I honestly think that ttar or hippo on their own is better than forcing yourself to run abusers with sand. Ttar and Hippo on their own are a lot better than when they have to run smooth rock and support the abusers.
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Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)
- Thread starter TPP
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Yeah ironically, Tyranitar on it's lonesome is the most threatening thing on the sand, and it has terrrific matchups against Sun and hail and Ttar itself destroys like all forms of stall when slapping on a CB and pairing it with Future Sight. Even when using Rain, TTar turning off Rain is quite annoying and can impede the momentum of rain teams quite a bit too. Excadrill has it's perks but you could also run a Garchomp instead so it's like what BlueEsclispe said, Sand itself isn't bad but the issue is more so "full sand" per se.
When it comes to sand, I'd rather just run a CB ttar on its own and pair it with mons like Scarftana, Thorn, and Lando than try and go hard sand. That's far from an unpopular opinion but I haven't had much luck trying to take full advantage of sand. Ttar messing with other weather teams is a really nice bonus, though and it helps fight back against how deadly the rain matchup can be if things spiral out of control
yeah, i feel like that's what makes sand good. You don't really need any abusers, sand is basically the "neutral" weather, that cancels out otther weather. CB tar on its own is just better than trying to go hard sand. Hard sand is worse than all of the other weathers, but what makes it good is ttar's and hippo's ability to overwrite other weathers.
I don't agree with Sun having more relevant better matchups than Sand because with Sun you're forced heavily into offense and teams end up looking almost like HO with maybe 2 pivots which means you have less of a defensive backbone to work with. Also most people stack fire types on their Suns which exacerbates this issue. Mons like Chomp and Kart easily fit on Sand teams and can easily overwhelm Landorus or other defensive mons paving the way for Drill (or Zolt for that matter).
CB Ttar is the most used on Sand teams though if i'm not mistaken, since like airfare said Sands don't commit extremely to the weather. So not really a lot of mons come in on that mon besides Buzzwole. Torkoal also lets a lot of dangerous mons in. With Torkoal your'e usually hard pressed to fit rocks, spin, a fire move and either toxic/body press, so you have to ditch one of the last two. If you forego Toxic most grounds, Pelipper, Blacephalon, Volcanion and Pult come in for free, if you forego Press then Heatran and TTar come in for free.
Not a gigantic bunch but certainly more players using Sand and getting consistent wins at a high level than players using Sun and getting consistent wins at a high level. I can guarantee you that 100%.
It's a fair point to not always trust what you see on ladder but then what am I supposed to trust as an indicator of what's actually good in the meta. I'd assume the two things to consider for meta are tour play and ladder, and since I'm no tournament player I have to stick with what I see works on the ladder that I play. I think it makes sense that if a reasonable amount of good ladder players are using a specific archetype it's not because they wanna flex (sometimes they do but its not the case for the most part) but because it works and thus they c onsider it viable.
Keep in mind I still think Sun is mad fun and has potential. Like I said it's my most favorite playstyle of all time and I've had decent success with it, however my whole argument is that Sand is more consistent.
A couple replays to prove i'm not just hating on it and I believe it does have potential:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1558758710-wzwa2pj8ox100vbvnjjsjfrrw0ic6vtpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1559370270-jtsyy371ekvd8eq9yv67fwm1gj9it1jpw
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Aside from the subject of Weathers, I was wondering how you all feel about experimentation with SD + Beat Up Weavile? My opinion hasn't changed much, but considering the trend of Weavile getting stretched offensively I wanted to know how you guys feel that would hinge on its viability, if at all.
I think it could be good, the problem i foresee is that beat up loses a lot of value as a game progresses, and SD weavile is better as a sweeper, while banded is better as a breaker. There’s definitely potential but losing out on knock/taxle/ice shard/low kick seems like a hard sell to me
I feel like this makes it worse than banded BU. banded makes it able to just come in and do substantial damage, while SD means you lose out on a stab, ice shard, or coverage for beat up which isn't great. What makes SD so good is its ability to dish out tons of damage, but if your damage output relies on your teammates, then later in the game (where SD weavile is best as a cleaner) you'll do less damage.
