Metagame np: SV DOU Stage 15: Without Me | Flutter Mane Suspect

Dont whose idea it was to bring flutter back but just no. I don’t understand why commander is not banned and tatsu is, storm drain tatsu would be a far better meta game addition than flutter and would offer great counter play into waterpon. If we can ban shadow tag why can’t we ban commander?? Also I would love to see a ban on dark void and an unban of darkrai, a voidless rai is 10x less broken than Flutter. These are the meta game changes we should be making not reviving one of the most broken mons dou have ever seen.
5C0F1422-F1E1-452E-818D-541ACAE6463A.jpeg
 
BUTTER MAN 1
BUTTER MAN 2
BUTTER MAN 3
1756689985642.png

before i start uh this is literally my first suspect thingy so ill probably get a bunch of stuff wrong
flutter manes faster than like the entire tier when boosted, and pressures a lot of teams to invest more in speed control in tw icy wind or tr, flutter fish is extremely strong but its strength is comparable to paonite imo so speed seems to be more powerful, though i feel like the tier has the tools to handle flutter manes speed, and most of the adjustments i predict people would make to counter flutter aren't that suboptimal imo, such as assault vest incin and more choice scarf usage. imo fairy types are pretty lacking in this tier so flutter mane could help counter stuff like dragonite and raging bolt, as well as the tera dragon mons
 
I’m on the fence and open to convincing on either side of the argument. I’m not loving the current state of the meta for a variety of reasons unrelated to Flutter but I can’t tell if Flutter makes those issues I have better or worse. Calc also don’t feel as horrible as they once were, though I completely see the keep it banned argument.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_4344.png
    IMG_4344.png
    482 KB · Views: 48
my issue with flutter mane is that it makes it just so easy to win. this is the most obvious ban argument for me, no calcs, no teambuilding, no nothing. im finding myself having an extreme advantage vs no flutter teams, my flutter mane is always my wincondition and my opponents flutter mane is always my biggest threat. it carries really hard, makes the game so simple because its stats and typing are broken, and thats something no balanced pokemon does.

ftr, this is an issue totally on the suspect system. drop tests shouldnt be done in 2 weeks regular tests, weve seen this shit in ou before w palafin and zama and we are repeating it now
 
At this stage, I’ve realized just how powerful Flutter Mane is. As other testers have noted, it’s extremely easy to win against opponents who aren’t aware that “Flutter Mane is now available.”
On the other hand, the current ladder teams tend to assume there’s no offensive Fairy-type attacker in the meta. Meanwhile, the typical suspect test builds revolve around Choice Specs Flutter Mane + Tailwind + Sun. While this setup is certainly effective, the testing environment would be more rigorous if opponents were building with a more comprehensive and informed perspective.
In conclusion, I suggest keeping Flutter Mane available for a longer period—or unbanning it—and observing how the meta evolves.

1756714560055.png
 
2) Fairy coverage is severely lacking. The metagame has been warped around Dragon tera (or Dragons in general) really hard in the past few months. Dragon Gholdengo and Diancie are really dumb boosters that can take one kill and become nearly untouchable after ripping the button and are the most egregious examples of what I mean, but I think something that puts more pressure on Raging Bolt, Iron Hands, Kyurem, and Roaring Moon is a positive.
1756723589143.jpeg
 
reqs get!

not a record i'm exactly thrilled with but in nonetheless, i used this for the entire suspect https://pokepast.es/1c458b2277c08b03 . i think it's an obviously quickly built mishmash but the SR sash ghost landoi with booster fake tears flutter felt really strong, i wanted rocks to punish a theoretical move of incin items from boots to AV to deal with flutter chiyu, and fake tears EP also drops that- felt really good into the resulting sunspams as well as tw offense bc 607 speed guy outspeeds most of the tier in tailwind skull emoji

i'm on the fence at the moment bc unbanned flutter instantly hits the tier as the top mon and will certainly warp the tier into something much different than we're currently used to, but i'm not sure if that's necessarily a bad thing. definitely definitely broken but my perspective coming from VGC i think makes me a little lighter on flutter than maybe DOU players would be. leaning do not unban, gonna think about it some more. cheers


1756780067152.png
 
Last edited:
The question we must ask is not whether Flutter Mane is strong, as it clearly is, but whether it is uncompetitive or broken per Smogon's tiering policy; I'll be voting to unban Flutter Mane on the grounds that it is neither.

