Wynaut

[RBG]

Currently Wynaut is being tested in UU. While this might not normally be a problem, by theory, if it is currently usable in UU, then it should be allowed to be used OU. But we have voted Wobufett as Uber, so does that mean that Wynaut is Uber? What tiers should/shouldn't it be allowed in? If we aren't allowing it in OU then should we not allow it in UU?

 

[Caelum]

It should be allowed in OU, there is absolutely no reason to ban in it on the OU ladder. It's like banning Gabite or Gible from standard just because Garchomp was voted uber.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Agreeing that Wynaut, Gabite and Gible should be allowed in OU. Only the former is in any way a possible suspect, but now that we are starting to tier things properly it makes sense that it applies to these three Pokemon as well.

 

[Imran]

I agree with all the sentiments here, with all of these tier changes, the line that we have always taken is "innocent until proven guilty." If someone popularises Wynaut, and it is found to be "broken" in OU, that is when it should go through the suspect test process, just like all of the other Pokemon.

 

[Mekkah]

Wynaut is not entirely comparable to Wobbuffet like Gabite is to Garchomp. Nonetheless, I feel every pre-evo should be allowed in both OU and UU until they're proven to be broken.

 

[Syberia]

Anything allowed in UU should be allowed in OU. Doing things any other way is silly.

 

[RBG]

Well, I was asking mainly to see if people thought it should be banned from OU and UU, but since it seems people don't feel that way, I am happy.

 

[Jumpman16]

I agree, even though I think it's also silly to think that Wynaut isn't going to perform relatively closer to its banned final form than Gabite would to Garchomp, simply because Shadow Tag is literally the only reason Wobbuffet is uber and Wynaut has that "only reason". I can easily see a smart player being a dick with it even in OU, cause 159 Speed is still fast enough to screw a lot of things over with Encore, and 132Def/SpD seems like it sucks but backed by 394 HP its passable when you realize the gayest thing about Wobbuffet was its Encore/Tickle Combo and with worse defenses Wynaut will be all the happier to forego one of Counter/Mirror Coat.

And I don't think Wynaut will stay in UU, and have already heard complaints about it being a dick, which is absolutely no surprise to me, but whatever.

 

[the_artic_one]

Max speed Wynaut only outspeeds the following OU's assuming that no speed investment:
Snorlax
Bronzong
Forretress
Rhyperior
Dusknoir
Hippowdon
Donphan
Blissey
Machamp
Empoleon
Magnezone
Swampert
Tyranitar (needs 8 evs to outspeed)

That combined with it's lower defenses makes it much less threatening than Wobba since it's likely to die in the process of switching in and encoring.

 

[RBG]

While that may be true, Wobb was only 10 base points higher speed than Wynaut. And I was kind of lenient to adding Wynaut because, unlike Gabite, it plays exactly the same as its evo

 

[the_artic_one]

Although that 10 speed outspeeds less OU's than I initially though (five to be exact), that five includes skarmory and vaporeon which is a pretty big deal. Not conclusively worse by any means but it's worth testing.

 

[Tleilax]

I think we should wait and see. It's currently playable in UU, so let's continue with it's test. If it proves to be Wobb Jr. and is banned, then we can use that to make the decision regarding OU. If it proves itself broken we treat it as such, but the whole point of the UU test is to avoid presumptions. Let's not ban it before it has had it's testing time.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I run a pure offense team, and Wynaut's terrible defenses mean that I have absolutely zero problem with it (Except Medicham, but whatever), but I've heard a LOT about it coming in on junk like Registeel, Spiritomb, Slowbro, etc, and Encoring stuff to set up like a beast. Really, with the insane number of hyper-powerful sweepers in UU, I think that Wynaut should be banned just like Wobbuffet for the exact same reason. Bologo has already shown how easy it is to use Wynaut to set up a Belly Drum Linoone (which, granted, doesn't reduce the usefulness of Linoone's counters), which I believe can be abused to set up other sweepers like Ursaring, Gallade, or Feraligatr. The lack of a powerful Pursuiter like Tyranitar makes it hard to think that Encore + Tickle + Pursuit will become too big a problem, but Encore + Shadow Tag is still worrisome.

 

[RBG]

Well, the whole reason I posted this was cause I included I blanket Included all NFEs, without thinking about what made them broken. Basically here is how I view it afterwords:


Garchomp: Swords Dance + Yache Berry set made it uber. Gabite does not get swords Dance, so it shouldn't really be a problem.

Wobbufett: Wynaut has the exact same moves and ability, which allows it to preform the exact same strategies that made Wobby uber.


For this reason, I would have no problem with a Wynaut ban in OU (and UU by correlation), as well allowing Gabite and Gible in OU.

 

[Legacy Raider]

I think we should allow Wynaut into OU for now simply because it really hasn't had a chance to be tested in the standard environment yet. However, in addition to SDS's post, I'd like to say that Wynaut is actually extremely effective in UU. There may not be any strong Pursuiters, but there is still Trapinch with its 100 base Atk, and after 6 Tickles that EQ will OHKO pretty much everything.

