Yes, there have been BW suspects since XY was released - in particular I believe Drought/Chlorophyll and Sand Stream/Sand Rush were banned.
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np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 7 - Diamonds [Read post #226] [BANNED]
- Thread starter Finchinator
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Finchinator, I couldn't agree more with you. You brought up the facts in your analysis and I find that very admirable in a person. Sableye doesn't deserve a ban. If you saw all the battles (or the gist of them), it is easy to see that before ABR came out with his stall team, they were rather lackluster and such that if you brought a makeshift breaker (Hydreigon/Haxorus/Gliscor), their teams would've just fallen apart. But for the most part, Doucher's team was as Finchinator said, unprepared. I believe any team should have methods to deal with all types of teams. After ABR created his stall team, It changed the way stall played forever. It was really unconventional to have a stally mon that can't be taunted. People couldn't adapt to this specific play style very quickly. Now in the stall meta, M-Sableye is overcentralized because he's the core of the team, he eats up what you dish out and comes back for more. He requires brute force to knock him over, and the funny thing is if you try to break past the burn it'll probably inflict (physical attackers only), It'll punish you with Foul Play. Combined with Chansey as a special wall, and Burns+Foul Play, well you'd think anyone who comes unprepared will get trashed. However, What I find rather underwhelming about M-Sableye is the lack of Variety. He's a lot like M-Mawile (Counterpart), One dimensional. M-Mawile runs typically SD, Sucker Punch, Iron Head, Play Rough. M-Sableye has two sets Utility and CM. Util set is Foul Play/Knock Off, Will O wisp, Recover, Toxic/Taunt. CM is CM, Shadow Ball/Snarl/Dark Pulse, will o wisp/Toxic, Recover. Those may be it's only viable sets. People come up with Tran, Talonflame, and MegaZard counters and put them on their teams, Why not put Stall-counters? StallBreakers do not equal stall counters. If M-Sableye was unconventional, then people could've started using more unconventional methods of stall breaking. This really seems pointless trying to Ban a mon that made stall viable.
Now All the other stally mons all have problems.
M-Veunsaur :- very Bulky but without synthesis, Def M-Venusaur isn't going anywhere
M-Slowbro:- If unboosted and taunted, Recovery option is gone, and M-Slowbro isn't going anywhere either, if normal slowbro, it'll probably switch out to activate regen. Double Switch?
M-Latias:- Weird mon. Can be run on stall or off stall. Lati is arguably the best of the three. Issues, Lati has bad typing. Any faster Dragon Type or any pursuit user will kill it. Scarf users (Latios And Garchomp), and pursuit users(TTar), lookin at you.
M-Sableye has good typing, Bulk, and ability. Slowbro's and M-Venusaur's abilites are rather lackluster. Shell Armor is a great ability to prevent that crit chance that may end the game for you. Thick Fat Makes M-Venusaur very hard to match up against but then again, It is solely used for improving matchups. As with levitate. To say what I said before, M-Sableye holds a valuable niche as the only defensive Magic Bounce user in the game. A big FYI here, ironically, stall teams are very weak to Magic Bounce users. M-Absol and M-Diancie, looking at you.
I'm voting 'Don't Ban Sablenite'.
6ft Torbjorn
formerly JoycapJoshST
I see...
They were bans of a joint combination, though - whereas this get it's only been a Mon/Ability in it's entirety.
Also Mega Gallade. This guy has higher defenses than MegaCham or Bunny at the cost of less immediate power. He's also the only one of them with Access to SD. If Sableye goes, this will also be a problem.
I thought this was at the core of the reasoning for banning Hoopa? I don't know how many times I read in that thread, and then again in summaries, that 'Hoopa-U invalidates stall and thus should be banned.'
I don't know how much I buy the arguments that the OP fighting types (MMedi, MHera, Bunny, MGallade) will run rampant if Sab is gone, because most teams don't run Sab, but still find ways to deal with these. That said, I understand that for the stall playstyle, MSab is extremely helpful in holding back these monsters from having their way with the rest of the team, and it seems perfectly balanced and competitive that while the offense player gets a wide pool of OP breakers to work with, the stall player gets a blanket check mon to help them out.
Now as far as the stall v stall matchup goes, I don't know what to tell you. You both chose to bring MSab stall teams, so you're both gonna reap the consequences of your 300 hundred turn game or whatever. If you don't wanna play that game, bring a different team.
Maybe I've been oblivious of late, but I haven't heard any discussion in the greater OU community about MSab being worthy of a suspect. This suspect kinda comes across as 'a few top players are getting annoyed with this thing, so let's try to get rid of it.'
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When you first saw this post, what do you think, "This Pokemon is Broken" or "This Pokemon is Annoying asf". In my opinion, it's neither of those.
Here are my reasons Sablenite should NOT be banned
Also dont ban it!
Sincierily, Illusion
Here are my reasons Sablenite should NOT be banned
- There's a way on how to counter it, use Clefable or any Unaware mon against it. It'll work depending if it's the CM set or the Utility set, but the utility set is the easiest one to counter, as it doesn't rely on boosting stats to become tanky.
- Sableye-Mega is also countered by another mega, Loppuny-Mega, as it has Scrappy and KO's Sableye w/ a HJK or 2HKO. Just saying its broken because it's annoying isn't really a valid reason to put it as a suspect. If it's annoying, then it's annoying, we can't change the fact that it's annoying.
Also dont ban it!
Sincierily, Illusion
Hoopa-u invalidated stall, but it also had 0 switchins short of dogshit like mandibuzz and consistently put in work against balance and offense too. Being able to completely annihilate an entire playstyle while also being effective enough against others is ridiculous, and it being able to sponge almost every unboosted special hit didn't help either. Stall isn't invalid without mega sableye, other forms of stall are invalidated by mega sableye stall. And idk why people keep saying the mega fighters will be broken, first of all that's a horrible reason to vote no ban, and second of all there's plenty of other counterplay. If sableye is your lope "check" there's something wrong, and mega medi/mega gallade have plenty of other counterplay. Obviously without sableye mew will get a lot better which deals with fighting types fairly well among other things, but there's plenty of other counterplay to fighting megas people already use. And hell, if you think fighting megas might be broken anyways, that's still no excuse to vote no ban on what you feel is otherwise a banworthy threat. Also can you people PLEASE stop saying "sableye has counters it's not broken xD" that argument is so fucking bad on its own
I'm split on my vote fwiw, I'll decide while getting reqs probs. At this point leaning ban
I just want to dispel a few misconceptions about this suspect that I think need to be addressed.
