Cresselia Suspect Discussion (Again)

[Oglemi*]

What you're expected to do in this thread:

1. Post which sets you used in the round and what you found good about it, what beat it, etc.

2. Discuss Cresselia's place in the tier, has the metagame adapted properly to it? Does it break the metagame? What counters are there to Cresselia?

3. All prospective and eventually-chosen Council members are expected to post their thoughts on, experiences using, and experiences against Cresselia in this thread. As of now the Council isn't determined, but they will have to eventually!

4. The Council, when decided, should also post here to figure out a time when they can get on IRC on #rarelyused to have a dedicated discussion on the suspects. Not all Council members are expected to make decided time, but MOST if not all Council members should try their damndest to attend.

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

So after a while of Cresselia being in the tier, I have ultimately decided that Cresselia is broken. This thing has absolutely massive bulk, which allows it to take hits like a boss and any day. This thing is the whole embodiment of stall; it can essentially wall 95% of the tier without fail.

First up is Cress's most popular set-the CM variant. This set can set up as many times as it like thanks to its bulk given by God and its reliable recovery in Moonlight. This also provides it not only quite a bit of offensive prowess, but the special bulk of God himself and with high Defense, it's gonna take hits well. It can run T-wave to cripple opponents or HP to run around its counters. Ice Beam can do too. CM is certainly a very overpowered set and hard to deal with.

Dual Screens provides too good support. Thanks to its "Bulk of God", and recovery, it can set up Dual Screens and be impossible to take down. And it can hurt back for a little. Not only that, but those screens are providing a way to soften up damage for the team. This means typically frail Pokemon, like Absol and SD Sceptile and Scolipede get a nice chance to set up and wreck. And walls like Tangrowth get their job done much more easily. Clearly broken.

Wall set too strong. Can cripple things and stall shit like no tomorrow. Poliwrath and Spiritomb also have Amazing synergy.

Last, the sun summoner set is also amazing. It buffs its recovery in Moonlight, so it can sit there and heal off all damage. And support Lilligant and Charizard. Lunar Dance can help to heal off an injured sun team candidate, so they Can wreck shit. Charizard loves the support. This sun support from Cress is too good.

Obviously, Cresselia is not invincible. Powerful attackers such as Escavalier and Absol can beat it down. But itss diversity along with its ability to wall the majority of the tier and support the team is too much. And its synergy with Poliwrath is too good. It needs to go.

Ban.

[Molk]

Yeah, i was a supporter for unbanning Cresselia last round, but as time went on it started to become pretty apparent that the moon duck is, in fact, very broken. One of the main arguments that was used against Cresselia last round is that it wasnt completely unbreakable, and Pokemon such as Drapion, Escavalier, Crawdaunt, and Absol could punch through its defenses given the chance. As time went on we figured out that this wasnt the case, Cresselia was actually perfectly capable of going toe to toe with its "counters", being able to survive a hit from all of them except Choice Band Escavalier (but not after a reflect!), and either crippling them with status or wearing them down with repeated Psychics or Hidden Powers. After these very specific checks and counters are out of the way, theres nothing stopping Cresselia from simply walling its way through the rest of the opponent's team with little to no effort thanks to its reliable recovery and godly bulk. We also discovered various teammates for Cresselia to cover up its weaknesses just in case something went wrong, most notable of which is Poliwrath, who beats almost all of Cresselia's "counters" bar the rare Crotomb.

Outside of walling pretty much the entire tier outside of a few specific threats, Cresselia can threaten the opposing team with its countless support options, from Dual Screens, to Rain Dance and Sunny Day, to Thunder Wave and Toxic, and to Lunar Dance, Cresselia can pull it off with ease thanks to its amazing bulk. I remember i used a Lunar Dance/Psychic/Thunder Wave/Moonlight Cresselia on one of my offensive teams during the round, it was pretty much the only defensive backbone i needed on my entire team, taking hits from pretty much anything the rest of my frail offensive team couldnt. Because of Cresselia's godlike bulk it found ample opportunity to paralyze at least half the opponent's team most of the time, and if for some reason Cresselia couldnt take another hit, or if i needed to pull off a late game sweep, Cresselia could simply Lunar Dance and revive a Teammate of mine such as Crawdaunt or Sceptile or Nidoqueen who could simply cleave through the remnants of the opponents paralyzed and weakened team.

