np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 3 - Wandering Ghosts [Aegislash remains in Ubers]

[Martin]

Pokemon is a game bsaed on prediction-its full of situations where your predictions gonna be crucial for the game, and thats the same with king shield. You can't just ban a pokemon(or a move) for doing something that is part of the game. If you comeplain about such a thing saying its we have no control on it , lets ban first scald, ice beam and crits, at least in aegislash case the game truly is in our hands.

The difference between Aegislash and the vast majority of other occurrences of this is that Aegislash's are excessive and these ones do not occur on virtually every turn involving any other pokemon aside from Bisharp, who is far less problematic than Aegi. IMO, the 50:50s aren't the best argument for banning Aegi (and I am completely against keeping it and banning KS), but they need to be taken into consideration when deciding on Aegi - although they aren't the biggest thing that consideration is needed for.

 

[NotSoClutch]

The difference between Aegislash and the vast majority of other occurrences of this is that Aegislash's are excessive and these ones do not occur on virtually every turn involving any other pokemon aside from Bisharp, who is far less problematic than Aegi. IMO, the 50:50s aren't the best argument for banning Aegi (and I am completely against keeping it and banning KS), but they need to be taken into consideration when deciding on Aegi - although they aren't the biggest thing that consideration is needed for.

To add to this, Aegislash also has a similar 50/50 option to Bisharp on top of it's king's shield 50/50s as it is a great pursuit trapper. These "50/50s" are also generally favorable for Aegislash. Then on top of that, there's the whole "is it sub toxic?" mind games and numerous other what's that set shenanigans all adding to the slot machine that is Aegislash.

 

[Patolegend!]

I've just got my reqs, so I feel like I have a better idea of the situation now.

I still feel however, that Aegi is just too much - the sheer versatility, durability, and power it provides, while making ANY team/playstyle better is just slightly over the top for OU. I think threats like Lando and Keldeo have gotten even tougher to handle with the threat of the pursuit support there, while Aegi is such a handful on its own.

On the suspect ladder I saw more than 5 at least viable sets, ranging from LO and Balloon Crumbler to sub-toxic (which wrecked me) to autonomize, to AoA. The threat of pursuit and KS made latios and mega Lop liabilities at times against Aegi teams, as they tended to be more bulky, and Lop HATES KS.

As I mentioned in another post, I even lost a match to custap Destiny Bond - the sheer neutral coverage of Ghost+Steel/Fight means Aegi has so many options available for its slots, shooting off both offensive spectrums with high power, combined with priority and an excellent typing both offensively and defensively.

I have to be honest, I prefer the Aegi-less, more diverse metagame, and am not keen on Aegi coming back down to OU.

 

[Mango Smoothie]

Replace the word aegislash with heatran, excadrill, charizard x, diancie, metagross, and any other pokemon weak to EQ. Your result is the exact same, and thus you cannot call that a 50/50 forced by aegislash. Say this a scarf lando-T, should you lock into EQ or is gengar, lando-I, or DD gyarados going to come in and sweep, or should you knock off/stone edge/double switch to counter the switch in before it sets up? Same case scenario here.

The issue with that is that all of those pokemon can be revenged physically without a move called EQ, and even then they usually don't have the bulk to take repeated neutral hits. Aegislash does not explicitly "force a 50/50", but it pigeonholes a lot of pokemon into running Earthquake to be able to avoid a -2 Attack drop (also probably the one of Aegislash's 4 weaknesses that is usually seen physically), and is a pretty exploitable move. And even these pokemons Earthquakes need to be STAB and invested to do any more than ~50% on Aegislash. Choice locked pokemon are inherently risky pokemon to use for momentum, but vs Aegislash they almost become liabilities because mispredicting vs Aegislash entails much more consequence than mispredicting against something else, because as gamer boy put it

I guess, but the difference here is that this "wrong move" is usually enough to make the player lose all their momentum/lose a pokemon/cripple a pokemon beyond repair. With most in-game decisions, these things can be worked around and, as a result, are no longer 50:50s. However, with Aegislash, it is basically 'make the right choice or take a major hit that will severely hinder your chances of victory'. A coin flip is where the wrong choice results in the 'losing' side being set back, and that is what Aegislash does v.s. an insanely large number of pokemon in a way that is much more common/problematic than the ones caused by the other 50:50 forcer Bisharp.

