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

[Ada]

From a team building perspective, an ideal meta is one in which both offense and stall are equally viable, leading to a balanced metagame.

Currently, there are 4 major issues with the meta: Sableye, Gothitelle, Hoopa and Manaphy.

Both Hoopa and Manaphy can single-handedly decimate stall teams by themselves. Sableye is obviously a problem because it invalidates all other stalls. There is no reason not to use it, as otherwise you are just using an inferior stall. In other words, it is too good not to use (because it's broken).

Now, it just so happens that Gothitelle on stall beats Manaphy, and that Sableye checks Hoopa (literally broken checking broken), making stall teams too much to handle. If we ban goth, then the issue of stall would naturally be resolved. But then, this would lead to a meta oversaturated with offense, which is also unhealthy. Since, realistically, nothing on stall beats Manaphy (not even unaware clef).

As a voter, I'd naturally opt for that which leads to the healthiest metagame possible. The only issue is when the suspect tests itself are inefficient and are too slow to respond to problems with the meta.

 

[Wheezer]

That isn't true. Getting hazards up isn't the only way to reward good play.

1. I don't think I said that getting hazards up is the only way to reward good play. All I said is that Mega Sableye takes away from good play, which is what makes it uncompetitive.

Lots of posts have mentioned Sableye's lack of bulk and lack of passive recovery.

2. Yes, Mega Sableye may not be as bulky as say, Cresselia, but stats aren't exactly the most important thing to consider when deciding if something is uncompetitive or not, and it's not like Mega Sableye lacks bulk. It has a great typing and decent defensive stats to go along with that.
3. I am not quite sure what you mean by "lacks passive recovery".

What about luring it in with hazard bluffs/maintaining sand/keeping offensive pressure to prevent it from using recover? That's what I've done every time I've faced sableye stall, and that's what everyone has done to me when I used sableye stall. What about that doesn't encourage skill?

4. Again, I didn't say any of that didn't encourage skill. Yes, you can attack on the switch-in instead of attempting to get up rocks, but that's what most people do anyways because Mega Sableye prevents their hazards from getting up.
5. lol, I'm pretty sure a stall team won't mind too much if sand is up, if it is built decently. I understand that you're just pointing out that it can put pressure on stall, but it rarely ever does.
6. "keeping offensive pressure to prevent it from recovering" By this I think you mean U-Turn and Volt Switch (I cannot think of any other ways to damage Mega Sableye so that it cannot recover). Well, actually, this would only apply to U-Turn because no Volt Switch users force in Mega Sableye, so that leaves us with just Landorus-T, and Jirachi as U-Turn users that force Mega Sableye in.
I realize that these are viable ways of keeping pressure upon Mega Sableye stall. However, all of this is only a very minor portion of the game compared to the hazard game as a whole. Mega Sableye takes away this biggest component of putting pressure upon stall, and is very uncompetitive in this aspect.

 

[The50mph]

After finally getting reqs for a Suspect Test ever since M-Meta, I'll just throw out my own two cents about what I noticed while laddering. I didn't see too much hazard stacking and I did see a rise in the usage of M-Medi, as is to be expected given that M-Sab isn't around. Even before the suspect test was announced, I never had a huge problem with M-Sab and I don't think I will be having a problem whether it stays or goes. Therefore I'll probably vote to not ban M-Sab. Now, speaking about Goth and Shadow Tag, it's mainly just an annoyance and I think many people see it this way. I only ever saw Goth once on the ladder and it wasn't a huge problem, but someone else might have encountered it countless times and it could have been a problem for them. What I believe shouldn't be allowed should be the two mons in question on the same team, but this idea has already been presented and put down so that's not happening. So seeing as how I don't believe Goth, but mainly Shadow Tag, doesn't have a room in OU and in lower tiers, I'll vote to ban Shadow Tag.
Thanks for reading :]

 

[Aberforth]

You continue acting as if Stealth rock is a right for you to have up that you should not have to work for, Wheezer. We find that your entire thesis (stealth rock should be up easily to punish switches on stall) is incorrect.

