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Ladder Mix and Mega

No, there have been solid arguments for it, not just theorymonning. However, I completely agree that the opportunity cost is FAR higher here than in Ubers. It's roles don't completely overlap w/ Victini, as a matter of fact, they are really quite a lot different. Victini is a FAR better wallbreaker, but Pdon is better able to sweep and support its team. I feel that A is very much fair, considering its crazy bulk, vast number of support options, far superior defensive typing, and access to Rock Polish. Also, although you are right that this is small, but it does have a 70 BST advantage, which is a pretty big number.


I'm not so sure about that. Stall is limited by the number of available stones, but psychic types seem to be a dominating force for stall, and they are a threat to Gengar in themselves. I'm not dismissing your suggestion, but I'm just uncertain.

Also, I must say, I feel offensive teams will still be far more popular and dominating anyways, especially w/ cresselias banning. The options for offense are, not surprisingly, far greater than stall. Gamefreak just doesn't like stall, imo. Balance-balanced/bulky offense seems to be very good here. The problem is, there are so many things that hit like a nuclear warhead that it's really hard to fully stop many offensive threats, even for stall. Offense has to really play prediction well, otherwise you're screwed. If you mispredict and use the wrong move on a not yet mega-evolved opponent, you may just end up helping them. Sceptilite is a prime example. You not only could boost there SpA, but youll kill momentum, which offense needs desperately. It'll be important to have stuff to force the opponent to reveal their mega stone, so that basically once you start a sweep, it can't be interrupted by something like that, because, once again, if the sweep is cut short, it could easily lose you the entire match. Trying to stack stuff w/ common checks is going to be risky, because it's not always inherently clear what those checks are. This will hold back HO teams, too.
Same thing was said about Inheritance, and stall dominated inheritance.

Stall isn't about psychic types, I have no idea what psychic type you'd even use effectively anyways. I'm only using one psychic type on my team and it handles all the top threats perfectly, the only problem I can look at straight away is Shadow tag. Gothitelles got a boost. Wobbuffet got a boost. Gengar is still horribly threatening to stall. And stall got nothing to help beat trapping, they can't run shed shell now. idk... trapping is already controversial and it's even more powerful in this metagame, so I don't see why we shouldn't ban it.
 
Few things with the viability rankings:

Landorus-T to A+

Its a strong mon, but the metagame isn't very friendly to it. It has a terrible matchup against a large portion of the meta, regardless of what set its running, because it lacks the bulk and speed to shine properly. Lopunnite and Mewtwonite X are both easily revenged killed by Pixilate/Aerilate Espeed, while Altarianite is generally lacking in bulk and speed, hindering it from getting off RPs. Furthermore, sets not named Mewtwonite X have trouble getting kills on the many bulky mons in this meta. Gengar, a common offensive mon, can beat it at +2 if it has yet to mega evolve. Pinsirite Entei, a very popular set, easily revenges all variants and can even switch in with its good bulk. Lucarionite Keldeo can beat both non-pixi sets, while pixi sets are easily countered by the immensely useful Latiasite Heatran. Overall, its still very effective, but it has somewhat consistent checks and is generally underwhelming for an S rank pokemon.

Dragonite to S

I am the biggest known advocate for dragonite because it sweeps basically everything. It doesn't need anything but espeed, earthquake, and dragon dance to sweep about 90% of the meta. Multiscale pre-mega is incredible for setting up, and its dragon/fairy typing assists this as well. With Pixilate Espeed, it literally OHKOs half of the meta at +1 due to its attack stat of 491, almost as high as adamant Primal Groudon. Earthquake hits all its resists for SE damage as well, and it can run roost in the last slot to abuse its good bulk and great typing against threats that wall it but can't do too much damage. Furthermore, it can run superpower and several other coverage moves to get past its common checks and counters due to its deep movepool, and therefore is a massive threat that has to be prepared for on every team. The pixilate set alone warrants S-rank, but Pinsirite, Salamencite, and several other sets have great merit, and its lack of need to immediately mega evolve means it is very hard to do anything while its on the field. It also can revenge kill threats before it even boosts, allowing it to fill the role of cleaner, setup sweeper, wallbreaker, and revenge killer all in one slot. This is probably the most effective mon in the tier atm.

