np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Ghost of Perdition

[haunter]

Agreed. And that is what I am afraid of and we shouldn't do. Banning a Pokemon because you would like a metagame without it, isn't good. I would like to see some Pokemon gone too but they are of course far from broken.

Lastly, I still think this will become true. Many people don't care if Aegislash is actually broken or not. If they like the new meta enough they will vote for ban.

The real problem is that we never found an agreement on what can be considered 'broken' in Pokémon. While nobody in their right mind would argue that stuff like Mega-Kangaskhan or Mega-Lucario were healthy for the metagame, borderline cases like Aegislash make it extremely difficult for us to make a decision on its tiering and justify it. Aegislash is not blatantly overpowered as someone is claiming, though it's definitely a metagame-defining force.

And no, MaryLa, I was not referring to you ahah.

 

[Jukain]

Alright so I want to discuss the ability of stallbreaking Megas in this meta (no Aegi)

In the past stall could not cover everything and it can't now. You pick and chose what you're weak to, to assure that you have the best chance in the vast majority of matchups by accounting for metagame-relevant threats. stall teams can run Gliscor/Lando-T/Clefable for Mega Heracross, Slowbro/Mew/Cresselia for Mega Medicham, and Mega Gard is a tough one but can ultimately be dealt with because it doesn't really have that many switch-in opportunities/can be worn down, and there are options to check/counter it for sure. Most modern stall teams don't run Aegislash for these threats, and 2/3 beat Aegislash anyways, but that's not the point -- the point is that Aegislash limits the presence of these threats. Since stall can prepare to beat these threats, even though they are an issue, I don't think it's a problem when you consider that these Pokemon are basically dedicated stallbreakers. This meta is also perhaps not so representative of the long run. These Pokemon still have their other issue, a poorer matchup vs offensive teams than Mega Gyara/Charizard X/even Mawile. For this reason those Megas will continue to thrive, but a few of the stallbreaking Megas might get the spotlight which can be dealt with by stall and add diversity to the metagame. If we absolutely HAVE to make more bans, then so be it, but this is being blown way way out of proportion. I am biased towards stall/bulkier builds, and I still feel that stall is good in this meta. In fact the increased prominence of these threats and loss of Aegi to account for actually gives me more room to account for specialized breakers like these because I don't have this versatile annoying as fuck threat to deal with too.

I'm assuming the team papai noel is talking about is this one: Mega Venusaur / Gliscor / Chansey / Slowbro / Skarmory / Quagsire. This is the perfect example of picking and choosing what you're weak to, and the ability to wear down/get around certain stallbreakers. Gliscor for Mega Hera and Slowbro for Mega Medicham. Gliscor can deal large damage to Mega Gard with EQ and hit it with Toxic post-Mega. Mega Venusaur can survive a Psyshock well enough and hit it with Sludge Bomb. Slowbro can Toxic it. Quagsire can Toxic/EQ it. Chansey can wear at it with SToss and status. Obviously these are not 1v1 scenarios with Taunt Gard but Gard has to get in somehow. This is also all a stretch, and a well-played Mega Gard is running it over, but it's not like the team doesn't have a chance.

A stall team that's been used in WCOP is Charizard X / Alomomola / Clefable / Skarmory / Amoonguss / Gliscor. This team eats up Mega Hera with Glisc and Clefable. It's weak to Mega Gard and Megacham. It can bait certain moves and play around Megacham to some extent, like it has to Ice Punch Gliscor, Zen Headbutt Clefable, and HJK Skarmory, plus Alomomola has Scald Toxic and Protect to play around it, and Zard X can burn it. Mega Gard is really difficult with this build, even more so than the last one, but again, you can't cover everything.

So stall pick and chooses what it's weak to, as I've said. The only thing I can say is difficult to prepare for adequately is Mega Gard, though even that depends on set, because if it's anything but Taunt you can do the job with Chansey no problems. Stall can wear away at Taunt Gard with attacks, and there's a thing called Mega Scizor that beats it, so it's not impossible.

The point I'm making with this post is not that these stall teams are realistically beating all of these stallbreakers that any calls that banning Aegislash 'makes stall impossible' because these stallbreaking Megas will become more common is untrue, due to two reasons: it's reasonable to assume that these Pokemon will gain viability, but not become THAT much more common, and stall has options to cover them such as to minimize its weaknesses. And if we HAVE to make more bans, we can, but I doubt it will be necessary.

