Announcement np: SM OU Suspect Process, Round 4 - The Robots - Metagrossite BANNED

[pj]

Mega Metagross is strong, no doubt, but is certainly no second coming of jesus like some of these people make out. The Agiligross set suffers so badly from 4 move sydrome in having to choose between Earthquake/Hammer Arm/Ice Punch. It is not going to sweep the entire metagame or even a significant portion of it without team support. read: like every other setup sweeper. The Wallbreaker set is also great at guess what. wallbreaking. You cant argue it broke my walls ; cry ; as a reason to ban it. Ridiculous. Post-pherosoma is heavily biased in favour of webs,shitty balance and stall teams, with offense barely even seen. Banning mega metagross would make for an even more unhealthy metagame than we have now.

 

[hades666]

Yes the speed tier, but also, many of the checks/counters Metagross had in ORAS are borderline terrible in this metagame. The addition of terrains also helped as it gives Megagross the ability to break passed its would be counters, heal up, or avoid status Then, you add all the reasons it was initially suspected and you have a far more problematic mon than it was last gen.

So mega meta in itself isn't op, it is just very good in sm ou??

 

[Of Moose & Men]

So mega meta in itself isn't op, it is just very good in sm ou??

How is that at all what you gathered from my response?

Whether it is "OP" or not is for you to decide. I explained what changes took place that many including myself think pushed it over the edge.

Nice Slippery Slope praj.pran. Really drive that crap home. Sarcasm or not, people actually believe that. But I guess it is too much to ask people to act like adults in these threads.

 

[hades666]

How is that at all what you gathered from my response? Whether it is "OP" or not is for you to decide. I explained what changes took place that many oncluding myself pushed it over the edge.

Because you clearly stated that it can abuse the terrains, it's checks are garbage right now and the auto speed buff is very good for it. Therefore making it very good in the sm metagame

 

[AzureNight]

So mega meta in itself isn't op, it is just very good in sm ou??

Quite,There are a lot of mons that support it with terrains,weather,And trappers help it so it doesn't need to carry certain coverage moves, for example thunderpunch to beat celesteela.
It is curious that the same trappers that help it past its counters also can trap it.

 

[lydian]

Guys, I haven't had time to play on the suspect ladder yet so I cannot say for sure what are my thoughts on this suspect, but I just want to clear somethings up about 4MSS. In the first place, 4MSS is not when a Pokémon 'wants' to have more moveslots, because that applies to literally every single Pokemon. All of them would benefit from an added moveslot. The thing is, Pokemon with 4MSS cannot cover what they want to with only four moveslots, meaning that Mega Meta, for example has to choose between Hammer Arm and EQ, one leaving it walled by Ferro and the other leaves it walled by Rachi and other Megagross. That's 4MSS, and it doesn't apply to every single Pokemon. There are Pokemon like Serperior who simply don't have enough coverage, and there are Pokemon like Terrakion, Zygarde and Mimikyu that have amazing coverage with their STABs alone, these Pokemon don't have 4MSS, yeah, they would obviously want more moveslots but they don't need to choose their moveslots wisely to influence on which Pokemon are cjecks and which are not. Protean Greninja and Genesect are big examples of 4MSS, because they have immense coverage and no real counters thanks to their versatility. However, Metagross case is slightly different, because Pokemon Like Mega Scizor and Rocky Helmet Tangrowth can wall it nonetheless (HP Fire shouldn't even be mentioned). Also, Greninja and Genesect are significantly more powerful than Metagross. Greninja is also faster, making it tougher to Revenge Kill (unlike Mega Meta) and Genesect is almost equally as bulky but has an even better Defensive typing which gives it only a single weakness. So, my decision is far from being final, as I do want to test the suspect ladder a lot before coming to my conclusion my right now, I'm leaning towards 'Do Not Ban'

Tldr - Mega Meta has more counterplay options and is easier to revenge kill/wall than the previously banned Pokemon

 

[Reviloja753]

LOL at all these people saying ban. Mega Metagross is strong, no doubt, but is certainly no second coming of jesus like some of these people make out. The Agiligross set suffers so badly from 4 move sydrome in having to choose between Earthquake/Hammer Arm/Ice Punch. It is not going to sweep the entire metagame or even a significant portion of it without team support. read: like every other setup sweeper. The Wallbreaker set is also great at guess what. wallbreaking. You cant argue it broke my walls ; cry ; as a reason to ban it. Ridiculous. Post-pherosoma is heavily biased in favour of webs,shitty balance and stall teams, with offense barely even seen. Banning mega metagross would make for an even more unhealthy metagame than we have now.

Again, 4MSS is bull. Also, Agilagross is something that is less common than the other sets. Also with the team support argument, every Pokémon can't fill their niche all by themselves. Everything has flaws. Sometimes the flaws are more pronounced than others. MegaMeta isn't a problem because it doesn't need support at all. It needs little support yes, but it still needs support. With the wallbreaking thing, the problem is that things that would help counter MegaMeta are usually unreliable. A wallbreaker breaking walls is fine. MegaMeta is a physical sweeper that has the power to break walls, but as far as I know isn't specifically a wallbreaker.

 

[King]

I figure I could embarrass myself on here since I'm getting back into mons.

I've been playing quite a bit on the ladder, and I find a lot of my teams either have to have megametagross on it or need to come prepared to deal with various different versions of it.

The only argument I want to make for the pokemon is that it has too strong of a pull on the variance of teams. Its removal will bring out more variety and creativity because teams no longer have to fear getting destroyed by it. This simply cannot be said for any other pokemon in the metagame right now- Metagross has base 700 stats and people have to build around it instead of similar threats. It can be stopped, however, it's too polarizing for the meta right now. I urge to Ban for the sake of advancing the meta.

