np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 6 - Wrecking Ball [Read Post 423 for Posting etiquette]

[R7Rules]

Let me just give my two cents on this...

I really love using Mega Mawile, but I would agree with the people on this thread who say it needs to go. Because of its array of coverage moves and all-around customizability of its sets, with Knock Off and Focus Punch for Heatran and the other Steels like Ferro and Skarmory, altho Fire Fang roasts these two as well (altho Heatran ofc takes no damage from Fire Fang), the only 100% counter it has is Intimidate Bulky Arcanine with WoW, which is absolutely s**t in OU aside from countering Mega Mawile (and it still takes a hefty amount from a +1 Play Rough or Knock Off). It has the highest natural, unboosted attack stat in the game, standing around a ridiculous 600, which is more than an adamant Mega-Mewtwo-X , but this isn't what makes it broken, as even if it is a major factor. What makes it broken is how it decimates both stall and offense, thanks to a nuclear-powered Play Rough and a Sucker Punch that exceeds the power of Arceus-Normal's Silk Scarf-boosted ExtremeSpeed respectively, and that said attacks make matches a 50/50 chance between switching into a horribly powerful Play Rough or getting hit with a Sucker Punch before attacking; the fact that it has ways around its 'counters', making it risky to switch them in, also contributes to how broken it is, to the point where people run the incredibly niche Intimidate Arcanine to get around it.

Three months had you said Mawile needed a suspect test, I would have laughed, but now, as people have discovered the best ways to use Mawile, it appears incredibly broken to me, more broken than Aegislash was (although Aegislash was much more unhealthy and dominating, and I was glad when it went).

Imo, as you can probably tell from what I just wrote, Mega Mawile needs to go.

Edit: Forgot to mention that it has Intimidate before Mega-Evo, it's amazing defensive typing and it's solid bulk, those things basically give it a ton of opportunity to switch in and set up a Sub or SD, that kind of doesn't help Mawile's case either :P

 

[SansNickel]

I really don't think it's broken, and all I've ever played is stall. Even though not a lot of things switch into mega mawile, I really don't feel it's easy for mawile to switch into a lot of things as well; they key is not letting it switch in for free (similar to how you never let a stall team's defogger switch in for free).

 

[The Bravest Bird]

K, I'm going to try to address these "anti-ban arguments" in the most civil way possible, because I'm losing brain cells reading these. I'm about to mention quite a few posts.

First of all, Mawile's speed doesn't matter when you have priority in Sucker Punch. Sucker Punch also causes 50/50s. I'll talk 50/50s later in this post.

Another anti-ban argument is 4 move slot syndrome which, quite frankly, is a crummy argument. Some wise words:

Sure they don't run all these options in one set, but as a wise man with a scarred face once said: four moveslot syndrome doesn't make you less effective, it means you're more unpredictable and therefore more threatening. Plus it's not even like it needs to use all its moves, it can pick based on what its team needs.

And just to quickly name a few more:

"It has checks" everything does.

"You can burn it" not only does every physical attacker get crippled by burns, Mawile still has a respectable, albeit much weaker, 339 attack stat when burned, and you also cant burn a sub.

"Fire and Ground attacks are common" *gasp* it has weaknesses? :OOOO k not only does mawile have the bulk to take some of these attacks, it also makes up for it for its immense power and a crap ton of resistances.


K now for why Mawile deserves to be banned:

• It has an effective 259 base attack stat with full investment and adamant(or a base 105 attack boosted by a free SD, however you want to think about it), or a grand whopping total of 678 ATTACK. Combine that with a strong stab in Play Rough, a respectable stab that isn't used as much in Iron Head, priority in sucker punch, and coverage in Fire Fang and Focus Punch, and you have a monster in your hands.
• Respectable defenses, albeit low HP, and a plethora of resistances. It can even survive some SE attacks with the aid of intimidate and its respectable bulk.
• Sucker Punch causes 50/50s. Okay, I know we're all tired of hearing "50/50s" and that anything with sucker punch can cause these 50/50s, but when you have these 50/50s on something as moronically strong as Mawile... k look either mawile heavily damages something/gets a kill, or the opponent wastes a PP of sucker punch, maybe in status, set up moves, or taunt, w/e, OR you can set up with something only to get hit with a STAB play rough. Before you say "50/50s are a part of the game" sure they are. But Sucker Punch consistently creates these 50/50s, and I don't know about you, but I hate guessing games, so I'd like as few as possible. Here is a post by Harsha entailing on 50/50s, if you're interested.

