SV UU Suspect Process Round 14 - Meow The Jewels

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ThatOneApple said:
Another note that I should mention is that some have said that Meowscarada has caused "innovation" in the tier. Desperation is not innovation, something like Galarian Weezing really is not good and the fact that it has been considered kinda shows the negative impact Meowscarada has had. As for other "checks," I've already gone into detail about them in my previous post but to reiterate, they all either rely on luck, are passive, or are generally not good as a whole and exist purely for Meow. As for what innovation has taken place, its mostly seemed like HO and Stall from UULT seeing it. This, to me, shows that Meowscarada's presence has pushed the meta to the extreme ends of the spectrum, where HO and Stall are the main things seeing use/experimentation and Balance/BO kinda get locked into specific mons.
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I too feel that the term “innovation” is dangerous, and the fact that tornadus makes all the teams in the tier look the same is simply due to the bias of torn's long presence in this tier. If meowscarada is not banned, it is not hard to imagine that six months from now people will criticize meowscarada saying that it is stifling the development of the tier. meowscarada's feeling that it is bringing a new wind to this tier is simply because only because it has just arrived in uu.

In the first place, it is doubtful that the metagame is healthy with skarmory and gastrodon spreading spikes in large numbers in a tier where the only decent hazard remover is excadrill (which is also powerful, but I doubt if it is good at its job as a hazard remover).

A metagame that forces heavy duty boots on every pokemon and makes swapping extremely inconvenient may be great for those who enjoyed the classic 6v6 before gen7, but I don't want a metagame that severely limits the items available, so I would argue that the metagame meowscarada is far more unsound than the metagame produced by tornadus. Of course meowscarada should leave.
 
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I'm not sure if I'll be able to convey what i intend clearly here, but I think Meow shouldn't be banned. This tier has some genuinely awful aspects about it, but Meow isn't among the reasons for that. I can't deny that Meow is a centralizing presence and has a very unique way of making progress, although i do agree with the sentiment that it's more a positive influence than a negative one to the tier. If you've been keeping up with the recent tournaments of/and or that involve SV UU, it's no secret that Hyper Offense and bulkier playstyles are some of the most prevalent playstyles in the tier, with Balance being on the lower end of usage and consistency. Many seem to hold the sentiment that there's way too many threats to account for within the tier, reactively leading to teams having to either match the offensive prowess or having the omnibulk to withstand the powercreep, which usually revolves around very limited mons or cores thus restricting creativity.

Despite the most recent shifts, pre and post-shift metas are nearly the same. The loss of Tinkaton was notable, but the loss of Weavile and the reintroduction to Rillaboom and Meowscarada (and Blissey) were changes that UU is no stranger to. The addition of Rillaboom bringing back another Terrain style was a nice change that lasted not even 3 weeks, and Meow was expected to be an impactful change that was, yet it has essentially fulfilled the role that Weavile had in the tier. After Rilla's ban, so far we have seen many of the same trends that arose to deal with Weavile arise for Meow as well; the omnipresence of HO, stacked checks not just for this mon but for other threats in the tier, and a rather fast paced hazards meta, all of which were believed to be reasonable factors that lead many to believe Weavile was kept at ease in the tier. Much of the pro-ban arguments for Weavile have been made for Meow:
-building constrains,
-outlasting its checks and longevity,
-picking its checks thru its coverage,
but the same can be said for some arguments on the anti-ban side. Meow is believed to:
-be a good revenge killer to offense and helps keep dominant playstyles in check thru good coverage/priority/hazard options,
-be reasonably answered in stacked checks and some combination of defensive answer + offensive answer/speed control + reactive tera (currently used cores and mons are good regardless of Meow being in the tier or not),
-reliant on risk-taking and needs chip damage and positioning to clean up and pick up ohkos,
-have a trade-off in running non-Boots sets (Choice Band/Scarf, etc.) being kept in check by hazards; exchanging longevity for damage output and vice-versa,
-helps keep some of the more prominent playstyles of HO and stall in check.

