Doubles Stage 3 — Suspect Discussion

[scene]

If we're talking about ways to deal with Kanga, I found Terrakion a real MVP in this aspect. The set I used:

Terrakion @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Quick Guard
- Stone Edge

I've seen Taunt mentioned in this thread, which probably would have helped me more than Stone Edge due to the annoyance I had with TR teams. SE was still good though or comfortably picking off single targets after an Intimidate, and perhaps avoiding a cheeky Wide Guard. Anyway, Quick Guard was essential to screw up attempted Fake Outs, and obviously a Sucker Punch resistance and STAB Close Combat is fantastic (although it's not an OHKO after an Intimidate). Rock Slide's utility is boundless, used pretty much every game for its spread damage and hilarious flinching capabilities. Terrakion's very good, no question, and is of great comfort to have facing Kanga.

Charizard @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Heat Wave
- SolarBeam
- Focus Blast
- Protect

Often Terrakion's lead partner, Zard piles up the spread damage and outspeeds Kanga before mega-evolving. Afterwards it's a speedtie, but Kanga's hopefully dead from Terrakion turn 2 by then, and I found Modest necessary for pure power. Zard was absolutely crucial in most games, as it's surprisingly bulky and an absolute powerhouse with strong coverage and tactical weather-changing abilities. I'd pick it over Kanga anyday for its incredible utility in almost any situation.

Finally, Bisharp and Talonflame were my safety net for a rogue Kanga that came out late-game or evaded my main methods to neuter it - fast, powerful priority with Tailwind support from Talonflame and Protect on Bisharp to guarantee a "setup" against pretty much anything, which was valuable in the closing stages of games.

 

[trc]

Yeah, Terrakion is one of the most solid answers to Mega Kangaskhan you can find, and it isn't a niche mon, or one that is particularly difficult to fit into teams. Its resistance to Sucker Punch in combination with Justified means that Mega Kangaskhan's most common way of dealing with faster Pokemon is a liability. The fact that it gets Quick Guard is the icing on the cake. Obviously this is just one example, but it shows that checks to Mega Kangaskhan aren't niche mons that need to be somewhat forced into a team.

 

[Bughouse]

Might be around for the tournament.... I'll drive fast haha. If you can hold up til 7:15 I'll love you forever.

never mind lol plans changed, definitely missing the live tour :(

Pocket: D:

 

[finally]

i guess i'm an in between case in the suspect
i know mega kanga isn't broken, as there are multiple checks and counters. but i also personally just don't like playing against it as it's just so strong. thus that puts me on the ban wagon.
i guess as my meta remark: a lot of people have seen in the last couple of weeks through either laddering or pwnemon telling them how mkanga isn't actually that strong. but there is still sentiment that mkanga is simply unfun to play against. this idea comes from the stress it puts on teambuilding and battling itself.
so there are a lot of natural kanga checks that are just good mons. we all know that. let's say though, im not packing a check. the strength of kanga almost mandates you bring a check of some sort. the reasoning behind this logic is because if you are not packing kanga check, then your team accumulates a fair amount of damage from kanga (usually a kill if you aren't packing a check). more often than not, not having a check will allow kanga just to get clean damage in on your team. and if it itself isn't getting damage in, it usually opens up an opportunity for a kanga teammate to do something.
that may be a little convoluted, here's an example
you swap in your heatran to take the return from kanga. while kanga gets clean damage in on your heatran, kanga's partner could have swapped out to predict the heatran switch or even just done something entirely different that is beneficial in another way. #pressure=f/a #nocheck=sad
i feel this amount of pressure that it creates in the battle is simply unfun to play against.
i've heard a lot of the argument of "just play smart against kanga." you can only do that to an extent. the thing though is you can only play so smart against kanga, and kanga will most likely still be getting a fair amount of damage in on your team. and the other thing is, your opp can save his kanga. if he sees your team is kanga weak, like any good player he will save his threat. and then from there you have to play around kanga lurking (i.e. you playing to save things that could prevent a kangabomb, so like keeping a heatran decently healthy). the playing around could hinder your team's ability to do certain things (can't switch in that heatran as much) and thus it weakens the argument that you can "just play smart around kanga," seeing as even your smart plays are limited. and also, you don't even have to save kanga as a win condition. you can always use it midgame as a fake out tide turner, or just something to get a quick kill with sucker punch. in this manner i feel like kanga isn't something easily played around as it can be a early game damage getter, midgame tide turner, or late game win condition. and its ability to do all these things makes it hard to just play around kanga.
i guess it's just me ranting about how people say just play around kanga. not as ezpz as you guys say :[

p.s. pack a check kids if you don't wanna get smacked

 

[LightningLuxray]

Hmm, well. After playing on the Mega Khan ladder for a little bit, I think I'll give my opinion.

