sensible thing to do is to suspect both of them. Besides all that, if spikes offence was that effective, we'd see it dominating games which don't involve Sableye, and while it is an effective playstyle that will get more effective after the ban, it is nowhere near broken.

Who cares if it stops bullshit like Taunt+ Wisp or Toxic + recovery sets as a lazy blanket check against stall/semistall?
Ok, well my issue with accusing players of lazy teambuilding for using these pokemon is that I could equally accuse the stallplayer of lazy teambuilding for relying on Sableye to check all of these pokemon, so it doesn't really accomplish much. Pokemon such as Stone Edge Heatran can easily beat Talonflame and stop it from doing anything. Again, you're pointing at pokemon which won't be broken or shred stall in the way that you're making out if Sableye is banned, saying that they will be incredibly effective, then trying to use this to justify keeping Sableye. Stall has other ways of dealing with taunt + Toxic Gliscor, and Taunt + Wisp Talonflame, and I can really just quote your own post back to you in answer to this point.
If your team cant take wisps/status you deserve to lose
whilst being a team that can actually break stall by using lures, breakers etc? You know, by thinking and using skill like we had to do in the past before rocks even existed? If you have to solely rely on getting rocks up for your team to function, there is your problem, with teambuilding and your strat and not msable.
Most players do use breakers to combat stall, but saying that because rocks weren't around in the past it should be totally ok for them not to be up ever now ignores how the game has developed since then. We didn't have Unaware or Regenerator either, both of which are pretty effective tools stall has at its disposal to help them take heavy attacks, often the chip damage from hazards is needed to pressure down a check for a breaker, and it generally helps to increase the level of interaction between the stall player and the opposing player, rather than just switching around between different counters. Most players who want Sableye banned actually do so because it clearly doesn't promote skill at all, and as I outlined in my first post here, makes the games it is in very matchup based rather than skill based, because either you pack the breakers the Sableye stall team is particularly weak to or you don't, and in the event of the latter, the Sableye player only has to not make any extremely stupid plays to turn a good matchup into a win.

I think the fact that you have to actually WORK to get hazards up against msable stall is a very positive thing for the metagame, stop being self entitled and adapt to it and use rockers that can actually beat sable and there are plenty of them and again they are useful outside of just rocking on sable.
There are rockers than can beat Sableye, but you have to bear in mind it is usually backed up with a hazard removal pokemon such as Skarmory that can take the vast majority of the rest on, it's pretty difficult for the stall player to let rocks be up for more than 1 turn if they run the correct support pokemon for Sableye. In any case, I can just flip this statement round, and say "I think the fact that you have to actually WORK to keep hazards off the field is a very positive thing for the metagame", this only expresses an opinion rather than a factual point.

Stall has had to adapt to things like MMedicham, MHera, MGardy etc and it has done in ridiculous ways so i really dont think that is too much to ask anyone.
Yes, threats to playstyles do and should cause adaptation to those threats, and the listed breakers are ones that are very effective against stall. However, there is a difference between a healthy amount of adaptation and having to run shed shell Togekiss + pursuit in order to not lose to something, which is what the two suspect pokemon necessitate.

Honestly alot of the "ban sableye" arguments just seem very self entitled to me and just seem like "i hate stall and sable is really annoying to me i wish neither were a thing cos they annoy me" and stop using fallacies and double standards. Why should you be able to spam hazards from turn one without working for them
Ok, well stall now has plenty of other options to deal with hazards, and so stuff like spikes isn't nearly as effective as it was last gen due to defog now working the way it does. It's due to this abundance of choices other than Sableye to stop hazards that you won't see hazards dominating the metagame. DeoD and DeoS were exceptions in how effective they were at setting up hazards, but those were the users, not the move that centralised the metagame. Hazards now play a pretty important part in every game of being able to punish obvious switches with small but significant damage, and thus they promote skill, not detract from it.

Why should you be able to use Taunt+Toxic/Wisp and recovery sets to blanket check all stall with no risk because you are too lazy to prepare for stall properly?
Why should we care if your team cant take status or wisps and gets bodied because of that fact?
You're doing it again.

Even more questionable are the arguments "the rest of msables team beats my counter to it though". Grats, welcome to pokemon, its been this way since gen 1. If they have counters to your team and you arent competent to take into account common cores, you deserve to lose sorry.
Yes, but what didn't happen in gen 1 was that a player could turn a matchup advantage into a win just by making very simple a b a b switches, which is what Sableye now does by completely removing the best way offence has of punishing obvious switches in hazards. Sableye teams can indeed be beaten by certain pokemon, this much is true, but what I'm really looking to bring about is a metagame in which skill is promoted as much as possible, and that isn't one in which you lose because you don't carry the specific breakers needed.

