np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 3 - Wandering Ghosts [Aegislash remains in Ubers]

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jpw234's is the first anti aegi post i've read that shows metagame knowledge, so it's one i need to answer.
The current metagame (w/o Aegi) is awesome. Much like SINFUL DESIRES said in an earlier post on this thread, we have diversity in both playstyle choices and Pokemon. The mechanic of only allowing one mega evolution per team means that plenty of not-top-tier Pokemon retain powerful niches and we see metagame evolution and innovation on a weekly basis in things like Smogon Tours. I hear an incredibly large number of people complaining about "matchup", but I have not once heard an explanation of why "matchup" is a driving concern.
the sheer diversity of pokemon is actually the cause of matchup issues. since there are over 40 equally viable pokemon, you can't really cover every single one of them while still executing your main strategy (like a zard-x sweep). people who followed SPL's ORAS OU games closely saw how there were a lot of games in which the losing player simply couldn't do anything. watch the replays below:
there are probably more, but these are some of the examples i remember the best. in these replays the winner just played standard and won easily, why? matchup is the reason. try covering all the A/S rank threats using a core of 3-4 pokemon and you see what i'm talking about.

As far as Aegislash itself goes. Aegislash is a Pokemon that defies comparison. This is the number 1 red flag for a Pokemon being broken. Contrary to popular belief, the easiest way to be "broken" is not to be overwhelmingly strong, it is to fill a role that the metagame is unprepared for. This is why Mega-Metagross (a Pokemon that is undoubtedly "more powerful" than Aegislash in absolute terms) is much less difficult for the metagame to handle than Aegislash.
Aegislash is:
- One of the bulkiest Steel types in the game
- The only Steel type with an immunity to Fighting and the ability to block Rapid Spin
- The only Pokemon in the game that can threaten to cripple an opposing Pokemon while using Protect (we're not counting Chesnaught)
- The most powerful offensive Ghost-type in a metagame that is unsuited to handle Ghost types, particularly physical Ghost types
- Capable of filling roles literally everywhere on the offense-defense spectrum, from pure defensive counter (SubToxic) to pure wallbreaker (SD Head Smash)

It is impossible to compare a Pokemon like this to anything else in the OU metagame. The fact that we have people in this thread trying to pigeonhole it as "just a bulky pivot" and compare it to Landorus-T, Rotom-W or lol HEATRAN is ridiculous. Aegislash is not "just a bulky pivot". Aegislash is simultaneously the bulkiest pivot on both sides of the defensive spectrum in OU, and one of the hardest hitting wallbreakers on both sides of the offensive spectrum in OU, and the premier spinblocker in OU, and carries the most coveted typing in OU, and, and, and...
yeah, someone finally got it why aegi is broken. it's not fucking overcentralisation, it's because aegi gets AN AMAZING AMOUNT of free turns and what it does with those free turns (438 sp.atk STAB shadow ball is carnage) is very hard to cover. and subtoxic fucks over traditional counters like mandibuzz and chesnaught. there is literally ONE mon that 100% counters aegi which is spdef gliscor. please don't mention the SD set though, as that's terrible. seriously, all you're doing with SD is taking a mon that 2HKOes 99% of the tier and turning it into a piece of crap walled by 100% of the teams.
EVEN THEN i'd still have a mon like this in the meta than having to play a metagame that, on the highest level of game, is decided on who counterteams the best, which is my whole point.

Let's talk about "metagame diversity" and the effect that a Pokemon like Aegislash has on less-used Pokemon. We have people in this thread trying to explain away trends that we already saw when Aegislash got banned - stats that show that many Pokemon, in particular Psychics, Fairies and Fighting types, see much less usage in a metagame where Aegislash is dominant. Saying something like "not every team will have an Aegislash, so these Pokemon will retain their niches" shows a lack of understanding of how "niches" in a game like competitive Pokemon work.
Underused Pokemon are not default picks for their roles. Instead, they are chosen for a team when their unique characteristics are a good fit for the team's needs. Let's take the example of Hawlucha. Hawlucha is certainly an OU-viable Pokemon and a legitimate threat, but it is not, in a vacuum, the best choice for its role of "late-game cleanup against offense". This role is objectively better filled by Pokemon like scarf Keldeo, Mega-Manectric, Mega-Lopunny, or Talonflame. So why does Hawlucha ever get used? It is used because while it is not overall better than these other choices, it has some specific advantages over them. For example, it doesn't take up a mega slot, isn't crippled by Stealth Rock, and has a fairly unique set of STABs in flying/fighting. So an offensive team that already had a mega evolution, didn't put much priority on keeping Stealth Rock off the field, and already had a couple of Water types might choose Hawlucha over these other options.
Now what does a dominant Pokemon like Aegislash do to this calculation. Aegislash flattens niches. What this means is that it forces underused Pokemon to meet a much higher standard in order to justify their selection. In an Aegislash metagame, Hawlucha suffers from all of its previous problems, plus it gives completely free switches to Aegislash. Now a player selecting their late-game cleaner has to have some very serious reasons to pick Hawlucha over Keldeo, Mega-Lopunny, Talonflame, etc. Either they need to be completely unable to shuffle their team around and use one of these threats, or they need to be very comfortable with giving free switches to Aegislash whenever Hawlucha comes in (something that is very hard to do). As a result, very few people pick Hawlucha, regardless of the fact that not everybody is running Aegislash. The same goes for a bunch of other Pokemon. Sure, you can pick Jirachi for your Latios counter. But why do so when it gives free switches to Aegislash and Heatran works there too? You can check electrics with Roserade, but why not Hippowdon? You can use Starmie for your spinner, but why not use TTar + Exca?
so what? the existence of aegislash in the tier doesn't invalidate the use of hawlucha, it just makes it so that the hawlucha user has to counter aegi properly, and thats how team building works. if your sweeper is countered by pokemon A, run an A counter, if it gives free turns to B, run a B counter. in fact, hawlucha was used 5 times in the last live suspect tour, and won 4 battles. how in the world is that being unviable? as for the whole "you're forced to run aegi in order to have a competitive team" argument, it's also fallacious, seeing as not only aegislash had 54% usage and 45% win in the same tour, this guy who won one of the semi-finals was running the following team: Crawdaunt / Porygon2 / Reuniclus / Dragalge / Cresselia / Steelix. yeah in FUCKING OVERUSED. and he won. how is innovation not possible in the aegi meta?

(i'm gonna skip the next part of your post where you explain why aegi is broken because i agree with it)

This amount of role compression is not part of a healthy metagame. I've already seen it on the suspect ladder, where Aegislash is omnipresent and teams are forced to overprepare for it. The dominance of Mega-Lopunny, Landorus, and Charizard-Y and the relative lack of Aegi-weak Pokemon like Jirachi and Starmie testify to the negative effects Aegislash has on the metagame. Dropping it would be a massive mistake.
well, it's the ladder. people there are looking for consistency, and using standard teams that can win vs most of the meta. and can you explain why not seeing starmie and jirachi on the ladder is necessarily a bad thing? if we return to the current metagame where keldeo dominates and you rarely see weavile/crawdaunt in the ladder is it also a bad thing? why?
 
This is all I have to say

True 50/50

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True and fake 50/50
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Gonna note that the first one isn't entirely 50/50 either.

The better choice comes down to how disposable diancie/chomp is in the battle.

Does diancie beat half of the other team? Shouldn't risk the moonblast. Same for chomp.

Unless we are talking last-mon scenarios, 50/50 isn't a thing tbh.

The real focus of that argument should be (and sometimes is) how King's Shield takes what would be fairly even scenarios and wins them (char-x or talonflame, for example. They would theoretically win p much every time. Then, aegislash takes the "attack while they use protect so nothing happens except lefties recovery" scenario and turns it into an "attack while they lose protect and then become useless and aegi wins" scenario).
 
This is a tier where we're already bitching about Landorus, Metagross and to an extent Gengar and other threats having few reliable switch-ins. Aegislash pretty much exacerbates this problem, which is why the ladder is all hyper offense. Mandibuzz loses to Head Smash, Gliscor loses to HP [Ice] (which is not common but absolutely valid), and walls that could potentially take Aegis on like Spdef Hippo lose to SubToxic (I'm not even sure if Hippo can take on Modest LO Shadow Balls anyway). I mean granted it can't run all the moves at once but you don't know what it's running to begin with which is everyone's problem with Landorus.

