np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Ghost of Perdition

[Synchronation]

Well you can play tons of games and think you are good at predicting something, but King's Shield isn't really about predicting so much.
Both you and your opponent know what they need to do. You know Aegislash's user want to use King's Shield but he minds set up and Aegislash's opponent know that he needs the set up, but if user of Aegi doesnt use KS, he is fu**ed. Thats the thing, you cannot really say, it is something to predict, like you could say in some switch outs you really predicted, because this is really 50:50 and you CANNOT know what opponent decides to do. You guess wrong, he checked you, youu guess right, he is dead.

I do not want to ban Aegislash, I feel like Lati@s were too good for a long time... but the argument about 50:50 is true. Eventually everybody, even though they think it was their decision, decides randomly. You want to predict opponent and opponent wants to predict you, in those situations it is always 50:50.

Read this and this and this. I mentioned many examples about the 50/50 argument.

I wasn't gonna respond to this post but it appears people think it's good so...

"Good Pokemon are versatile" is oversimplifying and you're not applying how their versatility affects their impact on the meta. Scizor is not that versatile, and every set has similar counters. It can run an SD set with one variation on one move, it can run a Defog set that is easier to deal with than SD, and an unimpressive CB set. Gengar has one good set (SubWisp Taunt Shadow Ball). Rotom-W has one set with one move, one item, and one EV spread variation. Charizard has two Megas so of course it's decently versatile, but even that's overexaggerating because you can deduce it typically on Team Preview down to the Mega and the general moveset. Landorus has 3 sets with pretty similar counters, though slightly different checks (RP). Yea Thundy is versatile. Lucario???

Aegislash has more versatility in one set than almost every single Pokemon on that list you just gave me. And it has 3 other sets. These sets share different checks/counters. And unlike other Pokemon, it comes at almost no cost to its overall effectiveness. Thundurus runs Psychic for example. Now it has no Focus Blast and is open to a bunch of things. NP HP Flying? That lack of HP Ice coverage is gonna hurt you one hell of a lot. Aegislash loses almost nothing by altering its moveset to fit what its team needs. Its versatility is beyond anything you just said.

Most things have viable counters. Like, almost every S Rank and A+ Rank has counters (looking at you, Mega Mawile). Or at least things that can cover the majority of their common movesets. Go ahead, name me something for Aegislash. You can't. Literally every single Aegislash answer can be dealt with by one of its equally viable sets. In fact I can hardly name anything that beats more than 1 or 2 of its common movesets. Pokemon do not have to have hard counters. They have to have reasonable counters/hard checks/switch-ins to most of their common sets, though, and there are zero for Aegislash.

And how does Aegislash not loose to Tyranitar if it hasn't Sacred Sword? How does Aegislash not loose to Clefable if it hasn't Flash Cannon? How does Aegislash not loose to Mandibuzz if it hasn't Toxic? Aegislash looses NOT ALMOST NOTHING by altering its moveset! Just like the other Pokemon you mentioned it will hurt Aegislash if he chooses different movesets. Your arguments against Aegislash are the same arguments I can use to defend him.
You need something that beats its commons sets? They are mentioned here.

We have already discussed usage stats. Stop bringing that up, they are not the sole basis for an argument.

Also I invite you to look at tours, like WCOP. And since when is killing your checks/counters a bad thing ?_?

Now I dont want to derail the thread so I'm going to stop here, but usage stats are not an argument... The ladder is notorious for being repetitive and behind the times.

It is a bad thing if it makes you loose against everything else. Ice Beam on Tyranitar for countering Landorus-T/Gliscor is a good thing because you can hit Dragons hard too (most of them have a 4-times weakness to Ice) while having no drawback. Head Smash lets you defeat Mandibuzz, but it kills yourself in the process. How is that a good trade off? Not to mention it can roost off the damage and Aegislash kills himself WITHOUT taking down Mandibuzz.
Head Smash is NOT A GOOD OPTION. This is a lure move, a gimmick. Here I talked about the big disadvantage of Head Smash.

 

[I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM]

Alright, time for me to knock down shitty arguments!

1. SpD Gliscor is NOT a counter. It gets its shit pushed in by head smash, so therefore cannot switch in more than once. Yes, it does kill itself in the process.

2. Aegislash does NOT have to change its entire moveset to beat its counters. it can pick and choose its moveslots based on what its team needs, so i don't see where that argument came from.

And finally, to voice my opinion. I am slightly biased, so take that into account. Aegislash is broken because its a 50/50 when you switch in your "counter". You have to cross your fingers it isn't SubToxic if hippowdon, head smash if mandibuzz, or shuca HP ice(yes that is used) if gliscor. And its not as simple as scouting w/ protect, because otherwise things like LO recoil, leftovers recovery etc. don't show up. And to those who want to ban KS, the LO set manages perfectly fine w/o LO. Will write up more on this later when I'm not as tired.

 

[the-bumper-car]

Uh…what? I think you're way overstating Aegislash's impact here. Sure, it draws a lot of attention in team building, but it doesn't make entire types viable.

Ground has never been a poor attacking type. Earthquake is literally one of the most spammable moves I can think of--100BP, no drawbacks? Yes please.