Well, I must admit that Mega Khan was much more powerful than I originally anticipated. I guess beforehand, I wasn't "strong" enough of a Doubles player to really realize how good it was. One thing I've noticed brought up by Mega Khan critics is how while you can deal with Mega Khan through double teaming and offensive pressure, it will leave you vulnerable to Mega Khan's partner. After playing with Tsumani's team for about 25 matches, I can definitely tell you this is true. However, I don't think it is limited to JUST Specs Sylveon; Pokemon such as Scarf/Band Landorus-T, Terrakion, Heatran, Excadrill, Chandelure, and others can all abuse the fact that your opponent is going to be focusing as Mega Khan as their primary target. This allows for your second team member to open holes in your opponent's team, which can make it easier for the rest of your team to finish the match. And that's all completely ignoring the fact that Mega Khan itself can easily put in a serious amount of work with the likes of Double Edge, which, when combined with Power-Up-Punch, allow it to potentially do massive damage to the opponent's team.

However, I'm still somewhat leaning towards "not broken." Something a lot of people have stated is how it's actually not very hard to fit a answer to Mega Khan on your team. Things like Gengar, Gourgeist, Terrakion, and other are all quite viable Pokemon who can find it easy to cripple Mega Khan with Will-O-Wisp or fire off a powerful STAB attack. I also feel that while Mega Khan is powerful, I don't thing that it's always this "I need to kill this Pokemon NOW" kind of Pokemon. There are plenty of Pokemon who can take on Mega Khan with a Power-Up-Punch under its belt, meaning that you can actually take your time to instead focus on this second "threat" who Mega Khan is supposed to draw in.

Overall, though, I think this ladder has been quite eye-opening for me. I think that while Mega Khan is much more broken than I originally though, I'm not exactly sure it's ban-worthy. I'll probably end up voting to let it stay.

 

[DTM]

I think we can all agree that Mega-Khan is good. I mean, very good. It puts pressure on the opposing team and provides a lot of offensive power. When I come up against opposing Mega-Khan, there is this mentality in which I think "I have to get rid of this (Mega Khan)," which in all honesty isn't really the case. Often, I try to get faint Mega Khan as quickly as possible, though I don't think that is the correct way to answer Mega Khan as I do realize that puts me vulnerable to other Pokemon. Spread moves I found work well to do damage to Mega Khan and the other Pokemon. I think Mega Khan, though very powerful, isn't broken to warrant a ban however. Numerous checks have already been mentioned and its standard set is pretty predictable. Sure it can run other moves as coverage, but then it loses a lot of utility it once had. Overall, as of this moment, I do not think Mega Khan is ban-worthy.

 

[Haruno]

I think we can all agree that Mega-Khan is good. I mean, very good. It puts pressure on the opposing team and provides a lot of offensive power. When I come up against opposing Mega-Khan, there is this mentality in which I think "I have to get rid of this (Mega Khan)," which in all honesty isn't really the case. Often, I try to get faint Mega Khan as quickly as possible, though I don't think that is the correct way to answer Mega Khan as I do realize that puts me vulnerable to other Pokemon. Spread moves I found work well to do damage to Mega Khan and the other Pokemon. I think Mega Khan, though very powerful, isn't broken to warrant a ban however. Numerous checks have already been mentioned and its standard set is pretty predictable. Sure it can run other moves as coverage, but then it loses a lot of utility it once had. Overall, as of this moment, I do not think Mega Khan is ban-worthy.

Who cares about being predictable when you're as bulky and as threatening as kanga is................................................ It can be as predictable as it fucking wants and it is still a top tier threat.

As far as just spam attacks/spread moves till kanga/partner dies, that isn't exactly an answer to kanga at all........ and as far as checks are concerned, kanga has ways to bypass all of them unless they're prankster ghosts with WoW. Almost all conventional checks to kanga are are only temporary solutions anyhow.

 

[Lolk]

While laddering for reqs I tried to mix around mega kanga's movepool and the results were always the same: poopy. I tried body slam > return to slow down opponents on the switches and what used to be OHKO's became 2HKO's and some 2HKO's even became 3HKO's, which is disgusting. Crunch>Sucker Punch is nearly impossible to run successfully because of Kanga's middlish Speed Tier, so idk why people would even think this is good lol (unless you can only check Kanga with WoW ghosts and you have some moral obligation to only use mons slower than kanga and are against speed control). Removing Fake Out increases the ability for an opponent to play around, double target, and chip off plenty of damage to net KOs. You guys act like Kanga's ability to get around its checks means it's broken, ignoring the fact that by getting around its checks, it exposes itself to many many many more threats.

I still agree tho that the standard set should be investigated more thoroughly because the damage output is impressive and the priority control is intimidating af; I am just sick of hearing "O it can run Fire Punch>Return so Ferrothorn isnt broken herp derp" Sorry for being slightly condesending I just keep seeing arguments pulled out of peoples' butts while the focus should be on what Kanga actually can run.