I think someone mentioned Bulky Mega Scizor as a reliable switch-in.

252+ SpA Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Mega Scizor: 149-177 (43.4 - 51.6%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

I suppose you could potentially run a fast Scizor so that it can KO Aegi with Knock Off after switching in but it isn't going to take Shadow Balls very well.

Now I'm not saying you can't predict well and take very little damage switching into Aegislash, but it's extremely risky. It also has ability to come in on an incredible variety of threats in shield form and take minimal damage from most resisted or non-super effective attacks. Combine these two, and it's gonna get at least 2-3 hits off per game despite its low speed (resulting in minimum one kill usually) especially when you consider Shadow Sneak as an option.

Anyway I've just completed getting reqs and I'll be voting to keep Aegislash in Ubers. I think it is unhealthy for the OU metagame and is most likely outright broken too.
 
This is a tier where we're already bitching about Landorus, Metagross and to an extent Gengar and other threats having few reliable switch-ins. Aegislash pretty much exacerbates this problem, which is why the ladder is all hyper offense. Mandibuzz loses to Head Smash, Gliscor loses to HP [Ice] (which is not common but absolutely valid), and walls that could potentially take Aegis on like Spdef Hippo lose to SubToxic (I'm not even sure if Hippo can take on Modest LO Shadow Balls anyway). I mean granted it can't run all the moves at once but you don't know what it's running to begin with which is everyone's problem with Landorus.

I think someone mentioned Bulky Mega Scizor as a reliable switch-in.

252+ SpA Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Mega Scizor: 149-177 (43.4 - 51.6%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

I suppose you could potentially run a fast Scizor so that it can KO Aegi with Knock Off after switching in but it isn't going to take Shadow Balls very well.

Now I'm not saying you can't predict well and take very little damage switching into Aegislash, but it's extremely risky. It also has ability to come in on an incredible variety of threats in shield form and take minimal damage from most resisted or non-super effective attacks. Combine these two, and it's gonna get at least 2-3 hits off per game despite its low speed (resulting in minimum one kill usually) especially when you consider Shadow Sneak as an option.

Anyway I've just completed getting reqs and I'll be voting to keep Aegislash in Ubers. I think it is unhealthy for the OU metagame and is most likely outright broken too.
I wouldn't say the amount of HO on the ladder is really a sign of anything. That's the quickest way to ladder in most cases, and "new" metas trend towards Hyper Offense anyways because balanced / stall take longer to stabilize (partially because they are better off adapting to the "best" offensive mons at the start of a given meta). We could have a suspect ladder without Lando and it would probably still feature a ton of hyper offense.
 
That's true and all but I think LO 4 Atks Aegislash makes a lot of balance and stall cores practically unusable. For sure it won't take down the whole team but in a lot of cases offense really only needs to weaken a few pieces of the puzzle for the tower to crumble.

HO wasn't nearly this popular on the Metagross suspect ladder, and I doubt it would be as popular as this on a Landorus suspect ladder.
 
jpw234's is the first anti aegi post i've read that shows metagame knowledge, so it's one i need to answer.

Aww thanks :)

the sheer diversity of pokemon is actually the cause of matchup issues. since there are over 40 equally viable pokemon, you can't really cover every single one of them while still executing your main strategy (like a zard-x sweep). people who followed SPL's ORAS OU games closely saw how there were a lot of games in which the losing player simply couldn't do anything. watch the replays below:
there are probably more, but these are some of the examples i remember the best. in these replays the winner just played standard and won easily, why? matchup is the reason. try covering all the A/S rank threats using a core of 3-4 pokemon and you see what i'm talking about.
Game 1 is Manaphy (which I think is a broken Pokemon)
Game 2 I'm not even sure what the perceived "matchup" issue is...SpD Mew? I mean, Lazar Angelov's team is 5 special attackers that can't wallbreak, so I'm not really sympathetic to "matchup", especially when he should have been Scald spamming Manaphy for burn from the beginning and could have free-switched to Metagross to kill it
Game 3 DD sacs his best Char-Y answer for no reason and loses a 50/50 to get his Metagross crippled
And game 4 once again I don't know what the issue is...

Really if this is the "matchup" issue I have absolutely no sympathy at all. I just watched 4 games of balance with no wallbreakers losing to standard fat shit. Yeah, that'll happen if you bring extraordinarily safe teams. I didn't even see any "weird stuff" coming out of left field to win games.

so what? the existence of aegislash in the tier doesn't invalidate the use of hawlucha, it just makes it so that the hawlucha user has to counter aegi properly, and thats how team building works. if your sweeper is countered by pokemon A, run an A counter, if it gives free turns to B, run a B counter.

How can you actually say that when just a second ago you said this?

yeah, someone finally got it why aegi is broken. it's not fucking overcentralisation, it's because aegi gets AN AMAZING AMOUNT of free turns and what it does with those free turns (438 sp.atk STAB shadow ball is carnage) is very hard to cover. and subtoxic fucks over traditional counters like mandibuzz and chesnaught. there is literally ONE mon that 100% counters aegi which is spdef gliscor.

Like you said, the point is that since you can't "counter aegi properly", so putting Pokemon on your team that give it free turns is a massive burden.

as for the whole "you're forced to run aegi in order to have a competitive team" argument, it's also fallacious

I didn't say that

well, it's the ladder. people there are looking for consistency, and using standard teams that can win vs most of the meta. and can you explain why not seeing starmie and jirachi on the ladder is necessarily a bad thing? if we return to the current metagame where keldeo dominates and you rarely see weavile/crawdaunt in the ladder is it also a bad thing? why?

Weavile/Crawdaunt have niches now. And even if Aegi creates some niches, it destroys far more than that. Diversity is its own reward.
 
This is all I have to say

True and fake 50/50
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I'm sorry, but the payoff matrix in your here scenario:
1 Tflame sweeps (+3)
2 tflame dies (-1)
3 aegi dies (+1)
4 flame dies (-1)
Solving for the minimax yields 1/3,2/3 so the talonflame user actually should go for flare blitz most of the time, so shadow ball isn't necessarily the best play
plus what exactly does your post imply?

Lol, the difference on the suspect ladder is that Lando-I is EVERYWHERE. It really isn't that diverse at all - I've continued to play after getting reqs just for the craic, and I'm still seeing tankchomp klef lati@s lopunny aegi teams everywhere. I'm not sure how you can say that there is more diversity now - in fact the most variety I see is in the Aegislash set, making it really hard to dance around/handle.
We agree lando is broken so we plan to ban it after the aegi/ suspect is over regardless so dont use it as an argument. I've already rambled about bunny, and tankchomp just replaced lando-t, proof that the meta is finally evolving, unlike the disgusting broken no aegi/ metagame.
That's true and all but I think LO 4 Atks Aegislash makes a lot of balance and stall cores practically unusable. For sure it won't take down the whole team but in a lot of cases offense really only needs to weaken a few pieces of the puzzle for the tower to crumble.

HO wasn't nearly this popular on the Metagross suspect ladder, and I doubt it would be as popular as this on a Landorus suspect ladder.
HO is the fastest way to ladder too so people are more likely to use it regardless of the suspect.
 
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I'm sorry, but the payoff matrix in your here scenario:
1 Tflame sweeps (+3)
2 tflame dies (-1)
3 aegi dies (+1)
4 flame dies (-1)
Solving for the minimax yields 1/3,2/3 so the talonflame user actually should go for flare blitz most of the time, so shadow ball isn't necessarily the best play
plus what exactly does your post imply?


We agree lando is broken so we plan to ban it after the aegi/ suspect is over regardless so dont use it as an argument. I've already rambled about bunny, and tankchomp just replaced lando-t, proof that the meta is finally evolving, unlike the disgusting broken no aegi/ metagame.

HO is the fastest way to ladder too so people are more likely to use it regardless of the suspect.

Erm what do you mean "we agree lando is broken we plan to ban it" last time I checked you were neither part of the council nor were we supposed to discuss any suspects other than this one in the thread.