Weavile to A-

This is a really cool fastmon for offense. Refrigerate sets are absolutely devastating, with blazing 145 speed and 160 attack alongside refrigerate return. Like in any other meta, Refrigerate Weavile is amazing and hits tremendously hard. Knock Off going away hurts it, but it has night slash, and thats really all it needs alongside low kick for coverage and swords dance to boost. Tough Claws also has the ever-amazing TC Pursuit, which is extremely useful for picking off defensive threats as they switch out. Overall a mon I feel shines above the rest of the B rank population atm.

Implemented, sounds reasonable.

Tornadus to A (Pidgeotite)

Reasoning? I get that No Guard Hurricane is cool, but I'm having trouble seeing A on that basis.

Alakazam to B (Pidgeotite, Altarianite, Absolite, Manectite)

I don't quite follow Altarianite. It doesn't get Hyper Voice, and even with Altarianite its Attack is just 90, so I'm not following how this would be a useful and worthwhile use of your precious Altarianite. I can see the rest of it and will implement, though.

Hippowdon to B (Sablenite, Slowbronite)

What, no Red Orb?

I kid, I kid. Seems reasonable.

Latios to A- (Manectite, Absolite, Altarianite, Sceptilite (better typing), Lucarionite)

Impressive versatility! Going right ahead with it.

Tyranitar to B (Pinsirite, Absolite, Garchompite)

I'd kind of like to hear reasoning on this one first, though Pinsirite sounds viable for sure.

Zapdos to B (Manectite, Sablenite)

On it.

Zygarde to A (Pinsirite, Altarianite, Aerodactylite)

Yeah, Zygarde should've been an easy one with the type-changing stones, though I'm not following Aerodactylite.

Shadow Tag, Evasion

Probably gonna ban them both ultimately, if I'm completely honest. Just don't feel like starting a suspect on either of them right this instant.
 
Another stone to add to Hippowdon imho is Venusarite. With it, it can get rid of its weakness to Ice and serves as a decent check to Victini and other Grass-types that don't carry Grass Knot or Energy Ball / Solar Beam (which isn't saying much, but hey not all Victini run Grass coverage, so).
 
Same thing was said about Inheritance, and stall dominated inheritance.

Stall isn't about psychic types, I have no idea what psychic type you'd even use effectively anyways. I'm only using one psychic type on my team and it handles all the top threats perfectly, the only problem I can look at straight away is Shadow tag. Gothitelles got a boost. Wobbuffet got a boost. Gengar is still horribly threatening to stall. And stall got nothing to help beat trapping, they can't run shed shell now. idk... trapping is already controversial and it's even more powerful in this metagame, so I don't see why we shouldn't ban it.
...What psychic types... Well, we all know cresselia is absolute trash, so... Seriously though, what? There is a number of psychic types, mew is one of the best now that cress is finally gone, that do very well.

If you'd like a list, mew, reuniclus, celebi, slowbro, slowking, latias, jirachi, and bronzong, and others stuff could work too, like (lol) alakazam w/ slowbronite, since many psychic types have access to recover or something similar. They also basically all get calm mind, etc.

I'm not saying they are the entirety of stall, just that they are quite common and very good, despite Gyaradosite adding dark.

edit:
Reasoning? I get that No Guard Hurricane is cool, but I'm having trouble seeing A on that basis.

But, along w/ that, it's also stuuuupid fast and has a lot of other interesting tools, like focus blast too.
I don't quite follow Altarianite. It doesn't get Hyper Voice, and even with Altarianite its Attack is just 90, so I'm not following how this would be a useful and worthwhile use of your precious Altarianite. I can see the rest of it and will implement, though.
Yeah, I don't exactly follow that one either...

What, no Red Orb?

I kid, I kid. Seems reasonable.
Lol

Impressive versatility! Going right ahead with it.
I'd even argue for A, as soul dew is insane.