As mentioned before, Cresselia can set up Sunny Day like no other, as the sun itself buffs its reliable recovery option, and also gives the moon duck some extra power on its Hidden Power to take out Escavalier more easily, Sunny Day even has the added bonus of allowing Cresselia to do something no other Cresselia has done before (well it might have, but surely not as easily), wall entire Hail Teams into oblivion while completely screwing over the hail abusers, making them easier to pick off either by teammates or by Cresselia itself. After spending some time with Cresselia in the tier, i feel its wayyyyy too bulky for the tier to handle, and even though it may have some checks, it can easily work around almost every single one of them with specific sets, Cresselia is also too diverse for the tier imo, being able to run many sets for specific purposes, whether it be supporting the team with weather, or using a move like Reflect to stop the opponent's Drapion from breaking through you. It was fun while it lasted Cress, but its pretty obvious that for all that is good and righteous, you need to get out, and fast. Ban

[speed ghilliesniper]

I'l pretty much restate wat's been said. So bulky with the proper ev treatment next to nothing can ko it, can run hidden power fire/fighting/ground to deal with it's checks. Poliwrath beat's everything that beats Cress except for Crotomb or Thunderbolt wall breaker Absol, and really both of those specific mons can be played around and beaten by the rest of a team. In all honesty I have to run at least 2 Cress checks on every team or else I'm just completely screwed, and by the same logic when I look at a team with no Cress checks I almost feel bad just boosting to +6 and reaming through the rest of the team unless a crit takes it down.

Honestly I was for Cresselia coming in to the tier to hopefully balance the tier while still being able to be broken through, but unfortunately it seems as if it's scewed the tier even more towards Nidoqueen style heavy bulky offense, while being even more broken than Nidoqueen meaning it has to go.

Ban Cresselia.

[Texas Cloverleaf]

I struggled with my opinion on Cress for a while, because every time I used it it was such a dominating force, yet the metagame that it provided was undoubtedly better than the previous one. Posts by SilentVerse and Windsong more or less express my thoughts on this matter, so I'll keep this brief and say that Cresselia is without a doubt the most reliable sweeper in the tier, it will not fail to sweep once its appropriate checks are removed. It walls almost everything and anything that could beat it is completely countered by a single teammate. It provides ridiculous team support no matter which set it uses (bar SubCM). It makes Stall based and defensive teams extremely difficult to break as evidenced by both Windsong and myself running near perfect records with it on a Stall team. It can be splashed into any team as a catch all counter for the vast majority of the tier. Essentially, it walls significant portions of the metagame with ease, provides excellent support and sweeps easily and reliably. As much as this metagame is better off with it Cresselia is definitely too good for the tier. Perhaps we can return to the issue of Nidoqueen after this who skews the tier similarly to Cresselia although in the opposite direction.

The preceding post comes from the initial time of Cresselia's return to the RU tier, when it was time to determine whether it would stay BL or not. At the time, many posts were posting support for Cresselia, saying it balanced out the tier.

It is now apparent that these posts are wrong.

As for Cresselia herself, the vast majority of Pokemon she outright walls and turns into set up fodder is ridiculous. People list out her relatively limited list of checks and counters (usually along the lines of Drapion, Spiritomb, Escavalier and then a few others) and claim that for this reason she isn't broken, but they tend to ignore the fact that, without fail, she 100% walls just about every single other Pokemon in the tier. With the EV spread I run, 252 HP 116 SDef Calm, Cresselia becomes an instant counter to every special attacker in the tier, meaning only the aforementioned Pokemon and then scarce physical attackers such as Swords Dance Gallade and Swords Dance Kabutops have a shot at breaking through Cress. What's more, with the exception of Gallade (who Cress can in fact beat with smart play) every other Pokemon I've listed is defeated by Poliwrath, Cresselia's perfect mate. In short, we have two Pokemon who wall every single option the tier has bar a select few, with 95% of the work being done by Cresselia. Remember those outdated qualities of an Uber? Cresselia qualifies for BOTH the defensive characteristic due to it walling such a massive percentage of the tier, but also the support characteristic for the remarkably easy paralysis support, dual screens support, and weather support it provides -- though admittedly its support features would be unlikely to banworthy in and of itself.