Also instead of engaging in petty discussion argue Aldaron's points, or the anti-ban side is not providing their end and arguing useless details.

 

[Baharoth]

The real problem is that we never found an agreement on what can be considered 'broken' in Pokémon. While nobody in their right mind would argue that stuff like Mega-Kangaskhan or Mega-Lucario were healthy for the metagame, borderline cases like Aegislash make it extremely difficult for us to make a decision on its tiering and justify it. Aegislash is not blatantly overpowered as someone is claiming, though it's definitely a metagame-defining force.

And no, MaryLa, I was not referring to you ahah.

How about "in dubio pro reo"? If something isnt clearly broken dont make suspects on it where it might get banned just because some people want it to be gone for reasons that are more related to personal preferences regarding the meta than to brokeness. "I like the meta without Aegi more than the one with him" shouldnt be a reason to ban something but it will be the mayor reason why people will vote against him. What makes it even worse is that 2 weeks is far to short to realy tell how the new meta will look like and some of these people might realise later that the new meta is not as fun as they thought but then its to late.

 

[LeoLancaster]

*note that in the 56 battles i had before getting the reqs, i faced, let's say, ~20 Medichams, ~8 Heracross, ~5 Hawluchas, ~3 Alakazams, all these pokemons being quite powerful and, impossible/really hard to take on/play around if you're playing offense without Aegislash.

tl;dr
-Aegi balances the metagame perfectly.

So every team should be forced to run Aegislash to deal with them?

Can you think of any one Pokemon which impacts the meta as much as Aegi? Talonflame is the only one who comes close, and RKing a bunch of 'mons has no where near the same level of impact as walling, since you have to sac a 'mon to safely RK something. Heracross, Medicham, etc would still be hindered by Tflame, but no where near to the extent they are hindered by Aegi.

Aegi isn't ban worthy because of brokenness. Aegi is ban worthy because it is unhealthy for one 'mon to have such an excessive impact on the meta.

Edit: I wholehaertedly disagree with Baharoth on this. I'd rather go UU's route and ban everything potentially broken and retest them. There's a greater possibility of losing Pokemon which are okay in the long run, but we arrive at an ideal meta much quicker.

 

[SansNickel]

How about "in dubio pro reo"? If something isnt clearly broken dont make suspects on it where it might get banned just because some people want it to be gone for reasons that are more related to personal preferences regarding the meta than to brokeness. "I like the meta without Aegi more than the one with him" shouldnt be a reason to ban something but it will be the mayor reason why people will vote against him. What makes it even worse is that 2 weeks is far to short to realy tell how the new meta will look like and some of these people might realise later that the new meta is not as fun as they thought but then its to late.

There is going to be personal bias in any suspect vote regardless. Reqs are put in place so that at least the people who are voting are knowledgeable and skilled at the game, but in the end if everyone finds the metagame more enjoyable without Aegislash, and hence vote to ban it, isn't that good anyway? The point of a suspect test is to make the metagame more fun and competitive by removing things people find unenjoyable, whether it be because it is overpowered, broken, too centralizing, or because it presents an unfair risk/reward scenario (like genesect did).

I mean I don't agree that people should vote to ban/not ban simply due to personal preference, but in the end there are good reasons behind why they want aegi to go or stay.

Edit: Also, I don't believe Aegislash should stay because it "balances the meta," or prevents other threats from running about. If other threats become overpowering because Aegislash is gone then that's that, but this suspect test is about whether Aegislash is uber, and I don't think the "checks powerful threats" argument is a good anti-ban argument, if anything it's a pro-ban argument.

 

[Baharoth]

There is going to be personal bias in any suspect vote regardless. Reqs are put in place so that at least the people who are voting are knowledgeable and skilled at the game, but in the end if everyone finds the metagame more enjoyable without Aegislash, and hence vote to ban it, isn't that good anyway? The point of a suspect test is to make the metagame more fun and competitive by removing things people find unenjoyable, whether it be because it is overpowered, broken, too centralizing, or because it presents an unfair risk/reward scenario (like genesect did).