 

[Sun King]

LOL at all these people saying ban. Mega Metagross is strong, no doubt, but is certainly no second coming of jesus like some of these people make out. The Agiligross set suffers so badly from 4 move sydrome in having to choose between Earthquake/Hammer Arm/Ice Punch. It is not going to sweep the entire metagame or even a significant portion of it without team support. read: like every other setup sweeper. The Wallbreaker set is also great at guess what. wallbreaking. You cant argue it broke my walls ; cry ; as a reason to ban it. Ridiculous. Post-pherosoma is heavily biased in favour of webs,shitty balance and stall teams, with offense barely even seen. Banning mega metagross would make for an even more unhealthy metagame than we have now.

The reason post Phero is full of Webs is because the metagame has no effective hazard removal, which largely can be attributed to the stagnation attributable to Metagross. Metagross also shits on almost every single hazard remover, meaning you can apply so much pressure with it as it forces an opponent to either remove hazards and damage their removal strategy too much, or they forfeit a ton of momentum.

Again, Metagross isn't broken; it's just a giant distortion of the metagame. Banning it will shake the metagame up a lot, hopefully leading to better hazard removal strategies and another balanced metagame.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

Guys, I haven't had time to play on the suspect ladder yet so I cannot say for sure what are my thoughts on this suspect, but I just want to clear somethings up about 4MSS. In the first place, 4MSS is not when a Pokémon 'wants' to have more moveslots, because that applies to literally every single Pokemon. All of them would benefit from an added moveslot. The thing is, Pokemon with 4MSS cannot cover what they want to with only four moveslots, meaning that Mega Meta, for example has to choose between Hammer Arm and EQ, one leaving it walled by Ferro and the other leaves it walled by Rachi and other Megagross. That's 4MSS, and it doesn't apply to every single Pokemon. There are Pokemon like Serperior who simply don't have enough coverage, and there are Pokemon like Terrakion, Zygarde and Mimikyu that have amazing coverage with their STABs alone, these Pokemon don't have 4MSS, yeah, they would obviously want more moveslots but they don't need to choose their moveslots wisely to influence on which Pokemon are cjecks and which are not. Protean Greninja and Genesect are big examples of 4MSS, because they have immense coverage and no real counters thanks to their versatility. However, Metagross case is slightly different, because Pokemon Like Mega Scizor and Rocky Helmet Tangrowth can wall it nonetheless (HP Fire shouldn't even be mentioned). Also, Greninja and Genesect are significantly more powerful than Metagross. Greninja is also faster, making it tougher to Revenge Kill (unlike Mega Meta) and Genesect is almost equally as bulky but has an even better Defensive typing which gives it only a single weakness. So, my decision is far from being final, as I do want to test the suspect ladder a lot before coming to my conclusion my right now, I'm leaning towards 'Do Not Ban'

Tldr - Mega Meta has more counterplay options and is easier to revenge kill/wall than the previously banned Pokemon

Shoowee, I'm going to have to unwatch this thread soon. I'm on the cusp of ripping my hair out (not really).

On to your post. . .

Why are we still discussing this? You're telling me Megagross can't single-handedly take out the metagame? Well shit, I guess I'll be changing my stance. . .

4mss is when a mon absolutely needs a fifth move to be effective because the 4 moves it does have, do not cover enough for it to thrive. That does not at all apply to Megagross. If it's not running one move, that means one more 'mon, maybe two can sometimes switch into it. . . That's the definition of a check. What you're saying is every mon with a check has 4mss. Never mind the fact that. . . surprise, Metagross does have 5 other Pokemon that are capable of removing said mon. And if the person using Megagross is worth their salt, they have covered that weakness in teambuilding. This is part of that vacuum I spoke about on the first page, which yes, goes both ways, but seems to be coming from one "side" more than the other. I don't think it'd be safe to say Megagross needs absolutely no support, because it does, but the support it does need is pretty much minimal. That speaks volumes on this "4mss" stance everyone feels the need to take.

I mean, the fact that most of the anti-ban posts have been the stereotypical "4mss", "whittle it down", "it has checks/counters" arguments is sort of a testament on where this mon sits. The only eye rolling reasoning that hasn't been said is "but it's frail", because that doesn't apply to metagross, at least we can acknoweldge that. . .

We're not saying Megagross is impossible to remove from play, we're not saying it's impossible to switch into. Reading some of the posts here would make that abundantly clear. But I think most people read the first sentence or two and already have a response made up and ignore the rest of the post. What we are saying is that Megagross has made an enormous impact on the meta, and many of us believe that it is unhealthy. We've explained why, and yet, the main thing that seems to come up instead of legitimate arguments, is "4mss". . . F3 + 4mss shows that it was stated 22 times in the last page, 13 on page 3, 17 times on page 2, and 18 at the time of me posting this (granted, most of them are from your post). . .

How many more times do we need to talk about a mostly moot point?

 

[lordoftets]

I thought we went through all of this during the Greninja suspect in ORAS. The consensus was that it couldn't sweep literally the entire metagame with just four moves, but it could plug any holes in an offensive team while still being incredibly effective.

 

[Finchinator]

Mega Metagross is strong, no doubt, but is certainly no second coming of jesus like some of these people make out. The Agiligross set suffers so badly from 4 move sydrome in having to choose between Earthquake/Hammer Arm/Ice Punch. It is not going to sweep the entire metagame or even a significant portion of it without team support. read: like every other setup sweeper. The Wallbreaker set is also great at guess what. wallbreaking. You cant argue it broke my walls ; cry ; as a reason to ban it. Ridiculous. Post-pherosoma is heavily biased in favour of webs,shitty balance and stall teams, with offense barely even seen. Banning mega metagross would make for an even more unhealthy metagame than we have now.

