I think it has much more to do with the type of metagame people want to play. I think that there are a group of people that don't want anything banned other than a handful of the most utterly broken stuff in the game. Others seem to be against anything other than the most dull tier where everything is able to be beaten 100% of the time by a well played 6 Pokemon. Honestly, that's why Smogon puts these suspect tests in the hands of the people of Smogon. Only the players themselves can adequately express what they want to play by majority vote. There is no perfect meta for everyone, and I think people often forget this as they argue in these suspect threads. Some people may find it more fun to have a game similar to gen 1 ubers where it's all about 1 threat and counter that threat, while others want as much diversity as possible. It's just about changing people's opinion on the matter rather than beat the dead horse of "Aegislash is over centralizing" or "the metagame is too diverse to correctly prepare for without Aegislash."
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np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 3 - Wandering Ghosts [Aegislash remains in Ubers]
- Thread starter McMeghan
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nowhere did i say that aegislash needed to beat lando-i. i simply said that it helped combat 2 very big threats to the metagame. Sure, you could say that bulky chomp and av slowking beat gross, but those are two niche mons. Bulky chomp is slowly making its way here, but nobody is going to over-centralize so much as to put AV slowking on every team just to beat gross. Aegislash is a blanket check to these mons. Your theory about kang is definitely interesting... Sure, kang can't switch in on them, but can they switch in on kang? Frustration/EQ easily takes on these 2 mons. What mon would help Kang in this situation though, where it needed a fighting immunity? the sword and shield. I really dont need to not look at it from a non-linear perspective, because thats all it is: a straightforward discussion. Aegislash helps beat mons that were troubling us before and you can't deny that. If anything, Aegislash helps beat this constant onslaught of physical mons that so tarnish the metagame: Scizor, Terrakion, Tyranitar (can't switch in), Breloom, Pinsir, Diancie. It also stops the draco spam that is the lati twins and aids in the removal of Gothitelle.
Yea, a personal bias. I'm not going to make this about peoples ideas on what the meta should be, but these are the same people that kept MegaGross OU. A large portion of why this thread goes in circles is because the burden is always on the pro ban side when it comes to whether something is broken or not. So, when people come in here with the mindset of "it isn't broken and nothing you say will change my mind on that" it's just personal biased. We're explaining to them how it is perceived as broken, if you (not you per se) can't see that, then you're wasting my time, which is a large portion of what these threads are, which is why we talk in circles so often. If you want a meta with Aegi in it, you're going to vote no ban, simple as that, despite everything we have explained, if you still vote that, then there has to be a large amount of personal bias behind it.
I stated a long time ago, we need to stop thinking things that are ban worthy need to be broken as shit, and easy to 6-0 teams. We need to ask if these Pokemon are healthy for the metagame, and helping it move forward. If we ask ourselves that we can see that Aegislash does not supply us with either of those.
I never said that they could switch in on them; Landorus-I does not switch in on Aegislash either. My point is that in a one-on-one scenario, Aegislash is not supposed to beat everything. In addition, some of the Pokemon that you cite tarnish the metagame, such as Terrakion, Breloom, and Pinsir, have actually declined in usage due to metagame trends not being in their favor, so arguing that we need Aegislash to beat them is not the most viable point. Latios and Latias were still very common in Aegislash XY, and Aegislash being re-introduced into the tier is not going to make them mediocre threats, for they still possess very useful assets for a team. While they hate Aegislash more than anything, they were one of the few Pokemon that hated Aegislash that could still last in such an Aegis-centralized metagame. You argue that Aegislash helps us beat this onslaught of physical mon. On the flipside, you could argue that Aegislash beats almost any defensive Pokemon it wants to consistently, though it will not be able to defeat all of them with only a single moveset; however, the moveset is highly adjustable to the needs of the teammates. Not even Landorus-I could ever boast of such consistency, and this aspect, in addition to its potent defensive capabilities enabling such consistency, is what the true heart of the problem in Aegislash is. Sure, Aegislash blanket checks the entirety of OU, but that alone is an impartial understanding of why Aegislash is problematic.
Slowking as a niche mon is debatable, but Garchomp is an A+ mon right now, and I'm pretty sure Tankchomp was his most used set and the big reason he jumped from A -> A+ recently.