I mean I don't agree that people should vote to ban/not ban simply due to personal preference, but in the end there are good reasons behind why they want aegi to go or stay.

Thats exactly why a suspect test should only be made if there is a good reason for it, to avoid personal bias. And to be frank, in a case like that the reqs are pretty useless because its just a question of "like" or "dislike", you dont have to be knowlegable or skilled for that. From my understanding until lately bans occure to keep the meta in balance and remove things that the meta cant handle well like Kanga and stuff. I wasnt aware that personal bias was a major thing here even if the majority of a minority of people shares that bias. Looks like i was wrong about that though.

 

[WebBowser]

Synchronation I appreciate the detailed response to my post, and it certainly shows that I am not the most experienced with aegis. I have one question left though. In my post, I made the argument that for a given "50/50" caused by aegislash, if the opponent is a physical mon, the "50/50" will almost certainly be heavily weighted in aegis' favor, in that the reward for aegis predicting correctly is usually much higher then the reward to his opponent for predicting correctly. Do you believe this to be true? If not, why, if yes, do you believe that this is a bad thing?

 

[SansNickel]

Thats exactly why a suspect test should only be made if there is a good reason for it, to avoid personal bias. And to be frank, in a case like that the reqs are pretty useless because its just a question of "like" or "dislike", you dont have to be knowlegable or skilled for that. From my understanding until lately bans occure to keep the meta in balance and remove things that the meta cant handle well like Kanga and stuff. I wasnt aware that personal bias was a major thing here even if the majority of a minority of people shares that bias. Looks like i was wrong about that though.

Well the OU Council thinks there's a good reason for a suspect test, not me. The point is you have to have at least a certain level of skill to obtain reqs. Personal bias shouldn't be a thing, I'm just saying it's going to happen regardless.

From a certain point of view, perhaps Aegislash does keep the meta in balance. However, if people think that Aegi is broken, just because it balances the meta doesn't make it not broken.

 

[haunter]

How about "in dubio pro reo"? If something isnt clearly broken dont make suspects on it where it might get banned just because some people want it to be gone for reasons that are more related to personal preferences regarding the meta than to brokeness. "I like the meta without Aegi more than the one with him" shouldnt be a reason to ban something but it will be the mayor reason why people will vote against him. What makes it even worse is that 2 weeks is far to short to realy tell how the new meta will look like and some of these people might realise later that the new meta is not as fun as they thought but then its to late.

The principle you mentioned, which is crystallized in many juridical systems, is the reason why, when in doubt, you should vote to not ban the suspect. It doesn't mean that we can't or should not test controversial Pokémon like Aegislash, though.

As I said, it's extremely hard to tell what is 'broken' and what isn't beforehand, without having concrete experience of how the metagame adapts to the absence of a given Pokémon. Also, the fact that certain Pokémon are more broken than others doesn't mean that we should let the 'less-broken' ones roam free and possibly give us a sub-optimal metagame. Two weeks have been, historically, more than enough to tell if the metagame is better or worse without a given suspect.

Complaining about our tiering system won't really accomplish anything and our tiering policies are not the topic of this thread. Again, if you feel adamant about Aegislash's OU status, get the voting requirements and vote it OU. For the last time, it's the playerbase who's gonna have the final say on Aegislash's fate.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

Thats exactly why a suspect test should only be made if there is a good reason for it, to avoid personal bias. And to be frank, in a case like that the reqs are pretty useless because its just a question of "like" or "dislike", you dont have to be knowlegable or skilled for that. From my understanding until lately bans occure to keep the meta in balance and remove things that the meta cant handle well like Kanga and stuff. I wasnt aware that personal bias was a major thing here even if the majority of a minority of people shares that bias. Looks like i was wrong about that though.

