BH Balanced Hackmons Suspects and Bans Thread

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Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
Hey it's been a while since I posted here but I want to talk about (as my guy Chessking is already doing) Shell Smash, Tail Glow, and Belly Drum.

I want to start off by saying that I created an HO team in under 5 minutes that abused all of these starts except drum and it went on to win very consistently even in the hands of new players. I really have no experience with HO so I have no doubt that my team is poorly built but the fact that I can give a new player a team I didn't take any time building with 6 mew twos and that player can go on and win against high ladder is a little sketchy in my opinion.

The problem with smash/glow/drum are a few things

1) pokemon are bulkier now with full evs. It used to be that you could just spectral away and the opponents offensive mon would be dead in a few hits. This is no longer the case. Mons like mega ray take almost nothing from spectral and they have ample opportunity to kill your wall with whatever coverage they happen to have. Also fake speed used to kill everything in gen 6 and fake speed doesn't even exist anymore because of dazzling and where it does exist it often can't kill setup mons

2) Dazzling exists. Rip turvy. Rip Espeed. Rip Encore. Pretty much my whole entire argument for why it was ok in gen 6 but not now. if someone were to suggest banning dqm instead of boosting moves that would be fine as well.

3) Mold moves mean shed doesn't work anymore. Also unaware. Unaware was still eh in gen 6 too though because its a lot harder than you think to keep a mon without prankster or regen at full health the whole battle. Chip damage, entry hazards and mold moves all come together and make unaware a pretty bad answer most of the time.


The problem with the 3 moves that I mentioned and not something like swords dance or shift gear or quiver is that none of those moves can win a battle in a single turn. What makes smash, glow and drum uncompetitive is that they can sweep entire teams with very little notice and are extremely difficult to prepare for. The best check to most setup mons is scarf imposter which 1) requires a sacrifice to get in. 2) literally depends on your opponents set lol. Chansey proofing exists. If they do have a proof they will continue destroying ur whole team until you are dead and sad.
What about Simple? While I don’t support banning Belly Drum, I would mention that Shell Smash, and Tail Glow especially, benefit from Simple and I think if you are going to argue against those moves, that ability is crucial.

It may not be as frequently used as Unburden + Belly Drum or even Unburden + Shell Smash; but with White Herb, it can make Shell Smash Powerful, and make Tail Glow a Belly Drum SpA Boost without drawbacks.

Would Simple make Swords Dance, Quiver Dance, or Shift Gear too strong? Dark-types like Tyranitar-Mega can resist Priority from -Ate Rayquaza-Mega, and variations of Triage Rayquaza with Dragon coverage over Giga Drain, and more importantly, as you mentioned - Prankster Topsy Turvey, without Dazzling.

Simple can also help you bypass Unaware with moves like Power Trip or Stored Power.

I am not advocating for people to use Simple, just that if you feel Quiver Dance, Swords Dance, and Shift Gear are not overpowering, would Simple change your mind? Or is the ability slot cost negating the stat buff advantage, over say another ability like Dazzling?

Should Simple be banned? If people ban Tail Glow, the next best thing would be Simple Quiver Dance, which is in many cases much better.

Lastly, Simple for Tail Glow, Quiver Dance, Shift Gear, etc. won’t require an item slot like Shell Smash or Unburden sets might. With Life Orb and other helpful items like Focus Sash, that could more than make up for not having Dazzling on a HO sweeper.
 
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[Blah Blah stuff that I don't really care about, also stop assuming stuff for me like "you are confused" "you are misunderstanding" especially when they are false]
*1). “Shell Smash with White Herb does lose to Imposter.”
But that is beside my point, which was that anything else will not be able to KO as easily bc your not giving up your Defenses (due to White Herb), while Unburden is about giving up 25% HP after Sitrus Berry. I didn’t quote the specific point about surviving Priority when I replied to Mamp which I see is why you are confused. I should have broken it down like I did for the specific passage I quoted from SL42.

My first point you mentioned, was actually specific in reply to the final statement in Mamp’s post: [A quote] I was disagreeing about Priority, not about whether it was Imposterproof. I thought it would have been clear bc I mentioned White Herb specifically as the advantage in staying just as defensively bulky after setting up as before the Shell Smash, which was at the beginning of my post.

I figured it was clear bc I said - [Another quote]
First, you edited my quote, I said Shell Smash with White Herb loses to Imposter, not Shell Smash with White Herb does lose to Imposter, you're the one that's either misunderstanding or intentionally changing the quote to benefit your argument.
MAMP said BellyBurden is better against Imposter and Priority, which is true, because Simple Smash can only afford one of these. If it runs Sash it loses to Priority (and still Imposter if it gets sash broken). If it runs White Herb it loses to Imposter. Done.
*1B). “Surprise factor is something that can be argued for every offensive mon, this is BH.”
I do disagree with how surprise factor can be argued for “every” offensive Mon, especially on higher levels of ladder play bc people are more focused on what is needed and less likely to take risks bc Imposter can lead and scout many unpredictable sets anyways.

Regardless, you misinterpreted my point about unpredictability. I wasn’t saying Kartana cannot run random sets, I was saying that Tyranitar-Mega’s Set won’t be obvious in the Team Preview. Tar can run PHeal,m, Sandstream, etc. which are sets that Kartana wouldn’t have a reason to run, and it has less balanced stats so it cannot be used defensively.

So, my point on surprise factors was not on the specific set’s random coverage moves, but on what Pokémon are going to be the set up Pokémon, and how Shell Smash fits on more Pokémon than Belly Drum (I.e. Special and Mixed Attackers), which I mentioned in my post.

Afterall, good Pokémon can make a difference in regards to the number of viable Shell Smashers versus Belly Drummers- this is key due to Team Preview.

If I see a Kartana on the foe’s Team Preview, I play as if I know it is Belly Drum bc it rarely has more than 2 viable sets (The other being Steelworker), and it’s safer to assume it is Belly Drum than to believe it’s another set and lose bc I underestimated it.

TLDR- Belly Drum is a more predictable move bc if the foe doesn’t have Kartana, or Dusk-Mane, it is less likely they have it at all; Shell Smash can be more of a surprise bc more Pokémon can pull it off and you cannot tell based on Team Preview, especially as some Pokémon like Tyranitar-Mega have so many viable sets that the versatility of the Pokémon also makes it a surprise factor, bc even if it uses a standard set, you cannot know that right away. Kartana can’t be justified for as many roles as Tyranitar-Mega, so if you have to fit Kartana on a team it won’t be because of a defensive set, it will be for its Steel Heavy Offensive coverage, with Unburden being the most useful of its own set list for most teams.
You can literally tell if a mon is defensive or offensive on a competitive team (No I am not talking about trash ladder teams). If a team's defensive core is susp, its probably a defensive mon to patch it. If the team appreciates some offensive power, its probably an offensive set. Even if you can't guess the set, half of the sets are easily revealed (PH, Sand, and Regen) while others are revealed based on plays such as hard switching into an offensive mon or switching in on your defensive mon. Furthermore, you always have Imposter.
Unburden Kartana is literally a horrible set compared to Steelworker lmao.
*2). “You are going to tell me that Simple Smash Kartana should be used over BellyBurden Kartana and that Simple Smash Dusk-Mane is better than BellyBurden Dusk-Mane.”

I never said that Pokémon who can use Unburden are better with Shell Smash, I acknowledged a few key advantages (Bulk, and re-useability), but I don’t think it will strictly be better for Kartana to use Shell Smash.
"Shell Smash with White Herb won’t lose to Priority as easily as Belly Drum with Sitrus Berry because the only disadvantage is removed with the item, and the same Pokémon that use Unburden can use Simple (the advantage would be having the ability to survive more without compromised bulk, and re-usability)."
"and the same Pokémon that use Unburden can use Simple"
So apparently Simple NDM and Kartana have a niche over Belly Drum.
Also your bulk crap is still bad because you are giving up Imposter mu for 25% extra bulk.
Discuss reuseability below.
*2B). “Re-usability is non-existent because once someone knows your set they are never letting you setup. Your White Herb is also one-use.
The advantage is doing less damage and losing Imposter.”

While White Herb is also one use, it doesn’t impact the Ability, or the set up sweeping. If it can survive the turn it sets up, White Herb isn’t needed. It’s a safeguard, but not a requirement. Whereas using up the item is an actual requirement for Unburden.
Next time you try to setup Simple Smash again after your opponent knows your set already, good luck with not getting KOed during setup or Spectraled or Topsyed.
As for doing less damage, that is true for Sunsteel Strike when omitting certain attacks that would benefit from boosts, and like I mentioned in my last post, regardless of that, Mixed Sweepers can use Shell Smash.

