I don't really think Mega Altaria is suspect material tbh, it's a very consistent mon for sure, being able to perform well both defensive and offensive roles, but both Steel types and Fairy types hits it hard, and they are probs the most relevant types atm. I also find that Altaria really wants to run a coverage to beat some of its checks (like Fire Blast for Ferrothorn or EQ on Altaria), but it likes to run support moves like Heal Bell too. Also unlike Mence it can't really afford to run a mono attacking move set because it really needs something to hit Steel types. Definitely can't see it suspected, even because on how good Metagross is atm, but if we ban Metagross in the future, p sure Altaria will become like the #1 offensive threat or something and then yeh it might get suspected, but as of now there are no points to suspect it imo.
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ORAS - post-Greninja - Metagame Discussion
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first of all, we can just retest aegislash and if he is still broken (who I still think he was not, th eonly reason i could not vote against it was that a group of haxers with swagger fucked my rank), simply ban him again. result of the retest=ban: the same metagame we currently have, result of the retest=no ban: a new (and in my opinion very welcomed) headache for (as i see) the worst and most annoying and hated of all playstyles at this moment: the rage inducing and never ever nerfed stall.
about complex ban, who i still don't see the phobia of the complex bans, as we can simply restrict them to the BL and Ubers residents, avoiding all the "dissecting every pokemon" problem, the BL and Uber lists have always been meant to have as less pokemon as possible.
also, we can simply ban Kings Shield entirely and forget about a complex ban, because being a signature move it won't affect anybody else anyway. well, Smeargle aso has it, but it's not that he is going to miss one of his most situational, or even unusable moves (giving an oponent a free turn to use taunt or toxic on smeargle is never a good idea, think on it for a second and you will agree)
about megagross, maybe he should be suspected, but i find him easy to smack out on the switch. as i always say, the best way to counter a pokemon is not having to counter it, as we say in spain, and sorry or the poor traduction "better prevent a problem than having to solve it". if a mon gives you trouble, at all costs DON'T ALLOW HIM TO SWITCH FREELY. that's why i think greninja's ban could have been avoided. just not spamming too many moves the cares little about would have done the trick
about complex ban, who i still don't see the phobia of the complex bans, as we can simply restrict them to the BL and Ubers residents, avoiding all the "dissecting every pokemon" problem, the BL and Uber lists have always been meant to have as less pokemon as possible.
also, we can simply ban Kings Shield entirely and forget about a complex ban, because being a signature move it won't affect anybody else anyway. well, Smeargle aso has it, but it's not that he is going to miss one of his most situational, or even unusable moves (giving an oponent a free turn to use taunt or toxic on smeargle is never a good idea, think on it for a second and you will agree)
about megagross, maybe he should be suspected, but i find him easy to smack out on the switch. as i always say, the best way to counter a pokemon is not having to counter it, as we say in spain, and sorry or the poor traduction "better prevent a problem than having to solve it". if a mon gives you trouble, at all costs DON'T ALLOW HIM TO SWITCH FREELY. that's why i think greninja's ban could have been avoided. just not spamming too many moves the cares little about would have done the trick
nowhere NEAR as broken as sand veil cacnea in gen5.
I don't think we need to do a complex ban: I simply don't think Aegislash will be broken. In all honesty, I think it won't be as good as it was in any way thanks to an abundance of Lopunnys and Gallades. Medicham being more or less replaced with Gallade is a huge issue because Aegislash can't usually wall it anymore. Lopunny breaks all the rules by being a Normal type that hits Aegislash super effectively. You can argue he is raped by king's shield but you're playing with fire risking an easy substitute. In addition, Sableye was a huge addition that helps make Aegislash much less threatening, and doesn't mind King's Shield at all. Also, I think the absence of Aegislash has led some things to be borderline broken. Gardevoir has literally no counters these days except for crap like Doublade and Victini. Also, unbanning Aegislash would be a nice way to make sure Metagross can be revenge killed and sort of walled. My main fear about unbanning Aegislash is that he will make Latios really hard to use- which lends itself heavily towards hazard stacking offense because Latios is the premier hazard removal guy. However, considering we have Bisharp Im probably jumping the gun here.
