Announcement SV National Dex Suspect #19 - Moonlight

[sealoo]

havent suspect thread posted in a while, but I got reqs and want to share my brief-ish thoughts, but the tldr is that Moon is broken and is a necessary ban to weaken the strength of HO in the metagame.

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I think Moon is a very obviously broken mon that contributes highly to a negative dynamic in the tier with that being the plethora of HO teams it fuels running around and causing a tier that leans towards MU dependency instead of player skill.

Moon itself has a very slim list of real checks and these checks are often left irreparably weakened into the range of one of Moon's teammates, making accounting for these HOs and their variations often a considerable headache in the builder that cannot reasonably be expected to be outplayed in-game as opposed to something like Ogerpon-W where even defensively shoddy teams can often bully it with pace and tempo control, unlike Moon which hits 555 speed after a single turn and can force its way through classic defensive pivots ie landoT tusk zapdos moltres slowbro ferro.

It would be ignorant to think that moon's ban will kill HO off though, as HO will still be a strong archetype with Dragonite being able to stand in for Moon seamlessly on most structures. However, when HO is in a state where it is too prevalent and/or strong, I believe the name of the game is reducing the threat list that needs to be accounted for instead of evaluating if the mon is broken purely in a vacuum. Current HO builds often heavily rely on moon as either a tremendously strong breaker with knock to open things up or fast cleaner to abuse holes made by teammates. There is no replacement for roaring moon on these HO builds when it comes to the versatility in how it can function on a game-to-game basis, with the closest being the aforementioned Dragonite, but with the lack of Knock Off and consistent raw power compared to Moon, Dragonite is significantly less efficient at this role, which is why I believe that a moon ban will sufficiently nerf HO into a more palatable state for the metagame. As a quick note, I think claims that center around Z instead of booster are just incorrect tbh.

With a few exceptions (Ghold suspect, Tera suspect) I am typically not very invested in a suspect outcomes, but I must say that moon staying would be deeply disappointing and will almost definitely cause the tier to grow considerably worse as time goes on with it legal and HO sees more innovation in NDPL as it always does. If moon goes, I don't think the tier will regress into this fictional glisc spikestack meta that supposedly everyone is running either...

Will be an easy Ban vote for me!

 

[lando_l]

Haven’t played this ladder outside of reqs, and Moon didn’t seem too problematic to me. I didn’t face many Moon teams—mostly balance with Dragonium Z on low/mid ladder, not HO. It usually gets one with Z, which feels fine given the investment. Sweeping with moon is not easy imo.

Team building wise, generally good mons like lando, mola, zama etc.. seem good into moon. Fairies being everywhere means outrage is not free.

If anyone has a really cheap moon HO that can change my mind, pls do share.

 

[Dahness]

Haven't posted in a suspect thread in a bit, but i will do it this time since i was a pretty big advocate of freeing Roaring Moon both times. Keep in mind that i have not read all the posts on this thread so i may repeat some points that were already made.

Roaring Moon makes HO too strong. No matter if its Z DD with Dragonium or Booster DD with Acrobatics, it is still a menace and hard to deal with. Also crazy how both DD sets can cheat out of unfavorable matchups. +1 Z Draco annihilates tusk and lando, +1 acrobatics destroys most fighting types and Iron Valiant and so on. No matter what answer you have for it, it is gonna get at best crippled, lose an important item( ) and at worst ur gonna lose that mon, which paves way for other teammates to take advantage of the hole what Roaring Moon punched through your team. One Dragon Dance is enough to make it very hard to stop and late game its straight up a guaranteed win. There are mons that can answer it pretty well regardless of the set ( :tapu-fini) but these mons are generally slotted on bulkier teams and Roaring Moon isnt the only thing they are supposed to stop. As i said earlier, look at Scizor: its role on most teams is that of stopping fairy/ice-types and its not a dedicated Roaring Moon answer. Well now guess what, besides doing its usual job, it now has to also be an emergency rmoon answer, which is not ideal, as a 1v1 against moon can leave it weakened enough, causing Scizor to get overwhelmed by the mons it was supposed to check in the first place. Tapu Fini is probably the best Rmoon answer, but not even fini likes having to fight the acro set.

I will say that this mon needs to be banned, as its presence on HO can make these teams stronger than they need to be.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

Just got reqs and am planning to vote DNB. Here's why.

To close, Roaring Moon enables HO too much and doesn’t have enough sufficient counterplay to be considered balanced so I will be voting ban.

Let's tackle both points of this argument.

In NDWC, there were quite a few Roaring Moon appearances. But what is surprising is how many of said appearances were on balance or offensive teams rather than HO, where Roaring Moon's set versatility really shines. I went through every NDWC game and categorized them into whether the Moon player was using balance or a non-HO offense, or a HO team. I also marked every HO team's losses to get a better picture of how well Roaring Moon HOs do. I won't be counting games where Moon was on both teams for the HO winrate statistic.

Roaring Moon's teamstyles

Balance / Offense
TKYSZL vs. Flames of Elixir
Scarfire vs. seraphz
omarsgarciav vs. Quarante8
Joeshh vs. avarice
feen vs. Lily
Xirivs. entrocefalo
Quarante8vs. Scarfire
Kyo vs. Kayzn
Aso vs. hellom
pdt vs. Joeshh
avarice vs. Xiri
delemon vs. Airi
Amaske vs. Tuthur
Isza vs. hex
Xiri vs. Medasus
yonmdvs. delemon
Skyiew vs. Dunoks
MemphisDepayy vs. Ryuji
Novax vs. LBN
Dabman1069 vs. Lacks
Quarante8 vs. TKYSZL
Plaguevs. Tempo di anguria
Kayzn vs. PZZ
peap vs. jawabarat
Rasche vs. sir jelloton
Iszavs. Aso
Tenebricite vs. Oculars
pdt vs. dunoks
avarice vs. dunoks
Total: 31 appearances

Hyper-offense
Amaske vs. gewwge
Miyoko vs. Skyiew [L]
TKYSZL vs. Flames of Elixir [L]
seth vs. pdt
Scarfire vs. seraphz
hellom vs. peap [L]
sealoo vs. Lameflame [L]
jscurf vs. Tuthur [L]
Plague vs. Amaske
peap vs. entrocefalo
Micaiah vs. Lameflame not counted
seth vs. Typical_bastard
LBN vs. One Last Kiss
omarsgarciav vs. themonkeydidit
Typical_bastard vs. Pokemonrainer [L]
me vs. omarsgarciav [L]
Darkness 789 vs. Dabman1069
Novax vs. Airi not counted
Plague vs. Tuthur
hex vs. pdt not counted
Xurkiyee vs. avarice
Flames of Elixir vs. delemon
dunoks vs. Soul king0 [L]
hex vs. lolebruh [L]
omarsgarciav vs. DripLegend
pdt vs. dunoks
One Last Kiss vs. hex [L]
Ryuji vs. Mollymiltoast [L]

Total: 31 appearances
Winrate: 13/25 games (not including mirrors) = 52% winrate

I can't agree with Roaring Moon "enabling HO to such an extent" when Roaring Moon HOs only win 52% of their games (and this is an optimistic estimate - there are quite a few games where Moon doesn't do anything significant or even come out that are counted as wins). Additionally, I don't think it's fair to say that it enables HO too much compared to other teamstyles - it had 50% of its overall appearances on balanced and offensive teams after all.