As for you omitting certain moves, I am specifically referring to Power Trip, which I mentioned in my prior post, as Power Trip Tyranitar would only use Sunsteel Strike for Unaware Dark resists, and Shedinja. Having a + 4 (which means X 3) 260 Base Power Trip = 780 Base power (WITHOUT STAB) is much stronger than a 150 (with STAB) + 6 (which means 4 X) 600 Base power Sunsteel Strike. And mind you, this is not including STAB on Power Trip.
[Bunch of Calcs that just fill up the page]
Good luck breaking through Unawares.
As for the rest your 2nd point, I still disagree, and here is why:
For Unburden, if you have Kartana out and they switch to Prankster on the turn you have Belly Drummed, which is something most people would do bc Kartana is more predictable, then they will Haze or Topsy Turvy when you try to Attack, and now you wasted Belly Drum bc Unburden won’t be usable after you switch out.

Shell Smashers can switch out and in again, and while losing White Herb is not ideal, their main goal can still be to outspeed most things thanks to the Speed Boost. As for Unburden, Kartana has to be naturally faster since it doesn’t have any form of a Speed Boost once Unburden is gone, and that’s if it can safely Belly Drum a second time down to 25%.

Another disadvantage is the fact that Entrainment, Core Enforcer and others can happen at the wrong moment for Unburden users. Entrainment can happen on the switch in, and Core Enforcer can occur even if the foe doesn’t have Prankster, say they use it on your Belly Drum, allowing them to remove your Speed advantage, and then send in something faster next turn.

Also, getting Tricked, and Knocked Off can be another disadvantage on an Unburden user’s switch in. Especially as Dusk-Mane is weak to Knock Off, and even without knowing its ability, will naturally attract the move even from things like Mewtwo-Mega-X.

Regardless, Shell Smash relies solely on the move, not the ability or even the item. If a Shell Smash gets Entrained, or Knocked Off on the switch in, you can be sure the Shell Smasher can still be used.
Belly Drum is bad because of Prankster, you never setup with opponent Prankster still alive genius. Doing that is basically attempting a sweep with a hard counter in the way. 200 IQ.
Again, next time you try to setup Simple Smash again after your opponent knows your set already, good luck with not getting KOed during setup or Spectraled or Topsyed.
You never try to Drum twice lol you Drum to win.
Why are you trying to setup without a free turn?
Again, why are you trying to setup without a free turn?
See all the above.
*3). “You gonna tell me that BellyBurden loses to Unaware now.”

I actually never said Unburden Belly Drummers lose to Unaware. You literally quoted me simply saying that Simple Shell Smashers can go thru Unaware with Power Trip...
I never said Sunsteel Unburden couldn’t do the same...

In fact, based on your quote of my post, I even mention Sunsteel on Shell Smash Tyranitar-Mega specifically for Unaware users:

“Simple Smash doesn’t lose to Unaware because of Power Trip, unless they also resist Dark, such as the aforementioned Tyranitar-Mega, which is immune to Prankster like Topsy Turvey, Encore, etc., plus what is stopping certain users from packing a Moldy move as well? Shell Smash Tyranitar can pack Sunsteel, to handle the Unaware Fairies and Shedinja that feel safe vs Power Trip.”

So if the only 2 Belly Drummers we are focusing on pack Sunsteel Strike, clearly I know they bypass Unaware.
"Simple Smash doesn’t lose to Unaware because of Power Trip"
You are clearly trying to address this as an advantage over BellyBurden lol.
*3B). “Prankster Haze still beats you and no one would use any other Prank move on a Dark type.
Its Topsy-Turvy not Topsy Turvey

Having less Prankster hard-stops to sweeping, regardless of my spelling, is another advantage to having Power Trip Tyranitar-Mega. While Giratina, uses Haze, some Pokémon like Prankster Registeel use Encore, and Topysy Turvey as do others like Aegislash (Topsy Turvey). Seriously, if they don’t have Haze, they better have Destiny Bond, and even then they lost something bc you guaranteed a kill, Unburden doesn’t typically use Tyranitar-Mega, and even if it did, Power Trip on Simple Shell Smash has much higher Base power.
No Prankster doesn't run Haze, except for offensive Pranksters like Kartana that run Destiny Bond anyways.
Spelling Topsy-Turvy Topysy Turvey doesn't make it any better.
3C). “Unaware Fairies are not a thing.”

Unaware Audino-Mega is used by myself and many people I have played against. It cannot be Core Enforcer’d, cannot be hit by Moongeist Beam, and has the ability to slow pivot, with matching defenses to boot.

They are a thing in Mega-Audino, and one of the most common abilities I see anyone else even use Audino-Mega for, period.
Saying yourself and many people you played isn't saying much considering they are all <1500s.
Also citing ladder usage is a horrible idea lol ladder is garbage everywhere except the very top.
One of the most common abilities in your abyssal ladder range. Any good player knows the best Audinos are Magic Bounce and Poison Heal lol.
*4). “Self-quoted Setpedia point”

Take it up with the Setpedia creators.
??? When do the setpedia creators ever say "Cite this setpedia that has every single fuckin set in existence when you are trying to argue shit" lol.
Also every decent BH player will agree that citing setpedia just makes your argument worse (if you don't believe this go ask people like sl acml and volk, not your 1400s ladder player.
*5)."most variants of belly drum you've discussed aren't really relevant: the specific sets that sl42 is talking about are belly drum + unburden steels, particularly kartana and dusk-mane. " - MAMP, literally the response post right before your post. Please read.”

I did read that, and that is why I said Belly Drum is still dangerous, and I said “especially” on Slaking and Heracross-Mega, while still including the others. Afterall, I was replying to the point that Prankster is the only counter option that can be used to stop Belly Drum Unburden, but my point was that it can be handled by other means.

That’s why I repeatedly cited the Priority as a counter measure including Triage Ray against Kartana.
You took my quote without reviewing the full context which reads as-

“Anyways, I totally agree that Belly Drum is dangerous, but I wanted to point out that there are methods of blocking it besides Prankster, especially on stuff like Triage Heracross-Mega and Dazzling Slaking which can be blocked by Dazzling.

Plus for Priority, since Kartana can be KOed by Triage Rayquaza Oblivion Wing, at near perfect health, even if Kartana had Extreme Speed it would still lose, let alone if it didn’t have any Priority at all:

252 SpA Life Orb Rayquaza-Mega Oblivion Wing vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Kartana: 320-376 (99.3 - 116.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

And that’s without even using a Modest Nature, and before any setup move on Rayquaza’s part, and without having to wait for Belly Drum to reduce Kartana to 75% after Sitrus Berry”

Since your next point was in agreement with my Priority counter measure, which is what followed, and because my points are connected, that would mean that I understand that I am discussing all Belly Drummers, and simply mentioned that Non-Unburden users (Heracross and Slaking) are countered by Dazzling, in addition to what normally counters the Unburden Belly Drummers. *Please be fair and notice that my points are connected, I.e. the part you agreed with.*
You come up with all this argument about trash Slaking and trash Heracross when MAMP clearly states that only BellyBurden Steels are worth discussing about.
Now you try to emphasize those trash sets like ??? lol.
*6). “Because everyone sets up on something they can't threaten out and always carries Spectral or Core.”

You missed my point. My point was that a single Pokémon can discourage any Dusk-Mane and Kartana Unburden user from coming in, bc it will likely pack Spectral Thief and/or Core Enforcer if it doesn’t at least have Haze. TLDR- Giratina is an Unburden deterrent regardless of its ability bc of its natural bulk, and moves, as both moves have good overall utility, gains STAB, and an additional boost from Grisceous Orb which is used to block Trick and Knock Off effects.

Other Prankster users like Zygarde-Complete may end up just being RegenVest, but Giratina can likely deter with most of its entire set list, regardless of which variant is used.

And you said earlier that Shell Smash wouldn’t be re-usable when the foe knows your set, but Giratina using Haze doesn’t necessarily save it from a Smasher bc the Smasher could be Gengar-Mega which can still threaten with STAB moves, while Dusk-Mane and Kartana have to switch out from Giratina if it comes in in the turn it sets up.
Yes I love trying to setup on something I'm not meant to be setting up on. Do you setup stuff like Magic Guard Diancie in front of Steels? Thought so.
*7). “Simple Smash is not more versatile, not less predictable, is also one use, and loses to Imposter.”

It is more versatile bc Special Sweepers, Mixed Sweepers, and Physical Sweepers can use it, while Belly Drum Unburden is only, emphasized by Mamp and Sl42, used by physical Steel-Types.

