For God's sake, they're banning LR over Basculegion because it's admins' policy and that's fine. I don't know why you're so hyped up on arguing about this when you yourself know it's not gonna change no matter what argument you theoretically come up with. Can we discuss ban vs no ban now? Thank you.
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Metagame np: SV Ubers Stage 3 - Respect
- Thread starter Aberforth
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I agree with you because Last Respects isn't necessarily a broken move, but policy makers / tiers leaders already decided to treat them synonymously by going after Last Respects instead of Basculegion (male and female). If Last Respects fails to be banned now, it's hard to say when a Basculegion suspect could happen (if it ever happens). If that's a gamble you want to take, then more power to you because you're absolutely correct, but I'm not going to take that gamble for the sake of the future of the tier especially when the collateral is minimal. Hopefully in the distant future when SV is an old gen, they will realize this and target the right thing. Rip Houndstone.
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im probably not gonna try get suspect reqs, but heres something about last respects that makes it even worse.
when paired with cresselia and revival blessing, lunar dance restores pp of revival blessing, and rblessing revives cresselia, and it goes on, and on, and on, aaaaannnnnnnndddd oooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, and on forever, until the power of last respects is so high it ohkoes anything that isnt sashed or has sturdy, or normal types
when paired with cresselia and revival blessing, lunar dance restores pp of revival blessing, and rblessing revives cresselia, and it goes on, and on, and on, aaaaannnnnnnndddd oooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, and on forever, until the power of last respects is so high it ohkoes anything that isnt sashed or has sturdy, or normal types
The fact that it's not gonna change because it's easier for the admins is precisely the reason I wanted to argue about it. Doing something the wrong way because it's easier is unacceptable for me and I can't stand people like you who just bow to authorities instead of trying to actually think for themselves and fight for what's right (it could hypothetically change if everyone acknowledges it and decides to do what's right). I don't care that much honestly cuz this shit is getting banned either way. It's more about sending a message than anything else.
You know, banning basculegion to AG will mean that it will be unavailable in other of the lower tiers as well, and having a pokemon rise from nu to AG is not exactly realistic, I bet houndstone is just gonna do the same thing, and houndstone is really physically bulky so it got some merits.
What stops Basculegion-F from doing the exact same thing as Basculegion-M right now? The whole point of Ubers tiering policy is to have as little bans as possible, and banning Last Respects leads to that. There's already been precedent for banning the move over the mon in OU, so it would follow that we continue the precedent in Ubers. Furthermore, since Ubers is a parallel tier to OU, not a higher one, if Basculegion-M got banned over Last Respects, you would have a mon that is both NU and AG at the same time, which is just confusing for everyone. No, better to ban the clearly broken element Last Respects, instead of Basculegion-M, who is swimming around perfectly fine in the lower tiers right now.
Just a reminder to please keep the thread on topic, I won't be deleting any old posts but I will be more likely to going forward if this discussion continues. Current policy says that Last Respects is what we are banning, and it will not change at the very least in the immediate future without a PR thread discussing what should be hit in situations like this.
Oh boy. I've been talking with my friends about this, so I've got quite a few ideas about this.
I will be voting NO BAN for Last Respects, and there's a couple of reasons why.
1. Last Respects is not an "Easy Win Button." It ALWAYS requires some outside setup that has regular counterplay. Basculegion is almost never self-sufficient and needs the support of Webs, Trick Room, or Rain. You cannot simply run Basculegion by itself as a Scarfer or an Agility sweeper - It will get blown the fuck up, or fail to kill a pokemon and die as a result.
Memes aside, while Basculegion obviously struggles to be useful in the early game, he can even struggle to achieve the advertised "One-Hit Kill" in the mid game.
While I intended originally to go more in depth about this, it is past 4:00 A.M. as I am writing this, and I am starting to feel quite tired. I believe I made my general case on why Last Respects shouldn't be banned - although it is certainly a threatening and potent playstyle, it is nowhere near as instantly game-winning and overpowered as it is made out to be. Now, with that being said...
Lock In.
Let's just get this out of the way - I'm gonna be talking about Basculegion-M. I have not seen a single Houndstone since Basculegion was added, and Basculin-White Stripe is NOT REAL.
1. Last Respects is not an "Easy Win Button." It ALWAYS requires some outside setup that has regular counterplay. Basculegion is almost never self-sufficient and needs the support of Webs, Trick Room, or Rain. You cannot simply run Basculegion by itself as a Scarfer or an Agility sweeper - It will get blown the fuck up, or fail to kill a pokemon and die as a result.
- As stated in Aberforth's original post, Basculegion outspeeds the entirety of the metagame when Webs are set up after an agility... So that's two turns, minimum of setting up, as well as preventing webs from ever leaving the field. While removal is definitely not as common as it once was in previous generations, to say that there is "No Removal" in the tier is arguing in bad faith. Iron Treads is my favorite chicanerous Miraidon counter, and Glimmora has seen a recent spike in popularity, reaching #16 in usage. Giratina/Giratina-O are massive fatass mons that can almost certainly get a Defog off during a game, and if they can't, you're probably staring down a +2 Scale Shot Loaded Dice Koraidon, and have already lost in the first place. If Webs are not up when you bring in your Basculegion? GG, Basc does nothing.
- Rain, despite it being the team I run Basculegion on, is probably the weakest form of Last Respects use due to the issue of setting up rain in the first place. Koraidon is THE MOST USED Pokémon in the tier, and can completely rip open a rain team simply by switching in, turning off the rain by its sheer prescence, and then switching out all while continously chipping Kyogre. Miraidon being the second most used mon in the tier doesn't help either, as, quite obviously, Miraidon blows up both Kyogre and Basculegion. And, while Groudon isn't seen as much as it once was, Groudon is a big Fat Fuck™️ that, like Koraidon, replaces the rain with sun. If Rain is not up when you bring in your Basculegion? GG, Basc does nothing.