I'm not trying to start any beef here, I just wanted to address some arguments that I believe are inherently flawed when arguing against a Mega Sableye ban.
Stall isn't going to be unviable without Mega Sableye, megas like Mega Zard X and Mega Slowbro will be perfectly viable on stall without Mega Sableye. Mega Sableye is a very good stall mega, but stall certainly won't be unviable without Mega Sableye with these other megas being avaliable. Even in this Mega Sableye meta, good stall teams have been used without Mega Sableye like TDK's Mega Bro+TTar and TFL's Double Defog with Zardx>Sab teams. However, while these teams may be good, they simply have a nearly impossible matchup vs standard Mega Sableye stall, leading me into my next point...
That's actually not true. Any stall team without Mega Sableye faces a huge disadvantage vs any brand of Mega Sableye stall, it being a borderline unwinnable matchup. All of stall's standard ways of winning the game, chipping away at the opponent with entry hazards, putting a timer on things with status conditions, etc. with pretty much no room for error. If you take TDK's Mega Bro team and put it against say ABR stall, you realize that the team's main wincon in Slowbro is taken out of the picture since Amoong can just clear smog away its boosts and put it to sleep, not to mention that the team has a choice band Weavile to pressure Mega Bro. If megabro isn't a legitimate wincon vs the team, then the team is left to win with the usage of status and hazards to wear down the opposing team, but the problem lies here because Mega Sableye completely stops any setting of hazards and bounces back status to their original users.
First of all, many Pokemon do a fine job dealing with Medicham. The departure of Mega Sableye also makes stallbreaker Mew and Reuniclus significantly more viable, and those just happen to be two stellar Mega Medicham answers, not to mention that there are other currently viable Pokemon for stall teams to use vs Medicham like Mega Slowbro and Mega Latias, so Medicham doesn't even become a problem with the departure of mega Sableye. Even if Mega Medi actually did become a problem with the departure of Mega Sableye, broken checking broken has never been a legitimate argument to keep anything in the tier, we just ban all of the broken elements from the tier until we have a healthy metagame, that has always been our mentality during suspect tests.
I'm not trying to start any beef here, I just wanted to address some arguments that I believe are inherently flawed when arguing against a Mega Sableye ban.
Yes, it's important to consider what threats would rise if Mega Sableye left. There's a lot of powerful mega fighting types out there, and Mega Sableye helped keep them from overrunning OU. With Mega Sableye gone, the metagame could very easily be a lot worse. Besides, Mega Sableye isn't even that powerful anyway.
ORAS OU will surely not die 2 weeks from now. Remember how long it took for XY to have a stable meta? I get it may seem late at this point due to Sun and Moon coming out in a bit, but I figure it's going to take even longer for SM to have a stable meta due to how much is being added in SM, compared to XY.
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That argument isn't nearly as bad as you consider it to be in this scenario.
That argument is shit when people can only bring up counters that don't actually work or when the counters are so few you can't even get to a second hand to count on. Mega Sableye however has enough checks, counters and counterplay that it does in fact work in this scenario and keep it from being broken. It's not broken.
Ordinarily, Pokemon are banned for being overpowered, overly centralising, or excessively luck-based. Maybe some combination of two or more of these things. However, I don't believe any of these apply to Sableye.
Sableye is not an overpowered Pokemon. It's not strong, doesn't have massive bulk, and has a low number of resistances. It has one job that it does pretty well, and that's it. Most people (myself included) would not even consider it to be a top 5 Mega.
Sableye is not an overly centralising Pokemon. Not only does it have very low usage (it's almost UU in Tour stats), but it also has very little effect on team structure or movesets. No one has given up on running Ferrothorn or Medicham because of it, Defensive Landorus-Therian and Garchomp are still around, etc. Look at the effect Pokemon such as Heatran and Tyranitar have in this regard. There's a ton of Pokemon who are forced into running Earthquake or Focus Blast just to avoid being walled by these. Sableye isn't invalidating any Pokemon (Gallade at a push?) or team-style, and it isn't forcing you to run anything you wouldn't normally use.
I don't think anyone is claiming that Sableye is luck-based.
The argument I see most is that Sableye is "unhealthy". The main problem I have with this is that it seems Sableye is being blamed for stall as a whole. Banning Sableye isn't going to remove any of the perceived match-up problems in the tier. There's already plenty of stall teams using other forms of hazard control (Zapdos, Skarmory, even Xatu), and trapping is the reason why you supposedly have to stack up on wallbreakers to beat stall. Banning Sableye might make these teams a little less common, but they're still going to exist and function the same way as before.
Personally, I believe there's far bigger issues in this tier than Sableye. If we're talking match-up, look no further than Pursuit and what it's doing to the game. If it's stall, trappers and Defoggers are the root of the problem. There's also stuff like Scald and Thunder Wave, too. These are the big issues right now, and I firmly believe that banning Sableye of all things isn't going to accomplish anything.
Sableye is not an overpowered Pokemon. It's not strong, doesn't have massive bulk, and has a low number of resistances. It has one job that it does pretty well, and that's it. Most people (myself included) would not even consider it to be a top 5 Mega.
Sableye is not an overly centralising Pokemon. Not only does it have very low usage (it's almost UU in Tour stats), but it also has very little effect on team structure or movesets. No one has given up on running Ferrothorn or Medicham because of it, Defensive Landorus-Therian and Garchomp are still around, etc. Look at the effect Pokemon such as Heatran and Tyranitar have in this regard. There's a ton of Pokemon who are forced into running Earthquake or Focus Blast just to avoid being walled by these. Sableye isn't invalidating any Pokemon (Gallade at a push?) or team-style, and it isn't forcing you to run anything you wouldn't normally use.
I don't think anyone is claiming that Sableye is luck-based.