I think the builder constraint argument is one of the better arguments for the ban side, but i dont think that alone is grounds for being banworthy. Meow's boots set can have some drawbacks at times in coming short of damage, Triple Axel, assuming it can connect, being the strongest damaging move it runs having high risk to it, and Protean type changes being occasionally detrimental in some endgames where it needs a certain typing for meaningful damage or making itself weaker to certain revenge killers. Meow into teams with contact punishers has to be cautious in what it clicking. Meow hazardstack is kind of its own playstyle, but most setters cant exactly bring it in, so its opportunities to hit the field can be limited, and even if it runs it's own hazards it's further restricting its movepool. The need for speed control isn't something that Meow alone facilitates, in fact its rather expected in highly offensive metas. Meow may be a centralizing influence, but the thought of it limiting creativity is a stretched truth. I think it's worth mentioning a certain fact about it in that Meow didn't create this hostile and polarized meta as it already existed before it dropped, but rather expanded upon it and made the existing issues easier to see. The most notable thing about Meow is that it basically revived Balance as a playstyle and if you ask me, a meta where every playstyle has a place in a tier is a very good thing; even Rain, Sun, and Trick Room have emerged in this meta and that's genuinely a neat thing to see in a tier that was lacking creativity pre-shift. Rillaboom was one of the best creative changes the tier has had that was short lived and maybe we wont get something like that for the rest of the generation, but building with Meow in itself at least can make it a little easier to be creative. Even though Meow can take some effort to deal with in practice, it is possible and can be skillful and the tier is much better off with it around. The reality of all this is that even if Meow got banned, HO and Stall wouldn't get worse, if anything they arguably get better and other influences get more oppressive, and the tier would be losing a versatile mon that helps against these playstyles and the same cores and teams would continue to be used; Meow's presence or lack thereof won't change this. I can understand wanting it banned, but I don't think it's ban will change the tier in the way people expect it to.

If anything about the tier should be looked at going forward, tiering should look into some of the more dominant influences of the tier whether its addressing further HO mons, Manaphy/Revaroom/Hawlucha/Deoxys-Speed/Iron Jugulis come to mind, addressing mons that have contributed to shaping the tier to where it is now in Lokix/Tornadus-T/Latios, or maybe it's time to considering reintroducing something back into the tier like Pelipper/Okidogi/Rillaboom. I'm of the belief that Rillaboom deserved more time in the tier and while it's fair that it was banned for UUPL playoffs, i think it's still deserving of a proper test at some point. Okidogi could be an interesting to look at if Meow remains in the tier.
 
Got reqs, I'll be voting do not ban as meow is a necessary evil for the tier and pushes for more creative teams instead of the same 4 sort of cores. Its too early to know if its unhealthy for the tier.
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Let’s look at all the “innovation” meow has caused. Geezing is smth ive seen brought up, but it’s outclassed by fezand, is fairly passive, and the fact of the matter is that meow is like the only reason you would consider it. Now, addressing stuff like skarm and fezand, these were alr rlly good before meow! skarm is one of the few mons that can switch into kix repeatedly, fezand is like one of the few checks to thundy, in addition to a bunch of cool stuff ( but maybe i shouldnt be taking magcargo’s post semi seriously). Anyway, the point im trying to make is that all this “innovation” stuff is all just hot air. Take a look at the new samples, if meow was rlly pushing the metagame in a fresh new direction, why arent we seeing these purported innovations jn the samples? no, these pokemon are inconsistent when you have to handle pokemon other than meow (if they can even handle meow lmao), which is why we aren’t seeing any weezings or bellibolts on tha samples. In fact, all the balance/bo samples are literally just proven, consistent pokemon with the addition of meow, which if i may add, is on every single balance/bo team. “Innovation” here is imo a way to cope with meow being so challenging to handle. The real innovation that’s happening is finding ways to best support this new broken mon. BAN meow.
 
Some mons that I've used which help vs meow include slither wing and bisharp, keldeo can switch in on variants that drop flower trick (although i don't really think it should drop flower trick) and threaten to revenge all variants with vacuum wave, mons like enamorus and volcanion can help to limit its oppurtunities to come in and attack. Innovation does not come in the form of passively answering meow but in limiting its oppurtunities and forcing it to make difficult decisions. Bo and balance are perfectly viable, although the meta has trended towards extremes somewhat. Part of this is that (in my opinion) deo-s is an unhealthy mu divider as a lead on ho, which severely limits consistent counterplay vs the playstyle, and the meta has trended towards using strong anti ho mons like dirge as a result, although its natural synergy with skarm is also a factor. Banning meow might lead to a more balanced metagame in the short term but i believe it would be a mistake.
 