Why would you say that? It is literally more versatile in what moves can be benefited by it, the number of Pokémon with Special Attack as their primary offense, and anything that has low speed that can triple, not just double it.

Correction: White Herb is one use; Shell Smash is not one use.

Shell Smash with White Herb can lose to Imposter, but as I mentioned with Dusk-Mane and Gengar-Mega; they can be self-Improof if they don’t use White Herb.

Heck, if you fear Priority, or Imposter in the same set, you could even use Focus Sash, and now it can be self-Improof and survive a Priority move at - 2 Def and - 2 SpD.
I would totally use Simple Smash over Smash with an actual good ability on Special Attackers or BellyBurden on Physical Attackers.
This shit on reuseability was mentioned above.
Oh now we are using Focus Sash now so you lose to priority and you lose to chip. Just as bad as White Herb.
*8). “Of all the great abilities you can run on Smash Gar you suggest Simple which adds nothing and rather makes it so you cannot run Poison STAB reliably. 10/10 job.”

It adds offense, and what does Poison cover exactly? Boomburst does more than Sludge Wave and Sludge Bomb, and the only thing STAB Posion does is hit Sceptile-Mega which is KOed after Shell Smash regardless unless it has Focus Sash, and Fairies harder, which you mentioned don’t pack Unaware and won’t survive a Boomburst from +4 Shell Smash

+4 252 SpA Gengar-Mega Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Audino-Mega: 376-443 (91.7 - 108%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

The only other Fairies are Xerneas, Diancie-Mega and Magearna which are all hit harder by its STAB Ghost attacks anyways.

Boomburst also helps it hit things like Unaware Muk-Alolan, and Poison Healers which are not adversely affected by the Poison chance of its Poison STAB, such as PHeal Zygarde.
The 3 abilities worth using on Smash Gar are all better lol
Mold Breaker lets you role compress by trapping Shed and also helps break past niche Unawares and FC Chansey. Can also fit hazards on here
Dazzling protects you from priority, self explanatory
Adaptability gives you extra initial power, allowing you to threaten more mons out to help setup or just get crucial KOs when needed. Also bluffs Scarf damage in cases.
#Addressed
using hashtags in casual conversation outside from obvious shitposting does not help you sir (Thanks Zovrah)
New post:
Simple is a disgusting ability that is a low ladder gimmick and is best a cheese strat and arguably worse than other cheese strats. (I'm not going to name any because you are just going to end up nitpicking as usual).
Simple is literally not improof like why would I use this lol. Massive imposter bait right here (while still losing to prankster lmao). Oh and I lose to Priority now too. Fantastic.
I’m really tired of replying to these posts constantly.
 
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E4 Flint

-inactive in BH due corrupt leader-
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Just wanted to clarify a few things as I’ve been following the discussion:

  • When discussing why something should or shouldn’t be banned please try to go more in depth than just labeling it with a word like “uncompetitive” or “bad”. In my OP I try to make it clear what my basis for a ban worthy mechanic is. You are free to use your own but at least specify what you mean, because it can be interpreted as “this is impossible to play against even after bringing countermeasures and/or the countermeasures are so niche so as to be at a disadvantage to using them” (which is imo a succinct way for saying what ought to be banned) vs “this is something I find inconvenient to play against or prepare for and shouldn’t need to” (which is not a reason we ban things)
  • Similarly, providing ladder experiences is great and encouraged but maybe with some proof beyond “I used this and beat everyone” which is really ambiguous. Replays esp as part of the tours scene are probably the best and then followed by personal anecdotes and ladder rank
  • The Setpedia was and remains an initiative to collect various sets that are popular in BH, with some being viable and some not. It is meant as a way for players who want to try different things with some of their favorite mons or to look for alternatives to what is listed in their formal analysis. It should be used and interpreted in this manner, as a collection/repo of sets as the name implies. For arguments about competitive viability it would probably be better to make use of the formal analysis instead of the setpedia as the latter is not a recommendation of what should be used, but rather a collection of popular sets that have seemed effective. In fact there is usually a one for one match between the “viable” sets for a non and the sets listed in their analysis
Thanks. As always keep up the discussion in a civil manner
 

Ren

i swore lips were made for lies
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Wow, someone already brought Shedinja up! Great, because I agree.

For a game to be deemed competitive, the more skilled player should, in most cases, be able to defeat the less skilled player. Now obviously, this doesn't apply to Pokemon as well - With stuff like hax, matchup and other uncompetitive aspects, we're trying to make a competitive game out of something that is honestly fundamentally uncompetitive at its core. With these factors in play, player agency over the game is removed to a large extent, but at least you're able to manage these risks.

That's where Shedinja comes in.

Shedinja is an interesting Pokemon in that it's not difficult to kill at all, has only one viable set with very little variance (mainly in the fourth moveslot and the priority it elects to use, but Extreme Speed will almost always win out.) There's many things that can easily kill it. Status, sand, hazards, Mold Breaker moves... You name it. With so many things that Shedinja has to watch out for, it should be ass, right? But it's not.

This isn't 1v1 where you can't scout, where you can't use teammates to absorb or beat threats that you normally can't. Shedinja, despite all of the checks and counters that it has, continues to be viable and a good Pokemon. And it's all in how easy it is to support on the team. There are many Pokemon capable of walling threats that are worried about Shedinja. Imposter, in particular, is something that you should use on Shedinja teams, due to its immense utility. So sure, it's possible to beat Shedinja alone, but it's not possible to guarantee that you'll be able to beat Shedinja teams.

Why?

A month or so ago, there was a discussion on Shedinja. The opposing side's arguments often came down to "what ifs." "What if the Shedinja team can't answer the breaker?", to which the response should be "What if it can?" And how do you respond to that? Do you say you should get a new breaker? Use more breakers? What if the Shedinja team can answer those as well? What if Shedinja doesn't even need to come in or stay in on the Pokemon that threaten it out because one of its teammates can handle it? You can have control over if you're able to kill Shedinja, sure, but you can't ever guarantee that you can kill its teammates barring Imposter.

This is purely a side note, but something else I find funny about Shedinja is that while it's probably one of the easiest Pokemon to use on HO, it's also the biggest obstacle for HO, which typically cannot afford many of the checks that Shedinja has, instead being limited to Mold Breaker Pursuit and Sungeist Geyser.

The reason I had this large introduction is to lay out what I feel a competitive game is, and lay out what Shedinja does. When I consider what Shedinja does in the metagame, combined with what I believe is the definition of a competitive game, I can't really help but think of Shedinja as uncompetitive. Simply put, it's my belief that it elevates the matchup aspect of Pokemon far too high - An aspect of Pokemon which players already don't have much control over, but it's capable of playing around unfavorable matchups if you take Shedinja out of the equation. Granted, there will still be matchups where you cannot win - But the goal of suspecting Shedinja isn't to completely remove these scenarios, because frankly it's impossible to do so. But Shedinja is definitely the most common offender, simply because of the nature of how it is - You can't chip it. You either get rid of it... Or you don't. Simple as that. And being able to get rid of it is a question of if you can get into a position where you're able to get rid of it without the worry that a teammate will come in and void that method.

I don't think this is competitive at all. The removal of your own agency over how you deal with a threat and handing it entirely over to the opponent and seeing if they can deal with your breaker, hazards or w/e isn't healthy for the metagame because it becomes a toss up of if your opponent can deal with it or not. The closest thing to an exception is Mold Breaker Pursuit, but that's a pretty costly thing to run.

That's why I think proceeding with a Shedinja suspect is a good way to go about seeing if this is an issue that needs to be addressed and addressing it (or not!).

e: mray is dumb as sh!@$!@$!#%t too but that doesn't need my support as much as shedinja does.
 

pazza

Banned deucer.
idk some nerd complaing about shed??
i agree with volk here that shedninja is bad and raises the mu aspect


I also wanna bring up spam teams because they also annoying and pretty broken as fuck

as you can see i am an unplayer and built a 5 mmx spam with a ttar (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/bh-tale-of-5-mega-mewtwo-xs-and-a-tyranitar.3652085/ perhaps this a self promo too.)

but yea i built this team and beat some good players (look in replays) without even having to use skill that much. more of "how do i kill his prankster mon" or "did i kill his shell smash check." because most of the time you sweep with shell smash after you kill their prank mon/unaware. also mmx spam always has a good mu because even if they bring 6 mmx checks you still can mess with their heads because they won't know what set is what unless they a super nerd and para or toxic mmx to remember. mmx spam teams or spam teams in general aren't brain dead since you still need to think about making sure you counter to their counter doesn't die but in general they are pretty easy to use.

more evidence about this is how andy spammed 6 rays in seasonal and made it far only to lose to funbot and sl, he did tho make it to round 6 by ONLY spamming mega rays which just proves how brainless spam teams are and how a new user to bh can just use one and do well with it.
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
Good luck breaking through Unawares.
Belly Drum is bad because of Prankster, you never setup with opponent Prankster still alive genius. Doing that is basically attempting a sweep with a hard counter in the way. Saying yourself and many people you played isn't saying much considering they are all <1500s.
Also citing ladder usage is a horrible idea lol ladder is garbage everywhere except the very top.
One of the most common abilities in your abyssal ladder range. Any good player knows the best Audinos are Magic Bounce and Poison Heal lol.