If your "revenge killer" is not able to kill the target reliably, then you are doing something wrong with revenge killing.
I don't send out my Gengar to revenge kill Latios because a Shadow ball could kill it if I win the speed tie. If your physical attacker (without Earthquake) cannot kill Aegislash in its Shield-form then why the hell do you send it in?? The only situation in which you would do that is if you are cornered and have no other choice, but then you got outplayed anyways. If you want to revenge-kill Aegislash then send something in that actually threatens it without getting in such a stupid situation.
Your example could be used to ANY kind of prediction that you need to make in the game.
Landorus-T is facing a Heatran.
Do you Stealth Rock expecting a switch, risking to eat a Lava Plume and a potential burn? Or do you play safe and Earthquake? Or do you U-Turn out, giving him the chance to get Stealth Rocks up?

Note that no where in that post did I mention 50/50s (and made sure I didn't), I was showing the person who said that revenge killing Aegislash is a harder decision than he/she was making it appear to be. And, your "physical attacker (without Earthquake)" that can reliably kill Aegislash is Bisharp. That is the only physical pokemon who can afford to hit Aegislash with a contact move, which makes it one of the best Aegislash checks. WebBowser 's calcs at the very least show that Aegislash needs to be significantly weakened (~50-60%) for a non-STAB earthquake to have a shot at KO-ing it, and at that point Aegislash has probably dealt with what it needs to. I grant you that you could make that argument about any prediction in the game, but to reiterate the points made above, the risk of mispredicting a protect/lava plume against Heatran is usually (ignoring 30% burn chance) much lower than mispredicting KS/Shadow Ball against Aegislash (ie: a very high risk guess).

 

[thesecondbest]

I've just got my reqs, so I feel like I have a better idea of the situation now.

I still feel however, that Aegi is just too much - the sheer versatility, durability, and power it provides, while making ANY team/playstyle better is just slightly over the top for OU. I think threats like Lando and Keldeo have gotten even tougher to handle with the threat of the pursuit support there, while Aegi is such a handful on its own.

On the suspect ladder I saw more than 5 at least viable sets, ranging from LO and Balloon Crumbler to sub-toxic (which wrecked me) to autonomize, to AoA. The threat of pursuit and KS made latios and mega Lop liabilities at times against Aegi teams, as they tended to be more bulky, and Lop HATES KS.

As I mentioned in another post, I even lost a match to custap Destiny Bond - the sheer neutral coverage of Ghost+Steel/Fight means Aegi has so many options available for its slots, shooting off both offensive spectrums with high power, combined with priority and an excellent typing both offensively and defensively.

I have to be honest, I prefer the Aegi-less, more diverse metagame, and am not keen on Aegi coming back down to OU.

I agree with the first part of your post, but why I would vote no-ban is because of that last line. You say more diverse, but it's actually a metagame where there are too many threats, and according to Reymedy, you need a semi defensive core and as many unique threats as possible. It's not entirely matchup based, but it's pretty bad. Legalizing aegi/ will make some of these threats have their sweeps become more uncommon, meaning unless you're facing a bad player who uses now c- ranked mons, you have to worry about less things. Aegi/ is only that annoying with ks if that's the issue, but either way, it's just centralizing and 50-50 causing, not an auto win con because of how slow it is. It might not completely fix the metagame, but it's the best step. To people who say we need to ban mega meta, there is no reason for a retest on it since it was just unbanned, and the only change is a few hidden abilities. The best course of action is to free aegi/ and then ban landorus.

 

[AM]

I agree with the first part of your post, but why I would vote no-ban is because of that last line. You say more diverse, but it's actually a metagame where there are too many threats, and according to Reymedy, you need a semi defensive core and as many unique threats as possible. It's not entirely matchup based, but it's pretty bad. Legalizing aegi/ will make some of these threats have their sweeps become more uncommon, meaning unless you're facing a bad player who uses now c- ranked mons, you have to worry about less things. Aegi/ is only that annoying with ks if that's the issue, but either way, it's just centralizing and 50-50 causing, not an auto win con because of how slow it is. It might not completely fix the metagame, but it's the best step. To people who say we need to ban mega meta, there is no reason for a retest on it since it was just unbanned, and the only change is a few hidden abilities. The best course of action is to free aegi/ and then ban landorus.