I don't really see how Aegislash would be any easier to deal with now than it was in XY. In fact, one could argue that it's become even more effective because it dumps on a bunch of the new Megas (Altaria, Metagross, Sableye depending on the variant, Diancie, Slowbro, and unboosted Gallade -- and Lopunny has to win a 50/50 and Beedrill has to predict correctly yet is still checked). All of its devastating old sets, those being the standard tank, SubToxic, LO attacker, and fast SD, are just as if not even more effective due to the enormous decline of Mandibuzz and SpD Hippowdon. It's still completely uncounterable (SpD Gliscor comes close but with a 4x weakness to Ice and Aegislash's gargantuan Special Attack it's not hard to see what people might come up with). Moreover, Aegislash completely destroys the metagame as it stands. Aegislash singlehandedly makes pretty much all of the defensive Psychics, such as Jirachi, Celebi, Starmie, Mew, and Cresselia, unviable just by its presence in the metagame; if you don't believe me, look at usage stats from last spring/summer as well as the usage stats from the last WCOP and SPL (the one before this one). Seemingly simple differences like Metagross running Earthquake over Hammer Arm and Azumarill running Knock Off reshape how the metagame handles these Pokemon. For instance, Mega Metagross without Hammer Arm is walled by Ferrothorn and Mega Gyarados. Ferrothorn no longer has to play mindgames switching into Azumarill because the threat of Superpower is gone and AV Azumarill rises in popularity due to its ability to check Aegislash, which makes it easier to handle defensively. I suppose you could say that Aegislash helps keep some things in check, but that is not and never has been a reason to unban a Pokemon as we don't use broken to check broken, instead we ban all of the broken elements.
Genesect is another story entirely because I have actually talked to some good players who don't think it's broken, but I still don't think it's really justifiable. There's this unhealthy overcentralization that anyone who played either XY with Genesect or BW with Genesect knows well. Barely anything can handle standard Genesect sets (the main ones being Band, Scarf, and LO) and that's not even taking into consideration the practically infinite supply of viable Genesect sets. Genesect can pull off virtually any type of offensive set effectively, whether it be pure special, specially based mixed, physically based mixed, Band, physically based Scarf, specially based Scarf, EBelt, Shift Gear, Specs... it's just insane. The Pokemon that's hailed as the primary Genesect counter, Heatran, is so easy to take advantage of with hazards + U-turn and partners that can pressure it (there's so many of these, lol). Even when you get manage to bring something into Genesect, it maintains momentum with U-turn and thus you're pretty much screwed either way. There's such a lack of viable counterplay to Genesect that I can't really see how it's healthy for the tier.
In this metagame, there's two things that a lot of others have commented on and that I certainly believe should be dealt with immediately, those being Mega Metagross and Mega Sableye. I'll only talk about Mega Metagross in this post just because this post specifically is already long. Mega Metagross defines the current state of offense and balance by being so ridiculously threatening and effective. Metagross has it all: an excellent Speed tier, crazy bulk, and insane offensive capabilities. In one Pokemon, these traits make it almost impossible for offense to deal with effectively. While there are some methods of counterplay, mostly revolved around revenge killing, Mega Metagross can set up an Agility to sweep the entire offensive team or even just put enormous pressure throughout the entire game. Offense has to spend the entire game dancing around Mega Metagross because it's so hard to put legitimate pressure on and can take advantage of so many common Pokemon. Balance is sorely lacking in defensive answers as well, especially when it's taken into consideration that Grass Knot invalidates the likes of Slowbro (to an extent) and Hippowdon as defensive answers. Physically defensive Gliscor and physically defensive Mew can serve as ok-decent counters, but lose the moment they incur any type of prior damage that they can't manage to heal off, and lose 20% of the time regardless due to Meteor Mash's capability of boosting attack. Gliscor is slaughtered by the occasional Ice Punch as well and usually prefers to run a specially defensive set, but can be forced to go physically defensive just to handle Metagross. There's a couple other things, but pretty much all of them are temperamental and prone to being worn down or eliminated by the right coverage move. The sheer amount of devastation that Metagross causes combined with its excellent bulk is more than enough to ban it.
Genesect is another story entirely because I have actually talked to some good players who don't think it's broken, but I still don't think it's really justifiable. There's this unhealthy overcentralization that anyone who played either XY with Genesect or BW with Genesect knows well. Barely anything can handle standard Genesect sets (the main ones being Band, Scarf, and LO) and that's not even taking into consideration the practically infinite supply of viable Genesect sets. Genesect can pull off virtually any type of offensive set effectively, whether it be pure special, specially based mixed, physically based mixed, Band, physically based Scarf, specially based Scarf, EBelt, Shift Gear, Specs... it's just insane. The Pokemon that's hailed as the primary Genesect counter, Heatran, is so easy to take advantage of with hazards + U-turn and partners that can pressure it (there's so many of these, lol). Even when you get manage to bring something into Genesect, it maintains momentum with U-turn and thus you're pretty much screwed either way. There's such a lack of viable counterplay to Genesect that I can't really see how it's healthy for the tier.
