Eviolite Doublade has the same typing and even better bulk. Aegislash's offensive stats and King's Shield definitely play big factors or Doublade would be considered a lot better than it currently is.
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np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Ghost of Perdition
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Eviolite Doublade has terrible special bulk. Although Aegis mostly threatens physical attackers, Doublade doesn't have the luxury of scaring away Latios and Gardevoir (But it can beat Bisharp I believe). Doublade is mostly outclassed in OU but I believe it's viable in UU right now. That might change if Aegis is banned.
Also, Kings Shield has only been an issue for checks that run physical Dark or Fire moves not named Bisharp or Mandibuzz. However, these aren't the physical attackers forced to suboptimal moves; they are ones naturally walled by Steel/Ghost if they run their preferred coverage like Pinsir.
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Actually with investment it is pretty close to matching Aegislash.
+6 252+ SpA Choice Specs Flare Boost Farfetch'd Blue Flare vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 1176-1384 (362.9 - 427.1%)
+6 252+ SpA Choice Specs Flare Boost Farfetch'd Blue Flare vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Doublade: 1218-1434 (378.2 - 445.3%)
So a high roll on Aegislash can pass as a low roll on Doublade.
Since Doublade has the same base defense as Aegislash, it is 50% bulkier there with Eviolite boost.
That's assuming Swords Dance, which 2HKO physically defensive as well. 244/0 Gliscor is 3HKOd by M-Heracross at +0 at best. Using +2 Heracross isn't true to what most people are running (unless they really hate stall lol); not to forget, I can't name a single thing that can deal with it at +2 aside from physically defensive Unaware Clefable.
I can understand to an extent the Amoongus part of your argument, but this is true for most pokemon, is it not? That's a reason why birdspam is so successful: when you only have a handful of counters, and most teams only carry one counter for two or three specific pokemon, then it's easy to wear them down and nab the OHKO. Amoonguss isn't going to survive a +6 Play Rough after SR 100% of the time anyway. You generally EV to account for threats specific to your team and find some general point where getting OHKO'd say 33% or 4% of the time is acceptable.
I don't necessarily agree that phys Def Gliscor is inherently better. SpDef Gliscor walls Lando-I (huge), Gengar, Latias, and M-Garchomp. It's less effective at walling certain physical threats, but it's better at taking on mixed threats. Regardless, that's an off-topic point.
I don't think I ever argued that Aegislash wasn't over-centralizing, by the way.
EDIT: Please stop talking about Doublade.
For those that think a more "open" meta would be better, GL teambuilding accounting for all the crap running around.
Sometimes a centralized meta is the most balanced one; OU has plenty of room to play around, but removing some centralised stuff can cause the meta to be a complete mess. Think what would happen if something like Thundurus-I were to leave the tier; every setup sweeper and their mother would probably end up being suspect tested.
Aegislash provides crucial pivoting for more offensively based teams, much like Landorus-T of last gen. With the ridiculous power creep of this gen, Aegislash helps buffer that with its great bulk and typing.
And this is nowhere near like the gen 4 Garchomp centralisation.
Sometimes a centralized meta is the most balanced one; OU has plenty of room to play around, but removing some centralised stuff can cause the meta to be a complete mess. Think what would happen if something like Thundurus-I were to leave the tier; every setup sweeper and their mother would probably end up being suspect tested.
Aegislash provides crucial pivoting for more offensively based teams, much like Landorus-T of last gen. With the ridiculous power creep of this gen, Aegislash helps buffer that with its great bulk and typing.
And this is nowhere near like the gen 4 Garchomp centralisation.
People should stop making arguments that basically amount to "broken checking broken." If we ban Aegislash and shit hits the fan and the meta is unable to adapt to pokemon that were previously checked by aegislash, but, for whatever reason, become overpowered as a result of aegislash's ban, we ban those pokemon as well. It's wrong to assume that "more viable options = impossible to successfully teambuild." If we limit the power level of the meta, there's no reason that a diverse metagame without egregiously strong outliers isn't possible, and when those outliers pop up, we can suspect them.
About Aegislash's role on offensive teams, let's be real. Offense doesn't need any help from Aegislash to be successful in this meta. Have you seen the top threats in the suspect ladder?