Pretty sure Reymedy stated that he believes the best way to go about playing the current meta is with a defensive core + threats not that it's an actual necessity. Char-X, Volcarona, M-Altaria, Landorus, Thundurus, M-Lopunny.....all these sweeps you speak of won't be less common and on the contrary I would have to say you need to worry about more things considering the many variances of Aegislash and the fact that most of these things that it was suppose to deter are still strong if not better in the Aegi meta and this was seen a good amount during the live suspect tour with people utilizing Aegislash and playing a bunch of gambles as to what Aegislash set it was. I don't think anyone has been arguing about Aegislash being an autowin more so it is one of the most laziest ways of teambuilding ever because it's so effective at its roles and will accomplish it.

Also why is the term "bad player" even used on this thread lol. I'm almost certain we never have based our suspect tests on the notion that we are contending with bad players anyways when it's suppose to reflect against two players that aren't ass at the game and are of a higher quality anyways.

 

[Norne]

I've just got my reqs, so I feel like I have a better idea of the situation now.

I still feel however, that Aegi is just too much - the sheer versatility, durability, and power it provides, while making ANY team/playstyle better is just slightly over the top for OU. I think threats like Lando and Keldeo have gotten even tougher to handle with the threat of the pursuit support there, while Aegi is such a handful on its own.

On the suspect ladder I saw more than 5 at least viable sets, ranging from LO and Balloon Crumbler to sub-toxic (which wrecked me) to autonomize, to AoA. The threat of pursuit and KS made latios and mega Lop liabilities at times against Aegi teams, as they tended to be more bulky, and Lop HATES KS.

As I mentioned in another post, I even lost a match to custap Destiny Bond - the sheer neutral coverage of Ghost+Steel/Fight means Aegi has so many options available for its slots, shooting off both offensive spectrums with high power, combined with priority and an excellent typing both offensively and defensively.

I have to be honest, I prefer the Aegi-less, more diverse metagame, and am not keen on Aegi coming back down to OU.

Woah, custap destiny bond is a thing... Mother of God I haven't found that one yet XD, I haven't found automize either but I know it was a thing back on XY.

Welp now there is another set to considerate on the aegis equation.

 

[Minodrec]

IMHO, after playtesting this meta, I found games with Aegishlash really luck based and frustrating.
Here is an exemple :

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/oususpecttest-227773423

I was the lucky guy so this isn't nerd rage.

And I really don't get since when "matchup based" become a thing.
Every game including strategy is matchup based. If there were a team that can deal with every threats most people would play it (or directly against).
And I don't see how a tier in wich your main strategic choice is "play the cops or the bad guy" is more interesting to build than one with many different win condition to play with.
The only cost to a more diverse meta is to accept that everybody will have a lower win ratio due to bad matchup.

Sorry for my strange english... I'm french but I can't just lurk this tread.

 

[MZ]

By this logic literally every choice in the game is a coinflip.

The difference here is that in most situations you have a clear objective you're working for. I want rocks up, this is a free substitute, I have to switch out, I want to double to gothitelle predicting skarmory. Playing vs Aegislash, it's just a coinflip. Does he KS or not? I don't know and I can try to predict, but maybe he predicts me, so do I predict him to predict me? Snobalt said it well there's no skill here just a guessing game on what's gonna happen, and even though this is only for contact moves it happens with alarming frequency where a good match comes down to some dumb coinflip (in my ladder experience).

 

[XMegaBeedrillX]

Should you stay in and hi jump kick heatran or is it a protect set? Should you set up rocks with garchomp, switch out, or is keldeo going to get a free sub? Will it scald and potential burn my switch? Should you bring in latias to counter a zard y, or is it a zard X that sets up? Is the only answer to ferrothorn your lopunny, but you have the mindgame of going for return on the protect, or hi jump kick predicting the power whip, what move should you make? Stop acting like aegislash is the only offender of unfavorable situations that can cost games with the press of a misprediction. Even in aegislash's case, in the event of losing a "50/50" it's not necessarily an instant win condition for the aegislash user as it's prone to being revenge killed (pursuit trapped by bisharp, forcing bisharp to knock off another teammate, losing momentum) and at best only puts in a little bit of work. Like I said earlier, wobbuffet comes in, traps something, kills it with counter/magic coat before being KOd, and even after the job is done, can be a custap destiny bond set to take something else with it. I'm not seeing a unique made scenario with aegislash either.