Furthermore the centralisation that I, SilentVerse and Windsong talked about in our suspect votes has become increasingly clear among both ladder and more serious battles. Essentially, if you don't carry 1 hard counter plus a check or multiple checks to Cresselia, you will lose without fail. If you use Pokemon that are easily walled by Cresselia you not only compromise the offensive or defensive integrity of your team you allow Cresselia to spread its status of choice without consequence throughout your team. What's more, Cresselia is somewhat versatile with its moveset options, and a single moveslot change can render your counter of choice moot, leaving Cress to destroy you unchallenged. Hidden Power Fire suddenly makes Escavalier a liability, as well as invalidating Drapion as an option. Calm Mind plus Ice Beam means that Cresselia can take out Crotomb with a crit, whereas Spiritomb must crit itself to take out Cress. Speaking of crits, did you know that in a Cresselia stall war, using the spread I listed above, opposing +6 Cresselia will fail to 2HKO you with consecutive critical hit Psychics? This is typically the point where one raises status, particularly Toxic as a means to stop Cresselia. This is a reasonably valid point so I will only say four things against it. First, on a defensive team, status should be irrelevant because a competent player will run Heal Bell to support both Cress and a team that likely carries at least one RestTalker. Second, offensive teams have no room or time to fit Toxic and are thus irrelevant in the equation. Third, Toxic is commonly run on only a few Pokemon, and is almost always telegraphed, making it very easy to predict from the most common Pokemon used to check Cress, Slowking and Cryogonal specifically coming to mind. Fourth and finally, if Toxic is indeed your primary option of dealing with Cress, you are completely screwed when you run into a SubCM Cress.
(n.b. Trick is as easily telegraphed as Toxic, specifically from Manectric, one should always be scouting Uxie before leading their Cress against it)

Now I'm not sure how this post shifted into a "why Cress is broken post," but I'll cap it off by saying that a well built stall team with the focus being should never lose, except to a combination of hax and the opponent carrying a surefire Cresselia counter. In fact, this is exactly what I found when laddering, and other battles. Except when the opponent carried RestTalk versions of Spiritomb or Escavalier, there was no Pokemon or combination of Pokemon that could pose a threat to Cresselia, and then an assortment of hazard setters/spinners/clerics that covered off niche options to reduce the burden of Cress having to wall the entire tier. Even when hax struck and took out CroTomb before it could sweep, I found myself more than once in a situation where I was down 4-2, 5-2, and was inevitably, slowly but surely wearing down the opponent because they could not break through the Cresselia / Poliwrath combination. I could not sweep because they still carried a Spiritomb or Escavalier, but nor could they wear me down thanks to Poliwrath shoring up Cresselia's few weakness. Thus, I was slowly able to wear down a team with forced switches and phazing.

Cresselia has become the dominating force in the metagame, centralising everything around it. It will wall almost the entire tier, and it will sweep you if you give it a chance. It can even beat its own checks with minor moveset variations.

The following are arguments against Cresselia, and the following rebuttal.

I've had enough of this crap

Pokemon and teams specific goal requires them to beat Cresselia, usually by putting two or more Pokemon whose purpose is largely, at least in part, to defeat Cresselia. If they don't, they lose. This is part of overcentralization.

Secondly, learn your facts. Cresselia did not just drop, it has officially been in the tier since November 24th and it has been allowed on the ladder since October 20th. This is ample time for the metagame to adapt.

It is true that Glaceon can 2HKO Cress. However, it needs Rocks up to accomplish this feat. Furthermore, Glaceon is a 130 base Special Attack Pokemon wearing Choice SPecs using a STABed 120 Base Power Attack. If it couldn't 2HKO just about anything that would be pretty pathetic. Cherrypicking one of the strongest attackers in the tier using its most powerful set and BARELY 2HKOing does not support your case.

