-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Ghost of Perdition
- Thread starter gr8astard
- Start date
- Status
You seem to conveniently forget that the best answers to Aegislash ignore that 50-50 entirely.
It protects you for a turn and lowers the attack of those who make contact with it by 2 stages. I'm not sure where you're seeing a drawback here. And if things are broken, they're getting banned regardless of Aegislash or no Aegislash; a lack of Aegislash just shows their presence more clearly.
Edit for Karxrida to avoid double post: You seem to conveniently forget that everything in the tier tries to jam a way to hit Aegislash in its moveset, with the only exception being Lati@s (who can't hit it no matter what it does).
In my opinion, Aegislash has not been a problematic pokemon. Ive seen mixed sets, physical/special sets and stall sets, litterally its never been able to take out more than one..maybe two pokemon. Its most annoying set ive seen is SD, Shadow sneak/kings shield...even then i carry wil-o-wisp(gotta have burn with things like WP dragonite etc running a muck).
Yes, 720 is nothing to scoff at..but usually it takes out maybe 1 pokemon...then you can easily send in a revenge killer to clean up the job. Its centeralizing...yes..but not OVER centeralizing and no more than say a talonflame. I see a talonflame and i make DAMN sure i save my Aqua jet sharpedo for it.....
Special attackers and ground types (that dont try to make direct contact) clean Aegislash up pretty good. I do support it needing a suspect test with ridiculous stats as those...but IMO at the moment it is not broken enough that OU mons cant deal with it nicely
Yes, 720 is nothing to scoff at..but usually it takes out maybe 1 pokemon...then you can easily send in a revenge killer to clean up the job. Its centeralizing...yes..but not OVER centeralizing and no more than say a talonflame. I see a talonflame and i make DAMN sure i save my Aqua jet sharpedo for it.....
Special attackers and ground types (that dont try to make direct contact) clean Aegislash up pretty good. I do support it needing a suspect test with ridiculous stats as those...but IMO at the moment it is not broken enough that OU mons cant deal with it nicely
I've been reading this thread for a long time now, and am more of a lurker, so forgive me if my status on the boards is not as prestigious as some. But I have an opinion and hopefully may change a few minds. If you don't like or agree, it's just my opinion, no big deal.
I see EXACTLY where pro-ban people are coming from, that Aegis is one of the strongest pokemon around, but I don't think banning him will affect the meta enough to matter, nor do I think he is centralizing enough to define the current meta.
First, people saying the 50/50's are all over the place with Aegislash while not nearly as common among other pokemon, that's true, but Aegis's 720 BST being on a turn delay through reliance on king's shield (while an amazing move, it's still only linked to one move) creates many of the 50/50's against it as well as for it. Though not common, staples running a surprise substitute can often escape this, and most pokemon running Substitute are faster than Aegis, and thunder wave has two chances rather than one of reversing a matchup, which is not true for any other OU pokemon other than those running wish/protect (will-o wisp exists as well, but I think since shadow ball became THE Aegislash since forever ago this is not a guaranteed cripple). There are moves out there that reverse Aegis's favor in the 50/50 scenario. While some people will say that's not relevant, remember that they do exist and do so viably on many pokemon.
Now, as far as the meta being made around Aegislash, I'm not a perfect judge, I switch metas to LC and Doubles often and only spend enough time in OU to reach about 1650 in the ladder, which in the scheme of things isn't impressive. But, what I've seen there and what I've viewed on replays of top-level ladder play I think is enough to make a decent argument. Aegis is a strong pokemon, that's for sure, but removing it won't change the prevalance of ExcaTar teams, who Aegis was never a counter or strong check to, and there are other powerful Ground staples in the tier. As you can see I made Aegisslash
-1 4 Atk Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 45-54 (14 - 16.8%) -- possible 6HKO
-1 4 Atk Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 34-40 (10.6 - 12.5%) -- possible 8HKO
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 193-228 (60.3 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 251-296 (78.4 - 92.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 252-296 (77.7 - 91.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 328-385 (101.2 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 193-228 (60.3 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Now, for fairness's sake, let's say neither of them having a life orb or damage-boosting item, since in that case Lando-T just doesn't give a shit. Aegis does, with leftovers, 16.8 + 12.5 + 71.2 percents max, if Lando-T switches in on a sacred sword, that's the most damage possible for it. 100.5%, an ohko with the very maximum damage from 3 attacks, in the case of no leftovers or investment in bulk. Lando will kill with 2 EQ's and cripple it so it can't switch into nearly any decent pokemon after a single EQ. There are matchups that Aegis cannot win if set up correctly. Obviously with correct setup it can, but with correct setup so can Landorus. And this brings to the light that with prior damage, the impossible matchups against Aegisslash become doable.
And there are other fast staples that do more damage to Aegis.
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 322-382 (99.3 - 117.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
Note that I said fast staples. A slower SE move from a bulky pokemon will definitely get kills, and I didn't even mention that or the ever-present against-Aegislash 50/50 of switching in on a king's shield. Granted since it can scout with KS again the following matchup will be a 50/50 rather than a 100/0, but that original 50/50 is ALWAYS present, which is not the case for other powerful OU mons. I'm reminded of a stronger subtect Gliscor, where the "switch during protect" mindgame was always active. Though that matchup can be exhausting at times, there's no one here saying it's OP. Different case, but still good to note.
Moreso, Aegislash needs to find the time to get in, and though it gets in easily against certain pokemon, changing the moveset slightly could lead Aegis into an easy trap. For a while, my favorite answer was Machamp running sub, EQ, Stone Edge and Dynamicpunch. Normally Aegis gets in for free and stays there in that matchup, and many pokemon similar to it have been talked about as not viable because Aegis exists. In this case, if I sub on the switchin, I am slower than Aegisslash, 2hko it in shield mode and ohko it in sword mode, come at me bro. It's not an unviable set either, as Talonflame, another pokemon begging to switch in, dies to the same sub and in this case stone edge. Obviously this is a very specific scenario, but it does illustrate that some pokemon Aegislash is the go-to switchin against can make changes to their moveset and trap a bitch.
Note how I didn't state any of the other 3 weaknesses. They've got case-by-case merit too, and pro-ban and anti-ban people have illustrated that common users of these 3 moves do not win 1v1s against Aegislash when it's at full hp when it came in on a safe read that was in neither player's outright advantage...that's true, but kind of bottled up and put in a test-tube. That kind of theory doesn't always illustrate actual games. I didn't mention the other 3 types because pro-ban people make good points, buuuuuut, super-effective moves are never not a thing to consider, especially because Aegis is the kind of pokemon that does often have prior damage, being such a good early/mid-game pivot.