 

[Wheezer]

You continue acting as if Stealth rock is a right for you to have up that you should not have to work for, Wheezer. We find that your entire thesis (stealth rock should be up easily to punish switches on stall) is incorrect.

I never said it is a right. With Mega Sableye gone, that doesn't mean you still don't have to work for hazards against stall. It's not like stall just won't run a hazard remover. On the contrary, stall will pay much more attention to how they prepare for and play the hazard wars because they can no longer just throw on Mega Sableye and not have any problems with the majority of the hazard setters in OU. We shouldn't keep Mega Sableye in the tier just because we want getting up hazards against stall to be "challenging". I suppose this kind of relates the the "broken shouldn't be kept to check broken" argument, except it is that "broken shouldn't be kept to give a playstyle an easy time" (while at the same time placing many restrictions on teambuildng).

 

[Aberforth]

That kinda comes down to your viewpoint then. Do you think the offensive player should be working to get hazards up, or the defenisve player should be working to keep them off. Given the game starts with them off, I'm inclined to believe having to work to get them up is a more enjoyable state of affairs.

 

[Wheezer]

That kinda comes down to your viewpoint then. Do you think the offensive player should be working to get hazards up, or the defenisve player should be working to keep them off. Given the game starts with them off, I'm inclined to believe having to work to get them up is a more enjoyable state of affairs.

There are not two different sides here. Both sides are working to keep up their own hazards while at the same time keeping off the hazards of the other side. If it is more beneficial to the stall team to have hazards off of their side of the field, the stall player will value hazard removal more when making risk v reward decisions. If it is more beneficial for the stall to team to have hazards on their opponent's side of the field, the stall player will value getting up their own hazards more when making risk v reward decisions. This works the same way for the offensive team. It is not always a certainty which side will value what more. It is by no means set in stone that stall values hazards off than hazards on, and it is also not true that offense will always value hazards on than hazards off.

 

[Victory Victreebel!]

Shadow Tag, the recently emerged aegis of competitive stall, has caused quite some chaos in the current metagame, with legitimate reason to back the up the commotion. Specifically Gothitelle, the kingpin of Shadow Tag users, has allowed stall (and not just stall, at that) teams to effectively cripple, if not rid themselves, of a cleric, hazard remover, or wallbreaker, giving opponents extremely low chances of recovering and overcoming their losses. The same goes for Gothorita, Wobbuffett, and Wynaut, but to a far lesser extent. Sure, there are ways to deal with Shadow Tag, but most of the time, the abstruse sets the ability results in come at a significant cost to any team's overall performance against teams without Shadow Tag. (Otherwise, simply having a Shadow Tag user on the team forces 50/50 predictions, and occasionally, a near auto-loss for "unprepared" teams.) The "low-risk, high reward" playstyle and the thoughtless picking and choosing of which threats to remove granted by Shadow Tag leads to the development of an absurd and holistically unhealthy metagame. All-in-all, my resolution is to ban Shadow Tag.

Aegislash was never broken, I don't see what the analogy is here.

Anyways, Gothitelle isn't really that durable. Just hit it with something like Crunch or Bug Buzz, and that's half of it's HP, gone.
Wobb and Wynaut are not a problem. Sure leftovers Wobb is a pain(oh gods not Lefties Wobb) but overall, they are not a problem outside of someone mind-reading you.
Still leaning towards BAN, but not as strongly now.

 

[MikeDawg]

We shouldn't keep Mega Sableye in the tier just because we want getting up hazards against stall to be "challenging".

Maybe I'm just.missing your point, but you are thinking about this backwards.

The correct statement is "We shouldnt remove sableye from the tier just because we want getting up hazards against stall to be 'easy'"

Banning happens reactively; it is going against the status quo. Sableye shouldn't be banned because you want hazards. It's not like sableye stall can't be beat by two dozen things. In that case, sableye would be broken, which clearly isn't the case.