 

[Canned Bread]

Should you stay in and hi jump kick heatran or is it a protect set? Should you set up rocks with garchomp, switch out, or is keldeo going to get a free sub? Will it scald and potential burn my switch? Should you bring in latias to counter a zard y, or is it a zard X that sets up? Stop acting like aegislash is the only offender of unfavorable situations that can cost games with the press of a misprediction. Even in aegislash's case, in the event of losing a "50/50" it's not necessarily a win condition for the aegislash user as it's prone to being revenge killed (pursuit trapped by bisharp, forcing bisharp to knock off another teammate, losing momentum) and at best only puts in a little bit of work. Like I said earlier, wobbuffet comes in, traps something, kills it with counter/magic coat before being KOd, and even after the job is done, can be a custap destiny bond set to take something else with it. I'm not seeing a unique made scenario with aegislash either.

I'm going to regret commenting in this thread since I have no intention to vote but whatever.
I think what people are getting at in the case of Aegi is that it's noticeable in that it effects a huge number of Pokemon you can use. I don't have to HJK Heatran - I don't even use a pokemon with HJK on most of my teams, I can still deal with Tran easily enough. You may have got your Chomp in a bad position, but considering there's enough other mon you can have vs Keldeo - and guarantee a decent matchup unless it's running some obscure move - that's another moot point. Latias vs Charizard is a good point on paper, but in practice I personally never found it hard to deduce which Zard my opponent's using based on their team: I've cocked that particular prediction up very infrequently since the start of XY, rather than approximately 50% of the time with Aegi, and I think that's the point being made. Aegislash reduces matches to what can simply be described in a nutshell as guesswork and if you guess wrong, it doesn't matter what mon you're using at the time and how effective an Aegi check/counter it is (unless, as you say, it's Bisharp, but I'm sure the guy you're playing against is clever enough to get round that one chink), you're in a bit of a pickle and good luck recovering from it.

Since I'm here I may as well share a couple of thoughts, on the off chance anyone cares at this stage of the process.

I haven't played many games on the new ladder but from my limited experience and what I'm reading the meta with Aegi is a little bit repetitive and stifles the potential of a decent number of mon. The tradeoff here is that there is less reliance on matchup. I think when you get down to it, the choice here boils down to whether you want a diverse meta or a meta where you can anticipate what you'll be up against to a greater degree and prepare accordingly and both have their pros and cons. But that's just my opinion.

 

[XMegaBeedrillX]

I'm going to regret commenting in this thread since I have no intention to vote but whatever.
I think what people are getting at in the case of Aegi is that it's noticeable in that it effects a huge number of Pokemon you can use. I don't have to HJK Heatran - I don't even use a pokemon with HJK on most of my teams, I can still deal with Tran easily enough. You may have got your Chomp in a bad position, but considering there's enough other mon you can have vs Keldeo - and guarantee a decent matchup unless it's running some obscure move - that's another moot point. Latias vs Charizard is a good point on paper, but in practice I personally never found it hard to deduce which Zard my opponent's using based on their team: I've cocked that particular prediction up very infrequently since the start of XY, rather than approximately 50% of the time with Aegi, and I think that's the point being made. Aegislash reduces matches to what can simply be described in a nutshell as guesswork and if you guess wrong, it doesn't matter what mon you're using at the time and how effective an Aegi check/counter it is (unless, as you say, it's Bisharp, but I'm sure the guy you're playing against is clever enough to get round that one chink), you're in a bit of a pickle and good luck recovering from it.

Since I'm here I may as well share a couple of thoughts, on the off chance anyone cares at this stage of the process.

I haven't played many games on the new ladder but from my limited experience and what I'm reading the meta with Aegi is a little bit repetitive and stifles the potential of a decent number of mon. The tradeoff here is that there is less reliance on matchup. I think when you get down to it, the choice here boils down to whether you want a diverse meta or a meta where you can anticipate what you'll be up against to a greater degree and prepare accordingly and both have their pros and cons. But that's just my opinion.