In this metagame, there's two things that a lot of others have commented on and that I certainly believe should be dealt with immediately, those being Mega Metagross and Mega Sableye. I'll only talk about Mega Metagross in this post just because this post specifically is already long. Mega Metagross defines the current state of offense and balance by being so ridiculously threatening and effective. Metagross has it all: an excellent Speed tier, crazy bulk, and insane offensive capabilities. In one Pokemon, these traits make it almost impossible for offense to deal with effectively. While there are some methods of counterplay, mostly revolved around revenge killing, Mega Metagross can set up an Agility to sweep the entire offensive team or even just put enormous pressure throughout the entire game. Offense has to spend the entire game dancing around Mega Metagross because it's so hard to put legitimate pressure on and can take advantage of so many common Pokemon. Balance is sorely lacking in defensive answers as well, especially when it's taken into consideration that Grass Knot invalidates the likes of Slowbro (to an extent) and Hippowdon as defensive answers. Physically defensive Gliscor and physically defensive Mew can serve as ok-decent counters, but lose the moment they incur any type of prior damage that they can't manage to heal off, and lose 20% of the time regardless due to Meteor Mash's capability of boosting attack. Gliscor is slaughtered by the occasional Ice Punch as well and usually prefers to run a specially defensive set, but can be forced to go physically defensive just to handle Metagross. There's a couple other things, but pretty much all of them are temperamental and prone to being worn down or eliminated by the right coverage move. The sheer amount of devastation that Metagross causes combined with its excellent bulk is more than enough to ban it.
Honestly, we could sit and theorymon over how good Aegislash would be (and believe me--I love to theorymon), or we could just test him and see what happens. It could turn out that he adds a lot to the metagame and we actually like him enough to keep him. If not--oh well--at least the metagame is still balanced.
What.
Stall got hugely nerfed from GenIV on, to the extent that what would be considered full stall in past gens (think ObiStall) would be unacceptably passive. Stall has had to adapt to substantial power creep in genVI with the Mega mechanic in particular because there are only a few viable Stall megas, whereas there are a lot of choices for megas across the Offense spectrum.
Aegislash wasn't an unholy terror to Stall; it was much more difficult for Offense as KS allowed it to invalidate most physical attacks, and most offense pokes had major difficulty switching in anyway.
The last part isn't true; although ideally we want to ban as little as possible, GameFreak is really, really bad at balancing. I've never heard of a desire to keep the BL lists as small as possible. Regardless, this isn't a good solution as it would invite destabilizing speculation about complex retests of Ubers mons. And yes, it would be very, very messy.
EDIT:@;l Sun King described Aegi's ban's impact really well above.
Stall got hugely nerfed from GenIV on, to the extent that what would be considered full stall in past gens (think ObiStall) would be unacceptably passive. Stall has had to adapt to substantial power creep in genVI with the Mega mechanic in particular because there are only a few viable Stall megas, whereas there are a lot of choices for megas across the Offense spectrum.
Aegislash wasn't an unholy terror to Stall; it was much more difficult for Offense as KS allowed it to invalidate most physical attacks, and most offense pokes had major difficulty switching in anyway.
The last part isn't true; although ideally we want to ban as little as possible, GameFreak is really, really bad at balancing. I've never heard of a desire to keep the BL lists as small as possible. Regardless, this isn't a good solution as it would invite destabilizing speculation about complex retests of Ubers mons. And yes, it would be very, very messy.
EDIT:
I agree on genesect staying out of OU. It has only one check which is flame body scarf volcarona and we all know how viable that is.
Honestly, other than aegislash I absolutely do not see anything worth returning. Mawile is debatable but ya' know.. it'll probably get rebanned anyway do to lack of counters other than arcanine and weezing, both which suck.
Lucario is stupidly strong, salamence is stupidly strong... yeah everything else is just stupidly strong and metagross is getting suggested for the same reason. Mega Metagross is comparable as a Mega Mawile sacrificing offense for speed tbh.
I wasn't around when deoxys was in the meta so I can't say much there.
Honestly, other than aegislash I absolutely do not see anything worth returning. Mawile is debatable but ya' know.. it'll probably get rebanned anyway do to lack of counters other than arcanine and weezing, both which suck.
Lucario is stupidly strong, salamence is stupidly strong... yeah everything else is just stupidly strong and metagross is getting suggested for the same reason. Mega Metagross is comparable as a Mega Mawile sacrificing offense for speed tbh.
I wasn't around when deoxys was in the meta so I can't say much there.
What? Are we talking about the same thing? This guy right here?
Much better physical movepool? Do you realize that Genesect gets Gunk Shot? And also STAB Iron Head, X-Scissor, Zen Headbutt, and Extreme Speed? Genesect gets Energy Ball, Bug Buzz, Flamethrower, Psychic and Thunderbolt over Greninja, plus Shift Gear (that's the best boosting move in the game outside Geomancy), plus Download, plus STAB U-Turn.
Retesting Genesect would be a massive waste of time.
What? Are we talking about the same thing? This guy right here?
Much better physical movepool? Do you realize that Genesect gets Gunk Shot? And also STAB Iron Head, X-Scissor, Zen Headbutt, and Extreme Speed? Genesect gets Energy Ball, Bug Buzz, Flamethrower, Psychic and Thunderbolt over Greninja, plus Shift Gear (that's the best boosting move in the game outside Geomancy), plus Download, plus STAB U-Turn.