- Trick Room is, in my opinion, the scariest version of Last Respects, as once Trick Room gets set up, Basculegion basically gets ~3 free turns to click whatever it wants, barring your opponent also running a slower mon like Calyrex-Ice or Necrozma-Dusk (whom, is hilariously one Speed BST slower), or priority. However, the issue is that once Basculegion exits trick room, it's pretty much dead in the water, Pun unintended. Basculegion's got a very unfortunate Speed Tier in which it is slower than the Fastest Mons in the Tier, but too Fast to outspeed slower mons in Trick Room. If Trick Room is not up when you bring in your Basculegion? GG, Basc does nothing.
252 Atk Adaptability Basculegion Last Respects (50 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Shadow Shield Lunala: 220-260 (53 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Lunala Moongeist Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Basculegion: 432-510 (113.3 - 133.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Lunala Moongeist Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Basculegion: 432-510 (113.3 - 133.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Basculegion Last Respects (200 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Koraidon: 261-307 (76.5 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Basculegion Last Respects (200 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Miraidon: 292-345 (85.6 - 101.1%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Basculegion Last Respects (200 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zacian-Crowned: 262-309 (80.6 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Basculegion Last Respects (250 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ho-Oh: 283-334 (68 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Basculegion Last Respects (200 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Miraidon: 292-345 (85.6 - 101.1%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Basculegion Last Respects (200 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zacian-Crowned: 262-309 (80.6 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Basculegion Last Respects (250 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ho-Oh: 283-334 (68 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
While I intended originally to go more in depth about this, it is past 4:00 A.M. as I am writing this, and I am starting to feel quite tired. I believe I made my general case on why Last Respects shouldn't be banned - although it is certainly a threatening and potent playstyle, it is nowhere near as instantly game-winning and overpowered as it is made out to be. Now, with that being said...
Lock In.
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I'm all for good discussion, but if you're going to show "relevant" calcs, at least show the correct ones. Don't omit Adaptability when it is beneficial to you.
252 Atk Adaptability Basculegion Last Respects vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Koraidon: 350-412 (102.6 - 120.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Adaptability Basculegion Last Respects vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Miraidon: 390-460 (114.3 - 134.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Adaptability Basculegion Last Respects vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zacian-Crowned: 350-412 (107.6 - 126.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Adaptability Basculegion Last Respects vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ho-Oh: 378-446 (90.8 - 107.2%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
This only helps show how good it is in the midgame.
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Wasn't my intention. As I said in my post, I run Basculegion on rain, so naturally i use it with Swift Swim instead.
The more substantial part of my post wasn't intended to be me trying to claim Basculegion doesn't do enough damage, it's that Basculegion cannot function without Support, and said Support has regular counterplay.
While I understand the overall logic of your post, I gotta say I don't really agree with it. Your logic heavily downplays on how in the grand scheme of things Last Respects leads to a very specific line of play and building and how such archetypes completely warp the tier. I will focus on the example of Webs since I think it embodies what I want to address about your post in general.
You can say that there is removal in the tier but I don't think that completely solves the issue of how Webs force you to play a certain way, in fact, I'd say it strengthens it,. Furthermore, I could argue that removing hazards against Basculegion offense of all things is easier said than done. You are often so occupied dealing with other hard-hitting pokemon that finding a free turn to click defog or spin can be difficult, not to mention that Basculegion is a ghost-type himself. Basculegion offense hardly relies on Basculegion as a stand-alone pokemon in order to break through teams, it normally carries other pokemon that are good a forcing out Teras or enabling it for a Last Respects sweep. Also, Webs users can choose not to lead Ribbombee against the spinner and just set up Webs later, due to its speed tier and typing it isn't hard to do. You are also ommitting Tera as a factor, a well-executed tera can tip the scales in Basculegion's favor. The fact of the matter is that Webs forces the non-Basc webs user to play in a certain way and that is very exploitable.
I don't think there is merit in arguing how manageable Basculegion archetypes are or could be on paper. If there is a game element that in practice forces you to build in a very specific way or to play in a way that is linear then I don't think there is a reason for it to be present. You are giving too much power to that very same element to the point where it can exploit such linear countermeasures, that is the very case with Basculegion and Last Respects (as I mentioned in my post).
I won't go into the calcs because Trade did that already, just wanted to address those points.
i got reqs with exclusively Basculin webs. If the opponent doesn't save tera it can sweep just like Basculegion. It's tera reliant for sure but still good and eviolite lets you live tons of shit like scarf koraidon hits to set up an agility. I did this to see if it was just basculegion after seeing your post since im a pretty go with the flow minimal ban type of guy myself. my conclusion was it's definitely not just basculegion.
Fair. The main thing that Basculegion has over Basculin is much higher attack and unpredictability in Tera Type. Basically, if you're forced to run Tera Ghost that means Sucker Punch is actually reliable counterplay. This also means Basculin won't be killing the likes of Ting-Lu and definitely not Ekiller easily like Basculegion can. This is more than enough to make Last Respects a lot more manageable in the builder in the eyes of people who want Basculegion banned. Basically only teams without Sucker Punch or a Dark/Normal type would be *forced* to run Tera Normal on one mon, if that. That's why I still believe only Basculegion is the problem (for the people who want it banned). Also due to the much worse bulk, HDB and Scarf sets become quite a bit shittier.
Still I think that you getting reqs with Basculin is impressive and also very funny.
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Still doesn't address the issue of not having those is an instant lose, sure ting-lu and Arceus normal are great mons, but you shouldn't be forced to run them on a team to not lose. Also, if you think that running a tera normal on one mon would stop the sweep, no. You could easily force something else to tera, or ko the mon beforehand, which is literally what basc does. That's still extremely constraining and broken.
Also, what mon besides gambit is using sucker punch? Which is a B- rank mon.
The single fact you have to run either E-Killer or a random Tera-Normal type, or both, or more, on every f* team in order not to get destroyed by a late-game agility Basculegion, is enough to ban this stupid move. I don't care about the typical smogon jesuitical issues, "LR is not broken, it's Basculegion, look at Houndstone blabla". It's LR on Bascu that is broken ; LR on a bad mon is balanced. Bascu is on okayish mon, due to its bulk and typing, and the context of Uber's metagame (it kind of "checks" Koraidon). When adding a move that OHKO's ever f* mon on this tier, you create de facto a unbalanced situation, where the player facing Bascu is at constant disadvantage.