You don't have to HJK Heatran, you can EQ
You don't have to HJK aegi, you can EQ

Whatever you switch your potentially unreliable HJK user into for a better match up, it's going to get hit by a lava plume or something anyway. Saying you can identify which charizard it is by team preview is basicly the same thing as saying you know the aegislash set by looking at team preview. If you see a charizard or the like it's a safe assumption it's a pursuit aegi and you need to play your latias/latios carefully. Plus I've encountered really weird teams on the lower ladder and upper ladder where that assumption it's a zard Y due to few special attackers on the team, hazards removal, and synergy with other mons was completely false and when I did appropriately act on it, I couldn't successfully prevent a different unexpected outcome. If you fail at this prediction, it can be a major win condition and shred a team. The only time I was actually capable of identifying the zard as an X was when somebody brought a full physical team, which isn't exactly good team building.. Aegi doesn't shred a team or become an instant wincon due to winning a 50/50, although it may mess with a sweep like gyarados (who can EQ).

The comparison is still the same.

 

[Let's go shuckles]

Should you stay in and hi jump kick heatran or is it a protect set? Should you set up rocks with garchomp, switch out, or is keldeo going to get a free sub? Will it scald and potential burn my switch? Should you bring in latias to counter a zard y, or is it a zard X that sets up? Is the only answer to ferrothorn your lopunny, but you have the mindgame of going for return on the protect, or hi jump kick predicting the power whip, what move should you make? Stop acting like aegislash is the only offender of unfavorable situations that can cost games with the press of a misprediction. Even in aegislash's case, in the event of losing a "50/50" it's not necessarily an instant win condition for the aegislash user as it's prone to being revenge killed (pursuit trapped by bisharp, forcing bisharp to knock off another teammate, losing momentum) and at best only puts in a little bit of work. Like I said earlier, wobbuffet comes in, traps something, kills it with counter/magic coat before being KOd, and even after the job is done, can be a custap destiny bond set to take something else with it. I'm not seeing a unique made scenario with aegislash either.

You don't seem to understand the 50/50 argument. It's not that aegi is the only pokemon to force 50/50s, it's that it forces them excessively (although it's the weakest argument to keep this thing banned imo)

 

[XMegaBeedrillX]

You don't seem to understand the 50/50 argument. It's not that aegi is the only pokemon to force 50/50s, it's that it forces them excessively (although it's the weakest argument to keep this thing banned imo)

And how does double switching, zard x/y, pursuit, and sucker punch not force them excessively either? KS atleast only drops a stat in a given scenario, these 50:50s caused by aegislash only take effect against particular moves and pokemon. These 50/50s are win conditions, and much more devastating. You can't tell me that getting swept by a zard X due to a misprediction it's a Y isn't worse than getting an attack drop by king's shield when only a few moves actually are contact and the pokemon using them will be staying in to spam them.

 

[Canned Bread]

You don't have to HJK Heatran, you can EQ
You don't have to HJK aegi, you can EQ

Whatever you switch your potentially unreliable HJK user into for a better match up, it's going to get hit by a lava plume or something anyway. Saying you can identify which charizard it is by team preview is basicly the same thing as saying you know the aegislash set by looking at team preview. If you see a charizard or the like it's a safe assumption it's a pursuit aegi and you need to play your latias/latios carefully. Plus I've encountered really weird teams on the lower ladder and upper ladder where that assumption it's a zard Y due to few special attackers on the team, hazards removal, and synergy with other mons was completely false and when I did appropriately act on it, I couldn't successful prevent a different unexpected outcome.

The comparison is still the same.

As I'm sure you've guessed by this point, I disagree.
Who cares if my Keldeo, for example, gets hit by anything Heatran carries? I don't, it leaves him in a worse position than it leaves me.
No it isn't. It isn't at all. Aegislash has three or four sets that can be run on any team regardless of what other mon happen to be on that team. If there happens to be a Zard, great, but Aegi + Zard isn't a staple core and lets be honest, there aren't many with Aegi because it's so versatile. I've not had that problem with the obscure teams as I sit somewhere around the low-mid 1600s on the non-suspect ladder, so I'm not going to comment there because I'd be talking out of my proverbial posterior, but here's what it boils down to: Aegislash forces many more unfavourable situations than anything other than the borderline broken mon. You literally have to guess. All logic goes completely out of the window and you can't even try to apply any because you'll just end up confusing yourself. The only reason I posted in this thread is because you haven't really given us a solid answer to that very valid problem. If you can supply that then I'll leave you alone because, to be frank, I don't really care about where Aegi ends up, I just wanted to point that out.

 

[Martin]

And how does double switching, zard x/y, pursuit, and sucker punch not force them excessively either? KS atleast only drops a stat in a given scenario, these 50:50s caused by aegislash only take effect against particular moves and pokemon. These 50/50s are win conditions, and much more devastating. You can't tell me that getting swept by a zard X due to a misprediction it's a Y isn't worse than getting an attack drop by king's shield when only a few moves actually are contact and the pokemon using them will be staying in to spam them.