Retesting Genesect would be a massive waste of time.
Yes, yes, we are talking about the same guy, no worries there. Gunk Shot isn't that great on Gene because Iron Head is more accurate and hits fairies just as hard, the only reason why X-Scissor is even notable is that it's a STAB move, and I'm utterly clueless as to why anyone would care about Zen Headbutt of all things on Genesect. Meanwhile, Greninja gets Rock Slide, Ice Punch, Low Kick and Shadow Sneak, and gets STAB on all of them thanks to protean (this is in addition to his great special movepool).
E-Speed and Shift Gear are great moves that Gren does not have access to. However, both of these are event moves that require Gene to run Hasty nature, when he would much rather run an attack boosting nature.
Also, Gren's special movepool equals Genesect in every way, because STAB Hidden Power (in addition to his non negligible collection of non-HP special moves).
252 SpA Genesect Energy Ball vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 48-57 (7.4 - 8.8%) -- possibly the worst move ever
252 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 56-68 (8.7 - 10.5%) -- possibly the worst move ever
And yes, I know that you'd have to be an idiot to use grass type coverage on a friggen chansey, this just shows that Greninja's coverage options easily match and even surpass Genesect's.
TL;DR The comparison between Gren and Gene is more valid then you think.
Sorry, but this part is incredibly biased. Yes, Genesect won't really use the moves you mentioned, but neither will Greninja use Ice Punch or Rock Slide, nor Shadow Sneak outside of Ubers.
None of Rock Slide, Ice Punch or Shadow Sneak are viable outside gimmicks on Greninja so I'm not sure why you're bringing them up. STAB Hidden Power is nice, but you can only use one Hidden Power per set. Genesect can run Energy Ball and Thunderbolt (and Flamethrower, or Bug Buzz, or...). Genesect can clean better than Greninja, generate momentum better, and poses a much larger threat than Greninja to defensive playstyles. It is much harder to revenge kill because of the threat of Extreme Speed, which at +1 (or usually +2 with Download boost + Shift Gear) tears apart the faster megas and scarfers used to check Greninja. It has fewer counters (the only good one is Heatran, which gets worn down incredibly easily) than Greninja, which is a feat in and of itself.
It has far more versatility than Greninja did with a multitude of different sets to run. First of all, it can run distinct physical and special sets, which completely swap its set of decent checks, something that Greninja was mostly unable to do. It can revenge kill with Scarf and act as a potent sweeper or cleaner with Shift Gear. It can also serve as a potent lure with items like Expert Belt or Occa Berry, something that Greninja is completely unable to do. The fact that it isn't reliant on Life Orb means that it sticks around a battle much longer, and it has great defensive typing along with usable bulk that gives it many more switch-in opportunities.
About the only thing that Greninja has on Genesect is Spikes. Yeah, Greninja is like Genesect, but in the sense that Greninja is always trying to live up to Genesect. Genesect is almost strictly better.
jpw234 is right. and all that is without mentioning that genesect, due to having almost any special move he wants, he can use hidden power ground any drawback, barring obviously the fact that you are wasting a moveslot with a pretty situational move, to dispose of heatran by itself on a switch if you need it to
On the topic of retesting aegislash, I don't really see how the current metagame affects the reasons why aegi was banned in the first place. It still causes many 50/50's with king's shield, has great bulk, power, and typing, both offensive and defensively, and lacks an 100% universal counter. Yeah, Mega playboy bunny is a new check, but it cannot switch in on iron head or sacred sword. Therefore, mega lopunny cannot be considered a counter. But idk, maybe some new arguments can be made against its banning with some more thought.
The mega mawile suspect was conducted hastily. There wasn't enough time for the metagame to develop post-aegi ban. Mawile deserves a retest.
idk about genesect tho, i didn't really play then.
The mega mawile suspect was conducted hastily. There wasn't enough time for the metagame to develop post-aegi ban. Mawile deserves a retest.
idk about genesect tho, i didn't really play then.
Mega Mawile was banned because the amount of sheer power it had rendered teams unable to be directly able to switch into it; it could literally change the counters it has with its set, along with the ability to get in very easy to supplement this. The only good checks to it were either bad in OU or did not fit on every team, so Mega Mawile's immediate sheer power, along with its ability to get past almost every single one of its counters by tweaking its moveset, was why it was banned from OU.
Certainly in the current metagame the situation is more or less balanced, though anyway as mentioned by others, the Pokémon that will undoubtedly create more confusion are mega metagross and mega sableye.
The first despite having only 80 Basic hp, has a very good defense 150def/110spdef and very high attack 145 that the trait tough claws make it truly a fearsome Pokémon!