As for the more common meta in general, there exists a host of checks to different Aegislash sets. Whether those checks were made because of Aegislash is sketchier territory. Quagsire is primarily built to deal with Char X, but ends up smacking some Aegis physical sets around anyway as a happy accident. Mandibuzz won't go away because of its amazing defog use and counter to neutral-effective physical threats, so removing Aegis won't stop that one. Same with Bisharp, though it may be the only one to go severely down in usage, it's OU to stay with that typing and extremel powerful knock off. Bulky Char X with will-o-wisp will stay around after Aegis goes, because it was never specifically made to counter Aegis in the first place, but moreso to deal with its own defensive checks and counters (Quagsire, Mega T-Tar stone edge revenge-ohko after one DD, stuff like that). Most of the metagame being "built to deal with Aegislash" wasn't actually Aegislash's doing in the first place, but more along the lines of "happy accidents". the suspect ladder not changing their top roster with a lack of Aegis has actually proved it's not as big a player as people think.
I think it has no reason to be banned, considering Deo-D and S were near-guaranteed hazards or revenge-kills, and Klefki on swagplay was mathematically proven in many matchups to have something like an 83% chance of creating advantage with very little prediction. Favorable 50/50's on some team setups isn't convincing enough to keep upp with preceding ban criteria.
For those who says Aegis "stales the metagame", we're currently playing in a Meta with far more varied playstyles than BW2 OU (surely no one can be nostalgic about the weather-war rain party of olden days), and god forbid we're ever like 4th gen again. Right now, despite people complaining of a stale meta, there are more viable pokemon than I can last remember. If we vote no ban at the moment, the chance will come again if it's truly broken. However, removing a pokemon that may not be broken at all seems a bit strange, don't you think?
And that's my anti-ban case. I don't see pro-ban people as completely wrong, but I think banning it will be one of the only things to prove why they're wrong. Which I think is a bit risky. Up to you all to decide that. Enjoy voting!
I see EXACTLY where pro-ban people are coming from, that Aegis is one of the strongest pokemon around, but I don't think banning him will affect the meta enough to matter, nor do I think he is centralizing enough to define the current meta.
First, people saying the 50/50's are all over the place with Aegislash while not nearly as common among other pokemon, that's true, but Aegis's 720 BST being on a turn delay through reliance on king's shield (while an amazing move, it's still only linked to one move) creates many of the 50/50's against it as well as for it. Though not common, staples running a surprise substitute can often escape this, and most pokemon running Substitute are faster than Aegis, and thunder wave has two chances rather than one of reversing a matchup, which is not true for any other OU pokemon other than those running wish/protect (will-o wisp exists as well, but I think since shadow ball became THE Aegislash since forever ago this is not a guaranteed cripple). There are moves out there that reverse Aegis's favor in the 50/50 scenario. While some people will say that's not relevant, remember that they do exist and do so viably on many pokemon.
Now, as far as the meta being made around Aegislash, I'm not a perfect judge, I switch metas to LC and Doubles often and only spend enough time in OU to reach about 1650 in the ladder, which in the scheme of things isn't impressive. But, what I've seen there and what I've viewed on replays of top-level ladder play I think is enough to make a decent argument. Aegis is a strong pokemon, that's for sure, but removing it won't change the prevalance of ExcaTar teams, who Aegis was never a counter or strong check to, and there are other powerful Ground staples in the tier. As you can see I made Aegisslash
-1 4 Atk Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 45-54 (14 - 16.8%) -- possible 6HKO
-1 4 Atk Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 34-40 (10.6 - 12.5%) -- possible 8HKO
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 193-228 (60.3 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 251-296 (78.4 - 92.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 252-296 (77.7 - 91.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 328-385 (101.2 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 193-228 (60.3 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Now, for fairness's sake, let's say neither of them having a life orb or damage-boosting item, since in that case Lando-T just doesn't give a shit. Aegis does, with leftovers, 16.8 + 12.5 + 71.2 percents max, if Lando-T switches in on a sacred sword, that's the most damage possible for it. 100.5%, an ohko with the very maximum damage from 3 attacks, in the case of no leftovers or investment in bulk. Lando will kill with 2 EQ's and cripple it so it can't switch into nearly any decent pokemon after a single EQ. There are matchups that Aegis cannot win if set up correctly. Obviously with correct setup it can, but with correct setup so can Landorus. And this brings to the light that with prior damage, the impossible matchups against Aegisslash become doable.
And there are other fast staples that do more damage to Aegis.
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 322-382 (99.3 - 117.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
Note that I said fast staples. A slower SE move from a bulky pokemon will definitely get kills, and I didn't even mention that or the ever-present against-Aegislash 50/50 of switching in on a king's shield. Granted since it can scout with KS again the following matchup will be a 50/50 rather than a 100/0, but that original 50/50 is ALWAYS present, which is not the case for other powerful OU mons. I'm reminded of a stronger subtect Gliscor, where the "switch during protect" mindgame was always active. Though that matchup can be exhausting at times, there's no one here saying it's OP. Different case, but still good to note.
Moreso, Aegislash needs to find the time to get in, and though it gets in easily against certain pokemon, changing the moveset slightly could lead Aegis into an easy trap. For a while, my favorite answer was Machamp running sub, EQ, Stone Edge and Dynamicpunch. Normally Aegis gets in for free and stays there in that matchup, and many pokemon similar to it have been talked about as not viable because Aegis exists. In this case, if I sub on the switchin, I am slower than Aegisslash, 2hko it in shield mode and ohko it in sword mode, come at me bro. It's not an unviable set either, as Talonflame, another pokemon begging to switch in, dies to the same sub and in this case stone edge. Obviously this is a very specific scenario, but it does illustrate that some pokemon Aegislash is the go-to switchin against can make changes to their moveset and trap a bitch.
Note how I didn't state any of the other 3 weaknesses. They've got case-by-case merit too, and pro-ban and anti-ban people have illustrated that common users of these 3 moves do not win 1v1s against Aegislash when it's at full hp when it came in on a safe read that was in neither player's outright advantage...that's true, but kind of bottled up and put in a test-tube. That kind of theory doesn't always illustrate actual games. I didn't mention the other 3 types because pro-ban people make good points, buuuuuut, super-effective moves are never not a thing to consider, especially because Aegis is the kind of pokemon that does often have prior damage, being such a good early/mid-game pivot.
As for the more common meta in general, there exists a host of checks to different Aegislash sets. Whether those checks were made because of Aegislash is sketchier territory. Quagsire is primarily built to deal with Char X, but ends up smacking some Aegis physical sets around anyway as a happy accident. Mandibuzz won't go away because of its amazing defog use and counter to neutral-effective physical threats, so removing Aegis won't stop that one. Same with Bisharp, though it may be the only one to go severely down in usage, it's OU to stay with that typing and extremel powerful knock off. Bulky Char X with will-o-wisp will stay around after Aegis goes, because it was never specifically made to counter Aegis in the first place, but moreso to deal with its own defensive checks and counters (Quagsire, Mega T-Tar stone edge revenge-ohko after one DD, stuff like that). Most of the metagame being "built to deal with Aegislash" wasn't actually Aegislash's doing in the first place, but more along the lines of "happy accidents". the suspect ladder not changing their top roster with a lack of Aegis has actually proved it's not as big a player as people think.
