Official RU Stage 2 Suspect Voting

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Oglemi

Borf
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Windsong
SGV
Amarillo
Honko
MoltenKyurem
zdrup15
Nails


You may vote Ban, Do Not Ban, or Abstain for any of these Pokemon. Remember, if you are unsure about a Suspect's tiering, do not vote to Abstain, vote Do Not Ban instead. Abstain is only an option for those who do not want to vote for a Suspect, for whatever reason. That is different from being uncertain where a Suspect should be tiered.

Suspects this round are Honchkrow, Lilligant, and Baton Pass + Shell Smash. Remember, suspects only need a 4-3 majority to be banned.

Honchkrow:
Lilligant:
Baton Pass + Shell Smash:
The Baton Pass + Shell Smash ban is defined as followed as determined by the Council:

1. No Shell Smash + Baton Pass on same set, but no specific Pokemon is banned. You can still use your Amnesia-pass Gorebyss, SR + Spikes Smeargle, what have you.
Remember, all admins, supermods, or PR mods voting (coughNailscough), you need to delete your post in order to keep this a "blind" vote.

This thread will be open until Sunday, November 20 at 11:59 EST or until all votes are in.

EDIT: Also when voting, Council members please give a little description explaining your votes, since this is replacing the IRC-discussion aspect of the Council setting.
 

Molk

Godlike Usmash
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Honchkrow: Do Not Ban
Reason: Honchkrow was a top threat in RU from the start, but saying Honchkrow is broken is just ridiculous. Saying honchkrow is broken is like saying every other sweeper is broken, sure they KO shit easily, and Honchkrow has a priority move, but that priority move is unreliable and is easily set up on. Moxiekrow has plenty of viable counters such as Rhydon, Steelix, and Aggron, all of which are common. Mixkrow is unable to sweep due to its low speed. overall honchkrow id the best pokemon in the tier, but it is not broken.

Lilligant: Do not Ban
Reason: Once again, Lilligant was a top threat from the start, but lilligant's major coverage issues are its downfall, no matter what, lilligant is going to be walled, sleep powder is easily blocked by things such as insomnia Krow and Bouffalant. Lilligant has plenty of hard counters in this tier and honestly is decidedly average compared to the other suspects.

Shell smash+baton pass: Ban
after using this combo myself, i have to say that this is ban material, Basically you shell smash and sweep, when threatenedthe smashpasser passes to something that can abuse the boosts. You can also run multiple shell smashers, not many teams can handle the second assaults, three? your dead. this is ridiculous. It has to get out of RU imo.
 

Windsong

stumbling down elysian fields
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Honchkrow: Ban
Lilligant: Do Not Ban
Baton Pass + Shell Smash: Ban

Honchkrow is probably the most controversial suspect (I know that the voters are pretty mixed on this one, judging by some IRC convos and stuff), but I do feel it to be a bit OP. Essentially, it has very few counters, and all of the counters for certain sets outright lose to other sets. This wouldn't be an issue too much, except for the fact that you can't safely even sac something against it to revenge, without first determining its set, due to the threat of moxie, which makes it ridiculously easy to place people in lose-lose situations. Ban.

Lilligant is clearly not broken. It was just overly hyped at the beginning of the round based off of its performance in the Alakazam/Sableye metagame, where many of its counters were downright unviable. However, as the meta has developed, viable counters such as Buffoulant and Miltank have emerged, and in general Lilligant already faces issues with its lack of type coverage and so on. No ban.

Smashpass I just feel makes the game uncompetitive, for lack of a better way of putting it. You can basically just toss it into anyones hands and they have a team that needs no skill whatsoever. Though this in itself isn't grounds for ban, the fact that it, in my opinion, makes the game less skill based, is.
 

marilli

With you
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Honchkrow: Do not ban
Lilligant: Do not ban
Smashpass: Do not ban


Honchkrow: Do not ban

I was a little torn on Honchkrow. He’s got that boss MoxieKrow set that’s rather difficult to stop without Steel-types and Rock-types. He’s also got the good MixKrow set, but nobody uses it. If a lot of people used the MixKrow set, then I might have changed my opinion, but now I don’t think it’s broken and nails’ post below basically sum it up (and also because I'm lazy to type long tl;dr things.

If honchkrow gets banned people will just start complaining about braviary and swellow. It has multiple hard counters (gligar, steelix, rhydon) and a number of good checks (aggron, klinklang, bulky waters). Yeah, most of the good switch ins are rocks and steels; guess what, if you build a team without a flying resist you're going to have issues with honchkrow. That's like saying that rotom is broken because you don't have an electric resist. There may not be many steels, but there are still a decent amount of good switches into krow.
VS. Offense it’s beaten by anything faster that has Substitute or priority or not sharpedo-frail Dark resists. Yeah there’s the issue of sucker punch prediction but you need to win those predictions to actually win.

Lilligant: Do not ban

There’s no doubt about it—Lilligant ain’t broken. She has coverage issues, and is flat-out beaten by whole types. Sap Sipper mons are the strongest check to it, and both Sawsbuck and Bouffalant are good mons on their own right. Special walls like Munchie wall it and can pHaze, Gallade can take a hit and strike back, etc., and there is no shortage of checks for every playstyle. The only problem is that if you get your switches to sleep fodder is predicted, and your sleep fodder fares badly vs. Lilligant, you’re staring down at a sweep. But a lot of things are good if you have perfect prediction. Most of Lilli’s leverage comes from sleep powder, and if you can get that sleep fodder thing covered, you’re good to go. Prediction shouldn’t play a role in ban votes.

