Ladder Almost Any Ability

[motherlove]

Faster Electric types could all revenge that fairly easily.

+6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Thundurus: 390-459 (130.4 - 153.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zapdos: 335-395 (104.3 - 123%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+5 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Manectric: 306-361 (108.8 - 128.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raikou: 369-435 (114.9 - 135.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 270-318 (112 - 131.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 44 Def Mega Aerodactyl: 318-375 (105.6 - 124.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

As for other priorities
252+ Atk Life Orb Tough Claws / refrigirate Lucario Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard: 177-208 (59.5 - 70%)
252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Genesect Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard: 170-201 (57.2 - 67.6%)
252 Atk Life Orb Refrigerate Sneasel Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard: 109-130 (36.7 - 43.7%)
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard: 118-141 (39.7 - 47.4%)

The ones you need to wory about are
252+ Atk Skarmory Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard: 190-225 (63.9 - 75.7%)
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Zen Headbutt vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard: 226-267 (76 - 89.8%)
252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws / refrigirate Entei Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard: 209-246 (70.3 - 82.8%)

 

[EV]

• +6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Thundurus: 390-459 (130.4 - 153.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  
• +6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zapdos: 335-395 (104.3 - 123%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  
• +5 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Manectric: 306-361 (108.8 - 128.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  
• +6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raikou: 369-435 (114.9 - 135.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  
• +6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 270-318 (112 - 131.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  
• +6 252+ Atk Charizard Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 44 Def Mega Aerodactyl: 318-375 (105.6 - 124.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Problem is we found out Belly Drum+Acrobatics together are incompatible, so it has to rely on Aerial Ace or switch to Swords Dance.

 

[Laxpras]

Maybe this should wait until after the AAA Open, but I feel as though AAA is ready for some changes. The ladder is currently almost entirely made up of gale wings, poison heal, and ate speed. The variability is consistently decreasing. I think a way to increase creativity and variety in aaa is to unban a majority of the currently banned meta (Terrakion and Mamoswine for example). Instead of banning these mons, I think the abilities that make them broken should be gone. The main broken abilities in my mind are tinted lens and adaptability. Even currently allowed things in the meta such as latios skymin (WHY IS SKYMIN ALLOWED IT CAN 2HKO CHANSEY) have relatively no switchins when paired with these abilities. The problem is even worse with mold breaker deoxys hazard spam everywhere, often paired with defiant. If tinted lens/adaptability were banned, these new mons would open up more of the meta. For example, Terrakion could be a great regenvest user, and would easily deal with snorlax, but I can't use it since adaptability terrakion is broken.

The issue with this idea is that without adaptability, poison heal and defensive regen team would be even harder to break. For this reason I think limiting poison heal and regenerator specifically to one mon should be considered. There are still plenty of ways to deal with ph; water absorb can wall suicune, skarmory can wall snorlax, and plenty of unaware mons can beat both of them. Ridding the meta of adaptability, would encourage more creativity in dealing with these defensive threats.

Also, I feel as though ph is generally overcentralizing and bad for the meta, but I doubt any majority of players would be in favor of banning it so I won't even bother.

EDIT: Throw tough claws in the same conversation as adapt/tinted lens

 

[imas]

I honestly feel the meta is fine as it is, with adapt/tc allowed offense has tools to break through all the dumb PH setup sweepers in balance teams (which is probably the most common playstyle), but without it, it becomes extremely difficult to break them after one or two boosts, which isn't too hard to get up in the first place. Snorlax can usually setup vs any special attacker thanks to PH protect spam and Suicune can do the same. And after these boosts they become extremely hard to take down (unless you're packing unaware offense, which honestly isn't great).

I'm not going to try to defend them remaining any further than that because I don't know if i can so I'll end it there. I believe that should adapt/tc get banned there should be an immediate PH suspect after that.

I will say that I support tinted ban, which is just really good vs any playstyle, getting rid of resists due to unpredictability. Another thing that might be worth taking a look at is Illusion, you never know when it's coming and it's usually very effective. It doesn't even have a limited set like it does in inheritance, so if it's bad there (bad as in it's so good that people have been begging for ban) , it's worse here. I believe people just don't think much about illusion because it's an uncommon ability.. If more people used it, it'd be evident how dumb of an ability it is. It's probably the most effective way to take out things you want to take out, provided you use it right.

e- as it usually happens, people might bring up a select few mons that can beat the PH users without adapt/tc but please don't list them unless you have an ability in mind that allows a range of pokemon to beat them rather than a specific pokemon (also, destiny bond probably shouldn't even be mentioned for obvious reasons). Adapt/TC allows a variety of mons to be able to beat the PH users pretty reliably, if no other ability(ies) allow us to have a variety of pokemon that does this, it probably does need to be looked at.