 

[finally]

While laddering for reqs I tried to mix around mega kanga's movepool and the results were always the same: poopy. I tried body slam > return to slow down opponents on the switches and what used to be OHKO's became 2HKO's and some 2HKO's even became 3HKO's, which is disgusting. Crunch>Sucker Punch is nearly impossible to run successfully because of Kanga's middlish Speed Tier, so idk why people would even think this is good lol (unless you can only check Kanga with WoW ghosts and you have some moral obligation to only use mons slower than kanga and are against speed control). Removing Fake Out increases the ability for an opponent to play around, double target, and chip off plenty of damage to net KOs. You guys act like Kanga's ability to get around its checks means it's broken, ignoring the fact that by getting around its checks, it exposes itself to many many many more threats.

I still agree tho that the standard set should be investigated more thoroughly because the damage output is impressive and the priority control is intimidating af; I am just sick of hearing "O it can run Fire Punch>Return so Ferrothorn isnt broken herp derp" Sorry for being slightly condesending I just keep seeing arguments pulled out of peoples' butts while the focus should be on what Kanga actually can run.

Completely true that kanga loses its ability to bypass the things it normally beats when it runs stuff like crunch or ice punch instead. The unfortunate thing is though, the threat of kanga running those moves is still a problem. If I'm running a not choice scarf lando-t with superpower, it's edgy if i can kill the kanga before it kills me. If I'm a ghost like gengar or chandelure and try to will-o-wisp I have to hope I don't get crunched.
Kanga is usually not diverse, but its possibility to be diverse makes it a little more necessary to treat kanga as if it has 5 or 6 moveslots. This in an of itself adds to the threatening potential of kanga.

I realize there are other mons where you have to do a lot more scouting as to there movepool (genesect, deo, tyranitar) but these mons don't quite pose such a huge threat with their moves. Gene for example can pop something off with an unexpected thunderbolt or energy ball. This differs from what kanga can do with ice punch or crunch because of kanga's ability to set up quite easily if you play around its coverage moves too much. For example, if you try swapping into an ice resist to take the potential ice punch, kanga could just go for something else like PuP or return on the ice resist. And if you protect, kanga could just attack your teammate. And if you try attacking, kanga could just kill you. (there is also the possibility of you staying in and killing kanga i suppose). What I'm trying to say is that Kanga's ability to feed off of its potential movepool is very great, perhaps too great, in that it causes mindgames which often end up giving the kanga user a distinct advantage over his opponent in the form of either killing the threat the coverage is meant to hit or by forcing the opponent to make unoptimal plays (in the form of switching or protecting) which may very well result in setup for kanga or straight damage on the opponent's team (through stuff like return). Even if it isn't carrying those moves, Kanga proves itself threatening because it can carry those moves.

altho i agree, the best set is fake out, return/double edge, pup, sucker. gotta be devil's advocate ya feel? :>

 

[jas61292]

Ok, so I finally got a chance to hop on the ladder and get reqs. I decided that, at least at first, I wanted to use the exact same team I used to get reqs on the non-Kanga ladder, and, unsurprisingly, it did just as well on both ladders. The presence of Kangaskhan in the metagame did not help or hurt the team in any way, because the Pokemon that deal with so many other physical threats dealt with it just as well. However, with that said, my sample size was not exactly significant. In fact, despite not using Kanga myself to get reqs, I had to go back out and try it myself to even form much of an opinion, since I had only faced it 4 times (one of which wasn't even Mega). In the end though, the conclusions I have come to are that, while it is a very good and very useful Pokemon, Mega Kangaskhan is definitely not broken.

Lolk makes a very good point above that, despite having the versatility to get around its counters and checks, if it is to do so, it must give something up that makes it not nearly as threatening overall. I don't want to just repeat that post though, so suffice it to say that its versatility, while good, is not in and of itself any reason to consider this thing even close to broken, as it cannot run those versatile sets and still be at the same level as it is running a more standard set. So, if it is ever to be considered broken, I believe it would be necessary for a very bog standard Kanga to be broken all on its own, without the need for uncertainty in your opponent.

And, to put things simply, I do not believe this is the case. Intimidate is easy to fit on teams and is a simple way to help neuter Kanga. Wispers scare the crap out of it, and if it is packing Sucker Punch, it likely has no way to stop them. And, very importantly, despite being quite bulky, if Kanga wants to put on the offensive pressure it is known for, it really needs to be running speed, making that great bulk not nearly all that formidable. Sure, it can take some hits, but it is no wall, and will fall to offensive pressure, and especially double targeting fairly easily. Now, don't get me wrong, Mega Kanga is incredibly good. Providing such massive power on top of the utility of Fake Out is pretty awesome, and it goes a long way toward helping its team win in almost every battle it is in. However, I think this is a fact of almost all good Mega Pokemon. Mega Charizard Y packs an even greater punch and has great team support utility. Mega Gardevoir also has massive power, with the ability to bypass substitutes with its awesome spread move. I could go on more, but I think I have made my point with those two. Great Mega Pokemon in this metagame have awesome power, AND can do something with high utility on top of that. Kanga is not alone in that, and arguably, not even the best (again, CharY is packing more raw power and one of the strongest support abilities in the game). Kanga may not be the easiest to wear down, but the things it will be doing, while scary, are things that almost all good teams will be prepared for.