252 SpAtk Choice Specs Glaceon Blizzard vs 252 HP/116 SpDef Cresselia (+SpDef) : 43.92% - 51.58%
2-3 hits to KO

Assuming you are talking about Cress's counters and what it can do, let's look at Cresselia's common counters. Drapion, Escavalier, Spiritomb, Durant, Mandibuzz and Crawdaunt are the only Cresselia counters that received above 60th, or above 2.8% usage in the month of November. For the sake of argument we'll include weaker checks such as Scolipede, Scyther, and your two choices Skuntank and Sneasel. For the record, the latter two are never used, as evidenced by:

| 154 | Skuntank | 168 | 0.272% | 137 | 0.270% |
| 146 | Sneasel | 193 | 0.313% | 153 | 0.301% |

Now let's assume that Cresselia has obtained a position against something it forces out, and the above Pokemon must now switch in. Cresselia has access to Calm Mind, Psychic, Thunder Wave, Moon light and Hidden Power Fire; as both of these movesets are common enough to be likely possibilities. Let us also assume that Cresselia has Poliwrath as a teammate, as almost every Cress team should carry them as a combo. Stealth Rock is assumed to be up for both sides, and 1 Spikes layer may or may not be up for Cresselia team. These are common battle conditions when using Cress.

Drapion: If early game, or if its counters are still alive such as now, Cresselia will Thunder Wave on the switch. Congrats, you now have a paralyzed and completely useless Drapion on your hands. If running HP Fire, Cresslia, does 18-21% and can thus slowly wear down Drapion. Furthermore, the only Drapion that can possibly 2HKO Cresselia is Choice Band Drapion which conveniently is lacks recovery. Even worse is the fact that Drapion cannot beat Poliwrath, who will switch in for free, shuffle your team and rack of entry hazard damage, including on your Drapion who will die fairly quickly considering its lack of recovery. Therefore, as a whole, Drapion cannot beat Cresselia.

252 Atk Choice Band Drapion Crunch vs 252 HP/252 Def Cresselia (+Def) : 43.92% - 52.03%
0 SpAtk Cresselia Hidden Power Fire vs 0 HP/0 SpDef Drapion: 18.15% - 21.35%

Escavalier: Escavalier is a stronger check to Cresselia, as it does not care much about paralysis, and can threaten to OHKO Cresselia outright with Megahorn. However, it falls into the same boat as Drapion in that it cannot beat Poliwrath, and is susceptible to entry hazards. It likewise will be worn down and defeated. Should Cresselia carry HP Fire:

Against Choice Band Escava: 0 SpAtk Cresselia Hidden Power Fire vs 252 HP/0 SpDef Escavalier: 45.35% - 53.49%, Escavalier is always 2HKOd after Rocks
Against Specially Defensive Escavalier: 0 SpAtk Cresselia Hidden Power Fire vs 252 HP/252 SpDef Escavalier: 36.05% - 43.02%; always 3HKOd

As a result, Escavalier cannot beat Cresselia easily, and Cresselia is capable of defeating Escava. There is one set upon which Escavalier can commit itself to a pure Cresselia counter, Specially Defensive RestTalk Escava which will force Cresselia out, but this runs into the same problem of not being able to beat Poliwrath, being forced out and failing to heal. Therefore, Escavalier must overcentralize to guarantee a win against Cresselia, but cannot win over the course of a match.

Spiritomb: Spiritomb I maintain is the only true Cresselia counter. Not because of its Choice Band or Blackglasses sets, because these are susceptible to entry hazards and status, especially Scald burns, but because of its Calm Mind RestTalk set which will always defeat Cresselia, albeit requiring a Critical hit after Calm Minds. It also cannot be phazed by Poliwrath and will defeat that part of the core. Therefore, CroSpiritomb is a true counter to Cresselia, but other variants are not.

0 SpAtk Spiritomb Dark Pulse vs 252 HP/116 SpDef Cresselia (+SpDef) : 24.32% - 29.05% (+6 Critical OHKO)

Mandibuzz: This will beat Cresselia one-on-one between Taunt and Whirlwind. That said Mandibuzz is universally regarded to be terrible, particularly with the advent of Hail. Mandibuzz is a Cresselia counter should it avoid Toxic, but is terrible outside of that purpose.

Crawdaunt: Crawdaunt is paralysis susceptible, hazard susceptible and is completely countered by Poliwrath. Crawdaunt is a terrible Cresselia counter.

Durant: See Crawdaunt, except Durant can do a fair amount to Poliwrath before being KOd/phazed. Durant is a mediocre/average Cresselia counter.

Scolipede/Scyther: If either gets paralyzed they are now screwed. Both are weak to Stealth Rocks, Scyther devastatingly so. Some damage calcs:

0 SpAtk Cresselia Psychic vs 0 HP/0 SpDef Scolipede: 79.31% - 94.25%
2 hits to KO

If Cresslia Thunder Waves or Psychics on the switch, Scolipede dies.