The argument I see most is that Sableye is "unhealthy". The main problem I have with this is that it seems Sableye is being blamed for stall as a whole. Banning Sableye isn't going to remove any of the perceived match-up problems in the tier. There's already plenty of stall teams using other forms of hazard control (Zapdos, Skarmory, even Xatu), and trapping is the reason why you supposedly have to stack up on wallbreakers to beat stall. Banning Sableye might make these teams a little less common, but they're still going to exist and function the same way as before.
Personally, I believe there's far bigger issues in this tier than Sableye. If we're talking match-up, look no further than Pursuit and what it's doing to the game. If it's stall, trappers and Defoggers are the root of the problem. There's also stuff like Scald and Thunder Wave, too. These are the big issues right now, and I firmly believe that banning Sableye of all things isn't going to accomplish anything.
Um, no. Mega Gallade and Mega Medicham will not be a problem if sableye is banned. Once again, there are some very good arguments for Mega Sableye to stay, but this isn't one of them.
First of all, if Sableye is banned, defensive psychics will probably get better, and I predict that Medicham wont get that much better if Sableye is banned. Gallade doesn't have as much of problem because it has knock off, but there are still plenty of things that can counter it, check it, or revenge kill it.
Take a moment to look at these calcs pertaining to both Mega Medicham and Gallade:
For an Adamant Mega Medicham:
252+ Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Reuniclus: 177-208 (41.7 - 49%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 194-228 (48 - 56.4%) -- 32% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And theoretically cresselia will get better if Sab goes-
252+ Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Cresselia: 160-189 (36.1 - 42.6%) -- 95.7% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Mega Gallade has different counters, but he's still not a problem.
+2 252 Atk Mega Gallade Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 80+ Def Mega Slowbro: 176-208 (44.6 - 52.7%) -- 22.3% chance to 2HKO (I think that Mega Slowbro stall will be big if Mega Sableye goes, and take note that this is at +2 against a non-defensive slowbro, which can 2HKO at +1)
252 Atk Mega Gallade Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 172 Def Clefable: 165-195 (41.8 - 49.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Gallade: 174-206 (62.5 - 74.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Clefable is more of a check, but it can 2HKO gallade without a boost and is still going to be popular)
Not to mention that gallade can't get past bulky grounds if it doesn't carry ice punch, and even with it Gallade doesn't do very well.
252 Atk Mega Gallade Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 144+ Def Hippowdon: 136-162 (32.3 - 38.5%) -- 3.4% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gallade: 124-147 (44.6 - 52.8%) -- 84% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage
In short, the anti-ban side should not continue to use this argument; it's weak and it makes anti-ban look uninformed. Still on the fence about this, but I'm starting to lean towards banning this thing.
First of all, if Sableye is banned, defensive psychics will probably get better, and I predict that Medicham wont get that much better if Sableye is banned. Gallade doesn't have as much of problem because it has knock off, but there are still plenty of things that can counter it, check it, or revenge kill it.
Take a moment to look at these calcs pertaining to both Mega Medicham and Gallade:
For an Adamant Mega Medicham:
252+ Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Reuniclus: 177-208 (41.7 - 49%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 194-228 (48 - 56.4%) -- 32% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And theoretically cresselia will get better if Sab goes-
252+ Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Cresselia: 160-189 (36.1 - 42.6%) -- 95.7% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Mega Gallade has different counters, but he's still not a problem.
+2 252 Atk Mega Gallade Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 80+ Def Mega Slowbro: 176-208 (44.6 - 52.7%) -- 22.3% chance to 2HKO (I think that Mega Slowbro stall will be big if Mega Sableye goes, and take note that this is at +2 against a non-defensive slowbro, which can 2HKO at +1)
252 Atk Mega Gallade Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 172 Def Clefable: 165-195 (41.8 - 49.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Gallade: 174-206 (62.5 - 74.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Clefable is more of a check, but it can 2HKO gallade without a boost and is still going to be popular)
Not to mention that gallade can't get past bulky grounds if it doesn't carry ice punch, and even with it Gallade doesn't do very well.
252 Atk Mega Gallade Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 144+ Def Hippowdon: 136-162 (32.3 - 38.5%) -- 3.4% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gallade: 124-147 (44.6 - 52.8%) -- 84% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage
In short, the anti-ban side should not continue to use this argument; it's weak and it makes anti-ban look uninformed. Still on the fence about this, but I'm starting to lean towards banning this thing.
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Relevancy of a tier has no impact on tiering decisions. For Arceus' sake if I remember correctly Smogon banned Sand Veil in Gen 3 or something (can't remember exactly) in either GEN 6 (or Gen 5 I forgot).
How am I contradicting myself? I didn't say "MMedi the uncounterable monster has counters outside of MSab" - THAT would be contradicting myself. I DID say that MMedi has counters that aren't Mega Sableye, which is a fact - Outside of Mew you have Doublade. Admittedly that's not a particularly viable Pokemon, and 2 isn't many, but we're dealing with a Pokemon that has (with an Adamant nature) an effective base attack stat of around 255. Furthermore, just having few to no counters doesn't make it broken - Look at Lucario, or Mega Charizard X - They have little to no counters but THEY'RE not broken (ok Xard is debateably but isn't really a problem at this point because Defensive Lando-T is everywhere and super duper splashable). Megacham is HARDLY a "flavour of the month" thing - It's BoltBeam set has been great for a while now, more than a month. If ANYTHING's the flavour of the month, it's Dugtrio, or Hydreigon or anything like that that has picked up traction in the last month. Flavour of the month is indicative of it being the good thing of ONE month. Also, you say I'm saying Def Mew is more of "that". Could you please specify what "that" is? Flavour of the month? Pft! Mew would have increased viability, but it wouldn't be the one 'mon people are saying is a fantastic Pokemon. People still do prepare for Mew pretty regularly, it IS still OU (somehow) after all.
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6ft Torbjorn
formerly JoycapJoshST
You're admitting Mega Medicham only has a small handful of direct counters, and yet you're pro-ban on Mega Sableye? (Plus the fact you admit to Doublade not really being viable), don't you want to keep this thing in check? I think that's contradicting yourself slightly (and yes, I know you gave the examples of Lucario / Zard X).