This set might only fit on a HO team where Weavile is designated as an early game-breaker. You could run SD Beat up Triple Axel and Ice Shard as the best compromise, as you can easily fit a knock off user elsewhere, namely on Kartana who is a common partner to Beat up weavile.
honestly, its weavile. It can do whatever it wants and still be usable lol
no matter what you do with it its gonna have a niche somewhere
except specs
no matter what you do with it its gonna have a niche somewhere
Yeah I think the mon is now going through the Kyurem phase where people have really begun to look at all it's options.
At first it was just SD HDB, with ice shard/Knock off/Coverage move or Ice Shard Knock off/Triple Axel ; Or Band with Knock off Triple Axel Ice Shard and Filler Coverage (Poison Jab Low Kick or Even Aerial ace)
Icicle Crash is a niche option over Triple Axel to avoid contact effects and flinch hax can be a force to be reckoned with.
but now SD LO or Never Melt Ice sets are more of a thing thing, and of course Choice Banded Beat-Up, in addition to now SD beat-up
I'm now even seeing people experiment with Pickpocket shenanigans in various ways, like using Focus Sash weavile and simultaneously stealing the attacking mon's item, or just running Pickpocket in general as you never know when Weavile will randomly have it's usual CB or HDB knocked off and could potentially lead to some interesting and/or funny scenarios.
So I think there is still quite a bit to explore with this mon and it's very strong and versatile.
For vile experimentation, I've tried adamant scarf Weavile a couple times on ladder and it's fun to ohko chipped scarf Leles and nuke Dragapult but it's kind of hard to pull off because it always makes people go "why did you send Weavile out right now, you must be scarfed or an absolute idiot" and it doesn't have the consistency of SD or CB game to game or even within a game and it really makes me miss the offensive power of a normal Weavile
Yeah Scarf Weavile is in the same boat as Scarf Dragapult, wherein Weavile is already pretty darn fast (and also gets solid priority) and otherwise doesn't hit hard enough plus on top of that the weakness to entry hazards not being worth the ability to surprise Lele, or OHKO dragapult, the latter of which you pretty reliably check /pressure already with ice shard on the other sets. With Kyurem Scarf was viable because it was otherwise below average in speed for an offensive mon (base 90s).
Weird Eviolite Trends
(psa: these mons are not not fully evolved!!)
ie some fun facts that are ou related, i guess :)
For no particular reason I was just checking out Hitmontop's usage stats in OU and noticed a weird anomaly - it ran Eviolite at 1825 elo... 1.77% of the time (~1 in 60) which was statistically significant enough to be documented in the usage stats. This was the only fully-evolved mon at this elo to run eviolite. Could this be a hint at a future gen 9 Hitmontop evolution??? (no) (But That Would Be Cool Though)(psa: these mons are not not fully evolved!!)
ie some fun facts that are ou related, i guess :)
At 1695 its place as the only (statistically significant) FE eviolite holder is taken by Sableye - for better or for worse having Megas doesn't give you an eviolite boost, so unless I'm missing a crazy Trick strategy you might wanna rethink your items (or mons, this thing sucks)
Lower down in the 1500s the pool of FE eviolite holders grew - with Unfezant, Corsola and Carbink all just missing out on the top spot which goes to Oranguru, who holds eviolite just over 2% of the time! Maybe this is down to a misunderstanding in Symbiosis mechanics or something to do with a doubles team? who knows.
However, at the bottom of the ladder, Glalie actually takes the top spot over all other contenders mentioned above with 2.05% eviolite usage! The builder of the Eviolite Glalie Team(s?) have clearly been very determined, but unfortunately not enough to reach the higher rating brackets.