Also, the problem with your Kang argument is that Aegislash certainly made it better, but it would be broken even without Aegislash's support, unlike, say, Lopunny. Aegislash made getting Kangaskhan in easier, but worst case, you'd sac and bring Kangaskhan in. As an offensive threat, it typically took a much greater cost to force Kangaskhan out than even our current S-Rank threats require.
And the problem is that Aegislash beats some problem mons from before, but he amplifies the effectiveness of the remaining ones that preparation is arguably harder. Let's just look at the S-Ranks (bar Clefable, who moved up just recently).
- Metagross: Needs to run Earthquake now, which while viable, is the lesser of the coverage options for that slot.
- Altaria: Usually ran anti-Steel coverage of some kind regardless of set, but Aegislash is fat enough to check it regardless
- Landorus-I: Eats opposing Aegislash, while Aegislash on his side counters and removes most of his other checks/counters like the Lati's, Slowbro, and Metagross (to name some)
- Keldeo: Choiced sets hurt a bit, but only in so far as watching coverage. They spam Scald/Hydro Pump the majority of the time, and SubCM loses little. Again, Slowbro/Slowking, the Latis, Unaware Clefable, Mega Gardevoir, etc.
So two S-Ranks (who come with slightly more opportunity cost as Megas) lose out on Aegislash (debatably in one case), while two others gain a teammate who eats their healthier-for-the-metagame checks and counters without being a problem for them to fight themselves. Maybe now I don't need 2 checks to Gross, Alt, Keldeo, and Lando per team, but now (from a smaller pool of viable mons), I need maybe 1 check for Metagross and Altaria (due to their lessened versatility), but 2 each for Lando and Keldeo, who had overlapping options (like Slowbro or the Latis) invalidated, making prep for them even more of a strain.
And this is ignoring other mons that might climb to S-Rank with Aegislash around (Bisharp and Lopunny immediately stick out).
The "match-up" issue is only being looked at in one aspect, that of how many mons to prepare for. Aegislash reduces this aspect of strain, but he accentuates the other: the amount of preparation each mon requires.
Aegislash creates a metagame with half as many threats (himself included) that each requires twice as much support. This seems like a fair trade, but with half as many viable mons, there's much less to fill the options for that "twice as much support" on a team, which makes team building extremely linear to be effective. And Aegislash himself is extremely versatile and splashable, but he can only feasibly provide so much of that support. Aegislash pushes most defensive mons down, but then you face overloading him since he's taking roles from at least half a dozen defensive mon. The result is the an increase for Hyper Offense, a playstyle already built around overloading entire teams, much less one prominent Pokemon, even as powerful as Aegislash.
And if Aegislash is indeed strong enough defensively and supportively to wall a number of threats that take 6 mons to do otherwise, I'd think that would fall under the broken definition for defense. We either get a broken defensive Pokemon, or an overloaded Blanket check that isn't even blanket checking the mons we consider the problem.
Where do I begin here... the metagame atm is one of the worst ones we EVER had and if u saw the suspect tour yesterday there was ATON of diversity and some really cool teams.. aegislash is not a broken mon and actually stops HO teams and creates more diversity in teambuliding also, its not as good as a blanket check as it was in x and y and if we considered mons problems then why are they still in ou?
Aegislash is beneficial to ou the suspect ladder and the amazing tour from yesterday proved this to me, this is not like x and y aegi can take ORAS off life support and be just the thing we need
Also if a mon stopped all the s rank pokes... then it work be broken mate,
Alot of you aren't even giving aegi the chance here and are going off x and y (which was decided by 2-3 votes..) this is a different metagame which aegislash fits quite nicely IMO
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Because we decided to test Aegislash first instead of doing other potential removal suspects. Just because we tested Genesect first in XY doesn't mean Deoxys-S wasn't an unhealthy mon either.
The problem isn't that Aegislash needs to stop all the S-Ranks. The problem is that Aegislash hinders 2, but makes the other two even better. Objectively, we want Aegislash to inhibit a larger number of Pokemon than he improves (at least within the high ranks), since the issue with ORAS is having too many high viability threats to account for. If Aegislash knocks down 25 of them, but makes the other 25 harder to deal with, the match-up problem isn't necessarily any better.