Also, breaking my.post up into individual sentences isn't productive when it is one short paragraph. Kind of detracts from what I was actually saying

Victory Victreebel! aegis is a word

 

[Wheezer]

Maybe I'm just.missing your point, but you are thinking about this backwards.

The correct statement is "We shouldnt remove sableye from the tier just because we want getting up hazards against stall to be 'easy'"

Banning happens reactively; it is going against the status quo. Sableye shouldn't be banned because you want hazards. It's not like sableye stall can't be beat by two dozen things. In that case, sableye would be broken, which clearly isn't the case.

Also, breaking my.post up into individual sentences isn't productive when it is one short paragraph. Kind of detracts from what I was actually saying

Victory Victreebel! aegis is a word

I would like to see these 2 dozen things that break Mega Sableye stall. No repeats/minor changes

e: ok, gonna address other parts quick. You say that "we don't want to ban it because getting up hazards against stall should be easy" I think this a very flawed statament. Again, this goes back to the we don't "keep broken to check broken". In this case, it is that we shouldn't keep Mega Sableye so that getting up hazards isn't easy. Mega Sableye is uncompetitive like I discussed earlier, not going to address that topic again here because I already talked about it. I think too many people try to compare Mega Sableye to past suspects, but that is not right, because Mega Sableye is a very unique mon. We have never suspected something quite like it before.

 

[MikeDawg]

I would like to see these 2 dozen things that break Mega Sableye stall. No repeats/minor changes

You know what, I'm going to humor you, despite the fact that 1) You aren't playing 1 v 6... "things that break Mega Sableye stall" is moronically contrived, and you know why. 2) Using "Mega Sableye stall" as an all-encompassing team descriptor is almost as contrived as #1. and 3) there actually are two dozen things in the oras metagame that can put standard stall into a poor position from turn 1.

Note: I'm doing this under the assumption that you will reply with "hmmm let me go through each thing and tell you about all of the changes i can make to the team or all of the differnt scenarios that this isnt the case". My response to that (there won't be a physical one): refer to points #1 and #2.

lets assume abr stall - goth + cress or something

1) NP Togekiss
2) LO Hoopa
3) Rain Dance Manaphy
4) Char-Y + Pursuit
5) Charx + Outrage
6) CM Clefable w/ fire move
7) CM Latios
8) Taunt Mega Gyara
9) Mega Gardevoir
10) Mega Heracross
11) Mega Pidgeot
12) Pinsir/etc. + Magnezone (generous to count this as 1)
13) SD Gliscor
14) Mixed Victini
15) Bulk Up Talonflame
16) Mew/Celebi/etc. boost pass
17) Stallbreaker Breloom
18) Mega chomp
19) Subpass mega lop
20) Swords Dance + Smack Down/Gravity Lando-T
21) Wish + heal bell
22) NP + Taunt Thunderus
23) Stallbreaker Heatran
24) LO+Taunt torn-t

Other options: Combine any of these into the same team. Play well with offensive pressure. Pair dugtrio or magnezone with any solid spattacker/mon walled by skarm. Play aggressivly to take advantage of the fact that your opponent can't afford to take many risks. Realize that this list is on the extreme (but not that extreme tbh) side of things; mons like lo latios can still put in lots of work (since u aren't playing 1-6). Lots of mons have ez lure sets; build and play creatively. Also realize that this isn't a list of the things that you need to do; it is a list of things that you can (and should, in general against sableye or no sableye) do.

You say that "we don't want to ban it because getting up hazards against stall should be easy" I think this a very flawed statament

I just repeated back to you what you said, except in a form that is relevant to suspect testing. Idk what your response is trying to prove.

Also, that isn't even what i said lol... re-read the quote.