I'd kind of like to hear reasoning on this one first, though Pinsirite sounds viable for sure.
DD for Absolite, and possibly RP or just sheer power w/ garchompite (sand force)
 
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...What psychic types... Well, we all know cresselia is absolute trash, so... Seriously though, what? There is a number of psychic types, mew is one of the best now that cress is finally gone, that do very well.

If you'd like a list, mew, reuniclus, celebi, slowbro, slowking, latias, jirachi, and bronzong, and others stuff could work too, like (lol) alakazam w/ slowbronite, since many psychic types have access to recover or something similar. They also basically all get calm mind, etc.

I'm not saying they are the entirety of stall, just that they are quite common and very good, despite Gyaradosite adding dark.
I shy away from using multiple psychic types as its easy to stack weaknesses. And can I just say how dumb that argument is? Am i going to be forced to run ground, psychic and dark on my whole team so i can hit m-gengar effectively? The whole problem with shadow tag is that the abusers choose what they face, for example trapping my Victini checks so it can sweep.
 
I shy away from using multiple psychic types as its easy to stack weaknesses. And can I just say how dumb that argument is? Am i going to be forced to run ground, psychic and dark on my whole team so i can hit m-gengar effectively? The whole problem with shadow tag is that the abusers choose what they face, for example trapping my Victini checks so it can sweep.
Can I just say how dumb THAT is? I'm not even saying that hands down it shouldn't be banned, my point is that many common Pokemon on stall can check it. Yeah, I get that it picks and chooses what it wants to kill, but it's not unbeatable. Look at how it's doing IN UBERS rn- it's dropped. If there is stuff that can beat it there, why not here? This meta has every tool that Ubers does to beat it AND MORE. Not to mention the hyper voice spam that can easily catch it off guard and beat the perish trap set. And let's not forget, it is very predictable. You can easily lure it out, then switch out as it comes in and pursuit trap it w/ any number of things. I'm not saying that it will always turn out like that, however, every stall team clearly needs to have a sure fire check too it, just like every offensive team needs a sure fire answer to Altarianite Dnite.
 
Can I just say how dumb THAT is? I'm not even saying that hands down it shouldn't be banned, my point is that many common Pokemon on stall can check it. Yeah, I get that it picks and chooses what it wants to kill, but it's not unbeatable. Look at how it's doing IN UBERS rn- it's dropped. If there is stuff that can beat it there, why not here? This meta has every tool that Ubers does to beat it AND MORE. Not to mention the hyper voice spam that can easily catch it off guard and beat the perish trap set. And let's not forget, it is very predictable. You can easily lure it out, then switch out as it comes in and pursuit trap it w/ any number of things. I'm not saying that it will always turn out like that, however, every stall team clearly needs to have a sure fire check too it, just like every offensive team needs a sure fire answer to Altarianite Dnite.
except that stall doesn't exist in any real capacity in Ubers and therefore stall being unable to check it had no great effect on its viability
 
Can I just say how dumb THAT is? I'm not even saying that hands down it shouldn't be banned, my point is that many common Pokemon on stall can check it. Yeah, I get that it picks and chooses what it wants to kill, but it's not unbeatable. Look at how it's doing IN UBERS rn- it's dropped. If there is stuff that can beat it there, why not here? This meta has every tool that Ubers does to beat it AND MORE. Not to mention the hyper voice spam that can easily catch it off guard and beat the perish trap set. And let's not forget, it is very predictable. You can easily lure it out, then switch out as it comes in and pursuit trap it w/ any number of things. I'm not saying that it will always turn out like that, however, every stall team clearly needs to have a sure fire check too it, just like every offensive team needs a sure fire answer to Altarianite Dnite.
You don't have an answer to it though. It's not like -ate spam because you can't switch. That's the point. There are no counters, none. A well built Gengar team will never lose. What's your Blissey going to do against perishtrap? Or what's your skarmory going to do against taunt destiny bond? Nothing. They lose 100% of the time and now you're swept. You cannot prepare for it without centralising yourself with a team of six shed shell users.
 
except that stall doesn't exist in any real capacity in Ubers and therefore stall being unable to check it had no great effect on its viability
Fair enough. That was a weak argument.
You don't have an answer to it though. It's not like -ate spam because you can't switch. That's the point. There are no counters, none. A well built Gengar team will never lose. What's your Blissey going to do against perishtrap? Or what's your skarmory going to do against taunt destiny bond? Nothing. They lose 100% of the time and now you're swept. You cannot prepare for it without centralising yourself with a team of six shed shell users.
Let's not be dramatic shall we- that's just not true. There is no such thing as an unbreakable team. Plus, taunt is exponentially more risky w/ magic bounce absolutely everywhere. So that leaves perishtrap as pretty much the only fully viable of the two. This alone makes it far easier to handle.