Actually, I think I'm ok with this new format. Everyone knows what nonsense comes up from a "innocent until proven guilty" policy, but this way, we avoid people getting into biased arguments using skewed evidence to try to prove something's reached an undetermined milestone that is completely subjective. More importantly, when the vote does come through, there won't be people crying malpractice or anything because there aren't strict guidelines, it's just a community deciding what they want from the meta, and if you disagree with the decision, the worst you can do is blame the community as a whole. It's a more democratic system, and while "broken" should be a requirement for quickbans, just like "beyond reasonable doubt" is a requirement for juries, when the whole community votes on something, it makes sense that they should embrace the inevitable bias while removing subjective arguments when reasonable

 

[Baharoth]

As I said, it's extremely hard to tell what is 'broken' and what isn't beforehand, without having concrete experience of how the metagame adapts to the absence of a given Pokémon. Also, the fact that certain Pokémon are more broken than others doesn't mean that we should let the 'less-broken' ones roam free and possibly give us a sub-optimal metagame. Two weeks have been, historically, more than enough to tell if the metagame is better or worse without a given suspect.

You cant even tell me what that "optimal" metagame is. Your banning things aiming to reach a goal without even having a idea of what that goal looks like.

Tbh I dont know if i will make voting reqs again, i had to go out of my way and play far more games than i would do normally to get reqs on the deo case and I dont realy feel like doing that again, but we will see. If your planning to make more suspects in the near future id really suggest making 1 suspect test for all of them, having to play 80+ games in two weeks multiple times in a row with barely a week in between is quite a drag.

 

[ThinkNice]

Mhmm another suspect already. Although I haven't played OU for 2-3 months I'd still like to give my opinion on this one. (I have only read the first two pages). I think after 25 pages I'll probably repeat what has been said multiple times throughout this thread, but that's how these threads always go so whatever.

Aegislash is a Pokémon I have been waiting for to get suspected. In the early days of X and Y this thing was everywhere, for me personally it was a very frustrating Pokémon to deal with. Not just because it had great mix stats, and was a great pivot. But the amount of 50/50 Aegislash can create every time is just crazy.

His stats and pretty impressive movepool give him a great variety of (viable) movesets. It's an absolute monstrous special attacker with the buff to Ghost type attacks. It can go physical with SD (a forgotten threat), can easily go mixed. Has moves like Head Smash to get passed Mandibuzz or Sacred Sword for Bisharp. With his insane defenses and incredible defensive typing he can go SubToxic. Hell it's even a splendid Pursuit trapper. On top of all that, he gets the most shitty move introduced to sixth gen; King's Shield.

His low speed only works to his advantage with the amazing move King's Shield. Honestly I find this the most broken part about Aegislash. His King's Shield has priority so he can always move to defensive form first. But when he is going to attack again the opponent first hits the 150/150 defenses (because most aren't slower than Aegislash) and then Aegislash hits back with 150/150 offenses. Not only that but if it switches out in offensive form, it switches back in on defensive form. In short; in one turn he can tank the most brutal attacks and dish them right back.

No need to drag it out, to summarize and add:
- Amazing typing, both offensively and defensively.
- Amazing mixed stats, and even amazing defenses (depending on the form).
- Plenty of sets.
- Fits any team archetype.
- Pivot 'Extreme'
- >King's Shield
- Almost stupid not to use it.

Admittedly not everything is sunshine and roses for our cursed sword&shield. Knock off is a very common move that can severely cripple Aegislash. Although it always comes in on defensive form. Earthquake is a pretty common move too, although this is also thanks to Aegis' existence. Furthermore his King's Shield is extremely predictable. But this doesn't apply anymore when you start facing players that are actually good. From 'very predictable' it just changed to 'a 50/50 every time Aegislash switches in XD'. I just think the cons of having Aegislash in your team are so minimal they are not even worth mentioning as they just bleak in comparison to the pros of using Aegislash.

If it wasn't for King's Shield. I wouldn't vote ban. But I honestly believe this is such a stupid move combined with his ability. If I decide to go for reqs, I'll vote ban.

 

[Sun King]

I think we need to address what Aldaron said before...

It's important to note that as generations have changed, so to have our approaches to tiering.

In Gens 4 and 5 we approached banning with a simple-to-state-if-not-simple-to-define concept, namely, "only ban if individually broken."

While our ability to handle threats has been limited and remained static, the number of threats we have to deal with has only increased.

What does this mean? To summarize, we have continually added to the set of strategies and tools we have to prepare for, but we have kept the ability to respond to those strategies static.

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY VITAL TO HOW I AM APPROACHING TIERING IN THIS GENERATION.