Flutter Mane clearly isn't uncompetitive. Players facing Flutter Mane retain agency in battle through positioning, prediction, and team construction choices. This contrasts with genuinely uncompetitive elements like Evasion abilities that reduce battles to coin flips, or uninteractive setup strategies like Eevium Z and Commander that offer few reasonable counterplay options.

The perception of Flutter Mane as "broken" must be contextualized within the natural progression of power creep across Pokemon generations. Each new generation introduces mechanics, stats, and movepool combinations that appear overwhelming when viewed in isolation. SM Doubles witnessed similar rhetoric regarding Z-Moves, Terrains, and Deoxys, yet it went unbanned and the format adapted. There's also the historical precedent established by Pokemon that were demonstrably more centralizing yet remained legal in their current generation metagames. XY Doubles saw Landorus-T achieve usage rates exceeding 70% while warping the entire metagame around its presence. These Pokemon were clearly very good, but over time players developed counterplay. The knee-jerk reaction to ban immediately once given the opportunity prevents the natural metagame evolution that has historically produced some of Doubles OU's most celebrated formats, like XY and SM.

Ultimately, I would prefer to play a format that is more authentic to the original cartridge games, trusting that the metagame will naturally adapt and balance over time. Unbanning Flutter Mane is a step toward preserving that generational identity while still maintaining a competitive metagame.
 
I think a lot of arguments around allowing flutter depend on the meta adapting to it, but I want to ask, how? First off, physical attackers are not, and never will be, a fully reliable answer to Flutter. Not only does flutter have countless partners that can easily resolve this issue, redirection from ogerpons and amoon, incin, partners like chi yu and lando that can easily ko most of said threats, torn for speed control, niche options like tsareena and ndd (the latter also providing redirection) to stop prio spam, but also, flutter's stats are so insane it can easily invest massively in bulk and it can take a shocking amount of hits. Further you have incin and other options like screens to shore up its bulk furhter. I've also experimented with cm grassy seed flutter to pretty decent success. Drawing from my experience from vgc, there is no way to reliably check flutter, and it can ALWAYS adapt to its checks. I've seen it time and time again, flutter making a new set to beat its counters. Even if you manage to tech around flutter's physical damage reduction like with defiant kingambit, then you just thud into regular offensive flutter + chi yu cores. Additionally, flutter outspeeds the entire meta, causing an insane mess of speed creeping and icy wind wars between opposing flutters, which I find really unhealthy. (Particularly when ppl catch onto twave flutter). I can't think of a single mon or core of mons that can reliably check both supportive/defensive flutter + a common partner like incin and offensive flutter + chi yu/lando (heatran dies tospecs shadow ball + dark pulse and loses damage wars if you play around it). And anything that might is so specific that the meta is centralised around it to an almost insane extent, but unlike lando t or other similarly central pokemons in past metas, flutter can win games by itself, and exudes an immense offensive pressure whilst being the fastest thing in the tier.

Further, the few mons that are good in the tier outside of checking flutter, like rilla and tera woger, are almost always used to damage trade with other massively dangerous foes, and thus are very vulnerable and easy to chip down for flutter, or for flutter to chip for its partner. Flutter can activate so many offensive cores whilst seemlessly being a game ending threat in itself, whilst it can slot with ease into common balance builds and single handedly ruins so so many otherwise strong and viable options within the tier. Flutter is an obviously unbelievably unbalanced mon, and it has proven time and time again in formats of a much higher power level then this that it has the tools to adapt to whatever you attempt to check it with, and controls the game in a way no other mon currently legal can.
 