And Aegislash doesn't exactly stop HO any more than he does any other playstyle, since he brings offensive power himself, defensive backbone (not used, but a nice bonus where it's found), and inhibits Stall as much as any other playstyle. The issue here is that some of the mons he improves (Lopunny, Landorus, Bisharp) are very accustomed to Hyper Offense, and Hyper Offense benefits most in facing teams depending on Blanket Checks, since the greatest weakness of Blanket Checks/Counters is being over burdened, even for one as effective as Aegislash. Stall can't stomach the offensive cores Aegislash is involved in consistently, but HO can overload the defensive core Aegislash will be found in just by employing a more Dakka method. Even moreso, Aegislash reduces the viability/usage of a lot of defensive mons like Slowbro, defensive Altaria, Slowking, Latias, Clefable, Celebi, and Jirachi, meaning HO has less to worry about in terms of picking coverage or predicting in battle.
no, aegi doesnt make lando-i more broken. a smart player will always know that, if they are to use aegislash, they absolutely need to counter the sand genie, which will make landorus counters more and more common, thus making lando-i actually healthy for the meta. (it wont break teams as easily, while in turn will hard-check a very common and strong pokemon)
lopunny isn't broken either in the aegi meta. if my arguments about lando-i not being broken are valid, lopunny is even less broken because it's much easier to counter than landorus, and comes with hindrances like costing a mega slot and being useless against non offensive teams.
additionally, i'd just like to note that my point isnt "aegi is ez to counter pls unban it xd", rather it's like "the current metagame is shitty and needs to change". in the non-aegi meta we have pokemon that pressure teambuilding A LOT. mega gross for example forces some teams to run stuff like slowking when they could be using starmie/tentacruel and avoid being destroyed by hazards. (as i've already examplified) and since we already tested it and it was deemed not broken, it'll probably never be banned. altaria is another mon who makes the game even more matchup based, as it effectively forces you to run 2 mons to counter it (if you're not using mega venusaur) and because it walls mons like most dragons/fighters/fires/waters/grasses, you need to properly counter it if running one of those.
"then lets just ban gross and altaria instead of unbanning aegi". yeah that's exactly what i would do. the problem is: it won't happen. as i've said, we've already voted metagross not broken, so it'll take ages for it to be tested again. as for altaria, it's apparently agreed that it's not as broken as metagross and kept in check by it, so the chances we ban it are also rather slim.
lopunny isn't broken either in the aegi meta. if my arguments about lando-i not being broken are valid, lopunny is even less broken because it's much easier to counter than landorus, and comes with hindrances like costing a mega slot and being useless against non offensive teams.
additionally, i'd just like to note that my point isnt "aegi is ez to counter pls unban it xd", rather it's like "the current metagame is shitty and needs to change". in the non-aegi meta we have pokemon that pressure teambuilding A LOT. mega gross for example forces some teams to run stuff like slowking when they could be using starmie/tentacruel and avoid being destroyed by hazards. (as i've already examplified) and since we already tested it and it was deemed not broken, it'll probably never be banned. altaria is another mon who makes the game even more matchup based, as it effectively forces you to run 2 mons to counter it (if you're not using mega venusaur) and because it walls mons like most dragons/fighters/fires/waters/grasses, you need to properly counter it if running one of those.
"then lets just ban gross and altaria instead of unbanning aegi". yeah that's exactly what i would do. the problem is: it won't happen. as i've said, we've already voted metagross not broken, so it'll take ages for it to be tested again. as for altaria, it's apparently agreed that it's not as broken as metagross and kept in check by it, so the chances we ban it are also rather slim.
And that isn't a sign that aegi makes lando-i better. The fact that you're admitting that people will need an a counter to lando-i just goes to prove that aegi makes it better.
That's not true. . . We retested the Deos fairly quickly, we can also test multiple Pokemon at once, these aren't things that are unheard of, we've done them before. So, why would this be any different? And basing your (not yours per se, I don't know what you're voting) vote on going into things blind despite knowing there is a problem isn't helping. I'd rather find out for sure it's not happening and deal with it, than deal with the garbage Aegislash will bring and ban the wrong things later on.