Now, I'll agree - winrate is a somewhat flawed statistic to rely on. Let's break down what happened in Roaring Moon's games. First, let's have a look at some of the games that the Roaring Moon user lost and see how they countered it.

Roaring Moon's losses

Miyoko vs. Skyiew [DD + Dragonium Z] - Skyiew sets up a proactive TSpike to poison the Roaring Moon, then does significant damage to the Moon as it sets up and kills it with Iron Barbs. Neither Gliscor nor Ferrothorn would have answered anything all too well.

TKYSZL vs. Flames of Elixir [Webs / DD + Booster Energy] - FoE sacrifices a Mega Diancie before forcing the Roaring Moon out with a Zamazenta.

hellom vs. peap [DD + Booster Energy] - As the last mon standing, Moon cannot set up as it faces down a Mega Lopunny. It gets off a DD on the Kyurem but doesn't OHKO it with Knock Off. Perhaps if it was used earlier, it would've been more impactful.

Lameflame vs. sealoo [DD + Booster Energy] - Another last mon Moon scenario. It gets off a DD on the non-Dazzling Gleam Koko, but doesn't win as Dual Wingbeat Dragonite with Multiscale intact chips it down enough to where a Rocky Helmet Tusk finishes the job.

jscurf vs. Tuthur [no clue] - jscurf just gets swept by Volcarona before Moon gets to do anything.

Typical_bastard vs. Pokemonrainer [Sun / Band] - A Sun-boosted V-create by Victini takes away 95% of Moon's health and a Rocky Helmet proc from Lando finishes the job.

me vs. omarsgarciav [DD + Booster Energy] - A somewhat unwise setup attempt by me on the Toxapex allows Omar to Toxic the Moon and whittle it down in exchange for some meaningless HP on it, Kyurem, and Ferro, none of which really mattered in the long run.

Soul king0 vs. dunoks [DD + Booster Energy] - Moon comes in early but is forced out by a Hawlucha, and fails to 1v1 Melmetal with its Booster used up.

hex vs. lolebruh [Screens / DD + Roost] - An entry behind Reflect and a lucky Dual Wingbeat miss from Mega Aerodactyl allow Roaring Moon to set up, but after taking down Celesteela it gets chipped down by Gliscor into range of a Weavile Ice Shard.

One Last Kiss vs. hex [DD + Booster Energy] - Moon gets sacked to a +2 Blaziken.

Ryuji vs. Mollymiltoast [DD + Booster Energy] - Last mon Moon loses to a Mega Lopunnny.

From these, we can see that a lot of these losses came down to Roaring Moon being limited in how often it could set up. Sometimes it was the last mon standing, and lost to good positioning and preservation of checks (like in LF vs. sealoo, Omar vs. me, and Molly vs. Ryuji), while other times just getting rid of its Booster without allowing setup did enough (like in TKYSZL vs. FoE). Punishing the setup attempts (in games like Skyiew vs. Miyoko and me vs. Omar) with Toxic and chip damage is another way to stop Moon from going crazy.

Actually, good teams can generally play around bad match ups vs set up sweepers through strategic planning and smart play. But this works because those set up sweepers are balanced.

This is still the case for Roaring Moon. I'll provide some anecdotal evidence with one of my teams and then dive into NDWC games.

This team is an example of a team that's good into the metagame (I've used it to success in various tour games, as well as exclusively for Moon reqs) yet on the surface has a mediocre matchup into Roaring Moon, especially if it is Booster. Now, one thing you may notice is that there is no Moon counter - in fact, there is no good Knock Off switch in especially at +1 that doesn't die to coverage. How would this team handle a Moon?

The reason this team can do well against Moon is that there is no good place for it to set up. Outside of Terapagos, which still does massive damage to it with Tera Starstorm, and forcing something on Lando at the cost of 50% of its HP, an opposing Roaring Moon simply cannot set up. Lele kills it, Low Kick Mega Tyranitar kills it, Thunder Wave Gholdengo with Ghostium neutralizes it, and Band Shifu kills it. If all else goes wrong, Tera Shell Terapagos can beat it with some chip damage.

Here's a replay versus Moon: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2379330154-9rgoek1n535w0edidrrdick75dks6hupw

Moon tries to set up with Webs up on my side - however, being able to TWave it with Gholdengo allows me to stop it from setting up. Even if Gholdengo had died to the Manaphy (without the paras), careful preservation of my Lele's health would have allowed me to sacrifice Lando and Moonblast both to death.

For the second part, let me first categorize the NDWC Moon games where it won into games where it had high impact, medium impact, or low impact.

Roaring Moon's wins and impact in said wins

High Impact
Amaske vs. gewwge - nukes Tusk with Z, Knocks Scarf Lando and Moltres for nothing in particular
Scarfire vs. seraphz - Banded Moon this time on Sun, gains momentum on Mega Diancie before killing it and a sleeping Moon
omarsgarciav vs. themonkeydidit - takes down a weakened Heatran before finishing the job, taking down Mega Aero/Bolt/Garchomp in the end
Plague vs. Tuthur - trades itself for major damage on Gholdengo and Scarf Lando, opening up Valiant and TWave + Hex Ghold to win
Xurkiyee vs. avarice - won the game on its own after a single Dragon Dance

Medium Impact
delemon vs. Flames of Elixir - traded itself for a Ferrothorn, enabling a potential Sand Tomb Mega Sciz sweep (although to be fair, it may have swept anyways depending on its third move)
omarsgarciav vs. DripLegend - got Toxic'd by Mola while setting up, able to stay alive long enough to remove Zapdos and deal some damage to Mola (which would be completely Regen'd off)

Low Impact
seth vs. pdt - traded itself for HP on a Mega Scizor that didn't really help anything
seth vs. Typical_bastard - killed a 3% HP Ogerpon before being sacked to Zamazenta
dunoks vs. pdt - traded itself for very little HP on a Clefable that got walled forever by Gholdengo
Plague vs. Amaske - didn't come out
peap vs. entrocefalo - didn't come out
One Last Kiss vs. LBN - didn't come out
Darkness 789 vs. Dabman1069 - didn't come out

Games like Xurkiyee vs. avarice are what the pro-ban side claims Moon can do on a regular basis. I disagree - realistically, as seen in the replays, the best-case scenario for Roaring Moon (even when the game is won) is taking one or two things with it. So how did teams limit it in games where it had medium-to-high impact? Well, they simply prevented it from getting too dangerous through good positioning. Notice how none of the teams that limited it had a "hard counter" - they carried Ferros, Clefables, and Landos that limited the Moon enough to stop it from sweeping.