In the metagame I think there are only check of m-metagross, that has a really extensive movepool. can be stopped according to its set, ferrothorn really takes a lot of damage from harm and Slowbro takes damage from grass knot and they're both very defensive pokemon
One of his main switch-in is landorus-t, however, earthquake insn't ko.
then, you must first send him into range of ko! Also icepunch can virtually destroy landorus-t.. If we're going to see only m-scizor can stop him somehow, but you will understand that if we got to the point of putting a pokemon mega to stop another, theres something wrong! Also lets not forget that it can also to trap the latwins with pursuit!
For me, currently, would make a suspect testing on metagrossite, it really is too strong for the current metagame, how I could show you.
Sableye instead is very interesting, starting with the normal form can easily abuse of the trait pransker to boost spdef and spa atk, and can use w-o-w with priority. When sableye becomes mega possesses magic bounce, that does not make him suffer status moves, if not from scald/lavaplume, and not to be phazed by roar. Which helps a lot against even during leadding also because it prevents the opponent to set and more, it can burn the possible garchomp in priority.
The problem in fact arises from the fact to stop that we must send him ko before it boost in defenses. where by as solutions in the team building you have choices such as
But it is also true that mon like subcmkeldeo if avoid the burn can do something eventually.
Sableye is played with a move of attack or sball or dark pulse. In my opinion, is currently not yet ban, solutions exist and are multiple.
In any case aegislash shouldn't be re-suspectated, it's true that currently stops many of the new mega form, but it's a threat then mustn't be undervalue, not have exponentially counter and overcentralized the metagame on him.
In the metagame I think there are only check of m-metagross, that has a really extensive movepool. can be stopped according to its set, ferrothorn really takes a lot of damage from harm and Slowbro takes damage from grass knot and they're both very defensive pokemon
0 SpA Tough Claws Mega Metagross Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Slowbro: 240-284 (60.9 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Hammer Arm vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 212-250 (60.2 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Hammer Arm vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 212-250 (60.2 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
One of his main switch-in is landorus-t, however, earthquake insn't ko.
252 Atk Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 252-296 (83.7 - 98.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus-T: 344-408 (107.8 - 127.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
-1 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus-T: 344-408 (107.8 - 127.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
then, you must first send him into range of ko! Also icepunch can virtually destroy landorus-t.. If we're going to see only m-scizor can stop him somehow, but you will understand that if we got to the point of putting a pokemon mega to stop another, theres something wrong! Also lets not forget that it can also to trap the latwins with pursuit!
Normal damage 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 152-180 (50.8 - 60.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Switch 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 302-356 (101 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Switch 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 302-356 (101 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO
For me, currently, would make a suspect testing on metagrossite, it really is too strong for the current metagame, how I could show you.
The problem in fact arises from the fact to stop that we must send him ko before it boost in defenses. where by as solutions in the team building you have choices such as
sylveon
altaria mega
diance mega
azumarill
gardevoir mega
cm clefable
altaria mega
diance mega
azumarill
gardevoir mega
cm clefable
But it is also true that mon like subcmkeldeo if avoid the burn can do something eventually.
Sableye is played with a move of attack or sball or dark pulse. In my opinion, is currently not yet ban, solutions exist and are multiple.
In any case aegislash shouldn't be re-suspectated, it's true that currently stops many of the new mega form, but it's a threat then mustn't be undervalue, not have exponentially counter and overcentralized the metagame on him.
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What? Are we talking about the same thing? This guy right here?
Much better physical movepool? Do you realize that Genesect gets Gunk Shot? And also STAB Iron Head, X-Scissor, Zen Headbutt, and Extreme Speed? Genesect gets Energy Ball, Bug Buzz, Flamethrower, Psychic and Thunderbolt over Greninja, plus Shift Gear (that's the best boosting move in the game outside Geomancy), plus Download, plus STAB U-Turn.
Retesting Genesect would be a massive waste of time.
As long as we're comparing Gren and Gene:
What Greninja has over Genesect is pretty major. Instead of having to rely on Download for power, Protean effective grants Greninja Download for both stats, and additionally has a large speed advantage. Greninja couldn't switch into threats as effectively as Genesect, but once it was in it's considerably more powerful, having all the bonuses of double download boosted Scarf + LO Genesect once it was actually in.
Additionally, Shift Gear sets were awful. They were so bad people run Shift Gear special Genesect because bluffing physical for a turn was more effective than actually running Physical attacks. Genesect has versatility but the totality of all of Gene's sets are still less powerful than the single mixed set Gren was using. This is the difference between these two very comparable mons. If people are actually afraid of physical shift gear, they didn't play the Gene meta or were really bad while playing it. Just because you CAN run a bunch of dumb sets on Gene doesn't mean you SHOULD, because a hell of a lot of Gene's weird misc sets were pretty awful.
Speed and being consistently strong rather than conditionally strong are absolutely huge factors, and the restriction to Scarf or the reliance on banded espeed to outspeed the offensive threats in the meta leaves Gene in a far worse spot than Greninja was in.