To use tank chomp as proof the meta is evolving is just laughable tbh, tank chomp was already everywhere, and it's kept viability because it beats Aegis 1v1, albeit it cant switch in unless it knows Aegi is an SD set. Its hardly a symbol of great innovation by players for a new metagame, more them sticking with something very reliable at what it does, which is getting rocks up and punishing physical attackers. I'd actually say the opposite, in that an Aegislash metagame is incredibly difficult to be creative in, because for something creative to be defined as useful and worth its opportunity cost, it has to be able to beat Aegis, by far the most dominant pokemon in the metagame. Most of the options that can already do this have been explored, and it's resulted in an incredibly stale metagame, where there is little room for creativity because it's simply not worth it when you could just abuse AegiLop or AegiLando or Aegi+top threat who's checks are made unviable by Aegi.
 
where there is little room for creativity because it's simply not worth it when you could just abuse AegiLop or AegiLando or Aegi+top threat who's checks are made unviable by Aegi.

I don't agree that things are made 'unviable' by aegi, they are made less viable. I agree that aegi does hurt creativity a lot but in the current OU metagame it's not like there's a whole lot of creativity as it is. There are always creative ideas and answers for things, for example I laddered with Kebia Berry (ghost weakening) fire blast slowbro to bait aegi into sword form and bop it, quite effective. It does harm creativity and lower some things' viability but it doesn't make anything strictly 'unviable' it just requires better teambuilding instead of throwing a random celebi on a team.
 
So after playing in the Aegislash metagame for a while now, and seeing people's reaction, I can now finally give a brief conclusion about how I felt about Aegislash in this meta in the last few days. (Note that most of the things I'm going to write are probably written somewhere in the thread, but that's just how I feel)

First of all, there is no doubt Aegislash is one if not the most overcentralizing Pokemon in the current meta, it reduces the usage of most Psychic Type Pokemons in the current meta (such as Gardevoir, Latis and Starmie) which some of them have to run a specific coverage move to get passed Aegislash.

Secondly, Aegislash is one of the definitions of a "Versatile Pokemon"; it can be a sweeper, a wall or even a status spreader (with it's sub toxic set). Above all that, it can run almost every single set efficiently making it probably the easiest Pokemon to slap in the different archetypes of teams. Moreover, Aegislash has such an amazing typing with 9 resistances and 3 immunities making it even harder to knock out. furthermore, there aren't many viable Pokemon can easily switch into any set that Aegislash can run, every single check to a set loses to another (Example Mandibuzz loses to sub toxic but checks most of the other sets).

The most common argument for and against Aegislash probably is how much it forces 50 50s with its move King Shield, but before I get into that I just want to address that I feel like there is no point in banning the move King Shield itself instead of banning the Pokemon, probably duo to the fact that it will be so easy to revenge kill with anything with the move Pursuit and basically it won't be taking any in its Blade form. Back to King Shield, it definitely helps Aegislash a lot by protecting it from a lot of physical moves and more importantly bringing it back to Shield Form, but it works against it at the same time; as everyone knows, its a 50 50, you might win it and you might lose it which might turn one game upside down, you are basically giving your opponent a turn to set up if it had any set up moves, or you're just giving him a turn to sub (Implying you lose the 50 50).

All in all, the real question is, does Aegislash help the meta more than it harms it even more? In my opinion, I don't think Aegislash is fixing anything, even though it checks many of the top tier threats and makes teambuilding easier, but in my opinion, it makes the matter worse.
 
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After completing the long and weary struggle that is getting reqs, I have come to the conclusion that introducing Aegislash to OU would not aid the tier, and would in fact, do the opposite; hence, it should be kept in Ubers.
Aegislash is an amazing pokemon, having access to one of the best defensive typings in the game in addition to an ability that allows it to switch between its amazing offensive and defensive capabilities and a move that allows it to temporarily cripple physical attackers that come into contact with it. When you combine this with a varied movepool that allows it to have amazingly versatile coverage, Aegislash turns into a complete monster that is capable of running several legitimate and equally viable sets (eg. LO, Sub-Toxic, SD).
But that's not the part that makes it "broken", in my opinion; its the way it synergises with top-tier threats, such as MegaZard Y, Keldeo and Mega Lopunny, that makes it unhealthy for the tier in my eyes (for more information, see WCAR's amazing post on the matter).
The initial premise of the suspect was to alleviate some of the teambuilding strain that powerful pokemon such as Mega Altaria and Mega Metagross caused, however introduction of Aegislash forces the metagame to revolve around it. Due to its offensive and defensive characteristics and its incredibly low opportunity cost, Aegislash causes an incredibly high amount of centralisation that would hinder teambuilding, the progression of the meta and could decrease the validity of certain playstyles that cannot adapt to it and its common partners.

For this reason, I believe Aegislash is broken and would ultimately harm the tier more than it would help it. Therefore, I will be voting to keep it banned.
I would write more but I feel everyone else has covered everything and I'm tired :/
 
Game 1 is Manaphy (which I think is a broken Pokemon)
Game 2 I'm not even sure what the perceived "matchup" issue is...SpD Mew? I mean, Lazar Angelov's team is 5 special attackers that can't wallbreak, so I'm not really sympathetic to "matchup", especially when he should have been Scald spamming Manaphy for burn from the beginning and could have free-switched to Metagross to kill it
Game 3 DD sacs his best Char-Y answer for no reason and loses a 50/50 to get his Metagross crippled
And game 4 once again I don't know what the issue is...
Game 1 is an unloseable matchup for CTC because he has a threat that his opponent didnt cover, which results in a 6-0, even though pdc is a respectable player that won 8 times in spl.
Game 2 is a hopeless battle for CTC because his team simply can't touch mew. Was that because his team didnt have enough wallbreaking power? No, he has u-turn lando-i which destroys stall (unless if the opp has mew), as well as the powerful mega gross. Was DD's team a world beater? No, it has serious problems like being flat-out 6-0d by zard-y, and even tg + 3 atks manaphy. So if neither team was sub-optimal nor perfect, and both players are top-level, why was this such an easy game? Matchup.
Game 3 is one where dd brings a solid balanced team with no glaring weakness, though that lacks hazard control. Ben gay brings a team with 3 different hazards, including Tspikes that fucks up key members of dd's team including Slowking, while ben gay has hard counters for everything in dd's team, which results in an easy win for ben.
Game 4 is a battle where gingy has 2-3 hard counters for each one of the 6 members of raichy's team, which results in a 6-0. Was raichy's team bad? No, cbb built it and it did really well in many ost/spl battles, as well as lacking glaring weakness. Was gingy's team perfect? No, it's 6-0d by A rank threats like dd zard x, mega hera, sd gallade, etc.
Really if this is the "matchup" issue I have absolutely no sympathy at all. I just watched 4 games of balance with no wallbreakers losing to standard fat shit. Yeah, that'll happen if you bring extraordinarily safe teams. I didn't even see any "weird stuff" coming out of left field to win games.

These are just high-level games which evidence why A LOT of top players despise ORAS OU as it is right now. Diversity of viable mons seems pretty and dandy but it fucks up the metagame if it's too excessive. As in, it's impossible to make legitimately consistent teams. You mention the players are running 'extraordinarily safe' teams; well, put yourself in their shoes. If the series is like 5-6 with the only remaining game being theirs, would you risk bringing an 'innovative' team that automatically loses to some common stuff? Imagine the amount of flack you'd get for losing in SPL finals because you used something like Barbaracle. We end up feeling like some mons are broken when they're really not overpowered. Is Manaphy broken? Altaria? Megagross? No, they don't even compare to the likes of mega luke/mega mence/mega kanga. Also another reason why there isnt innovation being run in these games, is actually the sheer diversity of the metagame. Dont you see how obscenely hard covering every threat is, even with 6 pokemon? If you have to dedicate your entire team in order to cover every threat, what space is there for innovation?

how can you actually say that when just a second ago you said this?
Like you said, the point is that since you can't "counter aegi properly", so putting Pokemon on your team that give it free turns is a massive burden.
i didnt say aegi is an uncounterable god, i just said you cant indeed 100% counter aegi without spdef Gliscor. Like, a less radical comparison would be in BW, where theoretically Dragonite has no 100% counters. is it common? yeah. is it broken/unhealthy? no (arguably but idt any top bwer thinks it is actually broken). does it make pokemon that give free turns to it like keldeo/breloom unviable? hell no. teams with these fighters will usually have solid countermeasures to the dragon, like lando-t, ferro, scarfers, mamo, etc. in the same vein, a hawlucha team that has stuff that force aegi to come in and get damaged, like eq mega gross, or something that turns the opp's own aegislash into a liability against him, like lando-i or zard-x/y, will still be a solid team offensively, which is why hawlucha had 80% win rate in the last suspect tour. if aegi makes it unviable, why did it win not only once but 4 times in 5 games?
Weavile/Crawdaunt have niches now. And even if Aegi creates some niches, it destroys far more than that. Diversity is its own reward.
to be fair crawdaunt/weavile already had niches before, they're just made better in this metagame. and aegi isn't completely destroying mons like medicham and other psychics, it just makes them more risky to use, i still cant see why this is objectively bad.
 