Oh and thoughts on Skymin. It's very hard to switch into and it's very very fast. It's extremely good vs offense and even has wallbreaker capability. I believe that, like illusion, it's been under the radar because of lack of usage and does need to be looked at more closely.

 

[Laxpras]

I honestly feel the meta is fine as it is, with adapt/tc allowed offense has tools to break through all the dumb PH setup sweepers in balance teams (which is probably the most common playstyle), but without it, it becomes extremely difficult to break them after one or two boosts, which isn't too hard to get up in the first place. Snorlax can usually setup vs any special attacker thanks to PH protect spam and Suicune can do the same. And after these boosts they becomes extremely hard to take down (unless you're packing unaware offense, which honestly isn't great).

I'm not going to try to defend them remaining any further than that because I don't know if i can so I'll end it there. I believe that should adapt/tc get banned there should be an immediate PH suspect after that.

I will say that I support tinted ban, which is just really good vs any playstyle, getting rid of resists due to unpredictability. Another thing that might be worth taking a look at is Illusion, you never know when it's coming and it's usually very effective. It doesn't even have a limited set like it does in inheritance, so if it's bad there, it's worse here. I believe people just don't think much about illusion because it's an uncommon ability.. If more people used it, it'd be evident how dumb of an ability it is. It's probably the most effective way to take out things you want to take out, provided you use it right.

e- as it usually happens, people might bring up a select few mons that can beat the PH users without adapt/tc but please don't list them unless you have an ability in mind that allows a range of pokemon to beat them rather than a specific pokemon (also, destiny bond probably shouldn't even be mentioned for obvious reasons). Adapt/TC allows a variety of mons to be able to beat the PH users pretty reliably, if no other ability(ies) allow us to have a variety of pokemon that does this, it probably does need to be looked at.


Oh and thoughts on Skymin. It's very hard to switch into and it's very very fast. It's extremely good vs offense and even has wallbreaker capability. I believe that, like illusion, it's been under the radar because of lack of usage and does need to be looked at more closely.

Dealing with PH without adapt/tc - Unaware, any mon with skill swap. Yeah clearly it becomes a lot more difficult without the offensive abilities, but its obviously possible. Nonetheless, it will have to be looked at (I recommended limiting teams to one ph mon to start). Also, things like roar/whirlwind on select mons can always get rid of the setup and give you a better opportunity.

As for illusion, I agree with you. I barely see it, but I know that the team I have with it, the illusion mon always gets a free ko. Its easy to disguise a special attacker as a physical attacker or a defensive mon, causing your opponent to not have the right switchin, giving yourself an easy move. If this ability was more common, it would be a much bigger problem. Also, when paired with regeneration mons, it becomes very difficult to tell when it is the illusion mon, as the hp is constantly changing so hazards don't do the trick as much as they usually do for stopping illusion.

 

[Laxpras]

Ok so I just threw together the most stereotypical, predictable, offensive team I could to make a point. It had no synergy or thought to it but this is how it went:

Here's a replay (No it wasn't the best opponent, but at least it shows that this offense destroys anyone trying to do something different, also every battle pretty much went like this). http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-304721149

So this combines priority spam with tinted lens and adaptability, and theres really nothing anyone can do about it. I think it makes the point.

 

[imas]

Erm, I can see what you're trying to do and it's a fine way to go about it but the ladder isn't exactly aware of what's good and what's not in aaa, it's mostly people trying things out and a lot of the time not even knowing what things run what or what the rules fully are. A better way to illustrate your point would be to go around the om room and getting battles vs people who play the meta (council members and a lot of om regulars too actually) and showcase how the team does vs the various playstyles available in AAA. A replay like that one doesn't hold any ground, but those replays would.

 

[grurk]

Doing well with a bad team doesn't mean that that playstyle is overpowered. for example, a lot of what aesf used to do with silly ladder teams. If you look at the stats for the meta balance then you'd know that most teams are balanced/offensive and very few are hyper offense while hyper stall is far more common. Shaymin sky was banned in ou because of serene grace air slash with high speed, but in aaa that doesn't matter too much both because of priority in offense and counters such as levitran. mold breaker deoxys is absolutley vital for offense as it is easy for stall to block hazards otherwise, also defiant isn't a particularly fantastic ability. The problems with the other ways of dealing with set up sweepers for offense (and balance for that matter) is that each counter counters one pokemon, not set up sweepers in general. For example you said water absorb, but that only helps with suicune. Even then they often run ice beam or roar, if they have hazards up eventually your pokemon will die to hazards or they might die to ice beam. Also there are few, if any sets that can deal with goodras physical coverage, and special dragon types can only revenge as dragon tail does a lot and diancie take a lot from power whip too. Even as an offense player I don't want to limit or ban regen or ph.

Honestly if anything AAA is unbalanced only because of it's lack of hyper offense.

