Counters- Deoxys-S isn't even an issue in this department. The Psychic / Steel Pokemon (Jirachi, Metagross and Bronzong) can all easily be EVed to deal with Deoxys-S everytime.
Counters aren't an issue when determining "uber" status, I completely agree. Look at Lucario, Gengar, all their "counters" can be easily dealt with with but a slight tweaking of their standard movesets, leaving them with no true counters, yet I have yet to see people clamoring for Gengar, the number 2 most used Pokemon on Shoddy Ladder in May, to be banned. The issue here is that the presence of Deoxys-S in the metagame forces every team that is offensive in nature to have to fall back on one of a small pool of offensive Pokemon that are bulky in nature (Metagross, Scizor, etc.) or using at least one defensive Pokemon to "anchor" the team and prevent a Deoxys-S sweep, however not all of us enjoy having to build offensive teams this way as it is limiting to the way I can structure my team and restricts my offensive tempo.
Aldaron said:
Basically, Deoxys-S can easily be countered, but on the reverse side, it actually forces people to counter it due to its ability to completely sweep late game. The real question would be how drastic this "forcing" issue is.
I'm glad we both agree on that there is an "issue," even if we disagree on its magnitude.
Aldaron said:
The second perspective is the statistical one, one that demonstrates no measurable centralization. Note I am purposely avoiding the word overcentralization, as I recognize that there is currently no non-arbitrary method of defining that line. However, what I am aware of is that the number of OU viable Pokemon has fluctuated between 50-47 (for the 75% line), not significant enough to point to anything other than basic noise.
Just to test out our arbitrarily chosen line, I asked X-Act to measure the number of OU viable Pokemon for all the months for various percentage lines. The result? Again, nothing significant enough to point to anything other than basic noise. The end result? The introduction of Deoxys-S (in January) and then also Wobbuffet (in February on) has statistically caused no significant change in the number of OU viable Pokemon.
Nowhere did I state that Deoxys-S "centralizes" the metagame, and in fact I do not believe "centralization" by its current definition should be a factor at all in determining a Pokemon's uber status. The reason I put forth that Deoxys-S should be banned is that it makes it undesirable to use certain team combinations. Deoxys-S in and of itself, by existing, does not make Bronzong a "better" Pokemon or Pokemon such as Salamence, Gyarados, and the other Pokemon OHKO'd by Deoxys-S "worse," all being great Pokemon in their own right, rather it forces staleness upon the metagame by making it hard to build a team without at least one Pokemon that can shrug off Deoxys-S's attacks moderately well, by relying on bulk rather than resists and clever playing.
Aldaron said:
So, Deoxys-S can be countered, and it has caused no significant change to the number of OU viable Pokemon in the metagame.
It is however, a significant threat on the revenge killing and late game sweeping side. While it has difficulty coming in, it is one of the most proficient sweepers in the entire game. However, is this enough to ban it?
Part of my argument rests on the fact that Deoxys-S is the only Pokemon in the entire OU metagame that is capable of attacking with a speed equal to or greater to other Choice Scarfers with impunity. This is a job no other Pokemon can do at all (Motor Drive Electivire has to predict an Electric move to come in and pose a threat, and still remains slower than many of the faster Choice Scarf Pokemon while Deoxys-S can simply come in after any sacrifice/kill and pose an immediate, fast threat.) By doing this job so well, it threatens the job security of the other Pokemon that could otherwise be used in such functions.
Aldaron said:
(Note the following statement, while not reverting to theorymon, has some potentially subjective parts. I don't have logs or anything to "prove" what I am saying.)
It seems in spite of the supposedly objective evidence supporting Deoxys-S in OU, there remains this fear of Deoxys-S, primarily (at least from what I can gather in this thread) due to some negative perceived effect it has on offensive teams, and due to it making many Choice Scarfers evidently useless.
