Metagame np: Stage 7 - Problem

[shiloh]

I am going to start off by saying that Gallade is not broken, and really should not be banned. While yes, it might have "so many moves to choose from", only a few of them are really viable (Close Combat, Knock Off, Zen Headbutt, Swords Dance, Bulk Up, Drain Punch). I am first going to focus on the Swords Dance set, which people claim is the most broken and the reason it is so good. While yes, the Swords Dance set can break apart slower teams when it gets to switch in, but just being able to break apart slow teams does not make something broken. If you want an example of this, look at Magmortar, which has the coverage to break apart any defensive team, due to the lack of switch ins. With Fire Blast, Thunderbolt, HP Grass, Focus Blast, Earthquake, Psychic, and Mach Punch (fuck Sneasel), Magmortar overwhelms teams once it is able to get in off a slow pivot or once a mon faints. Does that fact that Magmortar is tough to handle for slow and bulky mean that it is broken? No. Similarly Gallade isn't broken because there are "no counters on Stall or Balance".
The choiced sets are also not a good reason on why Gallade should be banned, as these are 100% outclassed by mons like Sawk. While yes, having a Psychic STAB is nice, it really doesn't help it out due to the fact it brings a Dark Neutrality instead of a resistance (which is a big thing with Sneasel being so broken). In a situation where Gallade locks itself into said Psychic STAB, it is easily pursuit trapped by Sneasel (252 Atk Choice Band Sneasel Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gallade: 225-265 (81.2 - 95.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO), which either kills you after a bit of chip damage or brings you down to the point where you can no longer switch it in. Gallade overall has one decent set that is not outclassed, and that is Bulk Up, which in theory people say work's well, but in practice it really isn't as great as it is made out to be. A set with Drain Punch / Bulk Up / Knock Off / Sub or Safeguard might seem like an amazing set that can really break apart both bulky and offensive teams, but in reality it has a tough time setting up, and even after it has set up only being able to rely on Drain Punch for recovery does not make the set broken enough to ban.

TLDR: Gallade is outclassed in pretty much everything it tries to do, and it's one "decent" set really isn't ban worthy.

 

[Deej Dy]

I am going to start off by saying that Gallade is not broken, and really should not be banned. While yes, it might have "so many moves to choose from", only a few of them are really viable (Close Combat, Knock Off, Zen Headbutt, Swords Dance, Bulk Up, Drain Punch). I am first going to focus on the Swords Dance set, which people claim is the most broken and the reason it is so good. While yes, the Swords Dance set can break apart slower teams when it gets to switch in, but just being able to break apart slow teams does not make something broken. If you want an example of this, look at Magmortar, which has the coverage to break apart any defensive team, due to the lack of switch ins. With Fire Blast, Thunderbolt, HP Grass, Focus Blast, Earthquake, Psychic, and Mach Punch (fuck Sneasel), Magmortar overwhelms teams once it is able to get in off a slow pivot or once a mon faints. Does that fact that Magmortar is tough to handle for slow and bulky mean that it is broken? No. Similarly Gallade isn't broken because there are "no counters on Stall or Balance".
The choiced sets are also not a good reason on why Gallade should be banned, as these are 100% outclassed by mons like Sawk. While yes, having a Psychic STAB is nice, it really doesn't help it out due to the fact it brings a Dark Neutrality instead of a resistance (which is a big thing with Sneasel being so broken). In a situation where Gallade locks itself into said Psychic STAB, it is easily pursuit trapped by Sneasel (252 Atk Choice Band Sneasel Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gallade: 225-265 (81.2 - 95.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO), which either kills you after a bit of chip damage or brings you down to the point where you can no longer switch it in. Gallade overall has one decent set that is not outclassed, and that is Bulk Up, which in theory people say work's well, but in practice it really isn't as great as it is made out to be. A set with Drain Punch / Bulk Up / Knock Off / Sub or Safeguard might seem like an amazing set that can really break apart both bulky and offensive teams, but in reality it has a tough time setting up, and even after it has set up only being able to rely on Drain Punch for recovery does not make the set broken enough to ban.