Transitioning from that statement to teambuilding, as I said earlier in this thread, I do not believe that Mega Kangaskhan restricts team building at all. As I said at the top here, I used the exact same team in both meta, and my records and ratings on both ladders with it were nearly the same. Frankly, you don't really need to take Kangaskhan into account much in teambuilding. Well, actually... you do, but not because it is that good. You do because it is the posterchild for a certain type of threat that always needs to be taken into account. So, when preparing a team, you will indeed be preparing, likely with it in mind. However, that is only because it is the best at what it does. If it went away, it wouldn't stop you from preparing counters to that style of play. Rather, it would just cause you to be thinking of a different Pokemon when adding the exact same things to your team. I think this was pretty obvious looking at the diversity of the two metagames. The removal of Mega Kanga didn't suddenly change things a lot. Nothing new became viable that wasn't, except perhaps a weaker normal type Fake Out user, and nothing saw a real shift in usage or viability among things that were already viable. While obviously I do not yet have the usage statistics to back this up, it felt to me like if you just took the existing metagame and proportionately scaled up the usage of everything else, that is what the no Kanga meta looked like. What this lack of real change says to me is that people don't find preparing for Kanga to be a chore. It is just a part of what they naturally do, and whether it is here or not makes little difference. To me, that is the most definitive sign that Mega Kangaskhan is not broken .

 

[Lohgock]

I don't think you can compare Kanga to other Megas that easily. Taking your example of Char-Y, you're absolutely right that it packs more power and Gardevoir has a cool spread move breaking thorugh subs but apart from that, there's really not much they do that directly benefit them or the team itself. Of course, Chari-Y summons sun but a team may benefit from sun the same way it suffers from it, allowing you to partner it with a Chlorophyl-Sweeper or another Heat Wave abuser but at the same time restricting you by basically forcing you not to run water attacks and making you more weak to enemies' fire-attacks.
Kanga is able to greatly support your team with it's utility aka Fake Out, poses a threat even with constant Intimidate support thanks to PuP, hits incredibly hard, revenges, has perfect type coverage (something Charizard-Y can only dream of) and high bulk. Since you compared it with Gardes ability to hit trough subs, Kanga does an even better job at it. Obviously not by attacking thorugh subs but breaking them and still do damage afterwards which allows your partner to attack the Pokemon behind the sub aswel while Garde leaves it behind it's sub.
All in all it's a fallacy saying the mega Pokemon are equally strong or even comperable. Kanga fits so many roles just by running it's standard set while Chari is a straight attacker. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[jas61292]

I think you are completely missing my point. I'm not saying that Gardevoir or Charizard are the greatest thing ever, or that they are even comparable to Kanga directly. What I am saying is that a good Mega in this metagame not only has incredible power, but also packs additional utility. And for what its worth, I would argue Kanga's utility side doesn't even begin to compare to CharizardY's. Sure, Fake Out and possible sub breaking is nice, but nothing provides team support like weather can. Of course you can't do anything with sun up, but when you make a team you accept that. Just because you can't do as much at the same time doesn't mean it is not stupidly strong support. If what is good is ridiculous, than it doesn't matter what isn't good because you won't be using it.

Regardless though, I never said that all the Megas are equally strong. What I said was that what it provides for a team is the same kind of thing that all the good Mega Pokemon provide for the team. Kanga might be stronger by itself (though I'm not actually sure about that), but what it is doing on the team is very, very comparable to all the other useful megas.

 

[AuraRayquaza]

I dont particularly think mega kanga can be compared to other megas in what it provides for a team. Yes kanga provides immense offensive pressure like some other megas, but kanga provides fake out support, unlike any other mega bar the painfully frail mega medicham, on top of that.

Like i said in an earlier post, while char y has drought and a super strong heat wave, and garde has a spread hypee voice to boast. I believe kanga is better than other megas because players have the least to use by using it. Char y brings rock, electric and water (ish) weaknesses, and garde brings ghost, poison and steel weaknesses. They may bring resists, but kanga only has one weakness, and fighting has never been the hardest type to pack a resist of two for.

 

[Knight of Cydonia]

I find the point about not affecting teambuilding slightly irrelevant - the thing about doubles is that you can play around any current threat due to the simple 2v2 mechanics without worrying about how you built your team that much. The real question - in a battle scenario is the Kanga user at an unfair advantage - does it require too much playing around / otherwise sub optimal plays to deal with. From my experience this is the case. Basically the massive power, bulk, fake out utility, and the danger of it becoming twice the threat with power up punch if left unchecked require too much double targeting/switching etc to deal with compared to any other pokemon in doubles.