 

[motherlove]

Yo

So I've been trying a bunch of different stuff with a bunch of different mons lately. And a couple of things stand out as kinda too powerful or just stupid.

1: This lil' shit.

I never really quite understood why it was untanned in the first place.
Does it have counters? No.
Does it lose to offense like most wallbreakers? No.
Is running it on your team ever a bad choice? No.
Is it insanely stupid fast to the point where even modest variants outspeed latios? Yes.
Really, the ONLY arguments ppl have pushed forward for this thing not being completely stupid broken is "oh but, motherlove, gal wing checks it"
Gale wing checks 90% of offensive mons regardless. It's also predictable as fuck and easy as hell to wall. Gale wing checking it isn't a good argument. You know what else was checked by gale wing or like pixilate espeed? Mamoswine, Terrakion, Keldeo and Hoopa unbound.

I have yet to try a skymin set that isn't really good (not your average good, like actually really good). I've gone through tinted, adapt, poison heal (subseed), no guard, mixed refrigerate, gale wing even serene grace. It's just so fast and powerful.
(Tbh I think most ubers that dropped down like genesect or deoxys speed are broken but they can wait)
Unfortunately replays were broken for some time so I didn't get to save many, but just build a team, toss a skymin in it and win games, it's ridiculous.

Moving on (there's some debate rising around this one), illusion. It's been under the radar for a while since nobody uses it, but I've been spamming it on teams like crazy lately and it's really the easiest way to win games.

To make it simple, there is so many good options and it's completely impossible to predict. A good example is rotom-c (the grass one). It can OHKO suicune and skarmory 2 of the most frequently used and metagame defining pokemons in AAA and they're also really, really easy to lure out. Send in your entei, opp switches in on suicune / hippo / cancerzu / ff doublade / ff skarmory / PhisDef manaphy but NO it was a ruse and boom their pokemon is gone, it's as easy as that. And the thing is you can do that multiple times through the match. Sometimes like kill 2 pokemons and trick a choice specs to chansey before dying. And after this there's probably at least a couple of mons on your team that can win easily. And you can literally run whatever you run depending on what you want to kill. You want to ohko skarmory and chansey, run lucario. You want to create a free win for your latios, run darmanitan. It's literally so easy.

Anyway, again, replays were down so I guess this garbage will have to do:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-306390633 Illusion Skymin
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-306289503 Illusion Victini
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-305079353 Illusion Blastoise

Unfortunately I had some pretty good battles like getting a clutch ohko with illusion breloom on heatran and sweeping with gale moltres or removing the opponents' vaporeon to win. But I can't show them because I downloaded them and don't know how to share them..

 

[imas]

h-hey i-i'm not garbage :(

Illusion is a very hard ability to play against. Playing against an illusion user, the user always has the upper hand. He can easily get rid of what he needs to and if he fails at one point and his illusion is broken, the rest of the match needs to be played very carefully but suboptimally by the non illusion user because he always has to fear the illusion pokemon popping up. Having no limit on what an illusion user can be/can do it can essentially be like shadow tag, getting rid of what the team doesn't like. Sort of like magnet pull, but for anything. I feel that it's not a healthy ability to have around and should be banned. (basically everything motherlove said)

I also agree with the above post on Shaymin-S. Motherlove did bring up a good point on how the dropped ubers are all very good at what they do, to the point at which they might be considered broken. Genesect is probably the only one that faces competition from other pokemon at what it does, but it still holds a solid niche over the other options in whatever set it's running. It's definitely one of the scariest pokemon you can face due to sheer unpredictability, you can't even know what beats it until it makes a move.

 

[Heavyweapons Mann]

h-hey i-i'm not garbage :(

Illusion is a very hard ability to play against. Playing against an illusion user, the user always has the upper hand. He can easily get rid of what he needs to and if he fails at one point and his illusion is broken, the rest of the match needs to be played very carefully but suboptimally by the non illusion user because he always has to fear the illusion pokemon popping up. Having no limit on what an illusion user can be/can do it can essentially be like shadow tag, getting rid of what the team doesn't like. Sort of like magnet pull, but for anything. I feel that it's not a healthy ability to have around and should be banned. (basically everything motherlove said)

I also agree with the above post on Shaymin-S. Motherlove did bring up a good point on how the dropped ubers are all very good at what they do, to the point at which they might be considered broken. Genesect is probably the only one that faces competition from other pokemon at what it does, but it still holds a solid niche over the other options in whatever set it's running. It's definitely one of the scariest pokemon you can face due to sheer unpredictability, you can't even know what beats it until it makes a move.

I thought Illusion was just useful for Mega Evolving safely, as you disguise as a counter to whatever your opponent may send out, and then you Mega Evolve.