Rofl, that post said nothing about Aegis being broken. In fact the posts I've seen have all been "blah overcentralising, blah not really broken."
I'm outing those that say centralization = reason enough to ban. Do we see UU banning Fire type spam? Didn't think so.
I think we are discussing a lot about his defenses a lot and his ability to decrease attack. If that is one of the deciding factors for ban, how about we just ban king shield? That thing can still use protect and still use it's shield form. It'll be like banning swagger on pranksters. So would it be that different to ban another move on a poke? And If the counter argument is "well that just ruins viability!" Well, we did it already for all swagger users.
Protect doesn't revert to shield forme.
Also a KS ban doesn't address the issue that Aegislash is a zero opportunity loss pivot that can threaten most of the tier with an easy spam STAB.
if you think uu is anything like fire type spam you probably should actually play the tier lol instead of making unfounded statements like these
whats different though is that aegislash has clearly shaped the ou meta around it to a massive extent, and aegislash is just stupidly versatile and can basically do everything it wants to.
Regardless, it can still stall with protect or we can run offensive Aegis. So the thing that makes it "broken" will unbreak it. A weakness policy hit it's all we use it for anyway when we first send it out. I just feel like I hear about kings shield a lot and stall in every discussion.
It's not established that KS is what makes Aegis broken. It's what causes 50/50s and expand its ability to stop physical attackers, but I'm not convinced those are the core problems. Aegislash has too easy of a time to switch in and its stats are too high to abuse that opportunity, regardless of KS.
So what the "perfect meta" should be? It looks like every threat introduced in this last gen got something broken except for mons deserving to stay in lower tiers of course, so an healthy XY OU tier should be a tier without megas n xy ou mons of course... as well as in BW you and other ppl wanted to ban stuff like Terrakion Keldeo and other lol go back to play DPP if you want every metagame looks like this (idk how u like it but xy ou seems not ur stuff)
The point anyway (to not be off topic) is that Aegislash is really strong but there's a whole difference between stuff like it and stuff like MegaBlaziken or Genesect or Mega Kangaskhan that correctly deserved ban.
SD set, missing the 2HKO w/ SSneak at Adamant +2 and being killed by every move in Blade Form. It can check and sometimes "counter", revengekiller.
Other tiers' mon that can do something vs Aegi:
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wtf is with all you bandwagoners geez
I come back from holidays to see this thread fresh after we boot the Deo forms and I am pretty confused as to why people are so fixated on banning this. Aegislash is a great pokemon, perhaps the best in ou, but is that because it's stupidly broken or because it is just a very good pokemon with several good sets, none of which scream "Ban me please". The 50/50s it causes are, yes, annoying but they're certainly not, overpowered or anything other than just a nuisance. It centralises the metagame with it's excellent typing but it doesn't OVERcentralise it like past suspects. I don't have to run something akin to HazeKrow or ObvliviNumel to beat it, I have to run any of some of the best moves in the history of Pokemon, all of which are well distributed and commonly used on many viable mons, who would probably still use them regardless of Aegi. In all honesty, this Pokemon is one of the few times Game Freak did something right when they were balancing, its good and prevents many possibly overpowered mons from being so, but it also has exploitable weaknesses that mean that any semi-well thought out team from even the most inexperienced OU battler can beat it without specifically building with it in mind.
Another joke of an argument that people perpetually mention is "But some sets beat its other set's counters". Yes, that's correct. But since when was that grounds for removal? Saying that is akin to saying "But Greninja can run any HP type to beat the other HP types counter, Ban pls" or "Thundurus sometimes runs HP Flying or even a physical set to beat counters, I don't wanna add an easily accesible and viable move to beat it". The whole versatility argument is borked, anyone can still pretty well beat Aegi with any of a large amount of completely viable ou mons without using inferior moves or mons and the so called versatility of Aegi forces it to run suboptimal sets, but apparantly that's a contributing factor to it's brokeness while running EQ/Knock Off/Fire Coverage is inferior, cmon guys, get some better arguments.