Calyrex SR was insta-banned because speed + tera + broken move + no Yveltal. It's the exact same situation with LR Basculegion, even though it's a bit tougher to get going (meaning : just kill E-Killer, and agility).
To further adress some jesuitical issues, I think we have to look at what is broken at core : it's LR, not Bascu. The move just upgrades the mon significantly, hence the fact that some got reqs with the baby-one. Fishious Rend and the electric-one were broken moves, that turned ZU shits into demons on their own tiers, while always making then potentiel threats in upper metagames. It's Dracovish core qualities that made FR banworthy. I think we have the same issue here : Basculegion is at best a RU mon, but with LR + Uber's context, it's a beast. So ban LR, and no more problem.
Calyrex SR was insta-banned because speed + tera + broken move + no Yveltal. It's the exact same situation with LR Basculegion, even though it's a bit tougher to get going (meaning : just kill E-Killer, and agility).
To further adress some jesuitical issues, I think we have to look at what is broken at core : it's LR, not Bascu. The move just upgrades the mon significantly, hence the fact that some got reqs with the baby-one. Fishious Rend and the electric-one were broken moves, that turned ZU shits into demons on their own tiers, while always making then potentiel threats in upper metagames. It's Dracovish core qualities that made FR banworthy. I think we have the same issue here : Basculegion is at best a RU mon, but with LR + Uber's context, it's a beast. So ban LR, and no more problem.
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I am proud to say that after obtaining reqs, I can help with the cause of kicking this move out of the game.
It really is quite ridiculous the lengths one has to go to avoid being defeated by this move, with either Sucker Punch or Normal spam. Even Houndstone wouldn’t be safe with this move. Although it lacks the brute force and speed Basculegion brings, it has its own perks, mainly great bulk and counterplay to Sucker Punch in the form of Trick and Will-O-Wisp. This move is just a nightmare. I want to change my Tera Normal Miraidon to something more convenient please.
It really is quite ridiculous the lengths one has to go to avoid being defeated by this move, with either Sucker Punch or Normal spam. Even Houndstone wouldn’t be safe with this move. Although it lacks the brute force and speed Basculegion brings, it has its own perks, mainly great bulk and counterplay to Sucker Punch in the form of Trick and Will-O-Wisp. This move is just a nightmare. I want to change my Tera Normal Miraidon to something more convenient please.
Basculegion-m actually is an NU mon. It's basculegion-f that's RU..
To not make the post one liner let me add some of mine own thoughts about the issue..
To all the people saying it's basculegion that's broken.. It's not. F basculegion does the same exact thing so ready 50% of mons with last respects is broken.. And then we enter basculin which can Tera ghost adaptability and does the same exact thing. Infact basculin has even a good speed tier to boon. It outspeeds the bikes with a scarf with webs vs scarf bike.. This Mon may be balanced but it's a big if. Houndstone is Def OK but we are at risk of banning 75% of mons to preserve last respects houndstone?
This logic should mean we ban all broken Baton passers and preserve Baton pass because delibird is balanced!?? No.. The same applies here..
Also lr is so broken.. It forces me to run horrible stuff like Tera normal on random mons like miraidon and eternatus. It's just so unhealthy.. Agility basc with webs is especially nasty.. I have also interestingly enough fought a few swift swim bascs with Kyogre aswell and they were annoying aswell..
Tldr:ban last respects and not basculegion
Debated not going for reqs for this but since some people genuinely think this thing should stay unbanned, I decided to go for reqs and wanted to write this post up since no amount of playing the tier more will change my mind. One thing I want to set straight right away is that Last Respects and Basculegion-M are synonymous with eachother (no, I will not be hearing you out), banning Last Respects allows Ubers to not mess with other tiers, so I will be referring to the issue for the rest of the post regarding Basculegion. The most important thing in my opinion when looking at the issue of Basculegion isn't Basculegion by itself in a vacuum, but rather Basculegion on webs teams and their overall negative impact on the meta.
Before I go into that, to anyone debating between banning Last Respects instead of Basculegion-M, please get a grip. Basculegion-M and Last Respects are synonymous with each other (no, you aren't gonna be running Basculegion-F, White-Stripe or Houndstone because none are viable), the only difference is banning a single move which only affects one mon in the Ubers tier, or to send an NU mon to AG (an NU mon that is actually used in a tier which Ubers has no reason to mess with), and I fully agree with the route the council has taken.
On to actual "DNB" sentiments, I've seen people on this forum dying on the hill that is Basculegion calcs into XYZ Phys-Def mon. I promise, nothing remotely viable lives a 200-300BP Tera Ghost Adaptability Last Respects that isn't Tera Normal (which is another extremely unhealthy byproduct of Basculegion in the tier), and even if it lives, you are either lying or blatantly wrong to tell me that defensive mon won't be used for the entire game when the most popular structure Basculegion exists on is webs, which runs Zacian-C, E-Killer and Koraidon most commonly and other physical offensive threats. It's easy to look at calcs in a vacuum, but it does nothing when the game is much more nuanced than that. It's also disingenuous to pick and choose when you think those calcs should include Tera Ghost or Adabtapility to prove your point since in practice it works differently when the most -- and by a wide margin -- problematic iteration of Basculegion is running Adabtapility and Tera Ghost or Fighting (OR if you really enjoy snorting crack Tera Normal I guess).