Yeah. You still don't get it.

The difference between Aegi and all of the other scenarios is this: it forces 50:50s vs. every non-EQ physical attacker not called Bisharp. The 50:50s argument isn't a good one, I admit, but really you are taking this completely the wrong way. HJK v.s. a pokemon that might carry protect is nothing like the ones that Aegi forces due to the fact that it forces them v.s. a far larger range of pokemon and with far more destructive consequences. Most of the examples that you put in your post are reliant on the pokemon being a wincon and are uncommon to the point of not being unhealthy. Aegislash, on the other hand, forces 50:50s that are far more crippling on a far more regular basis to the point of doing so excessively. I feel that I explained the difference between a 50:50 and a normal scenario well in a convo with Mango Smoothie that happens to be based around a similar scenario that was posted on Smogon's youtube channel. I'll quote the post below, and most of the time the second scenario is the kind of one forced by Aegislash.

Generally speaking, turns in a match aren't 50:50 scenarios. There are typically more than two outcomes. For example, you both sides have 5 'mons left, and you have a healthy bisharp on the field v.s. your opponent's healthy 4-attacks starmie. The best play here will be to use Sucker Punch as it means you are guaranteed to not lose your Bisharp. This is not a 50:50 as you are simply making the safest play you can as opposed to whichever player who makes the wrong move being severely set back by it.

Take a similar situation (1 HP Bisharp v.s. healthy 4-attacks Starmie), but this time make it a 2v2 situation (you have Bisharp and 1 HP Landorus-I, your opponent has Starmie and 4 attacks Zard X). In this situation, it is a 50:50 because whoever makes the correct play wins the match. Here are the possible scenarios here:

• Bisharp uses Sucker Punch and Starmie stays in. Starmie faints, you can sacrifice your Bisharp to the Charizard (dealing Sucker Punch damage as you go down) and Landorus wins the match.
• Bisharp uses Pursuit and Starmie switches. Starmie faints, you can sacrifice your Bisharp to the Charizard (dealing Sucker Punch damage as you go down) and Landorus wins the match.
• Bisharp uses Sucker Punch and Starmie switches. Zard X KOs Bisharp (as you can't switch in Lando for obvious reasons), Landorus kills Zard X, Starmie wins the game with the Rapid Spin KO on Landorus ('cause 100% accurate).
• Bisharp uses Pursuit and Starmie stays in. Bisharp faints to Rapid Spin ('cause 100% accurate), Starmie wins the match with the rapid spin KO on Landorus.

So there are two outcomes: Bisharp's team wins or Starmie's team wins. This is a 50:50.

Aegislash can be compared rather well to the second scenario.

If you ignore the 1 HP situation detailed above, the key difference between the Bisharp example and an Aegislash - which has good natural bulk, allowing it to actually recover from the wrong end of a 50:50 a lot of the time - is simply how little opportunity cost there is to using Aegislash as compared to Bisharp - who is frail to the point of almost every misprediction resulting in death.

 

[MZ]

Adding onto that ^, Bisharp vs Aegislash is a whole other 50/50 because it could be fast with sacred sword. Less common and you can still tell fairly quickly normally, but Bisharp isn't like some 100% free knock off on Aegislash/whatever switches in

 

[zbr]

And how does double switching, zard x/y, pursuit, and sucker punch not force them excessively either? KS atleast only drops a stat in a given scenario, these 50:50s caused by aegislash only take effect against particular moves and pokemon. These 50/50s are win conditions, and much more devastating. You can't tell me that getting swept by a zard X due to a misprediction it's a Y isn't worse than getting an attack drop by king's shield when only a few moves actually are contact and the pokemon using them will be staying in to spam them.

