NP - Devil's Haircut: SV ND DOU Suspect Process 7: Flutter Mane

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https://pokepast.es/2b0fdafbf3d20639

Late, but I have to speak my mind on this topic. I feel that as last year's circuit champion and a well-established player/council member in this community my voice can add a lot to the discussion as my stance on this suspect hasn't really been echoed by anyone in this thread. Now Let me be clear on a few things before I delve into the meat of this post:
  • I intend to vote DO NOT BAN
  • Flutter Mane is the best pokemon in National Dex Doubles and has been for years, more overtly broken pokemon have been banned over the years but Flutter Mane has always been tier 1 as the highest userate pokemon alongisde rillaboom occasionally overthrowing it and anyone trying to argue otherwise is either unaware of the pokemon's usage history or being intentionally misinformative
  • Tera fairy Dazzling Gleam off Flutter Mane is one of if not the best cleaning tool in the format with minimal cost to click and immense upside and can be very difficult for unprepared teams to handle and personally is one of the more straining things that comes to mind in builder (though not the only source of builder strain)
  • I do not intend to argue against Flutter Mane's position as the top pokemon in National Dex Doubles or that people who want to ban it for being too strong are necessarily wrong; Instead I will argue that there is more to consider with this ban than simply looking at the strength of Flutter Mane and that the negatives for banning the pokemon outweigh the positives
There are a number of formats on smogon where overly dominant pokemon are allowed to remain for the sake of enjoyment by the playerbase, or the sake of metagame health should they be removed from their respective format. It is not uncommon for doubles tiers' top pokemon to be used to the degree that Flutter Mane is in National Dex Doubles: Ogerpon-Wellspring in our Sister Format of SV, Landorus-therian in XY, Rillaboom in SS, or even the extreme case of Zapdos in ADV. In all of the cases I just listed the pokemon in question is not only used just as frequently as flutter mane is in Natdex with over 50% in higher-usage tours but they are also definitive offensive presences in the format. Obviously, Flutter mane opts for a choice specs more often than not and this is a much more offensive item than any item held by the other pokemon mentioned here, and I did outline I would not be contesting Flutter Mane's dominance as a cleaner/threat in this post, so why bring this up? I believe Flutter mane, while much more offensively oriented is just as important as any of these other top doubles pokemon for the overall health of the tier it reigns supreme over, and the resulting format from a ban would be significantly less enjoyable to play without significant amount of further tiering action. furthermore, as the tier's longest reigning top pokemon removing Flutter Mane from the format would have drastic consequences on the identity of the tier, being by far the most impactful potential ban the format has ever seen, something I don't think is desirable given how well-liked the tier is currently.

One of the most common complaints I hear about natdex at a top level is the inability for the vast majority of teams built in the format to successfully balance their matchups into a number of common top archetypes. While I fundamentally believe that in an ideal pokemon format every team has an answer and the metagame is constantly evolving anyways, I believe that banning Flutter Mane only serves to worsen the aforementioned issue, as while Flutter itself is one of the many threats that pressure the builder it also checks many of the tiers most uninteractive threats.
  • Icy Wind on Flutters with Speed booster proto from sun or energy if one of the best proactive checks to Deoxys-Attack
  • Though it is a part of what makes sun dominant, power gem Flutter Mane is one of the best Zard checks in the tier and its fairy coverage greatly helps to keep raging bolt in check.
  • M-Tyranitar/Dracovish's greatest weakness is a shared weakness to fairy that flutter is very competent at leveraging
  • Flutter Mane's Flat damage output is one of the best ways to cut down Archaludon on rain structures
  • Flutter's Speed tier and damage output is immensely helpful in keeping mence-rachi in check, easily one of the best structures in the tier with very little contesting mence's raw power as a mega.
  • Kyurem Black is one dragon dance boost away from abusing clear amulet to unleash its 170 attack stat with strong boltbeam coverage on the format save for having to respect Specs flutter mane leads
  • Other absurd setup pokemon like tail glow tera fairy Xurkitree, SD Iron Hands and Calm Mind Raging Bolt
  • koko-hands structures main notable weakness being Flutter Mane with hands simply stat checking the rest of the format with the attack boost
All of the above structures are either illegal or banned in standard DOU formats and can be very difficult to account for even in the natdex builder and flutter offers a reasonable path forward to dealing with almost all of them. While one could take this as further evidence of Flutter being broken I see it as metagame stabilization in a format whose biggest problem is simply that 6 slots on a team simply isn't enough to reasonably account for all the monsters of Game Freak's creation. Flutter mane isn't unique in its ability to spread Fairy damage to check such an array of threats, with Hyper Voice Mega Gardevoir and Modest Specs Tapu Fini being capable of matching Flutter's Damage output, but it is unique for its ability to spread this damage without being disrupted by the tiers fake out users or costing the team a mega slot/requiring speed control. For this reason flutter mane is not unique in my eyes offensively, but it is unique in providing many a team a strong and more importantly consistent fallback option to play the game into hither-to untold amounts of combinations of other abusively strong threats and supportive pieces found only in natdex. Banning Flutter reduces the capacity for innumerable teams to successfully deal with the unique threats of natdex and would therefore greatly destabilize the metagame and force many more bans in the future. It will produce a format unrecognizable from the current one and at least in the short term reduce overall enjoyability as many games get reduced to matchup fishing, brinign me to my other point.