The logic employed in this post is all, more or less, awful and inaccurate.

First and foremost, you do not touch on anything remotely specific. Your post generalizes Mega-Metagross into two-sets unnecessarily, has multiple logical fallacies, and neglects to factor in so many things. Saying that "wallbreaker" Mega-Metagross breaks walls and then not expanding on why that could be good or bad is a pretty meaningless assertion, especially when it's the centerpiece of an anti-ban argument. Additionally, you name-drop 4MSS in your former point, but look at it in a totally impractical sense, just like pretty much every single anti-ban poster has in this thread. I think that a lot of people neglect to consider the fact that 4MSS isn't a full-fledged issue as the opponent of Mega-Metagross doesn't know what moves it may or may not have right off-the-bat, either, even if some of it is arguably guesswork -- it's far from a strong standalone point to favor your argument and it shouldn't be mentioned much at all, let alone in the fashion that you did. Finally, your general analysis of the potential impact on the metagame is not only very questionable, but it's also not how we look at suspects at all. We look at the suspect and see if it's banworthy in the metagame, not if we can picture some more ideal future regardless of the verdict and then prioritize that over the individual pokemon's brokenness. That whole end to your post is irrelevant/moot.

People should really brush up on general suspect related details and posting procedure prior to posting as a LOT of posts in this thread have struck me as lackluster.

 

[stardust93]

I figure I could embarrass myself on here since I'm getting back into mons.

I've been playing quite a bit on the ladder, and I find a lot of my teams either have to have megametagross on it or need to come prepared to deal with various different versions of it.

The only argument I want to make for the pokemon is that it has too strong of a pull on the variance of teams. Its removal will bring out more variety and creativity because teams no longer have to fear getting destroyed by it. This simply cannot be said for any other pokemon in the metagame right now- Metagross has base 700 stats and people have to build around it instead of similar threats. It can be stopped, however, it's too polarizing for the meta right now. I urge to Ban for the sake of advancing the meta.

Metagross is not the ONLY pokemon thats restricts teambuilding... banning gross will not result in variety or creativity... ppl will still use helmet lando or defensive chomp, av tang or helmet tang, toxapex, ferrothorn and what not... its gonna be the same thing regardless of whether gross gets banned or not... dnt tell me the rise of helmet chomp is "variety and creative" that set has been used throughout oras and is still being used... and when u say "variety and creative" what pokemon do you have in mind?. the tapus are the result of gross checks being shaky... slowbro skarm celesteela are all beaten by koko (zone traps celesteela/skarm/ferro/scizor) regardless of gross having tpunch (and zone was used in oras to support gross)... helmet tang gets beaten by lele, av tang gets 2hkoed by specs lele and scizor is beaten by pyshic into hp fire..(regardless of gross having zen).. so i dnt understand how banning gross will help advance the meta in anyway.... its still gonna be the same.. when aegislash got banned in xy pokemon like mega gardevoir heracross pinsir medicham all became better... but how does banning gross make any pokemon more viable? U wanna know whats variety and creative, the post that shows stealth rock explosion metagross.. thats creative... not using standard mons over and over again and then blaming gross for lack of creativity...

 

[Sun King]

Metagross is not the ONLY pokemon thats restricts teambuilding... banning gross will not result in variety or creativity... ppl will still use helmet lando or defensive chomp, av tang or helmet tang, toxapex, ferrothorn and what not... its gonna be the same thing regardless of whether gross gets banned or not... dnt tell me the rise of helmet chomp is "variety and creative" that set has been used throughout oras and is still being used... and when u say "variety and creative" what pokemon do you have in mind?. the tapus are the result of gross checks being shaky... slowbro skarm celesteela are all beaten by koko (zone traps celesteela/skarm/ferro/scizor) regardless of gross having tpunch (and zone was used in oras to support gross)... helmet tang gets beaten by lele, av tang gets 2hkoed by specs lele and scizor is beaten by pyshic into hp fire..(regardless of gross having zen).. so i dnt understand how banning gross will help advance the meta in anyway.... its still gonna be the same.. when aegislash got banned in xy pokemon like mega gardevoir heracross pinsir medicham all became better... but how does banning gross make any pokemon more viable? U wanna know whats variety and creative, the post that shows stealth rock explosion metagross.. thats creative... not using standard mons over and over again and then blaming gross for lack of creativity...

This might be one of the most incomprehensible word vomits of random thought in this thread.

You said banning Metagross won't create new diversity: what?

Literally all scarf users must be able to KO Meta. It opens up a host of new viable scarfers. It will allow certain things to run sets OTHER than Scarf. It will create a massive shift in sets, and thereby new mons to answer them. We have to use the same like 20 mons this meta because Metagross invalidated so much—particularly on Offense.

This metagame is so boring and unimaginative; "innovation" is slapping a new Z-Crystal on something...

 

[giovanidude]

This might be one of the most incomprehensible word vomits of random thought in this thread.

You said banning Metagross won't create new diversity: what?

Literally all scarf users must be able to KO Meta. It opens up a host of new viable scarfers. It will allow certain things to run sets OTHER than Scarf. It will create a massive shift in sets, and thereby new mons to answer them. We have to use the same like 20 mons this meta because Metagross invalidated so much—particularly on Offense.

This metagame is so boring and unimaginative; "innovation" is slapping a new Z-Crystal on something...

The thing is even though a few new sets might come about, it'll be the same things regardless after time. Banning a mon because the meta is stale or that a shake up is wanted isn't really reason to be banned. All the common scarfers serve multiple functions anyways. They are all out on teams for speed control and to stop mons like +1 volc, tapu koko, base 110 mons, etc. from running game on a team.
And imagination is sure gonna be great when every team has a scarf tapu Lele once gross is baned right...