Game 1 is an unloseable matchup for CTC because he has a threat that his opponent didnt cover, which results in a 6-0, even though pdc is a respectable player that won 8 times in spl.
Game 2 is a hopeless battle for CTC because his team simply can't touch mew. Was that because his team didnt have enough wallbreaking power? No, he has u-turn lando-i which destroys stall (unless if the opp has mew), as well as the powerful mega gross. Was DD's team a world beater? No, it has serious problems like being flat-out 6-0d by zard-y, and even tg + 3 atks manaphy. So if neither team was sub-optimal nor perfect, and both players are top-level, why was this such an easy game? Matchup.
Game 3 is one where dd brings a solid balanced team with no glaring weakness, though that lacks hazard control. Ben gay brings a team with 3 different hazards, including Tspikes that fucks up key members of dd's team including Slowking, while ben gay has hard counters for everything in dd's team, which results in an easy win for ben.
Game 4 is a battle where gingy has 2-3 hard counters for each one of the 6 members of raichy's team, which results in a 6-0. Was raichy's team bad? No, cbb built it and it did really well in many ost/spl battles, as well as lacking glaring weakness. Was gingy's team perfect? No, it's 6-0d by A rank threats like dd zard x, mega hera, sd gallade, etc.


These are just high-level games which evidence why A LOT of top players despise ORAS OU as it is right now. Diversity of viable mons seems pretty and dandy but it fucks up the metagame if it's too excessive. As in, it's impossible to make legitimately consistent teams. You mention the players are running 'extraordinarily safe' teams; well, put yourself in their shoes. If the series is like 5-6 with the only remaining game being theirs, would you risk bringing an 'innovative' team that automatically loses to some common stuff? Imagine the amount of flack you'd get for losing in SPL finals because you used something like Barbaracle. We end up feeling like some mons are broken when they're really not overpowered. Is Manaphy broken? Altaria? Megagross? No, they don't even compare to the likes of mega luke/mega mence/mega kanga. Also another reason why there isnt innovation being run in these games, is actually the sheer diversity of the metagame. Dont you see how obscenely hard covering every threat is, even with 6 pokemon? If you have to dedicate your entire team in order to cover every threat, what space is there for innovation?

Look to an extent it's hard for me to argue with you about these examples because I'm not a tour player. But I'm really not seeing this as evidence of a glaring matchup issue. I see people using safe teams with no power losing to bulky stuff. I primarily play stall, I've known since early gen 5 that using the idea of "try to have a counter to everything" is not a good way to play the game unless you're on the ladder. So if you use balance and play entirely reactively you're conceding that you might be weak to certain Pokemon. Even then I don't see the "unlosable matchup" that you claim. Game 1 is Manaphy and like I said I think Manaphy is a matchup concern and is broken so I'm not gonna argue about that. But game 2 he brings 5 special attackers with no wallbreaker (come on non-CM Lando-I is not a strict wallbreaker for specially bulky shit like Mew, Chans, Cress) and then walks his best "wallbreaker" into a Knock Off on turn 1. Like yeah if you bring that team you're gonna have to play well against specially tanky stuff. That doesn't sound like an issue to me, that sounds like the game. And game 3, your complaint is that a team without hazard control loses to spike-stacking. Uh, yeah, that's why most teams that aren't heavy offense use hazard control?
To an extent this is impossible for me to argue against because every time I say "that was something he clearly should have planned for" you'll just say "he can't because there's too much stuff". So maybe this is a futile discussion. But there are plenty of examples of solid teams being built that don't "autolose to major threats". And anybody could look at the teams that you've presented and note major weaknesses that they're going to face.
I don't know, the more I type the more it seems impossible for me to convince you of anything. If you can look at those battles and think "obviously matchup" when I look at them and think "obviously not a matchup issue", then maybe it's just a purely subjective thing.
 
Aegislash is without a doubt the best pokemon to have on a team in Overused.
There is no reason not to run it. (Calm down not that you are required to run it to win don't flame before reading the whole post)

Pros to Aegislash
- The large pool of pokemon it blanket checks or counters.
- incredible offensive presence
- incredible defensive presence
- It can spinblock effectively, even vs excadrill with the balloon set.
- Does not take up a mega slot
- incredible offensive typing in ghost backed up by a movepool that makes up for a lot of it's shortcomings, and ghost already has very little shortcomings
- incredible defensive typing in ghost/steel.
- It has a variant of protect that isn't entirely passive, if somewhat weaker (does not block status and some other stuff unlike protect).
- Capable of filling a multitude of roles, from luring mandibuzz for a gengar or lando i with head smash, to the sub toxic set, to pursuit trapping.
- Synergizes incredibly well with an incredibly large pool of pokemon, as Wcar/Sinful Desires/whatever awful name he's using at the moment said. (Lustful Revenge?)
- Requires very little team support of it's own
- It's main flaw being how easy it is to kill in blade form only ever consistently comes into play if the opposing pokemon is slower than it and can live more than one hit from it, and very few pokemon are slower than it and can live a hit from it and retaliate. Other wise it can be predicted around by the player using it.

Cons to Aegislash
- requires something on it's team not grounded because a team with all grounded pokemon is asking to be completely destroyed by landorus i. I mean that. You will lose. even something like AV Slowking will have a tough time dealing with it.
- does not like absorbing burns as well as general chip as it lacks recovery of it's own, although the chip it takes from switching in is well worth the amount of work it puts in the next turn.
- cannot switch into dark, ghost, fire and ground type moves on its own, but can often check a large amount of the pokemon it cannot switch into thanks to it's extreme bulk and then power that will always come into play if the opposing pokemon moves first. And they almost always move first.

In Other Words.
There is almost no reason not have a team without Aegislash in it. (calm down keep reading before flaming) Why? Opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is the cost of using a pokemon. When you use a pokemon it takes up a teamslot as well whatever team support you have. You have only 6 teamslots and if a pokemon cannot pull it's own weight in a manner that benefits your team, you're wasting a team slot and dedicated limited resources towards something that does not benefit you overall. A good pokemon outweighs or comes on par the cost to use it in it's benefits. For example, Mega Absol is an incredibly potent mixed attacker with a large movepool, decent power, a variety of excellent boosting moves and relatively fast speed. But it's incredibly frail, easy to revenge kill, almost impossible to switch in even against defensive teams and as such requires loads of team support. It takes up a teamslot as well as the teamslots and moveslots which are a limited resource, dedicated to Mega Absol's support in exchange for diminishing returns. That teamslot would be better used on a pokemon that doesn't require as extensive support and has an easier time coming in. AND Absol locks you out of using different, less support intensive and more effective mega pokemon, like metagross or diancie. In other words it's opportunity cost is garbage. Aegislash is an incredibly effective pokemon that requires minimal team support that fits on almost every team without compromising effectiveness and doesn't even take up a mega slot. You're not required to use Aegislash by any means, and it isn't mandatory to success, but the resources it offers for so little cost is in such a high ratio not using Aegislash practically puts yourself at a disadvantage. Just incase you still don't understand, as opportunity cost can be hard to wrap your head around, no fault of your own, Aegislash isn't required to be run in this meta to be effective, but there is effectively no reason not to, as Aegislash will benefit you in almost all scenarios, whereas all other pokemon you would use over it benefit you in less scenarios.

Does it make team building easier/reduce teambuilding strain? Yes. Having so many threats beat by one pokemon makes it easier to teambuild for everything else.

Does it reduce team matchup? Yes, by extent of the first answer. Having so many threats beat by one pokemon on your team frees up 5 teamslots including a mega slot to deal with the rest of the meta, and not autolose to one threat because you simply can't fit enough in 6 teamslots to cover the whole meta.

