Garchomp and Sand Veil Discussion

Well, this is interesting. My only issue with the ban is how it'll effect lower tiers, IMO a ban like this should only take effect were sand stream users exist(I.E. ubers and ou). And lol, did I just read a post saying sand veil adds skill to the game. I smell troll. Edit: We should either ban all forms of luck based moves, items, and abilities or keep them all. This isn't something that should have a grey zone, otherwise it would lead to confusion like it is now.

kd24 said:

why are you fucking ignoring the point that sand veil is just 100% noncompetitive. theres no strategy to it no way to defend against it. all it does is just turn whatever its on into a pokemon that can give a bad player a win vs a good player, solely on luck and without any skill. like seriously, thats the issue here. it does nothing but harm the game with its nonsense.
ps to other people cacturne stunfisk etc arent used in ou or are "broken with sand veil" because they are shitty pokemon who have no business in ou. sand veil is still as noncompetitive on them as it is on everything else.

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Calling this noncompetitive is a gross misrepresentation of the word. To be competitive is to have competition, and thus to be noncompetitive is to go against competition. This has been stated many many times across many many threads. And yet people still try to use arguments like that to get things like Sand Veil banned. But the fact is, it is perfectly competitive. People who say otherwise don't even understand the word they are using. What they mean is that is relies on luck. And of course that means it detracts from the importance of skill. Why? Because it does. That is all the argument we ever get.

The fact is, that has nothing to do with it. All it means is that you dislike it.

I could definitely type more on this, but the fact is I already have too many times, so I will just copy from an old thread (the banning philosophy thread started by capefeather):

Lets all be honest here, when it gets right down to it, everything we do here is about fun. We try to mask it saying it is about skill or luck or competitiveness or balance, but what is really the point behind any of those. It is having fun. As I said near the beginning, all bans are are taking things we don't like and getting rid of them. Nothing more. Nothing less. We can try and mask it however we want, but the point is, behind everything, we would not be banning things if we didn't think the game would become more fun because of if.

But if behind everything is fun, how do we determine what is the best way to have fun? Well, we can't. Fun is about the most subjective thing you could possibly imagine, and trying to build a metagame with fun as its primary goal, all you will do is upset people. So we create ideals that a large number of people agree will help lead to fun. While the entire community might not agree that this leads to fun, we make it so that they cannot argue that it leads to this ideal behind which we are masking out personal idea of fun.

And, what is the most popular of these masks? Skill. Unfortunately, it is also one of the least understood masks that people try to use. One of the most common arguments you will hear involving skill is that we need to remove luck based elements to make skill more valuable. And yet the vast majority of the people claiming this cannot come up with a reason why removing luck emphasizes skill. They just claim that it does. Now, I have said this a hundred times before, and I will probably say it a hundred times more, skill and luck are not opposites. Removing one does not the increase reliance on the other. Surely, they do have an effect on one another, but the effect is more of a partnership than an opposition. One with skill analyzes luck, overcomes bad luck, and uses good luck to their advantage. No matter how much luck there is involved, as long as players have to make decisions trying to overcome one another, Pokemon will always be a skill-based game. Messing around with rules and banlists will never change this.

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So basically, don't go crying out that something is uncompetitive or is bad cause it is luck based. Unless there is an actual reason it is broken other than the fact that it annoys you, then just deal with it.

Time to speak my mind...

First of all i am very happy that Chomp is being retested, as it should have been, with or without Sand Veil. W/o SV it is not broken, and with Sand Veil there is a small chance it could still be broken, but we won't know until we test it right?

Now about the whole Sand Veil debate... Sand Veil is not broken. Double Team is not broken. Minimize is not broken. Yet the latter 2 were banned while the first not. Something doesn't need to be broken to get banned, if something only brings negatives to the meta, while having very few or no viable counters/checks, then it is very plausible that it will get banned. And evasion in general is the most clear example of something non broken that deserves to get banned. We banned all the evasion raising moves because they made the game random as fuck, and allowed shitty players to beat more skilled players with a little or a lot of luck. Not because they were overpowered moves. Almost no good players would want to use a Double Team strategy, because most of the times, statistically, it would fail. How can a move that is learned by more than 100 pokes, and is not broken in most of them, be broken? Well it can't. It's the same with Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. They are not broken on most pokes that get them (maybe even on none poke), but they deserve to be banned because they make the metagame worse.