The format is very enjoyable with Flutter as a part of it's identity, why change it?​

If you disagree and are not enjoying the format, more power to you you have every right to vote ban. For everyone else, if the tier is fun for you why would you vote to upend the entire metagame? As I mentioned in the start of this post, Flutter Mane is the longest reigning elite pokemon in the tier's history. Flutter has shaped the identity of the format since day one and the tier has continually evolved with it into something a lot of people enjoy, or at least I do. Natdex Doubles is currently my favorite format and I don't know how true that would remain after a flutter ban would cause given how radically I believe the format will change from one. I think the metagame as it stands has a lot of room for further innovation in a number of areas including with flutter checks and I really want to see how things pan out in NDPL. I want to see structures like Archaludon rain and deoxys psyspam actually get iterated upon and strengthened while the power level of the format is relatively even and stabilized rather than banning Flutter and sending the balance of everything into chaos for a year. Admittedly, If I end up finding that the format
morphs into something I don't enjoy or the community demands change in the future I will return to flutter as the first and most significant point of contention for changing the metagame as a whole, but for now I'd rather let things sit longer. The entire format has been built up with Flutter Mane as a cornerstone piece of it and I'm just not quite ready to see everything return to ground level just yet.

As I close this post I want to be clear, if you do not enjoy the current metagame or simply want to ban flutter mane for the sake of banning clearly powerful pokemon that warp the game, you have every reason and right to do so. Personally I'm just not quite ready to part with the current iteration of natdex doubles and I believe the format will be greatly destabilized by a ban which I don't think is wise with NDPL so close (I just played SSPL dealing with constant shifts and bans of broken pokemon and it is NOT an experience I want to repeat). If Flutter does end up being banned though, I'll continue to stick with the tier and see things through until we find another stable point to leave the metagame.
 
I will be voting to ban Flutter Mane.

There's plenty of good arguments I've seen for ban or DNB, and frankly I'm ok with either outcome, because I enjoy the format to a reasonable degree atm.

What I want to focus on here is that every single ban we've done has made the tier significantly more balanced and enjoyable (this is proven by survey results), and I have no reason to believe that a Flutter ban would do anything but increase the diversity of team structures that are viable in the tier, in much the same way other bans have done so.

I do not believe in the idea that any one mon can/should "hold a tier together", we should remove things that are too powerful for the format. When anything gets banned, in any format, it's a natural consequence that other things that the banned thing checked will become stronger. This is okay, it's happened in the past, and we addressed it.
 
 
Although not everyone has voted, nothing can be done to change the outcome.

Current votes: 49
Total voters: 51
Votes required to ban: 36

Flutter Mane: Ban (28/49 = 57.14%)
Flutter Mane: Do Not Ban (21/49 = 42.86%) (41.1% of total vote)

Flutter Mane will remain legal in National Dex Doubles.

If you have qualified for Tiering Contributor via having 6 votes in National Dex Doubles suspects and do not already have the badge, please pm me, big pichu, or eragon.
 
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