Suspect Shared Power Suspect 7 - Angel Island (Zamazenta)

[Bobsican]

After the results of the latest survey, the council has agreed on suspect testing Zamazenta!​

With a well-rounded set of stats that enable it to excel offensively and defensively at the same time, Zamazenta manages to ensure progress against several sorts of teams, notably being the fastest legal Pokémon with an ability of note to share, easing several bulky setup sweepers like Solgaleo as well as Harvest teams to potentially sweep late-game, especially as a raw stat boost from Dauntless Shield is harder to ignore/punish than Fluffy (by using Mold Breaker (which is restricted), or non-contact / Fire-type moves) or Intimidate (Clear Body, Full Metal Body, Mirror Armor, Scrappy, Defiant, Competitive).

Zamazenta also remains as a threatening revenge killer that isn't easy to pressure by priority thanks to its mixed bulk, this can be further enhanced with Scrappy or Mind's Eye so that it can make the most of IronPress even against Ghost-types like Giratina-O and Houndstone, with its Speed tier allowing it to setup while also being difficult to KO back even in the mid-game, something no other Pokémon in the tier can do. There are also abilities that increase its defensive potential like Purifying Salt, Fluffy, and Levitate, with Tera Steel further complementing this so that it can play around Toxic while also flipping the matchup against Psychic- and Ghost-types like Gholdengo, Flutter Mane, and Deoxys.

However, Zamazenta arguably also provides healthy aspects to the metagame, such as enabling balance team structures to exist in a metagame heavily filled with offense and stall, with Dauntless Shield's once per battle use also limiting Zamazenta's potential, especially when phazing brings it into the field much earlier than intended, additionally, Zamazenta's lack of reliable recovery also means that its longevity can be an issue too, demanding either clever play so that it properly handles particular foes before being overwhelmed, or limiting the ability pool of its team with more niche options that anti-synergize with Dauntless Shield like Natural Cure and Dry Skin + Drizzle.

Requirements:

The instructions to participate in this test 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 Shared Power 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 Shared Power before the test, full stop).

- 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 a member of OM staff.

- If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2900 with B=2. The deadline for getting requirements will be Monday, September 1st. Good luck to all!

 

[Legendary spam]

I think I’ll vote ban on Zama, imo it’s not especially broken, but it’s pretty much a threat to HO while flopping again stall, making stall have more advantage over HO. req team -> , can also be replaced with Sticky hold users, like or for the stall mu, and can be replaced with for the electric terrain mu.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

i hate suspecting
ban zama

 

[Goldbanker27]

I lean more for a keeping zama around. Edit just to explain my thoughts a bit. I think zama brings balance into the tier. It prevents full physical spam. It forces these teams to take a special attacker for example proygon/basculegion-f as an adaptability user. It also promotes teams to have a phaser/haze/clear smog user to remove boosts. Also phasing is promoted because of zamazenta with preventing setup and causing chip damage with hazards. Status is another option, however it has become much worse in recent times due to the introduction of purifying salt. Purifying salt has removed imo the second best option for dealing with zamazenta. Previous to this change will-o-wisp would cripple zama allowing teams to wear it down and reduce the damage done and toxic would eliminate it much faster. This is not something that just affects zama other sweepers/bulky pokemon have seen the benefits too like solgaleo, arceus, ursaluna-bm, ho-oh, dialga, flutter mane, and iron crown. Personally removing outs for teams harms gameplay. Even if teams are not taking purifying salt it's precense is still felt, people are choosing not to take will-o, toxic, and t-wave as much in team building because of purifying salt. You now may see 1 status inflicting move on a team or none at all with purifying salt being such a threat and wasting a move slot is such a huge factor. Adding ways more teams can deal with threats is the way to go here imo.

Also this is the team I used to qualify. It is just scarf spam with a lot of pivoting. Zama is on this team and dauntless shield provides just enough defense to avoid sweeps by priority users. Bundle is surprisingly physically defensive.
https://pokepast.es/7e1461fbadfd806b

 

[sheepie]

After a mixture of shit luck, massive sells and hard cteams, I finished recs. I think zama can stay in the tier personally, its not that overbearing, and defensive teams are good without it. However, I do think that other things are in need of tiering action, namely the defensive ruin abilities, hustle, some way to nerf berries and most of all scarf. I lost a game 1 win away from recs to a scarf iron boulder on an eterrain team with speed quark drive, scarf is everywhere, on the most random ass mons (the stone edge spam team I used for most of this suspect had scarf ttar ffs), and i think that it just makes the tier very centralised and unpredictable in an unhealthy way. Anyways, I love this tier, quite easily my favourite OM, but I do think some things are in need of work for the tier to be truly competitive. For my recs i used these teams (first 3 stolen):

https://pokepast.es/9314501dea460085
https://pokepast.es/82ec6b2168428ea9 (if we ban zama this is going to be INSANE, it beat like half the zama teams i played anyways)
https://pokepast.es/52be6b1bba1bf6e6
https://pokepast.es/c73efa70ff689b8d
I will be voting: NO BAN for zama, but I could be persuaded otherwise if more top players advocate for the ban.

 

[5timeschamps]

I'll vote NO BAN for zamazenta. While it certainly is a very strong mon in this tier, it doesn't feel overwhelming at all imo. Zama is extremely effective against offense, but feels kind of weak against more defensive teams. Dauntless shield is solid but not spectacular due to its one time use. I like zama's role in the tier, and would be fine with it staying around.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

It prevents full physical spam.

Why is this bad? I don't consider Zamazenta being the only Pokemon to prevent "full physical spam" to indicate a healthy meta.