 

[imas]

I thought Illusion was just useful for Mega Evolving safely, as you disguise as a counter to whatever your opponent may send out, and then you Mega Evolve.

Well as my post and the post above states, it clearly isn't. I don't think it was ever just a safe mega evolve ability, it's most common use at one point was to give Gyarados -> Mega Gyarados a free DD. That in itself is an example of why the ability is an unhealthy one. When Gyarados is in disguised as a Heatran vs say Sheer Force Genesect (A pokemon that would beat it 1v1), it will switch out, giving the Gyarados user a free dragon dance, after which it can proceed to stomp through the opponent's team with absurdly powerful Crunches and Waterfalls, even beating that Genesect the next time it switches in. Gyarados was used in the Illusion slot because it could set up in base form and mega evolve to spam boosted attacks with mold breaker, it was never just for the free mega. (sub sets mean gale wings can't beat it)

Similarly, say while teambuilding you want to have a team where Latios can sweep. You realize that Lucario beats all of Latios's checks and you also realize that none of Latios's counters would ever switch into Lucario. So, what do you do to give yourself that extra edge that your opponent has no possible way of outplaying? You slap Illusion on the Lucario and when your opponent switches in their Snorlax/Ferrothorn/Chansey/Goodra/Meloetta/Heatran(/motherlove's TTar) too, they get OHKO'd by a banded Close Combat. Similarly, as motherlove's post stated, rotom-C can use illusion to effectively get rid of Suicune/Hippo/Skarm etc while they try to switch in on a mon they counter but are surprised to find themselves OHKO'd by an Illusion mon.

At one point I used to think Illusion was a cheap ability but it was only effective while the surprise was still there. This is not the case at all\. Say you do know your opponent is using an illusion mon and your opponent was smart enough to make sure rocks wouldn't give away the illusion mon (not super hard to do) or just had effective hazard removal. The opponent still has the upper hand, you'll fear switching in your PH Suicune on an Entei when it's something that will beat it 100 times out of 100, just because he has that Rotom-C in the back. You'll end up making suboptimal plays to catch the illusion mon but despite that, your opponent will most likely still get the surprise kills he needs and come out on top simply because he has the illusion Pokemon at his side.

 

[motherlove]

I thought Illusion was just useful for Mega Evolving safely, as you disguise as a counter to whatever your opponent may send out, and then you Mega Evolve.

There's a limited number of abilities a mega pokemon can run, and when I see a potential mega on team preview I always keep illusion in mind. So I actually think illusion megas are more predictable.
But as imas said, the thought process is simple. I want to win with a mon, I run a pokemon an illusion pokemon that can beat this other mons counter/s, it works even better if the illusion mon you're running has a popular ability it likes to run in AAA. On a team I wanted to win with gw moltres for example. I needed chansey / heatran / goodra gone and suicune weakened. So I picked banded breloom and because the opponent thinks it's going to be prankster when looking at the team preview (because they all are) illusion doesn't come in mind at team preview.


On a completely different subject. Goth is banned in OU, does that impact AAA? I almost never see it so it wont make a big difference but just wondering.

 

[MZ]

On a completely different subject. Goth is banned in OU, does that impact AAA? I almost never see it so it wont make a big difference but just wondering.

AAA is clearly not based on OU's banlist so there wouldnt really be any reason to suddenly ban it. We could, although that wouldnt really make much difference to the meta.

 

[grurk]

Yo

So I've been trying a bunch of different stuff with a bunch of different mons lately. And a couple of things stand out as kinda too powerful or just stupid.

1: This lil' shit.

I never really quite understood why it was untanned in the first place.
Does it have counters? No.
Does it lose to offense like most wallbreakers? No.
Is running it on your team ever a bad choice? No.
Is it insanely stupid fast to the point where even modest variants outspeed latios? Yes.
Really, the ONLY arguments ppl have pushed forward for this thing not being completely stupid broken is "oh but, motherlove, gal wing checks it"
Gale wing checks 90% of offensive mons regardless. It's also predictable as fuck and easy as hell to wall. Gale wing checking it isn't a good argument. You know what else was checked by gale wing or like pixilate espeed? Mamoswine, Terrakion, Keldeo and Hoopa unbound.

I have yet to try a skymin set that isn't really good (not your average good, like actually really good). I've gone through tinted, adapt, poison heal (subseed), no guard, mixed refrigerate, gale wing even serene grace. It's just so fast and powerful.
(Tbh I think most ubers that dropped down like genesect or deoxys speed are broken but they can wait)
Unfortunately replays were broken for some time so I didn't get to save many, but just build a team, toss a skymin in it and win games, it's ridiculous.

Moving on (there's some debate rising around this one), illusion. It's been under the radar for a while since nobody uses it, but I've been spamming it on teams like crazy lately and it's really the easiest way to win games.