What i'm saying is, I don't think it'd be fun to find out the hard way that MegaCham ends up putting a strain on the meta - and i'm anti-ban because of that. Can you imagine a meta where we find out that one of Talonflame/Mew/Reuniclus would be required on every team in the event of MegaCham? It seems a bit ridiculous at first, but with Mega Sableye having stuck with us basically until the end of ORAS OU - do you really think jumping at ghosts (pun kinda intended) for no reason is going to help anything? Just because you (by the sounds of it) find stall a bit annoying? I don't personally think that MegaCham is SUPER busted atm... but with certain things, it's better not knowing... no?
Sableye... Sableye... The day when you die is coming.
I want to say why in my opinion Sableye is unhealthy and why it should be banned. Before saying my opinion, i dont think that is a good argument to say "X Pokémon is more problematic than Sableye", it is a reality that Pokémon like Clefable deserves a Suspect Test, but we are not talking about Clef, we are talking about Sableye; another thing is Medicham, if Sableye is banned, Medicham needs a Suspect Test, some people talks about Mew and Reuniclus, and yes, they are very good answers, but there is a big difference between being stopped by 2 or 3 Pokémon and when you get stopped by a playstyle.
Talking about Sableye i think that it is unhealthy for some reasons:
1- It makes viable other Pokémon, for example, without Sableye things like the Wonder Trio weren't unviable. It makes better a playstyle, a thing that any other Pokémon does.
2- Another thing is that Sableye stops you to setup entry hazards (except if your name is Clefable) and it stops you to spinning the hazards away, basically it says you NO when you are talking about hazards.
3- This might sound weird, but there is not a perfect switch in to Mega Sableye. For example, Mega Diancie, a very good switch-in on the paper, recieves crucial damage that makes that Hippo/Dugtrio/Quag OHKO it after, so, is it a very good switch-in or it is a good answer to Mega Sableye? Clefable is a very good switch-in because losing Leftovers against a Stall team shouldnt be that important.
4- Some battles against Sableye are 5-6 since the first turn, i mean, if you have something like Ferrothorn you have a Pokémon that does anything for you in that battle.
Yes, there are a lot of ways to deal with Sableye, nobody is saying that it is invicible, we are saying that Sableye changes all the metagame and make it unhealthy.
Without a doubt i am going to be in the group that says Goodbye Sableye, but i am going to say Alola to him (but i hope that it gets banned again) when S&M comes out.
Sorry about my english, that is not my thing, but i wanted to say my opinion, because Sableye has been around here for some time :)
I want to say why in my opinion Sableye is unhealthy and why it should be banned. Before saying my opinion, i dont think that is a good argument to say "X Pokémon is more problematic than Sableye", it is a reality that Pokémon like Clefable deserves a Suspect Test, but we are not talking about Clef, we are talking about Sableye; another thing is Medicham, if Sableye is banned, Medicham needs a Suspect Test, some people talks about Mew and Reuniclus, and yes, they are very good answers, but there is a big difference between being stopped by 2 or 3 Pokémon and when you get stopped by a playstyle.
Talking about Sableye i think that it is unhealthy for some reasons:
1- It makes viable other Pokémon, for example, without Sableye things like the Wonder Trio weren't unviable. It makes better a playstyle, a thing that any other Pokémon does.
2- Another thing is that Sableye stops you to setup entry hazards (except if your name is Clefable) and it stops you to spinning the hazards away, basically it says you NO when you are talking about hazards.
3- This might sound weird, but there is not a perfect switch in to Mega Sableye. For example, Mega Diancie, a very good switch-in on the paper, recieves crucial damage that makes that Hippo/Dugtrio/Quag OHKO it after, so, is it a very good switch-in or it is a good answer to Mega Sableye? Clefable is a very good switch-in because losing Leftovers against a Stall team shouldnt be that important.
4- Some battles against Sableye are 5-6 since the first turn, i mean, if you have something like Ferrothorn you have a Pokémon that does anything for you in that battle.
Yes, there are a lot of ways to deal with Sableye, nobody is saying that it is invicible, we are saying that Sableye changes all the metagame and make it unhealthy.
Without a doubt i am going to be in the group that says Goodbye Sableye, but i am going to say Alola to him (but i hope that it gets banned again) when S&M comes out.
Sorry about my english, that is not my thing, but i wanted to say my opinion, because Sableye has been around here for some time :)
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thesecondbest
Just Kidding I'm First
Not an argument. First of all if MegaCham is broken it can also get banned. Focus on if the mon at hand is banworthy or not. Secondly it won't be busted, Doublade/Mew/Reuni will just get added to stall to counter it.
Just a quick thing to remind people that mons aren't going to be kept in the tier because 'broken checks broken'. If Mega-Medicham were to become broken then we'd deal with that at the time, but it's not a reason to keep an unhealthy aspect of the metagame. That being said, Mega Medicham was not broken in XY when M-Sableye didn't exist and it won't be broken after; it has a group of counters and absolute plethora of checks that would prevent such a thing from happening so you guys need to stop worrying about that sorta thing.
In actual relation to the suspect at hand, I do feel like had this come a month earlier, I might have been more behind it due to the prevalence of stall and the new variants of it being a shock to the system. But the thing that M-Sab does is allow nichier (is that a word?) mons to have a role and that isn't necessarily a bad thing; it has created playstyles which I believe differ from standard stall in that they're hazardless-stall and that is the whole niche of them. And while it isn't necessarily fun to play against, it's definitely not unbeatable, and there are a large number of options to use against them, and if you aren't prepared then ultimately that's down to poor teambuilding.
M-Sableye isn't enjoyable to play against, but the meta isn't unhealthy, it isn't overcentralising and it isn't uncompetitive, therefore I encourage you to vote No Ban.
In actual relation to the suspect at hand, I do feel like had this come a month earlier, I might have been more behind it due to the prevalence of stall and the new variants of it being a shock to the system. But the thing that M-Sab does is allow nichier (is that a word?) mons to have a role and that isn't necessarily a bad thing; it has created playstyles which I believe differ from standard stall in that they're hazardless-stall and that is the whole niche of them. And while it isn't necessarily fun to play against, it's definitely not unbeatable, and there are a large number of options to use against them, and if you aren't prepared then ultimately that's down to poor teambuilding.
M-Sableye isn't enjoyable to play against, but the meta isn't unhealthy, it isn't overcentralising and it isn't uncompetitive, therefore I encourage you to vote No Ban.
