Official RU Stage 4 Suspect Voting

[Oglemi]

Eligible Voters

1. ShakeItUp
2. Ginku
3. SilentVerse
4. Omicron
5. Honko
6. yee
7. Double01
8. MoltenKyurem
9. 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.

Also when voting, Council members please give a little description explaining your votes, you should set up a time to discuss these suspects on IRC on #rarelyused before voting.

The suspects for this round are Cresselia, Honchkrow, and Porygon-Z. Suspects will need a 5-4 majority to be banned.

Cresselia
Honchkrow
Porygon-Z

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 close Friday, January 20 at 11:59 pm, or when all votes are accounted for.

 

[yee]

Cresselia- Ban

In my opinion, Cresselia doesn't deserve to be here for anything besides a defensive set. The Sub CM set isn't overwhelmingly powerful and speedy and the Dual Screen set misses out on speed/support moves that Uxie has, mainly Stealth Rock and U-Turn. A set like Psychic/Ice Beam/Thunder Wave/Recover has too strong of a hold on the metagame, I heard Windsong's point that it makes balanced teams unviable, because of how rare it is that a poke can kill it. It must have a super effective STAB move, Toxic, or a fast Taunt to even have a chance. LO Scolipede does just over half for example, and Scarf Galvantula doesn't even 2HKO standard sets with Bug Buzz. Offensive teams can stack on more Durants, Sharpedos etc. to deal with it and stall can just wall it/phaze it but balance can't put on all of those sweepers/have many walls with Toxic. Once the thing that can kill Cresselia is gone it often beats more than half of a team by itself.

Porygon-Z Ban

Again, I don't think all of it's options are broken. The Agility sweeper isn't too hard to pick off and there are enough pokemon that can tank one hit from hit to hit it back. Nasty Plot and Specs are where IMO it is overpowered. Nasty Plot has a field day with slow defensive teams that can't immediately kill it, because after a Nasty Plot almost nothing can take a hit from it then hit/phaze back, most pokemon are just flat OHKOed if they are forced to take a boosted attack. A healthy (and very specially defensive) Munchlax can take a hit, phaze, and hopefully RestTalk safely but will lose most of its health in the process. It's about as good of a defensive switch-in as you can get, Spiritomb may take Choiced Porygon-Z well but it can't hit boosters back hard enough. Specs is simply a monster. It has enough speed to find an opening against almost any team and blast- 135 base spA along with Adaptability Tri-Attack is like a special version of CB Salamence. If it gets its Download boost something is dying, even if you settle with clicking Dark Pulse because there's a ghost on the other team its still going to destroy something. If there isn't a ghost there simply isn't anything taking the Tri Attack, the most specially defensive of Rocks and Steels get 3hkoed at perfect health, bar Aggron who risks being flat out OHKOed by HP Fighting.

Honchkrow- Do Not Ban

I don't think anyone's voting to ban this. MoxieKrow has almost no options to get past Steels/Rocks and even if it does use HP Ground it's not the end because it won't be immediately KOing the solid counters such as Rhydon and Regirock and your own quick priority will almost surely finish it off, especially with LO and possible Brave Bird recoil. MixKrow is a nice asset to the metagame as a wallbreaker who hits hard but isn't immediately taking out its counters. Powerful but not too hard to wall and fairly easy to revenge.

 

[Molk]

