Metagame np: Stage 7 - Problem

[Steakburgers]

I just got pretty much blasted by a sneasel+gallade team, and above losing more points or whatever, It was super annoying. Both of these mons are making this meta extremely unfun, and I never felt so limited in my teambuilding until now
Also, saying if you're not sure whether or not you want to be ban something, shouldn't you abstain rather than voting to ban? Deciding to choose no ban just because you're unsure shouldn't be a thing, because it just skews votes
If you're unsure, abstain or don't vote at all
I thought a suspect should be for those who have their mind set on something, and sure they might hear different arguments/opinons, but saying vote do not ban, when you're not sure isn't something I agree with
Anyway, at this moment and time I would not even trip if both went, Gallade has what, 1 counter? Granbull's cool and all, but I don't think it'll be as used as it is right now. Also if there are other counters, list them, I was only listing one I keep seeing people post in chat
Sneasel is a goddamn'd monster, and as much mons i'd like to say beat the thing, theres another bunch who don't. The thing that kinda is making me kinda meh on making sneas go is the fact that its so weak to hazards, and the list of mons that can beat it. But on the other hand, looking at the future meta, were losing alot of bulky mons that actually are able to take a hit from sneas, and I dunno where sneasel is leaving or not, but i'd like to not see a meta with it being nigh unstoppable

 

[shooting star]

After getting reqs I would like to share my thoughts on both suspects. Most points and arguments have already been brought up so I'll try not to rehash them again.

Sneasel is the best offensive mon right now and gives offensive teams a huge nightmare. With a standard Choice Band and Dark STAB, Sneasel is able to hit hard and generally a guarantee of knocking off one item when it switches in safely. This ensures that most its checks and counters (except MegaDino) no longer have any sort of reliable recovery, which could then be worn down gradually. And because Sneasel has some counters it can also be used as a lure for counters to switch in, but not before unleashing a well-timed banded STAB pursuit to heavily cripple the pokemon switching out. Yes, Sneasel has an exploitable weakness to Stealth Rock and is rather frail, but no good player will be rash by sending in Sneasel blindly everytime to try and get some damage while getting easily worn down in the process. In addition, Sneasel centralises the meta alot such that now basically almost all psychics and ghosts run Colbur Berry and I daresay many people are becoming very, if not too prepared for Sneasel. In the hands of a good player, whenever a Sneasel enters the battlefield, either an item or a pokemon is lost. And also, strong Ice STAB. BAN

Gallade. I'm still feeling bitter about the server error causing it to come to NU and created this whole suspect mess but w/e. Some say that Gallade is basically a overall better Sawk, and I'm inclined to agree. Amazing mon, blessed with high Attack and SpDef stats, making Bulk Up sets perfectly viable and possibly broken, and also has the ability to force switches. Its ability Justified can be niche in eating up the omnipresent Sneasel's Dark-type attacks before proceeding to wreck with a +1 Atk stat. Psychic-typing can be bad defensively but good offensively since Poison-type mons cannot switch in safely anymore. There is a very wide movepool for Gallade to choose from. Select an uncommon move to suit your needs and he could be your wincon. Most people seem to run Choiced, LO and BU sets, but its support moves such as Will-O-Wisp should not go unnoticed either. Here is a set example I came across in ladder and lost to.

Gallade @ Leftovers
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Drain Punch
- Bulk Up
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp

Expecting a standard move? Eat up a Will-O-Wisp and watch the pokemon being worn down gradually and the opponent panicking and making weird plays before proceeding to Bulk Up and sweep. You are just basically in a position when you have to sack a mon or two to weaken Gallade before you revenge kill it, before realising with a sinking heart that your checks to the remaining pokemon in Gallade's team are gone. Gallade is far too versatile and powerful for NU to handle. BAN

P.S Shoutout to Aladyyn for the RMT! It helped me got reqs :)

 

[scorpdestroyer]