0 SpAtk Cresselia Psychic vs 0 HP/0 SpDef Scyther: 33.1% - 38.79%
3-4 hits to KO

Cresselia will 2HKO Scyther, leading to a similar situation as above. In the worst case scenario Scyther fails to OHKO Cress after one round of Leftovers as shown by:

252 Atk Choice Band Technician Scyther (+Atk) Bug Bite vs 252 HP/140 Def Cresselia: 73.65% - 87.16%

Therefore, Scyther and Scolipede are very poor Cresselia counters/checks.

And now we reach your two favourites, Sneasel and Skuntank. Ignoring the fact they have a combined 0.6% usage in RU, both of them are terrible choices to take on Cress.

1. Both are completely countered by Poliwrath. Have fun with that one!
2. Sneasel is crippled by Thunder Wave and destroyed by Hidden Power Fire
   0 SpAtk Cresselia Hidden Power Fire vs 0 HP/0 SpDef Sneasel: 40.64% - 47.81%
3. Skuntank is impeded by Thunder Wave and worn down by Hidden Power Fire
   0 SpAtk Cresselia Hidden Power Fire vs 252 HP/0 SpDef Skuntank: 14.63% - 17.32%
4. Both are weak to entry hazards, Sneasel hilariously so
   Sneasel takes 25-50% from entry hazards guaranteeing a 2HKO. Skuntank takes 12.5-27.5% from entry hazards, 12-25 being common, meaning that after a few switch ins it can no longer beat Cress
5. Neither of their Pursuits are strong enough to bother Cress
   
   Skuntank vs a switching Cress: 252 Atk Choice Band Skuntank (+Atk) Pursuit vs 252 HP/140 Def Cresselia: 58.78% - 69.59%
   Vs a Cress that stays in: 29.39-34.79
   
   Sneasel vs a switching Cress: 252 Atk Choice Band Sneasel (+Atk) Pursuit vs 252 HP/140 Def Cresselia: 59.46% - 70.27%
   Vs a Cress that stays in: 29.73-35.13
   
   Cress dgaf about either of the Pursuits, not to mention the numerous Pokemon it can switch in n and heal should it get tagged with a strong attack.
   
   Skuntank is therefore a mediocre Cress counter, and Sneasel is a horrible one.

In regards to your mention of playing RU every day, I took the liberty of looking you up on Pokemon Showdown.

http://imgur.com/Oxemd
You seem to play a lot, but you sure don't do very well. This leads me to question the validity of statements you make regarding a Pokemon's effectiveness.

I've addressed most of this already, so I'll simply state that Absol is very prone to getting paralyzed by Cresselia, is susceptible to entry hazards, and it utterly destroyed by Poliwrath's Circle Throw. Pinsir is a rarely seen Pokemon, can lose to to Poliwrath and is significantly hazard weak. Assuming the best case scenario for you, where Cress switches out while you Sub and Poliwrath breas your Sub while you SD:

252 +2 Atk Life Orb Pinsir Close Combat vs 252 HP/252 Def Poliwrath (+Def) : 64.06% - 75.26%

Pinsir has now taken 60% damage from SR, LO and Sub, POliwrath responds with either:

0 SpAtk Poliwrath Scald vs 0 HP/0 SpDef Pinsir: 32.1% - 38.01%
3-4 hits to KO
Meaning you die as of your next attack without beating Cress or:

0 Atk Poliwrath Circle Throw vs 0 HP/0 Def Pinsir: 10.33% - 12.18%
9-10 hits to KO

Meaning you die the next time you switch in and attack once, this time without your boosts, and also without beating Cress. Assuming you've switched in against Cress:

252 Atk Life Orb Pinsir X-Scissor vs 252 HP/140 Def Cresselia: 57.43% - 67.57%
2 hits to KO (with Leftovers)
Meaning Cress finishes you off if you attack or you kill yourself by attacking, possibly as it Moonlights the damage away.

EDIT: Actually after the Close Combat Pinsir is at -1/-1 defenses meaning that whatever Pinsir gets hit with, it's dead, without touching Cress

Some final points: Cress being an S rank Pokemon does mean its amazing, Cress commands S rank BECAUSE its amazing. LC and RU are nothing alike. Literally nothing. Do not use them as a comparison.