In Gen 6, I'm approaching tiering both from an individual Pokemon and metagame strategies standpoint, and now I'm taking the fact that we still only have 6 Pokemon slots with 1 item, 1 ability, 1 trait, and 4 move slots to deal with an ever-burgeoning number of threats into account.

if we want a healthy metagame, we have to ensure that we don't tolerate threats that have a very low cost to use and also require too much specialization to deal with.

As Aldaron said, the margin is blurry, so we need to look at the metagame through a macro lens in order to make the right decision. I think every argument regarding Aegislash as an individual has been exhausted. What we need to do is determine the health of the metagame with and without Aegislash. The questions I believe we ought to ask are
-"Is there a major problem with the metagame?"
-"If so, is Aegislash the cause of the problem?"
-"Would the banning of Aegislash alleviate this problem efficiently?"

Additionally, I think we should clear the prospect of future bans from the table. If we ban Aegislash and a new problem arises, we will handle it.

As I've said before, we need time for the Suspect Ladder to settle in order to get an accurate depiction of the effects of banning Aegislash. We're talking about removing one of the most defining characteristics of our meta--of course there's going to be chaos in the beginning.

 

[haunter]

You cant even tell me what that "optimal" metagame is. Your banning things aiming to reach a goal without even having a idea of what that goal looks like.

Yes, we do. Take a look at this thread and educate yourself.

Tbh I dont know if i will make voting reqs again, i had to go out of my way and play far more games than i would do normally to get reqs on the deo case and I dont realy feel like doing that again, but we will see. If your planning to make more suspects in the near future id really suggest making 1 suspect test for all of them, having to play 80+ games in two weeks multiple times in a row with barely a week in between is quite a drag.

That is a poor way of achieving a desirable metagame, since many Pokémon balance each other and the metagame changes whenever we ban or unban something. If we ever ban Aegislash, the metagame is probably going to change drastically and some Pokémon that we currently think are perfectly fine, may become unbalanced/overpowered. End of the off-topic.

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

Okay, but you can still Taunt it afterwards. And Taunt goes through King's Shield and Sub. (Aaand I also have a HealBell-er, sooo..)

And if it runs Speed, you switch to something that can take a Head Smash and outspeed it.
If it's speed-invested it probably doesn't have that much HP, so killing it should be easy.

(I also want to apologize, I have the feeling Haunter-sama is referring to me :P)

While I agree with you that taunt mandibuzz is a fantastic aegislash counter, you now just admitted that you need two pokes to effectively handle aegislash, and that is the point the pro ban people are trying to make. However I am surprised more people arent mentioning taunt mandibuzz because that is without question the best attempt at a counter. Especially with the head smash variant being one of the less common sets.

However it is important to not be short sighted. If more and more people use taunt mandibuzz, more and more people will run head smash aegislash, and then people will change their counter to counter head smash varient and so on and so forth. THe point I am poorly trying to make is that aegislash defines the meta, and whenever his popular sets change so does the meta. That just doesnt seem to be a very healthy presence and it it why I would like him gone.

Hopefully you got the jist of my point, if not I will gladly attempt to clarify.

 

[TheEnder]

Mid-laddering thoughts;

Traditional Picture :)

Before I started laddering on the suspect ladder, I thought the new metagame would be much more balanced than the one with Aegislash in it. I was aware that powerful pokemon like Mega Gardevoir, Mega Heracross and Mega Medicham would have an easier time, but I was suprised by how much harder it was to deal with them. Currently there exist few to non switchins to these monsters, and you will have to be just as prepared for these as you had to had to be prepared for Aegislash. Aegislash is very oversentralizing, almost to the point where I would consider it broken, but it's presence in the metagame creates some kind of crazy balance. Due to its amazing typing it keeps so many threats in check, and it forces a lot of pokes to run "suboptimal" moves for the sole reason of hitting it.

Honestly I don't really know which metagame I prefer... If we end up not banning Aegislash, I feel the variety in teams will decrease, as there are only a few number of pokes capable of handeling the different versions of Aegislash. Then again, not banning Aegislash would mean Stall would be a prominent playstyle, as the usage of the stallbreaker Megas wouldn't skyrocket. Even though I don't really play stall, I don't want it decreasing that much in popularity, and in the worst case scenario almost dying.