Can you explain why this is? I personally dont think Aegislash is bad based on this one suspect test (I wasn't around for it in XY so I cant say how good/broken it was there) and will probably be voting no-ban anyway, but I do feel like things should only be banned if they are broken in some way. I personally have a high tolerance for centralisation as it is, but why should I vote to ban something that isn't broken just so that I can use some different mons? Isn't that an example of the bias you have for keeping aegislash out of OU?
As I've said in the past, I dont feel particularly strong in any direction about aegi getting banned, and would be open to arguments to change my mind, however none of the arguments in this thread have adequately satisfied my belief that I was wrong and Aegislash is broken, or convinced me that high degrees of centralisation is a reason to ban something. It's taken as a given by many pro-ban supporters, but you aren't explaining your reasoning behind that to those of us who disagree with that premise.
It's not at all Lando-I / Gyarados food, as you have to give both free switches, and Lando struggles more with Balloon Aegis. Alongside the fact a team will with Aegis will be able to handle those threats. Look at the usage from the suspect tours; Keldeo 23%, Torn-T 21%, Latios 20%, Thundurus 17%, Ferrothorn 16%, Rotom-W 13%, Latias 11%, Skarmory 10%, Venusaur 10%, and Mega Altaria 8%. No team was and no team will be unprepared for those threats in an Aegislash meta, so even if Aegislash is "lando/gyarados food" they'll only be able to force it out one-two times after giving it a free switch.
Bringing Aegislash back into the tier because it cripples a Pokemon that was voted not to be banned from OU is not a good reason to bring Aegislash down. If a Pokemon needs to be crippled or nerfed it should have been banned, not crippled by the drop of another 'Mon that shouldn't be in the tier.
If I remember correctly you specialize in ubers correct? So yes you're coming into this suspect on the premise that hyper centralization on the level that you see in ubers is something normal to you. That's fine, but try to look at it from the perspective from a player who predominately plays OU. By all means correct me if I'm wrong if you're a frequent OU player but the centralization you see in ubers should definitely not be in a similar fashion to one of the OU tier. There are certain focuses of centralization right now in the fact you see a lot of the same such as Garchomp, Torn-T, Landorus, Mega Altaria, Keldeo, etc. This amount of centralization is realistically ok. What isn't ok is that the suspect tours of Aegislash had about x2 the usage of the pokemon that took second place in both of these suspect tours and had on average a 50% chance of win rate in that sample size. Normally we don't use win rates to justify an entire argument but about 133 in a short span of time to know you would win half your 1v1s just by having it on the team is a pretty good signthe amount of centralization it has. Then let's consider that Lopunnys usage in the second suspect tour sort of just skyrocketed more than average because Aegislash created this meta than benefitted a whole plethora of dangerous threats while mitigating normal threats to the way side, creating the tier centered around either strong stuff or anything that can check Aegislash.
Well the sad part is that people who want to unban it have openly admitted the high amounts of centralization it will cause but have used this a cop out and cheap way to stabilize the metagame when in reality it just stablizes around Aegislash not fostering any sort of real development in the ORAS metagame, aka the one we have now that is constantly developing even in the presence of somewhat busted aspects. We really shouldn't be catering to the idea that such a high amount of centralization should be endorsed to give ourselves the illusion that it's going to be ok when you've just created a tier that has become stagnant in their archetypes.
Alright, I need to address the bolded points:
First, what counters does Landorus-I actually have? The only immediate ideas are M-Latias, Cresselia, and AV Slowking. Now, where could we find a Pokemon that doesn't constrain teambuilding and can beat these? Preferably with other utility to the team and a good STAB to keep it flexible. Oh wait, I just described Aegislash!
Aegislash doesn't make Landorus-I better because Landorus-I can beat it, it makes Landorus-I better because Aegislash is a low risk, high reward way to run trains over most of Landorus-I's checks without sacrificing anything notable in the way of synergy or utility.
So no, your arguments about Lando-I not being broken are NOT valid, therefore they do not prove Lopunny healthy either. Lopunny benefits the same way: Aegislash beats most of Lopunny's common checks/counters (primarily bulky Psychics and Fairies) without being a dramatic inhibition on Lopunny herself. Also, your claim of being useless against non-offensive teams is really underselling Lopunny's other options, such as Sub-PuP, or even just running Encore in one of its free slots.