All in all, sure, Aegi is a great mon, only a fool would disagree, but it is far from broken, it isn't guaranteed to do its job, unlike the Deos, and while it is centralizing and prevents some Pokemon from unlocking their potential in ou, saying it is overcentralising is really an overexaggeration. Don't let personal hate or suck-up bandwagoning get in the way of the fact that Aegislash doesn't actually deserve to be banned.
No Ban
I come back from holidays to see this thread fresh after we boot the Deo forms and I am pretty confused as to why people are so fixated on banning this. Aegislash is a great pokemon, perhaps the best in ou, but is that because it's stupidly broken or because it is just a very good pokemon with several good sets, none of which scream "Ban me please". The 50/50s it causes are, yes, annoying but they're certainly not, overpowered or anything other than just a nuisance. It centralises the metagame with it's excellent typing but it doesn't OVERcentralise it like past suspects. I don't have to run something akin to HazeKrow or ObvliviNumel to beat it, I have to run any of some of the best moves in the history of Pokemon, all of which are well distributed and commonly used on many viable mons, who would probably still use them regardless of Aegi. In all honesty, this Pokemon is one of the few times Game Freak did something right when they were balancing, its good and prevents many possibly overpowered mons from being so, but it also has exploitable weaknesses that mean that any semi-well thought out team from even the most inexperienced OU battler can beat it without specifically building with it in mind.
Another joke of an argument that people perpetually mention is "But some sets beat its other set's counters". Yes, that's correct. But since when was that grounds for removal? Saying that is akin to saying "But Greninja can run any HP type to beat the other HP types counter, Ban pls" or "Thundurus sometimes runs HP Flying or even a physical set to beat counters, I don't wanna add an easily accesible and viable move to beat it". The whole versatility argument is borked, anyone can still pretty well beat Aegi with any of a large amount of completely viable ou mons without using inferior moves or mons and the so called versatility of Aegi forces it to run suboptimal sets, but apparantly that's a contributing factor to it's brokeness while running EQ/Knock Off/Fire Coverage is inferior, cmon guys, get some better arguments.
All in all, sure, Aegi is a great mon, only a fool would disagree, but it is far from broken, it isn't guaranteed to do its job, unlike the Deos, and while it is centralizing and prevents some Pokemon from unlocking their potential in ou, saying it is overcentralising is really an overexaggeration. Don't let personal hate or suck-up bandwagoning get in the way of the fact that Aegislash doesn't actually deserve to be banned.
No Ban
People sould stop making the arguments "If after the ban these Pokemon get broken we ban them as well". If you ban a counter to a Pokemon this Pokemon becomes stronger and potentially broken. This is logic and common sense. If we would ban Skarmory (don't see a reason why) then Mega-Pinsir would easily be broken. Just like EVERYBODY ELSE we should concentrate on Aegislash as such and not ban it because we want some Pokemon used more or because it keeps things in check. We should only ban Pokemon that are WITH ALL THE CHECKS AND COUNTERS still way too good for OU, because these counters are obscure, not enough or not reliable.
This is a new generation and a new meta. There are new Pokemon, new power-houses and new playstyles and we have to adapt to them. If something like Mega-Kanghaskan appears that cannot be stopped then we ban it because it is clearly broken. If some people want to play the old meta, they should play gen4 or gen5. We're discussing gen6 now.
If Head Smash or Psychic would have done even 1% more damage the HeadSmash-Aegi-user would have lost. Iron Head + Shadow Sneak would have killed after SR, too.
Execpt for Mandibuzz Head Smash will never be useful. I will just adress to one of my posts where I talked about Head Smash.
Mandibuzz don't really "fear" Flash Cannon because it can roost off the damage (it does less than 50%) and scare it with Foul Play. Flash Cannon is more used because of Fairys like Clefable. Toxic-sets without Wish-support (mostly seen in stall-teams) can be worn down and can be played around without a counter. I won't repeat myself because of Head Smash. I know Aegislash can learn Head Smash but it is as effective as Water Shuriken on Greninja: It hits Talonflame, but otherwise rather useless.
So you're saying after a ban of Aegislash there is no chance of Mega-Mawile being suspected? In a metagame with Aegi Mawile has better chances to stay than without him. Removing a counter makes other Pokemon stronger, period. I repeat, we ALL should stop talking about Pokemon that could be broken after a ban or Pokemon that could be more useful if we ban.