I just got pretty much blasted by a sneasel+gallade team, and above losing more points or whatever, It was super annoying. Both of these mons are making this meta extremely unfun, and I never felt so limited in my teambuilding until now
Also, saying if you're not sure whether or not you want to be ban something, shouldn't you abstain rather than voting to ban? Deciding to choose no ban just because you're unsure shouldn't be a thing, because it just skews votes
If you're unsure, abstain or don't vote at all
I thought a suspect should be for those who have their mind set on something, and sure they might hear different arguments/opinons, but saying vote do not ban, when you're not sure isn't something I agree with
Anyway, at this moment and time I would not even trip if both went, Gallade has what, 1 counter? Granbull's cool and all, but I don't think it'll be as used as it is right now. Also if there are other counters, list them, I was only listing one I keep seeing people post in chat
Sneasel is a goddamn'd monster, and as much mons i'd like to say beat the thing, theres another bunch who don't. The thing that kinda is making me kinda meh on making sneas go is the fact that its so weak to hazards, and the list of mons that can beat it. But on the other hand, looking at the future meta, were losing alot of bulky mons that actually are able to take a hit from sneas, and I dunno where sneasel is leaving or not, but i'd like to not see a meta with it being nigh unstoppable

As far as I know, abstain should be for cases when you don't have enough knowledge to make a decision (for example, if you haven't faced Sneasel or used it enough to know if it's broken). The convention is that if you're unsure, then that means the suspect isn't broken enough to influence you to change the status quo, so the default is do not ban.

Also I don't really understand the part about bulky stuff leaving. If you think the bulky stuff that are currently enough to make Sneasel not broken, then vote for do not ban. If the bulky stuff leave in the future, we can always suspect it again.

---

Regarding Gallade, its psychic typing isn't all that bad for it. With the added resistances and good special bulk I always find that Gallade gets more opportunities to fire off powerful hits, especially when its "bulk" isn't reliant on Sturdy like Sawk is. You get more opportunities on stuff like Lanturn and even the likes of Gurdurr and choice locked Sawk to hit stuff. The Psychic typing also means that defensive Psychic-types can't check it as well as they can Sawk: Xatu does like 30% with Psychic and has to rely on TWave, for example, while Sawk straight up dies to Psychic. Same thing applies to bulky poisons, and yes while Sawk has ZHB as well, it's not as powerful as Gallade's. The STAB makes a huge difference as Gallade can do something like 15-20% extra damage compared to Sawk, both making the move easier to spam against neutral targets and in turn means that it's not as safe to switch in bulky poisons. Not to mention that Gallade doesn't even get punished by helmets if it uses Psycho Cut, and also for the fact that not as many Gallades are choice locked.

I know some people may disagree, but I do feel that these added advantages push Gallade over the top as they invalidate the top fighting checks in the tier that would do fine vs Sawk.

 

[Magikarpite Plz]

This was what i thought too, but after I kept laddering(and someone pointed it out too), I noticed that the problem with Sneasel is that with the it how easily it can cripple and wear down its counters with stuff by the likes of knock off. Just my opinion, let me know if you disagree.

The thing about Sneasel (In my opinion) base 95 isnt amazing but the thing that makes sneasel so deadly is its offensive typing. Ice is a great offensive typing and with the buff to dark types and knock off being such a good move being able to remove leftovers on the walls that try to stop it (Just for Pokemon like Quagsire) it really is a good pokemon. In my opinion tho it isnt impossible to stop or break down I never had trouble finding a way to break it down. That may just be because of the team i was running but i still havent really seen a huge reason to get rid of it. I do not disagree with you that sneasel can be be hard to beat with such amazing offensive typing but it (In my opinion) it does have its stops and its notable weaknesses. Im still a no ban on the sneasel. Plz let me know what you think

 

[Aladyyn]

The argument "Skuntank will be as broken as Sneasel" is ridiculous. Skuntank has meager (in comparison) 84 speed, no Knock Off and therefore has to rely on Sucker Punch as its MAIN STAB MOVE if it wants to run Defog or Taunt and not give up secondary STAB. Skuntank is a utility Pokemon, not a blazingly fast offensive powerhouse. If you want to compare it to something in NU, compare it to Liepard, not Sneasel.

 

[flowre]

Can someone make like a summary of the ideas posted here? I was the first nerd who got reqs but I forgot this existed. I want to express a super reasoned idea of the topic like I always do :^)
If not, my thoughts are: do not ban things just for being fast and moderately powerful like Sneasel. And Gallade is overrated.

 

[Aladyyn]

Maybe if you actually tried to build teams and maybe even tried out the pokemon in question, people would take your opinion seriously :^).

If you want to see a general idea about those mons, read marilli's, raseri's, Punchschroom's and hollywood's posts in this thread. Don't bother reading anything else, maybe 1 or 2 posts at random but then it's just more of the same.