I’m honestly shocked at all the ban sentiment here. I feel like the threshold for tolerating things we don’t like is very low atm. I sincerely doubt Meow would be in the cusp of getting banned if this test was done 2 years ago. When I think of broken things in the tier I’m looking at stuff like Iron Hands and Ursuluna. Theres no way Meow comes close to that kind of oppression - in fact, Meow actually helps kinda keep the tier in line atm. It’s annoying sure but like, I’m not really worried about losing to Meow in any games I play, I’m worried about losing to the random HO threat enabled by Deoxys like bulky bulk up Slither Wing or DD Latios or a Trick Room Torkoal or a bulky weakness policy mon (like 7 of them can work), or Revavroom but with random bulk invested so you can’t quite pinpoint what two moves you need to use to not lose to it. Like honestly I’m trying to use Dirge on every team and with Meow gone that’s gonna be the only thing to do in this meta which is unfortunate. Meow is not busted, absolutely no way per tiering policy can it be considered “broken”. Maybe make an argument it’s unhealthy for the metagame but I don’t think that’s true, I think it puts it in a healthier spot than it would be without it.
 
BigFatMantis said:
I’m honestly shocked at all the ban sentiment here. I feel like the threshold for tolerating things we don’t like is very low atm. I sincerely doubt Meow would be in the cusp of getting banned if this test was done 2 years ago. When I think of broken things in the tier I’m looking at stuff like Iron Hands and Ursuluna. Theres no way Meow comes close to that kind of oppression - in fact, Meow actually helps kinda keep the tier in line atm. It’s annoying sure but like, I’m not really worried about losing to Meow in any games I play, I’m worried about losing to the random HO threat enabled by Deoxys like bulky bulk up Slither Wing or DD Latios or a Trick Room Torkoal or a bulky weakness policy mon (like 7 of them can work), or Revavroom but with random bulk invested so you can’t quite pinpoint what two moves you need to use to not lose to it. Like honestly I’m trying to use Dirge on every team and with Meow gone that’s gonna be the only thing to do in this meta which is unfortunate. Meow is not busted, absolutely no way per tiering policy can it be considered “broken”. Maybe make an argument it’s unhealthy for the metagame but I don’t think that’s true, I think it puts it in a healthier spot than it would be without it.
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Of course you have the right to claim that meowscarada is a balanced pokemon, but The discussion focusing on the impact of the metagame is mainly led by those who want to protect Meow, while most of those who support the ban are concerned about how powerful Meow itself is. The discussion here is centered around the impact on the metagame simply to refute the argument for keeping meow, and we must remember that there is no check for meow that can take turns on a stable basis other than skarmory.
Realistically, many of the other checks cannot move stably until they figure out what moves meowscarada does not have, and few pokemon can deal with knock off and u turn.
 
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BigFatMantis said:
Meow is not busted, absolutely no way per tiering policy can it be considered “broken”.
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III.) Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

  • These aren't necessarily completely uncompetitive because they don't take the determining factor out of the player's hands; both can use these elements and both probably have a fair chance to win. They are broken because they almost dictate / require usage, and a standard team without one of them facing a standard team with one of them would be at a drastic disadvantage.
  • These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere.
  • Uncompetitive and Broken defined like this tend to be mutually exclusive in practice, but they aren't necessarily entirely so.
    • Baton Pass was deemed uncompetitive because of how drastically it removed battling skill's effects and brought the battle down to matchup, but it could also be deemed broken because of the unique ways in which you had to deal with it.
    • While this isn't always the case, an uncompetitive thing probably isn't broken, but a broken thing is more likely to be uncompetitive simply due to the unique counter / check component. For example, Mega Kangaskhan was deemed broken because it was simply too good relative to the rest of the metagame and caused the tier to centralize around it, but it could also be labeled as uncompetitive because of the severe team matchup restriction it caused by punishing players if they did not pack one of the few obscure counters or checks for it.