Personal example here, but Wynaut can easily switch into a Steelix and Encore its Stealth Rock, then proceed to Tickle 6 times, Encore SR again, then switch to Trapinch. Trapinch can set up a sub and then EQ Steelix for the easy kill. After this, you'd be expected to bring something relatively bulky (read: slow) into Trapinch, as a pokemon with 100 with a STAB EQ behind a sub is a pretty daunting aspect for most sweepers. As far as tanks go, Milotic is one of the fastest ones. Trapinch can use Rock Tomb on it. At -1 speed, a base 90 speed pokemon with no speed investment is outsped by a Wynaut with a neutral nature and max speed. Wynaut can then either Encore the Surf and Mirror Coat back, or simply use Destiny Bond (as was done in my battle) and take out the slowed down wall.

I waffle, and maybe this isn't the best place to discuss Wynaut's placement in UU, but I'd just like to point out that I believe it encourages hyper-offensiveness in the metagame by taking out any wall with less than base 60 speed, and the majority of pokemon after a speed drop otherwise.

 

[RBG]

Yeah, i've specifically avoided mentioning how it does iN UU because I am more concerned in this topic with weather it actually gets away being broken or not in OU, and by correlation, I guess weather or not it should be considered a suspect for OU if it gets voted out of UU. Because personally, looking over it in retrospect, i can really see it going either way as to being tiered with wobbufett without testing

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Just posting to say that UU still has some very strong Pursuiters in Absol and Honchkrow, and some other slightly weaker candidates in Drapion, Spiritomb, Staraptor etc, so it is still very much a viable strategy.

I still think Wynaut should be tested at least though. We should stick to our stance of never banning anything on theorymon again.

 

[QibingZero]

As was mentioned, there are no shortage of strong Pursuiters in UU, considering Honchkrow and Absol both have STAB and huge attack stats. The only question is if they're gimping themselves in other situations by running Pursuit, and if that's a big deal.

As far as speed goes, it's fair to say that Wynaut outspeeds more of the things you'll find in UU stall than Wobbuffet outsped in standard (note: unless you consider UU Hail as 'stall'). In fact, the only extra notable pokemon Wobb even outspeeds are Vaporeon and Skarmory. Wynaut is going to have more trouble both 'when things go wrong' and killing stuff with counter or mirror coat, but Encore mixed with Shadow Tag and Tickle is the real reason Wobb was a problem - and Wynaut does it just as effectively to the majority of their targets.

I would be reluctant to just stick Wynaut in standard, even though I don't know if I'm fully against testing it. It just doesn't seem worth the effort (especially considering how little suspect is being played right now), and I have a feeling it will end up causing more problems than anything. I love that we're opening everything up for NFEs, but wynaut is nothing but trouble.

Also of note: the amount of cursers out there right now in UU make Tickle/Encore an... interesting situation.

 

[X-Act]

To sum up my feelings on this:

We shouldn't ban NFEs from any tier except if they're broken.

 

[Colonel M]

I won't go into theorymon and such, but I agree: we shouldn't ban an NFE until we know it is absolutely broken. Though I do agree with Jump: Tickle + Encore is a dick combo with Shadow Tag. I hate that combo so much.

 

[EeveeTrainer]

Wynaut should be banned, and I don't just mean banned to Ubers. Wobbuffet should be banned, as well, from Ubers.

Wobbuffet was not banned from OU because it was too powerful, it was banned because it was broken. Broken means that it messes up the healthy, skill- and strategy-based metagame. Shadow Tag is broken. Evasion is broken. OHKO's are broken. Wobbuffet and Wynaut are broken. As far as I know, evasion and OHKO's are still banned from Ubers.

I feel like I should say "Have a nice day" here because this comes off as a very Hipmonlee-esque post for some reason.

 

[lilyhollow]

I agree with EeveeTrainer that Wynaut should just be banned (unless people are having second thoughts about Wobbuffet itself I suppose). In my mind, we didn't ban Wobbuffet for being "too good" per se (and the fact that it never actually dominated the ladder outside the hands of already top-ranked players attests to this), but rather because the gameplay it promoted was undesirable and harmful to competitive pokemon. Just because Wynaut happens to be less useful doesn't mean it doesn't do literally everything we banned Wobbuffet for in the first place.

On the subject of ubers though, I would sooner allow OHKOs/Evasion and Wobbuffet/Wynaut in Ubers than ban all of them (but I agree that we should treat them consistently). It really comes down to whether we want to continue treating Ubers like a "kind of sort of" balanced tier, which is a little silly but can't really be helped if there are people who enjoy playing it that way I suppose. I don't really think any of them would "break" that metagame anyway though, so really I'd just keep them all unbanned to be consistent.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I don't consider a ban of Wynaut to be theorymon, given that it has been proven that Shadow Tag + Encore + being faster than most walls is absolutely broken regardless of power and usage, and that it would be a theorymon ban if Wynaut didn't behave EXACTLY like Wobbuffet did in OU.

 

[Articanus]

I think the 10 points in speed are enough to consider Wynaut for testing, at least. I think it's lowered defenses and everything really make it a possible "OU" canditate, if even that.

 

[the_artic_one]

I disagree that wobba was banned just for the combo of shadow tag encore and tickle. It's durability allowed it to survive even if the player mispredicted and switched into an attack, wynaut is not nearly as bulky as wobuffet and is more likely to be killed due to a mispredict which is why I think it should be tested.

Also, please tell me how it promoted "undesirable and harmful" play as I don't understand that argument at all.