I'm not saying it's definitely a good addition or even that it's fine, I'm just saying, let's just handle bans one thing at a time.
 
Fair enough. That was a weak argument.

Let's not be dramatic shall we- that's just not true. There is no such thing as an unbreakable team. Plus, taunt is exponentially more risky w/ magic bounce absolutely everywhere. So that leaves perishtrap as pretty much the only fully viable of the two. This alone makes it far easier to handle.

I'm not saying it's definitely a good addition or even that it's fine, I'm just saying, let's just handle bans one thing at a time.
Ahh... but what you use Gengar with is that you trap the checks and counters to your teammates. If I have a victini and a primal don and my opponents p-hippo is countering them, I might make a double expecting hippowdown and then destiny bond/perish song/taunt depending on how I believe my opponent will act. You're overestimating how many mega stones give you magic bounce, it's one. Just one. So lets say you use a ghost type and a pokemon with sableite on your team. Now that's great, you've put two pokemon on your team capable of handling shadow tag, just like you would bird spam. However, gengar still traps and kills four member of your team. Without fail. Between taunt, destiny bond, perish song, duel stab there are so few things It can't trap and kill its breathtaking.

Taunt is exponentially risky because you can only have one "lure" with magic bounce, that's how the mega stone clause works. And yes, there is no such thing as an unbreakable team, but your team should lose at match up which Shadow tag does, unless i make doubles every single time I will lose to it, and that's just not fair.
 
I know that, but Sableite is the only one you'd see on stall, the playstyle in question
I could totally see Absolite on already bulky stuff in order to give it more power as well as speed. Even stall likes that. Especially speed. Diancite, yeah, not so much, but if they haven't revealed it yet, they could totally screw you over really easily.
 
Hey this might be a bit controversial. I'd like to instigate or promote a suspect test of Shadow tag and trapping. In ubers play I believe one of the reasons that it wasn't banned is because Ubers will never be defensive, there is a lack of ubers mon that can be used defensively and so it's pretty widely decided that balance is the best option. However, in mix and mega (I'm loving this metagame rn, voting on it) you give ubers a chance to be defensive. But that's not possible with Gengar... You can't run shed shell either because you'll just get overpowered.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/aqua-mixandmega-1647

I don't have a better argument than whats already been stated in the OU suspect test and Ubers suspect test, so I'll leave it to the fact that you gain nothing from shadow tag, but you strongly diminish the viability of stall, and stall is wonderful.
I completely agree, I posted this in the thread earlier

Can we first talk about Mega Gengar itself? This thing is an absolute monster that was banned and then unbanned from ubers. It's even better in this meta, as 130 speed is fairly good and it destroys stall with the perish trapper set. Much like how goth is banned in tier shift, I think this guy is disgusting. It's good vs offense too with the all out attacking set, it has a stab SE attack for victini, and name one mon that isn't weak to one of the infinite coverage moves that it can carry. It is an extremely uncompetitive aspect of the MaM meta that deserves to be banned. In a tier filled with threats such as Arceus, Victini, and Lando-T, the ability to trap the opponents checks/counters to these pokemon and eliminate them is absolutely devastating, as without these checks/counters, it becomes extremely difficult to stop these threats. The fact that trappers such as Mega Gengar does this with high consistency just makes things worse.
However, the main reason that Gar needs to be banned is the fact that it makes the meta matchup reliant, something that players can't actually control, into a far more important factor than it should be. Gengar has so many coverage moves that can just smash through whatever you want gone. Cress, Lugia, Mew all weak to shadow ball. Pixi spam? Stopped cold by sludge wave. 130 speed outruns everything listed in the OP besides glalite users, but YOU TRAP WHAT YOU WANT. This means it is impossible to counter and is extremely difficult to account for- I'm using mega stones as items, not shed shell. Ban this thing now.
As for unbans, lando-i and greninja can use mega stones, since they need their abilities + life orb to be broken.
 