 

[Sir Azelf]

Lets us assume its the most archetype of this team (Sable/Chansey/Quagsire/Amoongus/Skarm/Not Goth)

Things that wallbreak this team without Goth in OU/BL: Dragon move Kyube, Magma Trap Tran, Dugtrio+anything special (ZardY, Pidgeot etc etc), Manaphy, NP Togekiss, Taunt MegaDos, SD Zard, Hoopa-U, MCross, MGardy, Magnezone + anything like Pinsir, Fire Punch Diggersby beats it without Mag support, Mega/LO Chomp, CM Clef, Volc* (*i dont think chansey even uses status on that team lol), Fire Blast DD Altaria, CM Recover Latios, Growth Giga Drain HP Fire Venusaur in the sun actually lets be real this wins out of the sun :|, SD Loom (does +2 252 Atk Breloom Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 222-262 (66.4 - 78.4% and SD Facade OHKO'S Amoongus), Tornadus-T, Crawdaunt, CB Tar and one wrong prediction with sending in Quag on a CC and the whole team loses to CB Terak Stone Edge, MixTini, SD LO Bug Bite SuperPower Scizor, various Gengar sets with Taunt.

Now lets do UU: Nasty Plot/Grass Knot/Fire Blast/Psyshock Azelf, Sub CM Chandelure, LODD/SD Feraligatr, LO Cloyster, non choiced Haxorus amplified by Taunt, normal SD Cross, any Infernape with Grass Knot, Mix Hydreigon, Mix Nidoking, NP Porygon-z, Mix Sharpedo, NP Lucario.

Can i do RU and NU too and past gens too? So i can put in shit like Mix LO Dragonite, ChainChomp and TyraniBoah? And gimmicks too like Sub CM normal Hoopa and Solar Beam Flare Blitz Zard-Y?

Srs Note: All these sets i was being serious about are on the analysis so arent made up gimmicks lol.

Probs more but i cba.

Anyway my point is stuff that beat this team archetype exists even in past gens, in lower tiers and hasnt even been specifically designed to beat it hence the "failure to adapt" being a pretty valid argument imo.

EDIT: oh monkey balls, i was beaten by above, oh well.

ban specs omastar o checks lol

 

[Groovy groudon]

ou is actually really constrained with hazard control options. You pretty much run, starmie, lati, skarm or a magic bouncer (diancie or sable). If you stray from these you are force to run something suboptimal like defog mega sciz or rapid spin exca. all of these bar sable have easy ways around them (zone traps skarm, lati and starmie are pursuit trapped, and diancie is scared to switch into most common setters. There are still ways to get up hazards despite sable but it is alot more difficult. Overall i feel sable makes this aspect of the game more balanced

Sable though has another unhealthy aspect that shouldn't be ignored. This is how sable centralises defensive teams. I wont go into detail because wheezer explained this really well, but basically stall is nearly force to run mega sable.

I feel that sable should be banned due to the fact that it centralise stall, even if it helps against hazard stacking because if hazard stacking become too overwhelming we can always give klef, skarm and ferro a look at.

honestly goth also centralises stall an should be banned, even if that does mean hoopa/mana are stupid against stall and they can be suspected separately

 

[Shruggy]

You know what, I'm going to humor you, despite the fact that 1) You aren't playing 1 v 6... "things that break Mega Sableye stall" is moronically contrived, and you know why. 2) Using "Mega Sableye stall" as an all-encompassing team descriptor is almost as contrived as #1. and 3) there actually are two dozen things in the oras metagame that can put standard stall into a poor position from turn 1.

Note: I'm doing this under the assumption that you will reply with "hmmm let me go through each thing and tell you about all of the changes i can make to the team or all of the differnt scenarios that this isnt the case". My response to that (there won't be a physical one): refer to points #1 and #2.

lets assume abr stall - goth + cress or something

1) NP Togekiss
2) LO Hoopa
3) Rain Dance Manaphy
4) Char-Y + Pursuit
5) Charx + Outrage
6) CM Clefable w/ fire move
7) CM Latios
8) Taunt Mega Gyara
9) Mega Gardevoir
10) Mega Heracross
11) Mega Pidgeot
12) Pinsir/etc. + Magnezone (generous to count this as 1)
13) SD Gliscor
14) Mixed Victini
15) Bulk Up Talonflame
16) Mew/Celebi/etc. boost pass
17) Stallbreaker Breloom
18) Mega chomp
19) Subpass mega lop
20) Swords Dance + Smack Down/Gravity Lando-T
21) Wish + heal bell
22) NP + Taunt Thunderus
23) Stallbreaker Heatran
24) LO+Taunt torn-t