The statistics above also trouble me in regards to Moon enabling HO to an unhealthy degree. Even if we exclude all the games where Moon never entered the field, 50% of the time it didn't do much besides trade with its check; that's not an unhealthy dynamic. Furthermore, in only 3 of the high-impact games was Moon placed on a regular HO team - in the other two, it was used as part of a Sun team, where its set diversity is greatly limited.

Really, I fail to see why Roaring Moon is banworthy due to "enabling HO" (it has barely over a 50% winrate and didn't do anything in over half of its games that it won). It can certainly be held down by checks, as seen in the NDWC replays above. Compare this brokenness with the attributes that Roaring Moon brings to the tier as a soft-check to many dangerous threats like Mega Charizard Y and Wellspring and you'll see that banning Roaring Moon is unhealthy for the metagame. That's why I'm voting DNB.

 

[seth]

gonna try not to stumble over my thoughts / repeat points already made too much (tho pretty much all points have been made KEK) but moon is obviously broken and pushes an already arguably broken archetype over the edge resulting in an extremely polarized meta in which you are either loading balance or ho.

I can't agree with Roaring Moon "enabling HO to such an extent" when Roaring Moon HOs only win 52% of their games (and this is an optimistic estimate - there are quite a few games where Moon doesn't do anything significant or even come out that are counted as wins). Additionally, I don't think it's fair to say that it enables HO too much compared to other teamstyles - it had 50% of its overall appearances on balanced and offensive teams after all.

when a majority of the playerbase recognizes a mon as broken and overpreps accordingly its obviously not gonna be putting up consistent 60%+ wr and sweeping on a game to game basis because if it were despite the tier revolving around keeping it in check it would probably be quickbanned. posting games it fails to sweep and claiming that as evidence moon is fine is just stupid, completely failing to consider the impact moons presence both in the builder and just in the back forces on the person playing into it. the moon ho user is basically playing "click designated lead, set hazard/screen, play to chip X threat and moon wins" while its in the non ho users court to somehow maneuver around the 4 broken fuckers backed up by a screen or hazards built to open up moons checks for it to win, or vice versa. being able to force such a linear wincon for urself so consistently is just not okay, and while getting rid of moon alone isnt gonna fix this issue if we leave it as is the tier will only get worse and worse as ho compositions get more optimized come pl season for not much gain. balance/whatever non ho structures arent rly affected by losing util moon sets at all so i dont rly see what keeping it around does for the tier. not gonna get into points on specific replays but overall this post is just looking at moon, not seeing it kill 4x on a game to game basis and claiming that means its fine. the mon itself doesnt need to be sweeping every game for it to be enabling the archetype.

To illustrate my point I have come up with the Great Moon scenario:

lead diancie gets rocks and trades endeavor to effectively kill lando, atk booster tusk comes in and clef is forced out as the lando is effectively dead handling the lead. clef takes 60~ from headlong and trades. it is forced out by whatever comes in on the following turn and the clef user is now forced into a game in which they either sac their clef(the moon answer) or give whatever threats in front of it a free turn and somehow find a turn to heal later in the game into an archetype entirely built around preventing free turns or they will inevitably lose to acro moon. this an unhealthy interaction heavily weighted in the ho users favor for the simple fact they have the stronger pkmn and dont need to do thinking outside of deciding what is going to open up what. even if u dont see this exact line playing out on a game to game basis im sure you can observe the same sort of scenario in which X threat opens up for moon or moon opens up for Y w/e in several of the moon ho replays linked above. even in the games it doesnt come out it being in the back forces the person playing against it to keep their moon counter healthy the entire game, still generating value without being on the field through forcing the opponent to play a certain way or risk losing on the spot. again i dont think moon is the only issue, ho is still gonna be able to do similar shit even if moon gets banned but allowing it to stay in the tier because it isnt sweeping game after game and putting up 70% wr seems a bit dumb to me. was gonna respond to other points in msg above and had a bit more to say about moon in regards to teambuilding but like i said at the start most of these points have been made by now so will leave it there. sry if ts is all worded poorly(it probably is) especially towards the end, its hard to interpret the thoughts my natdex supercomputer of a brain comes up with when its theorymon time.

TLDR: load moon ho = me no use brain, no load moon ho = use brain too much while opp no think but still win cus strong mon click stronger... NOT GOOD. BAN

 

[Dead by Daylight]

when a majority of the playerbase recognizes a mon as broken and overpreps accordingly its obviously not gonna be putting up consistent 60%+ wr and sweeping on a game to game basis because if it were despite the tier revolving around keeping it in check it would probably be quickbanned.

Do me a favor and find the "overprep" designed specifically to counter Roaring Moon, because I don't see it. Unless you mean the uptick in Ferrothorn, Landorus-T, and Toxapex usage (all of which are very viable in their own right) is emblematic of the tier "overprepping" for Roaring Moon, I cannot decipher what this meaningless platitude means.

The checks used versus Roaring Moon - losses or low-impact games where it was sent out

Losses
Skyiew: + Toxic Spikes
FoE: /
peap: + to an extent
sealoo: and prayers
Tuthur: + (although it wouldn't end up mattering anyways)
Pokemonrainer:
omarsgarciav: + Toxic
dunoks: + + to force it out
lolebruh: +
hex: + Screens support beforehand
Mollymiltoast: + +

Low-impact games
pdt: +
Typical_bastard: +
seth: + + to an extent

None of these teams are using anything specifically designed to stop Roaring Moon at the cost of terrible matchups, nor are they creating cores that auto-lose to any other viable HO threat. Sure, some of them might be Wellspring-weak, but Ferrothorn patches up that weakness well enough on a lot of these teams while it can easily be forced out repeatedly or revenge-killed on the others. Every HO requires the non-HO player to gameplan around the HO player's biggest threats - that's not a Roaring Moon issue, that's a HO issue as a whole.

