Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread!

[Merritt]

Goldland The issues is that I don't feel Mienfoo is broken, as it has multiple checks and counters, and actually making an argument for its brokenness is going to be a long, uphill battle. I also made sure to note that keeping something broken in order to stop broken things isn't an argument for anti-banning.

However, not only is this not a suspect discussion thread, so looking at the impact of Pokemon in the meta is encouraged, but I also meant that Mienfoo is healthy for the meta in terms of keeping things from dominating.

Mienfoo has three main issues keeping it from being broken, its only decent bulk, its not quite fast enough speed, and its 4MSS/lack of power. Mienfoo isn't winning the title of "Bulkiest thing since Spritzee" with its 45/50/50 bulk, meaning that it's 3HKOed or 2HKOed a lot of the time by neutral attacks. Regenerator helps a lot, but doesn't mean it can stay in and take attacks continuously. It's also not going to be able to stop pretty much any sweeper in the tier.

17 Speed is good, but its not on the level of a fast sweeper. Anything that hits 18 or 19 speed can come in and check it, and there are some very prominent threats that hit speeds over 17, like Abra (who Mienfoo absolutely cannot ever beat unless it runs feint, which is terrible) or Doduo, or Elekid. Mienfoo doesn't even have access to good priority, since both Feint and Fake Out are not good, reliable priority. Mienfoo can run a scarf to get around its merely good speed, but then it's prone to walling/setup bait. And this only increases the next issue of...

Lack of power/4MSS. I lump these together because they are connected. Mienfoo might have access to some powerful coverage moves in High Jump Kick, Stone Edge, Acrobatics, Knock Off, and Poison Jab, but it can't run everything on one set. If you run High Jump Kick and not Drain Punch then you lose a lot of Mienfoo's ability to stay in, if you don't run Stone Edge Larvesta and Ponyta beat Mienfoo relatively easily, if you don't run Poison Jab Spritzee and Snubbull can easily counter, without Acrobatics Timburr and Croagunk win with ease, if you don't use HJK you lack neutral power, and if you decline to run U-turn you lose out on one of Mienfoo's greatest strengths in its momentum grabbing abilities. And if, for some unholy reason, you forgo Knock Off, psychic types rip your cute little face off. If Mienfoo really needs support for all of these then its not really broken, now is it.

Beyond that, Mienfoo's attack is great at 18 (unless you run Adamant), but isn't quite wallbreaking levels. It relies heavily on SE moves or its bulk to win 1v1 situations, and sometimes that isn't enough. Life Orb makes it more powerful, but that removes most of its bulkiness and Mienfoo is just not fast enough to really run an annihilation LO set, although it does make a good wallbreaker.

Mienfoo is just frankly, not broken, and the quote you pulled was mostly addressing the idea of Mienfoo being a bad influence on the metagame.

People also seem to use the idea of team support making something broken so often and I don't understand why. Yes, if you remove the things that beat Mienfoo it can beat the entire opposing team, but the same goes for Zigzagoon.

And I haven't seen anybody nominate Zig.

 

[rhydonphilip]

How i see it right now.
mienfoo being very very good in the current condition of the meta with stall , banced, hyper offencive and even bulky teams it can all suport on an amazing level
luckly this poke isn't powerfull enough to break walls like snubble even with poisen jab or things like spritzee,foongus (yes acrobatic but try to avoid a spore AND acrobatic it without being an easy revenge kill)

pawniard just being solid and straight amazing if only fight wasn't as pure good as timburr,mienfoo, croagunk and the now better then ever panchamp
it would have been able to be LC Ubers imo: it can force sticky web out of the game all by it self, SW set up can be extreemly dangerous to set up but pays off = high risk equals high reward.Can run multiple set's just like meinfoo , it can be scarfed , LO'd and eviolite

fletchling easy sweeper just like pawniard but this thing doesn't have the posibility of item's being forced to run no item + acrobatic is just a bit sad and then to think this was suspected for LC Ubers ? no it can deal with allot with just acro and overheat but it needs momentum to work in the first place and then rock types like onix, turtle, archen, omanite and the all-around bulky pokes like snubble are just there to block it right to the ground.

Abra this one is the most interesting in my opinion mainly because this unlike all of the above forces teamuild with it's amazing high sp attack and speed , ability to live any attack atleast once with sash (exept multi-hit moves*) OR just ruin almost all walls with LO set
only the best special walls like munchlax have influance , then again it's just bait to get revenge killed. it's easy to trap with diglett,bulky gothita, hounder and skunky or in now getting rarer and rarer cased pawniard if the oponant isn't running HP fight (what isn't smart but k)
240 SpA Life Orb Abra Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 236 SpD Eviolite Munchlax: 10-13 (33.3 - 43.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

*sash is the only good item it can run for bulk it won't live any hit's other then 1 time it even runs protect to deal with fake out
but multi-hit moves and priority are ways to play around it by example ferroseed can take even HP fight (not amazing but it takes it and just absorbs psychic like it was nothing), priority (any) will just make it instantly less of a treath knowing you only need a little more to finish it

but none of the above is able to even cut it to the level you would say it's OP no not at all even all of thes pokes are good , only 1 forces teambuild on a very low level

 

[Fiend]

I'm honestly struggling to believe there is anything broken in this meta. Pawn is fine, Foo is fine, Torchic is fine, Sun is slightly annoying but still fine, BP has issues with Pawn and Fletch and Drilbur and Spritzee and Oma and even things like SD Pass foo. Hell CM Abra can just win half the time. Simply LO Carvanha can at least Any mildly strong sweeper cripples it if not outright beating it (Goth can only do so much; it saves you against 1 of these and imo any well built team has 2+). Abra is annoying, but is about as broken as BJ Magnemite, which is to say: not at all. Nothing is broken, things are just good.

All of these are, to some extent, top metagame threats. Being a threat =/= broken. It's when this threat becomes overwhelming and not using it puts you at a true disadvantage is where we can draw the line in the sand and call it broken. And honestly, nothing anyone has nominated makes me think I'm at a tangible disadvantage for choosing to not use said nominated pokemon.