The problem i have with this is that all of this is done by a singular pokemon instead of a group. For example steel types as a whole check/counter large parts of the meta thanks to natural bulk reducing team building strain. For awhile it was practically required to have a steel type on your team, although these days you can sometimes run a fairy type in lieu of this. But in that case you can pick from a large pool of steel types, each with relatively unique differences too them, like ferrothorn and heatran being different but both still checking/counter large parts of the meta. The issue here is that Aegislash is basically the only one in it's group. Sure other steel types are there, but Aegislash checks/counters much more than any of them putting it in it's own class above them, creating a pool of pokemon that consists of only it. No other pokemon does this as well as aegislash, so shut up about rotom-w and heatran please.

But why would you not run Aegislash for reasons of team effectiveness? (personal reasons excluded)

My personal opinion is: Ban it. It's on almost every team and has little reason not to be. it makes the metagame really dull. it's S+ material.

I really hate to have to bold because i know if i don't people will simply ignore those sentences and quote me out of context in order to prove an abstract and situational point.
 
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Game 1 is an unloseable matchup for CTC because he has a threat that his opponent didnt cover, which results in a 6-0, even though pdc is a respectable player that won 8 times in spl.
Game 2 is a hopeless battle for CTC because his team simply can't touch mew. Was that because his team didnt have enough wallbreaking power? No, he has u-turn lando-i which destroys stall (unless if the opp has mew), as well as the powerful mega gross. Was DD's team a world beater? No, it has serious problems like being flat-out 6-0d by zard-y, and even tg + 3 atks manaphy. So if neither team was sub-optimal nor perfect, and both players are top-level, why was this such an easy game? Matchup.
Game 3 is one where dd brings a solid balanced team with no glaring weakness, though that lacks hazard control. Ben gay brings a team with 3 different hazards, including Tspikes that fucks up key members of dd's team including Slowking, while ben gay has hard counters for everything in dd's team, which results in an easy win for ben.
Game 4 is a battle where gingy has 2-3 hard counters for each one of the 6 members of raichy's team, which results in a 6-0. Was raichy's team bad? No, cbb built it and it did really well in many ost/spl battles, as well as lacking glaring weakness. Was gingy's team perfect? No, it's 6-0d by A rank threats like dd zard x, mega hera, sd gallade, etc.


These are just high-level games which evidence why A LOT of top players despise ORAS OU as it is right now. Diversity of viable mons seems pretty and dandy but it fucks up the metagame if it's too excessive. As in, it's impossible to make legitimately consistent teams. You mention the players are running 'extraordinarily safe' teams; well, put yourself in their shoes. If the series is like 5-6 with the only remaining game being theirs, would you risk bringing an 'innovative' team that automatically loses to some common stuff? Imagine the amount of flack you'd get for losing in SPL finals because you used something like Barbaracle. We end up feeling like some mons are broken when they're really not overpowered. Is Manaphy broken? Altaria? Megagross? No, they don't even compare to the likes of mega luke/mega mence/mega kanga. Also another reason why there isnt innovation being run in these games, is actually the sheer diversity of the metagame. Dont you see how obscenely hard covering every threat is, even with 6 pokemon? If you have to dedicate your entire team in order to cover every threat, what space is there for innovation?


i didnt say aegi is an uncounterable god, i just said you cant indeed 100% counter aegi without spdef Gliscor. Like, a less radical comparison would be in BW, where theoretically Dragonite has no 100% counters. is it common? yeah. is it broken/unhealthy? no (arguably but idt any top bwer thinks it is actually broken). does it make pokemon that give free turns to it like keldeo/breloom unviable? hell no. teams with these fighters will usually have solid countermeasures to the dragon, like lando-t, ferro, scarfers, mamo, etc. in the same vein, a hawlucha team that has stuff that force aegi to come in and get damaged, like eq mega gross, or something that turns the opp's own aegislash into a liability against him, like lando-i or zard-x/y, will still be a solid team offensively, which is why hawlucha had 80% win rate in the last suspect tour. if aegi makes it unviable, why did it win not only once but 4 times in 5 games?

to be fair crawdaunt/weavile already had niches before, they're just made better in this metagame. and aegi isn't completely destroying mons like medicham and other psychics, it just makes them more risky to use, i still cant see why this is objectively bad.

The problem in my opinion with pointing out team match up as an issue right now in ORAS is that while aegislash may make the tier less match-up based, the problem simply won't get better. We have 719 usable pokemon right now, and out of those, there are probably about 50-70 that are viable in OU. Next generation, there will probably be a bunch of new threats introduced that people will have to prepare for, and while some of them may be countered/checked by existing mons, there are obviously going to be some that need a designated counter slot, which means you won't be able to counter everything. IMO the way to fix the match-up problem is not to bring down a super-threat that, while making the tier less-matchup based, makes the tier a competition of who can use the threat the best. The way to fix the problem IMO is to ban the threats that can break just about everything in the tier, and even destroy their checks with the right coverage. By this I mean stuff like zard y, and lando-i, because they have basically no switch-ins outside of chansey and cresselia, and before people shout Lati at me, both can break it with repeated powerful hits, plus pursuit trapping. People also will say, "no switch-ins doesn't mean broken," and I've never understood that, because if something can come in and get a kill pretty much every time, before being switched out again, well, that seems pretty damn broken to me. Anyway, I agree that there is a matchup problem, but bringing a super-threat blanket check doesn't solve the problem the right way IMO.
 
note that my last post's (and this post's as well) goal is to show why oras ou is not a competitively balanced metagame in its current state, it doesn't exactly have much to do with aegislash so i understand if it gets deleted, but i'd like to advocate those who agree with me in this (even though if they don't want aegi to drop). anyways:
Look to an extent it's hard for me to argue with you about these examples because I'm not a tour player. But I'm really not seeing this as evidence of a glaring matchup issue. I see people using safe teams with no power losing to bulky stuff. I primarily play stall, I've known since early gen 5 that using the idea of "try to have a counter to everything" is not a good way to play the game unless you're on the ladder. So if you use balance and play entirely reactively you're conceding that you might be weak to certain Pokemon. Even then I don't see the "unlosable matchup" that you claim. Game 1 is Manaphy and like I said I think Manaphy is a matchup concern and is broken so I'm not gonna argue about that.
the point is that we're not watching people just lose to generic 'bulky' stuff. they're losing to specific mons. like, in replay 4, raichy brought keldeo / scizor / garchomp / raikou / togekiss / latios, a team whose weakest base offense is togekiss' base 120 sp.atk and yet you say this team lacks power? togekiss, the very mon which breaks skarm/chansey/quag teams. even then he lost to a bulky team. why? because his opponent had very very specific shit like bronzong, as well as scarftar for togekiss, as well has having hard counters to everything else on raichy's team. EVEN though his team not only is flawed (weak to mega hera/gallade/zard x/etc, as i said), it also 'lacks power', something you said, which should avoid matchup losses according to you.
But game 2 he brings 5 special attackers with no wallbreaker (come on non-CM Lando-I is not a strict wallbreaker for specially bulky shit like Mew, Chans, Cress) and then walks his best "wallbreaker" into a Knock Off on turn 1. Like yeah if you bring that team you're gonna have to play well against specially tanky stuff. That doesn't sound like an issue to me, that sounds like the game.
u-turn lando-i with sr support is an amazing wallbreaker, what are you talking about? if it u-turns as chansey/cresselia come in, does 20% to them + sr damage, and keld/metagross are sent after. he fails to beat a lead mew though, and his whole team is weak to mew, because he cant afford to have something like heatran/zard on his team. thus, he's defeated easily even if his team isnt bad. you can argue he could've used tail glow + 3 attacks manaphy, but then his entire team is fucked by scald, which is much much much more common than taunt wow knock off mew.
And game 3, your complaint is that a team without hazard control loses to spike-stacking. Uh, yeah, that's why most teams that aren't heavy offense use hazard control?
yeah, well, actually DD could've easily fit in a spinner like tentacruel/starmie over slowking. why didn't he do it though? is it because he's bad? oh yeah mega metagross exists (and is an S rank mon). if he had tenta/starmie, he'd have much better chances in winning that game, but if ben brought mega metagross and dd had starmie, he would have to rely on scarf landorus-t to counter it, and would probably be fucked.
To an extent this is impossible for me to argue against because every time I say "that was something he clearly should have planned for" you'll just say "he can't because there's too much stuff". So maybe this is a futile discussion. But there are plenty of examples of solid teams being built that don't "autolose to major threats". And anybody could look at the teams that you've presented and note major weaknesses that they're going to face.
I don't know, the more I type the more it seems impossible for me to convince you of anything. If you can look at those battles and think "obviously matchup" when I look at them and think "obviously not a matchup issue", then maybe it's just a purely subjective thing.
indeed, you can argue ctc should have mew counters and d_d should have hazard control, since those threats are relevant. but looking at their teams, could they really afford to? i mean, if it was their fault they lost, it'd be because they objectively made inferior team choices. however, this clearly isnt the case, because metagross has much better synergy than charizard/heatran on ctc's team (as well as rain dance manaphy vs tg 3 atks manaphy), and as i've said on this post, dd's team becomes severely weak to an S rank mon if he choses hazard control. as for noting major weakness, the point about ORAS OU is that those weakness aren't like DPP stall being weak to clefable (a really rare mon), but standard teams being weak to A rank stuff.
 