Cresselia: Ban

reason: Cresselia, with its monstorous defensive stats, and decent speed, was always a force to be reckoned with in the lower tiers, Cresselia has many different sets it can run, from a wall, to Calm Mind, to weather support, to dual screens, and all are dangerous. the wall is incredibly bulky and can cripple sweepers with thunder wave, pokemon that would normally counter the Calm Mind set, i say that calm mind is actually the least broken set, as its lack of an initial offensive presence and tendency to get beaten down by things such as bulky Klinklang and SD roost scyther and CB durant, but the sheer threat of calm mind cress causes many of these pokemon to switch into the wall set and be crippled to thunder wave. by far, the lunar dance set is the most dangerous. i used a trick room + lunar dance cresselia and saw that many teams could not handle the same pokemon twice, allowing the newly healed up pokemon to rip holes in the team. the same thing can be done on weather teams, or with dual screens, this is what makes cresselia broken, dont say that mesprit can do this too, cause mesprit is MUCH easier to ko than cresselia during the process, and the slightly larger offensive presence often isnt enough. lunar dance is what makes cresselia broken, it can provide support more times, more reliably and more effectively (moonlight) than all other other screeners. and lunar dance is a great indirect holepunching move because most teams cannot deal with the same threat twice. i say ban

Porygon-z: Ban

reason: Porygon-z was always a powerful force in the metagame, from scarf to specs to agility, and i believe it is ban-worthy, simply for its specs set. when porygon-z comes in at the right time, it can easily take down a pokemon, taking out a vital part of the opponents team, there are no safe switch- ins to a download boosted specs tri attack, and behind screens, the agility LO set becomes impervious to priority and nukes the opponents entire team, nasty plot breaks through stall like no tommorow, while scarf is an amazing revenge killer. under the right hands, porygon-z is a complete monster. that can easily take down several pokemon per match and be impossible to wall. i say a ban is the correct thing to do.

Honchkrow: Do Not Ban

reason: Honchkrow, while a powerful force in the metagame, does not deserve to be banned at all, Honchkrow has plenty of checks of counters. including but not limited to Regirock, Klinklang, Steelix, Entei, Rotom, Stunfisk, Ampharos and so on, Honchkrow's low speed makes it set up bait for anything that is faster than it, and the wallbreaker set is too slow and frail to sweep. Honchkrow may be good at punching holes in a team, revenge killing, and late game sweeping, but people have learned to adapt to honchkrow. its just another threat, not to powerful.

 

[Honko]

Cresselia: Ban

Thought about this one a lot and have been having trouble making up my mind. On one hand, I think the SubCM and Dual Screens sets are supremely overrated: SubCM is barely better than Uxie, and while Cress is easily the most durable Dual Screener in the tier, I do not believe her bulk is enough to singlehandedly turn a hyper offensive dual screens team from managable to broken. The Defensive set is also overrated. Offensive teams should be carrying at least one of the Pokemon that beat it, period, especially since Uxie and Slowking are already popular walls.

On the other hand, Cress destroys balanced teams and makes a ton of Pokemon unviable unless they're paired with something that beats her. Wanna use a Fire-type, or a Dragon-type, or a Fighting-type not named Gallade? You better have Durant and/or Crawdaunt on your team to get rid of Cresselia first, not to mention something else to eliminate all the other counters to your Entei/Druddigon/Medicham. You basically end up being forced to run an fully offensive team if you want to use those Pokemon at all, and that's pretty lame. Cress may be overrated, but her ability to wall so much of the tier is broken and takes a lot away from the versatility that made RU fun. Enjoy your ban you crappy duck.

Honchkrow: Do Not Ban

Several viable full counters, many checks including smart play, and either dies to recoil or on a vulnerable Roost turn even if it gets a sweep going. An easy decision.

Porygon-Z: Ban

Specs is impossible to switch into. Prediction is not difficult, and even if you get it wrong you still end up doing massive damage. Virtually guaranteed at least 1 KO per match, and there's always the risk of it running one of the other three sets as well. Enjoy your ban you wacky duck.

 

[Rakan]

Most of my reasoning for these votes are located in the respective discussion threads and were discussed on IRC, so here's just a little summary.

Cresselia

Cresselia: Do Not Ban

Most of my reasoning has been stated in my posts in the discussion thread, but to summarize, I do not feel that Cresselia is ban-worthy mostly because it cannot really directly do much to the opposing team bar paralyzing them. Cresselia's best potential lies in its support capabilities, but even then, it really proved to be underwhelming for me both personally and when used against me in battle. Any Pokemon with Taunt can instantly shut support variants down, as well as any Calm Mind variants, and Substitute users can block Thunder Wave. Many powerful attackers such as Durant can 2HKO or OHKO Cresselia before it gets a chance to do anything. Long story short, although somewhat over-hyped, Cresselia fits well into the RU metagame, and isn't ban-worthy.