 

[boo836]

I really don't see the issue with foo. It's a great mon for maintaining or gaining momentum, but it's not exactly bulky, or sweeping too many teams. Foo's basically a jack of all trades, but an ace at little. It gains hella momentum sure, but in the lategame, we all know it's a liability. It's capable of stopping certain threats (Pawn, Gunk), but oftentimes the spreads it needs to do so hold it back from optimizing its role as a pivot.

And honestly, Foo always runs the same three moves which aren't exactly difficult to stop. Choice users lose a ton of momentum as soon as they deal a hit, and it's even worse for foo when you consider it only hits hard with a single attack. Imo, there's very little variety when it comes to Mienfoo. Dunno why people think of it as "unpredictable"

 

[Ray Jay]

My thoughts:

Baton Pass

I think Heysup put it best when he said that banning BP would only make LC more laughed at. Put bluntly, LC has worse receivers than other tiers when it comes to BP and honestly does not have incredible things to get the party started either, and other tiers have much more competitive player bases this gen and as far as I know have not banned it. If there's something really breaking BP, please let me know because I haven't seen it on any teams posted or being used. Furthermore, if there's an element breaking BP, we should ban that rather than an entire play style. Since there are none, this seems to be a case of players not preparing rather than the strategy being incredible in LC.

Mienfoo:

I'd like to say our community (especially those wanting to look erudite in their opinion despite lacking experience) should put behind them the mindset that Mienfoo is unbannable because we've said so and therefore is foolish to discuss. Also, please quit using Mienfoo's "4MSS" as a reason for it not being broken, as 4MSS in its true form prevents a pokemons viability (ie the mon needs an extra slot to be viable as anything but a niche team or as a glue for a specific team), and Mienfoo is one of the easiest Pokemon to slap on a team in any tier ever. Mienfoo also isn't a sweeper, so how this works in practice is that players who are new to teambuilding slap Larvesta on the team and think they're safe. Their first game against Stone Edge Mienfoo then is eye opening.

Altogether, I think it's time to look more realistically at Mienfoo. Not because he's overcentralizing. Not because he's broken. People, we're sick of hearing arguments against this that have been exhausted over 2 generations. Mienfoo's ban would be one of it simply does too much in a unique meta game where many Pokemon are struggling to even find one role it does well. I'm not sure what to call that, or if it's even worth a ban, but THIS is the discussion we should be having, and not endlessly circlejerking about how it is neither broken nor overcentralizing.

 

[Heysup]

Mienfoo:

I'd like to say our community (especially those wanting to look erudite in their opinion despite lacking experience) should put behind them the mindset that Mienfoo is unbannable because we've said so and therefore is foolish to discuss. Also, please quit using Mienfoo's "4MSS" as a reason for it not being broken, as 4MSS in its true form prevents a pokemons viability (ie the mon needs an extra slot to be viable as anything but a niche team or as a glue for a specific team), and Mienfoo is one of the easiest Pokemon to slap on a team in any tier ever. Mienfoo also isn't a sweeper, so how this works in practice is that players who are new to teambuilding slap Larvesta on the team and think they're safe. Their first game against Stone Edge Mienfoo then is eye opening.

I don't want to speak for everyone, but that's not the 4MSS argument I would refer to. When people say things like Foo can stop hazards, check all SS mons, Pawniard, and hit Larvesta with Stone Edge, ie. a lot of things, it's only reasonable to point out that it can't do it all with 4 moves and especially can't maintain viability without certain moves. I also think it's important to point out that it has a similar problem with spreads. Slow is less reliable in checking Pawniard and can't Taunt Dwebble, etc. Fast can't reliably tank things like Gothita Psychic and generally does shit damage to things with only 15 Attack. It can do a lot of things - the most in the tier even. It just can't do all of them at once. Which is what makes it so easy to fit on a team but so obviously not "too good".

Mienfoo's ban would be one of it simply does too much in a unique meta game where many Pokemon are struggling to even find one role it does well. I'm not sure what to call that, or if it's even worth a ban, but THIS is the discussion we should be having, and not endlessly circlejerking about how it is neither broken nor overcentralizing.

As concerning as it is that you would lean towards maybe banning it, I think it's about time that side of the camp admitted what a Mienfoo ban really is. It's arbitrary, it's speculative, and it's simply based on the taste of a few people. This was my point earlier in the thread; I think banning Mienfoo is a policy decision and I'm not convinced this is the best way to do it and especially not that it will have a positive impact on the metagame.

 

[boo836]

My thoughts:

Baton Pass

I think Heysup put it best when he said that banning BP would only make LC more laughed at. Put bluntly, LC has worse receivers than other tiers when it comes to BP and honestly does not have incredible things to get the party started either, and other tiers have much more competitive player bases this gen and as far as I know have not banned it. If there's something really breaking BP, please let me know because I haven't seen it on any teams posted or being used. Furthermore, if there's an element breaking BP, we should ban that rather than an entire play style. Since there are none, this seems to be a case of players not preparing rather than the strategy being incredible in LC.

Mienfoo:

I'd like to say our community (especially those wanting to look erudite in their opinion despite lacking experience) should put behind them the mindset that Mienfoo is unbannable because we've said so and therefore is foolish to discuss. Also, please quit using Mienfoo's "4MSS" as a reason for it not being broken, as 4MSS in its true form prevents a pokemons viability (ie the mon needs an extra slot to be viable as anything but a niche team or as a glue for a specific team), and Mienfoo is one of the easiest Pokemon to slap on a team in any tier ever. Mienfoo also isn't a sweeper, so how this works in practice is that players who are new to teambuilding slap Larvesta on the team and think they're safe. Their first game against Stone Edge Mienfoo then is eye opening.