I saw a few people saying Kanga is prone to double targeting. This is really an argument for banning Kanga not an argument against it. If you are double targeting a pokemon beyond expecting a protect from its partner you have more than likely been forced into it. Kangas partner isn't sitting around doing nothing - if you are using both pokemon to take down one you are almost certainly in a losing position. I've been using tsunamis team focusing on Kanga leaves the opponent open to Specs Sylveon / Heatran, a lot of matches are won this way and I feel this is unfair even as I am using it.

The vote will be down to preference since you can play around Kanga, you have to decide if you can live with this or if you think the advantage is too heavily stacked towards the Kanga user regardless of team match up.

 

[Temporaryanonymous]

While I did not see that many mega kanga as I expected, but each team featuring it was still very powerful. While I was earlier leaning on keeping mega kanga, I'm not quite so sure now, as kangaskhan is just as much of a threat, if not more so, than I remembered when I last played. Mega kangaskhan is freakishly bulky, able to recover easily from wow and set up (and a gimmicky facade if needed), priority sucker punch, hits twice, and hits as hard as a truck. No seriously, it nearly matches the hardest hitter on my team without needing any kind of support:

252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 321-379 (45.5 - 53.8%) -- 94.5% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage
252 Atk Sand Force Mega Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey in Sand: 345-406 (49 - 57.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage

 

[Darkmalice]

My description of Mega Kang is as follows:

It is a Pokemon that can 2HKO much of the metagame whilst being OHKOed by very little. It can net OHKOs on frail Pokemon, and 2HKO almost every Pokemon that doesn't resist its STAB (Cress can avoid the 2HKO). With no spread moves, it can only take down one opponent at a time though, so given the opponent has two Pokemon, the opponent can often at least do something after Kang attacks, which makes it easier to halt (but still difficult). Being a Normal-type, its STAB grants good neutral coverage but no super-effective coverage, so it relies on raw power to take down its foes for the most part. It also only has one weakness. This is good from a sweeper point of view, as it is difficult to take down quickly, especially when combined with Togekiss or Amoonguss to redirect Fighting-types - think of DPP Garchomp. The downside is that it has no resists outside of an immunity to Ghost-type, so it limits its switch-in opportunities and it relies on its natural bulk to withstand attacks once its on the field (well you can switch Kang into attacks as it can certainly take most attacks, but it won't shrug them off, and it will unwisely shorten its lifespan). It is 3HKOed by most Pokemon, 2HKOed by hard hitting Pokemon, the number of 3HKOes varies with Mega Kang's EV spread.

It has a hard hitting priority in the form of Sucker Punch. This is great for eliminating faster Pokemon, but is poor in providing extra coverage, as most Psychic- and Ghost-types won't be straight-out attacking it. It can stop potential threats who could otherwise outspeed and eliminate it, especially considering that Return + Sucker Punch KOs a lot, but it can be played around due to its mechanics.

Fake Out offers immense utility and hits decently hard (most notable on frail Pokemon), but this comes at the downside of Protect. This makes Kang more difficult to play around on the first turn, as it poses the threats of Fake Out, a hard-hitting STAB, and a potential free PuP all in the same turn, and at least one of them would put the Mega Kang user in an advantageous position. Given its power and bulk, it is very capable of keeping that momentum if it gets a free boost. However, without Protect, it is easier to play around after the initial turn, which means if it cannot gain enough momentum on the first turn to keep the stone rolling, it will quickly come to a halt. Due to its power and bulk, it will do something before going down though, but often it is not more than what many other good Pokemon would do, like Terrakion landing a strong Close Combat, Hitmontop with Intimidate + Fake Out, and Landorus-T with Intimidate + EQ.

For its last slot, it has PuP or Drain Punch. PuP punishes passive play around Mega Kang, and if given the chance and used well, can more than counteract Intimidate and turn Mega Kang from a Pokemon that 2HKOs most of the metagame to OHKOing most of the metagame and truly being a threat to fear. If used poorly, Mega Kang effectively wastes a turn. PuP can also overcome burn as a last resort, but you're better off switching out. Drain Punch provides coverage against many foes that resist normal STAB with healing, limiting the number of foes who can check it, but without PuP, Mega Kang can be handled much more effectively with passive play, as it has no way to counteract Intimidate and burn, and cannot potentially get a free boost when the opponent switches.

This of course excludes surprise moves like Ice Punch, which work for specific threats but are, on the whole, inferior to other moves.

tl;dr summary: Hard hitting and bulky Pokemon, that if used well, gains a lot of momentum and is difficult to stop, but if correctly played around, is handled well without too much issue. It will do something even if played around well, but not more than other good Pokemon. Usually I find it's in the latter category than the first. It can be very deadly in matches, but so can other good Pokemon.