 

[stardust93]

This might be one of the most incomprehensible word vomits of random thought in this thread.

You said banning Metagross won't create new diversity: what?

Literally all scarf users must be able to KO Meta. It opens up a host of new viable scarfers. It will allow certain things to run sets OTHER than Scarf. It will create a massive shift in sets, and thereby new mons to answer them. We have to use the same like 20 mons this meta because Metagross invalidated so much—particularly on Offense.

This metagame is so boring and unimaginative; "innovation" is slapping a new Z-Crystal on something...

ok so some scarf users against metagross, lando/chomp/gengar/drill... ok so after gross goes, lando can use helmet or dual dance z move... seen both on the ladder even with the presence of gross, no scarfed chomp, seen helmet chomp and z move chomp with gross around, gengar is uu purely by usage (speed ties with gross so u cant even say gross is the reason why gengar isint being used) drill well theres always sand to outspeed gross.. sand teams for some reason don't exist anymore... there is the autotomize celesteela set that ppl use with flynium z.. +1 fire blast ohkos gross... or u can use firium z to catch metagross... so creativity depends all on you... which pokemon according to you becomes a viable scarfer if gross gets banned?

 

[King]

Metagross is not the ONLY pokemon thats restricts teambuilding... banning gross will not result in variety or creativity... ppl will still use helmet lando or defensive chomp, av tang or helmet tang, toxapex, ferrothorn and what not... its gonna be the same thing regardless of whether gross gets banned or not... dnt tell me the rise of helmet chomp is "variety and creative" that set has been used throughout oras and is still being used... and when u say "variety and creative" what pokemon do you have in mind?. the tapus are the result of gross checks being shaky... slowbro skarm celesteela are all beaten by koko (zone traps celesteela/skarm/ferro/scizor) regardless of gross having tpunch (and zone was used in oras to support gross)... helmet tang gets beaten by lele, av tang gets 2hkoed by specs lele and scizor is beaten by pyshic into hp fire..(regardless of gross having zen).. so i dnt understand how banning gross will help advance the meta in anyway.... its still gonna be the same.. when aegislash got banned in xy pokemon like mega gardevoir heracross pinsir medicham all became better... but how does banning gross make any pokemon more viable? U wanna know whats variety and creative, the post that shows stealth rock explosion metagross.. thats creative... not using standard mons over and over again and then blaming gross for lack of creativity...

I value that you have an opinion and I appreciate your desire to make the meta competitive through your contributions. I think your points are valid, but I will gladly clarify and counter them, if you won't mind. Again, I appreciate your counter to what I said, and I do not intend to devalue your opinions, I simply want to try to strengthen my statement. I hope you'll read my comment!

MMeta reaches the same speed as the lati's (350) and is able to outspeed the only relevant dog mon, keldeo. While these were more threatening in gen5/6, it's important to note that the majority of mons in the metagame do not outspeed these aforementioned pokemon. On top of that, we see exactly 7 relevant OU pokemon that have a base speed stat of higher than 110 in our current metagame. That means that a pokemon with a base stat of 145 attack, the 8th highest in the current metagame, will be punching your pokemon in the face first unless you're using one of the 7 pokemon that outspeed it, or have a pokemon that has boosted its speed due to using choice scarf or other means. Not only that, but of those 7, who happen to be Mega-Beedrill, Greninja, Tornadus-T, Tapu Koko, Mega Pidgeot, Dugtrio, and Scolipede, only 2 of them possess STAB super effective moves, and 1 of those 2 is a STAB that attacks MMeta's weakest stat, its spdef. Greninja is what I'm referring to here. Lets look at some calcs:

252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Metagross-Mega: 268-320 (89 - 106.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Metagross-Mega: 306-362 (101.6 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

All right we have 1 check to Metagross. Which just so happens to be a pokemon that rivals it in usage and I'd venture to say is next up on the ban list for this gen. But there's another issue here. The other 6 mons require specific sets to handle Metagross because of its base 150 def and base 110 spdef. Lets look at the only other STAB super effective user that outspeeds metagross: Dugtrio.

252 Atk Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Metagross-Mega: 192-228 (63.7 - 75.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This means we need a Ground Z-move to kill metagross with dugtrio, one of only 7 mons that outspeed metagross. Oh and by the way, there goes our Z-move for our team.

Beedrill is a high base attack pokemon that learns knock off, lets look at the calc for that:

252 Atk Beedrill-Mega Knock Off vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Metagross-Mega: 112-132 (37.2 - 43.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

That's pathetic damage. I've made my point.

We have to tweak sets on our team and devote special roles or risk using pokemon that may only have 1 role in our team, that role being to deal with Mega-Metagross. It's difficult to deal with, regardless of the set, specifically because of the high base stats it has. I don't want to go into the kind of damage it does because when looking at the pokemon's movepool and ability, it can make perfect use of it. This is what I mean by this pokemon limits team diversity. I hope this makes it a little more clear.

 

[Sun King]

The thing is even though a few new sets might come about, it'll be the same things regardless after time.

Foremost, what is your justification for that? You can't just say "banning Metagross won't change the meta" and expect us to just agree without explaining what else exists in the metagame that makes Metagross' influence invalidated.

TBanning a mon because the meta is stale or that a shake up is wanted isn't really reason to be banned.

This is exactly the rationale we used to ban Aegislash in XY. I was a staunch opponent to that because Aegislash in OU makes the metagame incredibly stable.

All the common scarfers serve multiple functions anyways. They are all out on teams for speed control and to stop mons like +1 volc, tapu koko, base 110 mons, etc. from running game on a team.