Gene really did nothing wrong, and its power and centralization from early XY is incredibly overstated. It's a miracle it managed to get banned to begin with, and I feel like a lot of the reason it DID get banned is because of the distaste people had for it from Gen 5. The thing isn't a nightmare to check, especially not compared to many of the big threats in the current meta. It adds a lot more to the game by increasing the versatility of pivots than it takes away as a threat.
#GeneDidNothingWrong
Fair enough, I can live with that. Thanks for taking the time to explain all that to me, I'm still trying to learn how to properly compare two different mons.
Now to change the subject, I would like to talk about Shadow Tag for a bit.
Shadow Tag is a very interesting ability that deserves careful analysis. There are two primary shadow tag abusers in OU, Wobbuffet and Gothetelle. In terms of revenge killing, they are fairly similar to pursuit trappers in that they trade power for preventing their opponent from swapping out. They are both serviceable in that respect, whether it is Scarf Goth or CounterCoat Wobb. They cannot revenge everything the same way that, say, ditto can, and imo that makes them balanced looking purely from the revenge killer standpoint.
However, in addition to their respectable revenge killing capabilities, they each are capable of doing a couple of other things. Gothetelle can either permanently cripple a defensive mon by tricking them a choice item or become a fearsome stallbreaker with taunt + CM. Wobbuffet cannot permanently cripple stallmons the same way Goth can (most of the time), however he has access to encore. Encore gives stallmons a rather uncomfortable catch 22: If they attack, Wobb nabs himself a very easy kill. If they don't, the Wobb user gets a free swap in to whatever he wants and is pretty much guaranteed a free turn of further setup. Wobb's fourth move is pretty much always either tickle or safegaurd. The former makes Wobb an excellent partner to pursuit trappers while the latter prevents your opponent from statusing your valuable sweeper.
As a general rule, each time they get a swap in they will either cripple/kill the enemy mon, or they will generate exactly one free turn for some other mon on their team. They usually can only get away with this once or twice just because they are very easily worn down (especially Goth). So the question is this: How overpowered is being able to cripple or kill something given a free swap in, and how overpowered is generating a free turn? These are two separate questions. In my opinion, the answer depends on their teammates and the tier they currently reside in. If there exists a sweeper that can take a single free turn and run train over the entire enemy team, then Wobbuffet suddenly becomes incredibly powerful. Likewise, if you have a sweeper that the enemy team has only one check/counter to, then Gothetelle will win games. However, for either of these situations to be true, you either need an overpowered sweeper or a very unprepared enemy team. In the former situation the correct answer would be to ban the overpowered sweeper, and we don't care about the latter situation.
There is a reason why Shadow Tag mons get so much usage in ubers, because by it's very definition, it's a tier filled with sweepers that have limited checks and/or can wreck entire teams after a single turn of setup. The more powerful sweepers you have access to, the better Shadow Tag mons are.
Therefore, I propose that there are two ways we can deal with shadow tag. One, we can continue to look for and ban strong/overpowered sweepers and hope that they balance themselves out or Two, we can decide that we are happy with the state of OU's best sweepers and ban shadow tag. I would strongly advise against any suspect testing of Shadow Tag until we are darn certain that there are not any overpowered sweepers left.
As far as Stallbreaker Goth 6-0ing stall, I'm perfectly willing to chalk that up to bad team comp. If you're getting 6-0ed by goth, then CM-magic coat reunclus could probably 6-0 you too. They're both equally useless against offensive teams (in fact reunclus would be slightly better due to bulk and reflecting hazards).
I am well aware that no good stall team gets 6-0'd by stallbreaker goth, which is why I spent so little time discussing that possibility.
If trapping and crippling/killing a single mon wins the game, then either the enemy team was poorly prepared for your sweeper (in which case we don't care), the sweeper being used is overpowered (in which case ban the sweeper), or Goth is overpowered (in which case ban Goth).
So consider very carefully this: Are mons like Mega Dancie and Zard-X overpowered? If yes, you should be advocating for their ban. If not, then we should seriously consider suspecting Gothitelle.
At the time of writing, I believe that there are still overpowered sweepers in OU (yes I consider Baton Passers to be sweepers, they function very similarly to your typical booster), and I believe that they should go before Goth, Wobb, or Shadow Tag in general.
This thread is kinda descending into some self-perpetuating M-Metagross and M-Sableye circlejerk and it's starting to piss me off a little. It's looking like one guy is posting the same messages on 30 different accounts or something. Pretty disappointing.
There is nothing about M-Metagross that is over the top and it isn't really centralizing a damn thing.