?
You come up with all this argument about trash Slaking and trash Heracross when MAMP clearly states that only BellyBurden Steels are worth discussing about.
Now you try to emphasize those trash sets like ??? lol.
DD8C7C3B-5D5B-4594-B4CC-E43770401CB3.png
I thought we banned all things “contrary”...
—————
i agree with volk here that shedninja is bad and raises the mu aspect


I also wanna bring up spam teams because they also annoying and pretty broken as fuck

as you can see i am an unplayer and built a 5 mmx spam with a ttar (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/bh-tale-of-5-mega-mewtwo-xs-and-a-tyranitar.3652085/ perhaps this a self promo too.)

but yea i built this team and beat some good players (look in replays) without even having to use skill that much. more of "how do i kill his prankster mon" or "did i kill his shell smash check." because most of the time you sweep with shell smash after you kill their prank mon/unaware. also mmx spam always has a good mu because even if they bring 6 mmx checks you still can mess with their heads because they won't know what set is what unless they a super nerd and para or toxic mmx to remember. mmx spam teams or spam teams in general aren't brain dead since you still need to think about making sure you counter to their counter doesn't die but in general they are pretty easy to use.

more evidence about this is how andy spammed 6 rays in seasonal and made it far only to lose to funbot and sl, he did tho make it to round 6 by ONLY spamming mega rays which just proves how brainless spam teams are and how a new user to bh can just use one and do well with it.
I think those points are really helpful, and contribute to strong input backed by helpful citations and information that proves itself to be true. You emphasized how even new players can win based on how it can be exploited and it was really clear why you came to your conclusion, and very observant.
Wow, someone already brought Shedinja up! Great, because I agree.

For a game to be deemed competitive, the more skilled player should, in most cases, be able to defeat the less skilled player. Now obviously, this doesn't apply to Pokemon as well - With stuff like hax, matchup and other uncompetitive aspects, we're trying to make a competitive game out of something that is honestly fundamentally uncompetitive at its core. With these factors in play, player agency over the game is removed to a large extent, but at least you're able to manage these risks.

That's where Shedinja comes in.

Shedinja is an interesting Pokemon in that it's not difficult to kill at all, has only one viable set with very little variance (mainly in the fourth moveslot and the priority it elects to use, but Extreme Speed will almost always win out.) There's many things that can easily kill it. Status, sand, hazards, Mold Breaker moves... You name it. With so many things that Shedinja has to watch out for, it should be ass, right? But it's not.

This isn't 1v1 where you can't scout, where you can't use teammates to absorb or beat threats that you normally can't. Shedinja, despite all of the checks and counters that it has, continues to be viable and a good Pokemon. And it's all in how easy it is to support on the team. There are many Pokemon capable of walling threats that are worried about Shedinja. Imposter, in particular, is something that you should use on Shedinja teams, due to its immense utility. So sure, it's possible to beat Shedinja alone, but it's not possible to guarantee that you'll be able to beat Shedinja teams.

Why?

A month or so ago, there was a discussion on Shedinja. The opposing side's arguments often came down to "what ifs." "What if the Shedinja team can't answer the breaker?", to which the response should be "What if it can?" And how do you respond to that? Do you say you should get a new breaker? Use more breakers? What if the Shedinja team can answer those as well? What if Shedinja doesn't even need to come in or stay in on the Pokemon that threaten it out because one of its teammates can handle it? You can have control over if you're able to kill Shedinja, sure, but you can't ever guarantee that you can kill its teammates barring Imposter.

This is purely a side note, but something else I find funny about Shedinja is that while it's probably one of the easiest Pokemon to use on HO, it's also the biggest obstacle for HO, which typically cannot afford many of the checks that Shedinja has, instead being limited to Mold Breaker Pursuit and Sungeist Geyser.

The reason I had this large introduction is to lay out what I feel a competitive game is, and lay out what Shedinja does. When I consider what Shedinja does in the metagame, combined with what I believe is the definition of a competitive game, I can't really help but think of Shedinja as uncompetitive. Simply put, it's my belief that it elevates the matchup aspect of Pokemon far too high - An aspect of Pokemon which players already don't have much control over, but it's capable of playing around unfavorable matchups if you take Shedinja out of the equation. Granted, there will still be matchups where you cannot win - But the goal of suspecting Shedinja isn't to completely remove these scenarios, because frankly it's impossible to do so. But Shedinja is definitely the most common offender, simply because of the nature of how it is - You can't chip it. You either get rid of it... Or you don't. Simple as that. And being able to get rid of it is a question of if you can get into a position where you're able to get rid of it without the worry that a teammate will come in and void that method.

I don't think this is competitive at all. The removal of your own agency over how you deal with a threat and handing it entirely over to the opponent and seeing if they can deal with your breaker, hazards or w/e isn't healthy for the metagame because it becomes a toss up of if your opponent can deal with it or not. The closest thing to an exception is Mold Breaker Pursuit, but that's a pretty costly thing to run.

That's why I think proceeding with a Shedinja suspect is a good way to go about seeing if this is an issue that needs to be addressed and addressing it (or not!).

e: mray is dumb as sh!@$!@$!#%t too but that doesn't need my support as much as shedinja does.
I concur, and I appreciate how well you articulate your points, and brought up key factors that are based on how Shedinja is played and what impact it has on both team archetypes as well as the metagame at large.
 
Can you stop posting useless stuff and actually know what you are talking about before posting lol. Your logic doesn't make any sense whatsoever lmao.
You start off by stating that Unaware Fairies are a thing.
I reply that they are not.
You state that Unaware Mega Audino is a thing because you use it and your 1400 ladder buddies use it.
I state that Unaware Mega Audino is inferior to Magic Bounce and Poison Heal and is only used in your ladder range.
You then decide that it is perfectly logical to post a screenshot of me from more than half a year ago (???).
I assume you are trying to say I use Unaware Audino. This is stupid because I never said anything about Unaware Audino being completely unviable or outclassed, just that Magic Bounce and Poison Heal are the go to abilities for Mega Audino and Unaware is just a niche option.
Furthermore, it is super apparent that said set is used on a specific counterteam, which further shows that it isn't illogical to be using it (a niche set) because it fulfills a niche valuable on said counterteam.
Next time when you post don't end up contradicting yourself lmao.

To make this not an one-liner and also being pressured by Volk I'll state that I agree with a Shedinja suspect. Reasons I posted in my previous post.
 
Yeah I am beginning to be swayed toward the side that Shedinja deserves a suspect. There's lately an almost unbeatable stall team to go around that many teams just have a horrible matchup against thanks to Sturdy Shedinja choking them. Playing a Shedinja team is fairly low risk high reward because Shedinja just can't be worn down like other walls. Here are some replays showing the most powerful Shedinja stall working. Some of the replays have the Giratina and Audino swapped abilities but the theme of the team remains the same.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-939717497 easily outstalling opposing shedinja balance team
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-939192028 stifling and countersweeping mono grass offense team
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-938157488 defeating para spam. Even though both the breakers had moldy moves to hit Shed, with Spikes and Stealth Rock support as well, the defensive core supporting Shed prevented them from ever staying up long. I had to make much riskier plays trying to predict whether the Shedinja would switch in or not, and wrong predictions caused my offensive Pokemon to get worn down and killed.

Here are a few replays showing how you can beat the team. The common theme here is that the winner was lucky, very lucky, and that the loss of the Shedinja really crippled the team and was very avoidable by just not letting it go near things that could hurt it. That shows just how integral it was to the success of the team, and that you can put lots of Shed checks on your team, but if the Shed can exploit even one team member, you will have a very hard time of it..
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-939025578 The shedinja team loses, but only because of an unlikely scald burn from the opposing Imposter that KOs Shedinja. It would have probably won otherwise thanks to being able to switch more feely and force the opponent to lose pp
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-938769230 The shedinja team loses thanks to a slightly bad matchup, once again due to Shedinja being burned by Tapu Fini's 30% Scald. A lucky early burn against Giratina also helped put pressure on the opposing team, but you can't count on that.
 