Even if I concede that the current Metagame isn't good, what proof is there that the subsequent Metagame will be better? If you want to objectively say that the current metagame is terrible by some criteria, you need to demonstrate how Aegislash makes the metagame better along those same criteria.
Your replay is to highlight how people are forced to "run stuff like Slowking over something like Starmie/Tentacruel", which is a faulty comparison for a few reasons.
- The two mons serve completely different roles, Slowking intended as a tank thanks to recovery and its natural bulk, which I'm pretty sure even uninvested is higher than Starmie's. Starmie and Tentacruel opt for defensive investment, but that is more for the purpose of surviving a hit while they spin, rather than being dedicated to switching into attacks as Slowking has to. Slowking could not have easily been dropped to fit Starmie or Tentacruel, because Slowking (assuming AV from lack of Leftovers recovery) was his secondary answer to Jirachi, Hippowdon, Clefable, and (in an extreme emergency) Zard-Y. Neither Starmie nor Tentacruel would have managed well against any of those bar Hippowdon.
- You in this same post said it would be fine if people "absolutely need" to counter Landorus-I. That entails dedicating slots to that purpose the same way Slowking is to dealing with Metagross. Either being forced to run an answer is good or it's bad. Pick one.
- So it's bad because supposedly Altaria "effectively forces you to run 2 mons to counter it", likely because of its set variety. Yet Lando-I is fine despite often requiring two answer to the SAME set?
Adding Aegislash is a cheap fix to the metagame and it's not a sustainable philosophy in the long run. I know we should mainly focus on the present for the suspect, but the fact is that unbanning something in hopes of it fixing the problems won't work ultimately. What if next gen we end up with a plethora of threats that even Aegislash can't blanket check? Then we end up having to do a ton of suspecting again anyway. If we try the Aegislash method by bringing down another blanket check (like Giratina-O during the April Fool's suspect), we're falling into "Broken check Broken" territory because we rely too much on being able to slap easy checks on a team rather than suspect and remove the mons putting so much strain on teambuilding by themselves. Dropping things should be because the game is ALREADY balanced, not in an effort TO balance.
We should be suspecting and removing the Pokemon that are making the metagame unhealthy, rather than hiding behind a Base 60/150/150 Shield and assuming the problem is gone because we can't see it back there.
I hate to seem annoying but 57% ban voting is everything but "deemed not broken". Then we all know how that went but you can't say this as statement because that "no ban" decision was decreed in a really shaky way (and I dont see why there shouldnt be a resuspect soon, considering the close vote..then Council will do what's considered better of course).
I know this is not the right place where talk about this but I didnt call this argument and as pro-ban couldnt talk about other suspects, also pro-unban shouldn't for playing field. (so if you gonna delete this post, delete also the pro-unban part mentioning MegaGross suspect)
To focus on Aegi topic I dont see any difference between Slowking usage just for MegaGross and Chesnaught/Mandibuzz usage just for Aegislash, they can cover a particular role in the metagame other than countering MegaGross/Aegislash, and without these broken (yes megagross is broken) mons they would be quite useless in the metagame so what are we talkin about?
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You've stated the reasons as to why Aegislash is too centralising, but not the reason as to why centralisation is that terrible/banworthy. I'm still not getting that viewpoint, especially in comparison to DPP where something like Heatran is on most teams (someone before said 70%, I'm pretty sure it's closer to 40%, but usage stats aren't coming up for me EDIT: DPP in SPL had tyranitar as 56% usage (Heatran was 8th with 20%, who told me it was on 70% of teams lol)). I do know that Aegislash will cause a high degree of centralisation, and if it was on the level of Primal-Groudon I would support it's ban (I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't), but it's not even close to that benchmark based on my (admittedly very limited) experience in this suspect tour.
On a side, yes I main ubers, but I do play a fair amount of OU alongside it, to have fun in places where the people aren't amused by the idea of greninja as an offensive threat.