see. here is the problem. when you are up against a 5050 vs zard x or whatever sweeper that is about to shit on your team, that is probably because your team either a) lacked an immediate appropriate answer to it causing you to force the 5050 and try to forcefully make a counterplay or b) you misplayed and gave it set up opportunities. either the option, it isn't as "utility-esque" as aegislash is. the 5050s that aegislash are consistent and can be created at any point of time during the game whereas the scenarios you pointed out (keldeo sub scenario is usually accomapnied with scald to fish for burns in the mid game and cm in the late game, however because it lacks an optimal defense typing against common faster threat, the scenarios that are created with it are less devestating). it forces mons that would usually run a contact move to deal with otherwise even peskier threats to run non contact coverages such as eq and the likes. this itself will cause even greater harm to the meta because of increased level of centralisation resulting in lack of preperation for other threats. the attack drop is extremely significant considering it's a -2 and aegi itself is capable of sweeping due to it's access to an extremely good defensive typing (steel) as well as offensive typing (ghost) and good stats/boosting moves/movepool to work with.

tldr - aegi's 5050 is consistent and can be created at any point of time and it creates an unhealthy overcentralisation in the tier.

 

[Martin]

Adding onto that ^, Bisharp vs Aegislash is a whole other 50/50 because it could be fast with sacred sword. Less common and you can still tell fairly quickly normally, but Bisharp isn't like some 100% free knock off on Aegislash/whatever switches in

Bisharp will be running speed and is naturally faster, so it will always be outpacing Aegislash. Therefore, Bisharp v.s. Aegislash is not a 50:50 due to the Bisharp being at an advantage. It really comes down to whether the Bisharp uses Pursuit as opposed to Sucker/Knock Off and the Aegislash stays in, making it closer to a 40:60 than a 50:50.

 

[MZ]

Bisharp will be running speed and is naturally faster, so it will always be outpacing Aegislash. Therefore, Bisharp v.s. Aegislash is not a 50:50 due to the Bisharp being at an advantage. It really comes down to whether the Bisharp uses Pursuit as opposed to Sucker/Knock Off and the Aegislash stays in, making it closer to a 40:60 than a 50:50.

Actually max jolly/other speed boosting nature if mixed Aegislash outspeeds max adamant bisharp, and is run just to beat max adamant bisharp and sacred sword it.

 

[Jaguar360]

Adding onto that ^, Bisharp vs Aegislash is a whole other 50/50 because it could be fast with sacred sword. Less common and you can still tell fairly quickly normally, but Bisharp isn't like some 100% free knock off on Aegislash/whatever switches in

Jolly Bisharp will always outspeed Aegislash, so it shouldn't be a 50-50 at all. The only time Bisharp shouldn't get punished for using Knock Off on an Aegislash is if 252 HP Aegislash is at full health and uses Sacred Sword after the Knock Off, but Life Orb Jolly Bisharp still has a chance at OHKOing a full health 252 HP Aegislash.

Actually max jolly/other speed boosting nature if mixed Aegislash outspeeds max adamant bisharp, and is run just to beat max adamant bisharp and sacred sword it.

What? Jolly Bisharp was never just for Aegislash. It helps vs opposing Bisharps, Special Attacker Mega Alt, Adamant Dragonite and other stuff. Sorry if I misunderstood this part.

 

[Martin]

Actually max jolly/other speed boosting nature if mixed Aegislash outspeeds max adamant bisharp, and is run just to beat max adamant bisharp and sacred sword it.

Does it. Oh, in that case nvm. In that case it is only a 50:50 if the Bisharp is adamant. I tend to see more jolly ones, but it works.

What? Jolly Bisharp was never just for Aegislash. It helps vs opposing Bisharps, Special Attacker Mega Alt, Adamant Dragonite and other stuff. Sorry if I misunderstood this part.

You got it the wrong way around. He said that max jolly Aegi is used to beat max adamant bish: not that jolly bish was only used to beed max jolly aegi XD

 

[Alfalfa]

I think that the discussion of 50/50s is not all getting us to why we should ban Aegislash. Aegislash is still problematic even without King's Shield due to how consistently it can take out its defensive targets while still blanket checking the entire metagame. King's Shield is just icing on the cake that, despite making Aegislash even more difficult to deal with, is not the very heart of the actual problem.

 

[Imperator Romanum]

To be fair, in most sitations Aegi loses nothing from Kings shielding

 

[Alfalfa]

To be fair, in most sitations Aegi loses nothing from Kings shielding

To be honest, I have found that King's Shield Aegislash is easier to take advantage of in the current state of the metagame than it was in XY. There is a higher opportunity cost behind using King's Shield because the metagame is better prepared towards playing against it than it was in XY. While it is still annoying, saying that Aegislash loses nothing from using King's Shield is not an accurate representation of how the metagame is responding to Aegislash.