Be that as it may, freeing up those mons to run other sets creates a much more diverse metagame than what we have now. The other functions for those scarfers can honestly be covered in a number of other ways; Volcarona has numerous answers, as do Koko and any of the other 110s.

And imagination is sure gonna be great when every team has a scarf tapu Lele once gross is baned right...

C'mon--don't devolve into the "don't ban so X doesn't get broken" argument. There is no need to address this line of rhetoric any further.

ok so some scarf users against metagross, lando/chomp/gengar/drill... ok so after gross goes, lando can use helmet or dual dance z move... seen both on the ladder even with the presence of gross, no scarfed chomp, seen helmet chomp and z move chomp with gross around, gengar is uu purely by usage (speed ties with gross so u cant even say gross is the reason why gengar isint being used) drill well theres always sand to outspeed gross.. sand teams for some reason don't exist anymore... there is the autotomize celesteela set that ppl use with flynium z.. +1 fire blast ohkos gross... or u can use firium z to catch metagross... so creativity depends all on you... which pokemon according to you becomes a viable scarfer if gross gets banned?

Honestly, the suspect ladder is not going to be very indicative of a new metagame right now; it's what--day 3 after the removal of the single best and most centralizing Pokemon in the tier? The Aegislash suspect in XY was really similar in this respect; it took a long time for the things it held back (Fairies, and other strong wallbreakers) to reveal themselves as serious threats.

As for your argument regarding Z-Crystals: Like I said, we shouldn't accept slapping a Z-Crystal as "groundbreaking" or "profoundly creative" It's literally just giving a really strong one-time coverage move to something. Creativity should be regarded in unusual Pokemon or complete sets, not added firepower for one turn. Things like Shuca Berry + Ice Beam Tyranitar are creative, as they fill a COMPLETELY different purpose than all conventionally listed sets for Tyranitar.

I can honestly say the SuMo metagame has been one of the most uninspiring metagames I've ever seen. Innovation has largely been coverage switches from whatever "Set of the Month" exists for the top few threats (Pheromosa was probably the most indicative of this). We can do better than this.

EDIT: I forgot to address which Pokemon become better Scarfers after the ban. Latios, Lele, Jirachi, Nihilego, and Terrakion all become patently BETTER because they can better spam one or both of their STABs.

 

[Christopher Zonta]

Wesker1996~ on SD (COIL 2307, at the moment)
Mega-gross is not so OP as fuck, the oppo must only practise a moveset scouting to understand how to stop it. For example stay in with Celesteela to beguile the opponent at spam leech seed and withdraw on a Ground-type or a pokemon that resist to a possible Thunder Punch. Regard the Rock Polish variant it's rarely played cuz of already high base 110 speed so it prefers run 4 offensive moves to have more coverage as possible. Set scouting is the way, and i can make now a list of possible check & counters of Mega-Metagross:
Possible switch in:
Scizor (it has no coverage to hit this bitch unless the never played HP Fire LMAO)
Ferrothorn (this suck by 2 possible Hammer Arm but if Metagross is not running HA Ferrothorn can annoy him with leech seed or T-Wave)
W-Rotom (after set scouting, if Metagross is not carrying Zen Headbutt, W-Rotom cripple him with W-o-W, T-wave and take momentum ez with V-Switch)
Defensive Tangrowth deserve a special mention as a counter cuz he can switch into any coverage of Megagross and proceed to make cheap damage due Rocky Helmet's recoil
Bulky Volcarona: if Metagross is not running Zen Headbutt, this variant of Volca is a potentially switch in with 30% to cripple Gross with a burn due to Flame Body and proceed to use Gross as setup fodder
Defensive Rocky Helmet Mandibuzz also have a special mention as a counter & re-killer, due to the access to Foul Play that make 1HKO after take well Ice Punch, unless it fucking freeze lol

Revenge Killers:
Greninja and Scarf Hoopa Unbound: after that a mon of your team faint in front of Mega-Gross, one of this 2 can enter safe and do 1HKO with their respective main STAB moves.
Scarf Landorus: EQ of S-Landorus inflicts about a 90-98 (max roll) to Mega-gross, so he can potentially 1HKO after cheap damages.
Dugtrio: due to lack base attack stat, EQ of Dugtrio don't 1HKO Mega-gross, that take it with about 80% of max roll. Minimum cheap damages required.
Sand Rush Excadrill: Adamant Orb SR Exca make an 1HKO to Mega-Gross at Full HP.
Instead of take out Mega-gross, all you niggas should try to build almost a team with ONE of this possible answers to Mega-Metagross. DON'T BAN.

 

[stardust93]

I value tahat you have an opinion and I appreciate your desire to make the meta competitive through your contributions. I think your points are valid, but I will gladly clarify and counter them, if you won't mind. Again, I appreciate your counter to what I said, and I do not intend to devalue your opinions, I simply want to try to strengthen my statement. I hope you'll read my comment!

MMeta reaches the same speed as the lati's (350) and is able to outspeed the only relevant dog mon, keldeo. While these were more threatening in gen5/6, it's important to note that the majority of mons in the metagame do not outspeed these aforementioned pokemon. On top of that, we see exactly 7 relevant OU pokemon that have a base speed stat of higher than 110 in our current metagame. That means that a pokemon with a base stat of 145 attack, the 8th highest in the current metagame, will be punching your pokemon in the face first unless you're using one of the 7 pokemon that outspeed it, or have a pokemon that has boosted its speed due to using choice scarf or other means. Not only that, but of those 7, who happen to be Mega-Beedrill, Greninja, Tornadus-T, Tapu Koko, Mega Pidgeot, Dugtrio, and Scolipede, only 2 of them possess STAB super effective moves, and 1 of those 2 is a STAB that attacks MMeta's weakest stat, its spdef. Greninja is what I'm referring to here. Lets look at some calcs:

252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Metagross-Mega: 268-320 (89 - 106.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Metagross-Mega: 306-362 (101.6 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

All right we have 1 check to Metagross. Which just so happens to be a pokemon that rivals it in usage and I'd venture to say is next up on the ban list for this gen. But there's another issue here. The other 6 mons require specific sets to handle Metagross because of its base 150 def and base 110 spdef. Lets look at the only other STAB super effective user that outspeeds metagross: Dugtrio.