Honchkrow

Honchkrow: Do Not Ban

There's no denying that Honchkrow is a powerful force in the RU metagame. However, Honchkrow has several flaws that make me seriously question why it is even a suspect. It has a terrible Speed stat, and Sucker Punch can be avoided through smart switching, Substitute, and Pressure - in other words, not reliable at all. Moxie variants have coverage issues, as they are completely walled by Steel-types (Hidden Power somewhat remedies this, but it usually isn't even a 2HKO to most bulky Steel- and Rock-types). MixKrow is more dangerous in my opinion, but hardly anyone uses it anymore, and it dies quickly to Stealth Rock damage and Brave Bird / Life Orb recoil. Honchkrow is at home in RU, and shouldn't be going anywhere else.

Porygon-Z

Porygon-Z: Ban

At first, I intended on voting to keep Porygon-Z in RU. However, several things swayed me. First of all, almost nothing can avoid the 2HKO from Specs Porygon-Z. Its powerful STAB Tri Attack and amazing coverage moves allows it to hit basically everything in RU for super effective damage. Sure, one can say that with smart switching, you can avoid being manhandled by Porygon-Z. However, this really isn't a legitimate argument, as you could argue that for every broken mon out there and call it a day. Porygon-Z's versatility with regards to coverage, power, and even Speed (yes, base 90 Speed is very good in RU), make it a deadly force - too much so for RU. In addition, while its other sets aren't as directly threatening as Choice Specs, they are also very potent, and can easily lay waste to the opponent's team. Porygon-Z absolutely deserves to be banned from RU.

 

[Mazinger]

My arguments are in the suspect threads, so I won't go into detail here.

Cresselia - Ban
The defensive set generally walls anything that doesn't hit it with a STAB SE attack, and the mons who can just get crippled by twave as they switch in, leaving them significantly less useful for the rest of the match, while cress just switches out and walls the rest later. The CM set's subs on the other hand are hard for defensive mons to break, while WW and roar can be cricumvented by (well executed) last pokemon sweeps. Taunting it is not really an option either as the two best (only?) taunt users just get destroyed by ice beam and psychic. I really don't see how this is not broken.

Honchkrow - Do Not Ban
While it doesn't have many counters, it has a decent amount of checks that fit into pretty much any team. While it is a problem that most of its checks lack recovery and can take a lot of damage depending on its moveset, Honchkrow itself has trouble surviving for long too, with its SR weakness as well as LO and Brave Bird recoil bringing it down rather quickly.
All in all this is a really difficult case, but as it is managable I'm giving it the benefit of doubt.

Porygon-Z Ban
This is pretty simple. It basically has to get a download boost (this isn't hard to achieve) and then proceeds to destroy virtually everything that isn't a Ghost-type, who still die miserably to dark pulse. After adding hp fighting for the occasional bulky resist (who still tend to die to repeated tri-attacks buts whatever), you even have a free moveslot to hit whatever your team has trouble with, or just to trick some walls. So yeah, this thing is pretty ridiculous, and I'm not even taking into account the other sets.

 

[Nails]

Honchkrow: Do not Ban

Everything to be said about Honchkrow has been said already. It has a number of viable safe switch ins, and outside those there are pokemon that can check it or beat it 1v1. It's slow and sucker punch isn't that hard to play around, either by team design or prediction.

Cresselia: Ban

The set that makes cresselia broken in my opinion is the defensive set, and its ability to wall opponents with incredible bulk while crippling would be counters with paralysis. Honestly, just through walling and paralysis support I consider it broken, there are a decent amount of super effective stab attacks (notably cb scyther uturn and rotom shadow ball) that can't 2hko physically defensive cress. Its movepool isnt great and it has shitty typing, but honestly it doesn't matter, it's just so so bulky.