Yeah I am beginning to be swayed toward the side that Shedinja deserves a suspect. There's lately an almost unbeatable stall team to go around that many teams just have a horrible matchup against thanks to Sturdy Shedinja choking them. Playing a Shedinja team is fairly low risk high reward because Shedinja just can't be worn down like other walls. Here are some replays showing the most powerful Shedinja stall working. Some of the replays have the Giratina and Audino swapped abilities but the theme of the team remains the same.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-939717497 easily outstalling opposing shedinja balance team
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-939192028 stifling and countersweeping mono grass offense team
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-938157488 defeating para spam. Even though both the breakers had moldy moves to hit Shed, with Spikes and Stealth Rock support as well, the defensive core supporting Shed prevented them from ever staying up long. I had to make much riskier plays trying to predict whether the Shedinja would switch in or not, and wrong predictions caused my offensive Pokemon to get worn down and killed.

Here are a few replays showing how you can beat the team. The common theme here is that the winner was lucky, very lucky, and that the loss of the Shedinja really crippled the team and was very avoidable by just not letting it go near things that could hurt it. That shows just how integral it was to the success of the team, and that you can put lots of Shed checks on your team, but if the Shed can exploit even one team member, you will have a very hard time of it..
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-939025578 The shedinja team loses, but only because of an unlikely scald burn from the opposing Imposter that KOs Shedinja. It would have probably won otherwise thanks to being able to switch more feely and force the opponent to lose pp
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-938769230 The shedinja team loses thanks to a slightly bad matchup, once again due to Shedinja being burned by Tapu Fini's 30% Scald. A lucky early burn against Giratina also helped put pressure on the opposing team, but you can't count on that.
Gotta add real quick that in my replay the team I used barely had shed checks. Spikes mmy, rocks pdon, sacred fire pdon was all I had against sheds; I didn't deserve that win. But it's his fault to bring scald and not rev dance. Or whatever else.
 
SuperSkylake, as the creator of that team, and having used it for probably ~200-300 battles, I would like to say a few things about that team. First off, the pivotal point on that team is not shedinja, it is Audino. If you fight someone with a bouncer under 98 speed it becomes nearly impossible to win. The whole point of the team is to burn everything and then use passive damage along with attacks like scald, core, and endeavour to kill everything. I have had many battles where I have lost shedinja and won, but fairly few where I lose audino early game and win. Shedinja's purpose on that team is exactly the same as both regenerator's purposes: to switch in and absorb hits and then force opposing mons out thereby raking up more passive damage from entrance hazards.

Because shedinja's only purpose is to wall select mons, I find the argument: "oh shedinja is terrible for matchup and should be banned" lacking. One could say pretty much the exact same thing about fur coat celesteela/tina which manages to wall pretty much every physical attacker in the game. If your only breakers are physical it will be very difficult to win. Of course you could say, "HA Shedmiddlefinga! You are an idiot! Photon Geyser destroys FC tina sets!" but guess what photon also kills... Shedinja. I feel like if shedinja was replaced with FC cele my levels of success with that team would be fairly similar (In fact I know this because I have used that variant). Because shedinja is essentially replaceable with several other mons, the argument that shedinja is "integral to team success" is pretty lacking. Obviously losing shedinja is a large blow to the team, but going from 6 mons to 5 mons is a blow to any team; one has to compare the team to one with a mon filling the same role that shedinja played.

And this argument is the core of my reasoning about why shedinja shouldn't be banned. BH is and always has been a game about walls. Matchup is incredibly important in BH because whoever has the walls that can stop the opponents teams almost inevitably wins. Shedinja is just like any other wall, it stops some things incredibly well but fails abjectly against many other things (hazards, mold pursuit, mold moves, knock off (if you have a rocky helmet), weather). None of those things are even close to niche checks, except possibly weather and mold pursuit which both have large amounts of utility outside of killing shedinja. It is simply not possible to take matchup wins out of BH. In fact, I would argue that the entirety of high ladder and tours are either matchup wins or losses on errors. Shedinja does have a good matchup vs most of the meta, but so do things like prank registeel, regen tina, ph dino, and fur coat cele. Each of these mons have strengths and weaknesses, and each of these mons can be an auto win vs a team unprepared to deal with them.
 

pazza

Banned deucer.
SuperSkylake, as the creator of that team, and having used it for probably ~200-300 battles, I would like to say a few things about that team. First off, the pivotal point on that team is not shedinja, it is Audino. If you fight someone with a bouncer under 98 speed it becomes nearly impossible to win. The whole point of the team is to burn everything and then use passive damage along with attacks like scald, core, and endeavour to kill everything. I have had many battles where I have lost shedinja and won, but fairly few where I lose audino early game and win. Shedinja's purpose on that team is exactly the same as both regenerator's purposes: to switch in and absorb hits and then force opposing mons out thereby raking up more passive damage from entrance hazards.

Because shedinja's only purpose is to wall select mons, I find the argument: "oh shedinja is terrible for matchup and should be banned" lacking. One could say pretty much the exact same thing about fur coat celesteela/tina which manages to wall pretty much every physical attacker in the game. If your only breakers are physical it will be very difficult to win. Of course you could say, "HA Shedmiddlefinga! You are an idiot! Photon Geyser destroys FC tina sets!" but guess what photon also kills... Shedinja. I feel like if shedinja was replaced with FC cele my levels of success with that team would be fairly similar (In fact I know this because I have used that variant). Because shedinja is essentially replaceable with several other mons, the argument that shedinja is "integral to team success" is pretty lacking. Obviously losing shedinja is a large blow to the team, but going from 6 mons to 5 mons is a blow to any team; one has to compare the team to one with a mon filling the same role that shedinja played.

And this argument is the core of my reasoning about why shedinja shouldn't be banned. BH is and always has been a game about walls. Matchup is incredibly important in BH because whoever has the walls that can stop the opponents teams almost inevitably wins. Shedinja is just like any other wall, it stops some things incredibly well but fails abjectly against many other things (hazards, mold pursuit, mold moves, knock off (if you have a rocky helmet), weather). None of those things are even close to niche checks, except possibly weather and mold pursuit which both have large amounts of utility outside of killing shedinja. It is simply not possible to take matchup wins out of BH. In fact, I would argue that the entirety of high ladder and tours are either matchup wins or losses on errors. Shedinja does have a good matchup vs most of the meta, but so do things like prank registeel, regen tina, ph dino, and fur coat cele. Each of these mons have strengths and weaknesses, and each of these mons can be an auto win vs a team unprepared to deal with them.
idk man looking at your signatured shed seems just a little broken


okay now ill let the big boys reply to this one :(
 
Here's a question: is Shedinja without Endeavor broken?

I ask because Shedinja is infinitely more wallable and stallable when it lacks Endeavor. So, even if you can't break it, it's just a matter of patience since Shedinja's offensive capabilities otherwise isn't great. Yeah, it can still be the pivot from hell, but it loses a lot of effectiveness.

If Shedinja is fine without Endeavor, then that raises two different possibilities if we go this route.

-Ban Endeavor. The move sees very limited use in BH outside of Shedinja, so the action would both avoid a complex ban and have very little impact on other Pokemon. The last time I think I saw someone running Endeavor was in a tournament battle of me versus Silver Lucario (Gurpreet?) where his Mega-Diancie had Pixilate Endeavor a couple of years ago. Of course, this is still wholesale banning a move over one Pokemon which does leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.

-Ban Endeavor + Shedinja. I normally don't advocate complex bans, but if Endeavorless Shedinja is fine, then this might be the best solution as it's very comparable to Comatose + Sleep Talk. Comatose on its own is a good ability, Sleep Talk is a meh move. Combine them and it can just reliably solo unprepared teams. Shedinja is good on its own and Endeavor is a meh move, but it too can reliably solo an unprepared team with Endeavor under its belt.



...honestly, of all the things brought up recently, I'd be in support of species clause for reasons that were already outlined.

Though probably worth noting it was actually "suspected" in X/Y, back when verbatim was in charge, and failed. Although "suspects" back then weren't proper suspects, but rather it was simply a public "ban or don't ban" poll, so I'm not sure how much bearing that past result should have on it coming up again when it was decided with measures way outside the standard.
 

pazza

Banned deucer.
Here's a question: is Shedinja without Endeavor broken?

I ask because Shedinja is infinitely more wallable and stallable when it lacks Endeavor. So, even if you can't break it, it's just a matter of patience since Shedinja's offensive capabilities otherwise isn't great. Yeah, it can still be the pivot from hell, but it loses a lot of effectiveness.

If Shedinja is fine without Endeavor, then that raises two different possibilities if we go this route.