Altogether, I think it's time to look more realistically at Mienfoo. Not because he's overcentralizing. Not because he's broken. People, we're sick of hearing arguments against this that have been exhausted over 2 generations. Mienfoo's ban would be one of it simply does too much in a unique meta game where many Pokemon are struggling to even find one role it does well. I'm not sure what to call that, or if it's even worth a ban, but THIS is the discussion we should be having, and not endlessly circlejerking about how it is neither broken nor overcentralizing.

4MMS has always referred to the desire to run a fifth move, be it to have full coverage versus many checks, or to provide a full range of support that teammates typically want. W/e though, it isn't relevant. In truth, i don't see how Mienfoo "does too much" when you consider that it's running the same three moves. It could run a scarf, but it'd become a burden early game, and lose its awesome capability to generate momentum. It could run sdpass, but tbh that's a niche set that doesn't see much use. Looking realistically, there's not much else that foo can do, besides maybe LO.

I don't know if you are just playing devil's advocate or not, but as Heysup said, your reasoning is incredibly arbitrary, and i fail to see what it would accomplish. Banning foo and its "variety" doesn't exactly change the fact that those mons struggling to find one set will still suck. We've set out a general policy for shaping the metagame and even if we were to change it, the middle of suspect would be an inappropriate time to do so.

 

[v]

I'm not going to write a ten paragraph essay or indulge any of these quotefests, but BP, Abra, and Kojofu are all fine in my experience. BP isn't even that good, if your team has good offensive power in general then you can just punch your way through. It isn't like when Inconsistent was around and every third attack was whiffing. Abra is strong but with Sash he's only a shade stronger than most LO mons but doesn't have priority. He basically just gets Sturdy but he can't Juice it. With LO he's a lot stronger than most mons, but a strong scarfer or priority dude will get him. Diglett can revenge LO 100% of the time. RecycleLax and Shellder both easily beat Sash. Kojofu isn't even remotely broken, imo the strongest thing it does is Knock Off Berry Juices and I wouldn't care about that if three other mons on the team didnt also have Knock Off.

I think we should ban Knock Off. It's just too easy to spam and get results with, essentially automatically crippling whatever they bring in. Knocking off juice (the most common item afaik) is essentially doing an extra 20 damage; knocking off Eviolite makes whatever you hit easily 2HKOable a la DPP; and knocking off a scarf typically cripples whatever got knocked. It's also an 85BP move that nothing is immune to. I even read a post itt advocating Knock Off Abra, which should be indicative of how good the move is in the Little Cup ruleset. It's not even a matter of the Pokemon that use it being out-and-out broken, but the move itself is hard to fight against effectively and banning it would also nerf Kojofu, Komatana, and Zuruggu.

 

[blarajan]

fucking weeaboo

 

[Goldland]

You're right about the argument of broken things not checking broken things being something that we shouldn't consider, however that argument is inapplicable altogether since neither Mienfoo or Pawniard are broken. Even the people who want to suspect Mienfoo admit it's just "unhealthy", not necessarily broken.

Also check the usage stats, but centralizing does not look like having 1-2 dedicated and OTHERWISE VIABLE counters in the top used Pokemon while also having a few Pokemon that lose to it (ie. Pawniard) also in the mix. If you want centralizing, check one of the metagames with Gligar where anything with an Ice Shard was absurdly high.

team.

As i said in the end of my post, i dont find anything individually "broken" about mienfoo, but i believe that his versatility and momentum gain, regenerator, set up threat, along with being able to wear down and revenge kill most things in the meta with different sets, makes him too good for the metagame, as well as centralizing.

As for the Ice shard, it's only natural when gligar did have a 4x weakness, and, it worked against murkrow and the faster metagame present at the time with faster threats and more priority users, but mienfoo doesn't have this weakness, i don't think that's even an argument because you should be pretty sure people would run stuff like HP Psychic on dweeble, aipom, or other lead, if mienfoo was 4x weak to it.

Not sure if it's in this thread or other, but someone did put some graphs around representing the common distribution of "counters and threat" if the poke was "broken" and if it wasn't. For all facts, mienfoo's counter's keep being below his usage by a great ammount, when it'd be expected that at some points there would be divergence between them. If there's someone in usage stats that could arguably be "broken" in a way that not even his counters combined eventually reach it's usage, it's mienfoo, consistently, and for a long time.

About vullaby and timburr thing, you're not considering the fact that mienfoo has a great deal of more momentum than any of those, and what makes mienfoo strong is his ability to wear out his opponents and switch out safely, and that's exactly where either vullaby and timburr can't deal with him consistently, because a well played mienfoo will consistently wear them down with knock off at first switch and then 1 or 2 hko them after stealth rocks even with HJK sometimes. About Spritzee, sure it's an exaggeration stating she can just switch 2-3 times, and she is the one that can consistently switch more often, but that's only if mienfoo doesn't have u-turn and keeps spritzee from having time to wish+protect, and so she's worn out by constant switches and SR easily. In fact, with this precise methodology, spritzee survives exactly not 2 or 3 , but 4 switches on u-turn with SR up, sure it's a very special case, but it's more common than you'd think, even considering that "sometimes" even crits will eventually happen.


By the way, just to refer stats the 1760 stats of this month,
1 | Mienfoo | 50.02802%

50% is just an astonishing number, out of this world even for some previously banned threats. I think there's a lot of reasons for it, it'd be wise to look for the real reasons he reaches these numbers and if there's reasons to "suspect" about suspecting it.

 

[Merritt]

As for the Ice shard, it's only natural when gligar did have a 4x weakness, and, it worked against murkrow and the faster metagame present at the time with faster threats and more priority users, but mienfoo doesn't have this weakness, i don't think that's even an argument because you should be pretty sure people would run stuff like HP Psychic on dweeble, aipom, or other lead, if mienfoo was 4x weak to it.

Not sure if it's in this thread or other, but someone did put some graphs around representing the common distribution of "counters and threat" if the poke was "broken" and if it wasn't. For all facts, mienfoo's counter's keep being below his usage by a great ammount, when it'd be expected that at some points there would be divergence between them. If there's someone in usage stats that could arguably be "broken" in a way that not even his counters combined eventually reach it's usage, it's mienfoo, consistently, and for a long time.