Mega Salamence, Mega Kangashkahn, Deoxys. These are things that would be considered over centralizing to high degrees for OU standards. By no means am I saying that Aegislash's centralization is on par with the three former but the point being is that at some point there's a certain threshold where centralization is fine because it allows a tier to adapt in a more comfortable and less obtrusive manner. Aegislash exceeds this threshold because it almost immediately dictated the functions of the threats in our meta where those who can handle Aegislash are further emphasized while those are either thrown to the way side almost immediately or are forced to create archetypes that puts a high amount on emphasis on mitigating Aegislash's control, thus big surprise makes you weaker to plenty more. Its centralization is further enhanced by the plethora of sets it has because it constrains teambuilding to realistically take into account all of its sets, which many are being vastly underrated in this thread such as subtoxic which was the most obnoxious thing to watch in the suspect tour (see Bluwing v Reymedy as an example). When you've become a threat in the meta that requires very little thought process in utilizing effectively, chances are you've hit the point of centralization or strength that mandates you should be leaving the tier. Greninja can be considered a more recent example if you want I guess a comparison standpoint of unhealthy so to speak.
Aegislash isn't centralizing necessarily by usage, but because of the fact that if two mons play the same role, regardless of what their respective advantages are, Mon A is objectively inferior if it loses (more) momentum to Aegislash compared to Mon B. While Tyranitar was a very effective mon in DPP (I hear more about Scizor though whenever conversation comes up), but losing to him did not inherently make you inferior to a Mon competing for your role. You won't see Aegislash on 70% of teams, but for the 30% he's on, Mon A will never put in more work than Mon B solely based on how they match-up against the sword.
(I do not play Ubers, so do not hesitate to call me out on faulty comparisons should I make them)
Aegislash may not centralize to the sheer magnitude that Primal-Groudon does, but my limited observation leads me to believe they have similar effect: In Ubers, being weak to Primal Groudon is enough to drop your viability almost an entire letter rank compared to a pokemon in the same role. Kyogre and Primal Kyogre are separated by C+ - S- Rank, a primary reason being the latter matches up against P-Don while the former loses. Look at how many Psychic types popped up that were nowhere to be seen in Aegislash's metagame: Starmie, an OU staple since the series inception, dropped firmly into UU until Aegislash was banned. Centralization should make match-up against the centralizing threat a factor, not the basis of viability.
And last is the fact that Aegislash is a low risk/high reward, very easy to utilize Pokemon. A team loses virtually nothing by using him for a role, and there are very few roles he will not play well even in the hands of a mediocre player (as I can attest to). Would you say this also applied to Primal Groudon (who I imagine is effective but not mindless to use)?
Centralization is inevitable, but I'm at least of the opinion it should be mitigated where possible, certainly not outright invoked. Having to account as heavily for Aegislash as for a multitude of other threats ultimately inhibits the ability of mons to experiment and adapt, even moreso when you consider Aegislash can usually adapt more easily than they can. I read in the Ubers viability thread that Mega Mence had been developing sets that helped it to better check Primal Groudon, which in turn led people to bring up the (admittedly niche) option of Don running Dragon Pulse. P-Don running Dragon Pulse in that slot loses less than Mence does using a P-Don check set that fails to check it sufficiently.
What it really boils down to is up to personal preference on what kind of developing metagame we want.
We can either vote for:
A) A metagame that continuously evolves and develops making running old counter teams ineffective and the rapid increase and decrease in viability rank of mons constantly changing.
or
B) A metagame that stabilizes and stays in it's current state, and remains in that state until new metagame threats are added (basically genshift, or "Z" mega shift) which may become repetitive or stale, but more balanced and managable.
The later personally sounds like a more ideal option imo, except personally I'm not seeing the metagame on the suspect ladder as stagnant. I see a lot of creative sets and interesting builds not just for aegislash specifically but a few other things. The metagame doesn't seem to have any overcentralization around aegislash specifically, but rather we have to consider that this is a developing simulation of what an aegislash meta could look like.. it's not accurate in that we don't know say, what it would look like months from now when the metagame stabilizes more and people discover the pokemon that now thrive due to aegi's presence. We found out lopunny may be potentially broken with aegislash around, but we didn't keep aegislash to keep mawile from being broken, so we shouldn't keep aegislash banned to keep lopunny from being broken. If that's a problem, we'll get to that next or hell players may wise up and discover good checks to lopunny that synergize with aegislash.. (or just don't use aegislash).