252 Atk Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Metagross-Mega: 192-228 (63.7 - 75.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This means we need a Ground Z-move to kill metagross with dugtrio, one of only 7 mons that outspeed metagross. Oh and by the way, there goes our Z-move for our team.

Beedrill is a high base attack pokemon that learns knock off, lets look at the calc for that:

252 Atk Beedrill-Mega Knock Off vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Metagross-Mega: 112-132 (37.2 - 43.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

That's pathetic damage. I've made my point.

We have to tweak sets on our team and devote special roles or risk using pokemon that may only have 1 role in our team, that role being to deal with Mega-Metagross. It's difficult to deal with, regardless of the set, specifically because of the high base stats it has. I don't want to go into the kind of damage it does because when looking at the pokemon's movepool and ability, it can make perfect use of it. This is what I mean by this pokemon limits team diversity. I hope this makes it a little more clear.

im not going to disagree with what you said. but you are not forced to run z move duggy at all.. band duggy ohkos gross after rocks damage. yes greninja is a check but we all know this is next in line for suspect.. adamant mega sharpedo ohkos gross from full.. koko gets alot of damage with volt switch to wear gross down. so does iron barbs and helmet. well in beedrill's case u always gonna u-turn out of there and pray that gross doesnt have bullet punch. life orb drill in sand is good. keldeo isn't good because of metagross but because of the tapus. each and every single one of them beat keldeo. helmet physically def hippo is good (yes the risk of mash boost into ice punch is a thing but thats 2 rounds of rocky helmet.. even then mash into +1 ice punch is a roll to kill hippo.. but thats all rng there's nothing anyone can do about it)... this might sound dumb but what about zygarde dog? it outspeeds gross. band thousand arrows does about 85.7 - 101.6%. few rounds of rocks and its in range.. and unlike duggy locked into eq, thousand arrows hits everything.

 

[King]

im not going to disagree with what you said. but you are not forced to run z move duggy at all.. band duggy ohkos gross after rocks damage. yes greninja is a check but we all know this is next in line for suspect.. adamant mega sharpedo ohkos gross from full.. koko gets alot of damage with volt switch to wear gross down. so does iron barbs and helmet. well in beedrill's case u always gonna u-turn out of there and pray that gross doesnt have bullet punch. life orb drill in sand is good. keldeo isn't good because of metagross but because of the tapus. each and every single one of them beat keldeo. helmet physically def hippo is good (yes the risk of mash boost into ice punch is a thing but thats 2 rounds of rocky helmet.. even then mash into +1 ice punch is a roll to kill hippo.. but thats all rng there's nothing anyone can do about it)... this might sound dumb but what about zygarde dog? it outspeeds gross. band thousand arrows does about 85.7 - 101.6%. few rounds of rocks and its in range.. and unlike duggy locked into eq, thousand arrows hits everything.

Love the ingenuity about Zygarde-dog. It's just a pitiful pokemon though if you look at it in any other context other than to outpace metagross. Most of the things you listed are things that we don't see in our current meta. CB Dugtrio isn't very good, hippowdon isn't very good nor is it used, and each of the tapu's fail to OHKO metagross while metagross can OHKO all but fini. LO Drill in sand is also not a common occurrence. I said in my post that greninja is in line for suspect testing as well, so I appreciate the support. I'm just not sure your suggestions are the viable ones that can serve any other purpose..

 

[stardust93]

Foremost, what is your justification for that? You can't just say "banning Metagross won't change the meta" and expect us to just agree without explaining what else exists in the metagame that makes Metagross' influence invalidated.

This is exactly the rationale we used to ban Aegislash in XY. I was a staunch opponent to that because Aegislash in OU makes the metagame incredibly stable.

Be that as it may, freeing up those mons to run other sets creates a much more diverse metagame than what we have now. The other functions for those scarfers can honestly be covered in a number of other ways; Volcarona has numerous answers, as do Koko and any of the other 110s.

C'mon--don't devolve into the "don't ban so X doesn't get broken" argument. There is no need to address this line of rhetoric any further.

Honestly, the suspect ladder is not going to be very indicative of a new metagame right now; it's what--day 3 after the removal of the single best and most centralizing Pokemon in the tier? The Aegislash suspect in XY was really similar in this respect; it took a long time for the things it held back (Fairies, and other strong wallbreakers) to reveal themselves as serious threats.

As for your argument regarding Z-Crystals: Like I said, we shouldn't accept slapping a Z-Crystal as "groundbreaking" or "profoundly creative" It's literally just giving a really strong one-time coverage move to something. Creativity should be regarded in unusual Pokemon or complete sets, not added firepower for one turn. Things like Shuca Berry + Ice Beam Tyranitar are creative, as they fill a COMPLETELY different purpose than all conventionally listed sets for Tyranitar.

I can honestly say the SuMo metagame has been one of the most uninspiring metagames I've ever seen. Innovation has largely been coverage switches from whatever "Set of the Month" exists for the top few threats (Pheromosa was probably the most indicative of this). We can do better than this.