tl;dr The anti-ban arguments haven't been very good, and idk why it wasn't quickbanned or suspected earlier

BAN this broken piece of crap

 

[koista12]

I really don't think it's broken, and all I've ever played is stall. Even though not a lot of things switch into mega mawile, I really don't feel it's easy for mawile to switch into a lot of things as well; they key is not letting it switch in for free (similar to how you never let a stall team's defogger switch in for free).

The problem, especially for offense, is that mega mawile will almost always get a chance to switch in for free, because of its godly typing and intimidate.

 

[Lumari]

I really don't think it's broken, and all I've ever played is stall. Even though not a lot of things switch into mega mawile, I really don't feel it's easy for mawile to switch into a lot of things as well; they key is not letting it switch in for free (similar to how you never let a stall team's defogger switch in for free).

Problem is, Mawile can also switch in for free after you've killed something, and if you kill something with a physical attacker it's usually setup bait because of Intimidate.

 

[TFL]

Why was Kyurem-W kept in Ubers when this thing has had like a year to roam free? That ain't fair.

Mawile's got an effective 257 or something base Attack and perhaps the best typing in the game. It also has an awesome move pool that allows it to be one of the best nukes, stall breakers, and sweepers - simultaneously if need be.

No safe switch ins in the tier that are good besides defensive Lando-T and even that gets straight rekt by lolIcePunch.

Excels against every play style and dumps on everyone except KratosMana (shoulda ran Iron Head, Joey).

You know what needs to be done.

 

[TheRogerRabbit]

This decision is easy for me. I feel I have a lot of experience with the mon after extensive use of it and facing it many times. There are very few/no definite stops to Mega Mawile. It has an answer for almost any mon. The entirety of the metagame has so much trouble switching in to Mega Mawile. Honestly, a core like M-Mawile + Dugtrio could become very popular if Mawile were to stay. Also, banning mega Mawile really doesn't promote stall as much as people may think. Mons like Mega-Cham, Mega-Cross and Mega-Gard are much better stall-breakers than Mega-Mawile. Mawile may handle one or two mons on your opponents team, but many offensive threats do that as well. Banning Mawile will not affect the meta as much as the last ban of Aegislash. Although it lacks a good HP stat, Mawile has one of the best defensive typings in the game (statistically). All of this combined makes my personal verdict on Mega-Mawile a Ban.

 

[Inflikted]

This thing is soooo damn good and i loved using it, but i knew this day would come eventually. Its attack is absurd, hitting harder than Mega Kangaskhan. It has low HP but high defenses, meaning that its bulk is really good for an offensive pokemon , and its defensive typing is really, really good. Its only issue is speed but hey, it has an incredibly strong priority move that also forces 50/50s, leading to more destruction if the opponent loses them. Nothing switches into it on offense, but if you fodder off something to get a free switch and check it while it goes from SD, it's basically gg unless you pp stall sucker punch, and good luck doing that. Offensive pokemon that resist sucker punch usually take around 70% from it, so Mawile only needs a bit of previous damage. It can overpower stall with its nuclear attack, and its movepool gives all the tools it needs to dismantle any kind of defensive core.

No pokemon puts this amount of pressure on any kind of playstyle, Mega Mawile is unbalanced in my opinion and simply overpowered for the OU tier; I'm supporting a ban on this one, definitely.