I have no designs as to whether these Pokemon are viable or not. Skuntank can be argued for being outclassed by Drapion but may be usable, Sneasel I am actually encouraged has a niche in RU.

What is far more relevant is that both suck at beating Cress.

The first statement has been proven untrue: 252 Atk Choice Band Sneasel Punishment vs 252 HP/140 Def Cresselia: 67.57% - 79.73% this being vs +1/+1 Cresselia.

You also claim that Cresselia can't run all its moves, but then contradict yourself by switching between Choice Band Sneasel and Sub Sneasel, as well as 4 dark move Skuntank and Sub Skuntank among others. This is inherently flawed reasoning I hope you see.

Regarding this line:

What does Cresselia care if it has to switch and lose its boosts? It can set up against 90% of the tier without fail anyway. Furthermore, why is Cresselia setting up if its checks/counters aren't gone/weakened in the first place?

Your arguments are entirely based on circumstantial evidence from playing against poor players. Your terrible ladder rating supports the concept that the majority of your battles have been against the dregs of the ladder.

Cresselia with Calm Mind beats SubSetup mons, Cresselia without Calm Mind isn't designed to. Once again, you have cherrypicked minute details to provide a potentially favourable situation without looking at the entire picture of Cress beating these Pokemon the majority of the time. For instance, you claim that SubSetup automatically wins against Cress. Pray tell, what coverage moves are we now giving up?

If you used SubSD Crawdaunt you autolose to Poliwrath. Gallade? Autolose to Spiritomb. Pinsir? Loses to Poliwrath as previously shown. Feraligatr? Loses to Poliwrath. Kabutops? Poliwrath. Drapion? Poliwrath. Escavalier? Aside from the poor concept of the set, Poliwrath. Bouffalant? Possibly the only good example of this, Cresselia's common teammates do not automatically beat it.

Consulting the usage stats, those are the only Pokemon who run SubSD. Almost all of them will lose.

Once again you refer to flawed arguments and conflicting logic. RU IS NOT LC! They are not comparable! Cresselia doesn't hate 4MSS, each of its sets is designed to fulfill its own purpose on top of walling 90% of the tier! One is designed to beat its counters. Another is designed to sweep! The most common provides para support for its teammates and is capable of sweeping! Not every Cress set is designed to sweep! But every Cress set walls 90% of the tier whether its designed to sweep or not.

Finally, let's look at these CM users.

Murkow: | 163 | Murkrow | 153 | 0.248% | 121 | 0.238% |
Calm Mind 5.882%
Calm Mind Murkow was used in exactly 9 battles in the month of November. I'm not going to comment further.

Misdreavus: I grant that this one saw a little bit of usage, approximately 0.36% overall. Its most common set however is defensive, and it will lose to any normal type special wall Cress is paired with.

Duosion: 252 +6 SpAtk Duosion Psychic vs 252 HP/112 SpDef Cresselia (+SpDef) : 42.57% - 50.23%

Duosion only ever wins against Cress if it gets a max damage roll crit.

0 +6 SpAtk Cresselia Psychic vs 252 HP/0 SpDef Eviolite Duosion: 45.81% - 54.19%

Cress has a larger window. Essentially, Duosion ties with Cress but will lose most of the time 1v1.



To conclude this ridiculously long post: your arguments are bad, and you should feel bad. Your posts, aside from being grammatically incomprehensible are filled with fallacy, flawed logic, circumstance and conjecture. Your poor ladder record questions the validity of every statement you've made.

Please don't post again in regards to Cresselia without some logical reasoning to support your arguments.

Cresselia is supremely centralizing. Cresselia is supremely gifted at walling the majority of the tier. Cresselia is capable of sweeping. Cresselia is capable of defeating its own checks. Cresselia is broken.

Essentially, Cresselia doesn't just beat a lot of Pokemon, it beats an entire playstyle, bar a small, select group of Pokemon. That's broken in my books, from a defensive perspective.

[Windsong]

I stand by exactly the same viewpoints regarding Cresselia that I had prior to this round, regardless of the new factors that Hail has added to the metagame. Cresselia is a ridiculously dominant and centralizing force in the metagame, and the post that Pocket made listing all the Cresselia "checks" (which can be found in the np thread) includes a significant number of Pokemon that either flat out don't check Cresselia or are only remotely relevant in handling it when playing a flat out hyper offense team that carries nothing slower than Cresselia. And none of those teams are doing shit to Cresselia once it's already in play regardless. So basically to reiterate a point that I feel I've made dozens of times, Cresselia's a ridiculously bulky, powerful, and versatile threat in the metagame right now, and legitimately has no place amongst the Pokemon of the RU metagame.

