While I wouldn't say that weavile is garbage, it to me is not banworthy. After some more testing it is becoming really obvious to me that this thing is not all that good. Great on paper, but in battle it just isin't working besides forcing switches and doing a little damage. Against full stall maybe it could be good since it gets so many free turns and its lack of bulk is less of a factor, but still, it really isin't all that good. I am going to say definitively no ban as of now.
Keldeo i still need more time on. I can't make a view yet, keldeo is very possible to counter in this meta however its centralizing and is one of the main reasons that offense is even usable atm. Without it there would be virtually no offensive teams that are even viable. If there was a vote now i would abstain, because i just don't know
lol?
I'll post an update on a possible change on how we do suspecting soon if I can work out something with
The Immortal
so here's basically
my argument on weavile:
First of all, I've seen a lot of people really under state Weavile's power. I know its easy to look at Weavile's only 125 base physical offensive stat and not be impressed compared to things like Aegislash, but you have to keep in mind that the base power of the move that it commonly uses tends to be pretty damn high. Don't get me started at all, Weavile
can 2hko skarmory unboosted with a physical neutral move
252 Atk Life Orb Refrigerate Weavile Return vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Skarmory: 153-183 (45.8 - 54.7%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO
For comparison's sake, Life Orb Terrakion's Close Combat is about
3% weaker than Life Orb Weavile's Fridge Return. It's pretty strong, but we all have to over state its frailness don't we? It's not as frail as you think actually, it can live a Life Orb Sheer Force Scald from Greninja if it really needs to :c, however its not the most bulky thing, but you also have to remember that it resists most priority barring Pixilate Quick Attack, Gale Winged Acro/Brave Bird, Mach Punch and Aqua Jet, and resists Shadow Sneak, Ice Shard, Fridge Quick attack. Overall decent trade off, obviouslly needs Mach Punchers and shitty gimmick Pixilate Zygarde (just use fridge, it's overall better and handles Gale Wings) out of the way to succeed, but even shit like slacking needs stuff like Cofagrigus out of the way to be at sweepign capacity. Also you can run feint to rape espeeders like Protean Dragonite and Pixie-Nidhogg (pixilate zygarde).
There have been many people that have pointed out that there are quite a few Universal Counters to Weavile sets. This is, for the most part,
false. Face it, the only universal counter to this threat is Unaware Suicune (and possibly Unaware CroPhy). People have been saying things like, "This has become a game of checks instead of a game of counters," for a while now, but that isn't a good reason to fucking keep this broken piece of shit.. There are tons of offensive Pokemon that can run certain sets to beat their usual checks and counters. But this motherfucker has 2 counters and 2-3 viable checks with 1 set, not to mention it can run other gimmick sets.
I'd also like to point out that the method by which Weavile beats some of its usual checks differs from that of some other Pokemon: Double Edge
252 Atk Life Orb Refrigerate Weavile Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Regirock: 169-200 (46.4 - 54.9%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Refrigerate Weavile Double-Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 170-201 (52.6 - 62.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
We're not talking about Aegislash where it often has to change up its entire set in order to beat certain checks and thus has to change its role on the team, which comes with an opportunity cost all to its own. This is quite similar to BW Keldeo: changing a Hidden Power (aka just 1 move) to change its entire list of checks (while still being blanket countered by stuff such as max hp latias and jellicent). Sure, you can run Tinted Lens SD Ice Punch for Keldeo or Protean SD Double Edge to 2hko unware manaphy, among the other uses for these moves. You could also run an all out attacker set with Fake Out or other filler (like PURSUIT, whic hpressures stall very much so) but you give up what makes it such a threat to stall, not only its immense unboosted power, but the ability to force people to run obscurely bulky unawares which would much appreciate actual recovery in the form of something like Regenerator.