Next the argument "this disrupts my offensive synergy having to include for things for sable" and frankly refusing to adapt to something that doesnt really need to be adapted to because sets and pokemon exist to beat it and even set up hazards on it, like are you actually being serious? You mean how stall has to prep for all those bullshit offensive megas? How it has to prep for Taunt? How it has to prep for breakers like Manaphy and Togekiss and Hoopa-U, lures, D/SDers, taking care of wincons and god knows what else that shreds stall? Im sorry if i come of as being an ass, im really not trying to but if stall players turned around and said stuff with these arguments and wanted MGardy/MHera/MMedi, Hoopa-U, Manaphy, Scald, Knock Off, 90% of offensive megas, Togekiss, Gliscor, Clef, Taunt etc erc banned because "it disrupts our teams defensive synergy and we cant fit counters on" or whatever we'd be told to well, fuck off, by most of the community, im sure and rightfully so lol. x)
It's not just beating and adapting to Sableye, it's beating and adapting to Sableye teams as a whole, and stuff that rocks up on Sableye probably won't be able to on its hazard removing team member. Some of those breakers are very effective against stall, but Taunt, D/SDers, Scald, Knock Off, Gliscor, Clef are all dealt with pretty easily, and effective breakers are an important part of the metagame. Some stall players have actually suggested bans for Hoopa-U and Manaphy, because of how powerful they are against stall, but both have significant drawbacks against other styles. This also ignores the fact that there is no imperative to preserve stall as a viable playstyle in the metagame, as blunt as it sounds. I'm just going to take this quote from another post as well because my response to both is very similar.
Yet people hate on stall as per protocol.
An issue with stall has always been that it has little room to outplay things it is weak to, with the advantage to offset this being that it doesn't have to make much in the way of plays in the case of a favourable matchup. What Sableye does is goes and pushes this to the extreme, because in the event of the opponent not packing something you are weak to, hazard management was a key part of the game, and Sableye just goes ahead and removes this almost entirely. In response to Norne, while I don't really mind being painted as somebody who is anti stall, due to my posts here, the majority of the community doesn't have some stigma against one playstyle. What they are concerned about is the lack of skill in a game involving Sableye, which is the reason why it would be banned because it is "uncompetitive" rather than "broken", and I don't actually hate the idea of playing a 100 turn game once in a while provided that it actually took thought to play the game out. To return to the point Sir Azelf made about breakers, due to how matchup based stall is, removing everything it is particularly weak to is never going to be a good idea from an unbiased perspective. As for just a general enjoyment of the game aspect, and to repeat what I acknowledged before, that stall generally loses in the face of a bad matchup from team preview, many people including myself specifically avoid stall for just that purpose, and to say that it is ok for every other style to just accept a loss in the face of a bad matchup is to force the disadvantages of your playstyle onto every other playstyle. Granted, a few games are just lost, but nothing snookers somebody from team preview quite like a well-built Sableye stall team is capable of, and we should generally try to take away or minimise elements in the game that take away from skill in the way that Sableye does.

To conclude, people are quite correct when they say that removing Gothitelle reduces the number of teams heavily dependent on matchup and not on skill floating about, but there are also teams which are very matchup dependent and just use Sableye, wonder trio aka Dug/Sab/Shed teams being a very good example of this. If you're fine with facing these teams, just at a reduced frequency, then go ahead and don't ban both, but there's a clear path to getting uncompetitiveness pretty much as close to zero as we can reasonably get it in this tier, and I really think we should take it.
 
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Aberforth

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However, there is a difference between a healthy amount of adaptation and having to run shed shell Togekiss + pursuit in order to not lose to something, which is what the two suspect pokemon necessitate.
I'll probably make a longer post later to argue against the points you made, but can we seriously stop misplacing the blame here? Sableye does not force you into running shed shell mons, nor pursuit. Both of these are goth arguments and should not be used to argue Sableye is the problem. There is no two pokemon necessitating it, shed shell pursuit exists entirely because of goth.
 

thesecondbest

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EDIT:Moved Replies outside of quotes
I'm just going to address a few of the anti-ban posts for Sableye.

Alright, well I can only assume that you are talking about Klefki, because that is the most common spike stacker used on very offensive teams. Klefki doesn't let you start off the game with 2 layers of hazards guaranteed in the same way that DeoD did, so in case it wasn't already obvious, one isn't nearly as effective as the other. In the event of spike stacking being broken, then one mega which only particularly bulky teams can make use of isn't exactly an effective way of keeping them in check. Provided that Sableye is uncompetitive, which is what I have been trying to prove, then spikes Klefki being broken if it is gone isn't a good argument for it to stay, because the sensible thing to do is to suspect both of them. Besides all that, if spikes offence was that effective, we'd see it dominating games which don't involve Sableye, and while it is an effective playstyle that will get more effective after the ban, it is nowhere near broken.
Umm pranskter + spikes means you need to OHKO Klefki to stop two layers. And OHKOing it is hard so it is basically guaranteed. And If Sableye doesn't keep them in check, which you seem to think, doesn't that prove how underwhelming Sableye is at controlling the hazard game, a statement pro ban people throw around all the time? OH wait, you're calling it uncompetitive and not broken. Well I'm pretty sure Shadow Tag is the uncompetitive part and not Sableye, but we'll see if you make any points to the contrary.

Ok, well my issue with accusing players of lazy teambuilding for using these pokemon is that I could equally accuse the stallplayer of lazy teambuilding for relying on Sableye to check all of these pokemon, so it doesn't really accomplish much. Pokemon such as Stone Edge Heatran can easily beat Talonflame and stop it from doing anything. Again, you're pointing at pokemon which won't be broken or shred stall in the way that you're making out if Sableye is banned, saying that they will be incredibly effective, then trying to use this to justify keeping Sableye. Stall has other ways of dealing with taunt + Toxic Gliscor, and Taunt + Wisp Talonflame, and I can really just quote your own post back to you in answer to this point.
What are you even saying here. You seem to be saying that Sableye sucks, so we won't miss it being gone, therefore we should ban it. That's literally the dumbest logic I've ever seen.

Most players do use breakers to combat stall, but saying that because rocks weren't around in the past it should be totally ok for them not to be up ever now ignores how the game has developed since then. We didn't have Unaware or Regenerator either, both of which are pretty effective tools stall has at its disposal to help them take heavy attacks, often the chip damage from hazards is needed to pressure down a check for a breaker, and it generally helps to increase the level of interaction between the stall player and the opposing player, rather than just switching around between different counters. Most players who want Sableye banned actually do so because it clearly doesn't promote skill at all, and as I outlined in my first post here, makes the games it is in very matchup based rather than skill based, because either you pack the breakers the Sableye stall team is particularly weak to or you don't, and in the event of the latter, the Sableye player only has to not make any extremely stupid plays to turn a good matchup into a win.
Yeah and the breakers don't work because Goth traps and Tricks/Twaves them. That's what causes matchup, not Sableye.