In Gen VI OU, Ground is a terrible attacking type, outside of STAB or specific coverage issues if we disregard Aegislash's presence. The presence of so many high tier mons immune to it either due to Levitate or type immunity, the lack of relevant Electric, Fire, Poison and Steel types that are actually weak to it, and the introduction of Air Balloon. Combine this with using EQ giving an opening to the really threatening mons that are immune to it, especially now that Flying is now one of the best attacking types in OU.

Ghost typing is now extremely easy to spam thanks to its good neutral coverage. It just so happens that Aegislash is weak to Ghost moves.

Yes, but who else is using Ghost attacks outside of Aegislash and now the vanishingly rare Gengar? I mean, Sableye is actually useful now despite gaining one weakness, and M-Banette is a cool bulky attacker. Where did they go?

Fire has been a good offensive typing--please don't use "in a vacuum" arguments. The game is NOT a vacuum, and as such, shouldn't be treated like one. There is a reason we say, "Good on paper, but bad in practice". Fire is good because of: Scizor, Ferrothorn, Grass types, Steel Types, spreading burns, and not getting burned.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is running Fire moves on non-Fire type pokemon to deal with Scizor, Ferrothron, Grass Types, or generic Steel types. Scizor is, what, #20 on the usage rankings now or something? A godly fall for the former king of OU, that's for sure. There's only one reason those people are running Fire, and that reason is Aegislash.

Dark types are more viable because, like you said, they got buffed. Knock Off IS literally the most spammable move in OU, and it isn't because of Aegislash. It's spammable because it punishes switches and finally has a passable BP. STAB Pursuit is also another great reason to use Dark types, and that's completely independent of Aegislash.

But another reason why Dark types are more viable is that running Fighting mons and Fighting moves is just too much of a risk in OU right now - especially physical Fighting types running Close Combat, Superpower, or Mach Punch. How did we go from the Fighting Generation (Gen V) to a near absence of Fighting users in Gen VI? The only Fighting types left are Keldeo and Terrakion, who are primarily relying on their other STAB for hurtage. The most common Fighting moves are Focus Blast and Sacred Sword. Non-contact Special moves. Heck, not all Dark types are created equal - their individual viability in OU is a directly correlated to how good they are with dealing with Aegislash.

One thing that really confused me when UU just started was the severe difference in power between OU and UU. Why are the mons in BL so ridiculously overpowered in UU, but are completely unviable in OU? Then as the months go on and more bannings from UU happened, the culprit is becoming clear - all these BL mons are completely screwed over by Aegislash. Go on, check the BL listing - aside from Crawdaunt and Volcarona, all the BL mons are mons that have really really poor match-ups with Aegi. This, I think, is not a coincidence.

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

Alright, time for me to knock down shitty arguments!

1. SpD Gliscor is NOT a counter. It gets its shit pushed in by head smash, so therefore cannot switch in more than once. Yes, it does kill itself in the process.

2. Aegislash does NOT have to change its entire moveset to beat its counters. it can pick and choose its moveslots based on what its team needs, so i don't see where that argument came from.

And finally, to voice my opinion. I am slightly biased, so take that into account. Aegislash is broken because its a 50/50 when you switch in your "counter". You have to cross your fingers it isn't SubToxic if hippowdon, head smash if mandibuzz, or shuca HP ice(yes that is used) if gliscor. And its not as simple as scouting w/ protect, because otherwise things like LO recoil, leftovers recovery etc. don't show up. And to those who want to ban KS, the LO set manages perfectly fine w/o LO. Will write up more on this later when I'm not as tired.

1. Roost is a thing and makes you resist Head Smash ?_? Gliscor will never "get its shit pushed in" by a random move like Head Smash lol.

2. Rather vague argument, but a standard Aegislash with KS/Shadow Sneak/Shadow Ball/Sacred Sword is not beating Mandibuzz for example. I question running Head Smash just to beat Mandibuzz, because you're wasting a lot of EV's on speed and Mandibuzz isn't even THAT common to justify using it. And you're sacrificing Aegi in the process too, so yeah.

And why would you even mention that you're biased, it takes away all your credibility ._. Also, there's a lot of pokemon that can run different movesets. We could send Charizard to Ubers for the exact same reason you're posting, but nobody's silly enough to even suggest something like that. Same thing with Aegislash. Stop this 50/50 nonsense lol. You never know your opponents sets beforehand, stop using that as an argument. Thank you.

 

[ginganinja]

And how does Aegislash not loose to Tyranitar if it hasn't Sacred Sword? How does Aegislash not loose to Clefable if it hasn't Flash Cannon? How does Aegislash not loose to Mandibuzz if it hasn't Toxic? Aegislash looses NOT ALMOST NOTHING by altering its moveset! Just like the other Pokemon you mentioned it will hurt Aegislash if he chooses different movesets.