thinking that flutter should be reallowed is fine, but these arguments are not it man
The perception of Eternatus-Eternamax as "broken" must be contextualized within the natural progression of power creep across Pokemon generations. Each new generation introduces mechanics, stats, and movepool combinations that appear overwhelming when viewed in isolation. SM Doubles witnessed similar rhetoric regarding Z-Moves, Terrains, and Deoxys, yet it went unbanned and the format adapted. There's also the historical precedent established by Pokemon that were demonstrably more centralizing yet remained legal in their current generation metagames. XY Doubles saw Landorus-T achieve usage rates exceeding 70% while warping the entire metagame around its presence. These Pokemon were clearly very good, but over time players developed counterplay.
you could say this about absolutely every pokemon, every piece in the metagame ever. this means nothing. you can develop counterplay to everything. you could change Flutter Mane in that post to Eternatus-Eternamax and nothing would change. The issue is not "developing counterplay", but rather is that counterplay enough? In case it's enough, is it too limiting building wise or playing wise, where you open yourself up to losing to other stuff? Can the metagame actually handle said mon without crumbling? I, or no one, has an answer to this, and this is why we don't tier on hypotheticals but we are trying to do it here i guess
The knee-jerk reaction to ban immediately once given the opportunity prevents the natural metagame evolution that has historically produced some of Doubles OU's most celebrated formats, like XY and SM.
This "knee-jerk reaction to ban immediately once given the opportunity" is actually the third suspect this pokemon recieves after being allowed for an entire year and being banned for the next one. In a year, metagames have a ton of time to adapt, and they naturally do, just ask the vgcers. This wasnt an overreaction, given it took an entire year. This sentence is just a bunch of nothing too, bans happen because "natural metagame evolution" gets stopped by these broken pokemon. Those historically celebrated Doubles OU metagames have also had bans, perhaps faster than Flutter Mane as well. Did the Snorlax ban halt the development of the smdou metagame then? Should we unban Darkrai from XY DOU because it was a knee jerk reaction?

If flutter mane should be legal, it should be because we actually see that the metagame has developed to a state where it can handle it no problem and its actually a benefit for the tier. sadly, two weeks retests do not allow this and are based just on hypotheticals, hope and aversion to change.
 
Qualled for the suspect a bit ago but didnt know whether flutter mane was too much for the tier or not, so i took some time to play more DOU on main to get a better understanding of whether flutter was banworthy. after some games, i realised that flutter mane itself may not be banworthy, but being partnered next to amazing supports such as amoonguss for redirection, incineroar for intimidate/fake out/helping hand, chi yu for insane damage output with spread dgleam and heatwave next to each other, even something like sinistcha for passive healing pushes it over the edge for me, hence i think flutter should stay out of DOU.
 
1757075967179.png


Qualified for this suspect quite some time ago although this is my first time so please do not mind if this seems a bit iffy. Moving onto to the topic Flutter Mane, My feeling on it is also quite mixed however I will list some points which have inclined me to take the decision that I have. These aspects are listed below:

1) Base Stats: There is not much to say about this aspect except for that this Pokemon is clearly insane. It has a 135 in Special Attack, Special Defence and Speed. This allows Flutter Mane to be a specially bulky Pokemon, while also allowing it to out speed most of the meta game while threatening huge damage and possibly KO'ing it before they can even touch it. This allows flutter mane to be paired with other threatening Pokemon such as Chi-Yu allowing to further boost Flutter Mane's damage output with its Beads of Ruin ability.

2) Flexibility: Flutter Mane is a very flexible Pokemon which is very good at doing multiple things, this could be through holding various items such as Choice Specs which can be a reliable boost to the damage output even further, focus sash allowing it to survive a single attack, booster energy for more speed or special attack. It can also run move's such as calm mind while being supported while other Pokemon. It could even be used for speed control with supporting moves such as icy wind. Therefore due to the many different sets this Pokemon has it makes it very unpredictable and can become a guessing game, if it is specs and a fast sweeper or if it a support Pokemon.

3) Typing: Flutter Mane is a ghost and fairy type this allows it to be immune to major methods of such slowing down a Pokemon such as fake out. This also allows it to have 2 consistent stabs which are not resisted by many Pokemon as the fairy typing can hit dark types which may resist ghost moves.

4) Pressure: Honestly, in my opinion flutter puts on a lot of pressure on the opponent, as discussed before with choice specs it can outspeed and KO nearly anything that does not resist its attack. I am not really sure about this part so I will leave it here.

Overview:

Hence looking at these points my final decision is to BAN Flutter Mane as it could be really strong and seems unhealthy for the meta game due to the insane base stats, flexibility, great typing and the amount of pressure it creates.
 