Other options: Combine any of these into the same team. Play well with offensive pressure. Pair dugtrio or magnezone with any solid spattacker/mon walled by skarm. Play aggressivly to take advantage of the fact that your opponent can't afford to take many risks. Realize that this list is on the extreme (but not that extreme tbh) side of things; mons like lo latios can still put in lots of work (since u aren't playing 1-6). Lots of mons have ez lure sets; build and play creatively. Also realize that this isn't a list of the things that you need to do; it is a list of things that you can (and should, in general against sableye or no sableye) do.



I just repeated back to you what you said, except in a form that is relevant to suspect testing. Idk what your response is trying to prove.

Also, that isn't even what i said lol... re-read the quote.

Sorry friend i dont want to be awkward but i did find a couple of those stallbreakers a bit weak so in case anyone else has problems with them i'd like to share a few mons/sets that have beaten me in the past and can relatively easily break m-sab stalls.

Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 144 HP / 188 Def / 176 SpD
Careful Nature
- Curse
- Body Slam
- Rest
- Sleep Talk / Crunch / Block

Breaks shit or PP stalls unaware/sab and then breaks shit.

Reuniclus @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast

breaks shit or PP stalls unaware/chans then breaks shit

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 29 HP
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Calm Mind
- Roost

breaks shit. Clef and only like 1/2 other fairies can handle this

Meloetta @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 248 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
- Rest
- Snore
- Calm Mind
- Shadow Ball

IDK evs, probably max hp/defense or something. Snore hax is the shit lol. I think there is a similar set with M-Garde but i havent seen it or tried it.

Like its soooo easy to fit all 4 of these onto your stall teams as well. I find the idea that stall struggles to beat opposing stall to be quite funny as thats kinda obvious since stall is not designed to be other stalls. Therefore you have to deliberately build your team in order to beat other stalls which personally i dont have a problem with.

 

[Ciele]

After playing and earning reqs on the wonderful Suspect Ladder my opinion of these Pokemon still hasn't really changed. There's probably more than a dozen borderline broken/op Pokemon in this tier but none of them are Gothitelle. I know it's only ~50 games on a Suspect ladder but the metagame is essentially the same as before because the truth of the matter is there's a ton of Pokemon who are both better and more relevant than Gothitelle is.

As far as being overpowered goes it has only seen moderate success on a small handful of teams in ORAS but because these teams are seen as *insert tactless word/phrase with no real relevant definition here* it gets vilified more than something like Clefable does. Obviously usage isn't really important if it's overpowering when it is used but there's never been any evidence that it actually is. "OLT dominance" was literally 3-5 players out of who knows how many qualifying with teams which included it (while most players spammed HO) and "high Tour win rates" came in between mediocre-bad win rates in other tournaments (again while most players spammed HO).

Tornadus-Therian is the Pokemon winning all the time and Charizard, Gardevoir, etc. are the Pokemon who overpower 90% of the tier with brute force. Clefable is the ridiculous support Pokemon who can also win games by itself because of TWave probability and Manaphy is the Pokemon who can potentially 6-0 teams based on what coverage it runs. There's good reason why it's these Pokemon being used in high-level tournament play and not Gothitelle.

That said it seems more people are going with "uncompetitive" now rather than broken but I don't understand what makes it so uncompetitive.

"How is it fair that it can just remove my Heatran" - it's the benefit you get for using a Pokemon with horrible stats and typing which often contributes nothing in games. It's never forcing auto-wins (well no more so than the standard "x sweeper Just Wins") and it doesn't rely on probability to turn the game into "who gets luckier". What exactly makes this more uncompetitive than the Pokemon who has a 60% chance to remove your turn or the super strong + fast Pokemon who has a random 30% chance to essentially remove its best counters? If it's just team matchup then there's a ton of stuff on offense that's more uncompetitive than this. Funnily enough a different form of trapping (Pursuit) contributes to this more than Gothitelle does (who remembers KeldLandTar?).