Finally, because i started playing NU a bit recentely, and because all tiers deserve some attention, we shouldn't ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak alone, because Cacturne is a very good NU poke, which will get butchered from the loss of Encore / Bullet Seed for no reason at all. The solution is really simple, as long as people stop being close minded. Combo ban Sand Veil + Sand Sream and Snow Cloak + Snow Warning. This way every poke with those abilities doesn't miss on anything (moves mainly), and we get to stop people from actively abusing hax strategies. Yeah you may encounter a SubSD Sand Veil Gliscor in the ladder that will own your sand team, but this means nothing, because you could have easily avoided that situation by not running sand. Which means that you have a viable solution for the problem that is Sand Veil. Also using a Sand Veil poke in your weatherless team will work as an anti-weather strategy of shorts. It will be exactly the same thing as Kingdra is for rain: a weather abuser that gives hell to a certain weather. This will bring even more diversity to the meta, as it will give to weather-less teams one more weapon to combat weather teams, which they definitely could use.

So in a few words, yay for Garchomp retest, with or w/o SV, and ban SV + SS and SC + SW.

no of course jim ignore the man whos raising the points of noncompetitiveness instead of is something broken

But you made a good point, if every mon with that ability isn't broken, then the mon that's banned should stay banned, because obviously Stunfisk/Larvitar aren't Ubers material.

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and you somehow completely missed the point i was making

and im like smh so hard at people right now

edit:

Calling this noncompetitive is a gross misrepresentation of the word. To be competitive is to have competition, and thus to be noncompetitive is to go against competition. This has been stated many many times across many many threads. And yet people still try to use arguments like that to get things like Sand Veil banned. But the fact is, it is perfectly competitive. People who say otherwise don't even understand the word they are using. What they mean is that is relies on luck. And of course that means it detracts from the importance of skill. Why? Because it does. That is all the argument we ever get.

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i must have missed when subbing in a sandstorm and praying to god you're lucky enough that their counters miss their attacks became perfectly competitive and completely skill based. in a game of pokemon, evasion is a factor that adds absolutely no skill or competitiveness. it literally sucks if you waste a turn trying to abuse it with double team, or it lucks out the opponent and gives you a win. sand veil is either doing nothing or winning a game you shouldnt win. where is the skill? what exactly am i missing about the competitiveness it takes of one to switch into a garchomp gliscor w/e and say man i hope i get lucky

You might miss(Sand Veil), you might get burned(Flame Body). Same concept, yet no one ever complains about that, and a burn to physical attackers could mean the game.

A Garchomp retest in OU is the best (2-day early) birthday present I could ask for! I can't wait to test my favorite shark again!! Expect to see me on this ladder reusing this bad boy. Rough Skin is almost better for my weatherless teams anyway; residual damage every time is better than 20% evasion only when facing a sand team.

I've missed you, Chompy.

I've never thought this. If Drizzle + Swift Swim is banned, why not ban Sand Stream + Sand Veil? I think that Garchomp may not be broken, even with Sand Veil, if it weren't allowed on a sand team with this ability. In fact, I can think of him as a anti-sand machine (as many pokémons on a sand team are weak to it's STABs).

Zarel set up the ladder for testing RS Garchomp. Keep the discussion to your experiences and observations in the metagame. This test is simply to give us all a glimpse at a possible future metagame. Leave policy discussions out of this thread and up to the council.

Man +1 speed boosting sweepers (who usaually use attack boosting nautres like mence and Volcarona) @base 100 and below are really taking a beating. There is always stuff like the incredibly popular scarf Terrakion and Scarf Landorus-T, but the recent additions of scarf Geneaect and now Scarf Garchomp are really putting pressure on obtaining a sweep with them. It really pushes me towards more bulkier sweepers and those with priority like Lucario, Conkeldurr, and Reuniclus.