The main point is that Mienfoo isn't causing niche counters to rise up, while Gligar singlehandedly increased the usage of otherwise subpar mons. If, say, Togepi had significant usage because it beats Mienfoo then that would be an argument for overcentralization. The fact that there are so many Pokemon that lose to Mienfoo with high usage (including Pawniard, who absolutely loses to Mienfoo) indicates that its presence isn't unhealthy.

I do not understand what you're trying to do with the second paragraph. This doesn't help your argument, it actually hurts it. To explain, Mienfoo has lots of usage, but its counters don't have anywhere near as much. This means that Mienfoo isn't causing massive amounts of usage in its counters.

That means Mienfoo isn't shaping the meta to a degree where its counters are mandatory, or even as popular as Mienfoo itself. If its counters were second or third most popular in usage, then you might have a case, but pointing out that this isn't the case weakens your argument.

Also, when using ladder statistics, remember that many good LC players actively shit on the ladder and don't play it. With the sample teams having so many foo, this naturally inflates its usage more than normal, especially considering the entry barrier to learning LC. A better indication would be to use the SPLC usage stats, as most of the players in it are skilled.

 

[Camden]

The main point is that Mienfoo isn't causing niche counters to rise up, while Gligar singlehandedly increased the usage of otherwise subpar mons. If, say, Togepi had significant usage because it beats Mienfoo then that would be an argument for overcentralization. The fact that there are so many Pokemon that lose to Mienfoo with high usage (including Pawniard, who absolutely loses to Mienfoo) indicates that its presence isn't unhealthy.

I do not understand what you're trying to do with the second paragraph. This doesn't help your argument, it actually hurts it. To explain, Mienfoo has lots of usage, but its counters don't have anywhere near as much. This means that Mienfoo isn't causing massive amounts of usage in its counters.

That means Mienfoo isn't shaping the meta to a degree where its counters are mandatory, or even as popular as Mienfoo itself. If its counters were second or third most popular in usage, then you might have a case, but pointing out that this isn't the case weakens your argument.

Also, when using ladder statistics, remember that many good LC players actively shit on the ladder and don't play it. With the sample teams having so many foo, this naturally inflates its usage more than normal, especially considering the entry barrier to learning LC. A better indication would be to use the SPLC usage stats, as most of the players in it are skilled.

To add to your last point, a lot pf players simply like using foo as a safety net, because of the advantage it can give you. Most of the time (unless you're running some form of semi-stall), a team is just better by having foo. It's just easier to use foo in most cases than going out of your way to use a different fighting-type or u-turner.


I was going to make my own post talking about things I want to see suspected, but I'm just going to sound like a broken record. I'm one of those people that Heysup mentioned that wants to see Mienfoo suspected not because I think it's broken, but because I think it's somewhat unhealthy and frustrating. Mienfoo is interesting in that its presence doesn't really restrict teambuilding in the sense that a normal centralising threat would. We can all argue that the scarf set does cause a bit of annoyance during teambuilding, but as long as you carry your check(s) you should be okay. The thing that bothers me about it is the way it adds to certain playstyles. It helps make VoltTurn more consistent by offering a solid Knock Off abuser with Regenerator and any sort of move it needs to add to overall coverage. It adds to HO and general offense teams by being the absolute best scarfer in the metagame that rips through nearly everything with its HJK. It benefits BP by being an excellent SD/CM passer as well as a great abuser. It can even add to Semistall/Bulky Offense/Balance by simply being a great defensive poke with some of the aforementioned options. It's just too damn good at what it does. I'm still personally split on whether I actually want it banned or not (leaning towards no atm) but I'm willing to throw myself into the actual suspect discussion and look at every possible situation before making a decision (if I even get that opportunity). By adding the way it does to these playstyles, you always have to account for it, but you're never actually sure what it's going to be doing. You can make guesses based on the team, but there's always room for surprise.

P.S. Sorry if I totally sounded like a broken record. I just haven't really spoken about this subject yet in the threads.

 

[Heysup]

As i said in the end of my post, i dont find anything individually "broken" about mienfoo, but i believe that his versatility and momentum gain, regenerator, set up threat, along with being able to wear down and revenge kill most things in the meta with different sets, makes him too good for the metagame, as well as centralizing.

As for the Ice shard, it's only natural when gligar did have a 4x weakness, and, it worked against murkrow and the faster metagame present at the time with faster threats and more priority users, but mienfoo doesn't have this weakness, i don't think that's even an argument because you should be pretty sure people would run stuff like HP Psychic on dweeble, aipom, or other lead, if mienfoo was 4x weak to it.

The fact that you're suggesting Mienfoo is less exploitable than Gligar and Murkrow is another gross exaggeration that's hard to take seiously.

The leap that you make from "usage stats not focusing around Mienfoo counters" -> "Mienfoo doesn't have that weakness" is completely irrational. If Mienfoo was worth centralizing around, like Gligar, like Murkrow, like Meditite, like Yangela, we would see it in the usage stats. Mienfoo has very exploitable type-weaknesses like to Fairies, fast Psychics, and bulky Flying-types but only a few of them crack the top 10 and all of them are otherwise viable. There's no Sticky Hold Grimers coming around invading the top few Pokemon to counter Mienfoo like Phanpy was for Gligar's metagame. There isn't the equivalent of Elgyem coming out as there was for Meditite.

The argument that we would see HP Psychic a lot more if Mienfoo was 4x weak to it is just speculative, but we already see it on Pokemon for the purposes of nailing Croagunk so I don't see what it would prove anyway.

Not sure if it's in this thread or other, but someone did put some graphs around representing the common distribution of "counters and threat" if the poke was "broken" and if it wasn't. For all facts, mienfoo's counter's keep being below his usage by a great ammount, when it'd be expected that at some points there would be divergence between them. If there's someone in usage stats that could arguably be "broken" in a way that not even his counters combined eventually reach it's usage, it's mienfoo, consistently, and for a long time.