[for54years]

1. Post which sets you used in the round and what you found good about it, what beat it, etc.

I ran a Specially Defensive set with Sunny Day, Calm Mind, Psychic, and Moonlight. This handled pretty much any special attacker, occasionally swept, but mostly acted as a pivot to wear stuff down for my sweepers. I originally had Thunder Wave in place of Sunny Day, but changed it out for obvious reasons. It died to plenty of stuff, including but not limited to Spiritomb, Escavalier, and especially Dragon Dance Crawdaunt.

2. Discuss Cresselia's place in the tier, has the metagame adapted properly to it? Does it break the metagame? What counters are there to Cresselia?

Cresselia is just so good right now that it seems like there's not reason not to use it. In that sense, I agree with Windsong that it is over-centralizing. Having said that, I don't think it necessarily breaks the metagame - it can be countered, and at times can even be set-up bait. I mentioned some of the stuff above that counters it, but I usually went with Infiltrator Spiritomb. One thing about Cress that I haven't seen mentioned (I may have missed it) is Moonlight's horrible PP. It ceases to be resilient if you can wear it down enough to make it recover 8 times. That may not be a big factor to an offensive player, but I imagine it is a real detractor for someone who's trying to play stall.

[Limitless]

Seeing as how I'm usually an avid OU player, it was really hard for me to believe that Cresselia was broken in RU. The reasons for my apprehension were because in OU it just sat on teams and did nothing. It would just be a sponge that you had take repeated damage, and you just rinsed and repeated. However, that strategy is too powerful in RU because it can just sit there for the entire match. In higher tiers, it can be overwhelmed by offense, but that's not the case here. It's an immovable wall.

In addition to being an insane wall, it also provides the ability to sweep with Calm Mind (through either Moonlight or Rest/Talk), hail counter through Sunny Day + Moonlight, or even as a utility that uses screens and Lunar Dance for its teammates to setup.

There are just simply too many ways that Cresselia can overpower the metagame, through offensive, defensive, and utility roles.

[SharKing]

I'm gonna sound like I'm parroting everyone else, but there's a very good reason for that. It's because what everyone says is true: Cresselia is broken. It was too broken for RU twice before, and that has not changed this time around. For the third time in a row, it frustrates all of its opponents by flawlessly walling 95% of the tier. What's worse, it employs sets like Calm Mind and Sun support to readily skate around its "counters" to the point where they can't even be called counters.

And on a more personal note, I am not surprised by any of this. The only part of this that surprised me in any way was that Cresselia was let back into RU again after its aforementioned history of broken-ness. "Are you freakin' kidding me!?" is what ran through my head when I first saw this.

Ban this thing. And never let it terrorize RU again, please.

[Nails]

lol you guys actually unbanned cresselia and voted it not broken. my sides cannot handle this.

[Level 51]

Like the few previous posts, I could probably sum up what I have to say about Cresselia using only quotes from this page.

I have to admit, first and foremost, that I did not use Cresselia during the Suspect round as I was to busy working with hail. I have, however, worked before with a rather successful Lunar Dance Cresselia, and I have met many of them in my travels through the land of RU.

As I'm sure anyone who's played enough RU can see, Cresselia, while not contributing much direct offensive pressure itself, stops, while not quite "95%", a fair portion of the metagame. In fact, an unfair portion of it. Also blessed with an array of support moves such as Sunny Day, Thunder Wave and Toxic (but thankfully not Dragon Tail), plus reliable recovery in the form of Moonlight (plus Sunny Day uggghhhhhh), it's an excellent way to wear down the opponent's team, before it uses Lunar Dance, or dies, either way giving your sweeper of choice a free switch-in.

As a wise man once said, "Cresselia is like a banana peel. It sits there, does nothing, and slips up your opponent's sweepers. Except Escavalier, which has no feet."

[Nails]

i don't think any wise man would've ever actually said that

[Level 51]

Yilx is pretty damn wise if you ask me

[Nails]

yilx hit his face against the keyboard to make his username how wise could he really be