There are rockers than can beat Sableye, but you have to bear in mind it is usually backed up with a hazard removal pokemon such as Skarmory that can take the vast majority of the rest on, it's pretty difficult for the stall player to let rocks be up for more than 1 turn if they run the correct support pokemon for Sableye. In any case, I can just flip this statement round, and say "I think the fact that you have to actually WORK to keep hazards off the field is a very positive thing for the metagame", this only expresses an opinion rather than a factual point.


Yes, threats to playstyles do and should cause adaptation to those threats, and the listed breakers are ones that are very effective against stall. However, there is a difference between a healthy amount of adaptation and having to run shed shell Togekiss + pursuit in order to not lose to something, which is what the two suspect pokemon necessitate.
Once again, Goth's fault.

Ok, well stall now has plenty of other options to deal with hazards, and so stuff like spikes isn't nearly as effective as it was last gen due to defog now working the way it does. It's due to this abundance of choices other than Sableye to stop hazards that you won't see hazards dominating the metagame. DeoD and DeoS were exceptions in how effective they were at setting up hazards, but those were the users, not the move that centralised the metagame. Hazards now play a pretty important part in every game of being able to punish obvious switches with small but significant damage, and thus they promote skill, not detract from it.
OK, so if stall has other options, how does that make Sableye broken?

Yes, but what didn't happen in gen 1 was that a player could turn a matchup advantage into a win just by making very simple a b a b switches, which is what Sableye now does by completely removing the best way offence has of punishing obvious switches in hazards. Sableye teams can indeed be beaten by certain pokemon, this much is true, but what I'm really looking to bring about is a metagame in which skill is promoted as much as possible, and that isn't one in which you lose because you don't carry the specific breakers needed.
OK I didn't play gen 1 so I can't comment on this.

It's not just beating and adapting to Sableye, it's beating and adapting to Sableye teams as a whole, and stuff that rocks up on Sableye probably won't be able to on its hazard removing team member. Some of those breakers are very effective against stall, but Taunt, D/SDers, Scald, Knock Off, Gliscor, Clef are all dealt with pretty easily, and effective breakers are an important part of the metagame. Some stall players have actually suggested bans for Hoopa-U and Manaphy, because of how powerful they are against stall, but both have significant drawbacks against other styles. This also ignores the fact that there is no imperative to preserve stall as a viable playstyle in the metagame, as blunt as it sounds. I'm just going to take this quote from another post as well because my response to both is very similar.
Brilliant. Sableye teams as a whole. so you admit here that Goth is the problem and not Sableye. Thank you.

An issue with stall has always been that it has little room to outplay things it is weak to, with the advantage to offset this being that it doesn't have to make much in the way of plays in the case of a favourable matchup. What Sableye does is goes and pushes this to the extreme, because in the event of the opponent not packing something you are weak to, hazard management was a key part of the game, and Sableye just goes ahead and removes this almost entirely. In response to Norne, while I don't really mind being painted as somebody who is anti stall, due to my posts here, the majority of the community doesn't have some stigma against one playstyle. What they are concerned about is the lack of skill in a game involving Sableye, which is the reason why it would be banned because it is "uncompetitive" rather than "broken", and I don't actually hate the idea of playing a 100 turn game once in a while provided that it actually took thought to play the game out. To return to the point Sir Azelf made about breakers, due to how matchup based stall is, removing everything it is particularly weak to is never going to be a good idea from an unbiased perspective. As for just a general enjoyment of the game aspect, and to repeat what I acknowledged before, that stall generally loses in the face of a bad matchup from team preview, many people including myself specifically avoid stall for just that purpose, and to say that it is ok for every other style to just accept a loss in the face of a bad matchup is to force the disadvantages of your playstyle onto every other playstyle. Granted, a few games are just lost, but nothing snookers somebody from team preview quite like a well-built Sableye stall team is capable of, and we should generally try to take away or minimise elements in the game that take away from skill in the way that Sableye does.
The matchup issue is because Goth forces you to run Shed Shell mons as opposed to normal breakers. There is nothing unbreakable about a Spiritomb with Magic Bounce instead of leftovers (yes MSab and Spiritomb have basically the same bulk). What constrains you to certain breakers is Gothitelle, not Sableye, and I'm sick and tired of you making Sableye collateral because something else is broken.

To conclude, people are quite correct when they say that removing Gothitelle reduces the number of teams heavily dependent on matchup and not on skill floating about, but there are also teams which are very matchup dependent and just use Sableye, wonder trio aka Dug/Sab/Shed teams being a very good example of this. If you're fine with facing these teams, just at a reduced frequency, then go ahead and don't ban both, but there's a clear path to getting uncompetitiveness pretty much as close to zero as we can reasonably get it in this tier, and I really think we should take it.
The wonder trio? With Dugtrio? Maybe the trapping part is the uncompetitive one and not Sableye. So once again, the issue is trapping and not Sableye. Absolutely wonderful.
 
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AM

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If you're going to reply please don't reply inside quotes. Technically it's a rule granted no one particularly is going to hound you, sure as hell I won't besides here, with a warning for it but it's more of the fact it looks pretty messy when replied inside a quote. Thanks.
 

Aberforth

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I'm just going to address a few of the anti-ban posts for Sableye.

Alright, well I can only assume that you are talking about Klefki, because that is the most common spike stacker used on very offensive teams. Klefki doesn't let you start off the game with 2 layers of hazards guaranteed in the same way that DeoD did, so in case it wasn't already obvious, one isn't nearly as effective as the other. In the event of spike stacking being broken, then one mega which only particularly bulky teams can make use of isn't exactly an effective way of keeping them in check. Provided that Sableye is uncompetitive, which is what I have been trying to prove, then spikes Klefki being broken if it is gone isn't a good argument for it to stay, because the sensible thing to do is to suspect both of them. Besides all that, if spikes offence was that effective, we'd see it dominating games which don't involve Sableye, and while it is an effective playstyle that will get more effective after the ban, it is nowhere near broken.
Spikes being broken isn't a good argument, but hazard stacking based metas might not be favourable to others. I know a few people really hate BW because of spikes being so easy to stack, for example. There is no objectively healthier meta here, and spikes stack is something that, subjectively, people can think leads to a worse metagame than one where spikestack is uncommon.