While I did not see that many mega kanga as I expected, but each team featuring it was still very powerful. While I was earlier leaning on keeping mega kanga, I'm not quite so sure now, as kangaskhan is just as much of a threat, if not more so, than I remembered when I last played. Mega kangaskhan is freakishly bulky, able to recover easily from wow and set up (and a gimmicky facade if needed), priority sucker punch, hits twice, and hits as hard as a truck. No seriously, it nearly matches the hardest hitter on my team without needing any kind of support:

252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 321-379 (45.5 - 53.8%) -- 94.5% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage
252 Atk Sand Force Mega Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey in Sand: 345-406 (49 - 57.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage

Easily recover from WoW? WoW permanently cripples it. The only ways around it are
-clerics, and brining out a cleric to use Heal Bell/Aromtherapy. This costs a lot of momentum, and you have to fit a cleric on your team in the first place
-use PuP to get a +2 boost to negate the burn nerf to Attack. This requires you to use PuP which can't always be done easily, does not negate the residual burn damage, and PuP boost is negated on the switch unlike a burn. A Mega Kang that does not switch is easy to predict around as it can't Protect.

Also keep in mind with your damage calcs that Mega Garchomp EQ is a multi-hit move. So it effectively deals >2 the damage of Mega Kang's Return.

 

[Haruno]

The biggest problems I have with most of these "arguments" are how people ignore the fact that kanga has a partner that helps deal with would be checks.

Notable mentions include but are not limited to, Togekiss, bisharp, talonflame, etc.

Blah blah we can have another 4 pages of bullshit and another discussion thread but we're going around in circles as long as we talk about kanga by itself while disregarding common and effective partners.

Togekiss helps alleviate the problem from common answers to kanga such as bulky wow users, the muskedeers, YOLOBIRD, etc via follow me, tailwind support and just speed control.

Bisharp however can deal with the omnipresent intimidators that are on people's teams and outright discourage them switching in.

Ignoring the fact that kanga gets access to a teammate is going back to that stupid as shit reasoning we had for putting bisharp in B rank since bisharp isn't that impressive as a whole but due to the immense support it provides with it's mere existence + solid stab moves warranted it's A rank, but everyone ignored that and focused on sharp as a standalone mon which isn't applicable in doubles.

Does kanga have checks? Possibly. Can kanga bypass it's checks with a partner/proper prediction (mostly referring to doing things like PuP'ing on a predicted switch or winning 50-50's)? Yes it can as well. Is kanga bulky as fuck? Yes. Does kanga have solid typing and immense utility? Yes it also has that.

Overall I'll leave myself open to either side but I feel at present no one stated a valid argument on either side. So meh, on a side note, laddering is shit.

 

[cxinlee]

The problem with arguing that you can use teammates to beat kanga’s counters is that you’re assuming that you have 2 pokemon on your side, but only 1 on the opponent. If you’re using Scarf Gardevoir with Kangaskhan to beat Terrakion, why can’t the opponent use something like say Scizor to support Terrakion?

 

[Blizzard]

So after having a little more experience with Kangaskhan, i'm still doubtful as to whether it should be banned or not. On one hand, it's ridiculously strong, even without a boost. And it's bulky. That normal typing does it a lot of favours, offensively too. There's no other pokemon that's as easy to use, imo. It's a rather simple pokemon that has very little downsides. Of course, having no spread moves does mean that it is prone to mind games, but i think that is mitigated by the fact that it can seriously dent any pokemon with the help of its STAB alone. And its bulk may, at times, help you recover from anything that went wrong. It is definitely the most reliable offensive Fake Out user. It can go bulky or speedy and that makes it a valuable support on all sorts of teams. Kangaskhan also has a lot of move options. They may not contribute to the best moveset, but the surprise KO can hurt. I definitely did not expect crunch on that Kang, and now my Gengar's gone! Maybe if it was alive, i could've stopped that Sylveon from doing a lot of damage to my team! So scouting the moveset becomes important sometimes, but that may make it easier for the Kang player to do what he wants, too. This, imo, makes Kang a very dangerous pokemon to face.
It also makes excellent use of the support the tier offers. It pairs really well with amoonguss, who can Spore the opposing mons to sleep as many times as it wants, and kangaskhan really loves the rage powder support it provides. It pairs well with togekiss, cresselia, hitmontop, etc. Also, the team members can make use of mons that kangaskhan attracts. Bisharp can make use intimidate to boost its attack stat, and doesn't really care about Aegislash. Talonflame can revenge kill the likes of Gengar, Scizor and Mawile. Conkeldurr doesnt really care about ghosts as long as it has knock off, and really likes having Tyranitar and Heatran on the field, etc.