Additionally, most checks that are Dark types are just straight up not real in a Koraidon meta, and is why the amount of viable Dark's is in the negatives, minus Ting-Lu which has its own merit as a Miraidon check (but not a Basculegion check), and Chien-Pao and Kingambit have rose in usage and viability as a means to counter Basculegion. On the subject of Sucker Punch "checks" as reliable revenge options, Basculegion doesn't even need Tera Blast Fighting to blow through the likes of Kingambit or Chien-Pao. Here is a replay versus Skysolo, where even though Basculegion got crit, it has so many ways to outplay Sucker Punch through Aqua Jet and Substitute. Being immune to E-Speed is an invaluable tool in this meta, and it shows in the strength Basculegion has in the tier and its difficulty to get revenged, especially on webs teams. Another important thing not discussed is the fact that Jolly Basculegion on webs teams outspeeds the Mirai/Korai without a boost (and assuming it isn't say Boots Mirai or Scarf Mirai/Korai) which makes it immediately threatening and doesn't always need the boost to sweep or pressure offensively -- which is another reason I think the "oh, well Basculegion needs minimum two turns between Agility and setting up webs to do anything", because it doesn't need Agility always and its not like webs ONLY helps Basculegion (literally laughing at that sentiment, yes it's better on webs but not getting webs up doesn't equal an instant loss or that your Basculegion is now absolute garbage in the matchup)
Another claim refuting the "DNB" argument of "Arceus is right there lol", there are numerous problems with that. First, we are again looking at checks in a vacuum. If your playing with E-Killer versus Basculegion webs, odds are you aren't gonna be able to preserve E-Killer 100% for Basculegion, and will need to revenge using priority playing versus webs teams. Not to mention the Tera Blast fighting checks, which can blow past E-Killer. This team got me to 1600s nearly undefeated like 2 weeks into playing this tier, and shows a few things. First, Basculegion doesn't need webs to be an absolute demon. Two, I wanted to display this set since Adamant LO Tera Blast Fighting is an OHKO with rocks up (and a 37.5% Roll with nothing, assuming it hasn't been chipped) and shows how shaky Basc's most consistent counterplay is.
On to the "ah well, if you can't get webs up Basculegion dead weight" claim, well thats just wrong. Basculegion with an Agility up without webs is still extremely threatening, only reliably revenged by Scarf Mirai and Korai, which can be dealt with in other ways by webs Basculegion teams that have already been mentioned (Ex. Tera Fairy Double Dance Mirai, Play Rough Zacian-C, E-Killer if chipped/locked into wrong move, Dice Koraidon if locked into wrong move), and watch this replay versus ox04 and tell me otherwise.
Another thing is, Basculegion has such a cancerous effect on the builder, where teams that don't have a way of consistently out-offense-ing Basculegion webs (impossible when there is no good removal in this tier) need to run something with a completely random Tera Normal, that I have ran into way too much laddering, from Arceus-Ground, Phs-Def Kyogre, Eternatus (shoutout me and DonBoneJones). For example, when I went for my peak with Don and [REDACTED] with our T-Spikes balance we cooked, we had to run Tera Normal Eternatus on the team or else we just hard lost to Basculegion, and makes balance teams as a whole run unhealthy counterplay that feels like counter teaming a lot of the time (don't tell me Tera Normal has any "merit" other than doing well into Basculegion).
I do want to end this by acknowledging that yes, Basculegion does need good positioning, some amount of smart play and isn't this magical auto-win button, but it's counterplay borders on counterteaming and it's so incredibly limited, to the point where it promotes unskillful play versus skillful play, where if your team isn't very ready for that Basculegion MU its just over.
On the very final note, I want to leave this replay (same one I linked earlier talking about how Basculegion is good without webs) which was the point in time where I personally realized Basculegion is broken, because I was playing bad, throwing everything in front of my opponent and just clicking buttons, and still got rewarded by boosting Last Respects damage and sweeping with it. Anyways, thats my take and I intend to vote ban on Last Respects.
[edit: I updated this post a lot with different thoughts so give it a re-read if you care]
Before I go into that, to anyone debating between banning Last Respects instead of Basculegion-M, please get a grip. Basculegion-M and Last Respects are synonymous with each other (no, you aren't gonna be running Basculegion-F, White-Stripe or Houndstone because none are viable), the only difference is banning a single move which only affects one mon in the Ubers tier, or to send an NU mon to AG (an NU mon that is actually used in a tier which Ubers has no reason to mess with), and I fully agree with the route the council has taken.
On to actual "DNB" sentiments, I've seen people on this forum dying on the hill that is Basculegion calcs into XYZ Phys-Def mon. I promise, nothing remotely viable lives a 200-300BP Tera Ghost Adaptability Last Respects that isn't Tera Normal (which is another extremely unhealthy byproduct of Basculegion in the tier), and even if it lives, you are either lying or blatantly wrong to tell me that defensive mon won't be used for the entire game when the most popular structure Basculegion exists on is webs, which runs Zacian-C, E-Killer and Koraidon most commonly and other physical offensive threats. It's easy to look at calcs in a vacuum, but it does nothing when the game is much more nuanced than that. It's also disingenuous to pick and choose when you think those calcs should include Tera Ghost or Adabtapility to prove your point since in practice it works differently when the most -- and by a wide margin -- problematic iteration of Basculegion is running Adabtapility and Tera Ghost or Fighting (OR if you really enjoy snorting crack Tera Normal I guess).
