Mega Sableye and its effect on the metagame

Shaka Brah

Banned deucer.
If you read my comments itt I haven't said anything about balancing playstyles.
My standpoint is that stall in this metagame has very little reason for existing without M-Sableye. Supporting M-Sableye's ability to control hazards is the main justification for using stall,
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edit: By the way, Clair, even though this isn't the point I'm trying to make, there are quite a few viable stall teams that have been made throughout the history of ORAS that function fine without M-Sab.

This is bullshit. Gothitelle, when used correctly, can be a nightmare for balanced and defensive mons to deal with, and is a fantastic partner for so many mons that appreciate its ability to trap 95% of the metagame. Just think of how many offensive mons benefit from the outright removal of clefable, which goth can do really easily, and thats just one example. If you have a mega lopunny, using a gothitelle set of trick, rest, hp ice, psyshock would be able to open up doors really easily for lopunny, and allows it to run other options (one I like is Baton Pass to trap the very few good answers Lopunny has). Tagging Vinc2612 here because I know he has ran goth in this context a lot and can testify to how good it is.
This isn't relevant at all to this thread but it's still wrong. Nowhere near as problematic as goth on Sableye stall. Putting goth on offense is rarely done, and for good reason; a couple of fringe cases that make the mon useful doesn't change the fact that you're giving up a valuable synergistic slot on an offensive team (which makes your matchup worse against teams that aren't running what you hope to trap with goth) for a low-BST shitmon. Stall has the privilege of running it because their other 5 mons can cover so much that they can afford to use goth as a catch-all check to breakers, problematic rockers, whatever. A more conventional wallbreaker usually fits better on non-stall teams.

That just sounds like poor play/teambuilding. I'm 95% sure you're talking about the shedinja stall teams I've seen running around randomly recently which can be played around, including mega sableye. If your only rock setter option is one that loses to sableye or skarmory, change it. The two teams I've seen (both found in this thread) have inherant weaknesses that good builds should be able to exploit. For one thing, tyranitar is a huge problem for both of those teams, setting up sand to kill the sash shedninja and being able to pursuit trap the safety goggles shedinja leaves the "normally unviable" mon completely dead and a huge hole for you to exploit, which also works with things like hippowdon balance, bisharp offense, weavile offense ext. But focusing more on mega sableye and it's certainty to get up rocks, start using stuff that can set rocks that isn't going to be walled by sableye. Options include: Clefable, Heatran, Mold Breaker Excadrill, and a bunch of lower tier mons as well. Adaption is necessary in the face of metagame trends.
Wonder Trio isn't a metagame trend. It's one of many low-usage suicide bomber teams that attempt to win on team preview if your opponent isn't running anything problematic. Having to put ttar and a rocks setter that beats sab onto every team because one Pokemon creates one team that isn't even run much that they beat is unhealthily restrictive on teambuilding and isn't good for the metagame, not to mention that two out of three rocks setters you mentioned in your post get removed form the game in an instant by sash duggy (which is on the team!). Overpreparing for one team with two of your team slots makes your team worse against most of the field, which is something you have to realize when you're tiering ORAS.

Such as shed shell togekiss or manaphy (if you're talking about goth stall in particular). But, you cant take no precautions for sableye and then complain when you lose to it. That's just poor teambuilding.
It isn't "precautions for sableye", it's "precautions for sableye + whatever random shit your opponent happens to bring alongside it, as well as precautions for other team types and prominent threats that you need to cover with your team" and the possibilities are near-endless this gen. The fact that you've suggested 2-3 extremely specific mons as staples on every frickin' team to "prepare for Sableye" when they're detrimental to the win conditions of certain teams shows how shitty it's making the game.
 
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Vinc2612

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If you want to remove the "loss at team preview aspect", then yes, Gothitelle is the thing you want to remove. If you want to nerf all kind of stalls because you think those are over the top, then remove Sableye-M.

I saw some people arguing "wonder trio still works just as fine without goth"... But wonder trio has arguably more weaknesses than ABR. Of course, with smart plays, the team can overcome those weaknesses, but having either sand, pursuit, a status inducer that beats Sableye (or volt switch in his face), etc helps a lot, and allows you to win with the right plays. Isn't that what we want to keep in the metagame? Allow stall teams as long as the victory is for the one who made the better plays?

On the other side, a well built Gothitelle kills everything the team needs. You can use Keldeo + OffVenu + Skarmory + defensive Heatran if you want, but since I have Trick/Rest/Psychic/Tbolt Gothitelle, my Scizor is going to sweep you. I can give you countless of examples. My RMT is another, you can have hippowdon + venusaur + clef and you will just lose to Manectric.

I agree this is less problematic here than in Goth Stall, mainly because those are offensive builds. The right plays with an offensive team will allow you to win against Goth offense. But your defensive core is just dead, so if your team is based around it, you lose.

Gothitelle is the best wallbreaker in this game. His bulk isn't as awful as some people wants to tell you, it's rarely OHKOed without stabbed SE damages, while it will removes what he wants to remove.

So yes, just remove Goth. Playing against stall would finally be possible without too specific counters. Stall players would actually see their biggest counter gone. Everyone is happy. What a perfect world.
 

Aberforth

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???



This isn't relevant at all to this thread but it's still wrong. Nowhere near as problematic as goth on Sableye stall. Putting goth on offense is rarely done, and for good reason; a couple of fringe cases that make the mon useful doesn't change the fact that you're giving up a valuable synergistic slot on an offensive team (which makes your matchup worse against teams that aren't running what you hope to trap with goth) for a low-BST shitmon. A more conventional wallbreaker usually fits better on non-stall teams.
Yeah but in no way whatsoever does it make it unviable, and the less competitive aspect (that bludz touched upon earlier in this thread) is more exploited in that context in my personal opinion.



