OK, had to refrain myself from commenting on the recent bans/suspects. But here it is:
- Bans: what bothers me is not the bans themselves, is how hypocritical the argument for them was. "We don't want to generate matchup dependance" "Kyu-W is autowin against Grass, etc, etc" <- Nothing wrong with those statements as standalone arguments BUT what follows is this "you gotta accept Steel auto wins Ice, is a fact" "Grass isn't supposed to beat everything" "Steel is gonna murder Fairy, deal with it". Sounds like the "matchup reliance" bs got forgotten in between sentences and only applies when types other than Water, Steel and Flying get an inch of slack against better types. "ZOMG my Flying team has a hard time with Kyu-W, how is this thing allowed?" This brings me to the next point.
Well you see it is hypocritical, and you are right in saying that. But what are you going to do about it?
No one has any clue. The reason kyu-w getting banned is a better idea than banning everything that beats a type is that kyu-w is already an uber. It has superior stats and can carry the team on its own. It also gets amazing coverage and is pretty bulky as well. We knew that for sure checking broken with broken isn't a good strategy and only causes further dismay in the metagame. You are failing to see the big picture here. Being hypocritical in one sense may prevent future issues in another. Steel is just a better type than ice purely because it has better offensive and defensive presence. It has a large pool of usable pokemon, unlike ice. Ice has very limited amounts of good pokemon, and they all share terrible weaknesses defensively. Almost none of them have amazing stats either, and the ones that do (kyu-w) are too threatening for the majority of the metagame. Ice is a terrible type and will continue to be because of the lack of a good pool of pokemon, movepool, and altogether terrible typing. (Ice's only resistance is Ice, while it is weak to the most common offensive types in the game)
So what do you propose is done about it? Should we ban everything that creates an issue for another type and end up eventually playing a tier that looks something like PU because all pokemon are so weak nothing gets accomplished because we decided to ban everything that was scary looking. Or should we start keeping all broken things and have a tier with mega-blaziken, mega-lucario, mega-kangaskhan, megagross, and other broken stuff, like kyu-w?
The obvious answer is no. We are trying to create a tier right now that is as close to perfect as possible. It never will be perfect. But in order to get close to this we need to make some hypocritical decisions. It's like being a judge for a court case. Maybe one criminal gets a fine and another gets the death penalty. It's hypocritical because everyone isn't being treated the same, but it is trying to account for each situation based on the extent of the issue. We can't make a game where everything is banned because then no one wins because some type will always have the advantage. We can't have a tier full of broken stuff or else it will start to look like some terrible ubers monotype/anything goes and everyone will just try to sweep with said broken pokemon. What is being done now is the most optimal solution if you ask me.
- Suspects: Ok, some of those def need to leave (MGross for one) but if we are trying to nerf the best type why haven't we looked at the possibility of banning M-CharX on flying? Not even talking about a sweeper set, we all know that thing is ridiculous. Is more about the key resistances it brings to an already super versatile type that relies on a much more varied poke typing pool to deal with threats, hence its dominance. You got Togekiss, Zappy, Lando/Gliscor, Skarm all possess great utility but MCharX not only has lots of resistances, it removes the flying type further assisting on cover key resistances. That's HUGE. To put it into perspective is like Ice having a Mega with >600 BST with a Ghost/Water typing instead. For sure it will give tons of flexibility on team building. So I'd propose to ban it from Flying type. It won't be a crippling ban (like it will still be top 3) but it would favor other types on their respective matchups against it.
Articuno I said almost everything in response to this, which basically amounted to, "Flying has answers for everything char x does regardless, so a ban wouldn't accomplish much."
I agree with this a lot because I know that gyarados can put in just as much work as mega char x in flying teams because it has good defensive typing to pair with flying's selection of bulky mons. Hitting char x wouldn't even really do much to flying, and they'd be just as borked as ever.
Here's my proposal to try and nerf flying, and feel free to disagree.
What if instead of trying to hit a specific pokemon on the team like bans usually try to do, we do something different.
I think we can all agree that flying's core is borked and no pokemon particularly stands out as the reason for it. They basically have something to switch in to everything not named greninja. I'm aware that complex bans are a no-no, for what reason I'm not sure (laziness ?_?), but just listen for a sec.
What if we ban not a specific pokemon on flying, but make a complex ban that doesn't allow flying to use a mega stone.
Whaaaaat?!? I know right. It sounds stupid in theory, but think about it a little more closely. Mega pokemon provide the final pieces of armor and offense to flying. Without mega pokemon they still have a really good core, but it isn't broken by any means. They'd lose a lot of ways to take ice beams (char x, bulky dos), and they'd also lose a ton of offensive presense (altaria, char x, char y, gyarados). It wouldn't kill the type though, because they have a ton of options. It would directly nerf the core because they would lose the ability to go on the offensive. You can have a great core all you want, but if it causes you to play too slowly, you're done for. We've already been dealing with flying for a long time and have found ways to get around them, but the mega pokemon always push the type over the edge because they allow them to shift from eating up every move to incredible set-up sweeping offense at a glance. If we ban megastones we cause them to lose formidable offense while indirectly hitting their core. Please consider this thoroughly and bring up any reasons why or why not you like this idea.