Additionally, most checks that are Dark types are just straight up not real in a Koraidon meta, and is why the amount of viable Dark's is in the negatives, minus Ting-Lu which has its own merit as a Miraidon check (but not a Basculegion check), and Chien-Pao and Kingambit have rose in usage and viability as a means to counter Basculegion. On the subject of Sucker Punch "checks" as reliable revenge options, Basculegion doesn't even need Tera Blast Fighting to blow through the likes of Kingambit or Chien-Pao. Here is a replay versus Skysolo, where even though Basculegion got crit, it has so many ways to outplay Sucker Punch through Aqua Jet and Substitute. Being immune to E-Speed is an invaluable tool in this meta, and it shows in the strength Basculegion has in the tier and its difficulty to get revenged, especially on webs teams. Another important thing not discussed is the fact that Jolly Basculegion on webs teams outspeeds the Mirai/Korai without a boost (and assuming it isn't say Boots Mirai or Scarf Mirai/Korai) which makes it immediately threatening and doesn't always need the boost to sweep or pressure offensively -- which is another reason I think the "oh, well Basculegion needs minimum two turns between Agility and setting up webs to do anything", because it doesn't need Agility always and its not like webs ONLY helps Basculegion (literally laughing at that sentiment, yes it's better on webs but not getting webs up doesn't equal an instant loss or that your Basculegion is now absolute garbage in the matchup)
Another claim refuting the "DNB" argument of "Arceus is right there lol", there are numerous problems with that. First, we are again looking at checks in a vacuum. If your playing with E-Killer versus Basculegion webs, odds are you aren't gonna be able to preserve E-Killer 100% for Basculegion, and will need to revenge using priority playing versus webs teams. Not to mention the Tera Blast fighting checks, which can blow past E-Killer. This team got me to 1600s nearly undefeated like 2 weeks into playing this tier, and shows a few things. First, Basculegion doesn't need webs to be an absolute demon. Two, I wanted to display this set since Adamant LO Tera Blast Fighting is an OHKO with rocks up (and a 37.5% Roll with nothing, assuming it hasn't been chipped) and shows how shaky Basc's most consistent counterplay is.
On to the "ah well, if you can't get webs up Basculegion dead weight" claim, well thats just wrong. Basculegion with an Agility up without webs is still extremely threatening, only reliably revenged by Scarf Mirai and Korai, which can be dealt with in other ways by webs Basculegion teams that have already been mentioned (Ex. Tera Fairy Double Dance Mirai, Play Rough Zacian-C, E-Killer if chipped/locked into wrong move, Dice Koraidon if locked into wrong move), and watch this replay versus ox04 and tell me otherwise.
Another thing is, Basculegion has such a cancerous effect on the builder, where teams that don't have a way of consistently out-offense-ing Basculegion webs (impossible when there is no good removal in this tier) need to run something with a completely random Tera Normal, that I have ran into way too much laddering, from Arceus-Ground, Phs-Def Kyogre, Eternatus (shoutout me and DonBoneJones). For example, when I went for my peak with Don and [REDACTED] with our T-Spikes balance we cooked, we had to run Tera Normal Eternatus on the team or else we just hard lost to Basculegion, and makes balance teams as a whole run unhealthy counterplay that feels like counter teaming a lot of the time (don't tell me Tera Normal has any "merit" other than doing well into Basculegion).
I do want to end this by acknowledging that yes, Basculegion does need good positioning, some amount of smart play and isn't this magical auto-win button, but it's counterplay borders on counterteaming and it's so incredibly limited, to the point where it promotes unskillful play versus skillful play, where if your team isn't very ready for that Basculegion MU its just over.
On the very final note, I want to leave this replay (same one I linked earlier talking about how Basculegion is good without webs) which was the point in time where I personally realized Basculegion is broken, because I was playing bad, throwing everything in front of my opponent and just clicking buttons, and still got rewarded by boosting Last Respects damage and sweeping with it. Anyways, thats my take and I intend to vote ban on Last Respects.
[edit: I updated this post a lot with different thoughts so give it a re-read if you care]
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Finished getting my reqs a bit ago and wanted to present my thoughts.
First things first I will be voting ban to get that out of the way, but as to why I have a series of thoughts.
When examining if a mon or move should be banned I like to consider a multi faceted analysis looking at the following;
I'll go in order in my views.
Firstly, Last Respects regardless of the user, forces specific offensive and defensive counterplay at the builder. While this can be said for any mon or move what needs to be measured is how profound an impact it has on it. From my experience, if you do not have at least 1 normal type or several resistances you are immediately at risk of being abused by Last Respects. During my laddering I witnessed the main counterplay being unexpected tera normals alongside hazard removal and scarfers to beat +2 speed Basculegion. I personally fought tera normal Arceus (water, fairy, steel, ground), tera normal spec Miraidon, tera normal NDM, and even tera normal basc for the mirror.
When I see this I consider a few things.Would they normally run this tera type? Does this tera type provide any measurably utility outside exclusively answering this move? How does it contribute to the mon?
The answer to all of those is that no, they normally wouldn't run that type as it provides no real value except on ekiller sets that want a defensive type to help assist setting up. On E Killer itself, E Killer is a meta staple and is not inherently a bad, off meta or forced pick at all and because of that I'd argue that it is the only natural check to last respects, well, until the user hits it with a tera fighting blast or adaptability wave crash. The reality is preserving e killer at full to answer it is an oft arduous task wrought with issues as it prevents EK from doing its job of beating on the many scarfers and setup sweepers in the tier. Players need to strongly consider how they plan to beat webs and webless Basculegion as their respective answers are entirely different.
My overall opinion is that Last Respects has a profoundly negative impact on the builder.
As to how it affects gameplay, I'm gonna split my response in how one defends from and how one attacks with Last Respects.
As to how it one defends. Against webless Basculegion, players must carefully preserve specific checks such as Arceus-N, any tera normal mons in their possession, as well as either Scarf Koraidon or Scarf Miraidon so they may adequately have an answer to +2 Speed Basculegion. However this is often harder that it seems, in a meta as fast paced and offensive as Ubers it isn't always easy to cleanly to so as it may be in lower tiers, opposing carefully crafted teams are often structured to specifically facilitate Basc end games by utilizing offensive pairings that force those defensive or offensive mons that serve to check LR to instead be forced to answer them and likely accumulate chip damage putting them potentially in range of coverage moves that may invalidate them as checks. Furthermore Basc's set ambiguity can be extremely hard to play around, while most sets have the obvious Last Respects and Agility the last 2 moves are move flexible and can include Sub, Tera Blast Fighting, Aqua Jet, and Wave Crash making the job of defensive counterplay much harder. While psudo checks like kingambit and pao beat some sets, it's entirely ruined by a healthy tera fighting, sub or aqua jet set. While utilizing a normal or dark type to force a tera fight or similar tera does THEN expose it to being picked off by extreme speed basc's set diversity simply allows too many variables to go awry. Once you include webs things are entirely different though, checks like scarf Mirai/Korai just cease to actually be checks and are instead victims, while I have seen several tera normal scarf miraidons as a desperate attempt to answer it that only strengthens my previous case of how it impacts the builder.