I think I made all my points and all arguments seem to be repeating. Good luck laddering for everyone!
Why do people keep focusing on the wrong arguments, instead of the real ones? Not banning Aegislash because it makes the metagame less offensive is a perfectly legitimate reason, as long as you don't find it individually overpowered that is, and i haven't found many people that think that Aegislash is overpowered, most people that want to ban it just dislike its effect on the metagame. Everyone has their own opinion about the ideal metagame, with some preferring a more offensive one, and some others preferring one where the bias towards offense is smaller than it is now. So if you don't want a more offensive metagame and you don't find Aegislash overpowered, then it is actually a positive presence in the metagame, not a negative, and of course you will want it to stick around in OU.
And let's not pretend like Aegislash's versatility and ability to adapt to metagame changes are over the top. Every top tier threat has those qualities, some even more than Aegislash (Thundurus and Mega Mawile). What happens if you send out your SpD Hippo and the opposing Aegislash turns out to be SubToxic? Your Hippo got Toxiced. Yeah, it's a hindrance, but it far from makes Hippo useless, while you now know Aegislash's exact set and can safely Pursuit trap it with Bisharp, or counter it with SpD Amoonguss / SpD Heatran. Its two best sets, meaning the ones that combine excellent bulk, ability to check a ton of threats, excellent survivability, take advantage of King's Shield to the fullest, and having the most utility overall, are 3 attacks + King's Shield and SubToxic + King's Shield. And while there is a respectable amount of versatility between those two sets, great checks and counters for both exist. SpD Amoonguss counters both. Bulky SD Mega Scizor checks both. SpD Mega Venusaur checks both. SpD Gliscor counters both. SpD Whirlwind Hippo checks both. SpD WoW Heatran checks both. And that is only about good checks / counters to both Pokemon simultaneously. If you don't want to cover both sets in one slot, you can just use two of the dozens of Aegislash checks that exist, such as Mandibuzz, Garchomp, Landorus-T, Bisharp, Mega Charizard Y and X, Excadrill, SpD Dragonite, Diggersby, Zapdos, AV Tornadus-T, Landorus, Greninja, a lot of which are some of the best Pokemon to use in OU, and you often end up having them in your team without even thinking about checking Aegislash. Aegislash's versatility and ability to cripple some of its usual checks and counters is being seriously exaggerated and overplayed.
Finally, stop focusing on stall, if you think that Aegislash's absence will affect stall the most, then you are misguided. Any kind of team that depends on cores with defensive synergy will take a hit with Aegislash's absence, this is undeniable. Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to debate, but stop focusing on stall ffs.
Just wanted to get those few things out of my chest, will try to make a more detailed post about Aegislash in the VR thread when i find the time.
First and foremost, stall ABSOLUTELY uses Aegislash, both directly and indirectly. Just like Ajwf said, stall indirectly makes use of Aegislash's presence in the meta. Because of Aegi, we don't have to prepare for certain wall breakers. However, Aegislash's SubToxic set can be used on stall.
Secondly, you make it sound like Toxic and Seismic Toss are the only two moves on a stall team. Sure--Chansey isn't going to do anything to Aegislash, but why the hell would you leave chansey in on it? It's not that hard to fit an Earthquake or a Lava Plume on stall teams, as Hippo, Gliscor, Chesnaught (FANTASTIC answer to the common Aegislash set) and Heatran each put in work on teams. Aegislash is also, as it's been stated, quite susceptible to burns, so Mega Charizard X is a good tool for stall to deal with Aegislash.
Aegislash is good--maybe even broken--but it is far from impossible to deal with on stall teams, and I'd rather deal with it than a wall breaker.
DISCLAIMER: This is not me saying I don't want Aegislash banned because it keeps wall breakers in line. I'm merely just responding to Red Cat's statement that Aegislash hurts stall.
Positive or not, Aegislash's impact on the tier is more than is healthy for one Pokemon to have. If the impact of Aegislash was due to multiple Pokemon, then I wouldn't think those multiple hypothetical Pokemon would need to be banned. The fact that Aegislash is having multiple Pokemon's worth of impact on the tier is unhealthy.