Wonder Trio isn't a metagame trend. It's one of many low-usage suicide bomber teams that attempt to win on team preview if your opponent isn't running anything problematic. Having to put ttar and a rocks setter that beats sab onto every team because one Pokemon creates one team that isn't even run much that they beat is unhealthily restrictive on teambuilding and isn't good for the metagame, not to mention that two out of three rocks setters you mentioned in your post get removed form the game in an instant by sash duggy (which is on the team!). Overpreparing for one team with two of your team slots makes your team worse against most of the field, which is something you have to realize when you're tiering ORAS.
I gave tyranitar as an example, before then moving on to showing how other playstyles (that might well not want a ttar) can also do it with other mons. And if rock setters cant set rocks, I dont consider them good rock setters. I also dont tend to use rock setters that are walled by Diancie if I can help it. Also sash duggy is another example of trapping being the hard part to deal with. And its not like I suggested obscure mons that are only useful in that matchup, I picked some really quite easily splashable mons.


It isn't "precautions for sableye", it's "precautions for sableye + whatever random shit your opponent happens to bring alongside it, as well as precautions for other team types and prominent threats that you need to cover with your team" and the possibilities are near-endless this gen. The fact that you've suggested 2-3 extremely specific mons as staples on every frickin' team to "prepare for Sableye" when they're detrimental to the win conditions of certain teams shows how shitty it's making the game.
I suggested a few, there are more available, but if you build teams that are weak to Sableye, you cant blame Sableye for you not winning, it is your fault for not accounting for Sableye, the S ranked mon in the viability thread and the face of a playstyle. In the same way that if I build offense which my plan for dealing with Lopunny is clicking the X to not waste my time, its a bad team, the same concept applies here. You seem to be under the impression that what you run should never have a tougher time vs teams, and what you run includes stuff that tends to lose hard vs Sableye.

EDIT: I actually dont even particularly care about a gothitelle suspect, but posts like these ones are just unbelievably flawed that dont see the fallacies they are making
 
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Shaka Brah

Banned deucer.
If you want to remove the "loss at team preview aspect", then yes, Gothitelle is the thing you want to remove. If you want to nerf all kind of stalls because you think those are over the top, then remove Sableye-M.

I saw some people arguing "wonder trio still works just as fine without goth"... But wonder trio has arguably more weaknesses than ABR. Of course, with smart plays, the team can overcome those weaknesses, but having either sand, pursuit, a status inducer that beats Sableye (or volt switch in his face), etc helps a lot, and allows you to win with the right plays. Isn't that what we want to keep in the metagame? Allow stall teams as long as the victory is for the one who made the better plays?

On the other side, a well built Gothitelle kills everything the team needs. You can use Keldeo + OffVenu + Skarmory + defensive Heatran if you want, but since I have Trick/Rest/Psychic/Tbolt Gothitelle, my Scizor is going to sweep you. I can give you countless of examples. My RMT is another, you can have hippowdon + venusaur + clef and you will just lose to Manectric.

I agree this is less problematic here than in Goth Stall, mainly because those are offensive builds. The right plays with an offensive team will allow you to win against Goth offense. But your defensive core is just dead, so if your team is based around it, you lose.
If you want to remove the "loss at team preview aspect", then yes, Sableye is the thing you want to remove.

I saw some people arguing "but goth still works just as fine without m-sab"... but goth is a mon with a plethora of weaknesses that doesn't function very well without extremely good hazard removal/control support due to the pressure it's under without it. Of course, with smart plays, Goth can come in on a defensive wall and trick it a scarf, but having means to punish it (hazards up, pursuiter, untrickable mon that functions as a check to a lot of mons), etc helps a lot, and allows you to kill goth with the right plays. Isn't that what we want to keep in the metagame? Allow an interesting ability as long as victory is for the one who made the better plays?

On the other side, a well built Sableye team walls everything the team needs to wall. You can use Keldeo + OffVenu + Skarmory + Tran if you want, but since I have Sab to bounce back the hazards, duggy to deal with your rocker (tran) and wincon (bish), sheddy and talon to wall your pressuring mons thanks to no hazards, my team is going to wall you. I can give you countless examples.

I agree that is less problematic without Goth, mainly because Stall loses the mon that allows it to check some breakers easily, but your mons that can't deal with my core are just walled, so if your team is based around a core like that, and I have an extremely favorable matchup, you lose.

I'm not parodying your post to be an ass, but, like, damn, your reasoning in the post is kind of hypocritical. You're approaching both things with unhealthily biased preconceptions.
 
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Aberforth

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1) duggy will fail to switch in to tran 30% of the time due to lava plume burns. It outright cant switch in on Magma storm variants.
2) that's still trapping, not sableye
3) Your sashmon is dealing with both my Heatran and my bisharp? I must have fucked up in my play.
4) I guess there are no possible ways to exploit a shedinja by fishing for poisons on the obvious switches with your venu
5) PP. You dont have an infinite amount of it with sableye, it cant just wall 6 mons indefinitely.
6) If that team has something like a ttar to help deal with talonflame (I dont personally consider tran very solid vs talonflame, considering taunt is more popular) that renders shedinja useless for 5 turns and you can exploit this with keldeo
7) even if its not ttar, since when has pursuit + keldeo been a bad idea? You can say you have BP on shedinja, but then I have the opportunity to play around that by staying in if I please and getting a painful hit off on something.
8) what the fuck does that team have for shit like HP fire manaphy?
 

Vinc2612

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The right plays you are talking to beat Goth are irrelevant (except pursuit). You can predict the Goth switchin as long as you want, you just need one mispredict to lose. While a good predict will only delay the ending. Very similar to Latios trying to ppwast Sucker Punch from Bisharp. Would you argue that the odds are in the favor of the one with the best predictions? Because the odds are with Bisharp. Just like the odds of [Goth switchs on the thing it wants to trap] vs [avoiding this situation the whole battle] are in favor of the Goth player.

"duggy to deal with your rocker (tran)", when you are trying to say that Sableye is more of a problem than the trapper. It just adds to my point, trap is the problem.

And comparing an offensive core that is 100% walled by a stall, and a defensive core that is broken just by one Pokémon, well, do I really need to point out the difference?