I think it has no reason to be banned, considering Deo-D and S were near-guaranteed hazards or revenge-kills, and Klefki on swagplay was mathematically proven in many matchups to have something like an 83% chance of creating advantage with very little prediction. Favorable 50/50's on some team setups isn't convincing enough to keep upp with preceding ban criteria.
For those who says Aegis "stales the metagame", we're currently playing in a Meta with far more varied playstyles than BW2 OU (surely no one can be nostalgic about the weather-war rain party of olden days), and god forbid we're ever like 4th gen again. Right now, despite people complaining of a stale meta, there are more viable pokemon than I can last remember. If we vote no ban at the moment, the chance will come again if it's truly broken. However, removing a pokemon that may not be broken at all seems a bit strange, don't you think?
And that's my anti-ban case. I don't see pro-ban people as completely wrong, but I think banning it will be one of the only things to prove why they're wrong. Which I think is a bit risky. Up to you all to decide that. Enjoy voting!
yeah Aegislash does not give free switches, because hardly anything wants to switch into aegislash, and the things that do kill all offensive momentum the opponent may have had. As we discussed the "free turn" of setup sweepers is hardly free and can sometimes come at a great cost. And what exactly does "etc." mean in your statement? It seems like you just put it there because you had no other viable reasons.
Yeah maybe i exaggerated a bit, i am sorry about that, i am just tired of refuting the same false 50/50 arguments over and over again. However Jukain for example said multiple times that "Aegi causes excessive 50/50" and its also been claimed several times that there is little risk involved so its not like i took that statement out of my ass.
And no i cant disagree when you say there will be less 50/50s without Aegi, however the decrease is so insignificant imo that its not a good reason for a ban. I ve said that a few times already, if you want to remove 50/50s from the game you should start with Sucker Punch.
Please read one of my previous posts, i already stated several times that most of the time there IS a right play to make which is exactly why its not a 50/50. Exception here are lategame 1on1 situations where Aegi has enough life left to survive an attack at -2 instead of dying to a normal attack.
Subject 18
Just curious since i just started playing pokemon early this year but has there ever been a meta that changed and evolved all the time without external influences i.e banns? Because from my experience with other games like MTG or SC BW metagames tend to settle down at some point and become "stale". Its just logical imo, at some point most/all of the things that work well have been found out and adapted to so the meta cant realy change anymore unless you force changes by removing things.
Last edited:
I think the majority of people who don’t like King Shield guessing games don’t feel you've refuted they’re logic. At any rate I hardly think it’s false. 50/50s Are mind games, they’re guessing games. There is no "right way" to play around them. Like you seem to think there is.
So yeah, you can make the argument that certain options are “riskier” for Aegislash than for the opponent. And that in turn these 50/50s look more like 25/75s or something.
This is hardly the center peice of my post but I want to remind you that for one thing the risk v reward factors can skew both ways. And since Aegilsash is the monster generating the “50/50”s smart players use it to set up mind games in the Aegislash’s favor.
But another thing totally worth considering is that when two competent players who can both weigh the risk and reward of different options are battling, these guessing game polarize themselves towards a 50/50 anway. How so? Because the exact attitude you’re taking about 50/50s not being 50/50s. the idea that there’s actually a "right way" to play in them. Hypothetically the farther the situation goes from actually being a 50/50 the more likely any given player is to take the lower risk option. Of course realistically this makes the high risk option less and less risky. If you set up a situation that’s a 75/25 it becomes a lot easier to bank on the 75 being the option your opponent picks. But then a smart opponent would know this and since you’re easily banking on the 75 option it makes the 25 option much less risky. Once you both start taking that into consideration the situation just looks more and more like a 50/50 again…
If you just blindly play "the right way" all the time then a smart opponent will actually pick up on that and realize there's almost no risk in the 25 option at all.
The only time mind games don’t polarize back to a 50/50 is when one player has a much stronger grasp on the risk v reward outcomes than the other. Otherwise mind games are just that. Mind games. and King's Shield reliably generates more of them than anything else ('cept maybe Sucker Punch) When both players are weighing them everything polarizes back to a 50/50 anyway.
EDIT: this is why a lot of really good players will actually alter the level of risks they take through out the course of a battle. It makes them harder to predict and turns a lot of situations that were going to be 75/25 in their opponents favor back into their own just by throwing them off with mind games.
Last edited:
Even though I didn't play either one of these two metagames, I feel like most people would say DPP (though it had to ban Chomp, Latias, and Wobb) and ADV were as close as it got. ADV isn't really "stale" like some people say DPP is at the moment, but from what I've been told ADV kinda cycles through phases. Going from CM spam to Stall to Gengar + spikes to whatever other playstyles is has. I would probably differ this question to someone like BKC, Dice, CrashinBoomBang, or anyone that actually played those two metas.
can sometimes come at a great cost ≠ no drawbacksMegaScizor said:
We were talking about the move itself, don’t take my post out of context you can't just spam KS like U-Turn.
free recovery, status rendering its coverage move almost useless, going for a non-contact move to scout for KS and using a stronger contact move on the following turn etc. etc. etc.MegaScizor said:
Altering the level of risks you take during a match to be less predictable doesnt make every decision a 50/50 it just changes the problem from a decision under uncertainty into strategic interactive decision making but i think that goes a bit to far off topic. And even if it would, that would mean that everything in pokemon is just a 50/50 at the end of the day so whats the point in banning Aegi for it?
A 50/50 in the strict sense is something like Chomp vs Mawile, pick the right move and you win, pick the wrong one and you lose. Same risk and reward for both sides and no right way to play. And Aegi rarely causes situations like that, forced switch vs potential sweep is hardly "same risk".
I didn't say altering risk taking during a match makes things 50/50. I said both players weighing the higher risk against the unlikelihood of any given high risk option makes it a less risky and therefor more likely option. That's what makes most non-50/50s closer to actually being 50/50s and why you can't just say there's a "right way" to play around these kinds of decisions.
I also don't remember me (or most people arguing with you) saying that this 50/50 issue is why we're pro-ban. It's just one of many many problems. I just got a little tired of the attitude that somehow we all missed the fact that decisions have risk and reward involved and that you have to explain it to us so that we will suddenly all see that King's Shield is totally fair and doesn't set Aegislash above anything. I'm informed, Mega Scizor is informed, lots of people have directed others to that Agent Gibb's post, and we still don't appreciate King's Shield's bull mind games anyways...
Last edited:
Its one of the main arguments made by the pro ban side, and from my point of view the most flawed one thats why i am mostly responding to that. There isnt much use arguing about Aegi beeing centralizing or hard to counter after all. I dont know if everyone "missed" that fact about risk and reward, i cant look into peoples heads, in most cases i dont even know their level of skill. However some of the examples brought here realy made me think thats the case tbh so i addressed them. If you dont like strategic mind games, thats fine. But that has little to do with guessing (in fact problems like that can be solved mathematically if you want to) and you should ask yourself why you are playing Pokemon if you dont like things like that.