Ok, well my issue with accusing players of lazy teambuilding for using these pokemon is that I could equally accuse the stallplayer of lazy teambuilding for relying on Sableye to check all of these pokemon, so it doesn't really accomplish much. Pokemon such as Stone Edge Heatran can easily beat Talonflame and stop it from doing anything. Again, you're pointing at pokemon which won't be broken or shred stall in the way that you're making out if Sableye is banned, saying that they will be incredibly effective, then trying to use this to justify keeping Sableye. Stall has other ways of dealing with taunt + Toxic Gliscor, and Taunt + Wisp Talonflame, and I can really just quote your own post back to you in answer to this point.
His point is that this seems more about a lack of adaption, people want to use the same stuff they did back in XY to murder stall, and not stuff that can muscle past stall including sableye. Or at least thats how I read it. I didn't play XY. But there are a bunch of stuff that murders standard sableye-but-no-goth stall. Gardevoir for one, manaphy for another, clefable, diancie, ext. There are more options than people give credit. While these mons will typically have a check on the stall team, those checks can be played around and weakened, if the offensive player plays well. I'll quote borat here because I really liked his point when he said it.

borat said:
But just stand back and think for a second: what is the mindset of stall teams? To not lose. Rather than trying to win, their entire goal is just to "not lose." Fail. So how could a team that doesn't even have a plan to winning possibly win, and with such frequency? The answer: stall teams generally face other stall/fail teams that also don't have any method of winning, just not losing. Because the stall team is dedicated to not losing, and the fail team is just partially dedicated to not losing, the stall team wins in not losing. The truth is, a stall team can never win in its own right. You can beat yourself by simply not executing your offense correctly (that's assuming your team doesn't fall under the fail category), or you can be outskilled in terms of prediction, but you can never flat-out lose to a stall team.
While he was talking about GSC, I think much the same applies here, until shadow tag is brought into play to not enable you to be able to execute your offense in the way you desire.

Most players do use breakers to combat stall, but saying that because rocks weren't around in the past it should be totally ok for them not to be up ever now ignores how the game has developed since then. We didn't have Unaware or Regenerator either, both of which are pretty effective tools stall has at its disposal to help them take heavy attacks, often the chip damage from hazards is needed to pressure down a check for a breaker, and it generally helps to increase the level of interaction between the stall player and the opposing player, rather than just switching around between different counters. Most players who want Sableye banned actually do so because it clearly doesn't promote skill at all, and as I outlined in my first post here, makes the games it is in very matchup based rather than skill based, because either you pack the breakers the Sableye stall team is particularly weak to or you don't, and in the event of the latter, the Sableye player only has to not make any extremely stupid plays to turn a good matchup into a win.
This just seems wrong to me. IDK maybe I'm not good enough to see it (I never claim to be good at OU) but rocks dont have a right to be up all the time. Thats just a fact. If you are bringing a rocker who cant set up vs Sableye + Skarm, you know this. You are the one who controls what you bring, and if you know you're going to have a difficult time setting up rocks on very common stall teams, you should adequately prepare your team in other areas to be able to take on said stall team. An example of this would be, instead of using Garchomp + m-gallade, use Garchomp + mega diancie. This is just an example, dont dissect the example as opposed to the reasoning. And its not like you only have 1 slot which you can do that with, you can improve your matchup vs stall in any of 6 slots if you can recognise a weakness to it.

As for the matchup stuff:

tdk said:
Because a lot of people will be quick to assume ORAS OU is a highly matchup based tier, I figure I should probably explain that it's only highly matchup based when team builders are lazy.
Cant link the actual post and it was somewhat separate from this topic, but clearly its not just me and a handful of other sableye defenders thinking there is some amount of laziness in teambuilding in ORAS.


There are rockers than can beat Sableye, but you have to bear in mind it is usually backed up with a hazard removal pokemon such as Skarmory that can take the vast majority of the rest on, it's pretty difficult for the stall player to let rocks be up for more than 1 turn if they run the correct support pokemon for Sableye. In any case, I can just flip this statement round, and say "I think the fact that you have to actually WORK to keep hazards off the field is a very positive thing for the metagame", this only expresses an opinion rather than a factual point.
You are acting like stealth rock is a constitutionally granted right that Sableye is taking away. Stealth rock being something the offensive player needs to work hard at to keep up is something I find healthy for the metagame, but this comes back to my first point about subjectivity involved in a healthy metagame. And while stall teams in the past did not have regenerator or unaware to help them, they also didn't have to worry about Manaphy, mons with 165 or higher base offenses, Pokemon that hit harder than ubers mons, nor the level of the setup sweepers we have today in ORAS. Salamence was waaaaay too powerful in DPP. Its currently in UU, and considered nearly unviable in OU. The power creep for offense has maybe just about been matched by the power creep for stall, but stall did not only get better while offense stayed at the same level throughout the generations.


Yes, threats to playstyles do and should cause adaptation to those threats, and the listed breakers are ones that are very effective against stall. However, there is a difference between a healthy amount of adaptation and having to run shed shell Togekiss + pursuit in order to not lose to something, which is what the two suspect pokemon necessitate.
Already talked about, you're misattributing the fault here.

Ok, well stall now has plenty of other options to deal with hazards, and so stuff like spikes isn't nearly as effective as it was last gen due to defog now working the way it does. It's due to this abundance of choices other than Sableye to stop hazards that you won't see hazards dominating the metagame. DeoD and DeoS were exceptions in how effective they were at setting up hazards, but those were the users, not the move that centralised the metagame. Hazards now play a pretty important part in every game of being able to punish obvious switches with small but significant damage, and thus they promote skill, not detract from it.

You're doing it again.