As the LR user things are often extremely simple, identify the checks, navigate around them, find the setup point and then just win. While it isn't in reality so simple a thing it's really not THAT hard either if we're being completely honest. Scarf Miraidon dropped a draco, okay well it's not KOing you now! It really felt like the most point and click mon on my team when I used it to get reqs, it won me SO many games I didn't deserve just because I maneuvered around their answers. Conversely though I suppose it really sucked when it happened to me.
In reality either winning with it or losing with it felt extremely cheap and unfair and as such my opinion is that it has a profoundly negative impact on gameplay.
As to how it affects the major ladder groups, while of course prioritizing the highest skill players is just that, a priority, one must also tailor to be more approachable to low ladder players as well. As many in this thread have pointed out, LR has had a terrible impact on both high ladder and tournaments serving as a point of unwelcome volatility in an otherwise stable metagame.
As to low ladder, I utilized an alt account to basically play the 1000-1200 elo range, if I went above that I'd just tank deliberately, the reason being I wanted to get a good understand of the low ladder. As many of us know, low ladder is full of pikachus and charizards and other unviable teams, but of course there are people who are genuinely trying to learn the meta. 3 times I swept someone with basc and their response was "WTF this thing is OP", to which I'd agree with that. It at low ladder is basically punching toddlers though realistically, if you're in a position where you need to use basc to beat a 1000 ELO new player, that's kind of a skill issue though I digress. Low ladder players also had a less fundamentally solid grasp of how to properly execute a LR end game and instead attempted to go for it too early or in a negative position which I think to an extent actually supports the position that it is a "skill based execution".
However at both high ladder and low ladder ELOs it has a distinctly negative impact that was cited as unfair.
While some No Ban advocates may point out that I repeatedly referenced Basculegion, it's not a Basc-M problem, it's an LR problem. I had no issue running Eviolite Basculin to 1400 nor female basculegion to the same ELO with a slightly more poor W:L ratio, I'm currently laddering on another alt with 2 variants of houndstone, both sand rush and fluffy, the mon is relevant in that yes, male basculegion is the best abuser, however the move itself regardless of which mon uses it, is fundamentally uncompetitive and promotes matches that often feel unfair. As others have mentioned as well, promoting a mon that would otherwise have no viability if the move wasn't present in its movepool to AG thus precluding it from lower tiers is extremely unreasonable, as would individually testing each LR user as the verdict would be the same. Even if you think Houndstone would be balanced with it, I am fine letting it die for the sins of the other mons as I think we all value our time more than doing 4 friggin suspects for what is fundamentally a move issue, not a mon issue.
TLDR:
Last respects very bad no good go bye bye
Edit: here's the paste of what I used. Even w/o webs basc is broken.
https://pokepast.es/b5f3912b919c5c00
First things first I will be voting ban to get that out of the way, but as to why I have a series of thoughts.
When examining if a mon or move should be banned I like to consider a multi faceted analysis looking at the following;
- How does this mon/move affect the builder?
- How does this mon/move affect gameplay?
- How does this mon/move affect high and low ladder as separate entities?
I'll go in order in my views.
Firstly, Last Respects regardless of the user, forces specific offensive and defensive counterplay at the builder. While this can be said for any mon or move what needs to be measured is how profound an impact it has on it. From my experience, if you do not have at least 1 normal type or several resistances you are immediately at risk of being abused by Last Respects. During my laddering I witnessed the main counterplay being unexpected tera normals alongside hazard removal and scarfers to beat +2 speed Basculegion. I personally fought tera normal Arceus (water, fairy, steel, ground), tera normal spec Miraidon, tera normal NDM, and even tera normal basc for the mirror.
When I see this I consider a few things.Would they normally run this tera type? Does this tera type provide any measurably utility outside exclusively answering this move? How does it contribute to the mon?
The answer to all of those is that no, they normally wouldn't run that type as it provides no real value except on ekiller sets that want a defensive type to help assist setting up. On E Killer itself, E Killer is a meta staple and is not inherently a bad, off meta or forced pick at all and because of that I'd argue that it is the only natural check to last respects, well, until the user hits it with a tera fighting blast or adaptability wave crash. The reality is preserving e killer at full to answer it is an oft arduous task wrought with issues as it prevents EK from doing its job of beating on the many scarfers and setup sweepers in the tier. Players need to strongly consider how they plan to beat webs and webless Basculegion as their respective answers are entirely different.
My overall opinion is that Last Respects has a profoundly negative impact on the builder.
As to how it affects gameplay, I'm gonna split my response in how one defends from and how one attacks with Last Respects.
As to how it one defends. Against webless Basculegion, players must carefully preserve specific checks such as Arceus-N, any tera normal mons in their possession, as well as either Scarf Koraidon or Scarf Miraidon so they may adequately have an answer to +2 Speed Basculegion. However this is often harder that it seems, in a meta as fast paced and offensive as Ubers it isn't always easy to cleanly to so as it may be in lower tiers, opposing carefully crafted teams are often structured to specifically facilitate Basc end games by utilizing offensive pairings that force those defensive or offensive mons that serve to check LR to instead be forced to answer them and likely accumulate chip damage putting them potentially in range of coverage moves that may invalidate them as checks. Furthermore Basc's set ambiguity can be extremely hard to play around, while most sets have the obvious Last Respects and Agility the last 2 moves are move flexible and can include Sub, Tera Blast Fighting, Aqua Jet, and Wave Crash making the job of defensive counterplay much harder. While psudo checks like kingambit and pao beat some sets, it's entirely ruined by a healthy tera fighting, sub or aqua jet set. While utilizing a normal or dark type to force a tera fight or similar tera does THEN expose it to being picked off by extreme speed basc's set diversity simply allows too many variables to go awry. Once you include webs things are entirely different though, checks like scarf Mirai/Korai just cease to actually be checks and are instead victims, while I have seen several tera normal scarf miraidons as a desperate attempt to answer it that only strengthens my previous case of how it impacts the builder.