-Ban Endeavor. The move sees very limited use in BH outside of Shedinja, so the action would both avoid a complex ban and have very little impact on other Pokemon. The last time I think I saw someone running Endeavor was in a tournament battle of me versus Silver Lucario (Gurpreet?) where his Mega-Diancie had Pixilate Endeavor a couple of years ago. Of course, this is still wholesale banning a move over one Pokemon which does leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.

-Ban Endeavor + Shedinja. I normally don't advocate complex bans, but if Endeavorless Shedinja is fine, then this might be the best solution as it's very comparable to Comatose + Sleep Talk. Comatose on its own is a good ability, Sleep Talk is a meh move. Combine them and it can just reliably solo unprepared teams. Shedinja is good on its own and Endeavor is a meh move, but it too can reliably solo an unprepared team with Endeavor under its belt.



...honestly, of all the things brought up recently, I'd be in support of species clause for reasons that were already outlined.

Though probably worth noting it was actually "suspected" in X/Y, back when verbatim was in charge, and failed. Although "suspects" back then weren't proper suspects, but rather it was simply a public "ban or don't ban" poll, so I'm not sure how much bearing that past result should have on it coming up again when it was decided with measures way outside the standard.
yes let’s ban the one move instead of banning the mon that abuses the frick out of it. How r u so smart
 

drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
Here's a question: is Shedinja without Endeavor broken?

I ask because Shedinja is infinitely more wallable and stallable when it lacks Endeavor. So, even if you can't break it, it's just a matter of patience since Shedinja's offensive capabilities otherwise isn't great. Yeah, it can still be the pivot from hell, but it loses a lot of effectiveness.

If Shedinja is fine without Endeavor, then that raises two different possibilities if we go this route.

-Ban Endeavor. The move sees very limited use in BH outside of Shedinja, so the action would both avoid a complex ban and have very little impact on other Pokemon. The last time I think I saw someone running Endeavor was in a tournament battle of me versus Silver Lucario (Gurpreet?) where his Mega-Diancie had Pixilate Endeavor a couple of years ago. Of course, this is still wholesale banning a move over one Pokemon which does leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.

-Ban Endeavor + Shedinja. I normally don't advocate complex bans, but if Endeavorless Shedinja is fine, then this might be the best solution as it's very comparable to Comatose + Sleep Talk. Comatose on its own is a good ability, Sleep Talk is a meh move. Combine them and it can just reliably solo unprepared teams. Shedinja is good on its own and Endeavor is a meh move, but it too can reliably solo an unprepared team with Endeavor under its belt.



...honestly, of all the things brought up recently, I'd be in support of species clause for reasons that were already outlined.

Though probably worth noting it was actually "suspected" in X/Y, back when verbatim was in charge, and failed. Although "suspects" back then weren't proper suspects, but rather it was simply a public "ban or don't ban" poll, so I'm not sure how much bearing that past result should have on it coming up again when it was decided with measures way outside the standard.
Endeavor is clearly not broken on anything else. Banning a move (or ability, or item, etc.) should never be the go-to solution unless it breaks multiple pokemon. This has always been Smogon tiering policy.
 
Right, guys, which is why I suggested the complex ban route too. I'm not confident Endeavorless Shedinja is ban-worthy since a complex ban there rips out a lot of its power with little splash, similar to Sleep Talk + Comatose.

...heck, I'm not confident Shedinja is broken at all, but that's just me. I hate the little bugger, but I don't think it's broken.
 

drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
Right, guys, which is why I suggested the complex ban route too. I'm not confident Endeavorless Shedinja is ban-worthy since a complex ban there rips out a lot of its power with little splash, similar to Sleep Talk + Comatose.

...heck, I'm not confident Shedinja is broken at all, but that's just me. I hate the little bugger, but I don't think it's broken.
How about we do it the day Blaze Blaziken is freed in OU? Because as much as I hate using that tired metaphor, this is literally the same situation. If a Pokemon is broken you ban it, not one aspect of it.

If you don't think Shedinja is banworthy, fine. I'm not going to push particularly hard in one direction or another. But I can tell you Shedinja + Endeavor is not going to be accepted as a ban by either BH leadership or the community, so you should probably drop it.
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
SuperSkylake, as the creator of that team, and having used it for probably ~200-300 battles, I would like to say a few things about that team. First off, the pivotal point on that team is not shedinja, it is Audino. If you fight someone with a bouncer under 98 speed it becomes nearly impossible to win. The whole point of the team is to burn everything and then use passive damage along with attacks like scald, core, and endeavour to kill everything. I have had many battles where I have lost shedinja and won, but fairly few where I lose audino early game and win. Shedinja's purpose on that team is exactly the same as both regenerator's purposes: to switch in and absorb hits and then force opposing mons out thereby raking up more passive damage from entrance hazards.

Because shedinja's only purpose is to wall select mons, I find the argument: "oh shedinja is terrible for matchup and should be banned" lacking. One could say pretty much the exact same thing about fur coat celesteela/tina which manages to wall pretty much every physical attacker in the game. If your only breakers are physical it will be very difficult to win. Of course you could say, "HA Shedmiddlefinga! You are an idiot! Photon Geyser destroys FC tina sets!" but guess what photon also kills... Shedinja. I feel like if shedinja was replaced with FC cele my levels of success with that team would be fairly similar (In fact I know this because I have used that variant). Because shedinja is essentially replaceable with several other mons, the argument that shedinja is "integral to team success" is pretty lacking. Obviously losing shedinja is a large blow to the team, but going from 6 mons to 5 mons is a blow to any team; one has to compare the team to one with a mon filling the same role that shedinja played.

And this argument is the core of my reasoning about why shedinja shouldn't be banned. BH is and always has been a game about walls. Matchup is incredibly important in BH because whoever has the walls that can stop the opponents teams almost inevitably wins. Shedinja is just like any other wall, it stops some things incredibly well but fails abjectly against many other things (hazards, mold pursuit, mold moves, knock off (if you have a rocky helmet), weather). None of those things are even close to niche checks, except possibly weather and mold pursuit which both have large amounts of utility outside of killing shedinja. It is simply not possible to take matchup wins out of BH. In fact, I would argue that the entirety of high ladder and tours are either matchup wins or losses on errors. Shedinja does have a good matchup vs most of the meta, but so do things like prank registeel, regen tina, ph dino, and fur coat cele. Each of these mons have strengths and weaknesses, and each of these mons can be an auto win vs a team unprepared to deal with them.
feel like this post only considers shed's defensive utility and not the other things it can do. yeah an fc mon might counter more pokemon than shedinja does. but what happens when you switch in your fc mon on a physical attacker? you force them out but can take 30+% in the process, forcing you to recover while the opponent goes to one of their many switchins (most fc mons can be switched into by a lot of things) and regains momentum, often by forcing your fc mon out into something else and/or getting hazards up. meanwhile, if shed switches into something that doesnt kill him, he is free to set up almost unblockable hazards and uturn while the opposing player is forced into one of a very small and easily abused pool of pokemon. the situation is so much better for shedinja because he just drains all the opponents momentum away instead of fur coat where its the opposite situation. this is also why fur coat itself is rarely seen.

this reason is also why people claim that shedinja polarizes the matchup game because he can just grab momentum off mons that he comes in on, meaning that against a shed weak team, outplaying is practically not an option because shed can just throttle your momentum and prevent you from doing anything at all, let alone making the proactive plays that you typically need to actually beat shed teams.
 
All right, let's really clarify my stance for Shedinja: no suspect, only complex suspect, or Endeavor suspect. I lean much harder on no suspect, I don't think it deserves one at all. A complex suspect I could support. Endeavor... really, that's just a "please the anti-complex" crowd.

Now let's look at Shedinja objectively. No opinions and skewed viewpoints. Just raw, unbiased usability. We will only talk about Sturdy Shedinja since all others are just gimmicks (-ate, Magic Guard), unviable (everything else), or banned (Wonder Guard). I'm gonna attempt to remove any and all bias in this analysis but... I'm human, I might screw up elsewhere without realizing.

First, Shedinja is a Bug/Ghost type with 1/90/45/30/30/40 - 236 stats. These are among the worst in the game. Like, the whole game, not just BH. 90 attack... barely passable for BH.


Defensive Utility

With Sturdy, Shedinja can take an infinite amount of direct damage in most cases and survive. This is pretty darn impressive and makes it an incredibly good check to most direct damage. But, it is married to its ability to do so, so there is zero surprise factor as a result.

It also has an incredible number of weaknesses that it can kinda respond to but otherwise demands absolute support to even function.

-Mold Breaker Moves, like Photon Geyser, OHKO it unless it has a Focus Sash. It can only take one hit unless it has Recycle and doesn't get Knocked Off or Tricked.