On the other hand though, it does really have a decent amount of checks and counters. You don't really need to use obscure pokemon to try and counter it; ones like Gengar, terrakion, etc do well. Also, it really does hate strong moves as that greatly reduces its time on the field (this can be said of other pokemon too, but they do have some resists). Yeah, the lack of spread moves means that it is very susceptible to mind games and stuff. It also hates opposing Rage Powder/Follow Me users. Opposing team's support can generally screw it up. Stuff like Draco Meteors from Latios who doesnt really care since it's got Terrakion's Quick Guard support; doesn't care about your RP amoonguss since it can KO with Psyshock, etc.
Earlier i mentioned that stuff like bisharp and talonflame could help take care of hurdles to kang, but switching them in is going to be rather difficult task, so taking out kangaskhan is much easier than it would seem. So yeah any decently strong move(s), status from the likes of Thundurus, Rotom-w, Gourgeist, Gengar, etc., and your team support can keep it in check.

So yes, it seems both broken and not-broken at the same time, but i'm definitely making up my mind before i vote.

 

[termi]

At the start of this suspect test I was completely in favor of banning Mega Kangaskha, but having thought about it, I began to question whether or not it was truly something broken, and my conclusion is that it is probably not. Mega Kangaskhan, on its own, will never sweep entire teams, will never weaken everything on a team up to the point where cleaning is easy, any competent player can deal with it when provided with the correct teams. This is where you'd think that I have changed my mind on the matter and that I am not in favor of banning it, but you'd be wrong. While no, I do not think Mega Kangaskhan is necessarily broken (something that is hard to become in Doubles), I do not think a meta with Mega Kangaskhan is favorable over a metagame without it. There are a couple of reasons why I think so:

1: It forces its opponent into a unfavorable position. See, unless you happen to have one of the handful of truly great Kanga checks/counters on your side of the field, Kangaskhan, thanks to its great bulk and lack of weaknesses, will force you into a spot where you have to either double target Kangaskhan before it can take out a threat with the risk of taking a lot of damage from its partner (as explained before, this is one of the main reasons why Shake's Kanga + Sylveon team works so well), or you have to start Protecting and switching around with resists and Intimidaters carefully, which for one is already quite scary because if your opponent knows how to predict he might pick off a threat or at least heavily damage it and on top of that you're the one who is forced into the defending position, so once Kangaskhan is brought in successfully you are forced into an inferior position.

2: It is extremely consistent in doing what it has to do. Because of how hard it hits and how much support it provides due to Fake Out + immense offensive pressure, it will almost always be worth its spot on the team. Say, you successfuly Fake Out on something (doing a nice chunk of damage too), you Return something, you switch out and later you come back to Fake Out again and pick something off with Sucker Punch before getting KOed. Chances are this is the very least Kanga does in most battles, and while no, it did not sweep the opponent's team and "only" got one kill, that is more than enough, honestly. Being able to disrupt, do huge chunks of damage and pick threats off with priority is a lot one Pokemon can do, and Mega Kangaskhan does not only do this, but it fits on nearly every team too due to the fact that it needs little support to function properly. It's almost always worth more than that one teamslot you have, for every time Kanga gets KOed, it has already taken something else down with it and heavily dented a couple of other mons in addition to that.

These, in addition to the ease with which you can put Kanga on a team, cover why Mega Kangaskhan might not be necessarily broken, but certainly unhealthy for the metagame in my opinion. It does not ruin your team most of the time, but it always puts in enough work to be more than worth it and I find that enough of a reason to ban it, because I strife for a meta that is as ideal as possible and Mega Kangaskhan does not belong in an ideal doubles metagame. Cheers.

 

[Hakumen]

So, after getting reqs from both ladders, I'm really unsure wether mega kangaskhan is broken or not.

Mega Kangaskhan is incredibly powerful, really bulky and gives lots of support to the team. It's without a doubt the easiest pokemon to use in the tier. She really supports the team by being the best and most reliable Fake Out user. Also, she provides a huge offensive pressure(even without a boost). When playing against Mega Kangaskhan, you're kinda in disadvantage as due to her incredible power and bulk, she can be extremly dangerous so you'll have to play carefully against her. This may make Kanga's offensive partners particulary dangerous(tink Sylveon) as they can take advantage of predictable switchs. But, there is also supporters like Togekiss and Amoonguss that pairs well with her as they can Rage Powder and thus allowing kanga to bypass its checks. Eventually, Kangaskhan has a huge movepool, letting it potentially bypass counters. For instance, it can run Crunch so that Ghost-types like Mega Gengar and Chandlure can't counter it anymore, allowing a partner like Sylveon to sweep or it can use Facade for status moves. Eventually Kanga makes the meta less diverse imo. I noticed that on the suspect ladder, there was much more kind of teams(i.e Fairy Spam mostly). So, yeah Kanga is hard to deal with and has an important impact on the meta.