If we decide to ban Aegi though, I think different cores and team structures will shape up, as covering all the threats will be very difficult. This will force people to be creative while teambuilding, since the current "cookie cutter" stall and ho teams will have big trouble taking on the new metagame lol Hawlucha. I feel like Pokemon like Slowbro, who does well against Medicham and Hawlucha, (Mega) Scizor and Ferrorhorn who checks Gardevoir and Gliscor and Landorus-T are gonna be huge in the new metagame.

If I'm going to vote for or against the ban I don't know yet, and my opinion is getting influenced by every post here, but I think I would prefer variety in teams and forced creativity over these Megas being checked. Using lesser used pokes on stall is possible so teams can adapt to the new threats.

 

[Meru]

Thanks to Deoxys-S getting the boot and Aegislash being absent, I've been able to make use of much more hyper offensive threats, one of which is Noivern

Noivern @ Life Orb
Ability: Frisk / Infiltrator
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Hurricane
- Flamethrower
- Roost

This thing is actually really cool and pretty anti-meta. It separates itself from Lati@s with higher speed, which lets it revenge anything they can as well as the Latis themselves, Thundurus, DDnite lacking Espeed, and some niche BL/UU 'mons that reside at 115/120/121 base speed. Its typing is also pretty cool offensively, giving it a secondary high base power STAB to nuke both Venusaur and Amoonguss, meaning it still can't be walled by those two. Due to its relatively unknown status, you can even surprise many opponents at the moment with its access to Flamethrower, which gives it a much easier time getting past Steel-types, and it hits harder than even Latios' LO HP Fire, despite the lower base SpA.

252 SpA Life Orb Latios Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 302-359 (85.7 - 101.9%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Noivern Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 369-437 (104.8 - 124.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

It has problems with Tyranitar, Heatran, Greninja, priority, SR, and the pink blobs, so I added Keldeo, who in turn appreciates pretty much everything I mentioned above, especially if Thundurus sacrifices itself to Twave Noivern (pls no fully para ._.). I also added Croicune, since together Keldeo and Noivern can take out its counters and it gives more insurance against Blissey and Greninja.

Anyways, back onto the topic of the suspect test, I've never really thought Aegislash was too broken. My biggest peeve with it was the really annoying King's Shield 50/50s, but it has low speed and very prominent weaknesses that do hold it back from being completely Uber status. However, Aegislash does have a very nasty centralizing effect due to how effectively it can shut down so many things with its sky-high stats and amazing resistances/immunities. With Aegislash gone, the metagame's diversity is tenfolded and OU becomes less 50/50 oriented, which are both huge pros in my book. Overall, I'm still deciding if I would vote ban for Aegislash, but I'm definitely not opposed to it going.

 

[Immortal]

people need to stop making their decision on whether or not to ban aegislsash or not because they think that one of the pokemon they like has a chance of becoming more viable without it. In my opinion it is good, really good but i really don't consider it broken. it is weak to some common attacking types and sure it has amazing stats if you play it right but against high level competition that gets harder to do. King's Shield is very predictable and gives oppertunities for the opponent to status, switch out or boost. Aegislash is a great pokemon but in my opinion it really isn't broken. Honestly this is the first suspect since the start of gen 5 that i have opposed banning. i really don't think it is broken and many of the people who want it banned want it gone for the wrong reasons

 

[LeoLancaster]

people need to stop making their decision on whether or not to ban aegislsash or not because they think that one of the pokemon they like has a chance of becoming more viable without it. In my opinion it is good, really good but i really don't consider it broken. it is weak to some common attacking types and sure it has amazing stats if you play it right but against high level competition that gets harder to do. King's Shield is very predictable and gives oppertunities for the opponent to status, switch out or boost. Aegislash is a great pokemon but in my opinion it really isn't broken. Honestly this is the first suspect since the start of gen 5 that i have opposed banning. i really don't think it is broken and many of the people who want it banned want it gone for the wrong reasons

It's not about getting more use out of a favorite, it's about how excessively Aegislash affects the meta. There's a ton of 'mons which get significantly better with Aegi gone, and yes you can say the same about any other threat, but in Aegi's case the impact is disproportionate. Aegislash's presence affects the meta to the point of being overcentralizing, the evidence of which has been presented many times in this thread. I agree that Aegi is not broken in the sense of being unstoppable, but that's not why many of us (myself included) want it banned. Honestly, even if the meta is worse off without Aegi because Stall gets nerfed or the diversity gets too large or w/e, it's better to just ban a few more things than keep Aegislash. He centralizes the meta more than is healthy for one 'mon to do, and that's why I say ban.