Also I really think we need to clarify what overcentralization is... just because some pokemon have to run a coverage move inorder to handle a single check (fireblast chomp for skarm, EQ altaria for heatran) doesn't mean that's overcentralization.. overcentralization would be to the extent of completely relying on BS lower tier pokemon to counter it.. all aegislash's checks are well at home in the OU metagame as it is.. unlike say greninja who brought up empoleon, tentacruel, and porygon2 or mawile forcing people to run weezing and arcanine... all somewhat sub-par pokemon that were barely viable in OU otherwise. Still, the argument of things dropping from aegislash's existance is really debatable when relistically we didn't get a good visual of what actually is and isn't viable in the short period of time this test was taken in comparison to previous metas with greninja, mawile, deoxys, etc etc. (see remedy winning the tour with a starmie, a.k.a the #1 concern as something dropping to UU when aegislash is reintroduced... yeah looks pretty fine in an aegi metagame to me.)
We can either vote for:
A) A metagame that continuously evolves and develops making running old counter teams ineffective and the rapid increase and decrease in viability rank of mons constantly changing.
or
B) A metagame that stabilizes and stays in it's current state, and remains in that state until new metagame threats are added (basically genshift, or "Z" mega shift) which may become repetitive or stale, but more balanced and managable.
The later personally sounds like a more ideal option imo, except personally I'm not seeing the metagame on the suspect ladder as stagnant. I see a lot of creative sets and interesting builds not just for aegislash specifically but a few other things. The metagame doesn't seem to have any overcentralization around aegislash specifically, but rather we have to consider that this is a developing simulation of what an aegislash meta could look like.. it's not accurate in that we don't know say, what it would look like months from now when the metagame stabilizes more and people discover the pokemon that now thrive due to aegi's presence. We found out lopunny may be potentially broken with aegislash around, but we didn't keep aegislash to keep mawile from being broken, so we shouldn't keep aegislash banned to keep lopunny from being broken. If that's a problem, we'll get to that next or hell players may wise up and discover good checks to lopunny that synergize with aegislash.. (or just don't use aegislash).
Also I really think we need to clarify what overcentralization is... just because some pokemon have to run a coverage move inorder to handle a single check (fireblast chomp for skarm, EQ altaria for heatran) doesn't mean that's overcentralization.. overcentralization would be to the extent of completely relying on BS lower tier pokemon to counter it.. all aegislash's checks are well at home in the OU metagame as it is.. unlike say greninja who brought up empoleon, tentacruel, and porygon2 or mawile forcing people to run weezing and arcanine... all somewhat sub-par pokemon that were barely viable in OU otherwise. Still, the argument of things dropping from aegislash's existance is really debatable when relistically we didn't get a good visual of what actually is and isn't viable in the short period of time this test was taken in comparison to previous metas with greninja, mawile, deoxys, etc etc. (see remedy winning the tour with a starmie, a.k.a the #1 concern as something dropping to UU when aegislash is reintroduced... yeah looks pretty fine in an aegi metagame to me.)
yeah there are a few things wrong with this that I wanna address. Well first it's already been stated that pdon is not a "healthy centralize" and most ubers players would ban it if given the chance. Also from my point of view it would appear that you may be thinking aegi is not banned judging by when you said "all we accomplished was keeping another pokemon from shining" aegi was previously banned in xy and this is a retest to see if it helps the current issues in the oras metagame. I apologize if I just am interpreting that wrong but to me that is what it looks like. Another point is that we don't care about how a suspect performs in ubers. Whether it's bad or good we don't care if it's unhealthy for ou we're banning it. Lastly you do not have an aegi counter 9/10 times because there are only counters to specific sets and not to aegi as a whole. What this means is that you may think your spdef gliscor can handle that aegislash but oops it's the LO crumber set with hp ice! Oh you switch in mandibuzz catch this head smash. So no it is not the "fault of the player" for getting torn up by aegi as much as it is aegislash being too much for this tier to handle. I and many others have made posts throughout the thread stating how aegislash is too much for this tier so I won't go too much into detail.
AM Edit: Deleted this part that you replied to since comment was deleted anyways.