 

[QueenOfLuvdiscs]

i feel like people are using their team / playstyle experience too much when deciding on what their vote will be, which is generally the case. I was using spike stack balance, like I usually do, when obtaining reqs because it catered to dealing with both in a somewhat decent fashion, as both are spike weak, so that I could really get a full picture on these 2. It seems that people who used generic fat balance had no trouble with Sneasel because they had 1 or 2 checks on their team, which what makes Gallade appear more of a threat and the same can be said for the opposite; people who ran more offensive orientated teams, usually containing at least 3 things that outsped alongside a Xatu found Gallade to be not a problem as it couldn't get a chance to set up, but Sneasel could revenge kill a lot of their team because of its amazing speed tier and dual STAB coverage. The problem with these mons is that they hurt the other ends of the spectrum of playstyle, so Sneasel threatens offense where Gallade threatens Stall/ Fat Balance. Each one hinders these styles and makes them forced to make riskier plays to not loses their checks to these mons, putting great advantage of the user of these mons.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people have already made up their mind about what they're voting, but hopefully this can help a few undecided voters.

Sneasel isn't broken because I can use pokemon that boost 3 or more of its stats at once

 

[flowre]

Maybe if you actually tried to build teams and maybe even tried out the pokemon in question, people would take your opinion seriously :^).

If you want to see a general idea about those mons, read marilli's, raseri's, Punchschroom's and hollywood's posts in this thread. Don't bother reading anything else, maybe 1 or 2 posts at random but then it's just more of the same.

I actually used a hyper offense team on another alt with both pokemon and it was garbage. I only had easy wins against other hyper offense teams but I had troubles with teams with a minimum of preparation. And now is when you say "it's your fault for being bad", but I think I remember winning against you (no hyperoffense).

i feel like people are using their team / playstyle experience too much when deciding on what their vote will be, which is generally the case. I was using spike stack balance, like I usually do, when obtaining reqs because it catered to dealing with both in a somewhat decent fashion, as both are spike weak, so that I could really get a full picture on these 2. It seems that people who used generic fat balance had no trouble with Sneasel because they had 1 or 2 checks on their team, which what makes Gallade appear more of a threat and the same can be said for the opposite; people who ran more offensive orientated teams, usually containing at least 3 things that outsped alongside a Xatu found Gallade to be not a problem as it couldn't get a chance to set up, but Sneasel could revenge kill a lot of their team because of its amazing speed tier and dual STAB coverage. The problem with these mons is that they hurt the other ends of the spectrum of playstyle, so Sneasel threatens offense where Gallade threatens Stall/ Fat Balance. Each one hinders these styles and makes them forced to make riskier plays to not loses their checks to these mons, putting great advantage of the user of these mons.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people have already made up their mind about what they're voting, but hopefully this can help a few undecided voters.

Sneasel isn't broken because I can use pokemon that boost 3 or more of its stats at once

I agree.

 

[Evan.]

For people that are still trying to wrap their heads around the arguments for each mon, I think the sneasel argument can be divided into 3 pretty basic points.

1. Sneasel rips apart offensive builds due to its high speed, its great Dual-STAB coverage, alongside its highly spammable STAB moves, priority and Pursuit.

2. Pretty much every defensive Sneasel answer gets crippled by knock off, and by crippled I mean that it either loses its only form of recovery (leftovers) or loses substantial bulk (eviolite) which allows Sneasel to wear down and break said counters fairly effectively over time.

3. Pursuit allows Sneasel to still be able to get kills on weakened or frail mons even if your opponent has a counter such as regirock or MAudino.

I dont feel like going in-depth on these b/c everyone else has at nausea, if you want to read more go back and read some posts in this thread.

While doing one or two of these things may not make a pokemon broken, the fact that Sneasel does all 3 with incredible effectiveness leads me to want this thing banned from NU.

 

[Evan.]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...tegies-baton-pass.3537569/page-7#post-6310940

For those of you that can't see the thread, due to OU's new baton pass clause, SmashPass is officially banned.

