Espathra: Ban
Espathra simply provides dominant yet non-interactive play to the scene, bringing about an unhealthy element to the metagame. It forces players to adapt to a specific situation and prepare for a singular moment in the game for a strategy that also has the notable power to basically shaft any team. It doesn't really matter much on what a player brings as baton passing to a slew of powerful threats, including Stored Power Necrozma, can easily overrun any defensive counter. The focus is to stop the set up from ever happening or else it's essentially game; whether it does happen or not doesn't really matter as the baton passing player still has the initiative by being able to threaten game by simply positioning to the "flowchart", and this initiative gives these kinds of teams an inherent advantage. This takes out the interactivity in Doubles play as the matchup factor is totally taken off, and it simply becomes a matter of "don't let this happen or it's g_g". With Espathra, the game simply becomes linear and the state of the metagame is unhealthy, essentially making the game "unfun" o_o
Notice anything? Probably not, except it doesn't sound like I wrote it. I copy pasted this word for word from
Idyll's ban reasoning from 2017, when Eevium Z was unanimously quickbanned from SM DOU, replacing every instance of Eevee with Espathra and keeping everything else the same. It's really that simple- in the same way that Eevium Z is uncompetitive and not deserving of being in a competitive metagame, Espathra is uncompetitive and does not belong in SV DOU. A few differences though:
-Unlike Eevee, Espathra actually can exert offensive pressure itself, thanks to having access to stored power and having a completely fine statline in its own right. This forces a player to make guesses about whether the Espathra is baton pass or has a coverage move itself, as well as giving the Espathra player far more options than the Eevee player
-Espathra has a much easier time setting up, with Speed Boost providing it plenty of entry points to boost its stats before taking damage
-Espathra can set up multiple times per game or boost past +2 spatk +2spdef +2 speed
-Espathra (for the most part) has much better support partners available to it thanks to being in gen 9, with Ogerpon and Rillaboom both assisting it greatly in setting up and having access to plenty of other redirectors as well (Eevee did have Jirachi with Follow Me to assist it, but had to rely on Pokemon like Hitmontop for Fake Out support, not having access to intimidate Incineroar (I think?) at the time)
-Espathra boosts slightly slower, rather than boosting to +2 all at once, but it trades this for literally all of the benefits above and having much better base stats (and can also boost much higher than Eevee)
This pokemon adds nothing to the format other than another unfun matchup check and increasing the probability that your opponent will not get to play the game in a meaningful capacity. That there is counterplay is undeniable. However, it's also undeniable that a tiering element whose primary counterplay is the move haze does not belong in a broad format where a player must account for a large variety of pokemon and every moveslot matters (see Eevium Z, Dondozo). I've seen the argument presented that Espathra only punishes durdle but a quick look at the following replays from yesterday shows how this is not the case:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9doublesou-885536
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9doublesou-885535
Sure, teams can attempt to tech more for espathra in the future but innovation goes both ways and Espathra players have plenty of options available to subvert potential counterplay, such as fast taunt, screens, or even teching on pokemon to beat specific offensive matchups that could be annoying for espathra. Espathra is not conducive to a healthy format and as an archetype is essentially a buffed gen 9 version of Eevium Z, something that was unanimously quickbanned for being uncompetitive. Today, no one is missing Eevium Z in SM DOU and SM DOU is one of the most beloved formats in the community. Banning Espathra is an easy step towards making SV DOU a better format and is in line with precedent from previous formats, just like banning evasion abilities. Espathra should be quick banned or suspected as soon as possible.