To illustrate my point I have come up with the Great Moon scenario:

lead diancie gets rocks and trades endeavor to effectively kill lando, atk booster tusk comes in and clef is forced out as the lando is effectively dead handling the lead. clef takes 60~ from headlong and trades. it is forced out by whatever comes in on the following turn and the clef user is now forced into a game in which they either sac their clef(the moon answer) or give whatever threats in front of it a free turn and somehow find a turn to heal later in the game into an archetype entirely built around preventing free turns or they will inevitably lose to acro moon.

When you have to create a fictional scenario instead of finding an example from the replays and showing it, it's not looking too good for your argument. Not to mention that this completely disregards player agency - why lead Lando against a lead Diancie if you know you need it later on? Why go to Clef instead of, I don't know, pivoting to another member of your defensive core and/or sacking Lando to force out the Booster Tusk?

 

[seth]

When you have to create a fictional scenario instead of finding an example from the replays and showing it, it's not looking too good for your argument. Not to mention that this completely disregards player agency - why lead Lando against a lead Diancie if you know you need it later on? Why go to Clef instead of, I don't know, pivoting to another member of your defensive core and/or sacking Lando to force out the Booster Tusk?

point of the scenario was to demonstrate an interaction that will consistently happen in every game a decent moon ho is loaded in, that being the non ho user being forced into a scenario where they have to pick and choose what to give health on while keeping a dedicated answer to the moon in the back healthy which will inevitably lead to the non ho user into an unwinnable position. i explained this like 2 or 3 times in more detail in my post.

 

[lyra__4]

Just got reqs and am planning to vote DNB. Here's why.


Let's tackle both points of this argument.

In NDWC, there were quite a few Roaring Moon appearances. But what is surprising is how many of said appearances were on balance or offensive teams rather than HO, where Roaring Moon's set versatility really shines. I went through every NDWC game and categorized them into whether the Moon player was using balance or a non-HO offense, or a HO team. I also marked every HO team's losses to get a better picture of how well Roaring Moon HOs do. I won't be counting games where Moon was on both teams for the HO winrate statistic.

Roaring Moon's teamstyles

Balance / Offense
TKYSZL vs. Flames of Elixir
Scarfire vs. seraphz
omarsgarciav vs. Quarante8
Joeshh vs. avarice
feen vs. Lily
Xirivs. entrocefalo
Quarante8vs. Scarfire
Kyo vs. Kayzn
Aso vs. hellom
pdt vs. Joeshh
avarice vs. Xiri
delemon vs. Airi
Amaske vs. Tuthur
Isza vs. hex
Xiri vs. Medasus
yonmdvs. delemon
Skyiew vs. Dunoks
MemphisDepayy vs. Ryuji
Novax vs. LBN
Dabman1069 vs. Lacks
Quarante8 vs. TKYSZL
Plaguevs. Tempo di anguria
Kayzn vs. PZZ
peap vs. jawabarat
Rasche vs. sir jelloton
Iszavs. Aso
Tenebricite vs. Oculars
pdt vs. dunoks
avarice vs. dunoks
Total: 31 appearances

Hyper-offense
Amaske vs. gewwge
Miyoko vs. Skyiew [L]
TKYSZL vs. Flames of Elixir [L]
seth vs. pdt
Scarfire vs. seraphz
hellom vs. peap [L]
sealoo vs. Lameflame [L]
jscurf vs. Tuthur [L]
Plague vs. Amaske
peap vs. entrocefalo
Micaiah vs. Lameflame not counted
seth vs. Typical_bastard
LBN vs. One Last Kiss
omarsgarciav vs. themonkeydidit
Typical_bastard vs. Pokemonrainer [L]
me vs. omarsgarciav [L]
Darkness 789 vs. Dabman1069
Novax vs. Airi not counted
Plague vs. Tuthur
hex vs. pdt not counted
Xurkiyee vs. avarice
Flames of Elixir vs. delemon
dunoks vs. Soul king0 [L]
hex vs. lolebruh [L]
omarsgarciav vs. DripLegend
pdt vs. dunoks
One Last Kiss vs. hex [L]
Ryuji vs. Mollymiltoast [L]

Total: 31 appearances
Winrate: 13/25 games (not including mirrors) = 52% winrate

I can't agree with Roaring Moon "enabling HO to such an extent" when Roaring Moon HOs only win 52% of their games (and this is an optimistic estimate - there are quite a few games where Moon doesn't do anything significant or even come out that are counted as wins). Additionally, I don't think it's fair to say that it enables HO too much compared to other teamstyles - it had 50% of its overall appearances on balanced and offensive teams after all.

Now, I'll agree - winrate is a somewhat flawed statistic to rely on. Let's break down what happened in Roaring Moon's games. First, let's have a look at some of the games that the Roaring Moon user lost and see how they countered it.

Roaring Moon's losses

Miyoko vs. Skyiew [DD + Dragonium Z] - Skyiew sets up a proactive TSpike to poison the Roaring Moon, then does significant damage to the Moon as it sets up and kills it with Iron Barbs. Neither Gliscor nor Ferrothorn would have answered anything all too well.

TKYSZL vs. Flames of Elixir [Webs / DD + Booster Energy] - FoE sacrifices a Mega Diancie before forcing the Roaring Moon out with a Zamazenta.

hellom vs. peap [DD + Booster Energy] - As the last mon standing, Moon cannot set up as it faces down a Mega Lopunny. It gets off a DD on the Kyurem but doesn't OHKO it with Knock Off. Perhaps if it was used earlier, it would've been more impactful.

Lameflame vs. sealoo [DD + Booster Energy] - Another last mon Moon scenario. It gets off a DD on the non-Dazzling Gleam Koko, but doesn't win as Dual Wingbeat Dragonite with Multiscale intact chips it down enough to where a Rocky Helmet Tusk finishes the job.

jscurf vs. Tuthur [no clue] - jscurf just gets swept by Volcarona before Moon gets to do anything.

Typical_bastard vs. Pokemonrainer [Sun / Band] - A Sun-boosted V-create by Victini takes away 95% of Moon's health and a Rocky Helmet proc from Lando finishes the job.

me vs. omarsgarciav [DD + Booster Energy] - A somewhat unwise setup attempt by me on the Toxapex allows Omar to Toxic the Moon and whittle it down in exchange for some meaningless HP on it, Kyurem, and Ferro, none of which really mattered in the long run.

Soul king0 vs. dunoks [DD + Booster Energy] - Moon comes in early but is forced out by a Hawlucha, and fails to 1v1 Melmetal with its Booster used up.

hex vs. lolebruh [Screens / DD + Roost] - An entry behind Reflect and a lucky Dual Wingbeat miss from Mega Aerodactyl allow Roaring Moon to set up, but after taking down Celesteela it gets chipped down by Gliscor into range of a Weavile Ice Shard.

One Last Kiss vs. hex [DD + Booster Energy] - Moon gets sacked to a +2 Blaziken.