And no one used it but cm twave cresselia is a total boss. It has the para support of wall cress but can make itself nearly unkillable by special attacks and pose an offensive threat.

Porygon-Z: Ban

Specs peezy kills everything. With a dowload boost (I assume a DL boost bc it's fairly easy to pick up) Tri Attack can 2hko max HP/max+ SpD steelix with a layer of spikes. SpD spiritomb gets 3hkoed by ice beam or dark pulse. everything else (that i'm aware of) is 2hkoed by the right attack, and in a lot of cases 2hkoed by the wrong attack too. It is fast enough to outspeed a lot of bulky mons and nothing faster can switch in safely; literally nothing. Agility is neat too but specs just wrecks.

 

[-Tsunami-]

Cresselia: Do not Ban

It's obviously an amazing support Pokemon, but it's versatility is at a minimum. Calm Mind sets are too easy to defeat, as you either have to forgo recovery, only have 1 attack, or get destroyed by status; Cresselia's Special Attack stat only makes this more of a problem. It can set up Dual Screens, but banning a Pokemon just for its ability to set those up is absurd. Moonlight only has 8 PP, so it has a potential to run out. It can Thunder Wave, but it is still complete set-up fodder for any Steel-type / specially Bulky Substitute users, which is very problematic when Pokemon such as Gallade lurk at every corner.

Honchkrow: Do not Ban

Honchkrow was a real force at the beginning of RU, but it's coverage simply makes it not good enough to be broken. It can sweep when the time is right, but Steel-types simply walk all over the Moxie SubRoost set. MixKrow means that Honchkrow will be worn down too easily by Life Orb and Stealth Rock; if it chooses to forgo Substitute it's just much easier to predict and deal with. Heat Wave is also incompatible with Moxie, and without Moxie, Honchkrow isn't too big of a threat. Steel-types simply troll Honchkrow, which makes it much less effective when they're so common; its Stealth Rock weakness also plagues it.

Porygon-Z: Ban

This thing is simply ridiculous. It has access to BOTH BoltBeam AND Dark + Fighting coverage, which are arguably the two best coverages in the game. It's ridiculously high Special Attack stat and access to two good abilities means the opponent has to pick their poison. Agility sets decimate offensive teams, and Nasty Plot just tears through stall like there's no tomorrow, as does Choice Specs. With entry hazard support, basically everything in the metagame is OHKO'd / 2HKO'd by a boosted Tri-Attack outside of Ghost-types, most of which can barely even touch Porygon-Z and can be easily decimated by a Dark Pulse. It's bulky enough to take priority moves, and Fighting-types have become much less useful with the advent of Cresselia, Sigilyph, and Spiritomb. It can even run a Choice Scarf set, which can sweep late game easily once bulky Steel-types and Ghost-types have been eliminated. It can even run Trick, which can basically incapacitate a wall for the rest of the game.

 

[Double01]

Porygon-Z: Ban- By far the most controvertial pokemon that we discussed on IRC. We ended up decided to banning it because hardly anyone pokemon can switch into the specs set and it is very versatile. At full health hitmonchan can't KO with Mach Punch which means Porygon-z can still sweep. There is no single counter to all of it sets (specs, scarf, agility, NP) that's why it is so deadly and that's why it deserves a ban.

Honchkrow Do Not Ban- Ever since the tier shifts Honch has dropped in usage drastically and has become very predictable. If the mixkrow set was more popular i may consider it but for now it's just going to be a good revenge and late game sweeper.

Cresselia Do Not Ban- Although Cresselia is a defensive powerhouse there were several reasons why Cresselia should not be banned. 1. It's only been in the tier for 2 weeks and we believe it's too early to make a judgement. 2. It's lack of offensive presence even with the crappy sub cm set makes it very unpleasing for many playstyles. 3. It becomes taunt and set up bait for numerous pokemon (any pokemon with sub pratically and others to prevent para) Although it's reliability to set up screens we still have not seen enough of it to make ban worthy.