Reading great quality posts here guys, thanks to all you people for helping me make up my mind :)
After a lot of tumbling forth and back, I decided to vote for Aegislash banned from OU. My main reasoning for this is, as Subject 18 pointed out; Not banning Aegi would put us in a stalemate where the metagame doesn't really change nor improve. Apart from this argument, I generally disagree with the pro-ban arguments... I don't feel like anything about Aegislash, apart from the overcentralisation, is broken or unhealthy, just very good. King's Shield forces a lot of 50/50's, and yeah, it usually comes down to luck, but so does a lot of other stuff in the meta aswell ?_? Most setup-sweepers force mindgames, as you either risk switching and it setting up, or you staying in on an attack. Priority and Choice item users also have to play around with switches, and while not as direct 50/50's, they still have presence.lol swagger.
I haven't really seen the best arguments against the banning of Aegi either, since saying that new threats will become broken with the lack of Aegis presence, is pretty much false. Aegislash isn't the only thing holding Garde, Medi and Hera back, but it's presence makes most teams featuring these pokes risk having bad matchup in many matches. Anyhow,AV Metagross counters, not even a problem :]] these pokes can be played around, the meta will adapt, and if they turn out to be broken, we could always suspect them too; Aegislash keeping threats in check is not a reason not to ban it.
tl;dr: Haha, this post is so short it doesn't need any tl;dr :3 Not gonna drag this out and repeat what others have said, I voted ban, which imho is the right desicion.
After a lot of tumbling forth and back, I decided to vote for Aegislash banned from OU. My main reasoning for this is, as Subject 18 pointed out; Not banning Aegi would put us in a stalemate where the metagame doesn't really change nor improve. Apart from this argument, I generally disagree with the pro-ban arguments... I don't feel like anything about Aegislash, apart from the overcentralisation, is broken or unhealthy, just very good. King's Shield forces a lot of 50/50's, and yeah, it usually comes down to luck, but so does a lot of other stuff in the meta aswell ?_? Most setup-sweepers force mindgames, as you either risk switching and it setting up, or you staying in on an attack. Priority and Choice item users also have to play around with switches, and while not as direct 50/50's, they still have presence.
I haven't really seen the best arguments against the banning of Aegi either, since saying that new threats will become broken with the lack of Aegis presence, is pretty much false. Aegislash isn't the only thing holding Garde, Medi and Hera back, but it's presence makes most teams featuring these pokes risk having bad matchup in many matches. Anyhow,
tl;dr: Haha, this post is so short it doesn't need any tl;dr :3 Not gonna drag this out and repeat what others have said, I voted ban, which imho is the right desicion.
So I voted not to ban Aegislash, and I'll put my justification here.
First off, I'll explain that I'm a stall player. There's actually nothing to explain, I just don't like the idea of routinely sacrificing pokemon for safe switch ins, and the only style that aims to always avoid that is stall. But I just figured, since I rarely build offensive teams, I'll point out I can't really say I've experienced the pressure of "oh crap I still have to cover X pokemon" first hand, but I have while building stall teams.
Also, I don't think Aegislash is, by itself, broken, and I think many of the pro-ban people actually agree with me on this. It's really good, sure, and it can 1v1 more pokemon than anything else in the meta, but most metagames have a "best" pokemon so that is not inherently broken. While I believe the 50/50s Aegislash creates are truly "uncompetitive", they just aren't on enough of a scale to justify a ban. And Aegislash is versatile enough to beat any counter, but again, that's not an inherently broken trait, I believe it's broken when you either can't scout (like Genesect spamming U-Turn everywhere) or giving free turns to scout comes at a gigantic cost (like Mega Lucario, switching around to see if it's physical or special, it can set up on that and sweep).
So the only argument left to convince me was Aegislash's effect on the metagame, which is probably the most popular pro-ban argument.
I admit, the metagame is pretty stale, at least defensive teams (I haven't felt the pressure to be directed to use the same pokemon on offensive teams, since I rarely build them). When you run into a stall team on the ladder, 90% of the time, it's based on the same cores. Chansey, Skarmory, Quagsire, VenuTran, etc. But that's not because of Aegislash, there are far more dangerous pokemon to stall than Aegislash.
Well, there are simply a lot of pokemon in this meta that have sets with maybe 5-10 hard counters of varying degrees of viability.
By the way, I don't think to counter all of Aegislash's sets in one pokemon, because the sets are so different, that they only take a couple of turns before you know what it is, and you can use counters that are weak to another set because Aegislash doesn't mash its sets together. You know you won't have to worry about Iron Head on a Sub-Toxic set, for example, making Flamethrower Magic Guard Clefable a good counter to it. If you want to use the versatility of different sets as an argument, there are pokemon that are much worse with this running around OU, for example I direct you to Charizard, who can instantly roast a pokemon if you guess the wrong mega form.
Anyways, any of Aegislash's individual sets is relatively easy to counter, compared to the threats on my list above. Even a pokemon with base defenses as low as Zapdos' 90/90 can be turned into a workable switch in to Crumbler (the standard mixed attacker Aegislash) with some EV investment, Recovery, and neutralities to its common attacks (hey, I said "workable" switch in, not "great" or "perfect" so don't pick on my examples here). Other pokemon that can be molded into decent Crumbler switch ins are Heatran, Venusaur, Gliscor, Amoonguss, Hippowdon, Mandibuzz, Chesnaught, Suicune, and both Charizard forms, just throwing some examples off the top of my head.
Back to why stall teams seem to be so cookie cutter, it's because of pokemon not named Aegislash, that require almost specialized counters. You can't deal with many of these megas with decent bulk + EV investment and no weaknesses to their attacks. For an example, I will direct you to Physically Defensive Hippowdon. A set that would be outclassed by SDef Hippo if it weren't for Zard-X, Mawile, Pinsir, ridiculously strong physical attackers. Physically defensive Hippowdon is the closest you get to taking on these megas without resistances to their Stabs, you need 108/118 bulk, full EV investment, and on top of that, Hippo just barely avoids 2HKOs from these pokemon so you need to keep him at perfect health throughout the battle.
Because generally bulky pokemon almost never work (outside of Chansey, who btw is arguably a requirement on stall, that's not healthy at all), you need specialized counters to these pokemon that resist their stabs. Stall teams run Skarmory because it can take on Mega Pinsir. They run Quagsire because it can take Dragon Claw Zard-X. VenuTran collectively takes on Mega Mawile. SDef Gliscor takes on Landorus. And so on. Not only are there very few options for stall to choose from, there are so many pokemon that require stall to find a specialized answer, they need to find pokemon that "double up" as a specialized answer to multiple threats.