Um, that's not contradiction at all.
The argument that MegaCham being potentially broken if MSab goes is a horrible argument against MSab being banned. If MegaCham is broken, which it likely won't be even if MSab left, it can be retested. Mega Gengar kept MKang down to a degree, doesn't mean Mega Gengar should have been kept just to preserve Mega Kangaskhan. There was a period in the XY meta after the ban of Aegi (one of MMedi's counters) where MMedi wasn't broken, why would it be different now? If for whatever unholy reason MMedi is broken after MSab goes, it can be dealt with later, probably while Sun and Moon isn't a stable meta (the quickban "phase" most likely, and I use phase lightly as quickbans can happen any time throughout a tier's lifetime, with phase being used to describe mostly the time before XY NP: 1 when things like MKang and MGeng were all getting the quickboot). Also, MSable isn't used on an absurd amount of teams (read: not a particularly great argument against it, megamence "only" saw 12% usage and it was the most broken piece of shit OU had seen since Darkrai, Deo-N and Skymin) and MMedi is still considered balanced vs non-stall playstyles, with non stall plastyles being the generally best playstyles for it to come up against. It's not broken now, and MSab isn't common enough for it to be the reason behind it not being broken, so I see no reason it would be broken now.
tl;dr: Broken does not and should not be kept to fix broken.
EDIT: Double Ninjad
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6ft Torbjorn
formerly JoycapJoshST
Alright, I see. Still one thing that kind of remains unanswered:
You admit that Mega Sableye isn't used on a high amount of teams - so maybe we don't have as much experience vs it as we think is worth a ban? Thus (like I said earlier) Stall seems to be the only team archetype it has proper synergy with (also I reason I bought up Trick Room, which you rightly debunked).
EDIT: You mention the quickban process (loosely) - and mention XY Mega Gengar/Kangaskan. And while, yes, it's similar - in this case, we're comparing 2 megas that are still in OU 2-3 years down the line, and actually taking our time around this suspect. Kinda comparing apples and oranges, wouldn't you say?
Plus I mentioned the timing of this suspect test because (again), we're less than a month from the birth of S&M OU, and I don't want to come across as if we're grasping at straws. I'm sure none of us do tbh.
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Yes, it's true that I've not fought MSab as much as I would "like" (for the experience of handling it, not because I enjoy facing MSab), but I have still got to teambuild for it's hazard supporting shenanigans on the off chance it appears on ladder, and that's the bit that I feel MSab impacts largest - I have to pack dedicated rocks setters I wouldn't consider running otherwise (Rocks Heatran or SD Rocks Lando-T, for example) just so I can win the hazard game vs MSab if it pops up. The reason I likely don't see it is because a) I don't try to ladder too much anymore, b) I'm not a particularly amazing battler so I can't reach the higher echelons, and c) - the biggest factor - I am haxed to hell and back on ladder. I'm talking 7 consecutive Magma Storm misses, 6 consecutive Hydro Misses followed by a freeze, and 2 games in a row where their Ice Punch/Beam freezes my Rotom-W, it doesn't thaw, and that loses me the game. Sure, sometimes I'm that lucky back (double Ice Punch froze someone in a room tour in semis for example), but those are all RECENT things and those are the games I stop playing after because of tilt, and they're almost always the second or third battle in.
/haxmoan
6ft Torbjorn
formerly JoycapJoshST
If you're that paranoid of the off chance MegaSab pops up - you might as well make an argument for banning Shedninja.
That being said, I can relate to that and your case tbh (minus the hax, that's not relevant imo or reflective of ones skill as a player).
To say that it has an influence on teambuilding to that acute of a degree as well, i'd say is complete bollocks really. If you build a team and find it loses to Mega Sableye or any of it's stall-supporting teammates - then just keep it in mind and don't let it get to your head. Simple as.
Ok, I thought I'd post again because I feel a lot of pro-ban arguments are being misrepresented, and people generally aren't making full use of the available information, ie by looking at past tiers and policy.
1) No post of substance is suggesting that they want Sableye banned because it's annoying. The most basic form of the argument is that Sableye should be banned because of matchup issues, and then the person making the argument expresses the opinion that they find this annoying. The opinion might not add anything to the argument, but it certainly doesn't deduct from it.
2) Many people miss the fact that we have a very similar tier to compare to ORAS in XY. We also have a long history of Dugtrio trap being a fair method for stall to remove potential stallbreakers, going right back to ADV. If Dugtrio is the problem, why wasn't it a problem back then?
Furthermore, there was undoubtably an abundance of defoggers back in XY too, so clearly, the issue isn't just it being easier to remove hazards than it was before. Let me put it another way: Stall was undoubtably balanced back in XY. The only real new tools that stall gained at the start of ORAS were new megas, one of them being Sableye. If stall is a problem now, and wasn't back then, what could the issue possibly be other than Sableye? At the end of XY, it certainly didn't feel like Landorus and Greninja were the only 2 pokemon stopping stall from being some matchup based playstyle that poisons the metagame.
If there is a problem, there is no other possible culprit but Mega Sableye. The only 2 logical attitudes to this suspect test is either that there is no problem at all, or that the problem is due to Mega Sableye. Personally I think that to believe Mega Sableye is absolutely skill based, and contributes to a metagame where the better player wins the majority of the time, is a bit naive, but at least the approach is logically consistent with knowledge we can gain from looking at past metagames.
Just as an addition to this section, because I almost didn't do it and the above paragraphs talk about XY, Medicham was completely balanced there. Just let me dispel fears that if we ban Sableye, Medicham will run amok, it simply won't. It will undeniably get better, but we know from past experience that Medicham can and will be totally balanced in a sable-less metagame.
3) A low tour usage of Mega Sableye doesn't prove its innocence, and it doesn't need to be massively overwhelming in every game to be banned. I'd like to refer to this post I made in the very last suspect we did, concerning Hoopa-U, where it was banned:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...-u-is-now-banned.3568442/page-19#post-6752162
I went through all the SPL replays I could find, and put that together. From a sample of 25 replays, 19 of them showed Hoopa being totally in line with the rest of the OU tier. Around 4 were what I'd describe as ambiguous, meaning that either hax played a role, Hoopa was particularly good in that match but not wildly out of line, or that it just cleaned up as a scarf set, which while very good, isn't necessarily unhealthy. Only 2 showed Hoopa decimating teams, as it was described to do.