Smashpass: Do not ban

Before I say anything on the matter, I thank you for having that definition of smashpass vote just for me. You guys were probably thinking inside ‘lol wtf this random gets council once, gets this self-important feeling, and starts beating on a dead horse. There’s people still arguing about this?’ And like a good sport you guys were, I’ll be a good sport too and work with what we agreed. I also thought of abstaining b/c I felt that I might be biased to no ban just because ‘I don’t want this complex ban.’ But I’m pretty sure this is the closest vote we have and I don’t wanna make this something really sketchy like 3 ban 3 do not ban and 1 abstain.

Now on topic. I do feel that it makes the game really ‘non-competitive’ but I think that’s simply not enough to warrant a ban. I’d enjoy a metagame without smashpass, too, but I think I’m out of my place trying to ban it. Besides, I didn’t have too much experience other than SGV’s smashpass teams. Yeah the fact that his team really was nowhere near well-built but it got him first in ladder made me doubt the RU-ness of smashpass, but w/e. The guideline says if I’m legitimately torn then go with do not ban, and that’s what I’m doing. If I knew / expected I'd be in the council then I would have played with smashpass myself, but meh.

Yeah I’m really conservative I guess.
 

Honko

he of many honks
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Honchkrow: Do not ban
Lilligant: Do not ban
Baton Pass + Shell Smash: Ban

Honchkrow and Lilligant I already posted my feelings on in the megathread, but I'll repeat here and expand a little on Honchkrow.

Honchkrow is beaten by anything faster that has Substitute or priority or resists Dark; if you let it get a few boosts it's going to be extremely difficult to stop, but that's true for just about every Pokemon. Lots of otherwise solid Pokemon beat it 1-on-1 (Entei, Krookodile, SubSplit or SubWoW Rotom, Substitute Hitmonlee/Hitmonchan, Offensive SubRoost Moltres, to name a few). Yes, Honchkrow can beat Substitute users with perfect prediction, but the odds definitely aren't in its favor (Brave Bird on attack = lose, Brave Bird on sub = stall, Sucker Punch on attack = win, Sucker Punch on sub = lose. If you have Substitute and aren't completely predictable, you should come out on top.) If Honchkrow is running SubMoxie and gets a Sub up, then it's harder to check offensively, but it's also hard countered by a lot of new things like Aggron and Steelix. You have to be careful when you face Honchkrow. It's a major threat. If you don't carry a check (and it has plenty of viable checks) or if you let it outplay you for a few turns, you're probably gonna lose. That doesn't make it banworthy. Great Pokemon, not broken.

Lilligant is beaten by Bouffalant and the other Sap Sippers, but also by Scarf Primeape and Insomnia Honchkrow, and depending on how you play it, probably some other weird Vital Spirit/Insomnia mons like Electivire as well. And if you don't have one of those, then you should have something that can revenge kill or phaze or otherwise beat a +1 Lilligant. Yes it will probably put one of your mons to sleep (75% of the time, which definitely isn't "guaranteed") but that alone isn't a reason to ban it, or we'd be banning Scarf Butterfree too. Special walls like Munchlax can easily phaze it out at +1, and Scarf Primeape / Typhlosion / Moltres can all still outspeed and OHKO. And then you have things like Gallade that can tank a +1 Giga Drain and OHKO back on Lilligant's weak physical Defense. There are plenty of solid RU Pokemon that check Lilligant. If you don't carry one, you will lose to it, but again that is definitely not an excuse to ban it. Great Pokemon, not broken.

SmashPass is tricky because it's still not seen enough in the hands of good players to really judge. SGV's success with it on the ladder is evidence that it can beat well-built teams. SmashPass is countered by phazing, by priority, by Taunt, and by setting up a Sub or some boosts and hitting hard right off the bat. Unfortunately, all the best Pokemon for those roles lose 1-on-1 to the SmashPassers. In my experience, more dangerous than dedicated SmashPass teams are the regular offensive teams with Gorebyss or Huntail or Smeargle thrown in. It's quite easy for one of them to come in on a Choiced resisted hit, or in Smeargle's case after a KO, and get the single free turn it needs to quickly pass +2/+2/+2 to another member of the team. It's not unbeatable but it's a pain in the ass and I'm tired of writing and paragraphs are for dorks anyway so ban this nonsense, get it over with, and let's get back to playing.
 
Honchkrow: Ban
It's way too powerful for RU. Its only counters to its Moxie set are bulky rock and steel types, none of which fit that well on more fast paced offensive teams. Another thing that breaks Honchkrow is its unpredictability, you can't tell if it has superpower until it's killed a pokemon.

Lilligant: Do Not Ban
It has a lot of hard counters because of its terrible coverage. Whatever Hidden Power type it runs, its going to miss out on an important pokemon. It's also checked by Entei and Honckrow, two of the most used pokemon in RU.

Baton Pass + Shell Smash: Ban
Gorebyss, Huntail, and Smeargle have so many opportunities to get a pass in and with receivers like Moltres and Gallade that can 2hko everything in the tier, smashpass is too hard to stop in RU.
 

Oglemi

Borf
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Shoopdewoop

So, with the voting for the first Council finished, here are the results:

Honchkrow: 3-4 Ban = Will not be banned
Lilligant: 0-7 Ban = Will not be banned
Baton Pass + Shell Smash: 6-1 Ban = Will be banned

Honchkrow seems pretty contentious, so it'll be an automatic suspect two rounds from now (not next round, but the round after).

Lilligant was fully determined to be not broken and therefore will never be considered suspect again bar major metagame changes.

Shell Smash + Baton Pass was almost unanimously determined unhealthy for the metagame and will therefore be banned.

Thanks you guys for getting these votes in so quickly. Server will be updated asap, but we seem to be having some troubles with it atm so just hang tight!
 
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