Not gonna talk about your paragraph showing that a stall team is able to deal with Scizor checks. I'm not sure what you were trying to say here.
 

Shaka Brah

Banned deucer.
The point of the post is that you're assuming that the optimal situations to fish for traps with goth will always be there and that goth can deal with 3 mane checks on the same team at the same time in order to sweep the fucking team with mane. Goth isn't that fucking good on offensive teams in practical play. Even with a team matchup that makes it "easy pickings" for goth to deal with a wall, you can't "switch goth out over and over" without Sableye because your wrong predicts in conjunction with hazard damage due to the lack of a good magic bouncer is going to make it much harder to trap with goth and will require you to make much more aggressive plays for your shot. Your post doesn't even touch on the fact that running goth in that manner weakens your matchup against more offensively oriented teams pretty severely, especially with the extremely niche sets you run that are rarely optimal/useful for any given matchup. My post gave it a really uneven approach similar to how yours did.
 

Vinc2612

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Keldeo SpDefHeatran Clefable Starmie Skarmory Venusaur RegularSlowbro Chansey Amoonguss Quagsire Seismitoed are trapped by the Gothitelle extremely niche. Remove tbolt for hp fire so you can add Scizor and Ferrothorn to the list. If you don't face any of those Pokémon, I agree that your Gothitelle will be useless.
And that's not even my point, I have never said that Gothitelle wins everything by itself. I am just saying that it will trap what it wants to trap. The magic of Shadow Tag is that you can use "extremely niche" sets (so niche it will trap something only 4 battles out of 5) since there are no switchs.

Edit: yeah my bad on shedinja
 
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Shaka Brah

Banned deucer.
Also, for fun, here's a pomman-esque post that nitpick's vinc's post as much as he did mine:

1) Goth will fail to switch in on a healthy specs keld (or even a scarf keld if it gets a crit or a burn) or an offensive sludge-bombing venu and actually do anything besides spam rest, (inviting variance) unless you have CM and set one up before you start resting. You can't deal with all 4 mons in one shot with a set like that.
2) Your gothitelle is dealing with all 4 of my Scizor answers? I must have fucked up in my play.
3) I guess there's no possible ways to exploit a goth by punishing the switchin with damage + hazards or status fishing with scald or sludge.
4) Health. You don't have an infinite amount of it with Goth, and if you rest to regain it and you don't have a good trap up, you arent doing shit for the rest of the match besides sacking it.
5) You have a keld on your team, since when is keld + pursuit ever a bad idea? How are you killing me with Psychic and switching out? How are you even trapping me? You can say that you double in with goth, but I have the opportunity to play around that by doubling into my pursuiter and killing it for free.
6) What the fuck does Goth have for Shed Shell or pursuit!?

The point of the suspect thread isn't arguing over tiring hypothetical gameplay scenarios like the above. The arguments are really tenuous.

edit:
The magic of Shadow Tag is that you can use "extremely niche" sets (so niche it will trap something only 4 battles out of 5) since there are no switchs.
Lol, that's the fucking POINT. You're intentionally weakening your team in the face of other styles by introducing a niche set to deal with walls when it's not even guaranteed to do that job in all of the games it has the possibility to due to a variety of factors. Stall doesn't do that when they add goth, they have the wiggle room. Offense DOES. No offensive team with Goth will ever be as consistent as an offensive team with a better fucking breaker than goth for a variety of metagame reasons. Sableye exacerbates that to an absurd degree due to how good the hazard control is. It's nowhere near as potent or easy to set up as it is with a stall team; the flow of offense vs. offense battles or perhaps even offense vs. balance is WAY different. There's more than one aggressor. The change in Goth's utility is HUGE in practicality. You can't say that it's still broken by playing paper pokemon.

edit2:
Remove tbolt for hp fire so you can add Scizor, Ferrothorn and Shedinja to the list. If you don't face any of those Pokémon, I agree that your Gothitelle will be useless.
whoa shit, i didnt know goth could trap ghost types... maybe it is busted
 
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???

edit: By the way, Clair, even though this isn't the point I'm trying to make, there are quite a few viable stall teams that have been made throughout the history of ORAS that function fine without M-Sab.
The stall playstyle is fundamentally just a collection of viable teams. My point had nothing to do with protecting the playstyle, just in justifying my belief that banning M-Sableye has a greater potential downside than banning Goth, although my wording was confusing.

Re other stall teams without M-Sableye, of course there are. I've made and had success with a lot of them. But none of them are being touted as broken, excessively restricting at teambuilder, etc, whereas Goth stall is. Doesn't this just support what I'm telling you?

On the other side, a well built Sableye team walls everything the team needs to wall. You can use Keldeo + OffVenu + Skarmory + Tran if you want, but since I have Sab to bounce back the hazards, duggy to deal with your rocker (tran) and wincon (bish), sheddy and talon to wall your pressuring mons thanks to no hazards, my team is going to wall you. I can give you countless examples.

I agree that is less problematic without Goth, mainly because Stall loses the mon that allows it to check some breakers easily, but your mons that can't deal with my core are just walled, so if your team is based around a core like that, and I have an extremely favorable matchup, you lose.
You're literally arguing that all defensive play is broken because it's possible for it to win on matchup against offense, no?

And can we not use Wonder Trio as an example? It's one of those gimmick teams which comes along a couple of times every generation which exploits the current metagame almost perfectly. Yes, it's match-up based, it uses Shedinja for chrissakes. It's still a lot easier to incorporate counterplay against that team than against Goth stall.
 
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Shaka Brah

Banned deucer.
Re other stall teams without M-Sableye, of course there are. I've made and had success with a lot of them. But none of them are being touted as broken, excessively restricting at teambuilder, etc, whereas Goth stall is. Doesn't this just support what I'm telling you?
None of the stall teams I've linked that don't use M-Sab while using Goth being touted as "broken or restrictive" means that goth is broken rather than M-Sab? Where's the logical connect? Because I think that says the opposite. Goth is much more manageable with M-Sab not on the team and what you've just pointed out... supports that?