 

[MaryLa]

While I agree with you that taunt mandibuzz is a fantastic aegislash counter, you now just admitted that you need two pokes to effectively handle aegislash, and that is the point the pro ban people are trying to make. However I am surprised more people arent mentioning taunt mandibuzz because that is without question the best attempt at a counter. Especially with the head smash variant being one of the less common sets.

However it is important to not be short sighted. If more and more people use taunt mandibuzz, more and more people will run head smash aegislash, and then people will change their counter to counter head smash varient and so on and so forth. THe point I am poorly trying to make is that aegislash defines the meta, and whenever his popular sets change so does the meta. That just doesnt seem to be a very healthy presence and it it why I would like him gone.

Hopefully you got the jist of my point, if not I will gladly attempt to clarify.

I definitely see what you mean, but a Head Smash-Aegi isn't that big of a deal, imo.
If it has Head Smash, it may not have Sacred Sword and the great Ghost-Fighting-Coverage.
But yeah, I guess that it is definig the meta... although I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
And yeah, I guess I didn't make my point clear with that example xD
(I'm bad at dealing with subs anyway.)
I honestly don't exactly understand why this set is so much in use... Gliscor does basically the exact same thing and does a better job at it, too..

Oh and, Taunt-Mandibuzz is nice, yeah :3

 

[Meru]

people need to stop making their decision on whether or not to ban aegislsash or not because they think that one of the pokemon they like has a chance of becoming more viable without it. In my opinion it is good, really good but i really don't consider it broken. it is weak to some common attacking types and sure it has amazing stats if you play it right but against high level competition that gets harder to do. King's Shield is very predictable and gives oppertunities for the opponent to status, switch out or boost. Aegislash is a great pokemon but in my opinion it really isn't broken. Honestly this is the first suspect since the start of gen 5 that i have opposed banning. i really don't think it is broken and many of the people who want it banned want it gone for the wrong reasons

I don't know if you're calling me out in particular but I definitely didn't post that because Noivern is my favorite Pokemon lol I used that to show some of the diversity that Aegislash has kept at bay. Why are you using prediction in an argument when it goes both ways? Okay. There's a reason I called it a 50/50 and not "lol super predictable". Generally, the risk/reward of using King's Shield is in favor of the Aegislash player, not the opponent.

And I'm not sure what you're trying to say about high level competition considering Aegislash has definitely been one of the top ten used Pokemon in WCoP, if not top five.

 

[Synchronation]

Finally I have some time again...

Synchronation I appreciate the detailed response to my post, and it certainly shows that I am not the most experienced with aegis. I have one question left though. In my post, I made the argument that for a given "50/50" caused by aegislash, if the opponent is a physical mon, the "50/50" will almost certainly be heavily weighted in aegis' favor, in that the reward for aegis predicting correctly is usually much higher then the reward to his opponent for predicting correctly. Do you believe this to be true? If not, why, if yes, do you believe that this is a bad thing?

Depends on your Pokemon. CB-Talonflame would have a problem and the favor in this case is definitely on Aegislash's side (the main reason why not many people uses CB-Talonflame anymore). If your opponent has a Pokemon that can ONLY attack Aegislash then the Kings Shield is not only obvious it is just the best answer.
This is however NOT true if you are a set-up sweeper because the Aegislash-user now risks letting your sweeper become unbeatable. I had alot of these situation as a Charizard-X player and Aegislash-user. I know that Flare Blitz definitely will kill me and Kings Shield is my only way to prevent that, but letting him dragondance instead going for the kill? The burden is on both side and not in Aegislash's favor at all. And like every prediction: If you predicted wrong, you are at a bad spot. If you predicted right, you have the advantage.
I don't think that this is bad. Aegislash is probably the MOST COMPETITIVE Pokemon ever existed. The main problem everybody has is that it has only one difference which makes it unique from other coinflips: It's not a switch you have to predict, it's a move (Kings Shield) and most people think that this is broken or not healthy. While I lost sometimes because I didn't use Kings Shield I also lost because I predicted a switch. That is normal and happens every day.