Ryuji vs. Mollymiltoast [DD + Booster Energy] - Last mon Moon loses to a Mega Lopunnny.

From these, we can see that a lot of these losses came down to Roaring Moon being limited in how often it could set up. Sometimes it was the last mon standing, and lost to good positioning and preservation of checks (like in LF vs. sealoo, Omar vs. me, and Molly vs. Ryuji), while other times just getting rid of its Booster without allowing setup did enough (like in TKYSZL vs. FoE). Punishing the setup attempts (in games like Skyiew vs. Miyoko and me vs. Omar) with Toxic and chip damage is another way to stop Moon from going crazy.


This is still the case for Roaring Moon. I'll provide some anecdotal evidence with one of my teams and then dive into NDWC games.

This team is an example of a team that's good into the metagame (I've used it to success in various tour games, as well as exclusively for Moon reqs) yet on the surface has a mediocre matchup into Roaring Moon, especially if it is Booster. Now, one thing you may notice is that there is no Moon counter - in fact, there is no good Knock Off switch in especially at +1 that doesn't die to coverage. How would this team handle a Moon?

The reason this team can do well against Moon is that there is no good place for it to set up. Outside of Terapagos, which still does massive damage to it with Tera Starstorm, and forcing something on Lando at the cost of 50% of its HP, an opposing Roaring Moon simply cannot set up. Lele kills it, Low Kick Mega Tyranitar kills it, Thunder Wave Gholdengo with Ghostium neutralizes it, and Band Shifu kills it. If all else goes wrong, Tera Shell Terapagos can beat it with some chip damage.

Here's a replay versus Moon: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2379330154-9rgoek1n535w0edidrrdick75dks6hupw

Moon tries to set up with Webs up on my side - however, being able to TWave it with Gholdengo allows me to stop it from setting up. Even if Gholdengo had died to the Manaphy (without the paras), careful preservation of my Lele's health would have allowed me to sacrifice Lando and Moonblast both to death.

For the second part, let me first categorize the NDWC Moon games where it won into games where it had high impact, medium impact, or low impact.

Roaring Moon's wins and impact in said wins

High Impact
Amaske vs. gewwge - nukes Tusk with Z, Knocks Scarf Lando and Moltres for nothing in particular
Scarfire vs. seraphz - Banded Moon this time on Sun, gains momentum on Mega Diancie before killing it and a sleeping Moon
omarsgarciav vs. themonkeydidit - takes down a weakened Heatran before finishing the job, taking down Mega Aero/Bolt/Garchomp in the end
Plague vs. Tuthur - trades itself for major damage on Gholdengo and Scarf Lando, opening up Valiant and TWave + Hex Ghold to win
Xurkiyee vs. avarice - won the game on its own after a single Dragon Dance

Medium Impact
delemon vs. Flames of Elixir - traded itself for a Ferrothorn, enabling a potential Sand Tomb Mega Sciz sweep (although to be fair, it may have swept anyways depending on its third move)
omarsgarciav vs. DripLegend - got Toxic'd by Mola while setting up, able to stay alive long enough to remove Zapdos and deal some damage to Mola (which would be completely Regen'd off)

Low Impact
seth vs. pdt - traded itself for HP on a Mega Scizor that didn't really help anything
seth vs. Typical_bastard - killed a 3% HP Ogerpon before being sacked to Zamazenta
dunoks vs. pdt - traded itself for very little HP on a Clefable that got walled forever by Gholdengo
Plague vs. Amaske - didn't come out
peap vs. entrocefalo - didn't come out
One Last Kiss vs. LBN - didn't come out
Darkness 789 vs. Dabman1069 - didn't come out

Games like Xurkiyee vs. avarice are what the pro-ban side claims Moon can do on a regular basis. I disagree - realistically, as seen in the replays, the best-case scenario for Roaring Moon (even when the game is won) is taking one or two things with it. So how did teams limit it in games where it had medium-to-high impact? Well, they simply prevented it from getting too dangerous through good positioning. Notice how none of the teams that limited it had a "hard counter" - they carried Ferros, Clefables, and Landos that limited the Moon enough to stop it from sweeping.

The statistics above also trouble me in regards to Moon enabling HO to an unhealthy degree. Even if we exclude all the games where Moon never entered the field, 50% of the time it didn't do much besides trade with its check; that's not an unhealthy dynamic. Furthermore, in only 3 of the high-impact games was Moon placed on a regular HO team - in the other two, it was used as part of a Sun team, where its set diversity is greatly limited.

Really, I fail to see why Roaring Moon is banworthy due to "enabling HO" (it has barely over a 50% winrate and didn't do anything in over half of its games that it won). It can certainly be held down by checks, as seen in the NDWC replays above. Compare this brokenness with the attributes that Roaring Moon brings to the tier as a soft-check to many dangerous threats like Mega Charizard Y and Wellspring and you'll see that banning Roaring Moon is unhealthy for the metagame. That's why I'm voting DNB.

oh hmmm after reading your post I think im convinced to vote DNB instead.
Also why do so many suspect threads seem to result in some sort of flame war

(Edit: cool stats btw I js realised I frg to mention that)

 

[lyra__4]

point of the scenario was to demonstrate an interaction that will consistently happen in every game a decent moon ho is loaded in, that being the non ho user being forced into a scenario where they have to pick and choose what to give health on while keeping a dedicated answer to the moon in the back healthy which will inevitably lead to the non ho user into an unwinnable position. i explained this like 2 or 3 times in more detail in my post.

Previously I believed in what everyone else was saying about roaring moon being overpowered, but I believe dead by dead light makes a good point citing replays and stats on roaring moon. It feels like now that I think about it, most of everyone else isn’t really showing any replays or stats? While I do see your point that even if roaring moon wasn’t used in a game, it still has an impact by making the other player more careful about how they position their mons, I still think a 52% win rate as mentioned doesn’t sound particularly egregious. In any game between two players, assuming all else equal (teams, skill level), a player should win 50% of the the time so 52% doesn’t sound very far off from that to me. If anyone has any other stats or replays that can show how roaring moon is broken rather than hypotheticals I’m willing to listen though.

 

[Sami]

The statistics above also trouble me in regards to Moon enabling HO to an unhealthy degree. Even if we exclude all the games where Moon never entered the field, 50% of the time it didn't do much besides trade with its check; that's not an unhealthy dynamic. Furthermore, in only 3 of the high-impact games was Moon placed on a regular HO team - in the other two, it was used as part of a Sun team, where its set diversity is greatly limited.