It forces these teams to take a special attacker for example proygon/basculegion-f as an adaptability user. It also promotes teams to have a phaser/haze/clear smog user to remove boosts. Also phasing is promoted because of zamazenta with preventing setup and causing chip damage with hazards.

Why is "forcing" a team to use a specific counter just to beat Zamazenta healthy? Porygon-Z and Basculegion-F aren't even complete answers, as Zamazenta can easily be using Ursaluna-Bloodmoon or Crunch paired with a Choice Scarf. In fact, contrary to your claims, Porygon-Z has sunk in usage while Zamazenta has risen from https://www.smogon.com/stats/2025-06/gen9sharedpower-1500.txt to https://www.smogon.com/stats/2025-07/gen9sharedpower-1500.txt, and Basculegion-F's usage remains at a measly 6-7%. In addition, Ting-Lu has risen to be Zamazenta's #1 partner at around 30% usage https://www.smogon.com/stats/2025-07/moveset/gen9sharedpower-1500.txt (up from 16% usage in June), further reducing the effectiveness of special attackers. What phazers are we talking about here? Ting-Lu is almost certainly getting OHKOed by Zamazenta, Toxapex and Ho-Oh are stall-exclusive, Giratina-O hates getting Crunched, etc. Furthermore, "causing chip damage with hazards" is a nonunique argument since people were always using hazards before Zamazenta became controversial.

Status is another option, however it has become much worse in recent times due to the introduction of purifying salt. Purifying salt has removed imo the second best option for dealing with zamazenta.

What status users could previously defeat Zamazenta besides Merciless spam, which is ridiculously gimmicky? Furthermore, if Purifying Salt being unrestricted has caused Zamazenta to become broken, Zamazenta should be banned, not Purifying Salt.

Zama is extremely effective against offense, but feels kind of weak against more defensive teams.

What are these defensive teams besides hard stall? If Zamazenta forces the usage of one of the nichest playstyles in order to beat it, I do not consider it to be healthy. Balance borderline doesn't exist.

 

[Goldbanker27]

Why is this bad? I don't consider Zamazenta being the only Pokemon to prevent "full physical spam" to indicate a healthy meta.

Why is full physical spam bad for the meta. It makes the game 1 dimensional only having to worry about defense and attack stats. Zamazenta is the only true pokemon that checks 93% of physical teams(honchkrow). Wo-chien needs tera to be decent and tablets of ruin does not do enough to buff its fellow teammates. Fluffy is also not reliable with non contact moves being able to bypass it which majority the physical teams run multiple non contact moves.

Why is "forcing" a team to use a specific counter just to beat Zamazenta healthy? Porygon-Z and Basculegion-F aren't even complete answers, as Zamazenta can easily be using Ursaluna-Bloodmoon or Crunch paired with a Choice Scarf. In fact, contrary to your claims, Porygon-Z has sunk in usage while Zamazenta has risen from https://www.smogon.com/stats/2025-06/gen9sharedpower-1500.txt to https://www.smogon.com/stats/2025-07/gen9sharedpower-1500.txt, and Basculegion-F's usage remains at a measly 6-7%. In addition, Ting-Lu has risen to be Zamazenta's #1 partner at around 30% usage https://www.smogon.com/stats/2025-07/moveset/gen9sharedpower-1500.txt (up from 16% usage in June), further reducing the effectiveness of special attackers. What phazers are we talking about here? Ting-Lu is almost certainly getting OHKOed by Zamazenta, Toxapex and Ho-Oh are stall-exclusive, Giratina-O hates getting Crunched, etc. Furthermore, "causing chip damage with hazards" is a nonunique argument since people were always using hazards before Zamazenta became controversial.

Crunch is weak on its own as with zamazenta, hustle is the thing that makes it dangerous but that goes for all other physical attackers but zama has no setup for attack unlike the others. Zamazenta's gimmick is its iron defense and body press. This makes it predictable with nearly 65% of all sets running both moves. You know what it is going to do. Scarf sets only make up 12% of its sets and imo is the least oppressive thing it can do. Scarf Zamazenta is incredibly weak to fluffy with stone edge being its only true counter. An 8pp move that has major accuracy issues that can be stalled out.
Phasers we have plenty in the meta game right now and are not just on stall teams: houndstone, okidogi, giratina, groudon, solgaleo, and dragalge all can stomach a hit or more from zamazenta at plus 3 def and force it out. On return +2 zamazenta is much less scary to deal with and much easier to deal with.

If we want to use usage stats 7 of the top 10 pokemon are pure physical attackers, 2 are mixed, and 1 special attacker. Just based off that removing any pokemon that deals with physical attackers is a bad idea. Expand that list down to the top 20 add 6 more physical attackers, 2 mixed, and 2 special attackers. The meta is dominated by physical attacking pokemon with 13 of the top 20 mainly running physical attacks. Add in the mixed attackers majority running physical offense now your at 17 out of the top 20 are physical attackers. We don't see a significate amount of special attackers till we get to 30-50 on the usage rates where it is more 5050. This just screams to me physical offense needs to take a hit not physical defense. IMO zamazenta is holding back a wall of physical attacking domination.

What status users could previously defeat Zamazenta besides Merciless spam, which is ridiculously gimmicky? Furthermore, if Purifying Salt being unrestricted has caused Zamazenta to become broken, Zamazenta should be banned, not Purifying Salt.

Merciless teams are not the only teams that ran status moves. Giratina-o, heatran, houndstone, trevenant, dragapult, and okidogi, should be able to run status moves without issue and are important tools. Purifying salt also ruins contact abilities like static/flame body that are used cripple physical attackers. Purifying salt is a major enabler of bulky setup which zamazenta is. Purifying Salt removes a major mechanic from the game that fundamentally changes how games are played. But this is a zamazenta suspect.