Well, looking at it, yeah, you can make an arguement that its broken. The fact that 4 out of 7 samples have meow (the only ones that don't are HO and stall, where meow doesn't really fit), can argued in the first point that meow requires usage because it is so good that not using it it throwing on BO and balance. The second point can be seen in pokemon such as bellibolt and geezing, which aren't really too useful outside of countering meow (bellibolt has some other things going for it but you cannot say with a straight face that geezing would be used over fezandipiti if meow wasn't here).

You can have the opinion that meow isn't broken, but by tiering policy, you can argue that it is broken.
 
Heatranator said:
III.) Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

  • These aren't necessarily completely uncompetitive because they don't take the determining factor out of the player's hands; both can use these elements and both probably have a fair chance to win. They are broken because they almost dictate / require usage, and a standard team without one of them facing a standard team with one of them would be at a drastic disadvantage.
  • These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere.
  • Uncompetitive and Broken defined like this tend to be mutually exclusive in practice, but they aren't necessarily entirely so.
    • Baton Pass was deemed uncompetitive because of how drastically it removed battling skill's effects and brought the battle down to matchup, but it could also be deemed broken because of the unique ways in which you had to deal with it.
    • While this isn't always the case, an uncompetitive thing probably isn't broken, but a broken thing is more likely to be uncompetitive simply due to the unique counter / check component. For example, Mega Kangaskhan was deemed broken because it was simply too good relative to the rest of the metagame and caused the tier to centralize around it, but it could also be labeled as uncompetitive because of the severe team matchup restriction it caused by punishing players if they did not pack one of the few obscure counters or checks for it.

Well, looking at it, yeah, you can make an arguement that its broken. The fact that 4 out of 7 samples have meow (the only ones that don't are HO and stall, where meow doesn't really fit), can argued in the first point that meow requires usage because it is so good that not using it it throwing on BO and balance. The second point can be seen in pokemon such as bellibolt and geezing, which aren't really too useful outside of countering meow (bellibolt has some other things going for it but you cannot say with a straight face that geezing would be used over fezandipiti if meow wasn't here).

You can have the opinion that meow isn't broken, but by tiering policy, you can argue that it is broken.
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Um, no, not at all? Let's go over it in case you don't understand:

  • These aren't necessarily completely uncompetitive because they don't take the determining factor out of the player's hands; both can use these elements and both probably have a fair chance to win. They are broken because they almost dictate / require usage, and a standard team without one of them facing a standard team with one of them would be at a drastic disadvantage.
So very obviously Meow does NOT dictate usage considering HO is so abundant atm and most HO team do not have Meow. Saying it's on "4 out of 7" sample teams doesn't really prove anything - first off that's still not dictating usage even if the numbers were representative of how you should be using Meow, but the numbers are not that anyways since, again, a very large number of teams do NOT have Meow and are still quite good! So, this prong fails tremendously to anyone who knows how to read it. Let's go to the next one:
  • These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere.
If you are trying to argue that Skarmory, Fez, Bellibolt etc. are "extraordinarily niche Pokemon" then I encourage you to play the metagame more. This isn't even really worth discussing since it's very obviously not true. It doesn't even matter if these aren't perfect checks, the prong states that, to be broke, the ONLY checks must be "extroardinarily niche".

The last bullet point isn't a prong, it's just giving examples.

So, in conclusion, you should try to understand what these prongs mean more, because they quite obviously do not paint a picture of a broken Meow by these definitions.
 
udongirl said:
Of course you have the right to claim that meowscarada is a balanced pokemon, but The discussion focusing on the impact of the metagame is mainly led by those who want to protect Meow, while most of those who support the ban are concerned about how powerful Meow itself is. The discussion here is centered around the impact on the metagame simply to refute the argument for keeping meow, and we must remember that there is no check for meow that can take turns on a stable basis other than skarmory.
Realistically, many of the other checks cannot move stably until they figure out what moves meowscarada does not have, and few pokemon can deal with knock off and u turn.
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I understand what you're saying, and I think you have every right to want to ban it because you think it's unhealthy for the metagame. I just don't think it can be considered "broken" by tiering definitions is all, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't want it banned - being unhealthy for the metagame is a very valid reason to ban it. I disagree with it being unhealthy, but I can understand why you would think so and I acknowledge it.
 