I think you are missing the point. The issue Jukain is trying to point out is that, similar to Deoxys-S, Aegislash has a stupid number of exceptionally strong movesets it can run, and thus, its exceptionally hard to prepare for it. Now of course, Deoxys-S had counters towards each individual set, but the issue was that you never knew what set it was running, until it was too late, and Deoxys-S had gotten its advantage. You thought it was running a Lead set? Whoops it turns out its running LO and just killed something. The pro ban argument (one of them at any rate), argues that the large amount of versatility Aegislash gives makes it near impossible to prepare for. You have a Mandibuzz as your Aegislash counter? Whoops its sub Toxic and crippled it. You want to bring in Clefable? Whoops it just used Flash Cannon. No-one is arguing that Aegislash is uncounterable, just that Aegislash has a huge assortment of excellent sets that easily bypass the majority of its counters. This translates to a certain amount of ill feeling whenever you see an Aegislash in play, because you are in essence, flipping a coin and praying its not running the set that destroys your counter, hence, this is the element of "guesswork" that players dislike about what Aegislash brings. Kings Shield is part of it true, but its the versitile nature of the sets that it can run which is one of the defining problems of Aegislash.

If you want to argue against Jukains argument, I suggest you understand his argument. As jukain said, Aegislash really does lose nothing changing its moveset. Its not running moves like Hidden Power X to sneak a surprise KO on something, pretty much every Aegislash set is damn good, thus players can tailor there set into making sure it beats (or lures in), exactly what it needs to, while giving it the team support required to handle the general aegislash counters that its moveset might not cover.

We could send Charizard to Ubers for the exact same reason you're posting, but nobody's silly enough to even suggest something like that. Same thing with Aegislash. Stop this 50/50 nonsense lol. You never know your opponents sets beforehand, stop using that as an argument. Thank you.

Two things. Firstly, there are a number of OU players that would like to see a Charizard suspect test, so I would lay off the sweeping generalisation calling it "silly". Secondly, you are again missing the point. Its the ease that Aegislash can run a multitude of sets to bypass its counters that gives people pause. Traditionally, when a pokemon can break through its counters, with little or no opportunity cost, then it becomes frustrating to deal with. Salamence in DPP, Deoxys-S, heck, you can potentially claim Genesect is another one of those versatile pokemon that lose nothing easily switching up the moveset to nail a counter. This isn't Grass Knot Bisharp here, these are different sets that are exceptionally good while also beating the standard counters you would normally be able to bring into Aegislash.

Lastly, if you could be a bit more polite when responding to posts that disagree with you, that would make my job moderating this thread significantly easier.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

 

[Baharoth]

Well you can play tons of games and think you are good at predicting something, but King's Shield isn't really about predicting so much.
Both you and your opponent know what they need to do. You know Aegislash's user want to use King's Shield but he minds set up and Aegislash's opponent know that he needs the set up, but if user of Aegi doesnt use KS, he is fu**ed. Thats the thing, you cannot really say, it is something to predict, like you could say in some switch outs you really predicted, because this is really 50:50 and you CANNOT know what opponent decides to do. You guess wrong, he checked you, youu guess right, he is dead.

I do not want to ban Aegislash, I feel like Lati@s were too good for a long time... but the argument about 50:50 is true. Eventually everybody, even though they think it was their decision, decides randomly. You want to predict opponent and opponent wants to predict you, in those situations it is always 50:50.

No its not true, its far from it. Situations like that are simple decisions under uncertainty and nothing more. If you consider the risks and potential pay offs of every decision you will (almost)always find that there is an optimal choice to make, in a real 50:50 you would be indifferent between the two choices. And whats more, Aegislash usually has the short end of the stick in those situations. If both attack Aegi dies without doing anything, if he KS while the opponent sets up your facing a potential sweep so the best decision to make here is clearly to switch out to a check/counter. Even assuming Aegi can kill/cripple his opponent (and honestly no serious player will stay in against Aegi with something that will get ohkoed and is affected by KS) by predicting right the risks for Aegi are greater and the pay offs lower. Attacking with Aegi is something you should only do if you are forced to make an insurance sac (http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/battling-tip-of-the-day.3508693/).

There might be lategame situations where the options on both sides are limited so that you are forced to make that gamble but those are rare and avoidable i.e simply dont keep your weavile for your last pokemon if the opponent preserves his Aegi.

 

[Srn]

Wrong, then Sucker Punch is a 50/50, which it certainly isn't. You can predict based on how your opponent has been playing thus far. Are they more aggressive or are they more conservative? Do they try to exploit you when you pick the safer option or do they prefer to play more conservatively?

All of these are factors when deciding to KS or Protect, etc etc.

Uh fren I don't think you understand what a 50/50 is.
If you wanna keep pretending that sucker punch is a prediction, Then think of it this way:

Your opponent can predict you do to X
You predict your opponent to predict you to to X, so you do Y
But your opponent may also predict you to predict him to predict X, so he actually predicts Y
But you predict your opponent to predict you to predict your opponent to predict X, so you go with X anyway

Do you see where this is going? No matter how you try to justify it, sucker punch is a 50/50. Its even worse when its backed by huge power and 105 base attack, which makes it all the more game changing, which makes mega mawile all the more retarded.\
A bit off topic, but wanted to clear that up

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

You know what bothers me about this 50/50 argument? It's not the fact that until this suspect test started nobody even mentioned it, it's that we went from "KS mindgames bring an element of prediction to the table and thus encourage skillful play" to "KS 50/50 mindgames introduce an unecessary level of luck in the metagame like Swagger".
There are people here who are even suggesting that M-Mawile might be broken because of its Sucker Punch and SubPunch mindgames.
I can understand complaining about 50/50's when the RNG is involved (like Swagger), but it's unacceptable to do so when it's strictly a player choice, and yet here we are, using this argument against Aegislash's legitimacy in OU.
If this isn't a slippery slope then pray tell me what it is.