I could totally see Absolite on already bulky stuff in order to give it more power as well as speed. Even stall likes that. Especially speed. Diancite, yeah, not so much, but if they haven't revealed it yet, they could totally screw you over really easily.
I could see Diancite being used on more bulky stuff to, since the defense drop doesn't hurt them as a badly

Well, today is my 16th birthday, and what a nice present to have for my birthday, 1000 whole posts. I have been on many forums before and all I can say is that the Smogon forums are probably the best ones I have ever been on, it has defiently been a wild ride, and I have enjoyed every second I have been on Smogon (Apart from being on Firebot, god that place is awful) and here are some of my favorite people on this site

cbrevan: Absoluty hilarious user, and is pretty damn helpful and does a lot for the CAP community, if HeaLDeaL didn't exist, then i would probably say that you would be my favorite user, and just remember two things 1: Your awesome 2: I'm working on writing up Slowbro stop pressuring me
HeaLnDeaL: You are my absolute favorite user, and part of the reason I joined Smogon in the first place. Your funny as hell, very helpful, pretty good at battling, and overall just an amazing user. Congratulations on Full CAP mod and keep up the good work, also get Fuji's lab back up asap
Recreant: Oh Recreant, you are such a troll, but you are such a good one. Most of your posts make me laugh my ass off, and you always have great avatars (But seriously stop changing your avatars so much, your turning into the old Olgemi.) Remember that two hour flame war we had against those two trolls? Probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen before
Tadasuke: Great Room Moderator, no matter what people say, your a great batter, your signature is amazing, and you are really fun to talk to, my experience here just wouldn't be the same without you
Snobalt: Great user, contributes a lot to multiple communities, and is overall just fun to talk to
Ununhexium: Pretty much the same as Snobalt with the addition of being hilarious

Honorable mentions (Your awesome, but you were on lower priority and I didn't have enough time to write something for you):
Antar
dEnIsSs
Exclaimer
Ghoul King (You were almost on the main list, but it was close between you and Snobalt)
Kingriolu
Molk
TheEnder

That's it, hopefully the rest of my time here on Smogon is just as enjoyable as it was during my first 1000 posts
 
Implemented, sounds reasonable.



Reasoning? I get that No Guard Hurricane is cool, but I'm having trouble seeing A on that basis.



I don't quite follow Altarianite. It doesn't get Hyper Voice, and even with Altarianite its Attack is just 90, so I'm not following how this would be a useful and worthwhile use of your precious Altarianite. I can see the rest of it and will implement, though.



What, no Red Orb?

I kid, I kid. Seems reasonable.



Impressive versatility! Going right ahead with it.



I'd kind of like to hear reasoning on this one first, though Pinsirite sounds viable for sure.



On it.



Yeah, Zygarde should've been an easy one with the type-changing stones, though I'm not following Aerodactylite.



Probably gonna ban them both ultimately, if I'm completely honest. Just don't feel like starting a suspect on either of them right this instant.

unfixable used Tornadus when he made his sample team and it was hilariously effective. Its stab along with Focus Blast is wonderful in this metagame, and destroys a good portion of the offensive metagame. Furthermore, u-turn gives it a way to pivot around easily. Its pretty damn good.

I was unaware Alakazam did not get a usable special normal type move. Its offensive stats with altarianite become similar to its regular mega, with -10 speed, and psychic/fairy was pretty damn good with Gardevoir. Just a theorymon, but since it doesn't get a good move for it, I guess not.

Red Orb is cool on hippo, but its probably a waste. half of it goes into special attack, which is completely useless, and its stats still pale in comparison to pdon.

Latios is very versatile, so it has a lot more sets than I put in all likelyhood.