 

[MZ]

give PU gorebyss then pls edit also combusken :D

So this isn't a waste of a post, I've been following this and seeing how a fair amount of anti-ban posts have just been "it has defensive stops it's not ban worthy" and this seems dumb because these don't even take into account bans for being over centralizing or anything. Just because I have a granbull to stop sneasel doesnt mean I want to run one on every team. Can people who say no ban because you can run costa/regi/whatever comment on how it actually affects the tier? I realize this doesnt apply to every anti-ban post but it seems like a fair amount just go like that.

 

[Pokedots]

The Baton Pass ban also means we can probably free Combusken, and we might end up getting cool toys like Smeargle and Venomoth (fuck Mothim). Hype

 

[Talpr0ne]

Freeing Combusken is actually interesting because it can somewhat 1vs1 sneasel.

 

[Khaytra]

Another aspect of the BP update: NinjaskPass is basically dead now too. One more annoyance off the ladder! (Band was always more fun anyway.)

 

[Blapperl]

So this isn't a waste of a post, I've been following this and seeing how a fair amount of anti-ban posts have just been "it has defensive stops it's not ban worthy" and this seems dumb because these don't even take into account bans for being over centralizing or anything. Just because I have a granbull to stop sneasel doesnt mean I want to run one on every team. Can people who say no ban because you can run costa/regi/whatever comment on how it actually affects the tier? I realize this doesnt apply to every anti-ban post but it seems like a fair amount just go like that.

Well listing answers to a possibly banworthy pokemon is one of the strongest arguments to be brought up in favor of a no-ban. While there are checks and counters to every pokemon, a certain mon can still be broken by how overcentralizing it is, forcing you to run the same mons over and over again. In my opinion, to decide wether a mon is overcentralizing or not, looking at the amount of viable checks to a threat is a decent approach. What no-ban posts tried to achieve was to make clear that there is a wide variety to sneasel checks, a lot more than NU had for say typhlosion. Saying "I dont want to run a check on every team" is a legit argument when the pool of mons to chose from is very limited, but it does become less meaningful when there's actually a dozen of mons to chose from, of which there are many, at least for balance/stall/bulky offense.

 

[JMB626]

The only real complaint I had with the ladder was how consistent 6ish pokes were appearing. Sneasel and gallade being 2 of them, and since it is their suspect ladder, I wasn't exactly surprised. Besides the staleness kind of boring me, I also found myself running sets I knew would do ok against some of these common threats. My mismagius ran substitute because I was afraid of sneasel switching in, or revenging a kill I may have obtained. I wouldn't say that is centralization more than I knew he would be on the ladder, and that I wanted a way to deal with him. It also doesn't help when the tier is spouting how overpowered a threat is when teambuilding (true or not), it is really hard to stop yourself from thinking of ways to stop it after hearing all these horror stories. Another, somewhat related note, is that if you look up replays for the best, and highest gxe players for NU (non suspect ladder), a lot of them don't even showcase gallade or sneasel. Anyhoo, those are just a few of my thoughts that have been buzzing in my head for a day or so.

EDIT: Not 100% true, superpascal runs gallade and has a huge gxe!

 

[DrReuniclus]

After acquiring reqs, I have to say that both sneasel and gallade are both VERY fearsome threats in the metagame that deserve this suspect.

Sneasel: Haha! This mon is so much fun to use and such a pain in the butt to face. This thing is able to hit so much with its dual stabs of ice and dark, destroying offensive teams with ease. I mean, with its base 115 speed, it'll basically outspeed anything that isn't scarf and with either a lo or (more preferably for me) a band, it'll be able to sweep through MANY offensively based teams unless they are running basically a specific mon just to take on sneasel. It also makes teambuilding really kinda boring if you look at it. Most people on balance are running a lot of mega audino for this as, otherwise, all other defensive mons really don't like having a major form of recovery in leftovers lost. Also, just based on the sheer amount of mons that are running colbur berry basically just because sneasel is in the tier should show you how much of a problem this mon is. I also want to say that this mon usually forces A LOT of switches, which allows hazard stack to work fairly well with it to help it destroy more balanced teams as usually not many things can come in on it more than once, or a well placed double switch could have a certain sneasel check taking around 25% between a layer of rocks and a layer of spikes damage while still keeping momentum in the match. Overall, I do have to say that mostly this mon seems to restrict teambuilding too much and seeing the same few mons only being viable in the meta is really broing, so I will be voting BAN on sneasel.