Chansey is a near requirement on stall teams because she can take on Zard-Y, Manaphy, Landorus, some Kyurem-B, and Greninja all at once, and basically any other special attacker that doesn't go mixed to defeat her. Victini was something I saw got more popular on the suspect ladder's stall teams, because it could take Mega Medicham, Gardevoir, SD Mawile, and Zard-Y. Skarmory is best all-around physical wall that can also handle Mega Pinsir. Quagsire is the only pokemon that can handle Zard-X, Mega T-Tar, BD Azumarill, and a few other set up sweepers that otherwise can demolish teams after one free turn. Stall teams use so many of the same pokemon because they're the niche pokemon that can counter so many hard-to-counter pokemon.
TL DR, if we're looking to have a healthier meta, there are bigger fish to fry, these pokemon that barely have any good answers to individual sets. I would rather ban them first, (also the Hoenn remakes are coming soon), and see how the meta adjusts to those bans. Then come back, take another look at Aegislash, in this new metagame, and then we can more accurately see how much Aegislash is warping the meta, compared to pokemon like Zard-X and Mega Mawile. It's far easier for us to give Aegislash a second chance if we don't ban him now, not only can we track his effect on the meta as it adjusts to future bans (and ORAS), but also Smogon seems to be very reluctant to retest Ubers unless there was a change to that pokemon (like in BW when we retested Garchomp because Rough Skin got released).
I've heard rumors that there are like only six people who haven't voted yet, and these threads are usually cancer by page 65 so most people stop reading, so really, who am I kidding, I cast my own vote and that's probably all the influence I'll have on this suspect. But thanks for reading anyway.
First off, I'll explain that I'm a stall player. There's actually nothing to explain, I just don't like the idea of routinely sacrificing pokemon for safe switch ins, and the only style that aims to always avoid that is stall. But I just figured, since I rarely build offensive teams, I'll point out I can't really say I've experienced the pressure of "oh crap I still have to cover X pokemon" first hand, but I have while building stall teams.
Also, I don't think Aegislash is, by itself, broken, and I think many of the pro-ban people actually agree with me on this. It's really good, sure, and it can 1v1 more pokemon than anything else in the meta, but most metagames have a "best" pokemon so that is not inherently broken. While I believe the 50/50s Aegislash creates are truly "uncompetitive", they just aren't on enough of a scale to justify a ban. And Aegislash is versatile enough to beat any counter, but again, that's not an inherently broken trait, I believe it's broken when you either can't scout (like Genesect spamming U-Turn everywhere) or giving free turns to scout comes at a gigantic cost (like Mega Lucario, switching around to see if it's physical or special, it can set up on that and sweep).
So the only argument left to convince me was Aegislash's effect on the metagame, which is probably the most popular pro-ban argument.
I admit, the metagame is pretty stale, at least defensive teams (I haven't felt the pressure to be directed to use the same pokemon on offensive teams, since I rarely build them). When you run into a stall team on the ladder, 90% of the time, it's based on the same cores. Chansey, Skarmory, Quagsire, VenuTran, etc. But that's not because of Aegislash, there are far more dangerous pokemon to stall than Aegislash.
1. DD Zard-X
2. Mawile
3. Landorus
4. Mega Pinsir
5. Zard-Y
The rest of the list is in a kind of muddy order and it can depend on what pokemon I use to start off the team, but my point is Aegislash doesn't even make the top 5, and there are a lot of pokemon that take special consideration before it.
2. Mawile
3. Landorus
4. Mega Pinsir
5. Zard-Y
The rest of the list is in a kind of muddy order and it can depend on what pokemon I use to start off the team, but my point is Aegislash doesn't even make the top 5, and there are a lot of pokemon that take special consideration before it.
Well, there are simply a lot of pokemon in this meta that have sets with maybe 5-10 hard counters of varying degrees of viability.
By the way, I don't think to counter all of Aegislash's sets in one pokemon, because the sets are so different, that they only take a couple of turns before you know what it is, and you can use counters that are weak to another set because Aegislash doesn't mash its sets together. You know you won't have to worry about Iron Head on a Sub-Toxic set, for example, making Flamethrower Magic Guard Clefable a good counter to it. If you want to use the versatility of different sets as an argument, there are pokemon that are much worse with this running around OU, for example I direct you to Charizard, who can instantly roast a pokemon if you guess the wrong mega form.
Anyways, any of Aegislash's individual sets is relatively easy to counter, compared to the threats on my list above. Even a pokemon with base defenses as low as Zapdos' 90/90 can be turned into a workable switch in to Crumbler (the standard mixed attacker Aegislash) with some EV investment, Recovery, and neutralities to its common attacks (hey, I said "workable" switch in, not "great" or "perfect" so don't pick on my examples here). Other pokemon that can be molded into decent Crumbler switch ins are Heatran, Venusaur, Gliscor, Amoonguss, Hippowdon, Mandibuzz, Chesnaught, Suicune, and both Charizard forms, just throwing some examples off the top of my head.
Back to why stall teams seem to be so cookie cutter, it's because of pokemon not named Aegislash, that require almost specialized counters. You can't deal with many of these megas with decent bulk + EV investment and no weaknesses to their attacks. For an example, I will direct you to Physically Defensive Hippowdon. A set that would be outclassed by SDef Hippo if it weren't for Zard-X, Mawile, Pinsir, ridiculously strong physical attackers. Physically defensive Hippowdon is the closest you get to taking on these megas without resistances to their Stabs, you need 108/118 bulk, full EV investment, and on top of that, Hippo just barely avoids 2HKOs from these pokemon so you need to keep him at perfect health throughout the battle.
Because generally bulky pokemon almost never work (outside of Chansey, who btw is arguably a requirement on stall, that's not healthy at all), you need specialized counters to these pokemon that resist their stabs. Stall teams run Skarmory because it can take on Mega Pinsir. They run Quagsire because it can take Dragon Claw Zard-X. VenuTran collectively takes on Mega Mawile. SDef Gliscor takes on Landorus. And so on. Not only are there very few options for stall to choose from, there are so many pokemon that require stall to find a specialized answer, they need to find pokemon that "double up" as a specialized answer to multiple threats.
Chansey is a near requirement on stall teams because she can take on Zard-Y, Manaphy, Landorus, some Kyurem-B, and Greninja all at once, and basically any other special attacker that doesn't go mixed to defeat her. Victini was something I saw got more popular on the suspect ladder's stall teams, because it could take Mega Medicham, Gardevoir, SD Mawile, and Zard-Y. Skarmory is best all-around physical wall that can also handle Mega Pinsir. Quagsire is the only pokemon that can handle Zard-X, Mega T-Tar, BD Azumarill, and a few other set up sweepers that otherwise can demolish teams after one free turn. Stall teams use so many of the same pokemon because they're the niche pokemon that can counter so many hard-to-counter pokemon.