TLDR: Gallade is outclassed in pretty much everything it tries to do, and it's one "decent" set really isn't ban worthy.

"While yes, the Swords Dance set can break apart slower teams when it gets to switch in, but just being able to break apart slow teams does not make something broken"

And Sneasel shouldn't be banned because slower and fatter teams have no problem with it?

At least take a look from other playstyles' perspective. Gallade is broken as hell. I saw the same "Its too slow and its easy to revenge!" argument for Pangoro (similar SD/crazy coverage/high attack appeal) in February.

Well look where it is now.

Edit: It is worth noting Magmortar is not very comparable to Gallade. Magmortar can't boost its special attack (It can belly drum if you're into that), it's weak to Stealth rock, and has less diversity in sets (Basically all AV/Life orb at this point). Also Gallade doesn't have to rely on a wimpy 60BP HP power for coverage.

 

[Ares]

You are seriously underestimating Gallade here. It is infact not outclassed by Sawk in a banded role as it actually has some pretty important moves over Sawk. Those namely being Trick, Destiny Bond, Shadow Sneak, Memento, and Will-O-Wisp. These moves really help set Gallade apart from Sawk (although I really haven't seen anyone utilize them on a banded set) and really the last slot is filler so any of these moves can be infinitely more useful than a 4th slot that you almost never click. The reason these moves are more important is because it can actually fulfill multiple roles outside of being a banded wallbreaker. "Oh I'll switch Musharna in on that Sawk, its my pivot and Sawk can't break it" Same can't be said for Gallade as you can easily trick Musharna a band at some point crippling a key member of the opposing team. Destiny Bond is a similar thing where you can open up a hole if you're useless otherwise. Memento can be used to setup a member of your team at key points in the match and Will-O-Wisp is similar to Rotom where it can catch physical attackers off guard and cripple them, same goes for Toxic but Sawk also has this.

Now lets look at the speed tier. Is it really that important? No its actually not as important as many ppl are making it out to be. There are 2 things inbetween Sawk and Gallade:

269 / Sawk, Articuno, Pinsir / 85 / Neutral / 252 / 0
267 / Fletchinder / 84 / Neutral / 252 / 0
265 / Magmortar / 83 / Neutral / 252 / 0

So really you're just letting yourself get outsped by these couple of things which isn't a huge deal. Or at least not a breaking point in comparison.

You are also underestimating how good a Psychic STAB is, it does a ton more on various other Pokemon compared to Sawk's Zen Headbutt. The fact of the matter is that you just don't click a Psychic move if they still have a Dark-type Pokemon on the other team, the same applies to Sawk. But in all other scenarios this damage is quite noticable.


Now onto the scarf set, Gallade actually outclasses Sawk because of all of those utility moves. Sawk loses its power (its most desirable thing) by equipping Scarf. Which if the team has a good pivot like Musharna to switch into its attacking moves renders Sawk almost useless (aside from forcing things out). Gallade can actually do things against defensive teams with a scarf set.

I'm not going to even comment on your saying SD is outclassed cause just ;;;;

 

[shiloh]

You are seriously underestimating Gallade here. It is infact not outclassed by Sawk in a banded role as it actually has some pretty important moves over Sawk. Those namely being Trick, Destiny Bond, Shadow Sneak, Memento, and Will-O-Wisp. These moves really help set Gallade apart from Sawk (although I really haven't seen anyone utilize them on a banded set) and really the last slot is filler so any of these moves can be infinitely more useful than a 4th slot that you almost never click. The reason these moves are more important is because it can actually fulfill multiple roles outside of being a banded wallbreaker. "Oh I'll switch Musharna in on that Sawk, its my pivot and Sawk can't break it" Same can't be said for Gallade as you can easily trick Musharna a band at some point crippling a key member of the opposing team. Destiny Bond is a similar thing where you can open up a hole if you're useless otherwise. Memento can be used to setup a member of your team at key points in the match and Will-O-Wisp is similar to Rotom where it can catch physical attackers off guard and cripple them, same goes for Toxic but Sawk also has this.