And before anyone says, "Talonflame," that 'mon can only reliably RK threats, meaning the effect it has on the tier is significantly less than that of Aegislash.
My arguments seem to be repeating themselves. It seems there's few left who are undecided, and I don't think we're going to accomplish much more with this thread. Ah well.
Edit: LU-the great, you do realize that many believe BW had issues partly because not enough was banned, right? And that the main thrust behind the team matchup issues was Weather? (not first-hand experience on my part, just what I've heard.)
Is Aegis really overcentralizing or is it merely a popular Pokemon that naturally forces sweepers to "pick their poison"? I would argue the latter. Pinsir is a notable example as it would like close combat for Skarmory and Rotom-wash, but would also be walled by Aegis by virtue of typing. This is a case of picking your counter and since Aegis is more common, EQ is chosen even though CC hits more threats.
Azumarill is another example as it needs Knock off to adequately threaten Aegislash at the cost of being walled by Ferrothorn. Again, it is a matter of choosing your poison, though again most people choose to deal with the more popular Aegislash.
imo Aegislash's defensive centralization is only due to a combination of its typing, bulk, and popularity which force sweepers to choose their counters, not unlike Skarmory.
Aegis's offensive centralization is another story as it has lead to gimmicks like SpD Gliscor and Amoonguss to counter it. However, uncounterability by itself is fine as shown by Hydreigon, Salamence, Kyurem-B, and others last Gen. These threats were relatively easy to check or revenge. It has been established that Aegislash has many check that can easily fit on a team. The real problem is how easily Aegislash can come in and take advantage of this uncounterability. The aforementioned uncounterable Pokemon had issues coming in due their frailness by typing (Although statwise many are considered bulky attacker), so their ability to snag kills was limited. Aegislash has none of these problems which is why he fits under Aldaron's criteria of broken as having too little opportunity cost and accomplishing its job too easily.
I think banning Aegi takes a step towards a more defensive metagame? It's much more difficult to deal with Aegi in its entirety on stall than it is on an offensive team where at the least you can fit a couple checks and not have to have perfect swaps.
Your assessment of Aegi's best sets is subjective. I've heard people who think that LO is the best Aegislash set (like Toxzn). Your assessment is based on how you build and what you like to use, because there's no way ANYTHING is objectively Aegislash's best set. Lando-T, godly Aegislash check that is outsped and 2HKOed by LO Shadow Ball. Excadrill, stellar Aegi check that can at best revenge kill because it isn't switching in ever, and fears Air Balloon. Mandibuzz, stellar Aegi answer that loses to three movesets (and even the KS attacks one if that has Toxic). Bisharp is a fine Aegi check I guess, though is outsped and KOed by fast sets. Zapdos, which is exploitable af because you can just waste Roost PP from the 50% you do and eventually get rid of it, or pop with a Toxic. Torn-T which can't even do shit so idk what you're saying ?_? Greninja which has to forgo coverage for Dark Pulse if it even wants to hit it that hard. Lando and Chomp are fine. All these amazing Aegi answers! There's no way in hell you build a team and are like, oh, I have Aegislash all covered. It puts constraints on your teambuilding to carry multiple of these checks and is one of the primary things you have to actively think about. The other thing is that Aegi weak teams are usually bad, more so than Thundurus or something which are easier to check and deal with, and don't have such different sets that you need answers for all of them. I am not forced to carry 3 Thundurus checks on my offensive team, but I almost have to (or at least 2) if I want not to be Aegi weak. Because Aegi is on a whole other level than those Pokemon. Anyways I don't think this metagame tree is healthy at all.
Aegislash
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Things that beat Aegi or at least do decently against it
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Things that lose to Aegi
Because this is exactly the polarizing effect Aegislash has on the tier. Liiiiike BW wasn't
Drizzle
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Things that beat Drizzle
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Things that lose to Drizzle
Having multiple centralizing forces in a tier (say a group of 4-7 Pokemon) is not unhealthy, but a tier centering around one Pokemon is unhealthy and illogical (before you bring up GSC Snorlax would be banned by today's standards). Because the metagame becomes stale (let's be real, how much has the meta changed recently? same boring stall builds, similar offensive builds) as teams are generally better when they run similar builds that are prepared for this one threat and the metagame around this one threat.