-Hazards. Using Shedinja mandates strong hazard control, ideally Defog. If all hazard control is removed or unable to do their job, then Shedinja is effectively KOed before it even enters battle. Shedinja cannot control hazards on its own except via Magic Coat. Strong pressure on spinners/defoggers can effectively lock Shedinja out of a match if the Shed user doesn't want to risk losing the spinner/defogger.

--EVEN WITH hazard control, a Shedinja team is extremely susceptible to shuffling with hazards up as any Whirlwind or Dragon Tail can switch Shedinja into hazards, KOing it instantly even if the Defoggers are otherwise able to do their job uncontested 100% of the time.

-Mold Breaker. Any direct damage move will KO Shedinja, except Normal moves and aforementioned Focus Sash. Focus Sash still loses to multi-hit Mold Breaker moves, like Gear Grind and Bonermerang. A faster Pursuit is a guaranteed KO on Shedinja if it does not have a Sash.

-Poison/Burn. Instantly KO Shedinja at the end of the turn if it starts the round with the status. It can dodge the moves with a Lum Berry, once or multiple with Recycle, and some can be avoided with Magic Coat. If it gets statused, it is doomed unless it manages to swap out and has cleric support. Tricking it a status orb is effectively a guaranteed KO.

-Spiky Shield, Baneful Bunker, Rocky Helmet, Iron Barbs/Rough Skin. Shedinja cannot safely make contact moves without Protective Pads provided it is not removed.

-Sand/Hail. Shedinja cannot be on the field at the end of the turn or it will KO instantly without Safety Goggles. A good Sand/Hail team can effectively keep a Goggleless Shedinja off the field indefinitely.

-Partial Trapping. Moves like Infestation will KO Shedinja at the end of the turn, although these can be dodged with a Red Card.

-Ability removal will instantly delete all defensive capabilities Shedinja even has. It can outslow Core Enforcer, however.

-If it somehow winds up with a Life Orb, it cannot attack. This is a really rare situation though.

-Other indirect damage. Like Leech Seed, Curse, etc. Shedinja can block some of these with Magic Coat, but otherwise it has no defense against them.

These spoilers ARE NOT objective and are my opinion as a result of above.

In my experience and observation, many of these techniques are not used frequently. Moldy moves are usually on sweepers only, Mold Breaker itself is pretty uncommon and well telegraphed and rarely runs Pursuit or a multi-hit move to trivially bypass Shedinja. Poison/Burn mostly comes from chancy moves these days, like Scald, and even then those moves are often swapped for Revelation Dance, which is purely ran for Normalgar.

Spiky/Baneful see some use, but are a bit telegraphed/played around. The others... not so much. Rocky might even be a little underrated right now (even by myself) since it'd be good for chipping all the U-Turning. Taking an Endeavor to the face is not ideal, true, but there are numerous ways to mitigate it, like Prankster with Recover/Destiny Bond or putting the helmet on a Regenerator, etc.

Weather is rare, people have abandoned partial trapping for Anchor Shot, people have abandoned other ability removal for Core Enforcer, and there's not a lot of indirect damage being run in favor for U-Turn chipping.

IMO, there's pleeeeenty of tools for wrecking Shedinja that also have (lots of) utility outside of that match-up are going untouched (although Simple Beam might be meh with Contrary banned) or seeing little use in favor for a few selection options. Swapping things around, like permanent trapping for partial + chip or a low damage Core Enforcer for Gastro Acid could easily expose Shedinja and make the meta a more toxic place for it to exist in without really harming the team's capabilities.

Shedinja is a cyclical Pokemon historically. Shedinja is strong > Shedinja checks rise > Shedinja's usage falls > Shedinja checks fall > Shedinja comes back. Gen VII has been unusual in that the cycle has been very slow, to the point that S/M basically started at the first point and it took the entire generation to make a full circle.

But seriously...

Infestation does a bunch of damage and traps a target long enough to do whatever you please. It replaces a low damage Anchor Shot trivially. If they U-Turn out of your chip, then your Anchor Shot wasn't doing much better unless you had a good STAB on it. Unless you're trying to trap and stall out Imposter, you usually won't be holding the opponent in place for more than 5 turns anyway.

Rocky Helmet and Iron Barbs can chip the heck out of all the U-Turners and also punish Spectral users. Put it on something bulky, or a Regenerator, and punish every turn. Heck, run the item and the ability and they're taking 25% damage every time they try to slow pivot, provided you can avoid Trick/Knock Off. That's nothing to sneeze at. It also breaks Sashes to boot. This really bears some exploration with how common contact utility moves are.

Weather... okay, you kinda got to build around that one. But if you can fit Sand somewhere, as a few people do, you can really abuse Shore Up.

Will-O-Wisp, Toxic, and Toxic Thread are not popular moves and have some problems with Bounce (which, let's be honest, is not THAT common), but are a lot better than gambling on a Scald or whatever if you need that status. I mean, do you REALLY need the damage from Sacred Fire on Mega-Audino? (Yes, if you're reading this, you know who you are.) Also, Toxic Spikes exist too!

...Corrosive Toxic is hilarious, by the way, and you should try it sometime, even if not on a serious team.

Core Enforcer is nice, but a lot of the utility users do jack squat damage with it. Entrainment, Skill Swap, Worry Seed, and others exist as other options. Yes, Taunt. Yes, Magic Bounce. But A) Fairies. And B) You don't have to worry about speed undercreep so much. It takes a little prediction to use on Shedinja safely, but unlike Core, it'll reliably work on Shedinja at least!

Worth noting a Mold Breaker hazard setting is the antithesis of Shedinja. You can even double down on this and run it on Solgaleo or Duskmane to take advantage of moldy Gear Grind, which OHKOs both Sash Shedinja AND cheeky Sash Diancies. And it also does the same damage as Sunsteel, so you don't lose out. Or go Gengar and have something that can switch into Shed.

Whirlwind, Circle Throw and Dragon Tail are really strong, dickish anti-momentum and pivot moves. They slow U-Turn? You go slower and jack up their pivot and potentially rack up double the hazard damage per turn. Heck, if you're running Whirlwind and you keep your side clear of hazards, you can basically pivot for free if they switch their Magic Bouncer in, albeit a little randomly. Just make sure nobody shares any major weaknesses with your Whirlwinder if you try that.

But seriously, explore your options! We've had these tools for multiple generations and they're largely not any worse than they were! ...except weather because Gen V to Gen VI and Simple Beam because Contrary ban.


...either way, if you were to remove Sturdy, Shedinja would lose all of its defensive utility and become little more than a high-risk, low tier gimmick. It'd effectively soft-ban it from the meta in any serious circle. I'd rather sooner support a Shed ban than a Sturdy ban, direct or complex, since it'd have about the same effect on serious play.


Offensive Utility

Refresher: 90/45 offenses and Bug/Ghost STABs. The STAB combo ain't bad since the only natural wall in the entire meta is Mega-Audino. But the actual stats... they exist. That's it. 90 was kinda sorta passable in 510 EV settings due to the drastically lower bulk of the meta. But like... 45 Sp.A ain't doing jack. 90 can chip pretty decent with the STABs, and hurt some stuff like MMY, but it's a far, far cry from a sweeper or a wall breaker.

Shedinja's offenses have a few other good points. The first of which is Shell Smash. It doesn't care about the defense drops at all and doesn't need a Sash to not care. It can Smash to its heart's content with no fear of suddenly being OHKOed by a stray Weedle's Banded Bug Bite.

It gets STAB U-Turn and STAB Spectral Thief, two very nice utility moves.

Shedinja also usually beats Imposter, which is cool.

The other point is its friggin' amazing synergy with Endeavor. Endeavor + priority allow it to 2HKO almost the entire meta, which is just disgusting. This is why Ghosts are near mandatory on all teams

However, the downsides are aplenty.

Shedinja cannot use Belly Drum, cannot use Life Orb (more than once), it cannot run any offensive ability, it cannot use any recoil moves.

Spiky and Baneful are real problems without the right items. As are Rocky Helmet and Iron Skin. Flame Body, Aftermath, and other junk are too, but those are super rare. Like... low ladder exclusive rare.

Shedinja must choose between two priority moves: Extreme Speed and Ice Shard. The former has low PP and contact issues and does nothing to Ghosts. Ice Shard has much lower power, which is problematic. Like... Endeavor/Ice Shedinja cannot KO Poison Heal Gigas, for example. Ice Shard can also be outsped by Prankster Recover.

Shedinja cannot break most dual Regnerator cores, as they can just switch back and forth until Sheddy takes its ball and goes home.