EDIT: I forgot to address which Pokemon become better Scarfers after the ban. Latios, Lele, Jirachi, Nihilego, and Terrakion all become patently BETTER because they can better spam one or both of their STABs.

scarfed latios is good probably just to trick an incoming chansey, tapu fini maybe skarmory... beyond that its never going to sweep... scarfed rachi.. u can 1v1 mega metagross with iron head in theory.. so i dnt understand how gross leaving will help scarfed rachi, but there are sooo many other steels that stop scarfed rachi... nihilego yes i will admit.. only thing is that, there are pokemon like heatran,ferro,celesteela,scizor,magearna,haze toxapex, excadrill,jirachi, CHANSEY that completely shut down nihilego..... scarfed terrak is never gonna be good with lando,skarm,celesteela being a thing. yes z move terrak beats them but you said terrak becomes a viable scarfer so that's not the case... the only scarfer that becomes better is lele.. but then that's what people use to check greninja is the first place.....

yea that's what im surprised that i don't see sand drill anywhere... sand drill doesn't just deal with gross but deals with the tapus.. yea you are right the mons i listed are not seen in the current meta. but that's the thing i am talking about with variety.. we expect to use the same 7 mons to take down gross. but maybe we should try other things also..

 

[Marigold]

yea that's what im surprised that i don't see sand drill anywhere... sand drill doesn't just deal with gross but deals with the tapus.. yea you are right the mons i listed are not seen in the current meta. but that's the thing i am talking about with variety.. we expect to use the same 7 mons to take down gross. but maybe we should try other things also..

There is good reason behind why other things don't succeed, as most of these other pokemon are weak in this meta or the sets they have to run are subpar.

choice band duggy traps significantly less of the meta and with decreased consistency without a sash.

defensive mew is easily destroyed by strong special attackers everywhere such as lele, koko, greninja, etc, which is why it doesn't mesh well in the current meta.

sand rush exca is very hard to use as the main sand streamers, hippowdon and ttar, are quite bad in this meta (if they are used, they absolutely cannot afford smooth rock as they need an item to just be able to survive or chip foes) as the power creep and powerful offensive nature of the metagame have not been kind to them.

adamant sharpedo is outsped at +1 easily thanks to the plethora of +100 base speed scarfers out there, is very difficult to reach +2 with as you often hope for a double protect, and is a generally inconsistent mega against most playstyles. Not to mention its huge opportunity cost for a more reliable mega when ash greninja can sweep/wallbreak more consistently than sharpedo.

Zydog is just a really frail, non-versatile zygarde. You're trading all of zygarde's pros just for the 6% chance to ohko megagross before it hits you, which is a very, very niche situation.

Also, isn't a suspect forcing very niche pokemon just to check said suspect, grounds for a ban according to smogon policy?

 

[Complicating]

So much has already been said about Mega Metagross. I will try to get reqs but I will say this much, I do not feel like Mega Metagross should be banned nor shouldn't be banned. I'm literally caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to Mega Metagross and the OU metagame. I feel that Mega Meta strains teambuilding and forces a plethora of defensive answers and or offensive answers to always be run on any team just because of the damage it can do to teams. I don't believe it is a role of Mega Meta to sweep necessarily, though it can potentially do that (much like any offensive threat can). Mega Metagross' role as a pokemon is to punch holes into a team which will enable at least one or two teammates an easy cleanup process. I don't think that Mega Metagross is broken. It does have 4 moveslot syndrome, though it somewhat necessitates a player to pivot in and out of battle to scout for its coverage moves to know what a counter for it is on their team given there actually is one. And that is what makes Mega Metagross so stressful to deal with. You can't just go about switching in and out of battle on that monster with base 145 attack and tough claws boosting all of its useful coverage moves bar EQ and HP Fire. Even though I think that Mega Metagross is an extremely good pokemon, I don't see it as something so utterly unbearable that it needs to leave. At least not at this moment in time.

I'm going to say several things regarding how I feel about Mega Meta and the overall metagame in OU. Like ABR has been saying, Mega Metagross is pretty easily worn down throughout a battle. Spike Stacking is fairly common and doesn't benefit Metagross much defensively. Defensive Tangrowth is a good way to get rocky helmet chip damage, as is ferrothorn and some variants of Skarmory. I realize that HP Fire can be an option for Mega Meta due to M-Scizor, but that is a rather niche option if you ask me personally. I run Mega Scizor on some teams where I have no great counter for Mega meta, but I usually end up running pursuit over bullet punch so I can trap things, especially Mega Meta. Even without any attack investment, Pursuit hits Mega Meta for a very clean 30% if Mega Meta stays in battle. Otherwise you're going to do around 60% if it tries to switch out of battle.

I believe that Mega Metagross is a pretty self sufficient pokemon in general; however, I can say the same thing about Landorus, Tapu Lele, Mega-Scizor, Magearna, and Zygarde, among several other pokemon you'll commonly see in OU. What I mean by self sufficient is that these pokemon are capable of running sets that are able to perform a role on a team without needing very much support from teammates to perform said role at a high level. Mega metagross may be fast, but it's not Sonic the Hedgehog. It's just base 110 speed. Most scarfed mons you may see in OU will outspeed it with ease (T-tar, Magnezone, Lele, etc.) We have Tapu Koko which can typically pivot out of battle into a defensive answer whilst racking up a lot of damage on Mega Meta in the process. Tornadus-Therian is not a bad offensive option to help deal with Mega Meta. I've been using AV Torn-T with heat wave, which 2HKOs with proper investment (I believe you only need to have 296 SpA to assure heat wave always 2HKOs Mega Meta). I do not like the argument that everything gets worn down so X Y and Z wins because of whatever half-assed reasoning. Literally everything is going to get gradually worn down throughout the course of a battle, defensively and offensively. It works in all directions generally speaking.