Hitmontop is a special case because it’s been seen in a lot of lower tiers that people on high ladder will spam/meme with hitmontop in tiers where it’s not very viableWeird Eviolite TrendsFor no particular reason I was just checking out Hitmontop's usage stats in OU and noticed a weird anomaly - it ran Eviolite at 1825 elo... 1.77% of the time (~1 in 60) which was statistically significant enough to be documented in the usage stats. This was the only fully-evolved mon at this elo to run eviolite. Could this be a hint at a future gen 9 Hitmontop evolution??? (no) (But That Would Be Cool Though)
(psa: these mons are not not fully evolved!!)
ie some fun facts that are ou related, i guess :)
At 1695 its place as the only (statistically significant) FE eviolite holder is taken by Sableye - for better or for worse having Megas doesn't give you an eviolite boost, so unless I'm missing a crazy Trick strategy you might wanna rethink your items (or mons, this thing sucks)
Lower down in the 1500s the pool of FE eviolite holders grew - with Unfezant, Corsola and Carbink all just missing out on the top spot which goes to Oranguru, who holds eviolite just over 2% of the time! Maybe this is down to a misunderstanding in Symbiosis mechanics or something to do with a doubles team? who knows.
However, at the bottom of the ladder, Glalie actually takes the top spot over all other contenders mentioned above with 2.05% eviolite usage! The builder of the Eviolite Glalie Team(s?) have clearly been very determined, but unfortunately not enough to reach the higher rating brackets.
Im like 99% sure that these are just memesWeird Eviolite TrendsFor no particular reason I was just checking out Hitmontop's usage stats in OU and noticed a weird anomaly - it ran Eviolite at 1825 elo... 1.77% of the time (~1 in 60) which was statistically significant enough to be documented in the usage stats. This was the only fully-evolved mon at this elo to run eviolite. Could this be a hint at a future gen 9 Hitmontop evolution??? (no) (But That Would Be Cool Though)
(psa: these mons are not not fully evolved!!)
ie some fun facts that are ou related, i guess :)
At 1695 its place as the only (statistically significant) FE eviolite holder is taken by Sableye - for better or for worse having Megas doesn't give you an eviolite boost, so unless I'm missing a crazy Trick strategy you might wanna rethink your items (or mons, this thing sucks)
Lower down in the 1500s the pool of FE eviolite holders grew - with Unfezant, Corsola and Carbink all just missing out on the top spot which goes to Oranguru, who holds eviolite just over 2% of the time! Maybe this is down to a misunderstanding in Symbiosis mechanics or something to do with a doubles team? who knows.
However, at the bottom of the ladder, Glalie actually takes the top spot over all other contenders mentioned above with 2.05% eviolite usage! The builder of the Eviolite Glalie Team(s?) have clearly been very determined, but unfortunately not enough to reach the higher rating brackets.
.. probably
im comin back to this...
why ban bright powder and not the ability and item purely based on luck lmao
:3
I'm not sure if this is the correct place to talk about Quick Draw/Quick Claw since it also affects UU (a tier in which G-Slowbro has previously been quite solid) as well as OU and it talks about more of a Smogon-wide Policy Review topic rather than an OU-specific topic, but I really do feel as though Quick Draw/Quick Claw are about as blatantly uncompetitive as something could get nowadays, even though it only affects a mon that is incredibly mediocre-at-best in OU and as such I'll say a little piece regarding it here.
Simply put, I don't think G-Bro as a whole is a problem since its Regenerator sets actually have a lot of merit in UU and have been an interesting pick in OU earlier this gen, but Quick Draw+Quick Claw adds two different layers of sheer dumb luck together to make for a setup sweeper that has a ~40% chance every turn to basically claim a free kill with extremely little counterplay that actually, consistently works. It can EV itself to creep Pex, and from there the best way to remove its boosts just becomes one more target for a guaranteed OHKO with a boosted Psychic move or EQ, depending on if you're running NP or Belly Drum. Strong priority works if G-Bro is significantly chipped, but its defensive typing is actually kinda decent so it isn't weak to Ice Shard and resists Rilla's Grassy Glide (not that Rilla's doing too hot in this meta anyway).