Anyway, the result of that suspect was that Hoopa was banned. While I was opposed to the banning of it at the time, it's important that we follow the same logical path set about by this. More specifically, that you don't judge a pokemon by its lows, but its highs. We didn't keep Hoopa because of the people who didn't support it at all and sacked it early, but instead we banned it because of how effective it was in the hands of a player who gave it voltturn support and preserved it throughout the course of a match to get plenty of KOs. In the same way, we shouldn't keep Sableye because some players build around it poorly and make blatant chokes, we should ban it because of how it negates good play in the hands of somebody who uses a team that does support it correct, and doesn't choke the game away. I definitely believe that Sableye is incredibly easy to use; just because you can build a bad team, or sack mons unnecessarily and lose as a result of this doesn't mean it should stay.
In conclusion:
I think that attempting to mislabel pro-banners as people who just want to ban Sableye because they don't like stall, or find the mon annoying is obnoxious, but more importantly it is counter productive and doesn't actually dispute any of the main points made. Furthermore, from prior experience, it seems illogical to claim that the problem is anything but Sableye; arena trap and defog have already proven to be balanced. Finally, if we want to be consistent in how we approach tiering policy, then we shouldn't keep Sableye because there are matches where it is balanced, but ban it because there are matches in which it is not. If you voted ban on Hoopa due to its high potential, even if this did occur rarely, but then vote no ban on Sablenite because you think it's not consistent in its ability to void the game of skill, then this is immensely hypocritical.
Finally, I keep seeing anti-ban posts state that because Mega Sableye isn't technically "broken", it shouldn't be banned. Let me just be clear that I don't believe this is a particularly helpful term when looking at this suspect. It's an arbitrary term, and implies that a pokemon has to be able to sweep super easily, or get KOs left and right with little effort. Based on this, it's very unsuitable in terms of looking at defensive suspects, because a defensive pokemon would literally have to wall the entire metagame to be considered "broken". Some of the anti-ban arguments last time Sableye got suspected stated that they didn't like facing it either, but because you could beat Sableye teams easily if you happened to have exactly the right tools, and those tools weren't wildly uncommon, it wasn't broken. Thus those people gloomily voted "no ban" and went back to either Sableye-proofing their teams from the ground up, or just accepted that somebody else with the right Sableye team could crush them with minimal effort and that it was their fault for "bad teambuilding" if they didn't prepare for every highly matchup based variant of Sab stall running about.
This suspect is a chance to re-evaluate what we should view as deserving of a ban, and a chance to place skill at the forefront of the metagame. If you think Sableye doesn't cause huge matchup problems in every game its in, maybe that's fair, but it certainly doesn't excuse the games in which it does. It's commonly accepted that for competitive games, the better player should win the majority of the time. While there will always be unavoidable degrees of hax and matchup in pokemon, this suspect gives us a chance to pursue the idea that skill and smart play should matter, no matter what you see at team preview. I urge everyone to take it, and vote ban in order to make ORAS a more competitive game.
1) No post of substance is suggesting that they want Sableye banned because it's annoying. The most basic form of the argument is that Sableye should be banned because of matchup issues, and then the person making the argument expresses the opinion that they find this annoying. The opinion might not add anything to the argument, but it certainly doesn't deduct from it.
2) Many people miss the fact that we have a very similar tier to compare to ORAS in XY. We also have a long history of Dugtrio trap being a fair method for stall to remove potential stallbreakers, going right back to ADV. If Dugtrio is the problem, why wasn't it a problem back then?
Furthermore, there was undoubtably an abundance of defoggers back in XY too, so clearly, the issue isn't just it being easier to remove hazards than it was before. Let me put it another way: Stall was undoubtably balanced back in XY. The only real new tools that stall gained at the start of ORAS were new megas, one of them being Sableye. If stall is a problem now, and wasn't back then, what could the issue possibly be other than Sableye? At the end of XY, it certainly didn't feel like Landorus and Greninja were the only 2 pokemon stopping stall from being some matchup based playstyle that poisons the metagame.
If there is a problem, there is no other possible culprit but Mega Sableye. The only 2 logical attitudes to this suspect test is either that there is no problem at all, or that the problem is due to Mega Sableye. Personally I think that to believe Mega Sableye is absolutely skill based, and contributes to a metagame where the better player wins the majority of the time, is a bit naive, but at least the approach is logically consistent with knowledge we can gain from looking at past metagames.
Just as an addition to this section, because I almost didn't do it and the above paragraphs talk about XY, Medicham was completely balanced there. Just let me dispel fears that if we ban Sableye, Medicham will run amok, it simply won't. It will undeniably get better, but we know from past experience that Medicham can and will be totally balanced in a sable-less metagame.
3) A low tour usage of Mega Sableye doesn't prove its innocence, and it doesn't need to be massively overwhelming in every game to be banned. I'd like to refer to this post I made in the very last suspect we did, concerning Hoopa-U, where it was banned:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...-u-is-now-banned.3568442/page-19#post-6752162
I went through all the SPL replays I could find, and put that together. From a sample of 25 replays, 19 of them showed Hoopa being totally in line with the rest of the OU tier. Around 4 were what I'd describe as ambiguous, meaning that either hax played a role, Hoopa was particularly good in that match but not wildly out of line, or that it just cleaned up as a scarf set, which while very good, isn't necessarily unhealthy. Only 2 showed Hoopa decimating teams, as it was described to do.
Anyway, the result of that suspect was that Hoopa was banned. While I was opposed to the banning of it at the time, it's important that we follow the same logical path set about by this. More specifically, that you don't judge a pokemon by its lows, but its highs. We didn't keep Hoopa because of the people who didn't support it at all and sacked it early, but instead we banned it because of how effective it was in the hands of a player who gave it voltturn support and preserved it throughout the course of a match to get plenty of KOs. In the same way, we shouldn't keep Sableye because some players build around it poorly and make blatant chokes, we should ban it because of how it negates good play in the hands of somebody who uses a team that does support it correct, and doesn't choke the game away. I definitely believe that Sableye is incredibly easy to use; just because you can build a bad team, or sack mons unnecessarily and lose as a result of this doesn't mean it should stay.