In my brief experience with Garchomp in Dream World and now on the ladder he makes an excellent fit into sun teams. Physical dragons, aka Dragonite and Salamence, were always very popular on sun teams because they had their fire-type coverage boosted to breakthrough steels. However they could be a nuisance to run because they contributed to a stealth rock weekness and more pressure on you to rapid spin.
The only other choice you really had for a Dragon was Hydreigon, since Lati@s only had Hidden Power Fire and made you even have more trouble with Tyranitar. Now with Garchomp you can run a physical Dragon without the extra stealth rock weakness and have a very good way to eliminate Ttar, especially if they do not carry Ice Beam. Meanwhile the fire type attacks that can turn the Dragon-Ground resistors into a crisp are in ample supply on a sun team. This isn't considering garchomp's using a boosted fire fang or fire blast to get past them himself. If you have a sun team I implore you to try Garchomp. I always enjoy using the choice band set to get good hits right off the bat and REALLY pressure my opponent.

And if Sand team make sure you use ice beam on ttar :p

I was always under the impression that the issue with Garchomp was it's stats, typing, and coverage. Not its ability, since many teams that utilized it didn't even have sand. Then again with my VGC experience Sand Veil has been less than enjoyable with plenty of annoying losses due to moves missing.

So far, Garchomp has proven to be a top tier threat, but definitely not broken. The metagame is full of threats that outspeed it, as well as Ice Shard. I'm seeming to run into more Weavile users on the suspect test ladder than I did outside of it, and CB Weavile easily checks any Garchomp (Scarf variants get OHKOed by Ice Shard and CB Ice Punch OHKOes even Yache Berry variants). When I ran into opposing Garchomp on the suspect ladder, I found them very easy to handle, especially when considering it has to use Rough Skin.

I find Garchomp to actually help keep Genesect in check. Hasty YacheChomp can easily tank an Ice Beam from Scarf Genesect and OHKO with a Fire move, and having an effective Genesect lure can prove to be very useful to make Genesect think twice before going for that Ice Beam, while if it goes for U-turn it will get hurt by Rough Skin. In addition, Choice Scarf variants of Garchomp are faster than Genesect and can switch in on predicted Thunderbolts and Flamethrowers, once again keeping Genesect in check. DoughBoy is also very right about it fitting in very nicely on Sun teams as a fire resist and a good check to Tyranitar, although I would like to note that you might want Yache Berry to help against Politoed.

Since so many people are suggesting a complex ban to deal with Sand Veil, I think it's a good time to ask the question: would it really make our ruleset any more complex and arbitrary? If anything, I think it would make the rules seem more natural rather than having just one complex ban that sticks out so much. It's no reason to ban things unnecessarily, but in a case like this one where there's something we find so undesirable, why not consider the complex ban?

Yeah, all the priority the metagame is filled with really does a number on Garchomp's effectiveness. For that reason, I think that Sub Swords Dance set holds a lot of merit even with the potential for Sand Veil hax taken away. Garchomp is very hard to stop, so most teams will only have one response to Garchomp, and Substitute capitalizes on this very well. Another set I've found useful, although counter intuitive, is a tank set of Earthquake / Dragon Claw / Stealth Rock / Protect. I know this seems weird, but it has bulk comparable to Heatran, and and it's Electric immunity alongside Rough Skin makes it great against VoltTurn. The only things it really fears from VoltTUrn offense are moves that Rotom-W and Genesect pack, but Protect alleviates this concern somewhat, and you always have teammates to take them on.

While I do think that the subsdGar set is still gonna be a dominant set in this test, especially against stall once skarmory is removed (could we see a rise in steel trappers? Maybe...) I don't think it's gonna be effective against HO teams seeing they are gonna think a million times before switching out on a chomp and instead keep hitting it until thy die and bring a counter or you do.

Edit: 7 games with my own SdsubGar and things are going fine. Still waiting to trap a skarmory but I often find myself outrage immediately after subbing and that thing hits like a truck even with jolly. Also people are still expecting people to switch when they bring out chomp, just keep hitting them until they kill you as long as they don't sub its all ok.

Not Über anymore but fun as hell to use, welcome back!

Been testing out Garchomp in sunlight and it's working pretty well. An amped up Fire coverage move really benefits Garchomp and makes it that much harder to switch into. Band and Scarf sets are the best 2 I've tried so far while a Sub + 3 Attacks set acts as a nice lure in sunlight since Skarm gets owned by a boosted Fire Blast.

Of course, Ice Shard is still as useful as ever since it basically means Garchomp won't cleanup a team with SD or a Scarf set.