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

Ehh. To me Mega Mawile just seems like a really good pokemon. It has great stats, great typing and just the right movepool. Doesn't mean it's broken imo. Is it a huge threat? Yes. Do you need to overprepare to beat it? Not really. It needs to setup or it's not sweeping anything (which is not evident in a metagame where free turns are hard to come by), and even then you're relying on Sucker Punch to compensate for your mediocre speed. It doesn't have many safe switchins (Weezing on the top of my head is the closest thing to a counter, which shows that it's really good offensively), but that doesn't mean it's broken right away because it does have its flaws (low speed, poor HP stat). Every team generally has something that can deal with Mega Mawile, there's things like Landorus-T and Keldeo on offense, Heatran and Skarmory on stall etc. It's a nuke yes, but we know other pokemon in OU like that (Zard Y, Landorus-I, CB Azumarill, Zard X, Specs Keldeo etc etc). I don't really see a problem with Mega Mawile: it seems to fit into this power-creeped metagame. That's just my opinion.

 

[Giometry]

And the slippery slope begins....
On a more serious note can we please allow the meta to settle a little between tests, it has been 3 Fucking Days and ORAS is coming pretty soon which could make these bans pointless.
Now that the principle thing is over its time to get on topic. In my opinion, since we are suspecting, Mega Mawile should definitely be banned, (a quickban isn't even out of the question). This thing is broken as all hell and is even comparable to mega Kanghaskhan with a better typing. Albeit it is a bit slower it's most viable counter is friggin Arcanine. It does have quite a few checks but the thing is that the opposing player needs to get every prediction right and the Mawile player needs to get every prediction wrong for these checks to not flat out die. Getting hit on the switch or getting subbed on means that Mawile will almost always win. Maw is unhealthy for the metagame and should get the BAN.

 

[emilyyyy]

[14:20] +flyingsweater: "mawile has one mirrion sets and always gets a free forced switch because intimidate nerfs all da pokemon and when it megas it's already at 2+ behind a sub with 4 attacks that fucks all of its checks"

Pretty much sums up how I feel. Since when is "it can run more than one set" a good argument to ban something that's slow and relies on unreliable priority to get kills? It's a great Pokemon and a top-tier threat, but in my opinion isn't broken.

 

[Draexzhan]

There's no arguing that Megawile is very dangerous if you let it set up. It's a very strong pokemon, and you'd be a fool to say otherwise. It can wreck just about anything with a +2 play rough, and many of its worries can be taken out with sucker punch. Alternatively, for the pesky steel types, Megawile can run substitute and focus punch and make scrap metal out of them. It doesn't have much in the way of movesets, but what it has is REALLY good.

That being said, it also has plenty of shortcomings. It basically dies to any SE special moves, and takes a real licking from physical moves, and often brings it below 25% hp. That low speed, while great for focus punch, can also be detrimental to it too, for a FP Mawile is heavily compromised when it can't make subs. As for the other set, Will o wisp, you're done. Unlike some other physical attackers, Mawile doesn't have much outside of its attack stat.

Now, this is all well and good, but what if you don't have a check to Mawile out on the field when your opponent sends it out? This, my friends, is what I consider to be the strongest argument for banning Mawile, because this is the only time your opponent SHOULD send out Mawile. The ability to quickly set up on forced switches is what makes Mega Mawile so good, and while at first I thought this suspect test was complete bullcrap, the more I think about it, the more reasonable it sounds, and that's something I really hate to say. Fire and ground are both very common attacking types, though, so Mega Mawile certainly has plenty of checks. It's the amount of counters that's the issue here. You got plenty of bulky steel types for Play Rough and Sucker Punch, but what about Fire Fang? That greatly reduces the steel type wallers to only a handful, like Heatran, Empoleon, and (lol)Bastiodon, and all of these have to worry about the subpunch set.

Now, there is one thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread, and if it has been, it was probably only a few times: Sashed pokemon and Sturdy Pokemon. Sure, Mega Mawile can hit like a truck, but its defenses are decent at best. However, with the 'zards now big hitters, stealth rock has become popular as of late, even with the defog buff

Priority moves are also something to consider, too. This really isn't as no-brainer as I thought when I started writing this. Ugh. That's good though, that means the OU counsel is doing its job.