In conclusion:
I think that attempting to mislabel pro-banners as people who just want to ban Sableye because they don't like stall, or find the mon annoying is obnoxious, but more importantly it is counter productive and doesn't actually dispute any of the main points made. Furthermore, from prior experience, it seems illogical to claim that the problem is anything but Sableye; arena trap and defog have already proven to be balanced. Finally, if we want to be consistent in how we approach tiering policy, then we shouldn't keep Sableye because there are matches where it is balanced, but ban it because there are matches in which it is not. If you voted ban on Hoopa due to its high potential, even if this did occur rarely, but then vote no ban on Sablenite because you think it's not consistent in its ability to void the game of skill, then this is immensely hypocritical.
Finally, I keep seeing anti-ban posts state that because Mega Sableye isn't technically "broken", it shouldn't be banned. Let me just be clear that I don't believe this is a particularly helpful term when looking at this suspect. It's an arbitrary term, and implies that a pokemon has to be able to sweep super easily, or get KOs left and right with little effort. Based on this, it's very unsuitable in terms of looking at defensive suspects, because a defensive pokemon would literally have to wall the entire metagame to be considered "broken". Some of the anti-ban arguments last time Sableye got suspected stated that they didn't like facing it either, but because you could beat Sableye teams easily if you happened to have exactly the right tools, and those tools weren't wildly uncommon, it wasn't broken. Thus those people gloomily voted "no ban" and went back to either Sableye-proofing their teams from the ground up, or just accepted that somebody else with the right Sableye team could crush them with minimal effort and that it was their fault for "bad teambuilding" if they didn't prepare for every highly matchup based variant of Sab stall running about.
This suspect is a chance to re-evaluate what we should view as deserving of a ban, and a chance to place skill at the forefront of the metagame. If you think Sableye doesn't cause huge matchup problems in every game its in, maybe that's fair, but it certainly doesn't excuse the games in which it does. It's commonly accepted that for competitive games, the better player should win the majority of the time. While there will always be unavoidable degrees of hax and matchup in pokemon, this suspect gives us a chance to pursue the idea that skill and smart play should matter, no matter what you see at team preview. I urge everyone to take it, and vote ban in order to make ORAS a more competitive game.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/portrait-of-an-uber.43566/
I kind of question why Sablenite even got a suspect. If you read that, that's been the gold standard for what makes an Uber an Uber since DP. If you look at the 3 characteristics that make a Pokemon Uber:
Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.
Hahaha, moving on...
Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.
Ok, so statwise, it's frailer than normal form Diancie, and can't hold Leftovers, so obviously, it's not exactly broken. It has no weaknesses...but any battler worth their salt will tell you that having resistances are much, much more important than not having weaknesses. That's why Cresselia is not OU, despite being super bulky, and (part of) why Ferrothorn is. So, compared to other OU (and even UU) mons, M-Sableye falls short in this department.
Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other Pokemon tosweep win.
Edited for clarity a bit. Doesn't necessarily have to sweep, it's all about winning in the end. Now, this is a bit more interesting.
Obviously, from the get go, M-Sableye is essentially a stall staple. Its lack of offensive presence makes it a liability in offense and balance. Its main purpose is to keep hazards off the field, and, for Stall, to prevent disruptive tactics like Taunt and Trick. Additionally, it keeps at bay one of the most threatening mons to Stall, namely M-Medicham.
In effect, what it does is make it a guarantee that if you play stall without M-Sableye, you will lose to all opposing stall that uses M-Sableye.
A consequence of that is that it impedes creativity (more on that later).
So, the crux is, does M-Sableye make it significantly easier for stall to win? Well, yes, M-Sableye makes it significantly easier for stall to win than if Sablenite didn't exist (duh), but the exact same argument can be applied to, I dunno, Chansey or Skarmory... Is stall really so overwhelmingly dominant that we need to remove a crucial part of it?
I'll link you to this:
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-09/ou-1825.txt
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-09/ou-1695.txt
In both of these cases, a true stall Pokemon (Clefable doesn't count, the thing works better on balance and runs Magic Guard instead of Unaware most of the time) doesn't appear till past the 10th position. Many offense and balance staples (Lando-T, Manaphy, Excadrill) are comfortably in the top 10.
So yeah. Stall. Dominant. Not a thing.
In addition to this fact, Stall...really doesn't care too much for M-Sableye. Those breakers I mentioned earlier (M-Medicham in particular) can be handled, whether by using a combination of M-Venusaur + Slowbro, M-Slowbro + something else, Doublade, etc.
Except that using those other megas and Ghost types makes you lose to an opposing stall team that packs M-Sableye.
Which brings me back to creativity:
M-Sableye, without a doubt, impedes creativity in stall teams. Without it, the pool of viable Megas grows a lot, especially since stall could use their own stallbreakers (Mew, Taunt Mandibuzz, Taunt Skarm and the others). However, should creativity be a factor in competitive Pokemon? Is creativity necessary for Pokemon to be fun? I don't have an answer, and I honestly can't be bothered to ladder the suspect ladder until I get an answer. That's up to you.
Anyway, yeah, most of the people in this thread are wrong.
TL;DR
If you want to ban M-Sableye to nerf stall, you are wrong. Stall will live on. Stall is eternal. New stall without M-sableye will eat your team and spit out their corpses without blinking. Get better.
If you want to ban M-Sableye to increase diversity in stall, even if it is not strictly broken, you are right. That is a good mindset. Keep that conviction, and good luck on the ladder.
If you want to keep M-Sableye because stall teams need it, you are wrong. Stall is stronger than one measly Pokemon. Stall will adapt, and it will spit on you for lacking faith.
If you want to keep M-Sableye because you don't believe not broken stuff should be banned, even if it centralizes the meta, you are right. Your logic is self-consistent, and good luck on the ladder.
Edit: The post above mine makes a lot of sense. I'll point out that this same argument of decentralization vs "not broken, don't fix" mentality was the crux of the Aegislash ban. In that case, Aegislash was the superior option on every team. This time, it's just stall teams. Different scale, but same concept. Still don't have an opinion. I don't care either way.