TL DR, if we're looking to have a healthier meta, there are bigger fish to fry, these pokemon that barely have any good answers to individual sets. I would rather ban them first, (also the Hoenn remakes are coming soon), and see how the meta adjusts to those bans. Then come back, take another look at Aegislash, in this new metagame, and then we can more accurately see how much Aegislash is warping the meta, compared to pokemon like Zard-X and Mega Mawile. It's far easier for us to give Aegislash a second chance if we don't ban him now, not only can we track his effect on the meta as it adjusts to future bans (and ORAS), but also Smogon seems to be very reluctant to retest Ubers unless there was a change to that pokemon (like in BW when we retested Garchomp because Rough Skin got released).
I've heard rumors that there are like only six people who haven't voted yet, and these threads are usually cancer by page 65 so most people stop reading, so really, who am I kidding, I cast my own vote and that's probably all the influence I'll have on this suspect. But thanks for reading anyway.
i feel like we've been seeing a lot of posts like the one above in this thread, and while i dont disagree with anything you said, i think its worth bearing in mind that aegislash is not broken because of its stallbreaking power, it is broken because it is the ultimate tank. yes, aegislash has a few mons which pretty much counter anything it can do, like spdef gliscor and amoonguss. this is why a lot of defensive players dont see just how consistently devastating it is (not trying to sound patronizing or anything here im sure youve played plenty of HO but)
i said it earlier in the thread but ill say it again, offensive teams have NOTHING that switches into aegislash. you can run bisharp which is unreliable etc etc, or things like lando/exca/zard which can check it a grand total of one time. on the flipside, aegislash switches in freely on mons like terrakion, hera, cham, LATI on like half of offensive teams, breloom if something is asleep, azumarill usually, thundurus often...and if it runs balloon, that list just becomes exponentially larger. that ability to come in take off 60% of everythings health then switch out again is what makes aegi fucked. the best offense can do is like AV azumarill but aegi is free to KS once it sees the vest damage...
not sure if this post matters too much atm since it sounds like the vote is leaning towards/already settled on ban but yeah
i said it earlier in the thread but ill say it again, offensive teams have NOTHING that switches into aegislash. you can run bisharp which is unreliable etc etc, or things like lando/exca/zard which can check it a grand total of one time. on the flipside, aegislash switches in freely on mons like terrakion, hera, cham, LATI on like half of offensive teams, breloom if something is asleep, azumarill usually, thundurus often...and if it runs balloon, that list just becomes exponentially larger. that ability to come in take off 60% of everythings health then switch out again is what makes aegi fucked. the best offense can do is like AV azumarill but aegi is free to KS once it sees the vest damage...
not sure if this post matters too much atm since it sounds like the vote is leaning towards/already settled on ban but yeah
My 2 cents on an Aegislash ban:
Aegi is a versatile Pokemon with stats that are frankly amazing. It has many sets.
HOWEVER, banning it is just ridiculous in my opinion. A lot of the meta at least checks it.
(Mandibuzz, Bisharp, etc.)
Aegi in Ubers would be under-powered. Darkrai completely ruins Aegi unless it misses the Dark Void and the Aegi user packs a Sacred Sword.
(Darkrai dv's aegi, and fires off as many dark pulses as possible before he wakes.(or nasty plot, then dark pulse if you feel lucky)).
Blaziken can do some gimmicks too but has to worry about King's Shield.
Let's look at some calcs, shall we?:
252 Atk Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 230-272 (70.9 - 83.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery -- decent damage. that's also not even an adamant Mamo.
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 307-367 (94.7 - 113.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO -- unboosted. if it manages an sd, it's guaranteed to KO(obviously).
252+ Atk Mold Breaker Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 260-308 (80.2 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery -- it has to watch a sacred sword but still.
You get the point. Aegi can be checked by many. Maybe not "fully countered" but does every pokemon that's hard to take down have to be banned? no.
Overall, I say no to banning aegi. if I make requirements, I'll vote no to banning him.
Aegi is a versatile Pokemon with stats that are frankly amazing. It has many sets.
HOWEVER, banning it is just ridiculous in my opinion. A lot of the meta at least checks it.
(Mandibuzz, Bisharp, etc.)
Aegi in Ubers would be under-powered. Darkrai completely ruins Aegi unless it misses the Dark Void and the Aegi user packs a Sacred Sword.
(Darkrai dv's aegi, and fires off as many dark pulses as possible before he wakes.(or nasty plot, then dark pulse if you feel lucky)).
Blaziken can do some gimmicks too but has to worry about King's Shield.
Let's look at some calcs, shall we?:
252 Atk Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 230-272 (70.9 - 83.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery -- decent damage. that's also not even an adamant Mamo.
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 307-367 (94.7 - 113.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO -- unboosted. if it manages an sd, it's guaranteed to KO(obviously).
252+ Atk Mold Breaker Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 260-308 (80.2 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery -- it has to watch a sacred sword but still.
You get the point. Aegi can be checked by many. Maybe not "fully countered" but does every pokemon that's hard to take down have to be banned? no.
Overall, I say no to banning aegi. if I make requirements, I'll vote no to banning him.
How Aegi does in Ubers is no argument for not banning him
Also those are super effective hits. Of course they are 1 and 2HKOing it.
Also aegi can hit them all hard back
Also aegi can hit them all hard back
So I've let my head cool of a while (a lot) and I'm going to address some of what I've seen.
Kings shield 50/50's
This is a reason to ban KS, not Aegislash itself. But if complex bans are the devil, I do remember that someone, I believe it was Haunter, referenced the essential mission statement for the metagame, and while I don't remember the passage on luck by heart, it would certainly be just fine with these scenarios, as it states that a small bit of chance is what makes the game interesting and gives the metagame play value rather than a cut and dry cookie cutter experience that bores people. You guys do realize that a lot of what Pokémon is is out predicting your opponent to hit a weak spot in their plans. That's going to involve 50/50s and guessing any way you slice it, so why these 50/50's are the devil is beyond me. The stat decrease? Oh please, Defiant, EQ, Earth Power, and every special ghost and Dark type move exist for a reason. The reason isn't Aegislash, it's for KOing steel or ghost type physical walls in general.
Versatility: There's pretty much one set out there (All out attacker) that doesn't get boned by Taunt. What happened to the horde of Prankster users who would spam this to prevent setup? Taunt finds some versatility in bringing non All out Aegi to their knees by removing KS from the equation, and the many sets that use KS depend on it for survival. Take away their floatie and they drown. Simple as that.
SubToxic OP!:
So what I understand is that Aegi uses this to stall the living crap out of people with Subs and KS. We see this as a reason to ban, yet Pokémon who can do this better (and DO, might I add) like Gliscor get a free pass? Poison Heal makes SubToxic that much more dangerous as you heal off half the sub damage per round, yet the one Pokémon who DOESNT get that is getting axed? I'm afraid I don't get it. Sure, it doesn't have a glaring 4X ice weakness, but it isn't fast and can't take many of its 2x SE hits anyway. Or, alternatively, force a pseudo choice lock with Taunt.