Sorry to burst your bubble but that graph was far from fact. It was an illustration at best, and an illustration that does not help your point. Counters of a broken Pokemon should rise in usage with that Pokemon and the usage of that Pokemon should not go down even though it's surrounded by its counters. Not only does this not mimic what's happening with Mienfoo, but it wouldn't matter anyway because it can apply to almost any top threat.

By the way, just to refer stats the 1760 stats of this month,
1 | Mienfoo | 50.02802%

50% is just an astonishing number, out of this world even for some previously banned threats. I think there's a lot of reasons for it, it'd be wise to look for the real reasons he reaches these numbers and if there's reasons to "suspect" about suspecting it.

usage=/=power. Especially ladder stats, if you want stats that matter, check out the SPLC ones (though they probably aren't updated) where you'll see Mienfoo at the top but a few Pokemon not too far off (like Archen and Pawniard). Furthermore, you'll see that Spritzee and Gothita are pretty low. It's win% is less than 50% so that's definitely not even close to things like Gligar who only lost vs other teams with Gligar.

About vullaby and timburr thing, you're not considering the fact that mienfoo has a great deal of more momentum than any of those, and what makes mienfoo strong is his ability to wear out his opponents and switch out safely, and that's exactly where either vullaby and timburr can't deal with him consistently, because a well played mienfoo will consistently wear them down with knock off at first switch and then 1 or 2 hko them after stealth rocks even with HJK sometimes. About Spritzee, sure it's an exaggeration stating she can just switch 2-3 times, and she is the one that can consistently switch more often, but that's only if mienfoo doesn't have u-turn and keeps spritzee from having time to wish+protect, and so she's worn out by constant switches and SR easily. In fact, with this precise methodology, spritzee survives exactly not 2 or 3 , but 4 switches on u-turn with SR up, sure it's a very special case, but it's more common than you'd think, even considering that "sometimes" even crits will eventually happen.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Spritzee, Timburr, and Vullaby are all very durable Pokemon with longevity that is equal to or better than Mienfoo. Spritzee and Vullaby have recovery moves and can heal off any common Mienfoo attack. Stone Edge is straight up not that good on Mienfoo, and it will get exploited for having it by Dwebble, SSers, and Abra etc. Timburr lacks Regen but has higher bulk, power, and Drain Punch to keep itself high HP. It isn't crippled by Larvesta and Ponyta like Mienfoo is either.

I also think it's important to add that Mienfoo LOSES its precious momentum when it doesn't use U-turn and stays in to Knock Off something like Spritzee or Vullaby. Switching into Spritzee, Ok, that's not too hard. But Vullaby hurts a lot of things with Knock Off.

Like, why isn't that Spritzee in one of those 4 switch-ins using Wish? I just don't get your exaggerations.

 

[Goldland]

I do not understand what you're trying to do with the second paragraph. This doesn't help your argument, it actually hurts it. To explain, Mienfoo has lots of usage, but its counters don't have anywhere near as much. This means that Mienfoo isn't causing massive amounts of usage in its counters.

That means Mienfoo isn't shaping the meta to a degree where its counters are mandatory, or even as popular as Mienfoo itself. If its counters were second or third most popular in usage, then you might have a case, but pointing out that this isn't the case weakens your argument.

My question to you, is what would you expect the statistics to be, if mienfoo counters could be played around by him and exploit their momentum with counters to their counters? Spritzee usage isn't on par and would never be on par with mienfoo because there's things like Croagunk, magnemite, gastly, foongus, skrelp, even pawniard and few others that love to exploit spritzee's momentum by setting up or taking over it's momentum, and there's nothing better than having a u-turn mienfoo to ruin spritzee's momentum and possible utility.
For vullaby you have magnemite, chinchou, archen, and and some others that also do the same job.
With little more than u-turn and knock off and the right team mates, you can easily play around mienfoo checks and counters and gain from it.

So, it's not like Mienfoo isn't shaping the meta by himself, when half the meta is centered around exploiting momentum against spritzee and a few other defensive types. Mienfoo's synergy with most of these pokemons in the meta, allow him to simply reduce the usage statistics of it's supposed counters, which are played around in the current meta. Mienfoo has an almost unique ability of simply knocking off and u-turning out of any counter intact giving momentum to other pokemon to switch in.

 

[Kavatika]

My question to you, is what would you expect the statistics to be, if mienfoo counters could be played around by him and exploit their momentum with counters to their counters? Spritzee usage isn't on par and would never be on par with mienfoo because there's things like Croagunk, magnemite, gastly, foongus, skrelp, even pawniard and few others that love to exploit spritzee's momentum by setting up or taking over it's momentum, and there's nothing better than having a u-turn mienfoo to ruin spritzee's momentum and possible utility.
For vullaby you have magnemite, chinchou, archen, and and some others that also do the same job.
With little more than u-turn and knock off and the right team mates, you can easily play around mienfoo checks and counters and gain from it.

So, it's not like Mienfoo isn't shaping the meta by himself, when half the meta is centered around exploiting momentum against spritzee and a few other defensive types. Mienfoo's synergy with most of these pokemons in the meta, allow him to simply reduce the usage statistics of it's supposed counters, which are played around in the current meta. Mienfoo has an almost unique ability of simply knocking off and u-turning out of any counter intact giving momentum to other pokemon to switch in.

First of all, ladder statistics are a very poor thing to base your argument off of. Even if it wasn't, Mienfoo does not reduce the usage of its counters. It is also not simply because there are Pokemon that beat Mienfoo's counters. As Meritt said, the fact that Mienfoo's counters are not used as much as Mienfoo simply means it is not overcentralizing, rather, a full counter is not necessary on every team.

What you may be trying to say, is that because of Mienfoo being able to pivot into its counters' counters lowers the viability of Mienfoo's counters, which is false. Mienfoo's counters (fairies, poison-types, ponyta, larvesta, etc) are all perfectly viable and the presence of their own counters does not necessarily hold them back, and even without Mienfoo, they would still be viable.