As the LR user things are often extremely simple, identify the checks, navigate around them, find the setup point and then just win. While it isn't in reality so simple a thing it's really not THAT hard either if we're being completely honest. Scarf Miraidon dropped a draco, okay well it's not KOing you now! It really felt like the most point and click mon on my team when I used it to get reqs, it won me SO many games I didn't deserve just because I maneuvered around their answers. Conversely though I suppose it really sucked when it happened to me.
In reality either winning with it or losing with it felt extremely cheap and unfair and as such my opinion is that it has a profoundly negative impact on gameplay.
As to how it affects the major ladder groups, while of course prioritizing the highest skill players is just that, a priority, one must also tailor to be more approachable to low ladder players as well. As many in this thread have pointed out, LR has had a terrible impact on both high ladder and tournaments serving as a point of unwelcome volatility in an otherwise stable metagame.
As to low ladder, I utilized an alt account to basically play the 1000-1200 elo range, if I went above that I'd just tank deliberately, the reason being I wanted to get a good understand of the low ladder. As many of us know, low ladder is full of pikachus and charizards and other unviable teams, but of course there are people who are genuinely trying to learn the meta. 3 times I swept someone with basc and their response was "WTF this thing is OP", to which I'd agree with that. It at low ladder is basically punching toddlers though realistically, if you're in a position where you need to use basc to beat a 1000 ELO new player, that's kind of a skill issue though I digress. Low ladder players also had a less fundamentally solid grasp of how to properly execute a LR end game and instead attempted to go for it too early or in a negative position which I think to an extent actually supports the position that it is a "skill based execution".
However at both high ladder and low ladder ELOs it has a distinctly negative impact that was cited as unfair.
While some No Ban advocates may point out that I repeatedly referenced Basculegion, it's not a Basc-M problem, it's an LR problem. I had no issue running Eviolite Basculin to 1400 nor female basculegion to the same ELO with a slightly more poor W:L ratio, I'm currently laddering on another alt with 2 variants of houndstone, both sand rush and fluffy, the mon is relevant in that yes, male basculegion is the best abuser, however the move itself regardless of which mon uses it, is fundamentally uncompetitive and promotes matches that often feel unfair. As others have mentioned as well, promoting a mon that would otherwise have no viability if the move wasn't present in its movepool to AG thus precluding it from lower tiers is extremely unreasonable, as would individually testing each LR user as the verdict would be the same. Even if you think Houndstone would be balanced with it, I am fine letting it die for the sins of the other mons as I think we all value our time more than doing 4 friggin suspects for what is fundamentally a move issue, not a mon issue.
TLDR:
Last respects very bad no good go bye bye
Edit: here's the paste of what I used. Even w/o webs basc is broken.
https://pokepast.es/b5f3912b919c5c00
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I know that.. I posted that because some people were gonna vote dnb on lr so that bascu gets banned.
Having completed reqs for the suspect, I will present some brief thoughts on Last Respects. I can totally see why this move ought to go and I'm not going to sit here and die on the hill of defending the move; fundamentally, I agree that a move that needs Arceus-N and / or random tera normal to be implemented at the teambuilder stage isn't healthy. I'm also aware that people have used Basculin to get these reqs, which shows that the issue is more wide-reaching than just Basculegion-M, even if Mons like Basculin require a predictable tera to reach the same power level.
However, I will say that I was initially using Basculegion Webs on my suspect run, and Basculegion consistently felt like the weakest link on the team. Not that it wasn't useful at all, but more often than not I found myself feeling as though I needed to use it to chip a threat at an earlier stage with wave crash / ~100BP Last Respects, pick up a KO with aqua jet, etc. I rarely thought, 'Basculegion just cleans here by clicking Last Respects,'. Essentially I thought I would get more value out of the slot with something reliably powerful which my team lacked at the time and that I could make room for, so I decided to replace Basculegion with a boots all-out attacker Koraidon - and while I was pretty close to my reqs by the time I dropped Basculegion, the team definitely felt more threatening to pilot with Koraidon in that slot, and, I feel, the change helped me to secure the last few games I needed.
Admittedly, the one thing that changed significantly with the replacement of Basculegion with Koraidon was that the trick room match-up became scarier. When I loaded into trick room offence, Basculegion did feel incredibly valuable, especially if my opponent lacked a normal type; and, for Last Respects to invalidate a playstyle to this degree (Or at least, it felt like I just won on preview versus trick room as the one piloting Basculegion - trick room players are free to disagree with me that the playstyle is invalidated, although I doubt many want to defend Last Respects so strongly as to do so) I can definitely see why it's unhealthy.
All in all I'm not decided on the vote yet. I can't get behind the people who are vehemently pro-ban and think that the move is so cheap as to allow the user to win unthinkingly - fundamentally, Mons with access to Last Respects are not up to scratch with typical Ubers stat-wise, and so there is a practical barrier to setting up an agility (Agility being the more cited set, on Basculegion at least, than swift swim / scarf) - but to force in some way or other a normal type in teambuilder and also to be so ridiculously positive in my experience versus a legitimate playstyle in trick room (Caly-I, NDM, etc.) does seem unnecessarily and detrimentally restrictive. Leaning towards ban, though even if I were to vote otherwise I really doubt it would matter at this stage considering the consensus is mostly in this direction already.
However, I will say that I was initially using Basculegion Webs on my suspect run, and Basculegion consistently felt like the weakest link on the team. Not that it wasn't useful at all, but more often than not I found myself feeling as though I needed to use it to chip a threat at an earlier stage with wave crash / ~100BP Last Respects, pick up a KO with aqua jet, etc. I rarely thought, 'Basculegion just cleans here by clicking Last Respects,'. Essentially I thought I would get more value out of the slot with something reliably powerful which my team lacked at the time and that I could make room for, so I decided to replace Basculegion with a boots all-out attacker Koraidon - and while I was pretty close to my reqs by the time I dropped Basculegion, the team definitely felt more threatening to pilot with Koraidon in that slot, and, I feel, the change helped me to secure the last few games I needed.