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I don't know, the more I type the more it seems impossible for me to convince you of anything. If you can look at those battles and think "obviously matchup" when I look at them and think "obviously not a matchup issue", then maybe it's just a purely subjective thing.

Well part of the problem in stating that is looking at it from an outsiders point of view since... We don't exactly know the thought process of the player, unless they were willing to share or be vocal about it (which I do know some players are and claim circumstances outside their control wrestling them from really making a proper team at 1 week due to lack of preparation). Even then they tend to be more concerned about "counter teams" and figuring out patterns in which the opposing player will likely be not prepared for based on research. So at the very least the match up is inevitable in so much that there is part and parcel of the SPL, not necessarily as luck based as would be negative.

These are just high-level games which evidence why A LOT of top players despise ORAS OU as it is right now. Diversity of viable mons seems pretty and dandy but it fucks up the metagame if it's too excessive. As in, it's impossible to make legitimately consistent teams. You mention the players are running 'extraordinarily safe' teams; well, put yourself in their shoes. If the series is like 5-6 with the only remaining game being theirs, would you risk bringing an 'innovative' team that automatically loses to some common stuff? Imagine the amount of flack you'd get for losing in SPL finals because you used something like Barbaracle. We end up feeling like some mons are broken when they're really not overpowered. Is Manaphy broken? Altaria? Megagross? No, they don't even compare to the likes of mega luke/mega mence/mega kanga. Also another reason why there isnt innovation being run in these games, is actually the sheer diversity of the metagame. Dont you see how obscenely hard covering every threat is, even with 6 pokemon? If you have to dedicate your entire team in order to cover every threat, what space is there for innovation?

Yes, but as I said above in tournaments like these and even higher up the ladder there is a degree to which match up will be intentional, more so in tournaments that give you time to prepare against a specific player. I can't exactly claim that it is a point against their ability to build a team that exploits patterns in playing habits.

Now if we talk about consistent teams that would be better suited in the ladder for more examples at least but even then I haven't seen the teams rated really high up as necessarily being inconsistent - they retain their rank at a fairly decent amount of time rather than being replaced within such a short time (which I think would be more symptomatic of match ups). And they all seem to retain a fairly good GXE rating for most part, that I do argue there is more consistency in that regard than credited, and players like CleanterThanRotom-W use the exact same times for quite a long period.
 
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I'm glad that a KS ban is being considered, but we can't collectively decide to do it because it's not part of the suspect test. There could be a second suspect test after this one (assuming Aegi stays in Uber), but doing three suspect tests just for one Pokemon is a bit ridiculous.

It would nerf Aegi considerably, though, and turn it into Pursuit bait. The SubToxic set would be killed off.
 
I have a problem with the implications of your posts. You are acting like every team has a god-given right to be good against all Pokemon. If that was the case there would be a "best team" which is clearly not true. Teams will always have weaknesses and Pokemon they struggle against, why is this a problem?

note that my last post's (and this post's as well) goal is to show why oras ou is not a competitively balanced metagame in its current state, it doesn't exactly have much to do with aegislash so i understand if it gets deleted, but i'd like to advocate those who agree with me in this (even though if they don't want aegi to drop). anyways:

the point is that we're not watching people just lose to generic 'bulky' stuff. they're losing to specific mons. like, in replay 4, raichy brought keldeo / scizor / garchomp / raikou / togekiss / latios, a team whose weakest base offense is togekiss' base 120 sp.atk and yet you say this team lacks power? togekiss, the very mon which breaks skarm/chansey/quag teams. even then he lost to a bulky team. why? because his opponent had very very specific shit like bronzong, as well as scarftar for togekiss, as well has having hard counters to everything else on raichy's team. EVEN though his team not only is flawed (weak to mega hera/gallade/zard x/etc, as i said), it also 'lacks power', something you said, which should avoid matchup losses according to you.

Come on man, you can't just say "weakest attack is base 120" and pretend like that means the team is hitting hard. He has subCM raikou, LO latios, tankchomp, these are not wallbreakers or hard hitters by any means. Look, bulky offense loses to fat defense, that's the nature of the game, if you have 6 offense mons with no recovery vs. 6 defense mons with recovery the offense team gets worn down. That's the game, what is matchup? Plus this is so hypocritical that you're saying "he brings togekiss and even then loses to bronzong, that's matchup". If his opponent hadn't brought bronzong and had lost to NP toge you'd say "man NP toge, he had nothing for that, that's matchup". Well maybe he noticed a Togekiss weakness and put Bronzong on the team? Why is that not just good teambuilding? Wolfchy is not just "dead" here, he can target tyranitar to be worn down and let Raikou set up, he can spread scald with Keldeo. Maybe if he is running this kind of bulky offense he should use Latias > Latios for Healing Wish to rebuy a sweeper against fat shit and wallbreak. There's options here.

u-turn lando-i with sr support is an amazing wallbreaker, what are you talking about? if it u-turns as chansey/cresselia come in, does 20% to them + sr damage, and keld/metagross are sent after. he fails to beat a lead mew though, and his whole team is weak to mew, because he cant afford to have something like heatran/zard on his team. thus, he's defeated easily even if his team isnt bad. you can argue he could've used tail glow + 3 attacks manaphy, but then his entire team is fucked by scald, which is much much much more common than taunt wow knock off mew.

Okay, so why run Lando into Knock Off and lose his wallbreaking power turn 1? That's a misplay that might have cost him the game. Why can't he run TG mana when he has Keld and AV Torn-T for Scald? Maybe that's a tradeoff that's worth making. Or we can't we just accept that it's okay that a team like this has a weakness to Mew? And Taunt WoW Knock Off Mew was an A+ rank threat in XY that only ever dropped because of Mega-Sableye which has fallen from grace, don't act like it's some random ass thing.

yeah, well, actually DD could've easily fit in a spinner like tentacruel/starmie over slowking. why didn't he do it though? is it because he's bad? oh yeah mega metagross exists (and is an S rank mon). if he had tenta/starmie, he'd have much better chances in winning that game, but if ben brought mega metagross and dd had starmie, he would have to rely on scarf landorus-t to counter it, and would probably be fucked.

Okay, so he needs to either accept a metagross weakness or accept the need to pressure spikes-stack and not let them get layers off. It's a tradeoff! You don't have a right to be strong against everything.

indeed, you can argue ctc should have mew counters and d_d should have hazard control, since those threats are relevant. but looking at their teams, could they really afford to? i mean, if it was their fault they lost, it'd be because they objectively made inferior team choices. however, this clearly isnt the case, because metagross has much better synergy than charizard/heatran on ctc's team (as well as rain dance manaphy vs tg 3 atks manaphy), and as i've said on this post, dd's team becomes severely weak to an S rank mon if he choses hazard control. as for noting major weakness, the point about ORAS OU is that those weakness aren't like DPP stall being weak to clefable (a really rare mon), but standard teams being weak to A rank stuff.

Yeah, you'll be weak to stuff. But I reject the characterization that you can't build teams that don't autolose to popular shit. You don't get to be good against everything. That's not matchup, that's Pokemon. You can set yourself up to play around things that you're weak to. It's hard to see what solution could possibly be offered to your perceived problem when you make the issue so broad.
 
I have a problem with the implications of your posts. You are acting like every team has a god-given right to be good against all Pokemon. If that was the case there would be a "best team" which is clearly not true. Teams will always have weaknesses and Pokemon they struggle against, why is this a problem?

