Metagame NP ZU Stage 17: The Fox - Floatzel Suspect Test

[Tuthur]

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Floatzel's Choice Band set has been a metagame defining threat for a while and has only ever gotten better with shifts taking away checks like Brute Bonnet and Qwilfish. On the most recent tiering survey, Floatzel scored one of the highest score with almost 60% of the responders wanting some actions taken.

Flip Turn coupled with its excellent Speed tier allows it to easily maintain momentum throught out the game; forcing out threats fearing Wave Crash and getting in wallbreakers taking advantage of the physical walls and Water-resists that Floatzel invites in. Beside Lanturn, Water-resists are usually offensive and struggling to constently check Floatzel, and easily put in range of a Wave Crash 2HKO after a Flip Turn or outright 2HKOed by Tera Water. Bulkier Grass and Water-types like Poliwrath, Lurantis, and Dipplin have been struggling in the current metagame and are usually a liability if not facing Floatzel. Floatzel has also been seen experimenting with various 4th moveslot in Double-Edge, Ice Spinner, and Fairy Terablast to snipe its most popular answers, making them not so reliable after all.

While Floatzel shines offensively, it can be hard to position correctly. Between hazards and recoil from Wave Crash and Double-Edge, Floatzel is not able to pick up as many KOes as one could believe based on calcs only. With its paper thin bulk, it is also hard to reliably switch it into anything, beside predicted Will-O-Wisp, as even resisted hits such as Charizard's Flamethrower are chipping it considerably. Moreover, Rocky Helmet users such as Weezing and Mesprit are very popular and are able to rack up even more dagame on Floatzel and deter it from recklessly attacking. Furthermore, faster Water-resists such as Whimsicott and Choice Scarf Rotom-Mow can serve as one time switch in to Wave Crash and take advantage of Floatzel to reverse momentum and pivot themselves.

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 ZU 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 ZU 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 reqs, please contact me, sleid, or a member of 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 2920. For reference, the B-value for this suspect will be 4. The suspect test will go on for about 14 days, lasting until Friday, August 29th at 10:59 PM GMT -4.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message me or anyone else on the ZU council. Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you. Happy posting and laddering!

Avoid posting one-liners or posts that do not contribute to any discussion. They will be deleted.

 

[LBN]

The... The fox.. for. for the fucking weasel?? Wikipedia Is Free My Brothers

To add actual substance to me cooking the OP for not knowing what a fox and a weasel are, this thing is dumb. Wave crash is disgusting DPS, flip turn is a war crime and while walls do exist, stuff like tankier poliwraths or like.. dipplin ig. Most things either explode to double-edge coverage or flip turn bait or drop to ice spinner. People use suboptimal stuff like Water Absorb Lanturn when really volt absorb for magneton and Jolteon but alas, Float is dumb as bricks so, if i miraculously opt to try for reqs it'll be a ban.

 

[S1nn0hC0nfirm3d]

Wave crash is disgusting DPS

The... The turn based game.. for. for the fucking damage per second?? Wikipedia Is Free My Brothers

To add actual substance to me cooking my ZUPL week 4 opponent for not knowing the difference between an MMO and pokemon showdown, this Floatzy thing is pretty cool. Its broken though and I don't like its centralization for the while. The metagame is hurt by having to prep for it while not leaving room for better walls / Pokemon that are forced to run a Water immunity or fat HP + Rocky Helmet. I'll be voting ban!!! Yippeee!!!!!!

 

[zause]

Just wanted to add that while Floatzel may not seem broken on paper because it does have some good counters / can get chipped down, it has a ludicrously consistent and high winrate across ZUPL and LTWC of 66% I believe (33/50). This also isnt factoring losses where Floatzel faced itself, in which its CWR (clean winrate) would probably be closer to 85 or 90%. These are ridiculous numbers especially over so many games and make Floatzel truly broken in my opinion.

 

[sheepie]

This suspect was a really, really refreshing experience, a lot of fun using sketchy etchy's reverse webs ho team (check it out if you haven't its in the team bazaar and it was super fire), a lot of rng from both sides involved though. I think floatzel is not broken, its pretty easy to check all things considered with poliwrath, lanturn, dipplin etc, but its an unhealthy and centralising presence within the tier, and its offensive cores are really nasty to deal with, as well as mandating rocky helmet on so many defensive mons, even ones not phys def, for the extra chip on wave crash. I will be voting BAN for floatzel, but am open to either side of the argument and would like to see more discussion.