Yes, but what didn't happen in gen 1 was that a player could turn a matchup advantage into a win just by making very simple a b a b switches, which is what Sableye now does by completely removing the best way offence has of punishing obvious switches in hazards. Sableye teams can indeed be beaten by certain pokemon, this much is true, but what I'm really looking to bring about is a metagame in which skill is promoted as much as possible, and that isn't one in which you lose because you don't carry the specific breakers needed.
Defog has less PP than stealth rock for one thing. Also, why do you think all obvious switches need to be punished? The nature of more passive playstyles means that more obvious switches will be made more frequently, why should all of them be punished? Punish 1/8 of those switches and you have done some significantly good work. This can be done by phazing moves that also damage the target, momentum gaining moves like U-turn, getting a free switch into something that is hard to switch into, ext. Not every switch that is obvious needs to be punished. Specific breakers are unneeded outside of gothitelle teams. With good play, there are many good options against regular stall that can clean once their check has been weakened to a good enough extent. This can just be 40% on a chansey, from volt switching on the switch in to it into a specs keldeo (just an example, there are tonnes of things that can exploit a chansey though).


It's not just beating and adapting to Sableye, it's beating and adapting to Sableye teams as a whole, and stuff that rocks up on Sableye probably won't be able to on its hazard removing team member. Some of those breakers are very effective against stall, but Taunt, D/SDers, Scald, Knock Off, Gliscor, Clef are all dealt with pretty easily, and effective breakers are an important part of the metagame. Some stall players have actually suggested bans for Hoopa-U and Manaphy, because of how powerful they are against stall, but both have significant drawbacks against other styles. This also ignores the fact that there is no imperative to preserve stall as a viable playstyle in the metagame, as blunt as it sounds. I'm just going to take this quote from another post as well because my response to both is very similar.

An issue with stall has always been that it has little room to outplay things it is weak to, with the advantage to offset this being that it doesn't have to make much in the way of plays in the case of a favourable matchup. What Sableye does is goes and pushes this to the extreme, because in the event of the opponent not packing something you are weak to, hazard management was a key part of the game, and Sableye just goes ahead and removes this almost entirely. In response to Norne, while I don't really mind being painted as somebody who is anti stall, due to my posts here, the majority of the community doesn't have some stigma against one playstyle. What they are concerned about is the lack of skill in a game involving Sableye, which is the reason why it would be banned because it is "uncompetitive" rather than "broken", and I don't actually hate the idea of playing a 100 turn game once in a while provided that it actually took thought to play the game out. To return to the point Sir Azelf made about breakers, due to how matchup based stall is, removing everything it is particularly weak to is never going to be a good idea from an unbiased perspective. As for just a general enjoyment of the game aspect, and to repeat what I acknowledged before, that stall generally loses in the face of a bad matchup from team preview, many people including myself specifically avoid stall for just that purpose, and to say that it is ok for every other style to just accept a loss in the face of a bad matchup is to force the disadvantages of your playstyle onto every other playstyle. Granted, a few games are just lost, but nothing snookers somebody from team preview quite like a well-built Sableye stall team is capable of, and we should generally try to take away or minimise elements in the game that take away from skill in the way that Sableye does.
1) this sounds like you think there should never be anything matchup related contributing to a loss in playstyles outside of stall. Ignoring how weak your team might be to talonflame or lopunny in teambuilding will result in a matchup based loss, but only because you fucked up in teambuilding. Its the same with Sableye, as I see it. If your opponent brings the 6 counters to your six mons, tough luck. You cant cover everything in one team, be it offensively or defensively, and if your offense is easily walled by the 6 mons your opponent happens to bring, thats just shit for ya. (unrelated but I very rarely play stall (dont have the time) and I called for a hoopa ban 1) when it came out initially and I saw higher offenses than rayquaza, with latias bulk specially, 2) because I think it murders anything that is slower than it with the right coverage move and forces the metagame into an offense-fest, which I never like)
2) Who cares about preserving a playstyle? I care about Sableye not getting banned because its not banworthy, has numerous very viable answers, even in a sableye-less meta, has a bunch of faults that are being overlooked, and makes the metagame better, in my personal opinion, and shouldn't go as collateral damage with Gothitelle, when gothitelle is the fkin problem.

To conclude, people are quite correct when they say that removing Gothitelle reduces the number of teams heavily dependent on matchup and not on skill floating about, but there are also teams which are very matchup dependent and just use Sableye, wonder trio aka Dug/Sab/Shed teams being a very good example of this. If you're fine with facing these teams, just at a reduced frequency, then go ahead and don't ban both, but there's a clear path to getting uncompetitiveness pretty much as close to zero as we can reasonably get it in this tier, and I really think we should take it.
Dug/Sab/Shed team is crap and I genuinely dont think it should be used in an argument. Yes its hugely matchup based, its shedinja. And while rocks being up deals with it, you cant say that the entire reason people would make a shedinja team to try and play off of shedinja's strengths is that Sableye exists. Its the best bouncer we have, not the only one. I remember there was a UU team rmt featuring shedinja trying to make the most of it, it was incredibly matchup based, because it was shedinja. Here it is if you want to see it.

Yes it is a matchup based team that exists with Sableye. But sableye is not the problem on that team, I'd say Dugtrio (Hey trapping!) was the problem since it is used as the blanket answer to the half of the tier that the other five mons cannot deal with (and is relatively easy to play around given how frail, weak and overloaded it tends to get), and of course, shedinja. Even if Sableye is banned, people will try to get shedinja to work. Another UU example (from XY) shows that. But to ban Sableye as an over-reaction to (Imo bad) matchup based teams that have significant other elements to them to make them matchup based (read: Shedinja and trapping) would not be right, in my personal opinion at least.

EDIT: Misphrased that cause I implied there was a problem with the team at all. There isn't. Dugtrio shedinja makes the team matchup based as fuck, but not nearly an autowin in the face of a good matchup.
 