To make it simple, there is so many good options and it's completely impossible to predict. A good example is rotom-c (the grass one). It can OHKO suicune and skarmory 2 of the most frequently used and metagame defining pokemons in AAA and they're also really, really easy to lure out. Send in your entei, opp switches in on suicune / hippo / cancerzu / ff doublade / ff skarmory / PhisDef manaphy but NO it was a ruse and boom their pokemon is gone, it's as easy as that. And the thing is you can do that multiple times through the match. Sometimes like kill 2 pokemons and trick a choice specs to chansey before dying. And after this there's probably at least a couple of mons on your team that can win easily. And you can literally run whatever you run depending on what you want to kill. You want to ohko skarmory and chansey, run lucario. You want to create a free win for your latios, run darmanitan. It's literally so easy.

Anyway, again, replays were down so I guess this garbage will have to do:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-306390633 Illusion Skymin
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-306289503 Illusion Victini
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-305079353 Illusion Blastoise

Unfortunately I had some pretty good battles like getting a clutch ohko with illusion breloom on heatran and sweeping with gale moltres or removing the opponents' vaporeon to win. But I can't show them because I downloaded them and don't know how to share them..

Does it have counters: yes (levi steel types)
Does it lose to offense like most wallbreakers: yes (stealth rock+priority spam)
Is running it on your team ever a bad choice: yes
Is it insanely stupid fast to the point where even modest variants outspeed latios? Yes.
Will banning it make a defensive meta even more defensive: yes

 

[Kingslayer2779]

Does it have counters: yes (levi steel types)
Does it lose to offense like most wallbreakers: yes (stealth rock+priority spam)
Is running it on your team ever a bad choice: yes
Is it insanely stupid fast to the point where even modest variants outspeed latios? Yes.
Will banning it make a defensive meta even more defensive: yes

Mega Mence is weak to rocks and loses to priority in AAA and it is still broken. And running it on your team could be a bad choice if you are weak 64x ice weak. And honestly don't know where you are coming up with AAA being a defensive meta, that just isn't true right now. As of round 1 of the AAA open, i am the only player to bring full Stall. Yes there bulky checks like Doublade, Skarmory, and Zapdos running around. But its worth nothing that both Skarmory and Doublade are Swords Dance sweepers. So i don't think your arguments mean anything.

Skymin isn't alone. Several of the Ubers drops are questionable at best. Specifically Deo-S/D, and Genesect stand out. The Deos make the hazard game laughably one sided. With Mold Breaker there is no hope of preventing them from getting some hazards up. They are literally the perfect hazard setters, with both SR and Spikes and Taunt/Twave support. Thunder Wave cripples offense threats attempting to kill Deo to prevent hazard set up. Taunt blocks Defog and other Taunt. Deo-S has an untouchable speed tier, while Deo-D has the bulk to last. Is there anything you could want from a hazard setter that they don't have? A better typing maybe.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-304787489- Deo-D easily setting hazards in the AAA open.

Genesect was banned from OU because of its potent mixed capabilities and lack of reliable switch ins. In AAA you can give it Sheer Force and just go to town on would be switches. It has the coverage to nail would be Bug/Steel switches in like Skarmory, Zapdos, and Doublade. Genesect is a pretty unpredictable pokemon, which makes it obscenely difficult to teambuild for. Tinted Lens U-turn is nothing to scoff at, and can easily wear down switch ins. Even in an unpredictable meta, Genesect stands out above the rest for its flexibility, making it a highly questionable drop.

 

[Amaranth]

based on my extremely small AAA experience I can confirm Genesect is a lot worse then Skymin. Genesect is in a very similar space to Greninja's in early ORAS, you just don't have a single mon in the game that checks all of his possible sets so you're forced to scout - and possibly lose one or more mons, or give up momentum to his extremely powerful uturns - before you even know what on your team probably checks it. Skymin's movepool is much more limited and while yes HP Fire is a thing and yes Seed Flare hits Doublade like a truck especially if it drops SPDef, it still has decent counters in most of AAA's steel types, resisting both of his stab and usually threatening him back (Skarmory's Gale Wings is a prime example). This is not to say he's bad by no means, I'd still easily rank him S, but I think that if AAA needs a suspect to follow the Open in the meta's current state I think Illusion should absolutely take priority over Skymin (or anything else really); of course the Open will give us more information on what's possibly broken/unhealthy/uncompetitive to choose the next suspect, but as it stands I don't think there are many objections to Illusion being suspected and eventually banned. (and I don't think there would be many people against it if we went for a quickban immediately effective on R2 of Open, but perhaps that's a little too extreme)

 

[grurk]

Mega Mence is weak to rocks and loses to priority in AAA and it is still broken. And running it on your team could be a bad choice if you are weak 64x ice weak. And honestly don't know where you are coming up with AAA being a defensive meta, that just isn't true right now. As of round 1 of the AAA open, i am the only player to bring full Stall. Yes there bulky checks like Doublade, Skarmory, and Zapdos running around. But its worth nothing that both Skarmory and Doublade are Swords Dance sweepers. So i don't think your arguments mean anything.