 

[Goldland]

The fact that you're suggesting Mienfoo is less exploitable than Gligar and Murkrow is another gross exaggeration that's hard to take seiously.

The leap that you make from "usage stats not focusing around Mienfoo counters" -> "Mienfoo doesn't have that weakness" is completely irrational. If Mienfoo was worth centralizing around, like Gligar, like Murkrow, like Meditite, like Yangela, we would see it in the usage stats. Mienfoo has very exploitable type-weaknesses like to Fairies, fast Psychics, and bulky Flying-types but only a few of them crack the top 10 and all of them are otherwise viable. There's no Sticky Hold Grimers coming around invading the top few Pokemon to counter Mienfoo like Phanpy was for Gligar's metagame. There isn't the equivalent of Elgyem coming out as there was for Meditite.

The argument that we would see HP Psychic a lot more if Mienfoo was 4x weak to it is just speculative, but we already see it on Pokemon for the purposes of nailing Croagunk so I don't see what it would prove anyway.

And the same way people already spam HP Fighting just for pawniard. As i said i think the reaction in the current meta is actually opposite. While grimer sticky hold held an actually pretty valuable attribute of being able to tank swirlix and 1hko in return, he also had a good utility to absorb knock offs from several sources, even when gligar was everywhere in the meta.
On the other way around, the meta is so around several pokemons that render Spritzee's and other counters to mienfoo, a liability.

Sorry to burst your bubble but that graph was far from fact. It was an illustration at best, and an illustration that does not help your point. Counters of a broken Pokemon should rise in usage with that Pokemon and the usage of that Pokemon should not go down even though it's surrounded by its counters. Not only does this not mimic what's happening with Mienfoo, but it wouldn't matter anyway because it can apply to almost any top threat.

Sure it's just an illustration, but the point of it is to represent that broken pokemon have usage consistently above it's counters, while a non broken pokemon usage should diminish the more counters usage there is. By this definitions, mienfoo fits in.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Spritzee, Timburr, and Vullaby are all very durable Pokemon with longevity that is equal to or better than Mienfoo. Spritzee and Vullaby have recovery moves and can heal off any common Mienfoo attack. Stone Edge is straight up not that good on Mienfoo, and it will get exploited for having it by Dwebble, SSers, and Abra etc. Timburr lacks Regen but has higher bulk, power, and Drain Punch to keep itself high HP. It isn't crippled by Larvesta and Ponyta like Mienfoo is either.

Stone edge or acro isn't that good except when it comes to larvesta, foongus and a few other rare checks, it's true, but even HJK can potentially do close to the same damage to neutral types like Vullaby, timburr, and others, with it's stab and higher BP, and by the way, ponyta to counter mienfoo? That seems a little odd set centered too much on countering mienfoo specifically, even so, relying on flame body and neutral stabs which seem rather frail as a counter to mienfoo, but i could be wrong as i haven't seen it in action.

I also think it's important to add that Mienfoo LOSES its precious momentum when it doesn't use U-turn and stays in to Knock Off something like Spritzee or Vullaby. Switching into Spritzee, Ok, that's not too hard. But Vullaby hurts a lot of things with Knock Off.

Vullaby does hurt some things with knock off but has neutral nature against HJK, it's not that rare in midgame to see mienfoo killing a vullaby after being worn out a bit, specially with stealth rock's up, unless you're running bulky 0 attack mienfoo of course. Spritzee as you said, there's quite some things in the meta that actually like to switch and gain momentum out of her or even setting up like NP croagunk and other examples i've already cited.

Like, why isn't that Spritzee in one of those 4 switch-ins using Wish? I just don't get your exaggerations.

This is the extreme situation in which mienfoo consistently predicts spritzee switching in and directly u-turns the turn she gets in, leaving her without time to wish. Also accounting with the fact that at mid point you might want to sacrifice spritzee instead of keep losing momentum, it might even be earlier. Of course, this implies 4 mispredictions in a row from the opponent, but when it comes to these situations, the mind games can easily make it a 50/50 situation in which you might not want to risk to stay with your pawniard on mienfoo any of those times, so you keep defending with spritzee, and then back to pawniard at some point in the game and the cycle restarts.
This is all just a "what if" situation, but serves to illustrate that spritzee is potentially rather more frail as a counter than we'd might be led to think because she's exploitable, either by mienfoo, or other mons that have synergy with him against spritzee.

 

[boo836]

I'm not going to write a ten paragraph essay or indulge any of these quotefests, but BP, Abra, and Kojofu are all fine in my experience. BP isn't even that good, if your team has good offensive power in general then you can just punch your way through. It isn't like when Inconsistent was around and every third attack was whiffing. Abra is strong but with Sash he's only a shade stronger than most LO mons but doesn't have priority. He basically just gets Sturdy but he can't Juice it. With LO he's a lot stronger than most mons, but a strong scarfer or priority dude will get him. Diglett can revenge LO 100% of the time. RecycleLax and Shellder both easily beat Sash. Kojofu isn't even remotely broken, imo the strongest thing it does is Knock Off Berry Juices and I wouldn't care about that if three other mons on the team didnt also have Knock Off.

I think we should ban Knock Off. It's just too easy to spam and get results with, essentially automatically crippling whatever they bring in. Knocking off juice (the most common item afaik) is essentially doing an extra 20 damage; knocking off Eviolite makes whatever you hit easily 2HKOable a la DPP; and knocking off a scarf typically cripples whatever got knocked. It's also an 85BP move that nothing is immune to. I even read a post itt advocating Knock Off Abra, which should be indicative of how good the move is in the Little Cup ruleset. It's not even a matter of the Pokemon that use it being out-and-out broken, but the move itself is hard to fight against effectively and banning it would also nerf Kojofu, Komatana, and Zuruggu.

Banning Knock Off doesn't serve any purpose outside of making it damn near impossible to wallbreak effectively. Defensive mons still thrive in this meta, and many Knock Off users find themselves still checked by them. It's no different than suggesting we ban Stealth Rock, Volt turning, or any significant part of the metagame simply because we don't like them.