Another big argument that I've yet to see seen is the centralization that Weavile causes. I will freely admit this: Weavile's very presence in the metagame keeps Pokemon like Garchomp, Dragonite (esp. if Feint), Lati@s, Gale Wingers in check a bit. They are generally used less because of their struggles with Weavile's and/or run abilities (I've seen a thick fat Latios specifically for people who choose to Return and not Knock Off) that, while not necessarily bad, would probably not be run if not for the importance of beating Weavile. However, the argument now becomes whether or not this is a bad thing, which is sort of based upon your own opinions and presuppositions about the importance of a Pokemon's impact on the metagame when deciding on whether it is banworthy or not. I'm not just talking about broken things checking other broken things. I'm talking about a powerful Pokemon whose very existence prevents a host of offensive Pokemon (most of which are not necessarily broken even in an Weavile-less metagame) from being even more powerful and gives many teams an extra option to handle them that they might not have otherwise. Think about it: do we really want to keep something partially on the basis that its ban will increase the power and freedom of a number of offensive sweepers and wallbreakers in an already offensively leaning metagame?
One anti-ban argument that I do take seriously is the fact that Suicune and some other bulky waters/Offensive Waters (Keldeo) are prominent in the meta. Pressuring Weavile to make sub optimal plays is one thing, but it's the fact that these are some of the best pokemon in the metagame barring Weavile itself that really causes problems. As you can clearly, there are is a big chance which this is basically a risk-free switch in that can completely screw over a Pokemon that would otherwise destroy you. Even in the case of those Pokemon that have the potential to take advantage of the free turn provided by forcing Weavile out, you still get into these coinflip scenarios where you try to set up / nail the switchin and end up getting weakened further which can lead to problems in checking Weavile, and messing up can cost you. However, keep in mind that not all 50/50s are weighted in the counters favor favor. For example, let's consider Standard Weavile vs Standard Magnet pull specs Keldeo. You have a basic scenario:
Keldeo switches into Weavile, now things can go elsewhere from this point on:
- Weavile swords danced on the switch in and carries Double Edge. Thus leading to the OHKO of Keldeo
- Weavile Swords Danced on the switchin, and is return but can bluff Double Edge. Thus pressuring the opponent to get something that can take a Double Edge safely and abuse the recoil to secure an OHKO. This happens and they can't pull through an OHKO due to the lack of Double Edge recoil, they die the enxt turn to Feint/Quick Attack/Return.
- Weavile is 4 attacks and Double Edged. Keldeo stays in or dies or has to get in something in safely.
- Weavile is 4 attacks and Returns (shows the return). Keldeo "wins" the momentum on its teams favor
- Weavile Knock Offs on the switchin and now makes Keldeo either more of a threat to some offense (can switch up moves) or a joke to balance/semi-stall (can't 2hko much of anything)
- even more shit can happen if its a battle vs 2 skilled players that I don't want to list out.
So in this example, Weavile beats Keldeo in most scenarios, possibly even sweeping in a couple. Even in the ones where the Keldeo user predicts perfectly, he still might have to face another 50/50 later on and really wants his Keldeo to be at good health in order to safely take on Weavile and other threats such as Victini. The risk/reward balance is definitely in favor of the Weavile user. Now, obviously this is an extreme example that does not represent the whole, but I picked it in order to show that not every 50/50 that a Weavile counter forces will be in its favor. You have to admit that it's pretty ridiculous when you have a Pokemon as powerful as Keldeo who actually struggles
at all against a Pokemon 4x weak to its super effective STAB attack based on a single move like Double Edge or Swords Dance.
Well, I think that's about all I have to say about that, and I'm busy rn. I know a lot of what I've put in this post is pretty controversial, but I'm quite the controversial person at times. A lot of this really comes down to an individual's own philosophy regarding what constitutes good reasoning for a ban. The thing is, many of the people voting in this suspect test probably already had their minds made up about Weavile long before the test actually started, and there's likely very little that anyone can say or do to convince them to change their minds. Still, I thought I might as well throw my thoughts out there, even if they are a jumbled mess because I can hardly even concentrate on what I'm typing right now.
some "framework" token from a certain Agent Gibbs post, I'm not trying to steal or say I can't make a decent argument on my own, but I agree with a lot of his wording and argument flow, so just stole a lil bit of the framework.