Tyranitar is pretty bulky with a lot of mega stones, and Dragon Dance is wonderful to have. Garchompite is a bit harder to set up because of the -10 speed, but a pair of dragon dances and it will OHKO everything in the metagame. RP or All-out-wallbreaker is probably better with garchompite though.
Both Altarianite and Pinsirite give it a nice speed boost and pinsirite gives it a little more bulk. Its dark stab isn't as useful as rock, and consequently its rock/fairy or rock/flying coverage is great alongside ground. Absolite's magic bounce can be useful and the special attack boost is nice for it to go mixed and lead. Its actually a pretty good lead that I used for a while that preformed pretty well.

Aerodactylite Zygarde keeps its ground stab and has tough claws Extremespeed, but not much else is relevant. I really wish it was primary ground :(
 
Tyranitar is pretty bulky with a lot of mega stones, and Dragon Dance is wonderful to have. Garchompite is a bit harder to set up because of the -10 speed, but a pair of dragon dances and it will OHKO everything in the metagame. RP or All-out-wallbreaker is probably better with garchompite though.
Unless your running Fire Blast or some other special move, I feel like Steelixite is superior to Garchompite here because it grants more bulk, the same attack bonus, and it doesn't reduce speed
 
Also, thesecondbest I don't think we should set a precedent for unbanning ubers because we can. I really don't like where other tiers are going trying to selectively unban ubers for no real reason. If they make the meta HEALTHIER, then it is an option, but nothing in ubers really would make this meta any more healthy so I don't see a good reason to unban some and set a precedent we don't want to.
 
Also, thesecondbest I don't think we should set a precedent for unbanning ubers because we can. I really don't like where other tiers are going trying to selectively unban ubers for no real reason. If they make the meta HEALTHIER, then it is an option, but nothing in ubers really would make this meta any more healthy so I don't see a good reason to unban some and set a precedent we don't want to.
And along w/ that, greninja specifically would just complicate things. Would it stay grass if you wait until you've used grass knot to mega evolve? Idk, maybe that's already answered, but it seems overly confusing to me
 
And along w/ that, greninja specifically would just complicate things. Would it stay grass if you wait until you've used grass knot to mega evolve? Idk, maybe that's already answered, but it seems overly confusing to me

We still have that problem with or without Greninja. I know Kecleon isn't the best Pokemon, but it does have Protean ;_; Also Castform with Forcast can change its primary type.
 
Transform/Imposter, Protean, and Color Change are not Forme changes. This means that as much fun as it would be, you don't get to Imposter something like Primal Groudon, and then Mega Evolve to be permanently transformed into Primal Groudon with an additional +100 BST on top of that.

EDIT: Castform forms are recognized as form changes in the game code, so I guess it would change typing. Not like anybody would use Castform in this meta.
 
I know it's already been implemented as S rank, but I just want to point out how good Dragonite really is. As xJownage said, Multiscale really helps pre-mega, it's an issue some megas have before evolving, not able to take enough hits and not enough speed to outspeed the opponent if it's already mega'd. Enter Dragonite, he can fulfill a lot of roles tbh. I know most of the talk has been about offensive dragonite, but I've been using a defensive one and it's pretty good. Dragon/Fairy has great utility, it's only issue is incompatibility with moves (Espeed, Heal Bell etc).
 
I could see Diancite being used on more bulky stuff to, since the defense drop doesn't hurt them as a badly
There is pretty much no bulky mon that will appreciate a -50 in both defences.

Both Altarianite and Pinsirite give it a nice speed boost
Altarianite doesn't actually boost speed though. +40 to Atk/Sp. Atk and +20 Def.

On another note, why is giving a Mega Stone to an NFE banned? I want to use Latiasite/Sablenite Doublade ;-;
 
There is pretty much no bulky mon that will appreciate a -50 in both defences.


Altarianite doesn't actually boost speed though. +40 to Atk/Sp. Atk and +20 Def.

On another note, why is giving a Mega Stone to an NFE banned? I want to use Latiasite/Sablenite Doublade ;-;
Yeah that, I couldn't use sablenite on my slowbro, or Diancite Beedril. What's up with that? Pikachuun
 
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