Now lets look at the speed tier. Is it really that important? No its actually not as important as many ppl are making it out to be. There are 2 things inbetween Sawk and Gallade:

So really you're just letting yourself get outsped by these couple of things which isn't a huge deal. Or at least not a breaking point in comparison.

You are also underestimating how good a Psychic STAB is, it does a ton more on various other Pokemon compared to Sawk's Zen Headbutt. The fact of the matter is that you just don't click a Psychic move if they still have a Dark-type Pokemon on the other team, the same applies to Sawk. But in all other scenarios this damage is quite noticable.


Now onto the scarf set, Gallade actually outclasses Sawk because of all of those utility moves. Sawk loses its power (its most desirable thing) by equipping Scarf. Which if the team has a good pivot like Musharna to switch into its attacking moves renders Sawk almost useless (aside from forcing things out). Gallade can actually do things against defensive teams with a scarf set.

I'm not going to even comment on your saying SD is outclassed cause just ;;;;

I in no way said SD was outclassed, I was just referring to the Choice Sets. The SD set just isn't that great, and really does not make Gallade banworthy. (I'll edit more in later when I get more time)

 

[jeronipuff]

Okay, so it's been a few days since I got reqs but now voting is coming up soon I really thought I should voice my opinion.

Sneasel:
This mon was one of the main reasons I quit PU back when it first came out. Its amazing speed matched with its decent attack made it a viable threat from day one. When it moved up to NU people didn't realize at first how powerful it actually is. The dark ice typing lets it hit just about everything, but if you're scared that that won't hit enough fighting coverage is viable option. As you may have seen in the many previous post of others Sneasel has the ability to one or two hit KO nearly everything in the tier. Its downfalls on the otherhand are few but noticable. Being especially frail (even with eviolite), being in a tier where fighting spam is viable, and it's weakness to rocks hold it back from being 100% broken.

Gallade:
So, before this test started I really wasn't playing any NU from when Gallade originally dropped. My first thought was that it was going to be broken af just because I was so used to it being an RU mon. This view quickly changed for me. Gallade's wall breaking capabilities with its massive attack stat and massive move pool are excellent. It's ability to not only run offensive moves but also utility moves such as willow puts it in a very unique position, which is good imo. Although its has very noticable advantages its downfalls hold it back even more than Sneasel's in my opinion. Having only base 80 speed really just flat out sucks because a majority of its offensive checks outspeed and its extremely low defense makes it die to many physical hits super easily.

Together:
Now, Sneasel and Gallade together is a different story. Gallade's fighting psychic typing offensively pairs excently with Sneasel's dark ice typing by checking each others checks and counters. Another funny thing is that Sneasel is a major stop to Gallade and vice vera depending on their sets. The only one thing that is a major problem for both of them is mega audino which can get set up on them and potentially sweep.

How I'm most likey voting:
As for now, I know I will be voting no ban for Gallade but am still unsure about Sneasel but leaning more towards ban.

Sneasel also is having a negative effect on PU because people are realizing that pokemon such as poliwrath and carrocosta are completely viable in NU. In my opinion this is a good thing but I know some others who think the opposite.

 

[Ares]

Okay, so it's been a few days since I got reqs but now voting is coming up soon I really thought I should voice my opinion.

Sneasel:
This mon was one of the main reasons I quit PU back when it first came out. Its amazing speed matched with it's decent attack made it a viable threat from day one. When it moved up to NU people didn't realize at first how powerful it actually is. The dark ice typing lets it hit just about everything, but if you're scared that that won't hit enough fighting coverage is viable option. It's downfalls of being especially frail (even with eviolite), being in a tier where fighting spam is viable, and it's weakness to rocks hold it back from being 100% broken. Sneasel also is having a negative effect on PU because people are realizing that pokemon such as poliwrath and carrocosta are completely viable in NU. In my opinion this is a good thing but I know some others who think the opposite.