I would like to touch on this.... remember back when Aegislash was first introduced? He was really good but there were things like goodra and AV conkeldurr that kept him in check prebank. Idk about anybody else but when I had conkeldurr out against Aegislash I would ALWAYS drain punch first then knock off, and you know what? It always worked....until it didnt. There was a point in the metagame where predicting king's shield turned into "Ok I know he knows Im going to use King's Shield, but because he knows I know that I am not going to use it, but what if he knows all that? Ah well Ill just attack" It was at this point in the meta where using king shield LITERALLY turned into a RANDOM 50/50, it isnt about predicting because both players know that at this point the "ming games" that used to be perfectly healthy, are now too convoluted to make any reasonable prediction.

 

[Baharoth]

Your opponent can predict you do to X
You predict your opponent to predict you to to X, so you do Y
But your opponent may also predict you to predict him to predict X, so he actually predicts Y
But you predict your opponent to predict you to predict your opponent to predict X, so you go with X anyway

If you do it this way, only looking at the decisions possible without thinking about the consequences then everything in Pokemon is a 50/50. Will my opponent switch or stay in, will he predict me to double switch or not, will he set SR or attack.... no matter what you pick there is always the chance that you "predict" wrong, that doesnt make these situations 50:50 though, at least not if you look a little below the surface.

 

[Synchronation]

I think you are missing the point. The issue Jukain is trying to point out is that, similar to Deoxys-S, Aegislash has a stupid number of exceptionally strong movesets it can run, and thus, its exceptionally hard to prepare for it. Now of course, Deoxys-S had counters towards each individual set, but the issue was that you never knew what set it was running, until it was too late, and Deoxys-S had gotten its advantage. You thought it was running a Lead set? Whoops it turns out its running LO and just killed something. The pro ban argument (one of them at any rate), argues that the large amount of versatility Aegislash gives makes it near impossible to prepare for. You have a Mandibuzz as your Aegislash counter? Whoops its sub Toxic and crippled it. You want to bring in Clefable? Whoops it just used Flash Cannon. No-one is arguing that Aegislash is uncounterable, just that Aegislash has a huge assortment of excellent sets that easily bypass the majority of its counters. This translates to a certain amount of ill feeling whenever you see an Aegislash in play, because you are in essence, flipping a coin and praying its not running the set that destroys your counter, hence, this is the element of "guesswork" that players dislike about what Aegislash brings. Kings Shield is part of it true, but its the versitile nature of the sets that it can run which is one of the defining problems of Aegislash.

If you want to argue against Jukains argument, I suggest you understand his argument. As jukain said, Aegislash really does lose nothing changing its moveset. Its not running moves like Hidden Power X to sneak a surprise KO on something, pretty much every Aegislash set is damn good, thus players can tailor there set into making sure it beats (or lures in), exactly what it needs to, while giving it the team support required to handle the general aegislash counters that its moveset might not cover.

Ok, then I did understand everything correctly.
The main difference between Deoxys-S and Aegislash is that Deoxys' movesets are WAY TOO DIFFERENT BETWEEN EACH OTHER. A LO-set is for revenge-killing, a Lead-Set is for Hazards and a Dual-Screen set is supportive. Not only that, between a set there are EVEN MORE DIFFERENCES. That made it really hard to find out its moveset, because even if you predicted the right set it can STILL be totally different in its movesets. Therefor it was extremly hard to even check Deoxys-S correctly.
And this I don't see in Aegislash:
It has (like Deoxys) 3 sets: a mixed attacker, a SubToxic and a SwordsDance-set. Variations like "LO-set" or "noKingsShield-set" are still either mixed or SwordsDancer. All of his 3 sets are from aggressive nature: It cannot support the team with screens. It cannot set hazards. It cannot recover itself. It has no high-base power attacks.
The pattern between these "exceptionally strong movesets" is: It will attack, and most of the time on the special side. The ONLY set that is more defensive is SubToxic. He used Toxic on your incoming Mandibuzz? Congrats, he toxic'd 1 Pokemon and you know its entire moveset! You bring in Sylveon to tank Shadow Ball, then use Protect. He switches out? Winning, he has Sacred Sword! I can talk for myself that I never was totally destroyed by an Aegislash because it suddenly had a move that I didn't predict. You switch in Clefable but he didn't reveal its Flash Cannon yet? Why not play around, like a double switch or Protect to scout. Once I had a battle where someone switched his Aegislash INTO Clefable. It was a trick, he didn't had a steel-attack. You can notice something like this in 2 turns without having high causualties. I lost more often a Pokemon to a surprised Choice-scarfed-Tyranitar than to a suddenly SwordsDance-Aegislash. The only situation in which you can get totally destroyed is if he never switched into his Aegislash until the very end.
Aegislash reveals his set REALLY EARLY and it was always one of the most predictable Pokemon. Even if many people now run strange Aegislash-sets in the normal OU-ladder, they either:
1. Just didn't work. A standard-set would be more effective
2. Lost their surprise-factor early on and even without preparing I could play around it and defeat it.