The issue is when this happens in excess. The idea behind many of Smogon's bans (Moody and Swagger, for instance) is to prevent the metagame from being centered around matchups. Desperately waiting for the opponent to choke because you have no chance otherwise is not fun. I would even call it Uncompetitive™.
 
These are just high-level games which evidence why A LOT of top players despise ORAS OU as it is right now.
JS, but players have always criticided and dispised gen 6 OU sinse the beginning, with many considering it to be a "garbage tier" and doing what many others have done in the past and migrated to lower tiers. Not trying to start an argument/debate or anything, just thought I'd point it out as it is a common pattern ive seen among players as opposed to a statement of my opinion of the metagame. But I digress.
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What I really started typing a comment to say was that oryxslayer is right: with there being 719 usable pokemon, it is inevitable that the game will become heavily matchup based: it is to become expected. Quite frankly, I'm surprised at how well it has held out without the need for an overcentralising weight to try and balance or de-matchupise (definitely a word) the metagame. It is something which is present in many competitive games - especially those with elements or types like Pokémon and Inazuma Eleven (srs Beta dominates the inazuma eleven go strikers 2013 metagame due to having the best shoot in the game which just so happens to have the element which is advantagous v.s. the most powerful goalkeeper while also getting a boost due to matching Beta's element (sort of like STAB), but preparing for one of the centralising chars character can lead to weaknesses to her other centralising characters like Zanark, Fei and Taiyou for their their respective elements) - and it means that there will always be a heavy matchup element involved in competitive play whether we like it or not. Aegislash lowers this in one way, but it also increases it in another. This means we are left with the original product - except with significanly less viable pokemon due to the presence of one that can be compared to Beta nicely due to how insanely it overcentralises the metagame. This is a big problem, and DD's team payed the price for the results of the Megagross suspect as it meant that he couldn't carry a spinner that he desperately needed. While I don't want to get that dead/off-topic horse back on its feet, it kinda links into my next sentence. The presence of these insanely powerful, overcentralising threats means that there will be a matchup issue unless something is done. There are two solutions:
  1. Unban checks to them and redirect the matchup/centralisation to different pokemon, or...
  2. Ban the problems, resulting in others emerging and keep doing so in attempt to replicate the end result of the RSE metagame (which is generally considered to be the most well balanced metagame in pokemon history) over the course the course of the full generation.
There are pros and cons to both solutions - I get that. There are arguments pro- and anti-Aegislash that need to be heavily considered. It really comes down to whether you are prepared to have a long-spanning period of change, that will force players to constantly be adapting to rising threats that gain prominence with the loss of previous threats, or whether you want a quick fix that will allow for normal levels of metagame shifts (e.g. new sets being discovered) as opposed to constant changing of viability as things that held previous pokemon back get banned. There are lots of different viewpoints regarding this, and it is a big thing that is going to make this suspect test so influential with the generation.

This is my personal viewpoint, and after I state it I will try and explain the pro-aegi side of the argument to the best of my ability (although there may be holes in it due to it not being my viewpoint):
I feel that Aegislash should stay banned. This is because I feel that, due to there being an entire generation to balance the metagame, there is enough time for us to reach a near-desirable state without needing to introduce a threat to balance the currently unbalanced/matchup-inducing pokemon. I feel that, due to the long time that we have to fix the meta traditionally, we have enough time to go through and suspect and hopefully ban as many of the problematic pokemon as possible, and I also feel that there is enough time to stay ahead of the curve (if you will) and perfect the art of OU regardless of constant shifts, as not all suspect tests result in the rise of threats that need to be desparately prepared for.

However, on the other side, people don't want there to be constant drastic shifts due to large numbers of bans occurring. This is understandable, as people want to be able to develop their ability in a relatively static metagame. For this kind of mindset, a quick-fix such as the one that Giratina-O Aegislash may bring is more desirable than waiting a 9-18-or-so months for the shifts to begin settling down, and would rather have a partially balanced metagame now than a mostly balanced one in a year or so.

This isn't a pro- or anti-Aegislash post. This is just the main issue that is here regarding this suspect and what IMO will probably decide the result of the test and, as a result, the trajectory of the rest of the metagame. I have done my best to cover the bases of both of the viewpoints on the suspect test's purpose without burying myself too deep into it (partially due to me not being able to say that much if it isn't in argument for/against one side as opposed to "news reporting").
 
The issue is when this happens in excess. The idea behind many of Smogon's bans (Moody and Swagger, for instance) is to prevent the metagame from being centered around matchups. Desperately waiting for the opponent to choke because you have no chance otherwise is not fun. I would even call it Uncompetitive™.

I have to say that this is entirely false. Moody and Swagger were, in fact, banned due to uncompetitiveness, not matchup. They made the game luck based and made it so that incredibly underwhelming Pokemon otherwise could do very well in places where they shouldn't be (Bidoof and Murkrow for example). These ended up being extreme levels of uncompetitiveness, which is why not everything which makes the game luck based is banned, such as normal confuse ray, paralysis, moves which can flinch ect. These specific (and isolatable!) traits were capable of bringing normally effective teams to their knees. Of course, on the other hand they also could and often did backfire. That is Uncompetitive™, and that can make games very much not skillbased.

Matchup isn't this at all. Matchup has been a part of the tournament scene since GSC (RBY was really kinda standard and luckbased in terms of getting freezes) with the idea of "scouting your opponent" before the match. Are the tournament players watching their opponent's replays for fun before bringing a team they built last month with no thought? Of course not, they attempt to find standard styles in the opponent's teambuilding and playing in order to bring something with an advantage. This isn't new, and we've had unwinnable matchups occuring in times as far back as DPP without much complaint. It's counterteaming, and part of the successes and failures people have experienced for a longer time than ORAS.

While matchup has certainly increased in Gen 6, this doesn't mean that we should revert the ideology that OU has abided by for at least the past three generations.

To quote from Smogon's Philosophy page:
Smogon said:
One common problem people have with competitive battling is its favoritism towards a certain set of Pokémon (standards) over others. Why, they wonder, is Beautifly or Flareon not represented as well as others like Tyranitar or Hydreigon? The simple response, which has been touched on, is that Pokémon has tiers. In the competitive arena, victory is paramount—and against high-tier Pokémon, lesser Pokémon are simply shut out by the virtue of poor moves, poor stats, or both—or, sometimes, simply the fact that another Pokémon is a superior choice. Consider Whiscash as opposed to Swampert—you can compare them in virtually any way and see that Swampert performs better or similarly in all cases. The UU (and RU and NU) metagames exist to mitigate this problem by creating an arena where lesser Pokémon can be used while still following the competitive ideal, but this is not perfect, and many Pokémon simply find themselves never used.

This is the piece that can be considered in favor of unbanning Aegislash. It looks at Pokemon as individuals and realizes that not all are effective in a current metagame. If we wanted to we could ban Pokemon until we reached a metagame where Flareon was a top tier threat. To put it in a context of today's issue, Aegislash may make multiple Pokemon less viable, and there may be simply a superior choice over previously competitive choice. This simply means that they have to find a different role or tier to perform in (although UU is a bit banhappy).

From this point of view, Aegislash should not be banned because it makes Pokemon less viable, as that is an invalid argument and defies a truth of the games, that not all mon are created equal.

Smogon said:
Smogon attempts to avoid bans as much as possible—only when it becomes very apparent that a Pokémon is far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame is it banished permanently from the standard arena.

Is Aegislash too powerful (and that doesn't simply mean in terms of offensive power) for a balanced metagame? What is a balanced metagame? Quoting again from the philosophy:

Smogon said:
The "OU metagame" is the result of a search for a balanced game, where player skill, teambuilding skill, and a certain amount of luck combine to execute victory. The "OU metagame" is in no ways perfect

Player Skill is entirely inside the match and is defied by intense matchup issues. This is a point for Aegislash's return, to make this more of an emphasis (allegedly). Teambuilding Skill, while not the opposite, is outside the match and asks for diversity of options. This asks for Aegislash to stay away, as it removes a large component of teambuilding skill. It is not "Skillful" to make your team out of Aegislash+a few top threats, even if it is effective.

The luck part is simply aimed at people who want to remove crits, paralysis procs, confusion, flinch outside fake out, missing, and secondary effects that aren't guaranteed.