And again, the problem isn't that at +2 SpA or +6 Attack it OHKOs stuff, or else Greedent would be some amazingly broken pick or some shit. It's that this mon just arbitrarily decides that it's allowed to outspeed your Weavile and turn it into death fodder or, God forbid, a target to get a massive heal off on with Drain Punch if it's the Belly Drum set. Two games could play entirely differently; this thing could get OHKOed immediately and unceremoniously, or it could just get the Belly Drum off and proceed to Action Replay its way to an easy 6-0 that you can't actually prepare for.
I must ask; does Quick Draw/Quick Claw, combined or either component individually, have any sort of competitive merit that warrants keeping it around? Because this sort of stuff seems to fall under the same umbrella as Bright Powder, Snow Cloak/Sand Veil, and King's Rock/Razor Fang in terms of "this item is usually useless and shouldn't be run and then sometimes it just works and does something your opponent can neither prepare for in advance nor counter during the game itself."
Simply put, I don't think G-Bro as a whole is a problem since its Regenerator sets actually have a lot of merit in UU and have been an interesting pick in OU earlier this gen, but Quick Draw+Quick Claw adds two different layers of sheer dumb luck together to make for a setup sweeper that has a ~40% chance every turn to basically claim a free kill with extremely little counterplay that actually, consistently works. It can EV itself to creep Pex, and from there the best way to remove its boosts just becomes one more target for a guaranteed OHKO with a boosted Psychic move or EQ, depending on if you're running NP or Belly Drum. Strong priority works if G-Bro is significantly chipped, but its defensive typing is actually kinda decent so it isn't weak to Ice Shard and resists Rilla's Grassy Glide (not that Rilla's doing too hot in this meta anyway).
And again, the problem isn't that at +2 SpA or +6 Attack it OHKOs stuff, or else Greedent would be some amazingly broken pick or some shit. It's that this mon just arbitrarily decides that it's allowed to outspeed your Weavile and turn it into death fodder or, God forbid, a target to get a massive heal off on with Drain Punch if it's the Belly Drum set. Two games could play entirely differently; this thing could get OHKOed immediately and unceremoniously, or it could just get the Belly Drum off and proceed to Action Replay its way to an easy 6-0 that you can't actually prepare for.
I must ask; does Quick Draw/Quick Claw, combined or either component individually, have any sort of competitive merit that warrants keeping it around? Because this sort of stuff seems to fall under the same umbrella as Bright Powder, Snow Cloak/Sand Veil, and King's Rock/Razor Fang in terms of "this item is usually useless and shouldn't be run and then sometimes it just works and does something your opponent can neither prepare for in advance nor counter during the game itself."
meant ban in ou but u so right fam, shit got no competitive value
Yeah I'd like to see more discussion about galarian slowbro. I mean it's a pretty flawed Pokémon but can also steal games with some lucky quick draw or quick claw activations. It's not broken but it's uncompetitive for sure. Because its normally so slow, almost any viable offensive mon outsoeeds, so It's almost a literal coin flip whether your mon can actually get the initiative or not to actually get a chance to hit , so in that sense it's not much different than the evasion boosting moves in practice. With evasion, it's a struggle to consistently hit the opposing mon. With quick draw/ quick claw initiative , it's a struggle to get the initiative to hit the mon. But it's a bit different in that if your mon lives glowbro's attack you can still pretty consistently hit it. The only reason it's pretty problematic on bro is that it has respectable attack and special attack stats decent coverage, two dangerous boosting moves and not too shabby bulk and defensive typing so opportunities to consistently revenge it can be pretty shallow and are almost completely up to the rng.
However , the same could be said for the kings rock abusers, sand veil abuser ( Chomp) and etc.
I'm kinda curious to know what everyone thinks are the best and worst ou mons in the metagame currently.
Now obviously we all know the top dogs, but my personal order for them goes
1.
While its best set is definitely its standard spdef set, people, myself included, seem to forget that this thing has quite a few,other sets to use, such as sub sd/bu, suicide lead, cb, scarf, and even more mixed defensive evs on certain teams.
2.
Great defensive and offensive profile, but just worse than lando in my experince with the mons, not saying its bad by any means, otherwise wouldn't put it above weav, but I just find it doing less than lando on a game to game basis.
3.