Please don't base your opinion on whether or not to ban Sneasel on how it affects PU. Base it solely on how it operates in NU as that is the only thing that matters when voting in NU.

 

[Raseri]

The suspect test ends in 12 hours, make sure you finish your reqs in time!

 

[jeronipuff]

Please don't base your opinion on whether or not to ban Sneasel on how it affects PU. Base it solely on how it operates in NU as that is the only thing that matters when voting in NU.

Yeah I understand it was just a little thing I realized when writing it up.

 

[Teddeh]

Finally got reqs so gonna post some thoughts

sneasel isn't borked. The pursuit mind game argument is terrible since it's a liability clicking pursuit on sneasel and it leaves it as setup bait for every sweeper in the tier. I admit i saw a shit tonne of colbur berry psychics, but it was like that before sneasel was even relevant and i think that's the way the meta has adapted in order to deal with fighting types with dark / fighting coverage, not solely sneasel. I don't think sneasel limits team building but I do however agree with most people who say it is the best pokemon in the tier because it adds a lot in the ways of team support with pursuit, priority and acts as an excellent revenge killer. However it needs the pokemon that it comes in on to either be weakened a lot, weak to dark / ice or low enough so that you are assured you kill with pursuit. Either way, I don't see sneasel as a problem for this tier and I think it's more so the partners it is paired with that act as the thing that is making this tier stale. Sneasel + gallade is all too common and they're made for each other, however I feel that it is definitely not sneasel that acts as the main culprit as without gallade, there are very little pokemon in the tier that can pair well and i think it will help aid team building. Overall it's a no ban. No brainer for me.

Gallade is aids. Poison types are the main answers to fighting types, but having a fighting type with stab that kills them is just too much. In order for you to be able to have "multi-roles" on your team, people are forced to use pokemon such as granbull, colbur psychics and fairy types in order to check gallade + sneasel. Usually posion types did the job, however they are most definitely not the main go-to poke as far as fighting checks go. People will say sneasel is the reason why team building is stale, i say gallade is. Gallade has limited team building so much with this centralization that leads everyone to use psychic types to check it and end up getting frustrated by sneasel pursuit trapping schenanigans which overall leads people to believe that sneasel is the main culprit. Since gallade is extremely powerful, versatile and the ability of dual stabs + resistances to fighting, it overshadows sawk by a long way in my opinion. The base speed argument isn't big, it has sufficient bulk on the special side to allow a lot of opportunities for setup and in general, it's the most successful wallbeaker NU has ever seen. I am certain by banning gallade will improve the tier and will help ease team building whilst also allowing peoples minds to be eased by the fact that they can run poison types again and will have less of a need to run psychic types as their fighting check.

Overall gallade is pretty aids and by taking it away, it will certainly improve our tier whilst sneasel i believe is just an extremely good pokemon with a lot to add to teams. There is no reason not to use either since they are extremely good and successful wallbreakers but in general, i feel that without gallade, it would allow the doors to open for a wider range of checks for the tier to use for sneasel and would help make a more enjoyable meta whilst still having a pokemon that outspeeds the dreaded base 110 speed, so we don't have a clusterfuck of speed ties, another reason why i want sneasel to stay as it improves the meta in that dimension.

tl;dr; still no ban on sneasel, ban gallade

 

[Transmuter]

Seems I joined the party late. I'll post my thoughts anyway since I just finished getting reqs.