Where I stand on the issue is that Aegislash is detrimental to a balanced OU metagame. It removes a large part of teambuilding skill and winning with underrated Pokemon (and when did we stop lauding people who did that?) and despite its contribution to player skill it also takes away some skill in playing due to its 50:50 options and immense safeness. While I appreciate some of the arguments for returning the Spooky Sword to OU, I feel Aegislash is not a part of a balanced metagame, although it's pretty close.

Source if you can't find it on your own: http://www.smogon.com/philosophy
 
After playing on the suspect ladder for a while, I think Aegislash is not a healthy pokemon for the metagame due to the following reasons. 3.

1. It can check a lot of pokemon in the metagame with its specially defensive set and cause a ton of 50/50s for physical attackers, who risk taking a -2 attack drop and thus either are weakened or lose momentum switching to a more favorable matchup. This set may not have the best offensive presence, but its bulk and utility lead to difficult situations for offensive mons.
2. It can threaten a lot of pokemon with its offensive sets, either with an all out attacker set or a more bulky version. Many frailer offensive teams or balanced teams have trouble breaking through its 60/150/150 bulk and then taking a hit from its 150/150 attacking stats due to Stance Change. In addition, it can revenge kill weakened mons with Shadow Sneak.
3. Its versatility makes it hard to teambuild for, as it can pull off many sets with low risk. This means that you could come prepared for one set and get completely destroyed by another. For example, Bisharp can beat the specially defensive set due to Defiant offsetting the attack drop from King's Shield, but the offensive set with King's Shield can reliably beat it if it has Sacred Sword, which OHKOs even without Attack investment.
4. In addition to its insane versatility, it also has the potential to overcentralize the metagame, not only on him, but also on other heavily used mons. Landorus, Lando-T, Bisharp, Heatran and Mega Charizard Y could potentially see big jumps in their usage due to their ability to beat Aegislash through either wearing it down or sheer power. Almost all teams will have to carry at least two pokemon that beat it for fear of Aegislash either being unbreakable for their team or undefendable due to its versatility.

Though Aegislash does have its downsides (no recovery outside of lefties, limited movepool), it has all it needs and more to become an dominant and overcentralizing force in the OU metagame, and for this reason I say Do Not Unban.
 
So I realize I’m a little late in posting because the discussion ends in a couple days, but I would like to introduce an argument into the discussion that I don’t think has been mentioned before.

I’d like to begin by saying a small bit about myself. I’m a thinker, and I love to teambuild. There are times where I will spend hours on end just fiddling with teams. And from that you can probably infer that I am against Aegislash.

Now we all know that Aegislash has a great impact on the metagame, in that its presence makes about a third of the pool of the usable Pokémon unviable. Some of the smarter users have been challenging: why is that necessarily a bad thing? In fact, if you’ve read this awesome post here from the Gira-O suspect (which I encourage everyone who hasn’t, to), by reducing the size of the metagame, we are reducing how much matchup determines the game, and increasing the weight of battling skill. I am here to say that while that sounds awesome, the toll taken on teambuilding is not worth it. Even as “desperate” as the metagame is right now for change, Aegislash is not the answer. You’ll get the whole picture why later on in the post, but for now let me use this analogy. The metagame is like an ecosystem. It’s loaded with Pokémon that fill niche roles, and it’s not too difficult for one introduced Pokémon to throw everything off. These niche Pokémon are what make the non-aegi OU metagame special. They are the basis of creativity, and are what make higher levels of play more interesting.

Now what do these Pokémon make up? Teams. And certain playstyles reliant on niche Pokémon are made unviable themselves by Aegislash’s presence in the metagame. OK, this will need a lot of explaining. Take Pokémon like Heracross, Conkeldurr, and Dragalge. All of these Pokémon, particularly Heracross, play a large roll in Trick Room (TR) teams because they are the powerhouses that make the playstyle work. Aegislash stops all three of them hard, cold. Now factor in that other common TR Pokémon such as Crawdaunt and Victini which can’t spam their STAB’s because they fear the attack drop from Kings Shield (KS), and KS also burns a turn every time Aegislash comes in making the playstyle even more unviable. Now TR isn’t the only one here, there’s a whole slew of playstyles. Look at VoltTurn. It relies mostly on dealing chips (or chunks) of damage with U-Turn and Volt Switch. The heavy-hitting U-Turners (namely Scizor) can’t weaken the opposing team when Aegislash is present because it can come in on any of Scizor’s moves, quad resist the U-Turn, and then there isn’t a good Volt Switcher to come in and try to check it. To make matters worse, Aegislash can’t be trapped, and Kings Shield, probably GF’s worst idea, can make any choiced VoltTurn user easier to predict. Another playstyle Aegislash (or King’s Shield) messes up is rain.

And Aegislash doesn’t just invalidate playstyles; it invalidates some of the fundamental teambuilding cores and strategies. Looks like I have more explaining to do. Take a simple Hyper Offense (HO) redundancy strategy like BirdSpam. The two main users of BirdSpam, Mega Pinsir and Talonflame, both have methods of getting around Aegislash. However, Aegislash always threatens coming in and taking an attack. This is especially problematic if Talonflame is running the band set (Which is more common on BirdSpam). Furthermore, even if Talonflame is running SD or has just came in, Aegislash can always threaten a King’s Shield, and Mega Pinsir’s EQ isn’t even a guaranteed OHKO vs. Aegislash. So Aegislash limits redundancy strategies that a creative user could return to OU and have work well, simply because it threatens to switch in and take the attack. This is obviously more than BirdSpam, even small cores that rely on using the same attack multiple times are completely ineffective if Aegislash resists the attack. For instance, take a small core consisting of Latios and a pivot mon. A fundamental teambuilding strategy or synergy would be to have the pivot bring Latios in safely repeatedly to then spam Draco Meteor and punch holes in the opposing team. If Aegislash is present, this core would have no effect, and that means in an Aegislash-defined metagame, this core wouldn’t be an option for a teambuilder. Aegislash takes away from all the strategies available to teambuilders in the current metagame.

In all the time I’ve been teambuilding during the suspect metagame, I’ve become more and more certain that I want Aegislash to remain ubers. The toll it takes on teambuilding far outweighs the battling skill it adds on the game and what it “provides” for the metagame. So, for that reason, say no to the sword.
 
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Erm what do you mean "we agree lando is broken we plan to ban it" last time I checked you were neither part of the council nor were we supposed to discuss any suspects other than this one in the thread.

To use tank chomp as proof the meta is evolving is just laughable tbh, tank chomp was already everywhere, and it's kept viability because it beats Aegis 1v1, albeit it cant switch in unless it knows Aegi is an SD set. Its hardly a symbol of great innovation by players for a new metagame, more them sticking with something very reliable at what it does, which is getting rocks up and punishing physical attackers. I'd actually say the opposite, in that an Aegislash metagame is incredibly difficult to be creative in, because for something creative to be defined as useful and worth its opportunity cost, it has to be able to beat Aegis, by far the most dominant pokemon in the metagame. Most of the options that can already do this have been explored, and it's resulted in an incredibly stale metagame, where there is little room for creativity because it's simply not worth it when you could just abuse AegiLop or AegiLando or Aegi+top threat who's checks are made unviable by Aegi.
nor were we supposed to discuss any suspects other than this one in the thread. - This entire suspect is different, you know. Read the OP: The current OU metagame is characterized by the presence of incredibly powerful attackers, such as Mega-Metagross, Mega-Diancie, Mega-Gardevoir and so on. We believe that a Pokémon like Aegislash, while being potentially overcentralizing, could provide a reliable and all-round check to many of the aforementioned threats, thus giving some stability to a tier that's currently heavily influenced by the match up component of the game.
This suspect is about fixing the meta by dealing with threats. aegi/ makes lando better, but it makes all these other things not as broken.

And yes, aegi pressures certain things into being less broken, when you say creativity you really mean matchup. Less things are able to shit on teams effectively. There is still creativity- use these sets anyway. But it isn't as broken as it was before, eliminating part of the matchup problem. It isn't a stale meta at all, aegislash can use all sorts of sets, there are still many things that are usable.

lots of crap
If they make these changes to their teams they will lose to other things. That's why its called matchup. These aren't necessarily improvements to the team, they are changes that make you lose to something else. Maybe switching in lando on the knock off was a bad idea, but you get the point. Maybe aegi/ won't completely fix this, but the point is you can't deny that there is a matchup problem in the current meta
 
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