One of OU's premier wallbreaker, a bit too one-dimensional compared to lando and tran for me to put it above them, but still an amazing pokemon.
Now, while I personally don't feel any ou mom is bad this generation, that doesnt save us from having a worst mon, so here are my top three worst, in reverse order.
3.
A perfectly fine mon, just hates the omnipresent grounds too much to be any higher imo, though rarely does nothing thanks to access to rapid spin. Fits quite well onto hazard stacking teams which is nice.
2.
I've seen way too much hate directed towards this mon, but that's not what I'm here to discuss. Anyways this mon faces competition from kart and bulu, and struggles to break through several common mons, though setting terrain sets it apart from kart, while its access to powerful priority in glide, and utility moves such as knock and u'turn set it apart from bulu.
1.
Mew struggles in that while it has the option to fit just about any role, it is generally outclassed is those roles, though its sheer versatility is what saves it for me.
On a different note, I agree that quick draw/claw should at the very least be suspect tested, if not banned.
Now obviously we all know the top dogs, but my personal order for them goes
1.
While its best set is definitely its standard spdef set, people, myself included, seem to forget that this thing has quite a few,other sets to use, such as sub sd/bu, suicide lead, cb, scarf, and even more mixed defensive evs on certain teams.
2.
Great defensive and offensive profile, but just worse than lando in my experince with the mons, not saying its bad by any means, otherwise wouldn't put it above weav, but I just find it doing less than lando on a game to game basis.
3.
One of OU's premier wallbreaker, a bit too one-dimensional compared to lando and tran for me to put it above them, but still an amazing pokemon.
Now, while I personally don't feel any ou mom is bad this generation, that doesnt save us from having a worst mon, so here are my top three worst, in reverse order.
3.
A perfectly fine mon, just hates the omnipresent grounds too much to be any higher imo, though rarely does nothing thanks to access to rapid spin. Fits quite well onto hazard stacking teams which is nice.
2.
I've seen way too much hate directed towards this mon, but that's not what I'm here to discuss. Anyways this mon faces competition from kart and bulu, and struggles to break through several common mons, though setting terrain sets it apart from kart, while its access to powerful priority in glide, and utility moves such as knock and u'turn set it apart from bulu.
1.
Mew struggles in that while it has the option to fit just about any role, it is generally outclassed is those roles, though its sheer versatility is what saves it for me.
On a different note, I agree that quick draw/claw should at the very least be suspect tested, if not banned.
As someone who has built around Galarian Slowbro before and still occasionally use it for fun, I am completely indifferent towards the idea of it being banned.
It's not broken in the slightest (It's a pretty bad pokemon tbh), but it is extremely luck based. The strategic game of predictions and teambuilding you'd normally play suddenly becomes a russian roulette.
But then again, it's not broken in the slightest. Sure, it's a monster when it sets up, but that applies to every pokemon. It's biggest weakness is that it's way too hard to even get on the field in the first place. Now idk about the belly drum set since I only really built around the nasty plot set. But I can tell you that it's hard to set up with both of them. First of all, a safe switch is basically required. Galarian Slowbro hates chip damage. More so for the belly drum set because you can't have the luxury of running sitrus berry to heal some of the belly drum hp. But the nasty plot set also needs to be at full health to survive most super effective hits. So you can't bring it out unless you see a sweep. Not only that, but there's not much pokemon it can set up on. Look at the ou viability ranking right now and try to think of what pokemon you could set up on. Knock off is an incredibly common move and it removes your quick claw, making your priority chances even lower. The only pokemon I could see you reliably setting up on (That are OU and at least B tier in the VR) are Clefable, Corviknight, Slowbro and Slowking for nasty plot sets with shadow ball and Blissey sets without t wave for belly drum sets. Literally every other pokemon has a way of either 2hkoing it or using knock off to almost entirely shut down it's sweep
Aside from that, it also has major 4 move slot syndrome (Again, the belly drum set might not. I'm going by my experience with the nasty plot set). It needs either ice beam or surf for Landorus. It needs either surf or focus miss for Heatran. It needs shadow ball for Slowbro and Slowking. It needs flamethrower for Ferrothorn and other bulky steels, psychic for Toxapex and sludge bomb for Tapu Fini. It's just a really flawed pokemon that happens to have an extremely gimmicky ability.