Basically you are underplaying its versatility and the overall staleness of the meta that is so much of Aegi's fault.
THANK YOU. This is what I've been saying this whole time but you phrased it beautifully. Again, anyone who has ever played a COMPETITIVE game knows this. If you ban something centralizing, another will take its place and the cycle will repeat until there is nothing left.
The "line" you mention I would consider it to be
"A Pokemon that centralizes the game but is checked or countered by other common pokemon without resorting to obscure or inneficient movesets"
This was not true for Mega Gengar, Mega Lucario or mega Khangaskan. Their checks and counters were extremely gimmicky stuff that no one in their right minds would put on a normal team.
This IS NOT the case for Aegislash. He is perfectly checked by a good amount of OU poke with standard sets. Yes, you "may" have to compromise maybe ONE MOVE to not get wrecked by aegi but that is how competitive meta works. Remember when everyone and their mothers ran Ice Beam/ HP Ice for garchomp? (They still do to some extent). That was waaaaay worse than aegi
Again, it's not the fact that Aegislash is centralizing in and of itself ("itself" being the fact, not Aegi), the problem is Aegislash is too centralizing for one Pokemon. Jukain said it perfectly:
And for the record, I have played other competitive games (Yugioh and now Android: Netrunner), and I know that centralization is natural. The problem is when a single entity centralizes the meta to the extent that multiple Pokemon/decks/archetypes should.
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IMO the question is more than "should we ban Aegislash?", the real question here is "Do you like the meta?", I'm on the opinion that not a single pokémon is broken now not even Aegislash, we just got rid of all the broken things in the tier (deos, swagger, bp chains) and now we are suspecting Aegislash not because it is broken, but because some people still find the meta bad despite it being composed only of balanced pokémon, and I'm totally okay with this because IMO if a meta is composed only of balanced Pokémon but is still a bad meta, the best Pokémon in the tier should be banned to shake things up, specially because if the best is not banned it is difficult for anything else to go to Ubers, so yes when voting on the banning of this ghost you should consider if you like how the metagame is now, because if you don't like it and Aegislash pass the suspect test you will probably only see it change after the release of ORAS.
That is an extremely entitled position. Competitive games do not care if you "like" the meta. That has nothing to do with it. I know A LOT of people who despised the Gen 5 weather meta (myself included). Did it get banned? No. If you do not like the metagame you either:
a) Suck it up
b) Don't play
c) Go play VGC or UU or any other of the tiers in this game while you wait for the next game
If I don't like a Standard meta in MTG I just play Sealed or another format until there is a meta I enjoy. Why I dont do is go to the forums and call for te banning of X cards because "they make the meta boring"
?_? What are you even saying...
You make a conjecture (goal is to create a healthy metagame without going overboard) and jump right to a conclusion (Aegislash should not be banned) with zero thought process whatsoever.
A Pokemon does not have to be as broken or comparable to previously banned threats to be banworthy. I don't see how this is different when arguing overcentralization? The issue is that this is around one Pokemon, and I don't see anyone saying [x one Pokemon] will overcentralize the meta and polarize it in the manner that Aegislash has, because that won't happen. The Deoxys formes leaving had almost no effect on the tier. They were just broken. However, Aegislash ~is~ the meta, and banning it flips the tier upside down. There may be broken Pokemon after Aegislash is banned, but if they are banned the tier is not so different. It is not logical to assume that anything will be as centralizing as Aegislash, because nothing is anywhere NEAR its level.
Summing up why Aegislash is banworthy.
- Uncompetitive due to the excessive 50/50s it causes
- Polarizes the OU tier to be centered around itself where teams must have multiple answers for it from a select group of Pokemon
- Is partially responsible for a stale metgame
- Incredible versatility that lets it perform different roles and defeat different set's counters at little-to-no cost to its overall effectiveness that creates, essentially, guessing games because there is almost no way to deduce its set from the get-go
- No true counters
- Incredibly low-risk, high reward ie there is basically no reason not to use it, and has no bad matchups
It is the sum of these reasons, and not any sole reason, that makes Aegislash unhealthy for the OU tier and banworthy.
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