Sitting through 20-30 turns as it spams Rest is horribly boring but if it's not overpowered, potentially overpowered based on probability, or winning games based on more than occasional strong team matchup making it easier to play then it doesn't really need to be banned. If it's just a matter of the tier being more enjoyable without it then there will never be an end to banning things.

Sableye is a more unusual case. It's not centralising in terms of usage or team building but games featuring it are based almost entirely around breaking it. It kinda shows how ridiculously centralising and overpowered Stealth Rock is that a Pokemon becomes worthy of Suspecting based on it being somewhat reliable at being able to keep SR off the field. I don't think it's quite influential enough overall to warrant banning but I can certainly see why some think that it is. Stealth Rock seems like the bigger issue though.

ban scald

 

[Eraxxer]

Got reqs so here's my opinion -

Yeah lets ban Sableye cos stall has to run it... along with Chansey and skarm... this isn't a great argument. Stall is inherently unchanging because there are some things that just must be used. When your aim is to check everything defensively, you're gonna be forced to run specific fat things. Only "good" exception I can think of is Wonder Trio which can only work due to Sheddy gimmicks, and its lack of Chansey leaves it weak to ZardY and very well to KyuB

If your team can't handle stall that's your fault. If Goth is gone it is so much easier to find Sab stops with no risk of them getting trapped. If you try to claim that it's hard/impossible to break Sableye when the stall player can constantly switch, how come I and tonnes of others have beaten Sab stall even when goth was allowed? With no risk to Stallbreakers being trapped, I don't see how Sab can be great.

Look at the period where Sab was in A+. Sab Goth wasn't really used. As soon as it became common, Sab shot back up to S

Ban STag/Goth, don't ban Sableye

 

[SlashingScizors]

About time,practically ever overused player was waiting for this. Sablenite is too OP,however,shadow tag is not that problematic.I highly suggest not to ban shadow tag,because thats the only niche goth actually has.But,i agree with everybody supporting the ban of Sablenite.(This suspect test should have been done WAY BEFORE,but,its finally happening,and i'm not gonna complain lol)

 

[MANNAT]

About time,practically ever overused player was waiting for this. Sablenite is too OP,however,shadow tag is not that problematic.I highly suggest not to ban shadow tag,because thats the only niche goth actually has.But,i agree with everybody supporting the ban of Sablenite.(This suspect test should have been done WAY BEFORE,but,its finally happening,and i'm not gonna complain lol)

If the only niche of something is inherently uncompeitive with little to no counterplay and pretty much removes all skill from the equation in stag, then I think we can afford to lose that niiche from the metagame lol.

 

[Punchshroom]

About time,practically ever overused player was waiting for this. Sablenite is too OP,however,shadow tag is not that problematic. I highly suggest not to ban shadow tag, because that's the only niche goth actually has. But,i agree with everybody supporting the ban of Sablenite.(This suspect test should have been done WAY BEFORE,but,its finally happening,and i'm not gonna complain lol)

See this is the kind of 'sentimental bias' that opinions on the suspect shouldn't be based of, not to mention you offered absolutely no insight on what you think about Shadow Tag's current effect on the metagame. Keeping a potentially broken aspect in the meta just to keep your fancied Pokemon relevant shouldn't take precedence over actually keeping the metagame stable / balanced / competitive.

In other words, when it comes to suspect tests, think of 'what is happening now' first, not 'what would happen later'; focus on the issue at hand.

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

Got reqs in blazing fashion 43-3 #1 on ladder, maybe best record in the whole suspect idk, Ive heard the words "ascended" or "legend" thrown around, but that's for y'all to figure out.