 

[MethMaster4546]

https://pokepast.es/e541b5e73bef3368
^
Lame ass team I used for reqs

I will be voting ban on floatzel. the sheer amount of prep that it forces in the builder is bonkers, if a team has a water absorb mon+fat physdef rocky helmet user yeah float doesnt feel insanely powerful but any team that doesnt have both is getting rolled by crash+dedge. needing to stack checks on your teams just for one mon is not fun its over centralizing and makes your teams worse into literally everything else especially since all our water absorbers get their viability from checking float

Just wanted to add that while Floatzel may not seem broken on paper because it does have some good counters / can get chipped down, it has a ludicrously consistent and high winrate across ZUPL and LTWC of 66% I believe (33/50). This also isnt factoring losses where Floatzel faced itself, in which its CWR (clean winrate) would probably be closer to 85 or 90%. These are ridiculous numbers especially over so many games and make Floatzel truly broken in my opinion.

not gonna bother fact checking the 85-90 percent cwr but this is a pretty good Winrate even before accounting for mirrors and i believe these stats speak to floats brokeness

 

[Lafell]

I will be voting ban on Floatzel like everybody else here so far. It's too centralizing, and if you didn't prepare for it, it will put in work by pivoting and spamming wave crash/d-edge until half your team is gone, while also providing a priority option in aqua jet. It has an excellent speed tier, allowing it to run band (though ada scarf is an option as well for good speed control) and still outspeed most of the tier while doing crazy damage. Floatzel isn't without its answers, but I do think that it has too much of an impact on the team builder, and checking it usually is not a one mon job.

Water Absorb mons like Lanturn, Poliwrath, and Lapras can keep it from spamming wave crash and flip turn, but they don't like eating d-edge and wrath/lapras generally aren't that great outside of checking Floatzel's STAB, while Lanturn would generally prefer to run volt absorb to block volt switch and other electric moves. If Lanturn is running volt absorb, it doesn't check Floatzel nearly as well, not loving wave crash damage, and allowing it to get pivoted on with flip turn.

Rocky Helmet is another way to deal with Floatzel, and combined with recoil damage from wave crash and d-edge, it can chip Floatzel pretty heavily. Mesprit, Weezing, and Sandslash (though not really a check to floatzel) are pretty common physically defensive choices for rocky helmet, and can make it think twice before clicking. These mons usually are prone to chip throughout the game from other sources though, and they still really don't love eating wave crashes, especially if tera boosted. They are also suspectible to knock off, and if that happens, Floatzel can flip turn without thinking twice if you don't have a water absorb mon as well. Rocky Helmet Shaymin is an interesting option I've seen that seems to handle Floatzel fairly well, so that could be worth looking into if Float doesn't get banned, but I haven't explored it much myself.

Hazards are also a solid answer for Floatzel, as they can limit the amount of times it can come in while adding to the chip damage it takes, making it less easy to pivot around. Floatzel users generally have this in mind though, and will probably have removal support. While hazards are good for Floatzel, they aren't going to single-handedly beat it either.

Overall, while Floatzel does have its checks, they are limited in viability/longevity and Floatzel otherwise is too much of a menace for the tier to handle and requires a bit too much preparation in the teambuilder to sufficiently handle it.

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

Just got reqs, yay. Used a team based on the one made by MethMaster4546 - link here https://pokepast.es/2d04dd81dd2c82c2

I will be voting do not ban on Floatzel thanks to its numerous counterplay options. I also personally think Floatzel is good for the metagame but I will be focusing on how to answer it

Floatzel @ Choice Band
Ability: Water Veil
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Wave Crash
- Flip Turn
- Aqua Jet
- Double-Edge / Ice Spinner

This is the big YOLO set Floatzel has, which makes it albeit strong, very predictable at team preview. This allows the player to choose between a rich variety of counterplay options to pressure Floatzel early-game. There are many defensive checks to Floatzel, and i will list them below

- is not OHKOed by Wave Crash and can proceed to severely punish with Rocky Helmet and Knock Off, or OHKO with 0 SpA Thunderbolt, if your fourth slot is free.

- avoid Ice Spinner and it will turn Floatzel into a sitting duck... well, fox. Many Floatzel don't run Ice Spinner nowadays because of Pokemon such as Lanturn, especially specially defensive variants w/ Water Absorb, allowing Dipplin to switch in and dragon tail around or even set up with Growth.