 

[Heysup]

I think this was the circle jerk Ray Jay was talking about.

And the same way people already spam HP Fighting just for pawniard. As i said i think the reaction in the current meta is actually opposite. While grimer sticky hold held an actually pretty valuable attribute of being able to tank swirlix and 1hko in return, he also had a good utility to absorb knock offs from several sources, even when gligar was everywhere in the meta.
On the other way around, the meta is so around several pokemons that render Spritzee's and other counters to mienfoo, a liability.

So where is Grimer now?

Also stop lumping Spritzee in with other counters, it's a cleric / wall. It is going to be easy to wall. It's reliably going to stop Foo from doing anything but is not good for momentum. It's used to specifically stop Fighting-types from taking over a game and cleansing status for weak teams. It's also incredibly durable late game and is hard to break. It's not a pivot like Vullaby and Snubbul.

Sure it's just an illustration, but the point of it is to represent that broken pokemon have usage consistently above it's counters, while a non broken pokemon usage should diminish the more counters usage there is. By this definitions, mienfoo fits in.

You must be looking at a different graph because this is the one that was posted here:

macle's bs graph

Mienfoo clearly does NOT fit into this. Its counters are not rising. They don't need to because they aren't necessary to have on your team AND there are so many of them that it doesn't matter. Mienfoo isn't a sweeper or a wall - it's not even going to require a counter if you can just blow it up with Fletchling and co.

Not that I think the graph is legitimate, but saying Mienfoo fits is wrong.

Stone edge or acro isn't that good except when it comes to larvesta, foongus and a few other rare checks, it's true, but even HJK can potentially do close to the same damage to neutral types like Vullaby, timburr, and others, with it's stab and higher BP, and by the way, ponyta to counter mienfoo? That seems a little odd set centered too much on countering mienfoo specifically, even so, relying on flame body and neutral stabs which seem rather frail as a counter to mienfoo, but i could be wrong as i haven't seen it in action.

Even with those checks it's situational (Mienfoo must not have burned itself and needs to be Knocked Off to do shit with Acro). It also then becomes set up bait for SS and hazards due to lack of Taunt or Fake Out or can't carry HJK for burst damage when it's needed. If Mienfoo had 6 moves, yea, Stone Edge could be used as a valid argument but right now it's not.

Vullaby does hurt some things with knock off but has neutral nature against HJK, it's not that rare in midgame to see mienfoo killing a vullaby after being worn out a bit, specially with stealth rock's up, unless you're running bulky 0 attack mienfoo of course. Spritzee as you said, there's quite some things in the meta that actually like to switch and gain momentum out of her or even setting up like NP croagunk and other examples i've already cited.

This is exactly my point. I would think Mienfoo was broken too if this was the moveset:

Mienfoo @ Eviolite (but also itemless when it's convenient for an argument)
236 HP / 236 Atk / 196 Def / 196 SpD / 236 Spe
Jolly and Adamant nature
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Taunt
- Stone Edge
- Fake Out
- Acrobatics

I apologize for the dramatization but seriously, take a step back and read to what you're writing. Mienfoo can't have enough invested Attack to KO things like Vullaby and still outspeed things and tank attacks. Fast Attacking Mienfoo will get KOed by things like Gothita and Fletchling and probably many others. Bulky foo will be outsped by Vullaby, Pawniard, and other threats so it can't Taunt effectively. 0 Attack Foo may get not get KOed by Fletchling but it will not be able to KO in return even with Stone Edge.

I don't want to keep repeating myself. It's not able to run 4 sets and 4 movesets at once. You need to cover what it's giving up to fit into your perfectly unrealistic scenarios otherwise your arguments will remain ill-founded.

This is the extreme situation in which mienfoo consistently predicts spritzee switching in and directly u-turns the turn she gets in, living her without time to wish. Also accounting with the fact that at mid point you might want to sacrifice spritzee instead of keep losing momentum, it might even be earlier. Of course, this implies 4 mispredictions in a row from the opponent, but when it comes to these situations, the mind games can easily make it a 50/50 situation in which you might not want to risk to stay with your pawniard on mienfoo any of those times, so you keep defending with spritzee, and then back to pawniard at some point in the game and the cycle restarts.
This is all just a "what if" situation, but serves to illustrate that spritzee is potentially rather more frail as a counter than we'd might be led to think because she's exploitable, either by mienfoo, or other mons that have synergy with him against spritzee.

You already contradicted yourself but I'll go further and say if most other Pokemon predict their counters just once or twice, they will have actually destroyed the counter regardless of Stealth Rock. This makes Mienfoo look weaker rather than stronger.

 

[Kavatika]

And the same way people already spam HP Fighting just for pawniard.

Heysup already replied to your post, but I'd just like to say this, to you and everybody else: The purpose of running coverage is to beat something that a Pokemon cannot already beat. The most common users of HP Fighting (Abra, Gastly, Doduo) run that because they cannot effectively beat Pawniard otherwise. Note that these Pokemon are also strong offensive Pokemon, unlike other Pokemon that cannot effectively beat Pawniard (Pumpkaboo, Cottonee, Ferroseed, etc). Some of these will instead run a status move that can at least cripple Pawniard, but the move is in no way run just for Pawniard. None of this means that Pawniard is broken or overcentralizing, it simply means it's good enough to beat stuff. If people are spamming HP Fight on 3 or 4+ of their mons, it generally means they can't teambuild effectively enough to incorporate a Pawniard check.

 

[Fiend]

Goldland
As you said you have never seen Ponyta in action, I'm pretty sure you are deeply out if touch with the meta. You also imply that spritzee cannot counter Mienfoo due to being U-turned on and the a counter brought it. But that's entirely theoretical and I have never found this to be true, save when I switch in on layers of spikes and stealth rock. I'm not trying to completely dismiss you, but I don't think what you are saying is complely or even mostly valid.

I'm going to recommend playing 15ish games versus people who know what they are doing just to see how the meta works and how they deal with things. Then look back and make your arguments.