Sneasel:
I feel like Sneasel is too much for the current NU tier; it has amazing Speed and Attack stats, making it outspeed and hit hard most of the tier. Its ability to mindlessly spam Knock Off is scary, since even if a counter switches in, you remove their item (unless it's a Mega Audino). Besides Knock Off, Sneasel also has Pursuit which is really useful, trapping a weakened opposing pokemon and killing it on the switch. It also has Icicle Crash which is a powerful stab move with a 30% chance of flinching, and Ice Shard as a priority stab move in case you need to outspeed anything. Only drawbacks to Sneasel is that it's really frail, has bad defensive typing and is weak to Stealth Rock. But these things don't matter when it can put in so much work, outspeeding and destroying most of the tier. I do realise that there are a few counters to it, like Mawile, Mega Audino and Granbull but Sneasel isn't completely useless against them (being able to remove their item on the switch-in is always nice, and then you switch to something that can handle said counter). So yea, I'll be voting to BAN Sneasel.

Gallade:
Gallade has amazing Attack stat, strong dual stab moves, a great movepool and variety of sets to choose from. The thing holding Gallade back is its mediocre speed, but even then, it's not too bad. It just means it's revenge killed easily. It has great coverage, with Psychic stab beating any Poison that tries to come in on a CC, or Knock Off hitting hard any Ghost or Psychic type. It has little to no answers and almost nothing can switch in on it safely. Not to mention that it has great set-up moves that it doesn't really need, but if given the chance to set up an SD, the game is pretty much over. Besides the popular SD set, Gallade also has some other viable sets to choose from which make it somewhat unpredictable above all else. So yea, I'll be voting BAN on Gallade as well.

 

[shooting star]

I would like to just point out that while Sneasel is indeed scary, people should not be using the point that Sneasel can mindlessly spam Knock Off as the main argument to justify its ban, because that point is flawed.

As the metagame becomes more prepared for Sneasel, the Sneasel user has to be more careful now. Colbur psychics and ghosts with defense investment are able to take a Knock Off before proceeding to bop it with a Thunder Wave/Will-O-Wisp, or even revenge-kill it back, which doesn't benefit the Sneasel user at all since he just lost one of his best offensive pokemon just like that. The only benefit from this is to remove leftovers from its counters (eg: quagsire, mawile, poliwrath, etc), but unfortunately the momentum is in your opponent's favour now, since Sneasel is now pretty much forced to switch out. Then what about Mega Audino? A true counter who does not get affected by Knock Off much. And mindlessly bringing in Sneasel to get some random damage with Knock Off is just dumb due to its fraility and Stealth Rock weakness, and no good player will do that.

It is only by bringing in Sneasel at the right time, that is, bringing in on a pokemon weak to Sneasel does it make Sneasel truly scary because only then does it maximise Sneasel's effectiveness in dishing out huge damage and ensuring a kill or perhaps one less held item for the opponent. But even then, rather than clicking Knock Off happily, the Sneasel user still has to play smart and predict how the opponent is going to react to Sneasel in order to win the game.

 

[Aladyyn]

Obviously you haven't played with Sneasel much, mindlessly going for Knock Off is pretty much all it does unless you need some clutch flinches or on seriously obvious switches. Also only Mawile is a Sneasel counter that can actually take momentum away from the sneasel user, as has been said many times before. Also you can see the Colbur from a mile away and it's not exactly hard to play around lol.

Also can we just stop posting and just vote as each of us sees fit? I'm really tired of these posts that try to justify bans / not bans because they seriously don't bring anything and are mostly dumb and we've read it all before.

Shame there wasn't any attempt to build a bridge to connect the "rift" between fat and fast team aficionados, we're just shouting at each other when there were good players from both sides trying to present their ideas on how those mons feel broken to them. Unfortunately I'm still not convinced about Gallade and feel it's going to be very manageable with Sneasel gone.