Reminder of what a Flutter Mane meta looks like :

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Flutter Mane       |   69 |  69.00% |  50.72% |
| 2    | Landorus-Therian   |   55 |  55.00% |  49.09% |
| 3    | Iron Hands         |   49 |  49.00% |  46.94% |
| 4    | Rillaboom          |   34 |  34.00% |  32.35% |
| 5    | Tornadus           |   30 |  30.00% |  50.00% |
| 5    | Chi-Yu             |   30 |  30.00% |  46.67% |
| 7    | Chien-Pao          |   26 |  26.00% |  61.54% |
| 8    | Cresselia          |   24 |  24.00% |  54.17% |
| 9    | Volcanion          |   21 |  21.00% |  47.62% |
| 9    | Heatran            |   21 |  21.00% |  47.62% |
| 9    | Amoonguss          |   21 |  21.00% |  42.86% |
| 12   | Gholdengo          |   20 |  20.00% |  65.00% |
| 13   | Palafin            |   16 |  16.00% |  43.75% |
| 13   | Basculegion-F      |   16 |  16.00% |  43.75% |
| 15   | Indeedee-F         |   12 |  12.00% |  58.33% |
| 16   | Glimmora           |   10 |  10.00% |  60.00% |
| 16   | Diancie            |   10 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 16   | Grimmsnarl         |   10 |  10.00% |  30.00% |
| 19   | Kingambit          |    9 |   9.00% |  66.67% |
| 19   | Dragapult          |    9 |   9.00% |  33.33% |
 
https://pokepast.es/0bb938337178c516 (it's a bad team don't use for real games, good for suspect though!)
Just used this team to get reqs. Super fast and turn your brain off typa team. Filters thru low ladder quickly, super fun.

initially I am leaning towards voting ban on flutter mane, as I should not have showdown on a 2nd monitor mindlessly clicking buttons and casually getting reqs as I watch a show on my main monitor, but I think that is a result of people not being prepared for a tier with Flutter in it. I think the test should be extended a little longer to see if there's any metagame adaptations.

1757099147935.png
 
I voted ban in the last Flutter Mane suspect test, and will be doing so again this time. Though I do think people are focusing a bit too much on it in combination with Chi-Yu (which was far from a necessary partner when it was last banned, that duo was way more common pre-Home), instead of on Flutter Mane as a standalone Pokemon.

Flutter Mane, particularly (bulky) Choice Specs, is far and away the best Pokemon in the meta, due to its combination of offensive stats, special bulk, and a typing that doubles great offensively (near perfect neutral coverage) and defensively (two relatively rare weaknesses, one of which is weak to Flutter Mane, and natural Fake Out immunity). I won't retread the same ground from before too deeply, but there is a legitimate question of "what team isn't made better by Flutter Mane", as it's so self-sufficient and does a combination of things so well that nothing else really can. Ogerpon-Wellspring is the Pokemon that comes closest to reaching that same place, but even aside from the limiting factor of Ogerpon-Hearthflame existing, Flutter Mane is on a different level. Wellspring is only a single-target attacker, is vulnerable to Intimidate, and on top of a number of natural checks is practically walled by certain Tera types like Grass and Dragon; meanwhile Flutter Mane has access to a solid spread move and is much harder to slow down offensively. If you want to look at other Pokemon that have recently risen to the top like Chien-Pao or Landorus then you'll find the comparisons also unflattering relative to Flutter Mane for similar reasons. No other Pokemon is as consistently such a threat as Flutter Mane and it isn't close.

It's important to note that while, yes, there definitely are some ways to deal with Flutter Mane, such as Rillaboom, (Assault Vest) Incineroar, and Ogerpon-Wellspring (though it does need Tera to be a reliable check), I don't think that's enough. The counterplay to Flutter Mane is mostly reactive, and while it's not completely unique to say that it's checks can't switch in and take hits comfortably multiple times, the extent to which Flutter Mane can muscle past anything healthy that isn't a dedicated check, or can even get past something that is a check but is weakened, is far beyond that of other Pokemon. Trick Room has also been mentioned, but I don't think that's so simple an answer, as while Flutter Mane doesn't like moving last, it's also easily one of the best Pokemon for stopping Trick Room go up in the first place (especially compared to something else reliant on Speed like Chien-Pao), and historically also fits perfectly onto Trick Room teams as their fast mode (for a current example, look at the team zee used to win the suspect tour with).

[With Flutter Mane] I'm finding myself having an extreme advantage vs no Flutter teams, my Flutter Mane is always my win condition, and my opponent's Flutter Mane is always my biggest threat.

I think this sentence sums up rather succinctly the situation with Flutter Mane, it's so much better than everything else, and warps games (and the meta) around it because of how strong it is. Without Flutter Mane, the meta right now is one of the most balanced in a long time (hence why this suspect test is even happening in the first place), which makes the difference between it and everything else even clearer. Worse Pokemon than Flutter Mane are banned, but nothing close to as strong is legal, and so I think freeing it would be a mistake.
 