Really, I fail to see why Roaring Moon is banworthy due to "enabling HO" (it has barely over a 50% winrate and didn't do anything in over half of its games that it won). It can certainly be held down by checks, as seen in the NDWC replays above. Compare this brokenness with the attributes that Roaring Moon brings to the tier as a soft-check to many dangerous threats like Mega Charizard Y and Wellspring and you'll see that banning Roaring Moon is unhealthy for the metagame. That's why I'm voting DNB.

You're not wrong, but I feel like all your suggesting is that Roaring Moon isn't broken, and while that is true to an extent, it is most definitely centralising for pretty much all archetypes to deal with consistently. Your own team is proof of that, since while you've focused a lot on containing Roaring Moon, to a pretty good degree (even if Choice-locked Urshifu and Tapu Lele do raise some alarms), you've completely ignored your matchup against offensive Water-types; both Ogerpon-W and Choice Scarf Urshifu-R completely run you over because your only Water-type resist is Urshifu-R itself which is certainly not good. Even something like Calm Mind Tapu Fini is a threat to this team considering how Gholdengo isn't Nasty Plot and Tapu Lele isn't Psyshock. This is direct evidence that Roaring Moon has a pretty immense pressure on teambuilding since, if it didn't, why else would you need to single it out so much? A lot of the community is saying that teambuilding is difficult right now, so having to prioritise Roaring Moon so much definitely isn't helping, and you can very much argue that this hyper-prioritisation of Roaring Moon is almost why it has such a poor WR in NDWC despite it "supposedly" being broken, because everyone hates it so much and they don't want to get swept by it.

If anything, that last point means Roaring Moon just enables threats like Volcarona to an unhealthy degree, which I have seen people complaining about, because checks to Volcarona (that AREN'T Toxapex) such as Moltres, Heatran, and Dragonite, see much less use because of Roaring Moon's dominance, since the former two are almost setup fodder for it, and the latter is partially outclassed by it, or even completely on HO unless you want to stack Dragon-types.

Roaring Moon's "benefits" on the tier are definitely being exaggerated here too. Mega Charizard Y is not broken even without Roaring Moon as we have plenty of other Dragon-types to take its spot as a check (Mega Latios, Dragonite, Raging Bolt, Mega Charizard X). It isn't great against Ogerpon-W unless you run Ferrothorn or another bulky Grass-type alongside it, because +2 Power Whip has a 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock, its prone to being nuked by Superpower, and the more niche U-turn variants can just farm damage into it. Sure, it outspeeding Ogerpon-W is nice, but you have to be either the mediocre at best Pivot Roaring Moon, or you have to almost give up Booster Energy just to kill it with Acrobatics. I don't see how these benefits outweigh all of the negatives of horrible teambuilding and pressure in-game that Roaring Moon brings.

 

[Runo]

post

I believe dead by dead light makes a good point citing replays and stats on roaring moon. It feels like now that I think about it, most of everyone else isn’t really showing any replays or stats?

In support of seth's counter-argument, I think winrate is disingenuous to show entirely if the winrates for other playstyles fail to be shown. What is balance's winrate for example? Non Moon-HO? Admitting winrates are a flawed statistic and then continuing to make references to it is also strange. Winrate is flawed because it the winrate normalizes towards 50% the more usage a mon receives (ex: two good players want to bring the mon are on an equal playing field, or it's overprepped for as seth said).

DBD's example of a good team that beats moon and the replay to go with it is also heavily flawed. As was mentioned multiple times in SmogCord and ND Cord, this team does not have good matchups into other prominent threats such as Ogerpon-W and definitely can be bullshitted by Roaring Moon + Volcarona in screens. You can technically beat them yes but it requires the opposing player to play suboptimally or build suboptimally or just flat out get unlucky. This is highlighted in the replay where you blatantly required hax to win that end game when Roaring Moon would've won otherwise.

Also @ not analyzing every single replay: You dumped over 60 which is already a high amount to cover. And to make it stranger, you yourself only bothered to analyze less than half of it. The way you structured your post (in which you hid both the analysis and replays in two separate spoilers) makes this understandably frustrating when it is in such high quantity, at least to me because I have to continuously find each of the 25 replays you are referencing in order to disprove your claims (which definitely can be contested). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

I've lost my faith in the community

The reason why people do not have high faith in the opposing side (from either side's POV) is because this tier's playerbase is polarized.

In terms of unbans you see this a LOT, where people will jump immediately to supporting an unban because they want to see a change despite the status quo side almost begging people that it won't do anything but make the tier harder to build. You saw it with Deo-S (Yup this tier 100% needs an HO lead that gets every hazard in the game that's borderline impossible to shut down, solves the tier even!!!) and we clearly are seeing this Roaring Moon scenario play out almost exactly how the status quo said it would. They fundamentally failed to showcase how Roaring Moon would make the tier better in the long run, so imagine my surprise when we get another yearly Roaring Moon re-suspect.

On the other side of the tiering spectrum, banning instead of unbanning, the status quo ultimately fails to properly address the amount of frustration people have with building this metagame. I have had users such as ComputerWhiz, Sputnik, Ineros, Wildfiree, etc. just tell me multiple times something along the lines of "Tier is fine just outplay" or "I don't struggle to check XYZ" (Ignoring the fact that some of these users end up caving and admit that building is not consistent, when pressed). Equally I have had users such as seth, omarsgarciav, artymasion, ryuji, etc tell me that making consistent teams is hard without defaulting to already known composition such as Mono Aids. This is not exclusively a Roaring Moon problem but acting like Roaring Moon isn't apart of that problem is ignoring very real frustrations in the builder (Roaring Moon + Volcarona has frequent scenarios in which it will take player skill out of the equation or disproportional favor the HO player in that interaction) and the only active solution is to overcentralize your builder or try to get by when you have holes with just using offensive checks + hazards/status (you can refer to things like Ogerpon-W as to why this isn't a consistent way of accounting for threats for a lot of people).

If the tier is in such a state where, everything that is potentially problematic is so staunchly split, from Tera to Roaring Moon to even the concept of what mons to unban. You are going to have a population that can essentially be amounted to a powder keg because half of your playerbase is walking away unhappy one way or another. And this is for something that is relatively easy to tier: Roaring Moon has minimal builder impact despite being unbalanced compared to something like Gliscor. If you ban Roaring Moon, structures don't fundamentally change they just get more consistent to use. If you ban Gliscor or Gholdengo this changes the landscape of the tier significantly and are significantly more warping, and thus the pushpash is way greater. I personally would lose my faith in the concept of suspect tests if I can clearly see that results end up being close victories or just slightly below the benchmark constantly. That doesn't resolve anything.