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I'll probably make a longer post later to argue against the points you made, but can we seriously stop misplacing the blame here? Sableye does not force you into running shed shell mons, nor pursuit. Both of these are goth arguments and should not be used to argue Sableye is the problem. There is no two pokemon necessitating it, shed shell pursuit exists entirely because of goth.
You're correct in that Goth + Sab is much more restricting than Sab by itself, but I did mention the wonder trio core, which causes matchup issues to an admittedly lesser but still extremely significant degree. The sum total of uncompetitiveness is greater in games in which both of them are played on the same team, but aspects of uncompetitiveness can be detected in games in which either is played. Saying that Gothitelle is more uncompetitive than Sableye is a valid point, although I personally view them as similarly uncompetitive, but the aim should be to cut all major causes of competitiveness out of the tier, rather than just the greatest offender. Using the wonder trio team as an example, I hope it can be demonstrated that Sableye does also have elements of uncompetitiveness about it, and also that we shouldn't settle for some second best tier where this particular team and others like it are still seeing high usage.

EDIT:Moved Replies outside of quotes

Umm pranskter + spikes means you need to OHKO Klefki to stop two layers. And OHKOing it is hard so it is basically guaranteed. And If Sableye doesn't keep them in check, which you seem to think, doesn't that prove how underwhelming Sableye is at controlling the hazard game, a statement pro ban people throw around all the time? OH wait, you're calling it uncompetitive and not broken. Well I'm pretty sure Shadow Tag is the uncompetitive part and not Sableye, but we'll see if you make any points to the contrary.


What are you even saying here. You seem to be saying that Sableye sucks, so we won't miss it being gone, therefore we should ban it. That's literally the dumbest logic I've ever seen.


Yeah and the breakers don't work because Goth traps and Tricks/Twaves them. That's what causes matchup, not Sableye.


Once again, Goth's fault.


OK, so if stall has other options, how does that make Sableye broken?


OK I didn't play gen 1 so I can't comment on this.


Brilliant. Sableye teams as a whole. so you admit here that Goth is the problem and not Sableye. Thank you.


The matchup issue is because Goth forces you to run Shed Shell mons as opposed to normal breakers. There is nothing unbreakable about a Spiritomb with Magic Bounce instead of leftovers (yes MSab and Spiritomb have basically the same bulk). What constrains you to certain breakers is Gothitelle, not Sableye, and I'm sick and tired of you making Sableye collateral because something else is broken.


The wonder trio? With Dugtrio? Maybe the trapping part is the uncompetitive one and not Sableye. So once again, the issue is trapping and not Sableye. Absolutely wonderful.
I'll offer a reply to this post too. I'm saying that spikes aren't broken in a game which doesn't involve Sableye, so they won't be broken if all games don't involve Sableye. Saying that Sableye isn't some balancing force in the metagame that keeps spikes in check and saying that it doesn't beat spikes in the first place are two very different statements. Stealth rocks + spikes + the other options DeoD had at its disposal are very much different from 2 layers of spikes that Klefki can set up, provided the opponent doesn't counter lead you with either Heatran or a Taunt mon. I may be condescending here, but Klefki isn't comparable to DeoD at all, the effect that one has on the meta is just in no way equal to the other, and fixating on this whole "Spikes will be impossible to deal with if Sableye goes" argument deducts from a post rather than strengthens it, it wasn't a strong argument in the first place. The good catch here was picking up on my phrasing of "Stall has plenty of other options to deal with hazards", because I initially implied that they had the same effectiveness. I'll rephrase that now. Stall has plenty of options to deal with hazards, even without Mega Sableye, and these other options can be considered healthy in a way that Sableye is not. It is not logical to claim that spikes will somehow invalid stall if Sableye is gone, because there are less effective but still decent ways of dealing with them.

It's saddening that you would look at Dugtrio before Sableye as a problem, because as it happens certain trappers can be in the metagame and be perfectly healthy for it, such as Magnezone and pursuit users. I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make by making Spiritomb equivalent to Mega Sableye, then claiming it would be balanced. I'm just going to quote my first post here below, because that provides more detailed reasoning. The gist of it is that Sableye turns a bad matchup against stall into a guaranteed loss, and this is how it is uncompetitive, taking skill out of the game.

Sableye


The most significant thing about Sableye is how effective it is at keeping hazards off of the field. If a defogger such as Skarmory is used with it, getting hazards up at all becomes nigh impossible. Hazards have always been very important in breaking stall builds. They are a form of long term damage, a way of rewarding double switches, and also a good way to pressure the opponent into switching into a defogger that something can take advantage of. Without these, there is little reward for pulling aggressive switches, getting chip damage on pokemon becomes very difficult, and as such you become increasingly reliant on powerful stallbreakers to achieve a victory.

To go into that last point in more detail, these stallbreakers can’t just be any pokemon that hit hard, they have to be ones that are very effective against the stall team in question. Hypothetically, suppose that a particular wallbreaker does about 40% to whatever check the opponent is running for it, and that you also have a pokemon which can force this check out. It’s not hard to see a good strategy against this team, you can get up stealth rock, and pull a double once or twice to make the opponent tentative to switch it in again against this stallbreaker, then proceed to get a kill. However, in a hazardless game, the extra 20% or however much is needed becomes many times more difficult to get. Provided that the opponent recognises that it is important to keep this check at high health, short of a well timed crit, the required chip damage just isn’t going to happen. Even if you do play smart and double in whatever beats x threat every single time, there will be no reward for doing so provided that the opponent also has a check to whatever you are doubling into.

The above scenario is what I mean when I talk about Sableye cutting off support between pokemon in a team, because rather than being able to force out threats and get some chip damage for each other, they function separately, and you don’t stand very much chance of winning unless you run a pokemon which is sufficiently threatening to the whole team. This is the main issue with Sableye, it has the astounding ability to turn a bad matchup into what seems like a guaranteed loss. There is no series of smart plays that will enable you to get the required chip damage on the stall team in question, and thus it takes a great deal of control out of the hands of the player, making the game all about the teams rather than the people using them. Furthermore, due to the player facing the Sableye team having so few options at their disposal, provided the matchup is good and it very often is, the Sableye player can make very obvious plays without fear of being punished. It’s no wonder that games involving this pokemon are long and boring, despite a winner and loser being established almost immediately. Note that while stall teams should not be punished for every predictable play, because stall is sadly a low-risk low-reward playstyle in which the most obvious play is almost always the best one, there is a huge difference between being having the opportunity to get slight chip damage which will be useful in the long term, and not being able to do so at all, whatever move you make.