No true counters/centralization:
And back when Gliscor was everywhere in the lower ladder, if you didn't have a speedy Ice user you were boned from the start, but guess what? The lower ladder evolved and Gliscor isn't as popular anymore. Give the current meta some time to settle and explore it, you'll find a way around eventually, if you haven't already. But just because a Pokémon is hard to take down doesn't mean it should be banned, it just means it's found a weakness in your team and you should fix it.
As for centralization, the beginnings of the Gen 6 meta saw heavy use of teams that were primarily a set of six Pokémon that were labeled OU: The Team for a while by some. They weren't banned, we just created a hazard meta to deal with them as most of them were glass cannons vulnerable to rocks and spikes and webs. When something becomes paragon in the meta, we should learn to deal with it, not ban it. If we keep the latter pattern up, we'll be out of OU mon soon enough. :/ Let the meta settle for a while and see if we can't defeat the "threat" of Aegislash ban free. I believe that we can do it, I've seen the lower ladder do it on its own, I have faith in the higher and more experienced ladder to do the same.
Forces Pokémon to use inconvenient moves:
Chances are you want an Aegislash if you run Skarm or a Rotom W so that Pinsir will run EQ instead of deadly Close Combat. This is again, meta evolution: People do one thing so that something in the meta (Skarm/Rotom W's Viability against Pinsir) will change in their favor. This is simply playing the game, people! I don't know about you, but I like a changing meta, after all it makes the things that are impassable barriers become obsolete after a while. If they don't, I learn to deal with them. Simple as that.
Last word: Many bans so far have been something truly broken like "choose a Pokémon and remove it from play" with MegaGar or instant win buttons like MegaMom or MegaLuca. Aegislash is neither if you play around it, which isn't hard.
Sorry for the massive edit, I hit post too soon.
Kings shield 50/50's
This is a reason to ban KS, not Aegislash itself. But if complex bans are the devil, I do remember that someone, I believe it was Haunter, referenced the essential mission statement for the metagame, and while I don't remember the passage on luck by heart, it would certainly be just fine with these scenarios, as it states that a small bit of chance is what makes the game interesting and gives the metagame play value rather than a cut and dry cookie cutter experience that bores people. You guys do realize that a lot of what Pokémon is is out predicting your opponent to hit a weak spot in their plans. That's going to involve 50/50s and guessing any way you slice it, so why these 50/50's are the devil is beyond me. The stat decrease? Oh please, Defiant, EQ, Earth Power, and every special ghost and Dark type move exist for a reason. The reason isn't Aegislash, it's for KOing steel or ghost type physical walls in general.
Versatility: There's pretty much one set out there (All out attacker) that doesn't get boned by Taunt. What happened to the horde of Prankster users who would spam this to prevent setup? Taunt finds some versatility in bringing non All out Aegi to their knees by removing KS from the equation, and the many sets that use KS depend on it for survival. Take away their floatie and they drown. Simple as that.
SubToxic OP!:
So what I understand is that Aegi uses this to stall the living crap out of people with Subs and KS. We see this as a reason to ban, yet Pokémon who can do this better (and DO, might I add) like Gliscor get a free pass? Poison Heal makes SubToxic that much more dangerous as you heal off half the sub damage per round, yet the one Pokémon who DOESNT get that is getting axed? I'm afraid I don't get it. Sure, it doesn't have a glaring 4X ice weakness, but it isn't fast and can't take many of its 2x SE hits anyway. Or, alternatively, force a pseudo choice lock with Taunt.
No true counters/centralization:
And back when Gliscor was everywhere in the lower ladder, if you didn't have a speedy Ice user you were boned from the start, but guess what? The lower ladder evolved and Gliscor isn't as popular anymore. Give the current meta some time to settle and explore it, you'll find a way around eventually, if you haven't already. But just because a Pokémon is hard to take down doesn't mean it should be banned, it just means it's found a weakness in your team and you should fix it.
As for centralization, the beginnings of the Gen 6 meta saw heavy use of teams that were primarily a set of six Pokémon that were labeled OU: The Team for a while by some. They weren't banned, we just created a hazard meta to deal with them as most of them were glass cannons vulnerable to rocks and spikes and webs. When something becomes paragon in the meta, we should learn to deal with it, not ban it. If we keep the latter pattern up, we'll be out of OU mon soon enough. :/ Let the meta settle for a while and see if we can't defeat the "threat" of Aegislash ban free. I believe that we can do it, I've seen the lower ladder do it on its own, I have faith in the higher and more experienced ladder to do the same.
Forces Pokémon to use inconvenient moves:
Chances are you want an Aegislash if you run Skarm or a Rotom W so that Pinsir will run EQ instead of deadly Close Combat. This is again, meta evolution: People do one thing so that something in the meta (Skarm/Rotom W's Viability against Pinsir) will change in their favor. This is simply playing the game, people! I don't know about you, but I like a changing meta, after all it makes the things that are impassable barriers become obsolete after a while. If they don't, I learn to deal with them. Simple as that.
Last word: Many bans so far have been something truly broken like "choose a Pokémon and remove it from play" with MegaGar or instant win buttons like MegaMom or MegaLuca. Aegislash is neither if you play around it, which isn't hard.
Sorry for the massive edit, I hit post too soon.
Last edited:
1) As has been mentioned, how Aegi does in Ubers has no bearing on whether or not he is too good for OU. Gen V Thund-I was almost never seen in Ubers but was still way too good for OU, so he got banned. Same goes for Deo-N.
2) Sure, in theory, Aegi can be broken by some strong STAB super-effective moves (and even then you're getting a 2HKO) but can users of said moves afford to compromise their effectivity by eating a strong Sacred Sword/Shadow Ball? The problem wasn't so much killing Aegislash, because Aegis is neither a wall nor a sweeper. It is a tank/pivot and wallbreaker rolled into one. It takes hits nicely and just softens up the opposing team to allow something else to run through it. Thanks to its absurd bulk, it will likely have boned a few things with a really powerful Shadow Ball/Sacred Sword and possibly crippled your setup sweeper with King's Shield. Rotom-W and Skarmory taking 50, 60, 70% from Shadow Ball means that Pinsir will now be able to happily plow through your team (not to mention that Skarmory can't do squat to Aegislash either). Charizard-X getting hit by Shadow Ball or DD Tar getting hit by Sacred Sword means that neither will really be able to keep sweeping. Whee.
3) Period of getting reqs is over. You're not getting them this time, and there may be no next time.
Except:
1) What has Prankster + Taunt? You have Thundurus-I, which is arguably just as bad as Aegislash is for the meta if not worse (I hate this damn thing), Whimsicott (which totally kills all offensive momentum and is rather mediocre in general, and if Aegis has Iron Head/Flash Cannon you can say goodbye to this), Sableye (which gets 2HKO'd by Shadow Ball). You never had a horde of Prankster + Taunt users even in Gen V when Prankster became a thing, you had Thund-I (which got banned) and Whimsicott (which fell out of use because everyone figured it out and because it wasn't that good after all the Prankster hype died down).