I voted ban in the last Flutter Mane suspect test, and will be doing so again this time. Though I do think people are focusing a bit too much on it in combination with Chi-Yu (which was far from a necessary partner when it was last banned, that duo was way more common pre-Home), instead of on Flutter Mane as a standalone Pokemon.

Flutter Mane, particularly (bulky) Choice Specs, is far and away the best Pokemon in the meta, due to its combination of offensive stats, special bulk, and a typing that doubles great offensively (near perfect neutral coverage) and defensively (two relatively rare weaknesses, one of which is weak to Flutter Mane, and natural Fake Out immunity). I won't retread the same ground from before too deeply, but there is a legitimate question of "what team isn't made better by Flutter Mane", as it's so self-sufficient and does a combination of things so well that nothing else really can. Ogerpon-Wellspring is the Pokemon that comes closest to reaching that same place, but even aside from the limiting factor of Ogerpon-Hearthflame existing, Flutter Mane is on a different level. Wellspring is only a single-target attacker, is vulnerable to Intimidate, and on top of a number of natural checks is practically walled by certain Tera types like Grass and Dragon; meanwhile Flutter Mane has access to a solid spread move and is much harder to slow down offensively. If you want to look at other Pokemon that have recently risen to the top like Chien-Pao or Landorus then you'll find the comparisons also unflattering relative to Flutter Mane for similar reasons. No other Pokemon is as consistently such a threat as Flutter Mane and it isn't close.

It's important to note that while, yes, there definitely are some ways to deal with Flutter Mane, such as Rillaboom, (Assault Vest) Incineroar, and Ogerpon-Wellspring (though it does need Tera to be a reliable check), I don't think that's enough. The counterplay to Flutter Mane is mostly reactive, and while it's not completely unique to say that it's checks can't switch in and take hits comfortably multiple times, the extent to which Flutter Mane can muscle past anything healthy that isn't a dedicated check, or can even get past something that is a check but is weakened, is far beyond that of other Pokemon. Trick Room has also been mentioned, but I don't think that's so simple an answer, as while Flutter Mane doesn't like moving last, it's also easily one of the best Pokemon for stopping Trick Room go up in the first place (especially compared to something else reliant on Speed like Chien-Pao), and historically also fits perfectly onto Trick Room teams as their fast mode (for a current example, look at the team zee used to win the suspect tour with).



I think this sentence sums up rather succinctly the situation with Flutter Mane, it's so much better than everything else, and warps games (and the meta) around it because of how strong it is. Without Flutter Mane, the meta right now is one of the most balanced in a long time (hence why this suspect test is even happening in the first place), which makes the difference between it and everything else even clearer. Worse Pokemon than Flutter Mane are banned, but nothing close to as strong is legal, and so I think freeing it would be a miI don't know what to vote because I'm really seeing how it's a metagame out of the vgc format switch, honestly it doesn't seem like a threat to me seeing that there is a weak part that is due to his low physical defense performance, things like tera steel iron hands or Ting Lu can be of great help since the metagame would be played around this I feel a slight doubt regarding the voting, will be that flutter mane can be a healthy mon ? Will his defensive quality compensate with his great ability to be a wallbreaker? With these questions I have come to the conclusion that he could be an option to be out of the doubles ou roster but I just like to see something faster and moved in a few turns to my personal taste., es un punto de vista personal llevado a lo subjetivo, pero si al final del caso todo se concuerda en un masivo ban estaría de acuerdo con la comunidad, muchas gracias por leer este mensaje y espero que puedan cumplir sus requisitos ( al leer la descripción de este thread me di cuenta gracias a usuario llamado actuarily que esto es un manera de conectar votos y no un torneo, fui un tonto ‍(⁠。⁠・⁠ω⁠・⁠。⁠)⁠ノ⁠♡. )

I voted ban in the last Flutter Mane suspect test, and will be doing so again this time. Though I do think people are focusing a bit too much on it in combination with Chi-Yu (which was far from a necessary partner when it was last banned, that duo was way more common pre-Home), instead of on Flutter Mane as a standalone Pokemon.