Conclusion of my analysis on Sableye

Overall, Sableye necessitates the use of very specific breakers in order to not lose at team preview, and serves as a large restriction on teambuilding. Due to a lack of hazards, and thus the ability to get chip damage through doubles, there is a distinct lack of smart plays available to the player facing it. As for the player using it, Sableye turns a safer play for stall into an unpunishable one. Building for stall in general is not enough, one must build specifically to face the exact stall team that Sableye is being used on, and use the exact pokemon required. Sableye takes a great deal of control out of the hands of the players, and places it instead in into what is being used. It is clear that Sableye deducts from the usefulness of skill in a game wherever it is present, because the outcome of the game is more or less decided immediately. Due to these reasons, Sableye is an uncompetitive pokemon, and strongly deserves a ban.
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
I don't think that anyone can argue that sableye stall is incredibly difficult to beat without gothitelle trapping all of the token stallbreakers. Every playstyle has incredibly common mons that bring stall lots of immediate trouble (latios, manaphy, Gardevoir, her across, gyarados, Clefable, victini, togekiss, charizard, and more that we can all think of. Heck, throwback to the aegislash thread when people were arguing that stall would be helpless without a blanket check to all of these mons). This is not including the ability of different cores to stallbreak via better playing than the opponent (which is the definition of a skill-based matchup). Sableye helps stall alleviate the pressure from the latter (hazards are a solid option to wear down stallmons via good play), but it is far from the only way to wear down a stall team, especially when the two arguably most important members (chansey and sableye) don't have access to passive recovery options. Sand, u-turns and volt-switches, bluffing a hazard setup, successful predicts, forcing a heal bell, inevitable crits, etc. are easy ways to get off a bit of chip damage. Given the monstrous power creep, a bit of damage is all that it takes to put chansey or sableye into dangerous situations. The 5 other team members argument isn't as applicable here, because the two of them have obvious purposes (hazard control and special control) that corner them into being the only viable switchin (bar a risky predict) in a lot of situations.

The point is: hazards are nice, but if stall teams are incredibly beatable without setting them (with gothitelle gone), then what is the issue? The mentality that hazards are neccesary to beat stall is outdated, and refusing to acknowledge the numerous other stallbreaking tools that game freak has injected into the game this generation is a poor basis on which to argue. I've never been one to accept diversity as a valid argument for keeping something unbanned, but this feels like a stall witch-hunt more than anything.

I'm of the opinion that banning gothitelle on the suspect ladder and keeping sableye would have made for a much more productive and informative test, because as aa result, we have only theorymon to work off of in regards to the most popular anti-ban option (ban goth, keep sableye). But this is alleviated by the fact that we have a whole generation of stall teams that didn't commonly utilize gothitelle to trap and eliminate stallbreakers to refer to. In that era, sableye ended up being universally dubbed overrated and relatively underwhelming. The rise of gothitelle -> the rise of sableye is incredibly informative of the real issue here.

tl;dr (or incoherent via posting from mobile): hazards aren't neccesary at all to beat a stall team. Stop ignoring the many stall-breaking tools that each generation (especially 6) has added. The idea that we _should_ be able to set hazards and _should_ be able to use taunt mew (especially when perfectly viable things like taunt sd gliscor exist) is incredibly flawed in that you are trying to independently and arbitrarily define the meta. Ban gothitelle. Side note: banning sableye instead of goth on the ladder is an objectively strange decision .
 
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I think that the reasons for MSab being suspected are a bit flawed. Yes, it prevent hazard setups and just so happens to beat the most relevant ones. Does this make it broken? No, it just means that you shouldn't rely on hazards so much. This is the main argument being made against it. You don't have to beat it with a hazard setter, so the lack of hazard setters with a good matchup is irrelevant IMO.
I think STag is broken. The thing with STag is that, much like protean, not very many mons get it, so it's hard to know if it's broken when Goth is the only good abuser. Wobbufett is only not broken because it's movepool is BS, leaving it with few options and only taking advantage of offensive mons, and still many offensive mons are not bothered by it. Dugtrio is too frail to reliably trap, and all round a poor mon made viable because of its ability. I personally think these mons are good examples of why trapping is broken, as they're shit made viable by something broken.
 
Shadow Tag
Thank God.
Shadow Tag is beyond a shadow of a doubt (pun not intended) a strong ability. Awful memories of DW Gen 5 OU and Mega Gengar should leave a testiment on why Shadow Tag is an immensely strong ability. But neither of these are the issue, they are long gone. Instead, the Gothitelle family (and to a lesser extent Wobbufett) are the culprits.

Gothitelle is fortunate enough to have all the tools to do its job well. It has enough speed to outspeed common breakers with a Choice Scarf, and completely handicap them with Trick. Gothitelle basically acts for stall teams (and to a lesser extent teams of other playstyles) as a get out of jail free card. If you get goth in on a One on One situation, you can effectively or outright remove a pokemon from play. Gothitelle can be used for offensive teams as either a specific trapper for walls (which admittedly it is not the greatest at) or as a way to cripple defensive pokemon. Scarf Goth can be used on offensive leaning teams to cripple hazard removers or walls that trouble the team.