There are two primary M-Metagross sets that are germane when discussing his power in OU and any possibility of a suspect test and subsequent ban: 4 Move All-Out Attacker and AgiliGross. M-Meta already has difficulty choosing its four moves to hit everything it wants to and the people that say it "chooses" its counters are kinda full of shit. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that no matter what moveset is being run on M-Meta, Meteor Mash and Zen Headbutt are always present (both of these attacks have over 80% usage on Metagross anyway). Now, this leaves two more slots to play around with and the most viable choices (in no particular order) are as follows:
AgiliGross is a completely different story. You now have only three slots (more like one when you consider Meteor Mash and Zen Headbutt as mandatory). Ice Punch lets you hit Landorus but leaves you useless to all the other checks I've mentioned. There is no reason to run Bullet Punch on AgiliGross. Earthquake is almost as bad, becasue now you can't do anything to Mandibuzz, Skarm, Celebi, or Ferrothorn. Hammer Arm is totally counter-productive, becasue in addition to lowering your speed you're also giving your opponent a chance to status you or come in with something faster. Grass knot hits Slowbro - cool - you're still useless against 4 other checks now.
M-Metagross is hella strong but people are grossly (heh) overestimating it. It's not hard at all to deal with all it just requires is some intelligent play. And it's not even one of those mons forcing you to run some obscure what-the-fuck counter (like how Greninja basically dragged Tenta up to OU). To the contrary, it is easily handled and worn down by some of THE most common defensive pokes in OU.
There is nothing about M-Metagross that is over the top and it isn't really centralizing a damn thing.
There are two primary M-Metagross sets that are germane when discussing his power in OU and any possibility of a suspect test and subsequent ban: 4 Move All-Out Attacker and AgiliGross. M-Meta already has difficulty choosing its four moves to hit everything it wants to and the people that say it "chooses" its counters are kinda full of shit. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that no matter what moveset is being run on M-Meta, Meteor Mash and Zen Headbutt are always present (both of these attacks have over 80% usage on Metagross anyway). Now, this leaves two more slots to play around with and the most viable choices (in no particular order) are as follows:
- Earthquake
- Hammer Arm
- Ice Punch
- Grass Knot
- Bullet Punch
AgiliGross is a completely different story. You now have only three slots (more like one when you consider Meteor Mash and Zen Headbutt as mandatory). Ice Punch lets you hit Landorus but leaves you useless to all the other checks I've mentioned. There is no reason to run Bullet Punch on AgiliGross. Earthquake is almost as bad, becasue now you can't do anything to Mandibuzz, Skarm, Celebi, or Ferrothorn. Hammer Arm is totally counter-productive, becasue in addition to lowering your speed you're also giving your opponent a chance to status you or come in with something faster. Grass knot hits Slowbro - cool - you're still useless against 4 other checks now.
M-Metagross is hella strong but people are grossly (heh) overestimating it. It's not hard at all to deal with all it just requires is some intelligent play. And it's not even one of those mons forcing you to run some obscure what-the-fuck counter (like how Greninja basically dragged Tenta up to OU). To the contrary, it is easily handled and worn down by some of THE most common defensive pokes in OU.
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The problem is that the majority of stops to Metagross are defensive. There are only two pokemon with viable offensive presence in your list: Slowbro and Landorus-T. Both are not complete counters because Megagross can nail them on the switch with coverage moves. The thing is that Metagross doesn't need all of its moves to be effective, because it can support its team effectively through the movepool and power. It is not easily handled by any means because you have to play around it. Just because Ferrothorn can take it on if it's not carrying Hammer doesn't mean you can switch Ferrothorn in willy-nilly without tiptoeing around very carefully to scout for it. Another move that wasn't mentioned is Pursuit, which synergizes extremely well with Keldeo as the move removes Latis. This kind of support adds to Metagross's viability, as it can allow the team to crash through as well as wrecking house on its own.
Several other things that I'd like to point out:
Skarmory only beats Metagross carrying Hammer Arm if Skarm is carrying Counter. Otherwise, the speed drops will make Skarmory's roost go first, allowing it to beat Skarmory 1v1. A +1 Hammer arm does about 40 something % at +1 to 252 HP/ 252+ Def Skarmory, which is a solid chunk of damage even if you choose to Whirlwind out.
Thunder Punch Megagross, though situational, is still a thing that lets it muscle past Skarmory.
No matter what Megabro's spread, it cannot switch in on GKnot unless it's running SpDef. Even so, with Rocks up, GKnot is a 2HKO unless you're running 252 HP and a ton of SpDef.
The point of Agiligross is not to 6-0 a team right off the bat. Setting up while things like Celebi are still around is like trying to DD Zard X when your opponent still has a Heatran, Azumarill, and Unaware Quagsire all at full HP. However, does that make DD Zard X worthless? Lolno. That's the point of Pokemon: it's not a collection of 6 1v1s, it's a 6v6. You have a team that supports Gross and vice versa to remove those stops.