I'll take the latter point first...since the first is a can of theorymon that I am hesitating to open. The most important point to firmly establish is that battlers do not solely Scarf Pokemon due to overall Speed reached. If this were the case, the higher Speed Choice Scarfers would have made the lower and middle Speed ones obsolete already (and this is clearly not the case, with the popularity of Scarf Heatran, Scarf Metagross, Scarf Roserade, Scarf Porygon-Z). So since Deoxys-S's Speed cannot be the sole factor supposedly making other Choice Scarf obsolete, it must be the fact that Deoxys-S can switch its attacks while maintaining its top Speed. However, I have to firmly reject this stance as well...I scarf Heatran, Metagross and Jirachi for reasons beyond choice of attack and Speed reached; I also Scarf them to, for example, stop SDLuke from wreaking havoc on my teams. The point here isn't to go back and forth and list various reasons as to why Choice Scarfers may or may not be obselete; what I'm trying to say is that there are reasons beyond attack choice and Speed for putting Choice Scarf on a Pokemon, and simply introducing a Pokemon with high Speed and choice of attack will not remove that variable.
The "popularity" of the item Choice Scarf is all subjective, unfortunately, since Colin does not log the statistics of how often such items are used. I claim that in my logs, I rarely if ever see Scarf Metagross, I hardly see Roserade at all, Heatrans tend to be LO or Resttalk, Porygon-Z is another rare sight, and I have never seen a Scarf Jirachi in my time on ladder. Of course, I can't prove anything with logs by just showing logs without those Pokemon in action either, so I'll just have to ask everyone else what they feel about Choice Scarf these days in the metagame. Choice Scarf is not "obsolete" in any way, it's merely been lowered in usage since its heyday pre-2008 because, I feel, partly to Deoxys-S and partly to Wobbuffet, although that's another can of worms altogether.
Aldaron said:
As for that first point...ugh. We can't definitively "prove" it either way, so I'll have to stick to my general perceptions, which probably won't mean anything to the people who already have ingrained their general perceptions into their minds (IPL, Jrrrrrrr, Jabba and company). I can say that I after coming back from a 3 week hiatus, I felt the metagame was more Stall-oriented...though the metagame was about 50 times more Stall oriented in late November anyway...so I can't chalk this up to the presence of Deoxys-S or Wobbuffet at all. I can say that I am noticing many more Bronzong, but the whole idea of putting one or maybe even two defensive stallwarts in the middle of an offensive core of three or four Pokemon is not new at all, either. So while sure, I can say that if Deoxys-S manages to somehow switch in safely, it can be huge trouble for a large amount of offensive Pokemon: Gyarados, Garchomp, Tyranitar, Gengar, Azelf, Heracross all come to mind. I can't however say that offensive teams have really been too negatively affected though :/
A lot of people debating the world's most politically charged topics such as abortion, etc. already have their minds made up and it's extremely difficult to change anyone's mind on that subject matter, just as you accuse me of having "ingrained perceptions" I could say the same about you... So let's just leave personal attacks out of this, shall we? Maybe the idea of putting one or two defensive "stallwarts" into a core of 4-ish is a type of team you like building, but it's becoming a team that's all too common for my liking and it limits the offensive ceiling one can go to simply because Deoxys-S is too much to handle for a team like non-Scarf Gengar, Tyranitar, Gyarados, Salamence, Heracross, and Weavile without resorting to something bulky that can repeatedly take hits from it, a team that would have been perfectly viable prior to the advent of Deoxys-S in the metagame.
Aldaron said:
Deoxys-S should stay in OU, because frankly, it has caused no issues statistically, it can be countered, and there is no real evidence that offensive teams are less viable. I mean, look at many of the top teams on the ShoddyBattle ladder right now: Dormin, Mystica, Unideal, Aldaron, SNES, Taylor and others are using extraordinarily offensive teams...and using them to great success. I can't speak for the others, but I used pretty much pure offense when laddering. The others may have had one or two defensive Pokemon (but as far as I can recall, having Bronzong or Shuckle on an offensive team is nothing new), but they were battling using offensive teams nonetheless.
Offense is by no means a dead or bad strategy because of Deoxys-S... however, only certain types of offensive teams with certain Pokemon combinations are no longer useable... having Pokemon such as Bronzong/Shuckle on offensive teams may be nothing new, but if every "offense" team must take care to have one of these defensive beings to combine with them in order to soften up a Pokemon such as Deoxys-E, it's stifling to the creative atmosphere for the possibilities out there for team-building, which in my humble opinion is bad for the health of the metagame.