You're literally arguing that all defensive play is broken because it's possible for it to win on matchup against offense, no?

And can we not use Wonder Trio as an example? It's one of those gimmick teams which comes along a couple of times every generation which exploits the current metagame almost perfectly. Yes, it's match-up based, it uses Shedinja for chrissakes. It's still a lot easier to incorporate counterplay against that team than against Goth stall.
I was "literally" parodying his post by giving flawed arguments. I don't see why it isn't a valid example. It doesn't matter if it's a "gimmick" in your eyes if it wins against a lot of teams at team preview with no way to fight out of the matchup because Sableye enables an extremely restrictive core.
 
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Aberforth

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None of the stall teams I've linked that don't use M-Sab while using Goth being touted as "broken or restrictive" means that goth is broken rather than M-Sab? Where's the logical connect? Because I think that says the opposite. Goth is much more managable with M-Sab not on the team and what you've just pointed out... supports that?
Ignoring what you did with my post (which I am honestly amused by) how do you make the connection about Sableye being borken when the only stall team that is actually broken is the Gothitelle one (cause I consider the wonder trio stall teams much worse and much more managable) whereas there are tonnes of Mega Sableye teams that are no where near considered broken/unmanagable.

Also re your parody of my post, I find it amusing cause I dont even really think goth is unmanagable. I also love that you didn't address the arguments that post made that basically argued that in the wonder trio games, the game is won or lost based on the quality of plays made by both players, not by matchup as you claimed.
 
None of the stall teams I've linked that don't use M-Sab while using Goth being touted as "broken or restrictive" means that goth is broken rather than M-Sab? Where's the logical connect? Because I think that says the opposite. Goth is much more manageable with M-Sab not on the team and what you've just pointed out... supports that?
My bad, I misread your post and after seeing the first replay assumed you were talking about teams with M-Sableye but not Gothitelle. The point that none of these, bar Wonder Trio to some extent, are seen as remotely problematic compared to Goth stall still stands though.

I was "literally" parodying his post by giving flawed arguments. I don't see why it isn't a valid example. It doesn't matter if it's a "gimmick" in your eyes if it wins against a lot of teams at team preview with no way to fight out of the matchup because Sableye enables an extremely restrictive core.
Yes, the success of Wonder Trio is a mark against M-Sableye, but it's not a significant one. Wonder Trio came out and was successful for a period until the metagame adapted, counterplay became routinely incorporated, and its usage dropped. This hasn't happened with Goth stall, because the counterplay available is too limited and too specific.
 
Mega Sableye has made the hazard game more complex and in my opinion promotes higher play, considering how important hazards are. If I was to complain of matchup after brining 6 special attackers vs a guy with a chansey, and none of those special attackers had a way to hit on the special side, complaining about matchup would get me laughed at. yes it is possible to have a good matchup (manectric teams vs hippowdon teams) but it is rarely ever unwinnable.

Reymedy, the increased difficulty in setting hazards is, in my honest opinion as an admittedly not very good player, a good thing for the metagame, as it increases the threshold of skill required by a player. Stall should not be condemned to a formulaic way of beating it such as set rocks and double switch until victory (paraphrasing and exaggerating, sure). I personally feel the faults of the metagame can mostly be summed up by Gothitelle's presence after talking with people I do consider good, although I feel like adaption (shed shell manaphy, togekiss, Gardevoir with a cleric) is more possible than people give credit in this metagame.
Being at a disadvantage due to matchup isn't the issue here, because that has been part of OU for a long time. Sableye doesn't increase the threshold of skill at all, in fact it absolutely deducts from it. As I mentioned earlier, it lets the stall player make very obvious plays, without the fear of having excessive switches be punished by hazards. Clair pointed out that you shouldn't be able to badly punish stall based on one or two obvious plays because it makes those frequently, which seems fair. However, I think that with continual smart play and good predicts, you should be able to rack up some hazard damage on stall to make it easier to break. What Sableye does here is make this "higher play" useless in the fact of a bad matchup, which is totally different from what a team with Hippowdon does to a team with Manectric.

Such as shed shell togekiss or manaphy (if you're talking about goth stall in particular). But, you cant take no precautions for sableye and then complain when you lose to it. That's just poor teambuilding.
I suggested a few, there are more available, but if you build teams that are weak to Sableye, you cant blame Sableye for you not winning, it is your fault for not accounting for Sableye, the S ranked mon in the viability thread and the face of a playstyle. In the same way that if I build offense which my plan for dealing with Lopunny is clicking the X to not waste my time, its a bad team, the same concept applies here. You seem to be under the impression that what you run should never have a tougher time vs teams, and what you run includes stuff that tends to lose hard vs Sableye.
This quoted is suspiciously close to an ad hominem attack. This isn't some issue that all the pro-ban posters have in this thread where we always lose to this particular pokemon. When I play pokemon, I'm mostly playing on the ladder, which is obviously where players will spam low-effort matchup-based builds the most. Therefore, beating Sableye stall is pretty important to being able to ladder up high, which is why I, usually, specifically think about how to beat this particular goth build, and other common Sableye builds that are floating about when teambuilding. However, having to build teams from the ground up not to autolose in matchup, and, as it stands, having a limited or niche selection of pokemon that fill this purpose, isn't healthy.

Also, as to this wonder trio discussion, you have to understand the context in which wish killer first brought it up. Currently, in my opinion anyway, it is outshined by the goth stall we're seeing, but it is a good example of a matchup based team. By that I mean you either bring the things the team is weak to, or lose. It's pretty clear that Sableye can contribute to really cancerous builds like this, due to how it cuts off support so nicely from other team members in the team it is facing. Saying that we should just pack whatever the team is weak to is a very easy statement to make, but it is only weak to a certain few breakers, most of which will be specialised in some way to make them suboptimal against everything else, I'm mostly talking about shed shell here, and/or backed up with even further team support, like togekiss + pursuit trapper. Crucially, as I have mentioned before, the other team slots aren't fixed, so if one of these particular specific breakers is used frequently, then the team can be changed so this breaker too becomes useless. Players shouldn't have to play whack-a-mole with the metagame, constantly trying to keep up with the latest Mega Sableye build to avoid automatic losses. OU isn't a tier that should be centralised around beating just a few threats that require this degree of specialisation.