0 Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Metagross-Mega: 88-104 (29.2 - 34.5%) -- 3.1% chance to 3HKO
0 Atk Tangrowth Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Metagross-Mega: 102-120 (33.8 - 39.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Magnet Tapu Koko Volt Switch vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Metagross-Mega in Electric Terrain: 153-181 (50.8 - 60.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Tyranitar Crunch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Metagross-Mega: 188-224 (62.4 - 74.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
and so on and so forth with different calcs. Bottom line is that Mega Meta is going to take damage and get worn down.

I'm also going to say something regarding how much I dislike Mega Meta. I'll put it like this. I can count on 2 hands the amount of games I've lost because I ran into Mega Metagross. I have to count the number of games I've lost because of an opposing Greninja on 20 hands. Please don't take that to mean I'm saying we should just up and suspect Greninja or whatever. This current thread isn't about that. It's about Mega Meta. What I mean by that statement above is that I do not worry as much about Mega Metagross as I do other powerful metagame defining threats in OU.

Even so, I do feel like Mega Metagross has earned a rough spot in the tier as a somewhat over-centralizing pokemon in the sense that you absolutely have to bring some form of an answer to break it down if not multiple answers depending on your team build. Mega Metagross is one of the biggest reasons for Mega Scizor's usage being as high as it was prior to the suspect. Mega Meta seems to necessitate players to build and have some answer for it. The same can be said about many big figures of the tier such as Lando or the Tapus however. The only difference is that Mega Metagross is able to beat so many of those other big names in the metagame that it becomes a little bit difficult to handle in general. That's why I believe that Mega Metagross is a tad over-centralizing to the metagame - it seems to facilitate how people approach the metagame and build teams and battle depending on the situation. I believe that Mega metagross is a pretty busted pokemon, but not in an unhealthy manner. It's just exceedingly great at performing its role that it comes across as being broken. If Mega Meta were unhealthy, it'd be virtually unstoppable for us to handle in the metagame without specific individual pokemon (very much like Pheromosa was). Mega Metagross is not unhealthy for OU; but I feel that Mega Metagross is too over-centralizing to the metagame to remain in OU which is why I am leaning towards a ban at this moment in time.

tl;dr
Mega Metagross isn't broken, but it is over-centralizing to the metagame in a few ways.
Mega Metagross is constantly going to be worn down over the course of a battle.
Mega Metagross is not Sonic the Hedgehog, it can be outsped.
Compare how many times you've lost a game solely due to facing Mega Metagross to how many times you've lost a game due to facing another threat in OU you don't like seeing.

 

[GH[O]ST]

Wesker1996~ on SD (COIL 2307, at the moment)
Mega-gross is not so OP as fuck, the oppo must only practise a moveset scouting to understand how to stop it. For example stay in with Celesteela to beguile the opponent at spam leech seed and withdraw on a Ground-type or a pokemon that resist to a possible Thunder Punch. Regard the Rock Polish variant it's rarely played cuz of already high base 110 speed so it prefers run 4 offensive moves to have more coverage as possible. Set scouting is the way, and i can make now a list of possible check & counters of Mega-Metagross:
Possible switch in:
Scizor (it has no coverage to hit this bitch unless the never played HP Fire LMAO)
Ferrothorn (this suck by 2 possible Hammer Arm but if Metagross is not running HA Ferrothorn can annoy him with leech seed or T-Wave)
W-Rotom (after set scouting, if Metagross is not carrying Zen Headbutt, W-Rotom cripple him with W-o-W, T-wave and take momentum ez with V-Switch)
Defensive Tangrowth deserve a special mention as a counter cuz he can switch into any coverage of Megagross and proceed to make cheap damage due Rocky Helmet's recoil
Bulky Volcarona: if Metagross is not running Zen Headbutt, this variant of Volca is a potentially switch in with 30% to cripple Gross with a burn due to Flame Body and proceed to use Gross as setup fodder
Defensive Rocky Helmet Mandibuzz also have a special mention as a counter & re-killer, due to the access to Foul Play that make 1HKO after take well Ice Punch, unless it fucking freeze lol

Revenge Killers:
Greninja and Scarf Hoopa Unbound: after that a mon of your team faint in front of Mega-Gross, one of this 2 can enter safe and do 1HKO with their respective main STAB moves.
Scarf Landorus: EQ of S-Landorus inflicts about a 90-98 (max roll) to Mega-gross, so he can potentially 1HKO after cheap damages.
Dugtrio: due to lack base attack stat, EQ of Dugtrio don't 1HKO Mega-gross, that take it with about 80% of max roll. Minimum cheap damages required.
Sand Rush Excadrill: Adamant Orb SR Exca make an 1HKO to Mega-Gross at Full HP.
Instead of take out Mega-gross, all you niggas should try to build almost a team with ONE of this possible answers to Mega-Metagross. DON'T BAN.

We can even add more to the list of switch-ins

Skarmory - Walls any non-thunderpunch + electric terrain metagross and even has the chance to kill it
Physically defensive Hippodon - can sponge all of metagross' attacks
M-Sabeleye - physically defensive variants avoid the 2hko and burn/foul play
Porygon2 (evolite) - i admit this is passive AF but it can tank Metagross and hit back with the underrated foul play
Quagsire - Unaware quagsire walls any non-zen headbutt metagross

We can also include mons that outspeed it and do a shitload of damage to it

Gengar
Tapu Koko
Protean Gren
Scarf Tran
M-Mawile (Sucker Punch)
Bisharp (Sucker Punch)
Mimikyu (disguise + Snadow Sneak)

Between Christopher Zonta's post and mine, you can see how many options there are for counterplay against something that takes up an entire mega slot

Probably missing some other things too