Suspect SV Alphabet Cup Suspect #1: Set Fire to the Rain (Sacred Fire)

Eli

any?
is a Battle Simulator Moderator

:sv/ho-oh:
The Alphabet Cup council has decided to suspect test Sacred Fire!

SUSPECT REASONING
With the release of Scarlet and Violet's DLC, various new moves have been added from previously locked legendaries. While the majority of these have been relatively balanced (Fusion Flare, Sunsteel Strike, etc), Ho-Oh's signature move Sacred Fire is extremely controversial among the playerbase.

Sacred Fire offers a much-needed Fire-type coverage to S, which is already the strongest letter, and it has already somewhat contributed in getting Meowscarada banned. Sacred Fire has a plethora of viable users, but the more notable ones are Goodra-Hisui, Cinderace, Scizor, Slaking (Skill Swap set), Swampert, Salamence, and Krookodile. Usual walls that might switch into these usual Pokemon, such as Corviknight, Skarmory, and Chesnaught absolutely hate risking 2HKOs and a burn. Furthermore, physically offensive checks are terrified of getting burned, which results in only resistant special attackers or bulky walls (Toxapex) being able to actually tank Sacred Fires safely, which is an arguably unhealthy centralization.

However, there are many unexplored checks to Sacred Fire. Toxapex was already mentioned before, but Covert Cloak and Heal Bell can both be okayish checks to both Sacred Fire and Mortal Spin. The Pokemon mentioned above sometimes don't even use Sacred Fire, as it easily competes with other S moves such as Stone Axe and Spikes or other Fire moves such as Bitter Blade and V-Create. In addition, Sacred Fire serves as one of the few checks to the extremely powerful moves that offense now gets.

Do you believe Sacred Fire is too broken for the metagame? Or is it just another strong move among the others?

SUSPECT REQUIREMENTS
[THIS SUSPECT WILL BE USING THE NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!]


The instructions to participate in this retest are as follows:
Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in SV Alphabet Cup before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played Alphabet Cup before the test, full stop.)
You can use /rank to check if your alt is allowed to get requirements. Whenever in doubt, type /rank and it will tell confirm if you are eligible or not.
At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid requirements, please contact April, dhelmise, Giagantic, or any other OM Staff member.
If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me, BandedBodyPress or InkyDarkBird!
The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2750 (B value=2). The deadline for getting requirements will be <t:1756443599:F>

Voting:
Once the suspect period is over, everyone who has obtained reqs will be tagged. The post will contain the link for blind voting. For now, follow the above "Suspect Requirements" subheading to ensure that you have achieved requirements and linked your account

A supermajority (>=60%) of restriction votes is required to restrict Sacred Fire in Alphabet Cup!

TL;DR:
Sacred Fire is permitted on the suspect Ladder,
The COIL value is 2750,
You must ladder on a newly-created alt of any name,
You must link your suspect alt with your smogon account using /linksmogon,
The suspect test will conclude at <t:1756443599:F>
 
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Suspecting for this test was much easier than other formats, although that might just be because Choice Banded Slaking is such a nuke.
 
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Suspect was refreshingly quick, even with hazard stack fat and a 205 turn game. No idea on how broken Sacred Fire is, I think I ran into it like twice, and neither of those times was my loss.
 
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This was the most fun I've had doing a suspect, I made and used a really fun team here that went undefeated (was using some bs for my 4 losses): https://pokepast.es/65bf4570dba17d36
Anyways, I don't have all too many thoughts on the meta, but sacred fire is a weird case. It's not overly broken, and is a serious coverage buff for many mons and keeps many physical attackers in check, but at the same time it devolves the meta into who can get more sacred fire luck in many cases, and most mons that run it use it just to attempt to win the coinflip as a last resort. I will be voting BAN as of now, but I would love to see some top players in the format post their thoughts here for either side of the argument.
 
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Sacred fire is not really broken at all. Most of the best checks to the move (Toxapex) don't really care that much about being burned. Status absorbers like Gliscor or Take Heart users (Bellibolt) can also easily come in on weaker sacred fires. Covert Cloak is also a good item in this meta to flip matchups on weak status like sacred fire and mortal spin. The only real mon that uses it as a main STAB is Cinderace, everything else just uses it as coverage (offensive Salamence) or to fish for burns (everything else). A random Sacred Fire from a defensive mon is very weak with low PP. The most problematic use of Sacred Fire is probably complete physical shutdown sets like SSSalamence that pair it with annoying Strength Sap to be a really solid physical wall, but sets like that don't really accomplish much against stuff that doesn't care about burn.
 
Yea i just put it on a mon that can force out pex and ran knock off on my team

just always go hard pex, use covert cloak on everymon not a status absorber, never take hazards chip, and always know their set. its pretty simple guys theres not a single mon in the game that can use Sacred fire and coverage at the same time

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