I would really like to see a replay of a match in which someone got easily destroyed because he predicted a wrong Aegislash. Never happened to me.

As long as Aegislash doesn't get a huge useful movepool like Deoxys (Stealth Rocks and Pain Split just to name two) it won't have much variation and is fast to exploit. Right now Aegislash is TOO STALE in its movesets, there are way more versatile Pokemon that can get you off guard. Aegislash's mixed set can choose between Sacred Sword or a steel-type attack. How is this variation broken or unpredictable? Tyranitar (I love this example) could have Ice Beam and my Gliscor cannot wall it. It could have Pursuit or Crunch (or BOTH). Does he just want to scare me out and setting up some hazards or is he trapping me? The SwordsDance-set is even more stale: Shadow Sneak, Iron Head, Sacred Sword and SwordsDance. He has Kings Shield + 2 attacking moves? Yay, less coverage! I talked enough about SubToxic.

 

[Aelsorm]

Swagger is ALOT different. With Swagger you have to rely on RNG which is a true coinflip.
Kings Shield isn't like Swagger. It is a coinflip more like a switch. I mentioned this scenario many times:
Mega-Manectric against a Gyrados, your opponent has a healthy Garchomp in his team.
What do you do? You have a 50% chance to hit Gyrados with Voltswitch/Thunderbolt and a 50% chance to do nothing to Garchomp. Will you use Thunderbolt OR do you predict the switch and use HP Ice? If you guess wrong you have a problem, if not you are fine. Same with Kings Shield.

I really understand the whole point of 50/50, but without a good argument why THIS 50/50 is so different from normal switches which can cost you the battle too I just can see this as a point at all.

Well you can use T-bolt and in case of Scarfchomp switch in, you can switch out into wall.
In Aegislash's case there is no such thing you can do and you HAVE TO risk.

 

[Baharoth]

In Aegislash's case there is no such thing you can do and you HAVE TO risk.

Oh, did i miss something and Aegi got Shadow tag or whats going on here?

 

[Aelsorm]

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is running Fire moves on non-Fire type pokemon to deal with Scizor, Ferrothron, Grass Types, or generic Steel types. Scizor is, what, #20 on the usage rankings now or something? A godly fall for the former king of OU, that's for sure. There's only one reason those people are running Fire, and that reason is Aegislash.

Wow... really? What about Mawile-M having Fire Fang? Just against Aegislash? Or maybe against Ferrothorn that would otherwise easily counter it?
Or what about Manectric-M, he packs Flamethrower (Overheat) just 4fun?

Fire type moves ARE used on certain non-Fire Pokémon. MAINLY to deal with Ferrothorn.[/quote]

 

[Synchronation]

Well you can use T-bolt and in case of Scarfchomp switch in, you can switch out into wall.
In Aegislash's case there is no such thing you can do and you HAVE TO risk.

No, you don't HAVE TO risk. You could switch into something that walls Aegislash and force it out. Or you could have brought something in that just don't have a contact move.
If you want to expand this example: You have no other Pokemon that can take on Aegislash (for some reason). Then let me expand the other example too: You have nothing anymore that can wall ScarfChomp (could happen). In both cases you got outplayed and have to play risky or you will certainly loose, but if someone outplayed me, I wouldn't be mad if I loose, he was better.

If (for example) your last Pokemon is a SD-Talonflame and his last Pokemon is Aegislash, then it is true, this is really a 50/50 coinflip, but these situations are pretty rare and you shouldn't let it come to this situation or you got outplayed.

 

[Srn]

If you do it this way, only looking at the decisions possible without thinking about the consequences then everything in Pokemon is a 50/50. Will my opponent switch or stay in, will he predict me to double switch or not, will he set SR or attack.... no matter what you pick there is always the chance that you "predict" wrong, that doesnt make these situations 50:50 though, at least not if you look a little below the surface.

If they switch, you still attack

If they stay in
/ \
If attack, If use a non attacking move
| |
you use KS/sucker, Attack


It's basically still a 50/50, by switching around or setting rocks you're just delaying the clash or fishing for a better matchup.

I agree my example is a little flawed because it doesn't show which play is smarter, which is when it starts to become actual prediction and not just a 50/50. I think you know what I mean when I say this; its not really a 50/50 as to whether you want to keep your CB talonflame locked into brave bird in on a healthy rotom-w. It's VERY likely they'll switch out, so you can act accordingly. Switching out talonflame is the "right play," doing anything else is just stupid.
However, when you have that weakened SD garchomp against that +2 mega mawile, there is no "right play." It's basically just guessing, and this difference is what my example failed to show.

 

[LU-the great]

Fine, I will just reiterate the same old arguments.