 

[SilentVerse]

Cresselia: Do Not Ban
Honchkrow: Do Not Ban
Porygon-Z: Ban

Ok, I am going to say that these two weeks really haven't changed my opinion on Cresselia, which I said here. Basically, SubCM still hasn't been that great from my experience, as it's still easy enough to beat depending on the EV spread, and it really just hasn't proved to be outstanding, especially since even at +6, Cress can still be outstalled by a lot of defensive Pokemon bar Special Attack EVs, which have their own disadvantage bundled with them. Dual Screens aren't broken either since I feel that the extra bulk isn't enough to push it to brokenness, and the fact that it, unlike something like Uxie, lacks a move to get a Pokemon in safely bar killing itself with Lunar Dance is a distinct disadvantage. Support Cresselia has been more controversial recently, but I still don't think it's broken; stall teams don't care about Thunder Wave that much and will outstall Cresselia eventually, offensive teams can muscle through Cresselia, and balance teams, while more effected by it, can still deal with it since from what I've seen, a lot of balance teams have something like Slowking who can take a Thunder Wave without losing a whole lot, which means that losing an offensive Pokemon against Cresselia is an unnecessary risk for balance teams. At the moment, Cresselia still has not proven that it has been a broken threat for the metagame, so I see no point in banning it.

Honchkrow is relatively easy to deal with imo; The Substitute Moxie set, which is by far the most common, is easy enough to stop with pokes such as Regirock, Rhydon, and other such Pokemon. Though the Moxie set is difficult to play around with since sacking a Pokemon means it gains a lethal Attack boost, offensive teams are still able to deal with it since Pokemon such as Entei can outspeed and KO Honchkrow with their own priority, as Honchkrow doesn't have outstanding speed, and Pokemon that resist it's Dark-types priority still have a good chance at beating it. Mixkrow and HP Ground Moxiekrow are annoying, but they're not broken either since both are vulnerable to status and without the Attack boosts that Moxie grants, it becomes actually quite easy to simply play around them; not to mention that priority still works well vs them. Honestly, I might reconsider Honchkrow at a later point, but I still haven't seen anyone who can really use it to a broken extent, so I'm not going to ban it.

Porygon-Z on the other hand I feel just hits too hard with too little risk. Sets such as Nasty Plot and Agility are definitely very threatening to certain playstyles, but I think, Choice Specs Porygon-Z is really the main issue. Choice Specs Porygon-Z has very few safe switch-ins, since Specs Tri Attack still decimates most Steel / Rock types, especially if Porygon-Z has obtained a Download boost, bar something like Probopass, so only Ghost-types can really take a Specs Tri Attack. However, these are taken down without much issue by Dark Pulse; iirc, standard Cofagrigus is 2HKO by Adaptability Dark Pulse, and it takes a ton more if Porygon-Z nabs a Download boost. Of course, this still requires prediction on the Porygon-Z user's part to hit Ghost-types on the switch, but the thing is, even if the Porygon-Z user mispredicts, the resisted attack will still do plenty of damage, which means that it's hard to punish Porygon-Z for a mispredict by setting up. While you can argue that you can play around it since it can't switch moves (Slowking, for example, can take a Tri Attack or Dark Pulse and switch to something which is immune / resists it), the sheer power of Tri Attack means that most specially defensive pokes can only really take a Tri Attack once before being threatened.

 

[Oglemi]

Alright, all of the votes are in, the results are as follows:

Cresselia - 5-4, will be banned, and will be moved out of the RU tier.

Honchkrow - 0-9, will not be banned, will never be a suspect again pending major future metagame changes.

Porygon-Z - 9-0, will be banned, unanimously deemed broken and will be moved out of the RU tier.

Thanks for getting your votes in everybody!

EDIT: Miscounted on Cresselia, sorry for the confusion, it is banned.