That being said, Kanga isn't impossible to deal with. There are several checks/counters like Gengar, Terrakion, Chandelure, Gourgeist etc.. These checks are generaly great, showing that Kanga doesn't really have a big impact on teambuilding. Mons like Landorus-T and Hitmontop are also semi-reliable answers thanks to Intimidate that kinda cripples Kanga. Moreover, it really hates burn, a common move in Doubles. Mega Kanga will also fall to heavy pressure from the opponent team when playing against threats like Latios, Keldeo or Charizard-Y. Eventually, in order to run a different move on its moveset, Kangaskhan has to sacrifice something which sucks as you really need Sucker Punch to kill faster foes and PowerPunch to break through defensive core.

So I'm on the fence although I'm leaning toward banning Mega Kangaskhan.

 

[Anty]

I don't think mega kangaskhan is 'broken', to be honest, it's really easy to deal with. It's really predictable since it usually just runs the same moveset, fake out, return, sucker punch, powerup punch. you can easily make it almost useless just by using will-o-wisp on it. Mega Gengar can just trap it, disable any move it can actually hit it with, and do some will-o-wisp or perish song shenanigans while the kangaskhan isn't doing anything to it. Other ghost types that use will o wisp can really mess it up, too. I've honestly never had a problem personally with kangaskhan, i usually can beat it easily when I fight it, no matter the moveset

It is true that ghosts wall it, but it has a partner. Bisharp + kanga core is common to stop intimidators and also happens to screw up ghosts.
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jellicent: 593-697 (146.7 - 172.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Trevenant: 549-650 (146.7 - 173.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO (ik ev's are wrong)

Yes mega gengar can faster burn, but it also is very frail and still can be hit by scrappy fakeout. Most ghosts can check kanga, but there is always a threat of scrappy fakeout, team mate that can beat them (eg bisharp) or even crunch. You can never assume fo/return/pup/sp or you could get smacked with crunch/ice punch.
252 Atk Parental Bond burned Mega Kangaskhan Crunch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gengar: 153-181 (58.3 - 69%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb burned Bisharp Knock Off vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gengar: 177-211 (67.5 - 80.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
That still hurts.

I agree kanga isnt broken, but it isnt as simple as using ghosts types. Even so you still have to play around it carefully, will-o-wisp isnt 100% acc.

 

[realiti]

It is true that ghosts wall it, but it has a partner. Bisharp + kanga core is common to stop intimidators and also happens to screw up ghosts.
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jellicent: 593-697 (146.7 - 172.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Trevenant: 549-650 (146.7 - 173.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO (ik ev's are wrong)

Yes mega gengar can faster burn, but it also is very frail and still can be hit by scrappy fakeout. Most ghosts can check kanga, but there is always a threat of scrappy fakeout, team mate that can beat them (eg bisharp) or even crunch. You can never assume fo/return/pup/sp or you could get smacked with crunch/ice punch.
252 Atk Parental Bond burned Mega Kangaskhan Crunch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gengar: 153-181 (58.3 - 69%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb burned Bisharp Knock Off vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gengar: 177-211 (67.5 - 80.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
That still hurts.

I agree kanga isnt broken, but it isnt as simple as using ghosts types. Even so you still have to play around it carefully, will-o-wisp isnt 100% acc.

When Mega Kanga comes in, I like to switch in my ghost and the pokemon that threatens the opponent's counter to my ghost. It can then safely take out or cripple Mega Kanga without fearring Mega Kanga's teammate. It doesn't always work but it's one way to stop Kanga.
Another way of stopping Kanga are burns. Unless they aren't packing Protect (which is better than sucker imo) they have to switch out. This most true with Ghost Types
Kanga can be dealt with and is not broken

 

[scene]

It's Kanga's predictability that really is its downfall - when I see it, I know pretty much without fail what it's going to do. Of course this opens avenue for a skilled player to exploit my preconceptions, but as I've said previously there's not really a move that Kanga can give up for, say, Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Crunch or Drain Punch that doesn't leave it severely lacking in another area. I generally find myself glad my opponent is using Kanga as their mega and not something more obnoxiously versatile like Charizard or Gengar, and it's just not something that's broken in my eyes.

 

[Haruno]

It's Kanga's predictability that really is its downfall - when I see it, I know pretty much without fail what it's going to do. Of course this opens avenue for a skilled player to exploit my preconceptions, but as I've said previously there's not really a move that Kanga can give up for, say, Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Crunch or Drain Punch that doesn't leave it severely lacking in another area. I generally find myself glad my opponent is using Kanga as their mega and not something more obnoxiously versatile like Charizard or Gengar, and it's just not something that's broken in my eyes.

Who cares if it's predictable when it performs its well as well as kanga does? It can be predictable as it fucking wants and still be a very potent threat in doubles. Same could be said for other mons in A/S rank like amoong/bisharp/skymin/excadrill but so what? It doesn't stop them from performing their roles exceedingly well so I fail how being "predictable" is the downfall of anything.