 

[Mantodea]

How 2 MegaMaw:
1. Switch in on something that can't damage you (resisted physical attacks, Chansey, etc.)
2. Mega Evolve + Swords Dance while your opponent switches
3. Sucker Punch
4. ???
5. Win

Basically the only way to take this thing down is to phase it and try to hurt it before it sets up, and even then you need something with lots of physical bulk so that it can't just kill you with Sucker Punch. It sounds like Skarmory would work, but then Mawile can potentially OHKO with +2 Fire Fang. Heatran could try to burn, but it loses to SubPunch, so that's also out of the question. And there's probably another million different scenarios that Maw has some way of working its way out of.

So, yeah, this thing needs a ban.

 

[Googly]

Mawile isn't even broken, and banning it is just stupid. Its bulk is average at best and it's easy enough to KO. Sure it's powerful, but it often has to use the unreliable Sucker Punch to take down faster threats. If it's running Substitute, that just means it's lacking a coverage move.

But since you guys banned Aegislash, then you may as well ban this too along with anything else that's just too hard for you to deal with.

 

[TheEnder]

oo... didn't even get inb4 spam :[

Anyhow, this was bound to happen sooner or later. M-Mawile's tremendous damage output, decent bulk and fantastic typing and abilities makes this threat a something to really look out for, and every team should contain a "counter" counters? what counters??? O yeah, Weezing or hard check. There are very few of these, and what checks it comes down to what set and which coverage it runs.

Again, sets can be unpredictable, and again, guessing the wrong set often costs you your main check, which is part of why Mawile is so hard to deal with. Also guys do we see a pattern? First Aegi, now M-Maw, both unpredictable, Char next y/n

On a more serious note, before I go laddering, I don't really know about Mawile. It's pro's are huge though, and it's speed doesn't really bother it, as Sucker Punch generally makes up for a lot, but being so reliant on it is meh. I still think the positives M-Mawile has outweighs it's negatives, and I think a meta without Mawile would easen the pressure on stall, and mabye even give us teambuilders more posibilities when building teams, as the number of usable "glues" and pokes in general will increase :]

 

[ShizukaMikudou]

"You can't burn M.Mawile because sometimes they run substitute."
M.Mawile's base speed: 50
Substitute: +0 priority
Your Will-O-Wisper can't be THAT slow? :x

 

[bubblymaika]

Mega Maw's pretty vicious in OU. The thing hits like a truck and not much is going to want to switch into it. It doesn't help that maw can use the switch to set up Swords Dance/Substitute for people expecting a sucker punch/play rough on something that can't take it. Odds are you'll lose at least one pokemon to Maw and it doesn't always need the set up to do that.

I'm honestly still neutral on this suspect since I've yet to have any major issues with Maw myself, but that can change as the time rolls along. I've a feeling this will be an interesting one. Best of luck to everyone on the ladder!

 

[RHunterN]

I was excited for some discussion about mega mawile and a suspect test (since this thing is broken af). But I want to say one thing to some of the people posting in here before I make my points. If you dont like the way smogon does things, then stop complaining about it and go play somewhere else. You are not forced to play by smogon's rules so if you dont like them, then do something else other than complain about how "ban happy" they are in a suspect test thread please. Or ladder and get reqs and vote no-ban. No one wants to read your posts whining about how you hate smogon.

Actually, considering pretty much every forum and competitive place to battle follows Smogon rules, I'd say we are forced to play by these rules. Just because this place isn't official doesn't mean no one uses it outside of here. We are forced to use these rules. The only places, that I can think of off hand, that don't follow these rules are Battle Spot and PokeBattle. That's it.