- speaking of Lanturn, this Pokemon can really annoy Floatzel + Jolteon offensive structures, as low-powered as it is. Many Lanturn have now switched to using Flip Turn to counteract Volt Absorb, relegating more pressure to teammates e.g. Scorching Sands Charizard, Knock Off users (we will get to that later), grass pokemon in general for which you can tech Ice Beam, Magneton with Tera Grass and so on.

- has Water Absorb and can even use Floatzel as setup fodder on a good read.

- What I would call disinformation has been spread around recently, that Rotom-Mow is somehow forcing grass types on every team. This is not true, so many good grass-types have been relegated to ZU because of it being a poor offensive typing in general, hence we have Shaymin and Virizion of all things in ZU, and it just so happens that the sheer number of independent grass-types (e.g. not Thwackey) can also take a Wave Crash and depending on your team, allow you to read Flip Turn better.

Rocky Helmet, hazards, and passive damage - Sandslash, Sandaconda, and Mesprit are users of Rocky Helmet, also saw it on stuff like e.g. Muk. Punishing Flip Turns early game is really solid since the already-frail Floatzel gets in the range of priority moves. Hazards and passive damage in general is self-explanatory, set them up early and floatzel will get less opportunities to yolo.

Knock Off - This is in my opinion the big one. I cannot understate how much Floatzel hates getting knocked. Losing its choice band means it cannot really wallbreak anymore, even with its strong STAB move, since it loses a lot of leverage to even use Tera Water. It cannot do its job properly anymore and you pretty much have to tera one of your other mons. It means Floatzel can't even OHKO Sandaconda anymore, or try to break through Lanturn with Double-Edge, or play mind games with Charizard since it can now survive a Flip Turn. I believe Floatzel really relies on its Choice Band to be the threat it is - I personally do not rate Bulk Up sets and i've seen scarf once or twice but i honestly kinda doubt its utility compared to band sets. Knock Off is a move I have a very high opinion of in general, Floatzel is another one of those mons which can be seriously crippled by a well timed knock on the switch.

This means Floatzel, like fellow suspect Oricorio-F, is very reliant on its item to succeed.

The idea that Floatzel is putting a lot of strain on the teambuilder isn't necessarily one I buy tbh. Besides the Rocky Helmet Mesprit which btw is specially defensive, the rest of my team more or less relies on reeling Floatzel in to take damage from rocks and eventually put it in Mach Punch / Aqua Jet range. The fact that Spiritomb is not OHKOed by Wave Crash also helps, and an emergency Trick Room can really screw up Floatzel's wallbreaking perspectives. Balance is also capable of adapting to Floatzel's new Double-Edge tech, and you can do this by simply moving some Def EVs to your Lanturn, or run a grass type like the aforementioned.

With all these in mind, i know i made more of an effort in general compared to my previous posts lol - but I will be voting DNB on Floatzel aand encourage you to do the same.

 

[plznostep]

I qualified using Hail which made everyone stop going on ladder because they kept running into me.
Here is the team I used

plznostep's Hail Biological Warfare (against all ZU Ladder Players)
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Uh my thoughts on Floatzel; I really don't care about it but I feel like we really need some relief on the builder front from all these strong mons that just ravage teams. Floatzel is not top on my list for that but it is really strong and Flip Turns on everything. I am a little polarized though since if you get hazards up Floatzel is going to be dying really quickly and that makes it so it can't really do Flip Turn without getting punished especially with Rocky Helmet. I also do rather like the priority element it has since that can keep a lot of stupid broken shit in check. But I'll probably vote to Ban it because we really need to get builder some more freedom.




I only ran Hail so I probably have some bias but oh my fucking god I hate all the Quiver Dancers in this tier. I ran Snorlax on my team specifically to deal with them + other nasty Pokemon like Jolteon, and that worked for Pokemon like Oricorio. Until I met multiple bioweapon using terrorists on ladder using one of the most disgusting Pokemon I've ever seen in my life. Bellossom is so hard to deal with. I literally have no idea how to deal with it, it's really bulky on the physical side and can just keep boosting with Quiver Dance + Strength Sap and then Tera with shit like Acid Spray. It feels like you need to phase this mon out using mons with Haze and Dragon Tail and if you don't have that then adios. I hate it. Makes it even worse since Taunt Oricorio stops those phazers but can't beat Snorlax so you almost have to run both phazer + Snorlax or be vulnerable to them, making builder shit even harder. Anyway rant over just get some weedwacker's plz.