My own view is that both are uncompetitive.
Sableye because of how it eliminates the opportunity for smart play in the face of a bad matchup.
Gothitelle because of how much it limits the available pool of breakers, making Sableye all the more of an issue.

Conceptually, Sableye appears to be the greater problem here, so I urge the council to suspect it. In any case both are responsible for the disappointing matches we see in which ABR stall is used.
 
It is definitely true that Sableye is very restricting to teambuilding. Even if Gothitelle is what's forcing specific stallbreakers, Sableye forces specific hazard setters, which there are fewer of to begin with. On top of that it's also true that Goth basically needs Sableye to function in a stall build and otherwise is more of a stallbreaker itself for offense.

All that said, I think all arguments regarding what is uncompetitive are stronger in respect to Gothitelle.

II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant

Let me provide a scenario here.

Say Team 1 - a standard offensive team - contains one main stallbreaker, which is Rain Daince + Tail Glow Manaphy (without a Shed Shell), going up against Team 2, a Gothitelle stall team (yes that includes M-Sableye). Manaphy and Mega Sableye are the leads for each team. Manaphy proceeds to Rain Dance, in an attempt to stallbreak, while the opponent switches into Gothitelle. Choosing to go for Rain Dance was indeed a bad play in this scenario. However, once Gothitelle has trapped Manaphy, there are no good options.

After Manaphy has been trapped by Gothitelle, what is the best play? Since Manaphy is not at +3, it is weak and clicking Scald is going to do laughable damage even to Gothitelle, while there is certainly a Chansey waiting in the back. Tail Glow, Rain Dance and Psychic all provide even worse outcomes for Manaphy. I believe that in this scenario, more skillful play is rendered irrelevant, because all the plays will accomplish nothing toward victory in the long run. In an alternate scenario, perhaps Tail Glow was used by Manaphy instead of Rain Dance on the first turn. The issue is that this is still a bad play, because +3 Scald is not nearly strong enough to break Chansey. Sure, Manaphy may OHKO Gothitelle with the +3 Scald on the turn it is Tricked, but the team has lost its only stallbreaker, and thus the more skillful play (of Scald over some other move, and even Tail Glow over the original Rain Dance - which should technically be more skillful in the scenario) has almost no impact on the outcome of the match.

Basically what happens is that the Manaphy player's best play every single time it comes into play is to double into something on the predicted Gothitelle, because otherwise it will be rendered useless for the remainder of the match and they will have lost their basic win condition. In games without Gothitelle, mid plays can be made that aren't the best and aren't the worst but that may mitigate some amount of risk. This is not the case here, as all plays that are not the best play result in certain failure of Team 1's strategy to break stall.

The troublesome thing is that this scenario can be expanded to a situation in which Gothitelle is not on a Sableye stall team. Perhaps it is on an offensive team, used as the primary way to break some wall such as Clefable or Mega Venusaur. Once again, these pokemon will not be able to carry out their duties as walls successfully, because every time they stay in (perhaps to heal up after taking an attack, which is a vital part of what they do), they are in danger of being completely neutralized. When Gothitelle enters play against them, it's checkmate. It isn't the same as ending up with a defensive Landorus-T vs a Kyurem-Black - in this situation the Landorus-T player may be forced to make a sacrifice, but if their Landorus-T is vital to winning, it can still be kept alive. More importantly, their subsequent move (choosing what they switch out to) isn't necessarily irrelevant.

This differs totally from other trappers because things like Dugtrio and Tyranitar trap a much more specific target audience. Gothitelle can be used to cripple a wide variety of stallbreakers (if used on stall) or walls (if used on offense) alike. I don't have a replay of Gothitelle PP stalling a wall locked into some move, but I'm sure you've all seen it. I would be surprised if anyone could point out the competitive aspect of any part of the sequence (once the trapping has occurred).

I am not against suspecting Mega Sableye in the long run. But I think the arguments that it is uncompetitive are much weaker than arguments for Gothitelle being uncompetitive. That said, it can be certainly said that Mega Sableye helps foster this uncompetitive strategy. This may be something to take a look at, but I don't think Sableye itself is the pressing issue.
I'm honestly kind of confused as to why anything other than this post is relevant. Isn't this everyone's position summed up really neatly?

No one seems to really enjoy Gothitelle, and her Shadow Tag sets match the definition of uncompetitive, as there is no room for skillful play.

Some people find Mega Sableye suspect/ban worthy, and others do not. Removing Mega Sableye still leaves us with uncompetitive Gothitelle.

Why are we not just eliminating Gothitelle/Shadow Tag, and then seeing where the meta falls? If Mega Sableye needs to be suspected/banned after, let's do it. I don't understand why removing Gothitelle is not priority number one. We don't want it on stall. We don't want it on offense. We don't want it regardless of whether Mega Sableye stays or not. With Sableye there is room to at least argue whether it is uncompetitive and potential to make plays around it.

Outside of Goth teams, you have options to deal with Mega Sableye, whereas with Goth teams, you do not. Whether these options are enough to prevent it from being banned is something that I think can honestly only be fairly determined when we look at it without the uncompetitive element of Gothitelle.

It doesn't matter if Gothitelle is good, it matters that it is uncompetitive as per our definition.
Even if banning Mega Sableye made Gothitelle unviable (it doesn't), why would we want it around anyway?

TL;DR - Ban the worst Pokémon first (Gothitelle), deal with Mega Sableye afterwards.
 
As condescending and bold as this may sound, the thread was initially made about Mega Sableye. The discussion should primarily be about Mega Sableye, Gothitelle being mentioned because it is a common team mate. We have already seen totally matchup based builds with Mega Sableye in them, there will be more after Gothitelle is banned. If everybody is already decided about banning goth, that's great, then let this thread convince people to ban both of them. I don't care which order they get banned in, so long as they both get banned.
 