Skymin isn't alone. Several of the Ubers drops are questionable at best. Specifically Deo-S/D, and Genesect stand out. The Deos make the hazard game laughably one sided. With Mold Breaker there is no hope of preventing them from getting some hazards up. They are literally the perfect hazard setters, with both SR and Spikes and Taunt/Twave support. Thunder Wave cripples offense threats attempting to kill Deo to prevent hazard set up. Taunt blocks Defog and other Taunt. Deo-S has an untouchable speed tier, while Deo-D has the bulk to last. Is there anything you could want from a hazard setter that they don't have? A better typing maybe.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/almostanyability-304787489- Deo-D easily setting hazards in the AAA open.

Genesect was banned from OU because of its potent mixed capabilities and lack of reliable switch ins. In AAA you can give it Sheer Force and just go to town on would be switches. It has the coverage to nail would be Bug/Steel switches in like Skarmory, Zapdos, and Doublade. Genesect is a pretty unpredictable pokemon, which makes it obscenely difficult to teambuild for. Tinted Lens U-turn is nothing to scoff at, and can easily wear down switch ins. Even in an unpredictable meta, Genesect stands out above the rest for its flexibility, making it a highly questionable drop.

Mence isn't weak to priority though thanks to sub roost and huge bulk. I never said that it not being good on every team was a huge deal I was just disagreeing with motherlove. http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-11/metagame/almostanyability-1500.txt this is where I came up with it being a defensive meta, you'll notice that most teams are balcanced and lean towards offense but almost none are hyper offense, while hyper stall is much more common. This ban would make it lean even further away from hyper offense. Skarmory and doublade don't have to be setup sweepers also levitran is there too and so are any other levitate/ground immune pokemon. if you wanted a check you'd look at genesect who takes a hit and revenges with extreme speed.

getting rid of either of the deoxys would be catastrophic for offense, there are no other good spikes setters that can use mold breaker. The ones that are wouldn't fit on offensive teams without deoxys the hazard war would be won by stall every single time. It's not like it's impossible to get rid of hazards either, even while deoxys is there you can use blastoise to spin hazards.

I haven't used many crazy sets from genesect but as a wallbreaker he's definitely more underwhelming than heracross.

 

[Kingslayer2779]

Mence isn't weak to priority though thanks to sub roost and huge bulk. I never said that it not being good on every team was a huge deal I was just disagreeing with motherlove. http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-11/metagame/almostanyability-1500.txt this is where I came up with it being a defensive meta, you'll notice that most teams are balcanced and lean towards offense but almost none are hyper offense, while hyper stall is much more common. This ban would make it lean even further away from hyper offense. Skarmory and doublade don't have to be setup sweepers also levitran is there too and so are any other levitate/ground immune pokemon. if you wanted a check you'd look at genesect who takes a hit and revenges with extreme speed.

getting rid of either of the deoxys would be catastrophic for offense, there are no other good spikes setters that can use mold breaker. The ones that are wouldn't fit on offensive teams without deoxys the hazard war would be won by stall every single time. It's not like it's impossible to get rid of hazards either, even while deoxys is there you can use blastoise to spin hazards.

I haven't used many crazy sets from genesect but as a wallbreaker he's definitely more underwhelming than heracross.

Did we not read the same stats????? It clearly states 11% of the meta is hyper offense, while only 4% of the meta is stall and 8% is Semi Stall! So no these stats don't support what you claim is a "defensive meta." And yes Doublade and Skarmory don't have to be set up sweepers, but the most common sets are. And yes there are several defensive pokemon, but defensive pokemon exist in every meta. The best way to determine what a meta is like, is to watch battles. And after looking at every team used in Round 1 of the AAA open, i judge the meta too be highly offensively oriented. Yes there are defensive pokemon such as Zapdos, Skarmory, Doublade, and Heatran. Each of these pokemon has a typing that allows them to check some form of priority, something offense struggles to check without a defensive backbone. Each of these pokemon also has strong offensive capabilities. Skarmory and Doublade are SD sweepers, while Zapdos and Heatran have powerful special attacks.

No other good spikes setters that can run mold breaker? That is difficult to believe. Scolipede, Chesnaught, Froslass, Forretress, Klefki, Ferrothorn, and Rosearade, and Skarmory are all viable spikes setter and at least Scolipede, Froslass, and Forretress can run Mold Breaker. Are they perfect? No, which is a good thing. Deo-D/S are perfect for the their role, making it super easy for offense to dump hazards on any playstyle, regardless of attempted counterplay. It would not be "catastrophic for offense" for the Deos to be banned, they would simply adapt. And Genesect clearly carves a strong niche with mixed sets and strong coverage, so i don't think comparing it to Heracross is relevant.