And you want to Taunt this thing? Sure. Have fun eating a really powerful Shadow Ball.
2) SubToxic may be beaten by your usual offensive team. But what about a stall team, which is the kind of team that SubToxic pretty much shits on? Nothing outside SpD Gliscor counters this set. Not to mention that the idea isn't just to break SubToxic, because, as I am tired of saying, Aegislash is not a wall. You can beat Aegislash. Everyone knows that. But can you ever stop it from being a factor? Can you stop it from reliably hurting something, whether or not it be one of your walls, setup sweepers, revenge killers/cleaners, or defensive pivots? Have fun getting swept by Mega Pinsir or DD Zard X once Rotom-W/Hippowdon has eaten a strong Shadow Ball.
The Gliscor comparison is a little off-base. SubToxic Gliscor has a more weaknesses than Aegislash does. SubToxic Gliscor doesn't fire off obscenely powerful Shadow Balls coming from a fully invested, nature-boosted base 150 Special Attack. SubToxic Gliscor is a good mon, no doubt, it is one of my favorite stallers, but it doesn't put in work against both stall and offense the way SubToxic Aegislash does.
3) The meta has had Aegi for nine months now. I'm fairly sure that's enough time for it to have settled. And althroughout these nine months, Aegislash has been an S-Rank mon that has always, always pulled its weight in battle. Even when the meta slapped EQ on physical attackers that didn't need it otherwise (lolTerrakion) to avoid being boned by it, even when many teams had Bisharp and Mega Tyranitar and Excadrill and Charizard X and users of other strong STAB super-effective attacks against the sword and shield. The problem was never just killing him, though being unable to OHKO him with most moves was part of the problem--it was being able to stop him from getting a key kill or just hurting things in general.
4) Like I keep on saying--please, please look at the big picture. You can go on and on about how harmless individual aspects of Aegislash are, and you wouldn't be incorrect. But do you really want all of that in a single package?
It isn't an argument in that respect. It's a small point to an argument.
Aegi isn't OP in OU, people are just mad there's a really good pokemon running around beating them.
Putting a Mandibuzz on a team maybe isn't JUST for Aegi. It's a decent bulky toxic stall wall with access to defog, recovery, and etc.
Bisharp has other purposes than aegi killing such as sweeping. Nothing is "specifically for aegi" unless you make it to be.
You can read the top of this message. He's not as OP as you think. He sure is good, I'm not denying that. I'm denying the fact that he's overpowered when he's checked by quite a few things.
He can tank hits. It's called chip damage. Unless you have a team that's, what I like to call a "full-counter team"(6 mons each individual to covering a set of mons, you lose 1, and you're weak to that whole segment he was supposed to cover), you aren't screwed over by sacking 1 mon. One of those 83% EQs plus another powerful hit = a KO.
He can hit hard, or stall. A lot of mons can do that with the right set. Maybe not to the proportion Aegi can, but still.
Yes, King's Shield can be a pain but it can be countered. You can status through King's Shield, meaning you can burn it, knocking down Sacred Sword AND Shadow Sneak damage(or any physical moves it banks, obviously). For Shadow Ball, that's iffy. But you can bring a Blissey with Flamethrower. Although not the most effective, flamethrower blissey was a thing I saw pretty commonly long before aegislash existed. And it didn't do terribly. You won't do too much damage but you sure will be immune to it's Shadow Ball and Shadow Sneak. If it's burned, Blissey walls it to some extent and with flamethrower, delivers some ok damage at least(I didn't calc, you can calc and see how much it does). Sacred Sword can be an issue but that isn't on all sets to what I hear.
And as for the requirements comment, I forgot that was over so that's a fail on my part. I would have voted no if I did make requirements though.
1) But not every team can afford to run Bisharp or Mandibuzz. No offensive team will run Mandibuzz because Mandibuzz kills momentum. In the same way almost no stall team is running Bisharp for what I hope are obvious reasons. And both are a bit shaky. Mandibuzz loses to most Aegis sets as alexwolf pointed out (god bless you if Aegis turns out to be SubToxic), and while Bisharp is arguably the best Aegislash answer in the tier, it still gets dicked by Sacred Sword.
2) I hope to god you're not serious about Flamethrower Blissey. For one, Chansey is almost always the superior option on a team thanks to not getting totally boned by physical attackers, and Chansey has a lolworthy base 35 SpA that isn't getting any investment. If you're coming up with dumb counters to something then it's probably broken. Plus, this doesn't even work. Blissey won't appreciate eating Sacred Sword, and also will fail to break SubToxic most of the time because its uninvested Flamethrower is ass. Not all sets run it, but the standard Tank set does, and so does SD + 3 Attacks.
Relevant calcs.
0 SpA Blissey Flamethrower vs. 244 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 72-86 (22.3 - 26.7%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 334-394 (46.7 - 55.1%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
3) The thing with Aegis is he can hit hard and stall on the same set because SubToxic still goes Quiet with full investment in SpA and still has Shadow Ball. SubToxic also runs KS which bones physical setup sweepers. That way, he stallbreaks, wallbreaks, and still threatens offense all at once. What else does this that isn't arguably as broken (looking at you TBro).
4) Aegis, apart from not really caring too much about most status (obv not Toxic, Para is good outside the hax chance because Aegi wants to be slow, Burn is residual damage but nothing more than that, Sleep everything hates it anyway and you can sac something else worst come to worst) can also sometimes opt to eat a status move just to fire off a strong Shadow Ball. Going back to an example earlier: if I can soften up Rotom-W enough with Shadow Ball so that my Pinsir can run through the opposing team, then I will gladly eat a Will-o-Wisp doing it.
I've actually seen some decent players run Flamethrower Blissey. Blissey is not an attacking mon and I, as a Pokemon player, obviously understand that. However, the point still stands that Aegi isn't overpowered. I get it. It has a good movepool, good stats, an ability to allow it to screw around with your head, and a move to add to that. However, it can be checked, killed, beaten, and semi-countered. I came up with a random thing that can do something to Aegi at the very least to show that there's even half-checks out there for this thing. Mandi may get smacked in the face by Sub-Toxic but Sub-Toxic Gliscor(with a decent 95 atk, 125 def and etc) was the absolute most annoying sub-toxic thing ever and still is. The thing recovers so much health a turn that it spits in your face. Try to switch an Aegi in? Have fun taking a nice Earthquake. Ice Moves? Switch out. But that's not the point here. The point that some of you don't get is that Aegislash, while very good at just about anything to do with tanking a hit and smacking you in the face, isn't too overpowered for OU. It may create an environment where the meta is "more centralized" but not to the extent everyone makes it to be. I make versatile teams at times and I spit in the face of Aegi. and half of the time, I don't even think about doing that.
*Note the part of the Gliscor statement was saying it is even a more annoying sub-toxic pokemon that can run offensive spreads if it wants too and it's certainly not Uber. I get it's stats aren't as high as Aegi's but still.*
- Status