Why there are no actually 50/50's caused my Aegislash:
First, a decent player playing with or against Aegislash can predict based on the opponents play style, team preview, or can scout to gain information. Someone used the example of being able to out predict Aegislash with a Conk knock off by over predicting KS and drain punching the first turn and using knock-off to KO Aegislash's the next. It is true that such a soft tactic will eventually become predictable by other Aegislash users, especially if you drain punch the KS turn. A competent player is going to think it a little weird that you used a move that Aegislash is immune to. This is how a metagame works. A metagame essentially has the process revalidating what worked in the past, doesn't work in the present and inferring from that what may work in the future. That is in fact part of the definition of a metagame. If you are looking for something that will always work then you may be looking for playing npc pokemon, because it is never the case that you will be able to consistently check a group of competent players. For instance, I use to switch into mega ttar when I expected a charzard y. It worked 9/10. I would get my sandstorm up and nullify its solar beam, getting a free turn to dragon dance. It turns out that zard users discovered this fact and started to keep focus blast as a coverage move. Focus blast lowers the over all coverage of zard y and it cannot abuse sunlight, but users discovered it was worth keeping around to 1 hit KO ttar.
Players generally have consistent tendencies. They are either more aggressive, more offensive, more safe, or risky. It is our own obligation to discover what kind of player we are facing at any given time based off their team and their first couple of switches and turns. Once you know what player it is you can capitalize on their play style, and Aegislash is centralized around play styles.
Why Aegislash does not produce negative centralization and is healthy for the meta game:
Aegislash centralizes the metagame around prediction. I do not mean when you say to yourself "I should switch to my rotom-w because he will use earthquake and the last four users of pokemon X have no coverage moves for rotom-w and use earthquake in this situation". I mean pure prediction, like the risky double switch, or knowing a player by looking at his/her team in team preview. That is think makes a more interesting metagame.... then again i think we have covered this point

 

[Sun King]

You know what bothers me about this 50/50 argument? It's not the fact that until this suspect test started nobody even mentioned it, it's that we went from "KS mindgames bring an element of prediction to the table and thus encourage skillful play" to "KS 50/50 mindgames introduce an unecessary level of luck in the metagame like Swagger".
There are people here who are even suggesting that M-Mawile might be broken because of its Sucker Punch and SubPunch mindgames.
I can understand complaining about 50/50's when the RNG is involved (like Swagger), but it's unacceptable to do so when it's strictly a player choice, and yet here we are, using this argument against Aegislash's legitimacy in OU.
If this isn't a slippery slope then pray tell me what it is.

Thank you. This is one of the more meaningful things that has been said in a while.
*Not to nitpick, but a slippery slope argument is when you say "if 'x' happens, then it will lead to 'y' and 'z' happening". The reason we don't accept those arguments is because they're often unproven. If you can prove that 'x' WILL in fact lead to 'y' and 'z', then it's perfectly acceptable to make a slippery slope argument.

Yes, but who else is using Ghost attacks outside of Aegislash and now the vanishingly rare Gengar? I mean, Sableye is actually useful now despite gaining one weakness, and M-Banette is a cool bulky attacker. Where did they go?



Nobody, and I mean nobody, is running Fire moves on non-Fire type pokemon to deal with Scizor, Ferrothron, Grass Types, or generic Steel types. Scizor is, what, #20 on the usage rankings now or something? A godly fall for the former king of OU, that's for sure. There's only one reason those people are running Fire, and that reason is Aegislash.

Good ghost types are EXTREMELY rare, but it's a great offensive typing to have at the moment--hence one of the reasons Aegislash is SO goddamn good right now.
And are you kidding me? First and foremost--don't use blanket statements. "Nobody is using Fire moves on non-Fire type pokemon," is blatantly wrong. As stated above, Mawile uses Fire Fang to get past Ferrothorn AND Aegislash without having to resort to Sub-Punch; Mega-Manectric uses Flamethrower/Overheat to punch holes in EXACTLY the mons I talked about, and HELLO--have you heard about HP Fire Greninja? And FYI, Scizor is number 6 on the ladder (And Ferro is 10)…So I dunno where the hell you got that from.

 

[LT. SURGE111]

Why is everyone hating on Aegislash? If people knew how to counter him, he wouldn't be in this thread. Charizard Y counters Aegislash easily. Heatran is also a great counter. Mamoswine. As long as you're halfway intelligent and use some thought, you would know not to attack Aegislash directly. Charizard is rampant in this meta game and has finished off Aegislash easily.

 

[ExperimentOne]

To the people saying: "The suspect ladder meta is more fun and full of variety", again you are showing that you have no clue how metagame works.
Sure it will be fun and diverse NOW and for the first few weeks because people will experiment and try to find optimal teams. Once the meta "settles down" or is defined then it WILL go back to using the same 30-ish pokes over and over. It WILL happen. This is inherent on any competitive game. And then the cycle of complaining about "stale" meta will begin.

A truly "stale" meta would be: you either use X or anti X. You can't use anything else or you will lose 90% of the time. This is NOT true for the current meta. There will never be a competitive meta where you use whatever you please and have a high win ratio. It's not how competitive games WORK

 

[ReShift_]

I hope that in the end, Aegislash will in fact be banned. I have never had anything against it, but I feel like it simply has too many things going for it. Aegislash has a total of 720 base stats. That's freaking pseudo status. On top of that, it has the move King's Shield. This can shut down many of the few Pokemon that can deal with it without a problem. Also, at least half of the Aegislash sets are mixed / special oriented, giving your opponent the upper hand by the powers of surprise. However, we have to take into account it's flaws also. Aegislash lacks recovery aside from Leftovers, sometimes forcing it out of the game quite quickly. Aegislash also lacks coverage moves, and needs a team to help him take down other large threats in the tier, such as Charizard X, Sableye, Klefki, and Landerous-T. Most of these Pokemon can destroy Aegislash if he doesn't already have a Sword's Dance up.