Anyway joking aside, I will obviously be voting to ban shadow tag, shit is just broken I haven't seen a good argument against banning it. The main reason is simply the distribution of things that get trapped by shadow tag is too great, all the other trappers have severe limitation, ie: needs to be grounded, or a steel, goth can trap everything in the tier bar gengar and sableye, and the main reason this is an issue is because stall is a playstyle such that in order to beat it you need stallbreakers(hence the name...), but in my experience having enough room, on a team that can handle an acceptable amount of meta, to put even just two stallbreakers can be a tough sell. So in my experience even if I have a stallbreaker it can only get one kill without goth coming in to at least cripple it with twave, or at worst kill it then leave the engagement either back at 100% with scarf, or with scarf and now +6/+6 spatk/spdef. The things it can take advantage of are just too great. The same goes with wobbuffet even though he is not as bad as goth, the idea is still the same, they can just take advantage of too many things which contributes greater to the matchup problem OU is already facing. I am also not a fan of catchalls in any playstyle, goth can just be thrown on to a team without much thought and either goth eliminates one of the biggest threats to the stall team, or the team had good enough matchup to win anyway. So yeah basically it just boils down to shadow tag can take advantage of way too many pokemon in the tier to be considered healthy. BAN STAG

On to Mega Sableye, this one is really close for me, like really close. I think the reason Sableye is so contested right now is because people are comparing it too much to past suspects, I think the last like 5 suspects were all mons that had basically no viable OU counters, and they look at sableye and say "lol use fairies" or point out the multiple of mons that are in fact a counter to sableye. The thing people are overlooking though is sableye is most commonly used on stall, and in that setting you just can not look at a pokemon individually I mean hell look at the popular stall teams everyone complains about, they have mons from RU in there like amoongus or quagsire but they are used because they do one job particularly well and then rely on their teammates to handle their weaknesses. OK ill wrap up this point then go to next one I guess, if you look at mega sableye individually I can see how you would be inclined to say it isnt broken, but you could say the same about amoongus being in OU, if you look at it individually its an underwhelming mon that loses to plenty of things, but its used effectively in OU nontheless because of teammate support. SO thts an analogy im comfortable putting in sableye except it is individually much better than amoongus.

Now I will talk about its ability a bit here, because combined with its amazing typing and bulk sableye does its job by literally just sitting there. Very common OU mons like ferrothorn and hippowdon are just rendered ABSOLUTELY useless against any team with a mega sableye, it can not even be pursuit trapped because I am pretty sure it beats every pursuit trapper 1v1, so sableye just gets a free switch into most hazard setters and then can go for a utility move like willo or knock off, or recover if it needs to. This just adds on to the already existing matchup problem. At the end of the day Mega Sableye's ability, typing, movepool, and bulk are just too much put together to have in one mon especially on a stall team where it usually finds its home. I think stall will get along just fine without both of these, as we have already seen successful stall teams this gen without either, and I believe(based on my experience on the ladder) the metagame will be more enjoyable and healthy with both gone. BAN SABLENITE

 

[KztxL7]

Mega Sableye's bulk and typing is highly overrated.

125/115 defenses are great if it wasn't being backed by 50 Base HP, no Passive Recovery because it has to hold onto a Mega Stone, and 20 Speed. Which means it has to fish for turns to get in because otherwise it'll have to take two hits before it can use Recover.

Ghost/Dark may give it three immunities but it gives it only 1 resist to an uncommon attack type, at least 1 of those immunities is an incredibly rare attack type when not used with an "-ate" ability. And it weakness is an incredibly common attack type.

 

[Mango Smoothie]

Got reqs so time to post something.

The suspect ladder was a blur of Azelf/Suicide leads, HO spike stacking, Medicham spam, insults for playing stall, getting swept by RDTG manaphy 10 or so times (why haven't we banned that thing yet?), and the 3 other stall teams I faced and lost to. Given the high influx of HO as well as hazard spam, the whole thing felt kind of overwhelming at times. Gothitelle was still there, and it still ripped defensive teams apart with trickscarf stalling. Sadly, I don't remember any Wobbuffets.