Similar to this if we are getting to a point to where we have to say statements like "I lost faith in the community", "suspect tests are terrible in natdex", doing nothing but post some slop one-liner that amount to ban/dnb with no elaboration, or just flat out insulting the intelligence and skill of the person giving the argument (I have had to edit multiple posts above to highlight this Dead by Daylight seth, do better) we clearly cannot have a debate grounded on respect and I question if we have to resort to council slating at some point.

 

[earthflax]

Several of the preceding posts have shown a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of statistics as applied to competitive mons. I have no skin in this game really but it is, frankly, quite grating to have to see incomplete statistics being presented as the opposite of what they actually mean, and furthermore to see that some people are actually convinced by these arguments.

Competitive Pokemon is very hard to capture statistically because 99.9% of the time, the RNG in the game is completely unique, but the outcome of the game is only categorized as a win or a loss. (By RNG, I don't just mean crits or Iron Head flinches or whatever: every action that could have multiple outcomes in mons is inherently based on RNG, and this includes every inaccurate move, chance of secondary effect, and for damaging moves, every damage roll.) In short, every game of 'mons, we are being shown hundreds or even thousands of actions with variable outcomes, but ultimately the only purely numerical stats that are presented to us are usage rates and win rates. Standardizing data with this many confounding variables is in my eyes a near-impossible task. If you think I am exaggerating how random mons is, then just take a look at the all-time record sheet for official tournaments. Even the best of the best lose every third game on the highest stage. This is all a long-winded way to say that winrate is nice to look at, but, bluntly, it doesn't mean shit. In fact, there is a certain point where the more obviously broken a Pokemon is, the closer its winrate will get to 50% (off of pure numbers this is because it will see higher usage and therefore more mirrors, echoing what Runo said above, but also things like overprepping for Moon will obviously lower its win rate at the cost of making teams that are weaker to other threats; this is, incidentally, one of the main complaints about Moon from Ban supporters.)

Even in the NDWC usage stats, the above point can be plainly seen. Moon's usage rate, which is a tick above 25%, indicates that, on average, 1/14 games is a Roaring Moon mirror (0.27^2=0.072, 1/14=0.071). This seems like a low number, but when we talk about the way that it affects win rate, it is highly important. Let's say that there have been 13 games so far, and in each of them there has only been 1 Roaring Moon. Let's say that Moon, in these 13 games, has gone 9-4. That is a win rate of roughly 69.2%. If there is a mirror, Moon's winrate goes to 10-5 (as in a mirror, there is 1 loss and 1 win regardless of the outcome). This would make its winrate move downwards to about 66.7%, which is a 2.5% winrate decrease off of just 1 mirror match.

I won't pretend that I am a particularly active participant in the Natdex meta in any way, and I especially try to stay out of suspect threads that I don't plan on getting reqs for, but let's think critically about the context that surrounds certain numbers rather than taking them as gospel. As far as actual critical analysis goes, I think Seth's initial post is very accurate and very well-written, as he explains the general dynamics of both teambuilding and gameplay as they relate to Roaring Moon.

Will cap this off with an illuminating Discord monologue by the great Boomenheimer on the same topic

Spoiler

 

[Boomenheimer]

Several of the preceding posts have shown a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of statistics as applied to competitive mons. I have no skin in this game really but it is, frankly, quite grating to have to see incomplete statistics being presented as the opposite of what they actually mean, and furthermore to see that some people are actually convinced by these arguments.

Competitive Pokemon is very hard to capture statistically because 99.9% of the time, the RNG in the game is completely unique, but the outcome of the game is only categorized as a win or a loss. (By RNG, I don't just mean crits or Iron Head flinches or whatever: every action that could have multiple outcomes in mons is inherently based on RNG, and this includes every inaccurate move, chance of secondary effect, and for damaging moves, every damage roll.) In short, every game of 'mons, we are being shown hundreds or even thousands of actions with variable outcomes, but ultimately the only purely numerical stats that are presented to us are usage rates and win rates. Standardizing data with this many confounding variables is in my eyes a near-impossible task. If you think I am exaggerating how random mons is, then just take a look at the all-time record sheet for official tournaments. Even the best of the best lose every third game on the highest stage. This is all a long-winded way to say that winrate is nice to look at, but, bluntly, it doesn't mean shit. In fact, there is a certain point where the more obviously broken a Pokemon is, the closer its winrate will get to 50% (off of pure numbers this is because it will see higher usage and therefore more mirrors, echoing what Runo said above, but also things like overprepping for Moon will obviously lower its win rate at the cost of making teams that are weaker to other threats; this is, incidentally, one of the main complaints about Moon from Ban supporters.)

Even in the NDWC usage stats, the above point can be plainly seen. Moon's usage rate, which is a tick above 25%, indicates that, on average, 1/14 games is a Roaring Moon mirror (0.27^2=0.072, 1/14=0.071). This seems like a low number, but when we talk about the way that it affects win rate, it is highly important. Let's say that there have been 13 games so far, and in each of them there has only been 1 Roaring Moon. Let's say that Moon, in these 13 games, has gone 9-4. That is a win rate of roughly 69.2%. If there is a mirror, Moon's winrate goes to 10-5 (as in a mirror, there is 1 loss and 1 win regardless of the outcome). This would make its winrate move downwards to about 66.7%, which is a 2.5% winrate decrease off of just 1 mirror match.

I won't pretend that I am a particularly active participant in the Natdex meta in any way, and I especially try to stay out of suspect threads that I don't plan on getting reqs for, but let's think critically about the context that surrounds certain numbers rather than taking them as gospel. As far as actual critical analysis goes, I think Seth's initial post is very accurate and very well-written, as he explains the general dynamics of both teambuilding and gameplay as they relate to Roaring Moon.

Will cap this off with an illuminating Discord monologue by the great Boomenheimer on the same topic

Spoiler

View attachment 746218
View attachment 746219

Earthflax Boomenheimer data collaboration

 

[R8]

Not only winrate is a terrible statistic to establish how good a Pokemon is, but i also believe that it misses the point of a suspect test in the first place: a Pokemon isn't broken because it necessarily steamrolls everything, but because the commitment you need to make to not be steamrolled by it is not reasonable which can lead to stupid situations in the builder or in play. In other words, this should not be about how good a pokemon is to use but how hard it is to face. It's a subtle difference but a very important one which i think is often lost during suspect discussions.

A quite extreme example of this is Dracovish, which honestly back when it was allowed in gen8 felt sometimes bleh to use to me because you sometimes just ran into like physdef bro/pex/tang + helmet ferro/water absorb balance, or some stupid tech like baneful bunker pex or endure helmet ferro - more generally running at least 2 fat water resists was the norm for most things that weren't HO. You can also note that it had a negative winrate in NDPL I, which was the last tournament that saw Dracovish allowed:
| 23 | Dracovish | 9 | 8.82% | 44.44% |
and Dracovish also was only ranked A- before its ban - although to be honest i don't rly remember if it was discussed to go higher.
Does that make Dracovish fine? No, because it's fucking Dracovish, a Pokemon that has access to a functionally 255 base power spammable STAB move, and turns out that is something that takes quite a good bit of commitment to prepare for!