ThisMysteriousGuy said:

Wow. Seems Cherub's idea really did happen :o
Anyways, I really do think this is a great idea. Garchomp isn't as broken now with Rain everywhere and with the introduction of Rough Skin. I feel Blaziken should get similar treatment due to more rain thanks to BW2 changes.

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Just pointing out that we've been discussing about the evasion clause for months, CA's thread had just a very good "timing" but didn't influence this decision.

Lol Haunter is right Mr. U. My suggestion wasn't about Garchomp or even Sand Veil, but more about the introduction of a Suspect Ladder. I'm really, really glad that you guys are doing this though, it's an excellent move in the right direction for Smogon.

Since so many people are suggesting a complex ban to deal with Sand Veil, I think it's a good time to ask the question: would it really make our ruleset any more complex and arbitrary? If anything, I think it would make the rules seem more natural rather than having just one complex ban that sticks out so much. It's no reason to ban things unnecessarily, but in a case like this one where there's something we find so undesirable, why not consider the complex ban?

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Just saying that I agree with this 100%. Sand Veil + Sandstream and Snow Cloak + Snow Warning are elegant bans that eliminate uncompetetiveness to a large degree, and as a bonus do not detract from lower tier Pokemon's abilities or viability, as they all have alternate abilities that they can run. Cacturne isn't affected at all in NU, as there's no Sand Stream. It also eliminates the uncompetetiveness of Snow Cloak Froslass in Hail, as I've known plenty of people who have rage-quitted to this thing, as much as they did to Sand Veil AcroScor.

To sum open, I'm really glad that this has finally happened, the general consensus so far seems that Garchomp is not broken with Sand Veil, and I fully support the notion of complex bans when it comes to uncompetetiveness.

Jimera0 said:

When was the last time you've lost a game to Sand Veil? Probably back in the Garchomp era for a lot of us, and for the rest of us maybe once or twice from Gliscor.

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DetroitLolcat said:

Sand Veil is a thoroughly mediocre ability that marginally affects the metagame even if Garchomp is allowed

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You can't be serious...SubSD Gliscor was very common in late BW1; it was all over the ladder, Funkasaurus used one to win the last BW OU Smogon Tour of season 13, YAYtears abused it to win the first PO Official Tournament, and it was used in not one, not two, but several high-level battles in the World Cup. Hell, I've even seen several AcroBats from the top players on the BW2 ladder. Losing a game to Sand Veil is much more common than it may seem at first glance, and it allows lesser players to defeat better ones without skill, but rather luck. Before you mention that lesser players can also beat better ones through other sources of luck, such as critical hits, those are not abused nearly as easily. SubSD Gliscor is intentionally passively abusing luck. If you say that Gliscor with a free turn isn't as deadly as Garchomp, you're missing the bigger point; of course it isn't as strong or fast, but giving it a free turn [or several, which is very realistic] is still not good and can instantly end games if the opponent doesn't have a Skarmory or the rare Quagsire [let's all run Skarmory on every team now, there's no way we'll ever lose to SV Glis or Chomp again!!!]. It's different from Serene Grace Iron Head spam with Jirachi; when fishing for flinches with Jira, you are also trying to get hax, but as opposed to Sand Veil, you are using your turn to attempt to immobilize your opponent. Gliscor passively sits behind a Substitute and Swords Dances as it pleases while you can't hit it with 100% attacks. SV Glis turns one of its best counters, Rotom-W, into set-up fodder, simply because Hydro Pump's accuracy is turned from Stone Edge into practically Hypnosis, and we all know how terrible of a move Hypnosis is.

To all the people who bring up Cacturne as an example of a 'mon who "isn't broken with Sand Veil": Eo Ut Mortus once got to first on the ladder with a Gliscor + Cacturne team simply by abusing the fuck out of Sand Veil. He's a very good player of course, but that says a lot about how terrible SV is for the metagame. I deliberately refrained from using the words uncompetitive/broken because then one of the pro-Sand Veil people will capitalize on that part of my post, ignore everything else, and twist the word so it fits to their ideals [such as DetroitLolcat's "don't ban anything just deal with it" vibe that I'm getting from his posts].