Meow not being exactly "broken" does not mean it should be kept in the tier. By this logic, half of the BLs would still be here and the meta would likely be in an extremely poor state.

BigFatMantis said:
I sincerely doubt Meow would be in the cusp of getting banned if this test was done 2 years ago.
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I also do not understand what this is trying to say, even discounting the fact that comparing this metagame to one 2 years ago is ridiculous. Even with comparing them though, there are some notable factors that this completely ignores, such as Meow now having a base 120 power Ice move with stab to throw out making it significantly harder to check in both the short and long term, and that 2 very prominent checks (Okidogi and Tinkaton) are no longer present. In any case, the meta is significantly different to the one from two years ago and its in a state that makes Meow incredibly rough to handle in tandem with its new toy.

Lizzie said:
Some mons that I've used which help vs meow include slither wing and bisharp, keldeo can switch in on variants that drop flower trick (although i don't really think it should drop flower trick) and threaten to revenge all variants with vacuum wave, mons like enamorus and volcanion can help to limit its oppurtunities to come in and attack. Innovation does not come in the form of passively answering meow but in limiting its oppurtunities and forcing it to make difficult decisions. Bo and balance are perfectly viable, although the meta has trended towards extremes somewhat. Part of this is that (in my opinion) deo-s is an unhealthy mu divider as a lead on ho, which severely limits consistent counterplay vs the playstyle, and the meta has trended towards using strong anti ho mons like dirge as a result, although its natural synergy with skarm is also a factor. Banning meow might lead to a more balanced metagame in the short term but i believe it would be a mistake.
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My issue here is that all of these proactive checks either have to assume meow doesn't have a move, or need to have a sack ready to actually switch in, and trying to have these on the field a lot to prevent Meow from coming in just is not reliable. Not to mention the fact that these half measures generally are not safe into Meow given its ability to pivot out of them for easy chip, and stacking up these half measures is getting back into the metagame health problems Meow has. Point is that trying to be proactive against this thing runs into a lot of the same issues that being reactive does, largely due to its speed tier and the combination of Protean with Taxel, Knock Off, and U-Turn

Also, I already mentioned this earlier about Torn but, Deoxys-Speed is also not relevant to the conversation. It does somewhat divide matchups but to be honest, the rise of Donphan has made me not really mind the hazard lead sets as much, and the Lorb sets are... not that good imo due to severe longevity issues. As I said, its not a factor in the Meow topic, but its not even a good scapegoat for that Meow does because it doesnt outlast and punch through teams nearly as well as Meow does. In fact, I'd honestly like to see boots sets explored more for Deo, I think they could have some fun positives as a fast and bulky utility guy.

In any case, idg the dnb arguments because I feel like they all just make assumptions about the gamestate is unfavorable to Meow, that Meow's moveset isn't good in the matchup, or try to pose something else as an issue (see the posts that mention Torn as a problem, which is something I'd much rather have the meta centered around as its a nice defensive piece as opposed to a pure offensive threat). You can absolutely think the meta is fine or think that a different mon is dumb, I just cannot bring myself to agree, and other mons aren't really the topic being discussed.

Probably my last post on the matter bc I've said all I want to say now, hoping this cat leaves but this has been a lot more controversial than expected.
 
ThatOneApple said:
Also, I already mentioned this earlier about Torn but, Deoxys-Speed is also not relevant to the conversation. It does somewhat divide matchups but to be honest, the rise of Donphan has made me not really mind the hazard lead sets as much, and the Lorb sets are... not that good imo due to severe longevity issues. As I said, its not a factor in the Meow topic, but its not even a good scapegoat for that Meow does because it doesnt outlast and punch through teams nearly as well as Meow does. In fact, I'd honestly like to see boots sets explored more for Deo, I think they could have some fun positives as a fast and bulky utility guy.
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To elaborate more on what i meant, deo-s compared to other ho leads is far better at denying opposing hazards and getting its own hazards, which combined with the relatively limited pool of mons that can lead well vs it makes ho mus far more linear and really limits the structures that can do well vs it. This was mostly relevant as a response to the claim that meow is pushing the meta toward extremes, because I think having an mu divider like deo on ho is a large contributor to this.
 
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