Admittedly, the one thing that changed significantly with the replacement of Basculegion with Koraidon was that the trick room match-up became scarier. When I loaded into trick room offence, Basculegion did feel incredibly valuable, especially if my opponent lacked a normal type; and, for Last Respects to invalidate a playstyle to this degree (Or at least, it felt like I just won on preview versus trick room as the one piloting Basculegion - trick room players are free to disagree with me that the playstyle is invalidated, although I doubt many want to defend Last Respects so strongly as to do so) I can definitely see why it's unhealthy.
All in all I'm not decided on the vote yet. I can't get behind the people who are vehemently pro-ban and think that the move is so cheap as to allow the user to win unthinkingly - fundamentally, Mons with access to Last Respects are not up to scratch with typical Ubers stat-wise, and so there is a practical barrier to setting up an agility (Agility being the more cited set, on Basculegion at least, than swift swim / scarf) - but to force in some way or other a normal type in teambuilder and also to be so ridiculously positive in my experience versus a legitimate playstyle in trick room (Caly-I, NDM, etc.) does seem unnecessarily and detrimentally restrictive. Leaning towards ban, though even if I were to vote otherwise I really doubt it would matter at this stage considering the consensus is mostly in this direction already.
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I have not played much of the tier before this suspect test, so my opinions are purely based on my experience laddering recently. I have watched some UWC replays but very few of them actually had Basc in them; the usage stats also seem to be quite low.
I went into my games with the viewpoint that Last Respects was utterly broken and uncompetitive. After playing the tier for a decent amount of games, I no longer have that viewpoint. I think Last Requests, on its own, is fine and has adequate counter play. The move requires multiple forms of setup to fully sweep teams, needing multiple mons to faint as well as multiple forms of speed control. Additionally, it often requires holding tera to deal with bulky dark types or EKiller. Even when set up, it remains vulnerable to priority moves. All of this means that while Basc can clean in the endgame there is absolutely an opportunity cost to do so.
One point that frequently gets brought up wrt Last Respects is that it places an undue amount of stress on teambuilding, often requiring tera normal or specific coverage moves. While this would absolutely be a much larger issue in any other format, Ubers has multiple other mons that are equally restrictive. Ho-Oh all but forces most physical threats to run tera fire, as well as moves such as Stone Edge or Wild Charge. NDM is a beast of its own with multiple sets and tera options that each demand answers. Korai and Mirai have already been discussed to death in the last suspect but both must be accounted for whenever you are putting together a team. By itself, I do not believe Last Respects is any more egregious than the aforementioned sets.
The current metagame, however, has far too many individual threats. While no team should be able to counter everything, it feels like there are so many tera types you cannot account for and sets that can be played that there is simply no way to avoid losing to setup mons while still countering Last Requests. (Anything that forces you to defensively tera while Basc is still alive leaves you open to just being swept by LR if you only are running a tera normal to counter it). Combined with the other threats mentioned above it leads to extremely limited teambuilding strategies. Having one of these major threats removed would definitely go a long way in alleviating some of this pressure, reducing the instances where you lose to a random setup/tera that you simply cannot counter due to the extensive requirements to simply not lose into every common strategy.
I find Last Respects to be the least interesting of all these suspects. You know exactly what the strategy is and it is the same every game. If you have one of the many counters to it, you win. If you don't, you lose. While I don't really believe Last Requests is any more broken than the rest of the tier, this one-dimensional gameplay makes it the most boring major meta threat by far, so I will be voting ban.
I went into my games with the viewpoint that Last Respects was utterly broken and uncompetitive. After playing the tier for a decent amount of games, I no longer have that viewpoint. I think Last Requests, on its own, is fine and has adequate counter play. The move requires multiple forms of setup to fully sweep teams, needing multiple mons to faint as well as multiple forms of speed control. Additionally, it often requires holding tera to deal with bulky dark types or EKiller. Even when set up, it remains vulnerable to priority moves. All of this means that while Basc can clean in the endgame there is absolutely an opportunity cost to do so.
One point that frequently gets brought up wrt Last Respects is that it places an undue amount of stress on teambuilding, often requiring tera normal or specific coverage moves. While this would absolutely be a much larger issue in any other format, Ubers has multiple other mons that are equally restrictive. Ho-Oh all but forces most physical threats to run tera fire, as well as moves such as Stone Edge or Wild Charge. NDM is a beast of its own with multiple sets and tera options that each demand answers. Korai and Mirai have already been discussed to death in the last suspect but both must be accounted for whenever you are putting together a team. By itself, I do not believe Last Respects is any more egregious than the aforementioned sets.
The current metagame, however, has far too many individual threats. While no team should be able to counter everything, it feels like there are so many tera types you cannot account for and sets that can be played that there is simply no way to avoid losing to setup mons while still countering Last Requests. (Anything that forces you to defensively tera while Basc is still alive leaves you open to just being swept by LR if you only are running a tera normal to counter it). Combined with the other threats mentioned above it leads to extremely limited teambuilding strategies. Having one of these major threats removed would definitely go a long way in alleviating some of this pressure, reducing the instances where you lose to a random setup/tera that you simply cannot counter due to the extensive requirements to simply not lose into every common strategy.
I find Last Respects to be the least interesting of all these suspects. You know exactly what the strategy is and it is the same every game. If you have one of the many counters to it, you win. If you don't, you lose. While I don't really believe Last Requests is any more broken than the rest of the tier, this one-dimensional gameplay makes it the most boring major meta threat by far, so I will be voting ban.
Honestly, This is extremely unsurprising, as the move has caused problems since day one. It caused houndstone to be one of OU's fastest quickbans of all time. Then when basculegion dropped, last respects stayed banned, but houndstone got unbanned. And surprise, surprise, even in Ubers, this move is still causing massive problems. This is literally the next baton pass, so therefore, I vote ban.
Since I've had to delete some posts, in the closing stages try to stay on topic of the suspect and the thread please.
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