I feel like the main reason why Aegislash is raising such a controversy is the fact that because of his high usage rates in the tier, lots of Pokemon have been knocked out of viability. If Aegislash is banned / hindered, we might be able to form a less centralized OU metagame.

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

Fine, I will just reiterate the same old arguments.

Why there are no actually 50/50's caused my Aegislash:
First, a decent player playing with or against Aegislash can predict based on the opponents play style, team preview, or can scout to gain information. Someone used the example of being able to out predict Aegislash with a Conk knock off by over predicting KS and drain punching the first turn and using knock-off to KO Aegislash's the next. It is true that such a soft tactic will eventually become predictable by other Aegislash users, especially if you drain punch the KS turn. A competent player is going to think it a little weird that you used a move that Aegislash is immune to. This is how a metagame works. A metagame essentially has the process revalidating what worked in the past, doesn't work in the present and inferring from that what may work in the future. That is in fact part of the definition of a metagame. If you are looking for something that will always work then you may be looking for playing npc pokemon, because it is never the case that you will be able to consistently check a group of competent players. For instance, I use to switch into mega ttar when I expected a charzard y. It worked 9/10. I would get my sandstorm up and nullify its solar beam, getting a free turn to dragon dance. It turns out that zard users discovered this fact and started to keep focus blast as a coverage move. Focus blast lowers the over all coverage of zard y and it cannot abuse sunlight, but users discovered it was worth keeping around to 1 hit KO ttar.
Players generally have consistent tendencies. They are either more aggressive, more offensive, more safe, or risky. It is our own obligation to discover what kind of player we are facing at any given time based off their team and their first couple of switches and turns. Once you know what player it is you can capitalize on their play style, and Aegislash is centralized around play styles.
Why Aegislash does not produce negative centralization and is healthy for the meta game:
Aegislash centralizes the metagame around prediction. I do not mean when you say to yourself "I should switch to my rotom-w because he will use earthquake and the last four users of pokemon X have no coverage moves for rotom-w and use earthquake in this situation". I mean pure prediction, like the risky double switch, or knowing a player by looking at his/her team in team preview. That is think makes a more interesting metagame.... then again i think we have covered this point

I am sorry but all of this is your opinion, you cant prove any of it. It serves no real argument other than you think you can understand your opponent and know how he will make every move by watching him for a few turns. (slight exaggeration) I mean I am kind of dumbfounded, you are saying that ANY decent player can just be like "oh he lead with lando-t then u-turned on my heatran, he must be aggresive and wants to keep momentum on his side, I will now make all my predictions based on that" You would have to watch a person play games upon games before you were able to recognize any discernible patterns, and to think any different is just silly.

From my experience, and I play alot of good players,"decent" players (as you put it) are not predictable. Good players know what their plays make them look like and then later in the game they will switch it up, I see it time and time again, a player will be playing very aggresive the first half of the game(ie predicting double switches and attacking the pokemon he thinks will come out), and then the second half of the game they start making safer plays, so the opponent may feel safe leaving a heatran in on a threat with earthquake because the opponent has never used earthquake on the heatran up until that point, then BAM he hits him with an earthquake.

The idea that you can understand how a person plays ( especially randoms on the ladder) by watching them for a few turns is a joke, I am done talking about this because Aegislash does cause 50/50s any good player understands that, it is one of the biggest complaints from the top tier tournament players. And if your answer to the 50/50s is to be some omniscient God that can just perfectly understand his opponent by watching 5 turns then that is just arrogant and misguided.

I mean I know showing examples hardly ever gets through to anybody, but this is me playing against one of the best players on ladder, and you will see a true case of 50/50s that are similiar to aegislash(even though not specifically aegislash)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-117641045

I am just going to explain everything that went into this game to make my point as clear as possible. Sorry if this takes up alot of space but I think it will help out the whole 50/50 thing, even though Aegislash isnt in this game. First off CB Entei has about 0 switchins, air balloon heatran being the absolute best answer to him so I popped the balloon asap, if I sacred fire and he switched I will most likely kill a pokemon, if I bulldoze and he stays in I will kill his heatran, so now its just a bunch of 50/50s, he couldnt possibly hope to predict what move I was going to use because literally I guessed every. single. time. I didnt predict. that is the definition of a 50/50 and they are the same exact 50/50s that aegislash promotes.

So to sum up this rather poor post, are you telling me that you would accurately predict when I would use sacred fire or bulldoze? The answer is NO, because I didnt even know what I was going to use them. The same thing goes with aegislash. I mean I sound like a broken record, I recommend checking out Jukains post about 50/50s he does a much better job than I do, but the point is you are confusing 50/50s with regualr predictions that usually are more like 80/20. Anyway Im done for now I guess.

 

[Srn]

This whole 50/50 arguement is utterly pointless. We're getting no where with it as a reason to ban aegislash because without aegislash there will be 50/50 playing sucker punch mindgames, predicting sets of other pokemon, etc.

Aegislash is in no way versitile.. I always bring something fast or priority just for greninja since "It has no true counters" with it's amazing speed stat..