It's not broken in the slightest (It's a pretty bad pokemon tbh), but it is extremely luck based. The strategic game of predictions and teambuilding you'd normally play suddenly becomes a russian roulette.
But then again, it's not broken in the slightest. Sure, it's a monster when it sets up, but that applies to every pokemon. It's biggest weakness is that it's way too hard to even get on the field in the first place. Now idk about the belly drum set since I only really built around the nasty plot set. But I can tell you that it's hard to set up with both of them. First of all, a safe switch is basically required. Galarian Slowbro hates chip damage. More so for the belly drum set because you can't have the luxury of running sitrus berry to heal some of the belly drum hp. But the nasty plot set also needs to be at full health to survive most super effective hits. So you can't bring it out unless you see a sweep. Not only that, but there's not much pokemon it can set up on. Look at the ou viability ranking right now and try to think of what pokemon you could set up on. Knock off is an incredibly common move and it removes your quick claw, making your priority chances even lower. The only pokemon I could see you reliably setting up on (That are OU and at least B tier in the VR) are Clefable, Corviknight, Slowbro and Slowking for nasty plot sets with shadow ball and Blissey sets without t wave for belly drum sets. Literally every other pokemon has a way of either 2hkoing it or using knock off to almost entirely shut down it's sweep
Aside from that, it also has major 4 move slot syndrome (Again, the belly drum set might not. I'm going by my experience with the nasty plot set). It needs either ice beam or surf for Landorus. It needs either surf or focus miss for Heatran. It needs shadow ball for Slowbro and Slowking. It needs flamethrower for Ferrothorn and other bulky steels, psychic for Toxapex and sludge bomb for Tapu Fini. It's just a really flawed pokemon that happens to have an extremely gimmicky ability.
Galarian Slowbro is extremely hard to set up with, the belly drum set can't heal back it's hp with sitrus berry like Azumarill can, knock off shuts it down completely and it has arguably one of the worst cases of 4 move slot syndrome I've ever seen.
Wanting to ban Galarian Slowbro for being uncompetitive is understandable, but there's a reason why it's nowhere near OU and playing around it is a lot easier than it seems. Overall, I could not care less about whether it gets banned or not.
Wanting to ban Galarian Slowbro for being uncompetitive is understandable, but there's a reason why it's nowhere near OU and playing around it is a lot easier than it seems. Overall, I could not care less about whether it gets banned or not.
To clarify, we wouldn't directly ban Slowbro-Galar, and it already has another viable ability. We would only be banning Quick Draw and Quick Claw from the competitive scene for uncompetitive aspects.
I agree with those points, but my main gripe with Quick Draw is the fact that it's so rng reliant. We've made a point in recent time that we want to remove things of that sort, and in this case I think it makes less sense to keep it rather than remove it given that stance. The reasoning for banning it is like all the other rng reliant abilities / items that we've removed, where it has a significant cost associated with running it (at times to your detriment) yet it gives you a luck-based way to just cheese games. It's not just about the counterplay anymore, it's about how it fundamentally affects the game.
An element is “uncompetitive” if it reduces the effect of player choice to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant. Examples of this include OHKO-moves, evasion, and moody, all of which tend to produce a game state in which RNG is emphasised at the cost of battling skill.
An element is “broken” if it is too good relative to the rest of the metagame, such to the extent where a standard team without the broken element facing a standard team with the broken element would be at a drastic disadvantage. Additionally, an element is broken if its counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would otherwise put the team at a significant disadvantage.
Galarian slowbro is not even close to broken, but does a game against or with it tend to reduce the impact of player skill and make the game mostly come down to a coin flip? in many cases yes. Granted, Quick claw/Quick draw is not quite as "broken" in its "uncompetitiveness" as evasion boosting abilities or items because there you could go a whole game without even being able to hit a Garchomp, versus here, even if you go second against slowbro as long as you can stomach its blows you will still be able to hit back the vast majority of the time.