 

[Disjunction]

As the metagame becomes more prepared for Sneasel, the Sneasel user has to be more careful now. Colbur psychics and ghosts with defense investment are able to take a Knock Off before proceeding to bop it with a Thunder Wave/Will-O-Wisp, or even revenge-kill it back, which doesn't benefit the Sneasel user at all since he just lost one of his best offensive pokemon just like that. The only benefit from this is to remove leftovers from its counters (eg: quagsire, mawile, poliwrath, etc), but unfortunately the momentum is in your opponent's favour now. Then what about Mega Audino? A true counter who does not get affected by Knock Off much. And mindlessly bringing in Sneasel to get some random damage with Knock Off is just dumb due to its fraility and Stealth Rock weakness, and no good player will do that.

A Sneasel user will not stay in against something that can potentially live a hit and cripple it. That's a terrible option. Sneasel CAN spam its ridiculous 100 BP + STAB attack that removes items because rarely anything will like losing its item and taking an attack that strong. Colbur Psychics/Ghosts have 1 safe switch into Sneasel at best and then they're at a disadvantage for the rest of the game. Hell, most of them can't even take two on a switch in. Removing an item against something like Mawile, Poliwrath, and Pawniard is huge because you're either removing their form of recovery or crippling the item they depend on to back up their bulk. Mawile and Regirock can only take so many Knock Offs before they're done in by the switching and hazards. Avalugg/Poliwrath/Mega Audino/Quagsire are the only checks that have reliable recovery and can switch into Sneasel "safely." No good player will just "bring in Sneasel" for free damage because you bring it in with the momentum you grab from the numerous mons that can grab it for you in this meta.

Typically, the opportunity cost of NOT going for Knock Off is much higher than going for Knock Off just because of the effect is has on most of Sneasel's switch ins. All of this, of course, is on top of how hard it is to revenge Sneasel on offense because of its amazing speed tier and strength.

 

[shooting star]

All I am mainly trying to say is that it is not wise to merely just clicking Knock Off all the time, but I do acknowledge that when good players click Knock Off there is a good reason behind it. Removing leftovers from its defensive counters is perfectly justifiable, and I did say that is a benefit from spamming Knock Off mindlessly. The only minor opportunity cost is a loss in momentum, especially so if your opponent has a defensive Mawile which can pivot with Baton Pass, but no way did I say that the benefits of not losing momentum outweigh the benefits of removing its leftovers. Aladyyn I was talking about a situation of Sneasel vs Colbur psychic/ghost, not a situation of switching in your Colbur mon to take a Knock Off from Sneasel. That is just silly. Disjunction

Also, I have got reqs and did faced many Sneasels in battles lol. I know I'm not a great veteran at NU, and the number of my forum posts is considered very little. I'm just responding to a point that seems to be commonly made here, and do apologise if it sounds dumb to some people, though I hope that is not the case.

 

[qsns]

i had an absolutely miserable time laddering and i think a good amount of people did too. the wombo combo of sneasel and gallade is a disgusting duo that manhandles both of the prevalent teamstyles without needing support. sneasel is an absolute terror against offense. with a bit of hazard support, sneasel is able to outspeed and ohko many mons on offense and is able to clean with ease. if you can get it out early game, its knock offs wear down its checks and gets rid of their recovery. the mon is a terrifying cleaner and an even more terrifying wallbreaker. i'd ban it just because the meta becomes so stale and terribly boring to play. every game becomes "i can switch ___ times into sneasel/sack ___ mons to sneasel before i lose" if you're offense and sneasel's battle against stall is aided with the utility of an incredibly strong pursuit coupled with a crippling knock off.

however, i'm not really all that convinced that gallade will be broken without it's offensive partner in sneasel. checks will be harder to wear down and sneasel won't be able to provide effective pursuit support for the psychics and ghosts that need to be weakened or eliminated. of course, both its offensive sd and more defensive bulk up sets are incredible, but only with certain things neutralized. i'm leaning towards keeping this one unbanned as i don't think it would be broken without its partner in crime and would rather see the metagame settle without sneasel if a retest is needed.