 

[Goldland]

So where is Grimer now?

I agreed on you that grimer was ran mainly to stop swirlix, let's not dig into how much broken swirlix was because that wasn't even open to discuss and i believe we both agree on that. Sorry if i didnt make myself clear.

This is exactly my point. I would think Mienfoo was broken too if this was the moveset:

Mienfoo @ Eviolite (but also itemless when it's convenient for an argument)
236 HP / 236 Atk / 196 Def / 196 SpD / 236 Spe
Jolly and Adamant nature
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Taunt
- Stone Edge
- Fake Out
- Acrobatics

I apologize for the dramatization but seriously, take a step back and read to what you're writing. Mienfoo can't have enough invested Attack to KO things like Vullaby and still outspeed things and tank attacks. Fast Attacking Mienfoo will get KOed by things like Gothita and Fletchling and probably many others. Bulky foo will be outsped by Vullaby, Pawniard, and other threats so it can't Taunt effectively. 0 Attack Foo may get not get KOed by Fletchling but it will not be able to KO in return even with Stone Edge.

I don't want to keep repeating myself. It's not able to run 4 sets and 4 movesets at once. You need to cover what it's giving up to fit into your perfectly unrealistic scenarios otherwise your arguments will remain ill-founded.

But don't you see, that's exactly my point too. Sure mienfoo can't carry all this, but for all purposes, when you're fighting against mienfoo you're facing that. Add to it scarf, life orb, High Jump Kick, Baton Pass and Swords Dance/Bulk up, Reckless and what not , even Feint too, because, you never know. That's why hard counters have to be ran like Spritzee to minimize the danger of all this.

 

[Kavatika]

That's the thing though, there are lots of counters to Mienfoo that can handle it regardless of its set, namely Fairies and Poison-types, so unlike several other banned mons, if you make a mistake and predict it's set incorrectly, you don't lose the game. And to be frank, Life Orb sets, Baton Pass sets, and SD/BU sets are uncommon enough that you can rule those out 95% of the time. If you run Life Orb or SD/BU you are losing a lot of Mienfo's utility, through either lack of bulk or U-turn, and Baton Pass sets can be seen from a mile away, and are hit and miss. You can't really argue that Mienfoo's "versatility" makes it hard to handle.

 

[Rowan]

not very in detail post here, but w/e

dude, you can run no counters to mienfoo and still be fine.

taunt/fake out are always revealed early so that's no an issue. so you mean hjk or stone edge or acro is unpredictable. and how hard are they to scout for in all honesty. hjk isn't even an issue because it offers no more coverage. you don't need spritzee lol, idk why you keep implying you need spritzee to deal with it. thousands of things can deal with it, and they're not 'just for mienfoo' because often they beat loads of other threats as well. other sets like scarf, life orb, reckless or whatever are also incredibly easier to scout for, you can't have a LO mienfoo bluffing a non LO set then shitting on you lol. reckless you realise as soon as it switches out. mienfoo is predictable except for stone edge, which can't even ohko ponyta or vullaby and then you just switch out to something else that can deal with it. acro is easy to scout, once you knock it off with a fighter, then you can switch out to scout.

tldr, mienfoo is predictable as soon as it gets into battle, it's easy to work out its 4th move, and its 4th move isn't even that useful most the time, mienfoo literally has 3mss - only 3 moves are good and the rest are just useful occasionally

 

[Rumor]

i agree with the 3mss. PJab/U-turn aren't really reliable. Sure you know, you could argue "OH YEA BRO PJAB FOR THOSE SPRITZEES" or volt-turn core, but they dont really provide permanent end results. Also if you're running PJab, you're missing out on Acro/Taunt like wtf what happens if they dont have a spritzee you pmuch just wasted a moveslot ayy lmao.

(236 Atk Mienfoo Poison Jab vs. 212 HP / 196+ Def Eviolite Spritzee: 10-12 (37 - 44.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO) just for reference

i feel like the problem with Mienfoo is that it just appears really bulky paired with regenerator, but thats due to the eviolite. Pokemon like Chinchou, Magnemite, Fletchling and for shits and giggles, even abra (because abra doesnt even get ohko's on spd mienfoo with psychic zzz) would be way better off when Mienfoo's eviolite is gone. I'm not proposing we ban Eviolite but it might be worth looking into, instead of just full blown banned Knock Off (like wtf who even suggested this).

Even when the Mienfoo is offensive, its not like it's not checked by other mons,, Spritzee, Pumpkaboo, Chinchou, Foonguss (the list goes on) all provide very good checks to offensive Mienfoo. Even the argument where 4MSS doesnt even come into play here. Most offensive Mienfoo's run LO, so just wait for it to hit your wall @_@ not that hard. If they're running SE then they're not really aware that it can run Acro. Like Rowan said, Taunt/Fake out tend to be revealed earlier on, shedding some light on what set it is.

are ppl really wanting to test BP,,, cmon guys. if you get bped on you need try a little harder

tldr; Mienfoo's not the problem, eviolite is

 

[Goldland]

i agree with the 3mss. PJab/U-turn aren't really reliable. Sure you know, you could argue "OH YEA BRO PJAB FOR THOSE SPRITZEES" or volt-turn core, but they dont really provide permanent end results. Also if you're running PJab, you're missing out on Acro/Taunt like wtf what happens if they dont have a spritzee you pmuch just wasted a moveslot ayy lmao.

(236 Atk Mienfoo Poison Jab vs. 212 HP / 196+ Def Eviolite Spritzee: 10-12 (37 - 44.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO) just for reference

I didn't even get into poison jab with the purpose of just checking spritzee and snubbull because it's a less useful move than others mienfoo usually runs. But even if we would account for poison jab, then you must also take into consideration the evioliteless calc, in which
236 Atk Mienfoo Poison Jab vs. 212 HP / 196+ Def Spritzee: 14-18 (51.8 - 66.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

So mienfoo can in fact effectivelly nullify Spritzee in her second switch in if he runs poison jab.