However, Gothitelle is not a catch all threat. It has its issues. Gothitelle has awful stats, and a mediocre movepool. Furthermore, prediction is a two way street. Gothitelle coming in at the wrong time loses so much momentum, and can put the goth user in a bad position. The risk and reward of a goth play, or even goth on a team, is high, as a misplay leads to a rather bad mon in a poor one on one situation. While it is possible to get Goth in on a Volt Turn, this requires prediction that the mon that you want removed will stay in. If the mon does not stay in, than goth is just going to be waiting for its chance later. The only completely 100% way to get Goth in is on a fainted pokemon, which requires, well, a fainted pokemon.

Yet, Goth is still a strong beast because if goth gets in, there is little the opponent can do. Unless one wants to run Shed Shell on most, if not all, of their breakers and walls, than Goth will be a constant threat for one. Gothitelle has very limited counterplay, as one wrong prediction against goth (given one does not have a shed shell on everything) can cost the player so much. This high level of risk/reward, combined with the very limited counterplay, leads me to say Gothitelle is uncompetative.

Many people overlook Wobbufett, but to be honest, it is also a very stupid mon. I am certain we all know of counter coat shenanigans, with encore possibly letting Wobbufett get its one kill. Yet, Wobbufett's strongest use is its encore, combined with trapping, to ensure set up opportunities. Wobbufett can effectively turn any mon into set up bait with the right plays. Like above, Wobbufett has a high level of risk/reward pokemon that has issues getting in. But it is an uncompetative mon with rather limited counterplay.

It should be mentioned that the pre evolutions of these mons (Namely Gothorita and Wynaut) can preform these roles to a very similar, yet slightly weaker, extent.

In conclusion, Shadow Tag is an uncompetative force, and should be banned.

Undecided on Mega Sableye as of yet.
 

zbr

less than 99% acc = never hit
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Finally huh, after being complained at for so long, we are now going to take a look at Shadow Tag as well as M-Sab in a complex suspect. Personally, I'm not rly down for complex suspects because it makes it hard to quantify which is the more broken force that was affecting the meta, considering that one of the biggest reasons as to why they were suspected together was the immense success of cleanerthanrotom-w's
stall in which allowed him to dominate the ladder for quite some time before ABR modified it to better suit the meta. Here are some of my thoughts on it, considering that I've been playing with and against teams of such construct.
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[
- Shadow Tag]

Shadow Tag (ST) is arguably the strongest and the most scariest ability in the Pokemon Game. Given that the nature of this game relies on swapping mons around and requiring you to make skillful (hah what a nice joke) enough plays to outmaneuver your opponents, ST takes away that fundamental aspect of the game. This results in a literal zero counterplay scenario in which, unless you had shed shell/momentum moves, you're basically trapped in. It gives your opponent so much control over the field and this is further amplified by the fact that we have team preview. Team preview means that we are consciously aware of the presence of said mon and this actually lead us to make plays that end up being detrimental in the long run or are ineffective at that point of time in the game. There are two types of ST users. One that is flexible in its moveset and one that is not. In the current state of the metagame, let's all be honest here, when we talk about ST we mainly mean to discuss about
. Goth is the only other ST user that has a workable moldable moveset that is allowed in OU and it stands to reason that this now allows for a more wider range of control. If we look at it from it's stats, it is actually quite a crappy mon. 70/95/115 isn't all that great esp for a mon that has no reliable recovery outside of rest. Yet, undeniably, the ability for us to shape it's moveset to allow for us to cover up the gaps in the team makes Goth the Satan that he is. Vinc2612's Volt Turn squad utilised a choice banded goth with a +Spdef nature, 92 HP/120 SpA/108 SpD/188 Spe EVs and a moveset involving Trick , Grass Knot , Psychic , Rest. This EVs were so specific to the point in which, according to him, was used to "tank both Moonblast crit + Moonblast + Moonblast from Unaware
, Lava Plume crit + Lava Plume + Lava Plume from
... Allowing me to trick them then PP waste with Rest" and the specific moveset was used to ensure that fatter mons like
do not stand in his of volt turning. This complex set itself tells us how useful an ST mon that has been coupled with a wide movepool helps to effectively control and remove opposing threats to said team with close to zero resistance.
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Now, we look at mons that have ST but do not have much variance in it's movepool because of it's lack of it.
here has literally no variance in it's moveset. There are mainly two types of Wobb. One is the TickleLefties and the other is CustapBond. The first type of wobb's aim is to trap fatter mons likes
and encore -> tickle them to the point where they can be easily pursuit trapped. This type of Wobb generally runs a lot of speed in order to outpace min speed walls. The other type of wobb aims to sponge up hits from offensive powerhouses and effectively removing 1-3 mons from the opposing teams hence allowing for another offensive mon in the wings to come in and run train. By utilizing it's uniquely high HP (10% on wobb is equivalent to approximately 50% on
and the likes) and it's ability to limit and control the opponent's most fundamental mechanic in the game, it is able to easily and effectively remove opposing threats to allow for your team to tear up your opponent's broken team. However, the limiting capabilities of Wobb is not as wide as Goth (Encore is only 3 turns whereas Trick + Twave are permanent crippling effect) as well as the lack of reliable recovery coupled with the excessive power creep that we have been experiencing since Gen V, this results in Wobb being much more based upon skill in terms of playing it as well as in terms of counterplaying it.
The most common excuse we can give to try and salvage ST users with a wide enough movepool is that they arguably become deadweight against certain matchups such as Offense.
only has a mere 65 base speed and most of the time the use of a choice item on it is not for it to act as a revenge killer but merely to cripple opposing walls such that they are no longer given the choice of moves that they want to go for. However, this small con of Goth is completely overturned when we realise that with minimal support it can function and do it's job extremely well, which is to take out or cripple threats that your team specifically suffers from.
-------------------------------------------------------------​
Hence, my conclusion when it comes to ST is to ban it at this point of time. However, if banned, I would revisit the ability ban as a whole and relook into whether Goth was the broken one or the ability itself.

Will comment more on M-Sab in later posts, -yawn-

Edit - to those who want to figure out how to abuse trap in an insane manner, here's an old XY squad I used to ladder with for laughs. http://pastebin.com/LawKfCUB
 
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