 

[Raseri]

Voting thread is up

 

[Rapture]

Oh boy this was quite the fun and diverse suspect meta to ladder in aha. On a more serious note, after getting reqs and dwelling on what my vote will be for these two, i've decided that both Gallade and Sneasel should be banned.


Sneasel: This savage has managed to make quite the impact on the tier once most the things that kept it in check either got banned or fell out of usage. That’s not to say it doesn't still have things that counter it in nu, but most either are too susceptible to hazards to keep continually switching into Sneasel or lose a lot of their staying power by losing an item because of knock off. Overall Sneasel’s influence on the tier is not a positive one even with a potential retesting of Combusken so that’s why i'm for banning Sneasel.


Gallade: As far as this guy goes, I couldn't really care less if the thing stays or leaves. I’ve already mentioned how I think Gallade affects the tier so I’m not gonna bother going over that again plus i think everyone has already said everything there is to be said imo. I’m going with ban for now but that could change or something idk I can't tell the future.

 

[Muk]

My quick 2 cents:

I was using a Poliwrath (thx Water Drone), so I didn't personally have much trouble with Sneasel, but between Knock Off, Pursuit, and 115 speed it's simply too fast/strong for this tier, especially considering the abundance of Pokemon weak to its STABs

Gallade was a bigger problem for me personally, though I was also using one myself and I don't think it's a bigger problem in the tier than Sneasel. Still, it has so many different sets/(utility) moves and the stats (other than maybe its okay speed) to use them all really well, which makes it a tad too difficult to check/counter

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

I'm a bit late but it took me a while to gather my thoughts so I could feel like i'm not just rehashing points.

As several users have pointed out, pretty much everybody comes to this suspect with an immediate bias towards/against one of the suspects, in that they feel that one is easily manageable while the other is broken as shit, which basically comes down to the playstyle they use. As someone who generally prefers defensive builds I was not immune to this bias, as I felt that sneasel was not hard to deal with while gallade needed to go. So before you vote at least try to overlook this bias you probably have.

As I mentioned I have found that sneasel is not that hard to deal with defensively speaking. I've found that pretty much any good sneasel check can usually outlast sneasel even when you factor in knock off. mawile takes pretty much 0 damage, has sr, and steals all the momentum away from the sneasel user, regi/costa provide sr and can beat xatu, mega audino/quaggy have reliable recovery etc. What's bothering about sneasel, however, is how easy it is to slap on a team; 99% of teams are better with sneasel. it provides a powerful wallbreaker with great stabs, a good revenge killer thanks to ice shard, and incredible offensive utility in pursuit. seriously pursuit is so good, sneasel can eliminate so many problematic offensive threats for balanced teams it's not even funny. Plus even if you have switchins pursuit will allow sneasel to pick off things like haunter/cryo/missy/frail offensive mons on predicted switches. There is literally zero opportunity cost to running sneasel, and this characteristic makes sneasel unhealthy for the tier imo.

Gallade has always scared me because of how hard it is to check defensively. a lot of the the best fighting checks in the tier suck at checking it honestly thanks to its psychic typing, like xatu only "wins" against it if it carries colbur + twave. even really bulky things like musharna or gourgeist are vulnerable to trick + choice item. I have no idea why people think sawk is better than gallade, if i'm going to be running sawk cb is the only set i'd ever consider running on it since other sets are worse than gallade imo. gallade can really fuck over defensive teams since sd allows it to actually change moves, which sawk can't. if you want to run like fist plate you're losing a lot of power (missing the 2HKO on megadino for instance), and life orb means sturdy is useless. mold breaker doesn't really distinguish itself from gallade since psychic stab allows it to break things like mold breaker eq would. bulk up is much better on gallade because it has much better sp def bulk to make use of.
and if you want scarf, then psychic stab actually matters on gallade.
252+ Atk Sawk Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vileplume: 150-178 (42.3 - 50.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
gallade gets the clean 2HKO btw thanks to stab. not to mention that it has an open 4th move so it can run like memento/dbond.