I think that this prediction/scouting/"git gud" argument is best answered by ginganigga's post:
Saying that the only stops to M-Meta are defensive isn't really saying...anything (cough Gengar cough). HO teams are inherently weak defensively, and implying that a pokemon is busted just because it hits HO hard is silly. Thunderpunch and Pursuit are interesting options that I neglected to mention primarily becasue they induce the same issues as Earthquake, Ice Punch, and Hammer Arm. There is no Metagross set right now that can simultaneously handle its offensive and defensive checks. While I agree that M-Meta has a degree of unpredictability due to its movepool, it's nothing like M-Lucario or Greninja where you were basically rolling the die on SD/Nasty Plot or the latter's coverage moves. 50% of its set is pretty much already known given the necessity of Meteor Mash and Zen Headbutt. Seeing the rest of Metagross' team also helps in handling it, but this is by no means a 100% consistent procedure or anything lol.
I never tried to make prediction and user-intelligence as the primary basis for my arguments, and by reading my full post again you can see why.
I agree that Mega Metagross needs to go. 145 Base Attack with Tough Claws, 150 Base Defense, AND 110 Base Speed.
So its stats are obviously great. Let's look at its movepool.
It's a pretty average movepool, having access to Meteor Mash, Iron Head, Bullet Punch, Zen Headbutt, Psychic, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Grass Knot, Hammer Arm, and Earthquake.
Metagross's biggest drawback is its lack of good Attack boosting moves being limited to Hone Claws and Power-Up Punch. Though it has Agility, which can be used, but 110 is good enough Speed to run 4 Coverage moves.
Also, what counters Metagross is largely dependent on its moveset. I've talked about this in the old ORAS metagame discussion, and we generally agreed that Hammer Arm is the best coverage move as it can stall out Skarmory. It also nails Ferrothorn and Heatran.
Basically, Mega Slowbro is the only real hard check to Metagross. But even it doesn't appreciate a Grass Knot on the predicted switch.
Bottom Line, Metagrossite needs to go.
I also agree with banning Mega Sableye, but I have nothing to add that hasn't been said. Just throwing my name into the supporters list.
My third Suspect would be Thundurus-I.
I personally feel like this thing should have been banned long ago. But with Greninja gone, that's one less thing that can outspeed and OHKO this fucker. With the moveset of Prankster Thunder Wave, Thunderbolt, HP Ice, and Superpower, Thundurus can either KO or cripple a very large portion of the metagame.
As far as Gothitelle/Shadow Tag, I completely disagree with people wanting to suspect it. It didn't gain anything noteworthy from the transition from Gen 5 to 6. It actually got nerfed since it can no longer trap Ghost types. It wasn't broken in Gen 5. It isn't broken now.
So its stats are obviously great. Let's look at its movepool.
It's a pretty average movepool, having access to Meteor Mash, Iron Head, Bullet Punch, Zen Headbutt, Psychic, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Grass Knot, Hammer Arm, and Earthquake.
Metagross's biggest drawback is its lack of good Attack boosting moves being limited to Hone Claws and Power-Up Punch. Though it has Agility, which can be used, but 110 is good enough Speed to run 4 Coverage moves.
Also, what counters Metagross is largely dependent on its moveset. I've talked about this in the old ORAS metagame discussion, and we generally agreed that Hammer Arm is the best coverage move as it can stall out Skarmory. It also nails Ferrothorn and Heatran.
Basically, Mega Slowbro is the only real hard check to Metagross. But even it doesn't appreciate a Grass Knot on the predicted switch.
Bottom Line, Metagrossite needs to go.
I also agree with banning Mega Sableye, but I have nothing to add that hasn't been said. Just throwing my name into the supporters list.
My third Suspect would be Thundurus-I.
I personally feel like this thing should have been banned long ago. But with Greninja gone, that's one less thing that can outspeed and OHKO this fucker. With the moveset of Prankster Thunder Wave, Thunderbolt, HP Ice, and Superpower, Thundurus can either KO or cripple a very large portion of the metagame.
As far as Gothitelle/Shadow Tag, I completely disagree with people wanting to suspect it. It didn't gain anything noteworthy from the transition from Gen 5 to 6. It actually got nerfed since it can no longer trap Ghost types. It wasn't broken in Gen 5. It isn't broken now.
Why don't we just retest mKanga and mLuke? Just to see how they do now?
Because we already know the outcome.
It's not theorymonning if we've already witnessed it ourselves. As many of us have stated, nothing new was added to put Aegi in its place, therefore, nothing will change.
If I remember correctly, the community was nearly split even concerning the fate of the Master Sword, and actually, as mentioned, there are new threats to keep him in check. Lopunny certainly isnt a counter, but (and this could sound like another prediction argument, but it goes both ways) if you play it right, Lop can definitely check Aegis, and Sableye dont take no crap from the swordmon at all. The meta HAS changed. Certainly enough to justify retesting it at least.
Gene on the other hand is just stupid powerful. I dont know why it was unbanned in the first place.
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