An example of how retarded Sand Veil is: I once had a 6-1 lead when my opponent sent out his Gliscor on my Hippowdon. Along with Ice Fang on Hippo, I had a Hidden Power Ice Forretress, and a Scarfed Ice Punch Jirachi. Gliscor subbed, danced, and 2HKO'd my Hippowdon as I missed four Ice Fangs, 2HKO'd my Forretress as I missed HP Ice, and dodged Jirachi's Ice Punch as it OHKO'd with Earthquake. It then killed my other 3 Pokemon and I lost. My team was not weak to Gliscor at all, but I lost anyways. I can name several more examples of Gliscor single-handedly winning someone a game that they should've lost.

My tone in this post isn't very friendly and I realize that but when I see posts saying that Sand Veil is a mediocre ability, or that it [happening] isn't common, it kind of makes me think that the people making these posts don't play the goddamn game because SV is far from mediocre, far from uncommon, and far from good for the metagame.


On a different note, I'm very happy to see Rough Skin Garchomp being tested. I don't think it's broken at all without the ability to dodge everything you throw at it. Rocky Helmet + Rough Skin could be cool to deter Genesect from constantly U-turning...


EDIT:

zyrefredric said:

people are only complaining about Sand Veil Garchomp

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lol

LucaroarkZ said:

Moody wasn't banned because it was "broken" (hint: Moody wasn't broken). With these moves/abilities, you will obviously lose most of the time. That's why they're not broken.

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I may be mistaken, but I truthfully believed that we found Moody "broken", that is why it was banned. (Technically, the Moody clause was implemented.) It has already been mentioned, but I believe an ability should ONLY be banned if any Pokemon given such ability becomes "broken" (or makes the metagame uncompetitive). Imagine giving Moody to any random pokemon. A Moody Blissey, a Moody Dugtrio, or a Moody Spinda. Virtually all Pokemon can abuse the ability to be "broken".

Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, if given to any Pokemon, do not make them "broken" the same way Moody does. In fact, people are only complaining about Sand Veil Garchomp. I'd say test Sand Veil Garchomp, and if it proves to bee too much to handle, ban Garchomp, not the ability, not a pokemon+ability complex ban or another ability+ability complex ban. (Imho, even if Garchomp was really "broken" in Gen4, I doubt it would be now in Gen5, with or without Sand Veil.)

I'd say Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are not "broken", and if ever they are banned in the future, I'm hoping it is only because they violate Evasion clause (which is another topic altogether).

Please leave policy discussions out of this thread. Just discuss about your experiences on the ladder. By the way, Garchomp has been already tested in BW1 and deemed uber.

Why is it that the overwhelming majority seem to have already made their minds up that RS Garchomp isn't broken before the ladder was even set up? We need impartial voters - go in with an open mind and forget about previous tiering decisions or what may or may not have made Garchomp broken in the past as that's all utterly inconsequential now.

Man, Rough Skin Garchomp is fucking hilarious. While probably not broken from what I've played so far, Rough Skin is just such a troll. It's just bloody hilarious to watch an opposing Mamoswine Ice Shard your Rocky Helmet Garchomp and take 39% due to LO + Rough Skin + Rocky Helmet. Sure, it probably just OHKOed the Garchomp but it's still funny to watch it take that much damage even though they played correctly.

I didn't know that Rough Skin affected non contact physical moves such as Earthquake, Seed Bomb and Ice Shard?
EDIT: you must have already tested this, but I thought Ice shard was a non-contact move, in that it hurls chunks of ice...

It's doesn't. Ice Shard is not a contact move.

Yay, free Chomp!

Anyway, I always wanted to use Chomp back in OU. I thought, with him, I would have a lot of easier time against almost anything because he's not only fast, but he can learn 2 powerful STAB moves freely if he want. Scarf set is dangerous and such even without Sand Veil. During the early BW1 era, Chomp absolutely dominates with or without Sand.

But now, without Sand, it has made Garchomp less broken than before and with the rise of newer threats like Scarf Genesect, Therian genies, Keldo and other new and better standard sets that people come up with, Chomp really start to suck a bit now. However, there is this one particular set that is very deadly at the moment as far as I know. The Sub SD set. My god, if you let him set up a Substitute, you are definitely going to have a miserable time against it. Especially if you cannot touch him and he also gets a free SD up. Then that could mean serious trouble.

I predict Skarmory's usage might rise in order to try to stop Garchomp along with some of his teammates. We'll see how this goes. For now, Garchomp's only deadly set I know is SubSD and nothing else.