I can understand why people think gallade isn't hard to manage because its sets that pillage defensive builds tend to suck comparatively against offense since it's not hard to revenge kill. However I think sneasel masks gallade in a funny way. when combined with sneasel, gallade doesn't actually have to worry about its matchup against offense. What makes the sneasel + gallade core so devastating is that not only do they match up well against each others checks, but they match up well against the playstyles that beat the other. this is why p much all gallades run sd-- so it can focus on breaking defensive cores which trouble sneasel while sneasel picks off the faster things that can revenge gallade. bulk up gallade is a lot better as a stand alone because it doesn't suck against offense, but sd doesn't care because it has the ultimate partner in crime. so even if gallade stays while sneasel leaves, it can still run stuff like bulk up/scarf to have a better matchup against offense while still boning defensive cores, just to a lesser degree than sd.

Regardless of your opinions however, this suspect is difficult because the two suspects are noticeably better when paired up with each other. I think even if only one of these get banned the tier will be in a much better place; however imo these threats are still too good on their own and thus the tier is best off getting rid of both.

 

[thesecondbest]

can we quick release combusken after this? I don't think sd combusken is a serious threat, it was banned just bc of bp

 

[Evan.]

PSA

Any decision regarding Combusken will be made by the council after the results of the test have been revealed as to not affect the decision of the voters in the current test. :]

 

[tehy]

PSA

Any decision regarding Combusken will be made by the council after the results of the test have been revealed as to not affect the decision of the voters in the current test. :]

Guys i think it's clear that we should not ban a certain suspect in light of the fact that Combusken is about to be dropped...

I mean does anyone think gallade will still be a threat with the hard counter Combusken in the tier ? i think not...

real talk though, combusken isn't necessarily that good or even a great check to sneasel; full phys.D does OK but then i'd rather use a phys.D poliwrath, and offensive can't necessarily tank a knock + icicle so it switches in once and loses its precious eviolite. So regardless of the council decision, it's probably irrelevant

 

[Raseri]

Sneasel and Gallade have been banned from NU. link

Discuss the postban meta here

tagging The Immortal


Sneasel has been banned from NU due to its amazing STABs, incredible Speed tier, and excellent power. It is able to cripple nearly all of its checks with Knock Off, removing passive recovery from nearly every Pokemon in the tier. It is also nearly impossible to check offensively because of its STAB priority and amazing Speed.

Gallade is banned because it is very difficult to switch into. Strong STAB Fighting + Psychic moves, as well as nearly endless amount of coverage moves and utility moves make Gallade a monster for defensive teams as traditional Fighting counters either get demolished by STAB coverage, steamrolled by a Swords Dance-boosted attack, or possibly even hit with a move such as Trick, Memento, Will-O-Wisp, or Destiny Bond.

 

[Disjunction]

Duosion @ Eviolite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Recover
- Signal Beam

less Dark spam means Duosion is way more viable :)
Cooler than some Psychic-types rn because of its absurd SpA. Other Knock Off weak mons that are free are stuff like Cleafairy that I wanna try. Liepard is also relevant again as Offense's premiere Dark-type, alongside Pawniard maybe :0

All in all hyped to see the new meta! Hopefully it frees itself from being a little stale with the same old Xatu/Lanturn/Mawile momentum spam cores running around.

 

[CanadianWifier]

Duosion @ Eviolite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Recover
- Signal Beam

less Dark spam means Duosion is way more viable :)
Cooler than some Psychic-types rn because of its absurd SpA. Other Knock Off weak mons that are free are stuff like Cleafairy that I wanna try. Liepard is also relevant again as Offense's premiere Dark-type, alongside Pawniard maybe :0

All in all hyped to see the new meta! Hopefully it frees itself from being a little stale with the same old Xatu/Lanturn/Mawile momentum spam cores running around.

ok, or ya know Musharna because it can Run CM Barrier with an actual item instead of Colbur and not have to worry about a Dark type being on every team. Every team.