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As condescending and bold as this may sound, the thread was initially made about Mega Sableye. The discussion should primarily be about Mega Sableye, Gothitelle being mentioned because it is a common team mate. We have already seen totally matchup based builds with Mega Sableye in them, there will be more after Gothitelle is banned. If everybody is already decided about banning goth, that's great, then let this thread convince people to ban both of them. I don't care which order they get banned in, so long as they both get banned.
If you want my personal opinion after reading this thread on what I think needs to happen, it would be to suspect both at the same time. The other council guys have been pretty quiet and if they read this I really encourage them to say something. The cliffhangers of these threads are quite frankly off putting to a lot of people who are striving for a better metagame now.
 
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As condescending and bold as this may sound, the thread was initially made about Mega Sableye. The discussion should primarily be about Mega Sableye, Gothitelle being mentioned because it is a common team mate. We have already seen totally matchup based builds with Mega Sableye in them, there will be more after Gothitelle is banned. If everybody is already decided about banning goth, that's great, then let this thread convince people to ban both of them. I don't care which order they get banned in, so long as they both get banned.
Sorry if you're upset by my post or use of bold, the intent isn't to annoy, condescend, distract, or offend. However, I think it's becoming increasingly apparent that the two mons are too intertwined right now to discuss separately. However, we can see that Gothitelle offers only negatives in being uncompetitive as defined by the site policy. The point of my post is to offer a solution:

Ban/suspect Gothitelle now, because it's bad with or without Sableye. Suspect Sableye after because we're so stuck on debating it in terms of Goth.

I really just wanted to throw that out there because of how stuck the conversation seems.
 

Aberforth

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Being at a disadvantage due to matchup isn't the issue here, because that has been part of OU for a long time. Sableye doesn't increase the threshold of skill at all, in fact it absolutely deducts from it. As I mentioned earlier, it lets the stall player make very obvious plays, without the fear of having excessive switches be punished by hazards. Clair pointed out that you shouldn't be able to badly punish stall based on one or two obvious plays because it makes those frequently, which seems fair. However, I think that with continual smart play and good predicts, you should be able to rack up some hazard damage on stall to make it easier to break. What Sableye does here is make this "higher play" useless in the fact of a bad matchup, which is totally different from what a team with Hippowdon does to a team with Manectric.
OK let me try and explain why I think it does increase the threshold of skill. The hazard game is more difficult in ORAS than it has been since the implementation of Stealth Rock in DPP, due to the prominence of magic bouncers like Sableye and to a lesser extent, Diancie, and the buff defog got at the start of the generation. Getting hazards up and keeping them up is now significantly harder, and doing it on a consistent basis is worth of plaudit, seeing as it is difficult and requires a lot of skill. Considering the effectiveness of some pokemon is highly tied in to the success of the hazard game (talonflame, zard forms, volcarona, ext), being good at the hazard game is likely to be a good indicator of skill. Increasing the difficulty in the implementation of the hazard game means those who are consistently good in a harder environment will be more skilled than those who are only consistent in an easier environment, thus increasing the threshold of skill required to be a good player.

I hope that makes sense, if it doesn't I'd be happy to clarify my position further.

As for punishing stall should happen only by smart switches... no. No it shouldn't. That is seeking to ban something to make it easier for you to beat something without adapting to the metagame. Without gothitelle, there are numerous ways to break stall (manaphy, togekiss, gardevoir, ext). But just smart switches should not be a good reason to award you the win in a matchup vs stall. Anyway, if your smart switches dont break the stall team down because you cant get up hazards, you cant blame the stall team for it. You can know when you're making your team that in order to beat stall, you need to get up hazards, and if you still use methods that wont allow you to get hazards up, I dont have sympathy for you when you lose a stall matchup. This comes down to lack of preparing for a common trend in the metagame. Having no good way to beat Keldeo is bad teambuilding. Having no good way to beat Zard-Y is bad teambuilding. Why is having no good way to beat Sableye not just bad teambuilding?

If you say its because Sableye is broken and the same arguments could be made for things that have been banned, like Aegislash or something, there are answers to Sableye, including answers that get rocks up consistantly against it. I gave a list of 3, but if you want a more exhaustive list:
OU:
Bisharp, Celebi, Chansey, Clefable, Diancie-Mega, Excadrill, Ferrothorn, Garchomp, Gliscor, Heatran, Hippowdon, Jirachi, Landorus-Therian, Metagross-Mega, Mew, Pinsir-Mega, Skarmory, Tyranitar

Highlighted the ones that I could see doing it consistantly, not taking into account that Sableye doesn't really want to switch in to all of them, and others (garchomp, Bisharp, Gliscor) have their own ways to get around it. Also, Pinsir could get rocks up, but who would use rocks on mega-pinsir? It would be the same for Diancie too, but I've seen rock setting Diancie.

In BL:
Terrakion
Funnily enough life orb stone edge 2hkos this now that sableye are running less than max defense.

In UU:
Aerodactyl-Mega, Aggron-Mega, Azelf, Blissey, Cobalion, Donphan, Empoleon, Forretress, Gligar, Infernape, Krookodile, Mamoswine, Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Swampert

Slimmer pickings, but still some options if you want to go with less conventional mons.

In RU:
Bronzong, Camerupt-Mega, Druddigon, Dugtrio, Omastar, Registeel, Rhyperior, Seismitoad, Smeargle, Steelix-Mega, Tyrantrum, Uxie

Yeah Sableye isn't switching in comfortably on those mons. Dugtrio cause it literally cant switch in but meh. Omastar is the one that is underwhelming as a rocks setter in ou, but if you wanted one for rain teams or something it might do something? If it packs rocks though, Sableye wouldn't want to switch in on it. BL2's only rock setter is shuckle, which obviously doesn't beat sableye, but Dragalge could get up tspikes vs it if you're going for an offensive tspikes setter.

Not going to go lower than that cause of the lack of viability most of the NU and lower rock setters have in OU.