I kind of question why Sablenite even got a suspect. If you read that, that's been the gold standard for what makes an Uber an Uber since DP. If you look at the 3 characteristics that make a Pokemon Uber:
Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.
Hahaha, moving on...
Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.
Ok, so statwise, it's frailer than normal form Diancie, and can't hold Leftovers, so obviously, it's not exactly broken. It has no weaknesses...but any battler worth their salt will tell you that having resistances are much, much more important than not having weaknesses. That's why Cresselia is not OU, despite being super bulky, and (part of) why Ferrothorn is. So, compared to other OU (and even UU) mons, M-Sableye falls short in this department.
Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other Pokemon to
Edited for clarity a bit. Doesn't necessarily have to sweep, it's all about winning in the end. Now, this is a bit more interesting.
Obviously, from the get go, M-Sableye is essentially a stall staple. Its lack of offensive presence makes it a liability in offense and balance. Its main purpose is to keep hazards off the field, and, for Stall, to prevent disruptive tactics like Taunt and Trick. Additionally, it keeps at bay one of the most threatening mons to Stall, namely M-Medicham.
In effect, what it does is make it a guarantee that if you play stall without M-Sableye, you will lose to all opposing stall that uses M-Sableye.
A consequence of that is that it impedes creativity (more on that later).
So, the crux is, does M-Sableye make it significantly easier for stall to win? Well, yes, M-Sableye makes it significantly easier for stall to win than if Sablenite didn't exist (duh), but the exact same argument can be applied to, I dunno, Chansey or Skarmory... Is stall really so overwhelmingly dominant that we need to remove a crucial part of it?
I'll link you to this:
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-09/ou-1825.txt
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-09/ou-1695.txt
In both of these cases, a true stall Pokemon (Clefable doesn't count, the thing works better on balance and runs Magic Guard instead of Unaware most of the time) doesn't appear till past the 10th position. Many offense and balance staples (Lando-T, Manaphy, Excadrill) are comfortably in the top 10.
So yeah. Stall. Dominant. Not a thing.
In addition to this fact, Stall...really doesn't care too much for M-Sableye. Those breakers I mentioned earlier (M-Medicham in particular) can be handled, whether by using a combination of M-Venusaur + Slowbro, M-Slowbro + something else, Doublade, etc.
Except that using those other megas and Ghost types makes you lose to an opposing stall team that packs M-Sableye.
Which brings me back to creativity:
M-Sableye, without a doubt, impedes creativity in stall teams. Without it, the pool of viable Megas grows a lot, especially since stall could use their own stallbreakers (Mew, Taunt Mandibuzz, Taunt Skarm and the others). However, should creativity be a factor in competitive Pokemon? Is creativity necessary for Pokemon to be fun? I don't have an answer, and I honestly can't be bothered to ladder the suspect ladder until I get an answer. That's up to you.
Anyway, yeah, most of the people in this thread are wrong.
TL;DR
If you want to ban M-Sableye to nerf stall, you are wrong. Stall will live on. Stall is eternal. New stall without M-sableye will eat your team and spit out their corpses without blinking. Get better.
If you want to ban M-Sableye to increase diversity in stall, even if it is not strictly broken, you are right. That is a good mindset. Keep that conviction, and good luck on the ladder.
If you want to keep M-Sableye because stall teams need it, you are wrong. Stall is stronger than one measly Pokemon. Stall will adapt, and it will spit on you for lacking faith.
If you want to keep M-Sableye because you don't believe not broken stuff should be banned, even if it centralizes the meta, you are right. Your logic is self-consistent, and good luck on the ladder.
Edit: The post above mine makes a lot of sense. I'll point out that this same argument of decentralization vs "not broken, don't fix" mentality was the crux of the Aegislash ban. In that case, Aegislash was the superior option on every team. This time, it's just stall teams. Different scale, but same concept. Still don't have an opinion. I don't care either way.
I saw some people who don't want it to be banned used some calculations to prove that sableye could be killed easily, but you guys have to know that most of the people here are playing 6vs6 not 1vs1, this can't even be a reason why it shouldn't be banned.In my opinion, M-eye destroyed the game, reasons are explained already by many players. I would definitely agree if you tell me "Stall team also needs skills and intelligence " before M-Eye was introduced,but right now I won't admit that for an obvious reason.
Therefore,M-sableye must be banned!
Therefore,M-sableye must be banned!
See the thing is, I dont think there is a problem. There is more than enough room to outplay stall teams in this meta so long as you aren't reliant on outdated strategies, in the same way that if you try to win with 4 Dragons, you're going to come up short in Gen6 due to Fairies.
Onto the rest of your post, which I'm not going to quote directly cause that would make this too long, first of all when the basis of your complaint is that it causes severe matchup issues, when somebody goes through replays to show that in fact, it doesn't do anything that stall in general, with or without sableye, would not do as well, you dont get to just ignore that evidence to pretend that it still does. The majority of your replays in the Hoopa thread were before sets like Specs Hoopa were considered and it pushed it over the edge, in all the games Finch found, we already knew full well what Sableye did. And the result was dependent of if the opponent had prepared for stall, not necessarily Sableye stall, with the exception of when ABR brought Weavile Stall for the first time, because that was a new innovation that dealt with a lot of ways people were preparing for stall. There is a fundamental difference between Hoopa and Sableye that you're ignoring, that being the unbelievable extent to which one's team had to adapt for Hoopa to be ok, and even then it was still an issue that could still break your team, whereas Sableye (and Sableye teams as a whole) has numerous countermeasures that are not useless or close to in matchups where Sableye is not present in.
I believe quite firmly that Sableye does raise the skill cap for the metagame, because it increases the average skill required to win a game against it. There is little skill in using Sableye itself, but that can be applied to all stalls, not just Sableye stalls. Stall teams are merely trying to not lose, and gambling that you aren't good enough to win against them. This has been the case since gen2, it's not a new thing. You dont have to rely on overly niche breakers, you simply need to rely on having a team that can deal with stall teams in general. Sableye is the most effective mega on stall teams, because it means that poorly built teams cant beat stall by hazard stacking with their passive mons until you run out of defog, but as far as well built teams go, breaking it is not more difficult nor requiring more specific building than MegaBro and Mega Altaria teams.
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