Now for the actual post. M-mawile is just a lol worthy level of broken. It is similar to aegislash in that the 50-50's that mawile forces often aren't actually 50-50's. The situation is usually, you either kill mawile, or it sweeps your whole team. That sounds like the prediction is heavily favoring the player with mega mawile. I predict wrong, no huge deal, i lose my mawile. You predict wrong and uh-oh, you lose the whole game. It does work vs. all of stall, balance, and offense. Its typing is godly along with its pre-mega evo ability that lets it set up on offensive mons like azumarill, terrakion, dragonite, lati@s and many others. It chooses its checks and counters, which is an amazing thing to be able to do, as you can change your team to deal with what mawile cant. Offense has literally zero switchins, while stall finds it hard to keep it from setting up. In short ban.

Mawile doesn't provide 50/50s. It's Sucker Punch for crying out loud. And there is no way a smart player would let ONE mistake end up costing them the entire game. It stupidly walled by Fire types and Steel types. Oh no! It can run SubPunch. Who gives a shit? You run SubPunch and you lack the ability to KO other things. Chandelure shits on your SubPunch. And before you cry, "Sucker Punch!", what's this? I set up a Sub on you. Now what? Now you have a Mawile facing down one of the strongest fire types in the game. Good job.

Seriously though, Mawile is handled pretty easily. And none of you singles players ever have to deal with the threat that is Careful Mawile, which eats fire for a living and still hits hard. Let me put it into perspective, TYPHLOSION isn't OHKOed by anything, outside of Stone Edge/Rock Slide, not even Sucker Punch. Now, I'm not saying it's a counter, but by golly, Typhlosion has piss poor defenses. You can't run everything. Fire Fang is a crap option since it's only used for a handful of things and will basically make you lose to Fire types. Stone Edge is ok, but now you lose to Steel/Poison types. Focus Punch, really?

And before people start saying, "Well, at +2...". No, stop that. Shoulda/Coulda/Woulda arguments are terrible. If you want to brings those in, then you can. But, while you have a +2 Mega Mawile at full health, I also just happen to have a +1 Atk Multiscale Dragonite as well. It's stupid to argue this way. Take Mawile as it is. No stat boosts, just vanilla Mawile. You can't base judgments on something that could happen. That isn't logical and flat out wrong. Also speaking of flat out wrong, 50/50 situations ARE PART OF THE GAME. No shit they will show up. There is a reason you can't hold cash prize Pokemon tournaments in a lot of US states. The game is too reliant on luck. You afraid of the 50/50s and don't like how there is a chance it will ruin your plan? DON'T PLAY POKEMON! And I can use that argument since the person above easily used the "Don't play Smogon" argument. Don't like my arguments? Don't use them as well ;)

EDIT: Also, Arcanine is good, I don't know what the fuck y'all are on

 

[FoDDeR]

Mega Mawile is over the top. You literally send it in, tank a hit or let them switch, get your one swords dance in, and spam sucker punch. Even without STAB it still takes nearly everything out in one hit, plus it's typing helps it have only two weaknesses, while still being two of the most vicious types in the game, Fairy and Steel.

 

[Immortal]

all it really needs to do is switch in on something it has a good mach up against, which is made easier against physical attackers do to intimidate before it mega evolves and then set up a SD or a sub when they switch out. After that it can pretty much steam roll an entire team or at least take out a large chunk. Literally nothing in the entire game can switch into this. People complained about aegislash being hard to switch into but I have found mega mawille is way worse. Lets use hippowdon as an excample, a pokemon know for its great physical bulk. The set i used for calcs is 240 hp 192 def 76 spdef impish hippowdon making stats of 417 hp 352 def and only 199 special defense. A shadow ball from aegislash did about 45-53% (1% chance to 2hko) while unboosted mega mawille does about 45-53% as well with play rough. That is insane power and consider that if you play well with mawille, alot of the time you get a SD or a sub up the later of which makes so you can't burn it because you do so when you force a switch. Add sucker punch to the equation to patch up the speed and the result is that something dies every time mega maw switches in at the least. Without aegislash in ou this thing is beyond broken. It needs to go and honestly it should have just been quick banned.