That isn't even dealing with stallbreakers which answer Sableye like Manaphy, Gardevoir, Talonflame, ext.

Also, as to this wonder trio discussion, you have to understand the context in which wish killer first brought it up. Currently, in my opinion anyway, it is outshined by the goth stall we're seeing, but it is a good example of a matchup based team. By that I mean you either bring the things the team is weak to, or lose. It's pretty clear that Sableye can contribute to really cancerous builds like this, due to how it cuts off support so nicely from other team members in the team it is facing. Saying that we should just pack whatever the team is weak to is a very easy statement to make, but it is only weak to a certain few breakers, most of which will be specialised in some way to make them suboptimal against everything else, I'm mostly talking about shed shell here, and/or backed up with even further team support, like togekiss + pursuit trapper. Crucially, as I have mentioned before, the other team slots aren't fixed, so if one of these particular specific breakers is used frequently, then the team can be changed so this breaker too becomes useless. Players shouldn't have to play whack-a-mole with the metagame, constantly trying to keep up with the latest Mega Sableye build to avoid automatic losses. OU isn't a tier that should be centralised around beating just a few threats that require this degree of specialisation.
That is a much better argument for banning Sableye, however I would argue that it isn't weak to just a few certain breakers, it can be beaten by numerous, all viable, mons and playstyles, and it can also beat said playstyles. I do not think that the majority of the games with the wonder trio stall will be decided on matchup, based on the ladder experience playing said team, both successfully and not. The specialization is not to the degree that it requires action to be taken on mega sableye (in my personal opinion), as I believe the more "uncompetitive" aspects of both of these teams are the trappers involved with them. The overspecialization you mentioned (Shed shell, pursuit) is all based around trapping mechanics, nothing to do with Sableye itself.

Of all the mega-sableye teams, the only two that are notable for how frequently they win or lose on matchup are the two that involve trapping. To me, that would say that trapping is the problem, not mega sableye, and we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater by testing both at the same time.
 
I don't really get why we are waiting so long to ban or at least suspect this monster. The last suspect was already like a half year ago and since than we're basically playing in a meta with such an extremely annoying and uncompetitive (I think fleggumfl already showed that very well in the OP) Pokemon around. I also doubt that a Pokemon which has the bulk + Magic Bounce to keep hazards of the field against like 80% of all teams can be very healthy for the metagame. Like others already said ABR-Stall is very matchup reliant too since u either have an insta win if u have right breakers (basically Shed Shell Togekiss / Manaphy (+Ttar) or Mega Gardevoir + Random HW-user so there's really not much) on ur team or an insta lose if u don't have them (unless u get extremely lucky or ur opponent simply doesn't play very well) so it's alone on that team already broken.

Sure, banning the Goth family would fix at least its uncompetiveness on that team (like many others already said) but I think that would be very "unfair" to the Goth family since I've never seen them uncompetivive / broken / whatever without a Mega Sableye around (they weren't in XY or BW either and pls don't tell me that people simply didn't get how good they're). However I think Mega Sableye is still a very uncompetitive 'mon without Goth around. For example the Sableye / Duggy / Shedninja stall is also very matchup reliant and already had some success in Smogon's Official Tournaments (WCoP, STours) and I think it could easily get the new "standard" MSabl-Stall after the team from ABR is gone. The Sableye Balance team by Honus (Sableye / Talon / Ferro / Clef / Hippo / Starmie) was also very matchup reliant and for that reason kinda umcompetitive.

I really hope this thing gets banned soon because atm it's simply really not very funny to play OU. I also talked to a lot of other well-known ORAS-OU-players and most of them shared my opinion. Please excuse my english, it's not my mother language.
 
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OK let me try and explain why I think it does increase the threshold of skill. The hazard game is more difficult in ORAS than it has been since the implementation of Stealth Rock in DPP, due to the prominence of magic bouncers like Sableye and to a lesser extent, Diancie, and the buff defog got at the start of the generation. Getting hazards up and keeping them up is now significantly harder, and doing it on a consistent basis is worth of plaudit, seeing as it is difficult and requires a lot of skill. Considering the effectiveness of some pokemon is highly tied in to the success of the hazard game (talonflame, zard forms, volcarona, ext), being good at the hazard game is likely to be a good indicator of skill. Increasing the difficulty in the implementation of the hazard game means those who are consistently good in a harder environment will be more skilled than those who are only consistent in an easier environment, thus increasing the threshold of skill required to be a good player.

I hope that makes sense, if it doesn't I'd be happy to clarify my position further.

As for punishing stall should happen only by smart switches... no. No it shouldn't. That is seeking to ban something to make it easier for you to beat something without adapting to the metagame. Without gothitelle, there are numerous ways to break stall (manaphy, togekiss, gardevoir, ext). But just smart switches should not be a good reason to award you the win in a matchup vs stall. Anyway, if your smart switches dont break the stall team down because you cant get up hazards, you cant blame the stall team for it. You can know when you're making your team that in order to beat stall, you need to get up hazards, and if you still use methods that wont allow you to get hazards up, I dont have sympathy for you when you lose a stall matchup. This comes down to lack of preparing for a common trend in the metagame. Having no good way to beat Keldeo is bad teambuilding. Having no good way to beat Zard-Y is bad teambuilding. Why is having no good way to beat Sableye not just bad teambuilding?

If you say its because Sableye is broken and the same arguments could be made for things that have been banned, like Aegislash or something, there are answers to Sableye, including answers that get rocks up consistantly against it. I gave a list of 3, but if you want a more exhaustive list:
OU:
Bisharp, Celebi, Chansey, Clefable, Diancie-Mega, Excadrill, Ferrothorn, Garchomp, Gliscor, Heatran, Hippowdon, Jirachi, Landorus-Therian, Metagross-Mega, Mew, Pinsir-Mega, Skarmory, Tyranitar

Highlighted the ones that I could see doing it consistantly, not taking into account that Sableye doesn't really want to switch in to all of them, and others (garchomp, Bisharp, Gliscor) have their own ways to get around it. Also, Pinsir could get rocks up, but who would use rocks on mega-pinsir? It would be the same for Diancie too, but I've seen rock setting Diancie.