The point of this post is not rly even about Roaring Moon: i don't play enough anymore to have any strong opinions on it, and i'm not trying to compare Moon to Dracovish because almost anything could look balanced compared to Vish lol. My point here is that arguing that a Pokemon doesn't perform well enough to be called broken is generally something that misses the reason why we are banning Pokemon in the first place: not necessarily because they win too much, but because dealing with them is stupid, and winrate is very rarely going to tell us anything about that. This also goes for some other arguments we frequently see in suspect tests, such as 4mss or reliance on inaccurate moves: yes, those make the Pokemon worse, but not necessarily less broken, because those are not things that give you concrete ways to beat the Pokemon aside from praying it doesn't have good rng/the right coverage moves.


TLDR: broken ≠ wins a lot. Don't substitute your understanding of the game with interpretation of raw numbers, in particular winrate doesn't mean anything at all that is relevant to suspect tests, even if we assume they are unbiased (they aren't). In general raw data or numbers do not tell you anything on their own: data still has to be correctly interpreted, and be relevant to the topic at hand.
"There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

 

[hex]

hex: + Screens support beforehand

This isn't a check to Roaring Moon. Not to mention, this wasn't even Defensive Landorus, so.....wasn't even intended to be a "check". I used screens to abuse Roaring Moon actually. HO is the domineering playstyle in ND, and there's very little reasoning to not use it when you can tech for Stall/Tspike matchups, which we've done in NDWC. Your mons on HO are already all working together to break down shared checks so something can eventually win, and Roaring Moon pushes this boundary past what should be acceptable because it doesn't actually need much done for it to win thanks to naturally insane stats and a free boost when it comes in if it has booster energy. If it doesn't, then it's probably running a Z-Move to blow up whatever actually can check it. Unless you're using Clefable and Ting-Lu, there's genuinely no consistent check. Even then, if you're playing against offense, what's to say your Clefable wont be chipped down as is trying to handle 5 other mons? Ting-Lu can also just get Dragon-Z'd so still not very consistent. This might(?) be more of a problem with HO innately but Screens/Webs/Terrain/etc. aren't really broken themselves in my opinion. If something isn't overtly broken it can still be centralizing to the point where things aren't competitive. RM on balance is whatever I guess (maybe not) but I think because of how annoying it makes offense to be in this tier it's just not healthy. Waterpon would be the next thing I'd look at if not RM but this isn't the thread for that so I won't say much.

Also not to be an echo chamber but if you take win rates and use it as a sustainable argument you are seeing a game that is 1. filled with variables and 2. has RNG around every corner in black and white which is pretty disingenuous to how these threads/discussions should go.

 

[Uptifef]

I'm voting Do Not Ban because I believe Roaring Moon represents an overall healthy presence in the metagame. he main reason is it's ability to force switches against otherwise overwhelming offensive threats like Gholdengo, Zard-Y, and Ogrepon-Water. This pivotal role contributes by providing teams with a reliable check while not losing momentum.

Furthermore, despite its monstrous Attack and Speed stats, Roaring Moon faces significant limitations against the tier's most common and resilient physical walls. Pokémon such as Clefable, Mega Scizor, Corviknight, Ting-Lu, and Dondozo can consistently endure all it's attacks, forcing it out or requiring significant team support to break through.

While Roaring Moon possesses immense offensive potential on paper, its actual impact in practice is often contained. Unless an opponent makes a significant misplay or makes really bad team, that would still lose to another physical set-up sweeper, Roaring Moon rarely secures more than one or two KOs per game.

 

[Moyashi]

otherwise overwhelming offensive threats like Gholdengo, Zard-Y, and Ogrepon-Water.

To start, if these were otherwise overwhelming we'd be looking into them regardless. And only Wellspring even comes close to an issue. ZardY is not overwhelming and while strong and a great pick, has significant limitations holding it back (there was a short back and forth in the regular discussion thread about it). Gholdengo is slow and while often getting one KO per game, it's easy to offensively pressure and struggles with the spikes heavy meta. Plus it's hugely important defensively in the tier anyways.

Furthermore, despite its monstrous Attack and Speed stats, Roaring Moon faces significant limitations against the tier's most common and resilient physical walls. Pokémon such as Clefable, Mega Scizor, Corviknight, Ting-Lu, and Dondozo can consistently endure all it's attacks, forcing it out or requiring significant team support to break through.

Scizor actually struggles into the HO teams Moon fits on and outside raw offensive SD sets struggles to be included on teams due to its weakness to hazards which are more pronounced than ever. Corviknight is a mostly mediocre pokemon overall that isn't really good for much outside checking Moon. Ting-Lu has to remain in mostly pristine health or it drops to +1 Devastating Drake. And Dondozo is a pokemon that only fits on stall and still winds up irrevocably crippled after facing Moon due to knock off which makes it very easy to exploit for its HO teammates.

Again as has been said many times, Clef is the single best answer to Moon, but it's one of very few truly consistent choices and like most things that try to handle look, it gets weakened for Moon's HO teammates who can use it as set up fodder or just blow past it.

Unless an opponent makes a significant misplay or makes really bad team, that would still lose to another physical set-up sweeper, Roaring Moon rarely secures more than one or two KOs per game.

No other physical sweeper really is on par with Moon and also the others viable in ND are much more containable in practice without needing to dedicate a lot of in battle resources to do so. Moon may go down, but the carnage it leaves very frequently makes it much easier to sweep with one of its other teammates.

I do think it's something that gets overlooked sometimes but a pokemon doesn't have to be sweeping every single game to be a broken or unhealthy presence in a tier.

 

[sealoo]

The laddering period has ended, with 81 users achieving reqs. Voting is available here! As a reminder, 60% ban supermajority is needed for a ban.

Voting will be open until 6/11/25 at 11pm GMT -4

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[omar]

Not all votes have been cast, but a conclusion has been reached.
Qualified Voters: 81
Votes: 63

Ban: 49
Do Not Ban: 14
Ban %: 60.05%

A 60% pro-ban supermajority has been surpassed, no further Do Not Ban votes can affect the result. Therefore, Roaring Moon is now banned from SV National Dex OU! Tagging Marty dhelmise to implement.

Votes will remain open until the original deadline. Votes cast past this point WILL count towards the TC or Top TC Badge. Make sure to pm myself or sealoo if you qualify for either of these badges.

Votes will be made public after the deadline.