I wanted to point out some flaws in the argument, especially about a pokemon "truly shining." That means either 2 things, and both are bad arguments IMO. The first thing it could mean is that you don't want it to go to ubers, because it won't be used/is underpowered in ubers, which doesn't matter at all. The second thing it could mean is that you want to keep something overpowered/overcentralizing in a tier so it can be good. That would be like putting mega pinsir down into UU and saying, "it shouldn't go back to BL, its finally getting usage!" I don't think you should say something should be unbanned just so it has a chance to "shine," which could also open the floodgates for crap like mlucario, and mmawile to come back because they don't "shine" in ubers.
I alway disliked that philosophy, specially regarding the usage argument in a non usage based play style like Ubers. I would ha choose mega medicham or Gallade in the analogy as those are on the UU flavor of the month in my opinion XD.
Usage in a higher tier is irrelevant as a reason to keep a pokemon in a tier it has become an unhealthy presence, as it is being tested in its metagame bubble. Just as the usage of a pokemon post his megastone ban becomes irrelevant as the suspect is based on the mega capabilities instead of the base form.
Your argument states why there will be different sets such as head smash/hp ice. Say everyone runs the standard sets of aegislash, with no variation. Well, looks like mandibuzz and gliscor become pretty good checks, don't they? So, everyone starts running mandibuzz or gliscor to check aegislash. Now the aegislash users, they see this and think, "hmm, these pokes are problems, what could I run to beat them? Oh yeah, HP ice or head smash!" This is how the metagame develops. However, with aegislash, it will go in a loop, because once HP ice/head smash start to become more standard, people will start dropping mandibuzz and gliscor for more favorable checks. Then, aegislash goes back to standard sets, people start running mandi/gliscor, etc. It won't change until the next batch of games gets released.
firstly, a counter doesn't necessarily have to be a 100% one. those you mentioned are 100% ones, but there are many great lando checks such as torn-t, lati@s, and pratically everything that outspeeds it and hits it super effectively, like keldeo, weavile, cb azu, mamo, etc, or, if you're using stall, chansey/blissey. and then again, if the person is relying on those psychic types to beat lando-i, he will (assuming he's a good player) have countereasures for aegislash. so if there is a battle between lando + aegi vs lando counter + aegi counter, it will be decided on who plays better, which is exactly the goal of trying to have a competitively balanced metagame.
ok, aegislash does defeat those, but, then again, a well built team that relies on bulky psychics/faries to beat lop, will necessarily have answers to aegislash, which returns to my point (lop + aegi vs lop counter + aegi counter will be decided on who plays better). and tell me how pup or encore lopunny is coming close to get past chesnaught, slowbro, defensive celebi, etc.
well i cant objectively prove it, i'm speaking based on my experiences on the ladder and watching the suspect tours. i went 41-10 on the ladder without losing to matchup a single time, and that was because my team (scarftar, ferrothorn, aegislash, gliscor, charizard-y, latios) was severely weak to lopunny, a mon which was being spammed. i lost one game because of a triple rock slide miss, another one because of a disconnection, and the other 8 losses were because i either choked or got outplayed. i also then laddered for fun with a team with no OUs just to try and prove how it was possible to be creative in the aegi meta and went approx 5-1 (i only got 4 replays though, 1, 2, 3, 4. well i forfeited the last one because i didnt need points, and u can argue i got lucky in some of those but yea). that coupled with a lot of creative teams we saw on yesterday's tour imo evidence how this metagame can be innovative and surprising.
they serve different roles, but they have terrible synergy if put together, since that's compounding a lot of weakness. also wtf? slowking gets paralyzed by jirachi, while starmie has natural cure; starmie fails to beat clefable but so does slowking; both beat hippowdon; both would beat that charizard y set (eq, flamethrower, wow, roost), and both would lose to max spa solarbeam zard, so i dont really understand the last part of your post.
the difference is people can actually afford to ABSOLUTELY COUNTER an S rank if there are only 30 A ranks instead of 53. especially if they have an aegislash, which blanket checks a lot of them. in the non-aegi but with gross/altaria metagame you need to counter those because they're S ranks, then you have an additional 51 very different mons to counter.
well, i honestly don't really give a fuck about how our tiering philisophy should be made. (and are you at least a tier leader to decide how it should be made anyway?) what i care about is how good the current metagame currently is. and i think a lot of people agree with me that oras ou is terrible right now, even if they want to keep aegi banned. and again, i prefer broken checking broken than nothing checking broken.
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