 

[MZ]

I think there's more offense in round 1 of a tour where most of the people don't play AAA because it's easier to steal/mooch offense, regardless of whatever the actual situation is

 

[imas]

Ok, I'd like to be clear I never brought up Deoxys-S or Genesect for a ban. They are extremely good at their jobs but you'll notice i never stated that they were broken. So can we please not deviate from the real issues that need to be talked about? Namely Shaymin-S and Illusion. I don't see any gripes with illusion's possible ban so let's focus on Shaymin. Also, I believe if bans do take place, it will be after the open so there's also that. (Though illusion ban happening now shouldn't change much and it is a kind of broken ability)

I'm seeing a bit of what I don't like about most OM suspects here, you two are borderline arguing and it's about things that aren't even the current topic. Can we just get this Shaymin thing over with first before going into those? Grurk, you are however making farfetched assumptions about DeoS being the only good setter. It really isn't the only option but it's the best one, so everyone ends up using it over other options.

Will Shaymin be forced out by any Gale Wings or Regrigerate user? Of course, but that doesn't mean much when those users cannot switch in without getting 2hko'd. Genesect, if refrigerate can switch in once and force it out, but cannot switch in again in the entirety of the match. I'd list Skarmory as a check on offensive teams before I list Genesect and even that gets 2hko'd by Tinted Lens and OHKO'd by that dumb refrigerate hyper beam lure crap (yes, this is salt).

A lot of things don't have switchins in offensive teams, what generally sets this apart is the Speed tier and unpredictability. The Levitate argument that you've been throwing out every post is only valid for the bulkier teams and is mainly true for Heatran since Doublade absolutely cannot switch in and doesn't exactly force it out either. (252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Shaymin-S Seed Flare vs. 240 HP / 16 SpD Eviolite Doublade: 178-211 (55.7 - 66.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (tinted probably does more))

I'd say Shaymin is more troublesome to the offensive archetype than it is for the defensive ones as they can afford to assign a slot to counter Shaymin like Levitate Heatran or AV Regen Goodra (I'm aware refrigerate beats that but it's a dumb set and you should feel bad mothernerd). Stall also tends to run stuff like mandibuzz/togekiss which, in conjunction with other walls and misses can stall out Seed Flare's PP.

 

[Amaranth]

Ok, I'd like to be clear I never brought up Deoxys-S or Genesect for a ban. They are extremely good at their jobs but you'll notice i never stated that they were broken. So can we please not deviate from the real issues that need to be talked about? Namely Shaymin-S and Illusion. I don't see any gripes with illusion's possible ban so let's focus on Shaymin. Also, I believe if bans do take place, it will be after the open so there's also that. (Though illusion ban happening now shouldn't change much and it is a kind of broken ability)

I'm seeing a bit of what I don't like about most OM suspects here, you two are borderline arguing and it's about things that aren't even the current topic. Can we just get this Shaymin thing over with first before going into those? Grurk, you are however making farfetched assumptions about DeoS being the only good setter. It really isn't the only option but it's the best one, so everyone ends up using it over other options.

Will Shaymin be forced out by any Gale Wings or Regrigerate user? Of course, but that doesn't mean much when those users cannot switch in without getting 2hko'd. Genesect, if refrigerate can switch in once and force it out, but cannot switch in again in the entirety of the match. I'd list Skarmory as a check on offensive teams before I list Genesect and even that gets 2hko'd by Tinted Lens and OHKO'd by that dumb refrigerate hyper beam lure crap (yes, this is salt).

A lot of things don't have switchins in offensive teams, what generally sets this apart is the Speed tier and unpredictability. The Levitate argument that you've been throwing out every post is only valid for the bulkier teams and is mainly true for Heatran since Doublade absolutely cannot switch in and doesn't exactly force it out either. (252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Shaymin-S Seed Flare vs. 240 HP / 16 SpD Eviolite Doublade: 178-211 (55.7 - 66.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (tinted probably does more))

I'd say Shaymin is more troublesome to the offensive archetype than it is for the defensive ones as they can afford to assign a slot to counter Shaymin like Levitate Heatran or AV Regen Goodra (I'm aware refrigerate beats that but it's a dumb set and you should feel bad mothernerd). Stall also tends to run stuff like mandibuzz/togekiss which, in conjunction with other walls and misses can stall out Seed Flare's PP.