Gallade: I really feel like I didn't see as much of this on the ladder as I wanted to and I regret that I didn't use him more myself, but from what I did see this mon seemed like a huge threat. Overall, it seemed to be a huge threat when facing bulkier more balanced teams, and the bulk up set seems really powerful vs them, but this thing doesn't do too much vs offense unless running a scarf or something and even then, it'll be outsped by most other scarfers. However, there is no reason to underestimate this mon as it breaks walls AMAZINGLY well with the large type coverage it has as it can beat take on mons like weezing and garbador which mostly wall some of the other fighting types in the tier. I can't say much on this mon as I feel like I don't have enough experience with it and for that reason I am going to ABSTAIN on the matter, as I feel like many players on this thread know more about the metagame than me and will be able to make the correct choice on the matter with gallade. After all, I really don't want to screw up a meta that many players enjoy due to my lack of knowledge on a current mon.

 

[Funbot28]

With the recent revision of the BP clause, Combusken should not be banned due to the fact that it cannot pass it's Swords Dance boosts with it's Speed Boost's. The introduction of this poke can determine the banning of Sneasel, as one more answer is being introduces to it, but unfortunately Gallade's time in NU is finally coming to an end.

 

[kay]

Weather or not we decide to retest Combusken should not have any impact on Sneasel suspect. When something gets suspect tested we test how it is in the meta it's in, not how it will be in the future. An example would be in the mega Camerupt/ Typhlosion suspect where people were saying Typlosion wouldn't be ban worthy if Mega Camerupt left. When we suspect something we suspect it in the current game state, not the game state of a hypothetical future.

Now with that being said I'm wholeheartedly open to a Combusken retest. I think it will be fine in NU without the ability to Bulk Up/SD + Speed Boost to things like Xatu.

 

[Talpr0ne]

It depends whether the tier leaders want to release Combusken right now or at a later date. If it is released during the suspect test, then its presence should definitely be taken into account, but it shouldn't if it is released after.

 

[kay]

I don't see Cumbusken being that great of an answer to Sneasel. It's very Eviolite reliant for its bulk, so it loses a lot by switching into Knock Offs.
Fire/ Fighting isn't even new to NU seeing as we have Pignite who boasts better bulk and Thick Fat to take Icicle Crashes much better. Overall I don't see Combusken changing much of anything in this suspect test

 

[QueenOfLuvdiscs]

Would also like to point out than even at +1, Sneasel outspeeds it still even with a +Spe Nature, but it can definitely threaten it out, but regardless, it's not gonna get re-introduced until after this suspect so the possibility of this should not affect whether Sneasel should be banned or not, as we don't know when it will be re suspected.

 

[Shuckleking87]

Alright so I got reqs. cool

I think its pretty difficult for me to decide for this test. I think a good reason for this is based on the team I used to get the requirement. I had an offense team with a shell smash carracosta. Offense handles gallade with usually not a problem (iirc, i dont think a gallade had more than 1 kill and take half off another poke in any of my ladder battles), while carracosta can at the least dent holes in teams that have a choiced locked sneasel. I prepared for both threats and I could handle them both without many problems. So I guess based off my experiences, I should say neither should be banned lol.

I know it isnt as simple as that, I should be aware of the trends these pokes bring, if these pokes make a playstyle unusable etc. But I think for a lot of people laddering, opinions are based on what you see, which makes sense. I guess it would make sense if people tried different styles while laddering to truly see if a certain poke is more threatening to a style. Like based on what Im seeing, most likely both pokes will be banned, with sneasel getting more of the votes. This makes sense because more people are going to use offensive teams than balanced or stallish teams because that gets through the ladder faster. As a result, there are a lot more complaints about sneasel, even if there are more counters to it than gallade. And yes I know sneasel knock off still hurts defensive teams by losing recovery but any knock off user does so meh.

That being said Im not going to ban gallade, as I really dont see any of its sets significantly more threatening than sawk besides sub bulk up, which has reliable stops on defensive teams. I have not decided yet on sneasel (maybe because its one of my babies as ive been using it since early-mid xy nu), as I see it as a top offensive threat that can really wear down teams, but also can be exploited.

Just ban knock off. And alomomola from bw2 nu.

 

[El Coqui]

how I see the community's view on sneasel: "It has Knock Off"

how I see the community's view on gallade: "so many moves to choose from!"

I will not theorymon but I feel one change to Sneasel (or the Meta) would "fix" not really the tier