Flutter Mane, particularly (bulky) Choice Specs, is far and away the best Pokemon in the meta, due to its combination of offensive stats, special bulk, and a typing that doubles great offensively (near perfect neutral coverage) and defensively (two relatively rare weaknesses, one of which is weak to Flutter Mane, and natural Fake Out immunity). I won't retread the same ground from before too deeply, but there is a legitimate question of "what team isn't made better by Flutter Mane", as it's so self-sufficient and does a combination of things so well that nothing else really can. Ogerpon-Wellspring is the Pokemon that comes closest to reaching that same place, but even aside from the limiting factor of Ogerpon-Hearthflame existing, Flutter Mane is on a different level. Wellspring is only a single-target attacker, is vulnerable to Intimidate, and on top of a number of natural checks is practically walled by certain Tera types like Grass and Dragon; meanwhile Flutter Mane has access to a solid spread move and is much harder to slow down offensively. If you want to look at other Pokemon that have recently risen to the top like Chien-Pao or Landorus then you'll find the comparisons also unflattering relative to Flutter Mane for similar reasons. No other Pokemon is as consistently such a threat as Flutter Mane and it isn't close.

It's important to note that while, yes, there definitely are some ways to deal with Flutter Mane, such as Rillaboom, (Assault Vest) Incineroar, and Ogerpon-Wellspring (though it does need Tera to be a reliable check), I don't think that's enough. The counterplay to Flutter Mane is mostly reactive, and while it's not completely unique to say that it's checks can't switch in and take hits comfortably multiple times, the extent to which Flutter Mane can muscle past anything healthy that isn't a dedicated check, or can even get past something that is a check but is weakened, is far beyond that of other Pokemon. Trick Room has also been mentioned, but I don't think that's so simple an answer, as while Flutter Mane doesn't like moving last, it's also easily one of the best Pokemon for stopping Trick Room go up in the first place (especially compared to something else reliant on Speed like Chien-Pao), and historically also fits perfectly onto Trick Room teams as their fast mode (for a current example, look at the team zee used to win the suspect tour with).



I think this sentence sums up rather succinctly the situation with Flutter Mane, it's so much better than everything else, and warps games (and the meta) around it because of how strong it is. Without Flutter Mane, the meta right now is one of the most balanced in a long time (hence why this suspect test is even happening in the first place), which makes the difference between it and everything else even clearer. Worse Pokemon than Flutter Mane are banned, but nothing close to as strong is legal, and so I think freeing it would be a mistake.
I don't know what to vote because I'm really seeing how it's a metagame out of the vgc format switch, honestly it doesn't seem like a threat to me seeing that there is a weak part that is due to his low physical defense performance, things like tera steel iron hands or Ting Lu can be of great help since the metagame would be played around this I feel a slight doubt regarding the voting, will be that flutter mane can be a healthy mon ? Will his defensive quality compensate with his great ability to be a wallbreaker? With these questions I have come to the conclusion that he could be an option to be out of the doubles ou roster but I just like to see something faster and moved in a few turns to my personal taste. This is a personal point of view taken to subjective, but if at the end of the case everything is agreed in a massive ban I would agree with the community, thank you very much for reading this message and I hope you can meet your requirements ( reading the description of this thread I realized thanks to user named actuarily that help me to understand that this is a way to connect votes and not a tournament, I was a fool ‍(。・ω・。。)ノ♡. )
 
Personally, I’m on the fence whether Flutter Mane should be freed or not. During the tests that I’ve played & through the qualifying period, it has seemed like a strong but not quite broken pokemon. It doesn’t get many ohkos without like Tera fairy moonblast, and its low bulk makes it not too hard to remove.

That being said, I’m almost certain it’s because most of the Flutter Mane’s I’ve played haven’t been optimized the way it would be if it had been in the metagame the last year or two, and once people have a chance to experiment with it more they will optimize it. This is ultimately the flaw with testing something down, we just have very limited information of the pokemon in the tier.

So looking back at how I felt about it when it was originally tested this meta, here’s what I said:

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...gain-flutter-mane-banned.3735845/post-9971700

While psyspam isn’t as prevalent right now (maybe it will come back with Flutter legal), a lot of the points still stand. There's a ton of good partners for it, and not many reliable counters. It matches up well into a lot of popular archetypes, and is an extremely versatile pokemon with quite a few good sets & Tera options. So with all that being considered, I think I’ll vote to keep it banned, but won’t be upset if it ends up legal again.
 
Back
Top