While I agree Shaymin is an absolutely huge issue that needs to be addressed, we need to decide whether Illusion should take priority over it or not. We all know what Shaymin does and we all know how he is a ridicolous mon against anything that isn't Stall; but I think that Illusion should be the main point of discussion. Illusion's quickban between Open rounds is a realistic possibility, while any suspecting of Skymin or Genesect or whatever other mon would take place entirely after the Open; and since our priority is to have a clean Open right now, I'd discuss if it's worth quickbanning or having some sort of vote on the ability before we get to the later stages. We should really just get the council to decide on the possibility of a mid-Open ban, and after that discuss if there are things worth suspecting after it (most likely there are, and argomentations for and against it will be a lot more convincing having replays from the Open to back them up.)

 

[grurk]

Did we not read the same stats????? It clearly states 11% of the meta is hyper offense, while only 4% of the meta is stall and 8% is Semi Stall! So no these stats don't support what you claim is a "defensive meta." And yes Doublade and Skarmory don't have to be set up sweepers, but the most common sets are. And yes there are several defensive pokemon, but defensive pokemon exist in every meta. The best way to determine what a meta is like, is to watch battles. And after looking at every team used in Round 1 of the AAA open, i judge the meta too be highly offensively oriented. Yes there are defensive pokemon such as Zapdos, Skarmory, Doublade, and Heatran. Each of these pokemon has a typing that allows them to check some form of priority, something offense struggles to check without a defensive backbone. Each of these pokemon also has strong offensive capabilities. Skarmory and Doublade are SD sweepers, while Zapdos and Heatran have powerful special attacks.

No other good spikes setters that can run mold breaker? That is difficult to believe. Scolipede, Chesnaught, Froslass, Forretress, Klefki, Ferrothorn, and Rosearade, and Skarmory are all viable spikes setter and at least Scolipede, Froslass, and Forretress can run Mold Breaker. Are they perfect? No, which is a good thing. Deo-D/S are perfect for the their role, making it super easy for offense to dump hazards on any playstyle, regardless of attempted counterplay. It would not be "catastrophic for offense" for the Deos to be banned, they would simply adapt. And Genesect clearly carves a strong niche with mixed sets and strong coverage, so i don't think comparing it to Heracross is relevant.

okay so now I'm really going to get into this. I'm going to compare aaa to the 5 official smogon tiers.
firstly let's look at aaa
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-11/metagame/almostanyability-1500.txt hyper offense is 11.11725% semistall and stall together are
4.12653%+ 8.97342% which is 13.1%. ratio of 1.18:1
applying the same formula to the rest of the metas
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-11/metagame/ou-1695.txt 0.844:1
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-11/metagame/uu-1630.txt 0.609:1
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-11/metagame/ru-1630.txt 0.906:1
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-11/metagame/nu-1630.txt 0.349:1
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-11/metagame/pu-1630.txt 0.265:1
so yes these do stats do support my claim. Regardless I wasn't even talking about the percentage of hyper offense, my main concern was the graph at the bottom. The range for aaa is 4, while the range for all other smogon official metas is at least 4.5 and are less scewed in favor of stall. I don't know where you were going with the rest of your first paragraph, you simply stated that the rest of the pokemon that counter skymin are can have an offensive presence which isn't really relevant.

Scolipede, frosslass, chesnaught,forretress,roserade, and skarmory lose to gw skarmory(or regular skarm) as leads and kledki is bad. So none of them are really viable spikes leads. Skarm can pp stall spikes and it won't need to use defog again as you probably won't use a second mold breaker just for stealth rocks, and even if you are skarm could still probably afford to use all it's pp just for spikes. The comparison is relevant as heracross itself doesn't have any counters but each set does.

 

[Klang]

Announcement:

Illusion is now currently being suspected in AAA. As usual, while the ultimate will not fall to the public, you are welcome to post your thoughts on why Illusion should be banned, or why it shouldn't be, to possibly sway the opinion of council members. The council vote will take place in a week, so be sure to have your opinion heard. Note that Illusion is being suspected because being unable to know if Illusion is ever present is arguably uncompetitive, and not because it might be an overwhelming ability to deal with itself.

In addition, be sure to congratulate imas234 on his new position as council member!

 

[Amaranth]

While I agree that Illusion has some elements of uncompetitiveness, based off the tiering policy's definitions I think it's unhealthy more than it is uncompetitive. You could see it as a probability management issue because even the most skillful player can't manage all the probabilities of every mon possibly having Illusion, meaning that the safest play still involves taking huge risks. However I think it fits better in the definition of unhealthy. "These are elements that may not limit either team building or battling skill enough individually, but combine to cause an effect that is undesirable for the metagame." You surely can build against the most common Illusion mons and play around them in a match too, but its effect on the meta overall is really toxic as you can't really play around everything and it's easy for less skillful players to get cheap kills through Illusion and cheat out wins against much better players. Distribution is also quite an issue here as literally every usable pokémon can run Illusion.

Overall I think that Illusion limits the impact of skillful play in a large enough way to the point where it's ban worthy.

(gratz imas!)