In BL:
Terrakion
Funnily enough life orb stone edge 2hkos this now that sableye are running less than max defense.

In UU:
Aerodactyl-Mega, Aggron-Mega, Azelf, Blissey, Cobalion, Donphan, Empoleon, Forretress, Gligar, Infernape, Krookodile, Mamoswine, Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Swampert

Slimmer pickings, but still some options if you want to go with less conventional mons.

In RU:
Bronzong, Camerupt-Mega, Druddigon, Dugtrio, Omastar, Registeel, Rhyperior, Seismitoad, Smeargle, Steelix-Mega, Tyrantrum, Uxie

Yeah Sableye isn't switching in comfortably on those mons. Dugtrio cause it literally cant switch in but meh. Omastar is the one that is underwhelming as a rocks setter in ou, but if you wanted one for rain teams or something it might do something? If it packs rocks though, Sableye wouldn't want to switch in on it. BL2's only rock setter is shuckle, which obviously doesn't beat sableye, but Dragalge could get up tspikes vs it if you're going for an offensive tspikes setter.

Not going to go lower than that cause of the lack of viability most of the NU and lower rock setters have in OU.


That isn't even dealing with stallbreakers which answer Sableye like Manaphy, Gardevoir, Talonflame, ext.



That is a much better argument for banning Sableye, however I would argue that it isn't weak to just a few certain breakers, it can be beaten by numerous, all viable, mons and playstyles, and it can also beat said playstyles. I do not think that the majority of the games with the wonder trio stall will be decided on matchup, based on the ladder experience playing said team, both successfully and not. The specialization is not to the degree that it requires action to be taken on mega sableye (in my personal opinion), as I believe the more "uncompetitive" aspects of both of these teams are the trappers involved with them. The overspecialization you mentioned (Shed shell, pursuit) is all based around trapping mechanics, nothing to do with Sableye itself.

Of all the mega-sableye teams, the only two that are notable for how frequently they win or lose on matchup are the two that involve trapping. To me, that would say that trapping is the problem, not mega sableye, and we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater by testing both at the same time.

Have you ever played ou before? or pokemon in general?

Not to sound offensive, but 90% of that list is unviable in OU or wouldn't get to set up rocks in a million years. Explain to me in what universe does a mew or skarmory or blissey ever get them vs sableye?? Even the ones that aren't completely fucking insane like jirachi (hey you can get like 7 flinches in a row!) still get crippled and their rocks bounced most of the time. The only things in your list that see play and would actually get rocks vs sableye are: Clefable, Heatran, Mold Breaker Exca and Diancie (lol!). that's 2.5 mons and a joke that can get rocks vs sableye. Sure, other rockers can get them, after spending many turns and their health and the health of their teammates to weaken sableye to the point that it doesn't want to switch in anymore. At that point skarm comes in and defogs and sableye gets a recover vs one of your mons that can't touch it and now you are back to square 1 with a half dead team. Sableye doesn't add competitiveness by "making the hazard game more complex", it just makes it really unfair
 

Aberforth

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Have you ever played ou before? or pokemon in general?

Not to sound offensive, but 90% of that list is unviable in OU or wouldn't get to set up rocks in a million years. Explain to me in what universe does a mew or skarmory or blissey ever get them vs sableye?? Even the ones that aren't completely fucking insane like jirachi (hey you can get like 7 flinches in a row!) still get crippled and their rocks bounced most of the time. The only things in your list that see play and would actually get rocks vs sableye are: Clefable, Heatran, Mold Breaker Exca and Diancie (lol!). that's 2.5 mons and a joke that can get rocks vs sableye. Sure, other rockers can get them, after spending many turns and their health and the health of their teammates to weaken sableye to the point that it doesn't want to switch in anymore. At that point skarm comes in and defogs and sableye gets a recover vs one of your mons that can't touch it and now you are back to square 1 with a half dead team. Sableye doesn't add competitiveness by "making the hazard game more complex", it just makes it really unfair
The list of rocks mons were all the ones that got Stealth rock in OU, UU and RU, I bolded the ones I have seen successfully getting them up, or could see getting them up. I did not, therefore, say Blissey could get rocks up vs it. The only one I highlighted that isn't listed as viable in the viability rankings is Smeargle, which I've seen get up rocks/webs in ubers with a specific set (skill swap rocks/webs nuzzle rapid spin but you could change rapid spin to taunt to keep them up) While rock setting Omastar is another I admitted wouldn't be seen, if it was used in a rock setting role it could get them up vs Sableye.

As for mew, 1) Sableye doesnt really want to be status'd, which mew can do with wisp synchronise, 2) with dazzling gleam (if you choose to run it) you can hurt Sableye a fair amount, 3) you could use skill swap on it like Azelf sets do.

Can you explain to me how Terrakion, which 2hkos with stone edge, will struggle to get rocks up if sableye comes in and takes half of its health away from switching in to stone edge? It sounds like you dont want to see if there are any counterplay options to it, and are just defaulting to that nothing can get them up vs Sableye teams, which is just not true.

EDIT: The diancie thing isn't something I would run, but I have seen people run rocks mega diancie, and I vaguely remember a trick room team that used regular diancie to set rocks and then explode.
 

Freeroamer

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He was replying to your bolded ones, the ones that aren't bolded aren't even worth bothering with...

That doesn't explain where Jirachi is getting rocks either, rocks Diancie is ass, as is rocks Exca and the majority you listed. The fact that half the mons on that list are either poor or outclassed at setting rocks vs anything but sab stall or they have to run a specific set to even get rocks up vs it is laughable, and if anything proves the point of Sableye making the hazard matchup more restrictive. I'm not asking for a Stealth Rock user that has a good matchup vs every archetype but the fact that the majority of rockers either have to run specific sets or just don't get rocks at all vs Sableye isn't skill, it's restriction.
 

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