Aegislash has some true counters, and no way to deal with them unless he predicts and hits with a SE move on the switch in as he can't hit them again with that speed..

We're forgoting how none threatning aegislash really is compared to alot of pokemon <S-rank not ban worthy.

Can we please just stop mentioning head smash and sub-toxic already.. mandibuzz lives from head smash, has roost, and aegislash gets recoil.. it's gimmickly and pointless in many situations.

Sub toxic is done better with other pokemon (cough gliscor with roost.. Lol actually alot of pokemon who have a recovery move.. and learn sub+toxic can do the same thing like the latis even..) Sub toxic was good back then because nobody saw it coming.. no body would ever guess aegislash would be running it.. now it's becoming a very common thing and is more predictable making it somewhat a gimmickly set than a viable one.

I wasn't tryna make a big deal out of 50/50s but some people still don't know quite what it is so I attempted to clear that up.
Yeah Head smash is kinda dumb you kill yourself while killing mandibuzz, but really?
Are you seriously calling Sub-Toxic Aegislash a gimmick ?_?

First off, subtoxic gliscor doesn't even use roost lmao, it uses sub/protect/toxic/attack.
Lati@s pull a absolutely terribly subtoxic set and i'd recommend you never try one :I
Listen there are certain traits that make subtoxic sets on certain pokemon decent, and a recovery move is not one of them. The ability to hurt poison types and steel types is a trait that subtoxic users have in common. Basically, you want to be able to actually tickle the pokemon that can switch in on and absorb a toxic. It has nothing to do with recovery.

Aegislash uses subtoxic b/c even though Ghost isn't SE against steel/poison, toxic catches its main switch-ins off guard and it doesn't compromise its overall effectiveness. Besides, you can easily set up a sub on non-knock off Ferro and shadow ball nukes skarm either way.

Finally, subtoxic becoming common has nothing to do with how good it actually is. SD is super common lower ladder, doesn't mean that its the #1 aegislash set :I

 

[Aelsorm]

Why is everyone hating on Aegislash? If people knew how to counter him, he wouldn't be in this thread. Charizard Y counters Aegislash easily. Heatran is also a great counter. Mamoswine. As long as you're halfway intelligent and use some thought, you would know not to attack Aegislash directly. Charizard is rampant in this meta game and has finished off Aegislash easily.

You certainly dont know what "counter" is.

 

[I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM]

Yeah sub toxic latias isn't good, bad example on my part but many pokemon get the two moves and can be "unpredictable" like slash himself (which he isn't)

Recovery DOES make a big different.. how is aegislash appost to toxic stall if he's uninvested in offenses and can't take repeated hits? And when he can no longer spam sub to stall he's in big trouble.. The set works only because nobody expects it.. now people expect it and can point the set out on stall teams or even if not seen can still kill it with repeated hits.. gliscor can sub, roost, toxic, and EQ or knock off.. I fear that more than a weak shadow ball, KS which doesn't block taunt or status, toxic, and sub without anyway of getting health back.

The fuck? Did you just call slash unpredictable? Mate, I can list 4 sets off the top of my head.

SubToxic
Tank/Pivot
SD 3 attacks
Speedy LO

and theres more, i'm positive, higher level players are coming up with. Aegi evolves, the meta has to evolve with Aegi. and the more Aegi evolves, the harder it is to keep up. eventually, the meta will just stop because it isn't possible for aegi to evolve anymore. Aegislash IS the meta, and getting rid of it will make it much more enjoyable, I'm positive.

 

[the-bumper-car]

Good ghost types are EXTREMELY rare, but it's a great offensive typing to have at the moment--hence one of the reasons Aegislash is SO goddamn good right now.

Good ghosts are not rare - Gengar, Sableye, M-Banette, and Trevenant, among others, have the stats, movepool, and/or abilities to be major players in OU. However they have no chance in OU as long as everyone is gunning for Aegislash, and hitting them in the crossfire.

And are you kidding me? First and foremost--don't use blanket statements. "Nobody is using Fire moves on non-Fire type pokemon," is blatantly wrong. As stated above, Mawile uses Fire Fang to get past Ferrothorn AND Aegislash without having to resort to Sub-Punch; Mega-Manectric uses Flamethrower/Overheat to punch holes in EXACTLY the mons I talked about, and HELLO--have you heard about HP Fire Greninja? And FYI, Scizor is number 6 on the ladder (And Ferro is 10)…So I dunno where the hell you got that from.

Look at the part I bolded. If it wasn't for Aegislash, Focus Punch would be perfectly acceptable for M-Mawile to use to deal with its Steel-type counters. Fire Fang is a bad move on M-Mawile since it gives Heatran and Char-X an opening to come in and burn you/KO you.

Call me when Mega Manectric actually becomes relevant to OU, because I've blocked it out thanks to all the people claiming it was an "offensive pivot". Heck, it runs Overheat because Manectric's movepool is so barren (A SPECIAL ATTACKER WITHOUT ICE BEAM?!?) that it's packing all the high BP moves it can, even with the drawback of lowering its SpAtk of 2 stages forcing it to switch.

And HP Fire Greninja is an inferior option to Dark Pulse Greninja - only relevant when you're on a Rain Team, where Ferrothorn becomes Public Enemy # 1? Okay, you get partial points for this one.