The real problem is that we never found an agreement on what can be considered 'broken' in Pokémon. While nobody in their right mind would argue that stuff like Mega-Kangaskhan or Mega-Lucario were healthy for the metagame, borderline cases like Aegislash make it extremely difficult for us to make a decision on its tiering and justify it. Aegislash is not blatantly overpowered as someone is claiming, though it's definitely a metagame-defining force.

And no, MaryLa, I was not referring to you ahah.

I know and that is the problem. Aegislash doesn't sweept teams on its own, it doesn't wall or support so well that you could call it Uber. It is not really overcentralizing because every team has a SE attack to hit it but its still a meta defining Pokemon. But that is exactly the reason I vote for no ban. We should ban Pokemon that are fullfill the right to be Uber not Pokemon who are really good (but not too good). I see alot of hate for Aegislash probably because they lost some battle predicting wrong against it, but they are forgetting all the battles in which they predicted right. I don't want to ban a Pokemon because some people feel "uncomfortable" to fight against it. I don't like to battle against certain Pokemon too but I don't say they should be banned even if I wouldn't care much.

While I agree with you that taunt mandibuzz is a fantastic aegislash counter, you now just admitted that you need two pokes to effectively handle aegislash, and that is the point the pro ban people are trying to make. However I am surprised more people arent mentioning taunt mandibuzz because that is without question the best attempt at a counter. Especially with the head smash variant being one of the less common sets.

However it is important to not be short sighted. If more and more people use taunt mandibuzz, more and more people will run head smash aegislash, and then people will change their counter to counter head smash varient and so on and so forth. THe point I am poorly trying to make is that aegislash defines the meta, and whenever his popular sets change so does the meta. That just doesnt seem to be a very healthy presence and it it why I would like him gone.

Hopefully you got the jist of my point, if not I will gladly attempt to clarify.

You missing out a important point here: Team-support.
Everybody knows that a fast Headsmash-Aegi would destroy Mandibuzz and everybody knows Mandibuzz carrys Taunt and Foul Play very often (in my opinion even the best set). Still only a very small amount uses this Aegislash and there are reasons for this:
1. The obvious one: why should I change my set so dramatically just for this one Pokemon? I have teammembers to deal with Mandibuzz.
2. This set might destroy Mandibuzz but fails to check and counter all the other Pokemon it should check. Most people uses Aegislash to deal with Lati@s or Mega-Medicham and switching in their attacks AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Head Smash reduced Aegislash's longevity and with NO RECOVERY it is just a NO GO. It is just way easier to have a Mandibuzz-Check to support Aegislash than letting him deal with one counter but making him useless.

That's why I doubt that Head Smash will ever remain for long. It is really just a gimmick even if it is mentioned as one of its movesets. It just looks good in theory but it just isn't practically.

 

[arylide]

Offensive pivots don't exist, it has a huge variety of very vIable sets that screw over all the other sets checks/counters, so it is impossible to check before the sett is revealed, it limits team building way more than is healthy, all teams demand a counter at the very very least. It also stops at least fifteen Pokemon from being viable as well as having the best offensive stab, and amazing bulk and offences. Please explain how that is healthy .

"Offensive pivots don't exist"
We're talking about the same game right?

 

[Salemance]

"Offensive pivots don't exist"
We're talking about the same game right?

Yes, and they do not. This argument has been brought up multiple times such as in the viability ranking thread (recently too) and its just a made up role for something switching in to pivot out with decent power. Cant quite recall the exact wording for why the hell it doesn't exist, but it doesn't.

I'm still thinking Aegi might need to go after seeing how much of an impact he himself had on the tier after playing the suspect. Still crazy one thing could do all that...

 

[Baharoth]

"Offensive pivots don't exist"
We're talking about the same game right?

Thats a definition issue. When we had the discussion of Mega Manetric on the viability thread people were using that term for it which doesnt realy fit because a pivot is something that can switch into attacks and strike back, something Manetric cant do. So yes offensive pivot in the sense "something that cant take hits but is powerful and has voltturn" dont exist.