 

[Jarred Ingersoll]

rotum heat can wall mega mawile with ease and can burn it (calcs. 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-H: 82-97 (52.2 - 61.7%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recover 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-H: 69-81 (43.9 - 51.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery,

 

[bruno]

This is one of the most obvious bans here, and these counter arguments people are using makes no sense. Why are you guys complaining about another suspect happening early when mawile is more broken than aegislash in the first place? With it's typing and ability, setting up is actually incredibly easy(resisting / being immune to dragon, dark, fairy, flying, ice, poison, psychic and rock), and the ammount of checks he has are so low that it doesn't even matter since all it has to do is wait for them to get weakened and it will be able to kill them with sucker punch. Also, mawile's best check on heavy offense teams is mawile itself lol, just think about that for a second...

Unless you run a landorus-t(which has no reliable recovery) / heatran(which still might die to a focus punch while it switches in) / bulky talonflame / moltres (these two are terrible at the current meta btw, because they pressure you to defog / rapid spin all the time and any good player will take that as an advantage) / weird shit like weezing who still loses to iron head / mawile itself(fire fang / focus punch) on every single team, this is what will probably end up happening against any good player(it's a wc match i had against dragonuser in where all he had to do was play smart by getting some damage on keldeo and he would have an easy sweep with the broken mon): http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-13301

Come on guys, i'm pretty sure that anyone who knows how to teambuild knows that this is indeed an obvious ban,,,,

 

[Muk]

I'm surprised that people are even bringing up how Mawile does well against stall, or how it beats its common switch-ins like Heatran and whatever else with Focus Punch. Those aren't exactly uncommon traits. The same can be said about the 50/50s it causes with Sucker Punch.

The problem is that Mawile can flat-out OHKO pretty much any non-defensive Pokemon that it can hit neutrally with a STAB move because lol 678 Attack. I would honestly say that it's a lot more of a problem for offense and balance than it is for stall, because a +2 Sucker Punch will OHKO most offensive Pokemon, and those that can survive one can't take a Play Rough or Iron Head. Mawile hardly even needs to change up its set to be able to beat the vast majority of its common switch-ins -- STAB moves + Sucker Punch + Swords Dance or Play Rough + Focus Punch + Sucker Punch is all it really needs. I guess you can run Fire Fang if you hate Skarmory and Mega Scizor, or Ice Punch if you hate Landorus-T, but that's about it. Mawile can actually 2HKO Mega Scizor and Skarmory with Play Rough at +2 because of how absurdly strong it is, and neither can do much back. It also has one of the absolute best type combinations in the game and good overall defenses once it Mega Evolves, and it even has Intimidate before then, meaning it can switch in really easily. Once it's in, it's almost never forced out due to the above reasons.

 

[Mikiflyr]

All I really want to say here is that Mega Mawile is the biggest reason why some pokemon like Charizard X run EQ in a nutshell... it's just too hard to kill. I usually have to run a physical wall on most of my teams to counter this beast. 50/125/95 defenses are really hard to crack as well. It gets insane priority, a cool typing, large stats, and a huge movepool. I'm all for banning.

Besides, many of it's "counters" are destroyed by it's varied movepool. Ferrothorn? Destroyed by Fire Fang. Heatran? Destroyed by Focus Punch. Adding on to that, Mawile is the reason Physical Heatran has made an appearance. That SHOULDN'T exist. I'm all for ban.

 

[CrazyBacon]

To the people posting "just brun it" or "fire types lol" in theory, they can beat them 1 vs 1, but who honestly is just going to sit there and let Mawile get burned? Or stay in whilst your Arcanine or Typhlosion kills it?
Mawile can force an alarming amount of switches, which means your fire type/WoWisper is going to have to come in multiple times a match to deal with Mawile and, each time they do, are taking 20-30% from whatever Mawile wants to do.

You all seem to forget that we are playing 6 vs 6, not 1 vs 1. if your opponents are just sitting there letting Mawile get burned or killed by a fire move, no wonder many of you are finding Mawile easy to deal with.