I will vote ban on Shadow Tag. I wanted it to be banned throughout XY, I think STag (to say something that hopefully hasn't been said yet) disproportionately rewards one player for a single good play, and disproportionately punishes another player for making a bad play. For example, if I think my opponent is going for Charizard X, and I bring in my Slowbro only to see that my opponent brought in Serperior instead. I don't outright lose my Slowbro, but my opponent gets a free turn while I react to Serperior, giving the chance to sub/glare/attack. With STag, its different because I cannot respond to it. I can't bring in something that isn't 'as' threatened by the STag user, in fact I can bring nothing in at all. If STag user is Gothitelle, then Slowbro is as good as dead at that point, and I'll sit through the cycle of rest/thunder wave until Slowbro is dead. If its Wobb, then the game is a bit different, but if it doesn't kill you then it at the very least generated 2 free turns for the opponent with Encore, one for the switch in and the other while you switch out. There is no reaction, you sit there and weather whatever the STag user wants to do. This to me (at least in Gothitelle's situation since I play stall/balance) "reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant," because I can dodge Shadow Tag as many times as I want but if I mispredict once with a pokemon, its dead.

Onto Sablelinite, I'm going to vote no ban. The way I see it, hazards are as much support for a win-con as anything else you put on a pokemon team is, and there are times when that support isn't going to be all that useful. If Specs Keldeo is my support for a sweeper, and my opponent has Slowbro+Amoongus, then I shouldn't expect Keldeo's support to get me very far in that battle. I don't see how [Hazard Setter] and Mega Sableye is all that different. If [Hazard Setter] cannot muscle its way past Sableye/opponent's method of hazard control, then the rest of my team should compensate for that if I want to consistently have hazards.
Also, Mega Sableye just doesn't seem to fit the Tiering Policy definitions of limiting Skill, or being Broken/Uncompetitive. Mega Sableye doesn't "reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant", and it isn't "too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant". Sableye is definitely very unique in the support it brings, and you need to be careful how you play against it. But you don't have to run obscure nonsense beat/pressure it. It also isn't so good that it "dictate / require usage" and you're not at "a drastic disadvantage" by not using it. Does Sableye have notable qualities that warrant it a team slot? Absolutely, its S ranked for a reason. Do those advantages blow every other potential mega out of the water? Absolutely not, the choice depends on your team needs.

 

[Anacleto]

Reading this thread I learnt that the stall player can easily cover sableyes weaknesses with the other 5 slots while the offensive player plays only with one pokemon with which either he 6-0s the stall team (which is possible anyways, Manaphy cough cough) or loses.

I wonder why the pre-suspect ladder was almost completely made of hyper offense/bulky offense/balance (especially on top, for what is worth) if sableye non-goti stall was such an unfair and unbeatable strategy

 

[MANNAT]

Reading this thread I learnt that the stall player can easily cover sableyes weaknesses with the other 5 slots while the offensive player plays only with one pokemon with which either he 6-0s the stall team (which is possible anyways, Manaphy cough cough) or loses.

I wonder why the pre-suspect ladder was almost completely made of hyper offense/bulky offense/balance (especially on top, for what is worth) if sableye non-goti stall was such an unfair and unbeatable strategy

It's because most users on the ladder prefer to get battles done as quick as they can, and players higher on the ladder had the team pretty much every other game and you had to have some stupid counterplay for it.

 

[Take Azelfie]

Reading this thread I learnt that the stall player can easily cover sableyes weaknesses with the other 5 slots while the offensive player plays only with one pokemon with which either he 6-0s the stall team (which is possible anyways, Manaphy cough cough) or loses.

I wonder why the pre-suspect ladder was almost completely made of hyper offense/bulky offense/balance (especially on top, for what is worth) if sableye non-goti stall was such an unfair and unbeatable strategy

suspects tend to always be filled with HO most of the time since it is fast to ladder with, not everyone does it but yh.