An element is “broken” if it is too good relative to the rest of the metagame, such to the extent where a standard team without the broken element facing a standard team with the broken element would be at a drastic disadvantage. Additionally, an element is broken if its counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would otherwise put the team at a significant disadvantage.
Galarian slowbro is not even close to broken, but does a game against or with it tend to reduce the impact of player skill and make the game mostly come down to a coin flip? in many cases yes. Granted, Quick claw/Quick draw is not quite as "broken" in its "uncompetitiveness" as evasion boosting abilities or items because there you could go a whole game without even being able to hit a Garchomp, versus here, even if you go second against slowbro as long as you can stomach its blows you will still be able to hit back the vast majority of the time.
Since we are on the topic now, I'd like to speak out in support of banning quick claw.
While I am well aware that pokemon will have some level of RNG no matter how many "luck-based elements" are removed from competitive play, the previous bans of evasion-based items and abilities make it a curious case as to why quick claw was left in the tier. Despite seeing very little usage on ladder and zero usage in tournaments, all evasion abilities and items were banned.
The exact language used was "As discussed in the above posts, these abilities and items are used strictly to increase evasion, which the community does not deem a competitive strategy within our metagame given the tiering survey and this thread. On the basis of being uncompetitive and the near-unanimous support, we are proceeding with this ban in a prompt fashion to improve our metagame."
Is the reverse not true for quick claw? Better yet, while all evasion items only had a 10% chance of popping, quick claw has double that. What is stopping cheesy HO from just slapping a few quick claws on their slow breakers and trying to cheese past fast revenge killers? The answer is absolutely nothing - as it can and has been done before.
A recurring character on the high ladder, Vertex, peaked well above 2k about a month ago using a few variations of what was essentially mono quick claw with veil. I can say from experience that it is an extremely frustrating team structure to play against, with the outcomes of many games coming down to RNG, even if played optimally. (A few replays I saved from back then below for reference)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1541852792-fw83lxkbf48adj6hyhygnkumdsnj53apw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1541886294-54suxy0aokjpwzmymh62m56a51igvj6pw
Now, by no means is this type of team consistent. You certainly need to be a competent player to have success with it, despite the ridiculous reliance it has on RNG. This almost certainly won't see any sort of tour usage. I would just like for these type of games to be removed from what we deem to be "competitive play", as it is not competitive in the slightest sense.
While I am well aware that pokemon will have some level of RNG no matter how many "luck-based elements" are removed from competitive play, the previous bans of evasion-based items and abilities make it a curious case as to why quick claw was left in the tier. Despite seeing very little usage on ladder and zero usage in tournaments, all evasion abilities and items were banned.
The exact language used was "As discussed in the above posts, these abilities and items are used strictly to increase evasion, which the community does not deem a competitive strategy within our metagame given the tiering survey and this thread. On the basis of being uncompetitive and the near-unanimous support, we are proceeding with this ban in a prompt fashion to improve our metagame."
Is the reverse not true for quick claw? Better yet, while all evasion items only had a 10% chance of popping, quick claw has double that. What is stopping cheesy HO from just slapping a few quick claws on their slow breakers and trying to cheese past fast revenge killers? The answer is absolutely nothing - as it can and has been done before.
A recurring character on the high ladder, Vertex, peaked well above 2k about a month ago using a few variations of what was essentially mono quick claw with veil. I can say from experience that it is an extremely frustrating team structure to play against, with the outcomes of many games coming down to RNG, even if played optimally. (A few replays I saved from back then below for reference)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1541852792-fw83lxkbf48adj6hyhygnkumdsnj53apw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1541886294-54suxy0aokjpwzmymh62m56a51igvj6pw
Now, by no means is this type of team consistent. You certainly need to be a competent player to have success with it, despite the ridiculous reliance it has on RNG. This almost certainly won't see any sort of tour usage. I would just like for these type of games to be removed from what we deem to be "competitive play", as it is not competitive in the slightest sense.
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