 

[Dutchum]

I got reqs a few hours ago using a fat team based on Floatzel, finishing with 33W/6L: https://pokepast.es/7c5e67286161d6d3 – feel free to use it if you want.

I will vote DO NOT BAN on Floatzel because it has a lot of counters such as Lanturn or Poliwrath that completely wall it. There are also Dipplin and Rotom-Mow, which wall Floatzel sets without Ice Spinner. Moreover, Mesprit and Weezing can easily wear Floatzel down with Rocky Helmet, while still living at least one hit depending on Floatzel’s set. Hazards are also really strong against it, and in combination with Rocky Helmet, Floatzel might only be able to click Wave Crash once. On top of that, Floatzel can actually help against a lot of dangerous sweepers thanks to its strong moves and priority.

As you can see from my team, I didn’t even use a dedicated Floatzel wall, and I didn’t feel like it was really a threat thanks to my hazard setup and Mesprit’s Rocky Helmet. My team is pretty basic, but it’s hard to break. I struggled more against strong wallbreakers such as Trick Room teams with Alolan Exeggutor, for example, since Snorlax struggles to handle every special threat.

To finish, I think we should also talk about other Pokémon that are more problematic for the metagame. For example, I think Snorlax isn’t healthy because you always have to prepare for it or it will sweep with its huge bulk, setup moves, strong STAB, and coverage. It heavily restricts teambuilding options.

Overall, I think Floatzel is healthy for ZeroUsed, and the real discussion should be about Snorlax (in my opinion).

 

[MethMaster4546]

Knock Off - This is in my opinion the big one. I cannot understate how much Floatzel hates getting knocked. Losing its choice band means it cannot really wallbreak anymore, even with its strong STAB move, since it loses a lot of leverage to even use Tera Water. It cannot do its job properly anymore and you pretty much have to tera one of your other mons. It means Floatzel can't even OHKO Sandaconda anymore, or try to break through Lanturn with Double-Edge, or play mind games with Charizard since it can now survive a Flip Turn. I believe Floatzel really relies on its Choice Band to be the threat it is - I personally do not rate Bulk Up sets and i've seen scarf once or twice but i honestly kinda doubt its utility compared to band sets. Knock Off is a move I have a very high opinion of in general, Floatzel is another one of those mons which can be seriously crippled by a well timed knock on the switch.

This means Floatzel, like fellow suspect Oricorio-F, is very reliant on its item to succeed.

The idea that Floatzel is putting a lot of strain on the teambuilder isn't necessarily one I buy tbh. Besides the Rocky Helmet Mesprit which btw is specially defensive, the rest of my team more or less relies on reeling Floatzel in to take damage from rocks and eventually put it in Mach Punch / Aqua Jet range. The fact that Spiritomb is not OHKOed by Wave Crash also helps, and an emergency Trick Room can really screw up Floatzel's wallbreaking perspectives. Balance is also capable of adapting to Floatzel's new Double-Edge tech, and you can do this by simply moving some Def EVs to your Lanturn, or run a grass type like the aforementioned.

I have to respond to this i feel theres a few things in this post im a bit perplexed by.

its true Floatzel hates getting knocked but i can honestly count on one hand how many times float got knocked while i was getting reqs. i havent seen too many zupl games go on but i cant imagine people are switching their floats into knock offs. with flip turn float should never be staying in on a mon with knock float is too frail to just be switching into out knockers and is often dead into stronger knockers stab anyways. we have plenty of amazing voltturn options to get float in safely and shouldnt be getting knocked super often.

as for not buying float being too big of a restraint in the builder that is something i can see more. yes we do have checks to floatzel but the issue these checks often make the team worse against the rest of the tier, lanturn not running volt absorb now cant check jolt, vika, or pre tera mag and dies to double edge anyways unless you go physdef which again only really helps against float and isnt too great into any other strong physical breaker. many people keep saying poli is a check which is true but poli is not nearly as splashable and in my opinion outright bad outside of checking float against floatless teams poli feels like a wasted slot in my experience. and ofc our grasses dont check ice spinner which is still real and get flipped on anyways (rocky helmet defensive shaymin might be heat tho) but floatzel forces a team to sacrifice its viability into other mons just to counter it.