If Spikes are so overwhelmingly useful to the metagame that they become broken (not true, by the way), then I think banning the Spikers, or at least one of them, will be enough to fix the problem. Of course Accelgor and Omastar (and Qwilfish, one of the most underrated Pokemon in UU) could easily take the places of the big three, but they blatantly will not be as good as the big three.
Accelgor and Omastar don't see much usage because Accelgor is frail and weak to priority and Omastar should be smashing its shell anyway. If the big three were to go we'd see more of them but they simply can't get their Spikes down as well as Rosey, Deo, and Froslass. It would be nothing like banning Abomasnow instead of Snover because in the Hail debate, it was obvious that the abusers were the problem. With the Spikes debate, it's the facility with which the Spikers can lay down their Spikes. There is enough of a power gulf between Roserade and Accelgor to warrant a look at Roserade instead. Deoxys-D has mammoth defenses, Froslass can annoy like hell and can Spin-block at the same time, and Roserade can smack stuff with Leaf Storms and Sludge Bombs while Accelgor fires off piss-weak Bug Buzzes, gets set up on because of a lack of Taunt, and takes 146-171% from a -6 Poochyena Quick Attack. Spikes Omastar is viable, but it's a gigantic cesspool of lost potential when Star could be Shell Smashing.
Second, people say the Spinners aren't as good as the spin-blockers. For starters, you can try designing your team not to be weak as fuck to Spikes. Maybe use Flygon over Krookodile or Cryogonal or Claydol as your Spinner. Maybe pack a little more recovery on your team so you can heal off the Spikes damage. Oh, and as someone said earlier:
Heysup said:
More to the point, if you let someone get more than one layer of Spikes up without severely crippling them somehow (with your own Spikes or setting up some mon) then you're an idiot.
Remember, what your opponent's doing at any given time is only half the battle. When your opponent is getting their first layer up, you should be switching to something that can take advantage of the turn when you're not being attacked. Remember, if your opponent is Spiking, he's not attacking. If he's not attacking, he's temporarily making himself more vulnerable in order to reap the benefits later with passive damage. If your opponent is Spiking with Qwilfish, why not bring in your Specs Kingdra to blast a Draco Meteor all over it? Why not switch in Hitmontop and try to get off a Spin?
A refutation to Heysup's claim was found last page. I believe Flareblitz posted this:
I addressed this line of reasoning when shrang or smurf or whoever it was brought it up, and I will do so again here - I have gotten full layers set up on me. I have set up full layers on players like reachzero and tof, among others. I don't know that you could say that any of us are idiots.
That is entirely feasible. However, I doubt that smurf is getting all three layers at once, and I doubt reach is letting you get all three layers at once, unless he's letting you Spike at the same time. Over time, hazards accumulate unless someone's Spinning. That's just a fact. Roserade, Froslass, and Deoxys are so good because they can come in on a lot of threats and get a layer of Spikes down. Notice the operative words here are "a layer". Very often in the matches I play I will have one layer for a few turns, see an opportunity, get down another, and then the third later. Just because your opponent can get all three layers doesn't mean you can't prepare for it and utilize the free turns to counter the opponent's strategy. Getting all three layers is not an automatic win condition and should not be treated as such.
Pokemon is a game of momentum, and by using Spikes you sacrifice virtually all of your momentum because you expect to get it back when it matters in the endgame. Your goal when noticing this is to retain the momentum your opponent yields to you when Spiking.
Now, onto Spinning.
People say that Spinning is too hard in this metagame. Really? Remember, your opponent has to play well to successfully block a Spin without making himself vulnerable on a different front. Let me ask: Why is Krookodile's usage almost three times higher among 1337 users than among all users? Because it kills Ghosts. Sure, the Spinners aren't great in UU (they're not bad by any means), but so are the Spin-blocker-counters (what a mouthful!). If your opponent reveals a Krookodile before the battle begins you take a huge risk every time you want to block Rapid Spin (unless your Ghost is sableye). If you expect your opponent to switch in a Mismagius why not have some fun with that Specs Kingdra that I keep mentioning? Try predicting a Ghost switch in! Just because you have your Spinner out doesn't mean you have to Spin. Bait the Ghost and switch in Krook! Or Kingdra! Or your Life Orb Moltres! Or even your Spiker! If your Spinner is Blastoise or Hitmontop you shouldn't even be legally allowed to complain about hazards because they both get Foresight!
Just by using Foresight you make your odds of successfully Spinning pretty much 100%. I know there are ways to still stop the Spin (by killing the spinner...) but that's no easy task.
I'm not going to lie to you and say Spikes aren't good. They are. I'm just saying that countering Spikers is not very difficult and every time your opponent Spikes, they leave themselves open to attack. So why not attack them?
I can't in all good honesty vote Ban on a Spikes-related problem without a
really good argument. I don't think Spikes is breaking anything at the moment, and even though a dominant playstyle (spike-stacking offense) has emerged, it doesn't mean that the playstyle needs to be dealt with through bans.
I've loved reading the arguments so far so please continue this. At this point, I think we've hit a pretty non-broken metagame and I don't see a reason to modify it.