Some Fur Coat users can be a problem too, tanking an Ice Shard or even an Extreme Speed with just 7% of its HP.

Shedinja struggles with Substitutes.

Endeavor also has low PP, making it stallable. It's also a Normal move, so it's blocked by Ghosts, Imposters switching in, and, ironically, Shedinja. Heck, Shedinja tends to wall Shedinja. It can avoid this with Foresight, but that can be bounced, believe it or not.

Shedinja also requires a copious amount of scouting to use safely, lest it just suddenly die unexpectedly while trying to do its job. It also must be slow pivoted in if the enemy moveset is not known well enough lest the Shed user be willing to take a risk.

Shed pretty much must run Endeavor + priority to have offensive impact. If it only uses Endeavor, it'll likely be outsped and the damage healed off or the opponent will use a Shedinja-killing move. If it only uses priority, its damage will be straight up garbage and useless. Shedinja needs a third move to KO Dazzling users.

It cannot run Moldy Moves itself, because then it goes from beating Imposter to losing to Imposter, hard.

Heck, if you wanna look clever, you can just Imprison Shedinja easily since it's super predictable.

...also, minor, but Shedinja is the only Pokemon in the entire game that can only Struggle once. Literally the entire rest of the game can do so up to 5 times from full HP/correct HP EVs/IVs.


I think this is the part of Shedinja that's more well prepared for and exerts a hell of a lot more pressure on team building. It's pretty easy to work in a "this KOs Shed" onto your team while focusing on other priorities. It's way, way, way harder to work around Endeavor + Priority if you don't have Giratina or Gengar on your team. Imposter eases it, but that's usually a lose match-up.

Honestly, there's not as much to be said here as the defensive answers to Shed's offensive prowress are used much more consistently. Pressure, Grudge, and Spite are the only real exceptions I can think of, but those are niche and you need to build teams around them usually.

If you take away its offensive utility, Shedinja becomes a hell of a lot easier to plan around. Yeah, it'll still be a pain in the butt to kill, but you could at least reliably resort to PP stall without fear of the 2HKO if all else fails. And you'd also have more freedom to run Shed counters too, since they wouldn't need to be expected to survive Endeavor.

Hence why I feel, if anything is done, complex is the best answer. It's, like I said, like the previous complex ban of Comatose + Sleep Talk. Shedinja isn't as toxic or overbearing, sure, but it's in a very similar boat. Shedinja without Endeavor is annoying, but infinitely more manageable. Endeavor without Shedinja is... yeah, it's a thing. Seperate them and neither are a problem.

Yes, I know Smogon policy and blah blah blah, but compex bans DO happen on occasion. Yes, some flounder eventually, like Baton Pass in standard. But some are successful. For us, Comatalk is a big win and works very well. Either way, I'm not a big fan of complex myself and usually oppose them, so keep in mind I don't suggest one lightly and only do so if I feel it were the best course of action to take if a suspect were to come up.

And, IMO, I'm probably gonna get the angry faces from the usual group for this, if they didn't do so the moment I posted, but in a metagame with lots of weird edge cases and synergies that straight up don't exist elsewhere, we should be a little open to complex at least. Like... they should still be avoided whenever possible. But we shouldn't use a sledgehammer ban when a scalpel will do just because scalpels are bad.


...besides, a lot of you guys were straight face advocating for stuff like a V-Create ban instead of Primal Groudon or Photon Geyser instead Psychic Terrain or a few specific moves instead of Contrary. I think there were calls for Water Spout instead of Water Bubble or only certain CFZs instead of all CFZs, but it's been a while. Either way, is Endeavor really any different than those?

Yes, I know they failed but... come on, there was actually a lot of support for some of those.


Support Utility

Shedinja has shown to be able to run support sets reasonably well in the past. Most of these never became mainstream, like Recycle Red Card hazard shuffling when Infestation/Magma Storm were the only common anti-shed options. Probably the most successful and popular use was Baton Pass Shedinja, in which it used a boosting move on the opponent's switch, like Shift Gear, and then passed to a check/counter to wall break or sweep with. A variation of this was to do something like set Tail Wind, Sunny Day, Trick Room or othersuch on the switch, but this was a lot less common.

However, that's basically the extent. The Core Enforcer bug fix/nerf meant it can't really utilize that super well anymore since most of its targets want to switch anyway. A lot of other support moves, like hazards, Defog, etc. are putting it on a lot of danger from Magic Bounce/Coat or it just can't run them period. Knock Off and Spectral Thief run the risk of getting bopped by residual damage.

Beyond that... I dunno, Shedinja's support utility ebbs and wanes. And, currently, it's very rare. I don't have any thoughts here.


TL;DR

Objectively

Defense: Great until suddenly dead, easy to account for naturally.
Offense: Holy crap awesome, but is almost as one dimensional as a line.
Support: Usually meh

IMO

Defense: Annoying, but there's a lot of good, usable, viable tools collecting dust because everyone has tunnel visioned on certain things.
Offense: This is really where all the Shedinja pressure comes from. Take away its one good move and suddenly the bug can't do squat offensively.
Support: Shrug

I can't say I wholly oppose a full Shedinja ban just because I hate the bug, I'm biased like that. But I honestly believe its not in the meta's best interest. Or, at least, what little meta there is. The only thing I see problematic is the Endeavor + priority synergy since that is what hits team building and play the most. The rest can be accounted for or played around without really hurting your team.

So, seriously, I don't think this is the right direction to go with what little time we have until Gen VIII. Hell, we have less time than that since, with how long the suspect process takes between voting, ladder, and more voting, any suspect process started after early September is gonna be mostly pointless unless it gets quick banned.
 
First, Shedinja is a Bug/Ghost type with 1/90/45/30/30/40 - 236 stats. These are among the worst in the game. Like, the whole game, not just BH. 90 attack... barely passable for BH.
Stats doesn't matter, 90 Atk is fairly high for a defensive mon, 40 Speed is a godsend, low bulk is really good, SpA doesn't matter, HP is HP
-Mold Breaker Moves, like Photon Geyser, OHKO it unless it has a Focus Sash. It can only take one hit unless it has Recycle and doesn't get Knocked Off or Tricked.
Easily scoutable and has an opportunity cost in running them on most offensive mons.
-Hazards. Using Shedinja mandates strong hazard control, ideally Defog. If all hazard control is removed or unable to do their job, then Shedinja is effectively KOed before it even enters battle. Shedinja cannot control hazards on its own except via Magic Coat. Strong pressure on spinners/defoggers can effectively lock Shedinja out of a match if the Shed user doesn't want to risk losing the spinner/defogger.
You are running hazard control on normal teams anyways. High team support is true, but the benefit of shed is enormous. Shed's own hazard game is extremely strong, with only Bounce Ghosts to deter it (Bounce Ghosts are not really good rn bar Tina which has the opportunity cost of not running another tina set.).
--EVEN WITH hazard control, a Shedinja team is extremely susceptible to shuffling with hazards up as any Whirlwind or Dragon Tail can switch Shedinja into hazards, KOing it instantly even if the Defoggers are otherwise able to do their job uncontested 100% of the time.
Very rare. And hazards shouldn't be going up unless Moldy because you always run a Bouncer.
-Mold Breaker. Any direct damage move will KO Shedinja, except Normal moves and aforementioned Focus Sash. Focus Sash still loses to multi-hit Mold Breaker moves, like Gear Grind and Bonermerang. A faster Pursuit is a guaranteed KO on Shedinja if it does not have a Sash.
Unless its Moldy Gar, the mon isn't switching in. Moldy Gar with Pursuit is great but is niche and has opportunity cost. It faces competition from Dazzle and extra coverage Moldy Gar.
-Poison/Burn. Instantly KO Shedinja at the end of the turn if it starts the round with the status. It can dodge the moves with a Lum Berry, once or multiple with Recycle, and some can be avoided with Magic Coat. If it gets statused, it is doomed unless it manages to swap out and has cleric support. Tricking it a status orb is effectively a guaranteed KO.
See Moldy Moves, scoutable. You should have some sort of status sponge. Only Shed item is Protective Pads so no need to discuss other items. Tricking an orb is incredibly rare and bad.
-Spiky Shield, Baneful Bunker, Rocky Helmet, Iron Barbs/Rough Skin. Shedinja cannot safely make contact moves without Protective Pads provided it is not removed.
You have pads. You shouldn't be using Shed as your Koff sponge. Iron Barbs/Rough Skin wtf?
-Sand/Hail. Shedinja cannot be on the field at the end of the turn or it will KO instantly without Safety Goggles. A good Sand/Hail team can effectively keep a Goggleless Shedinja off the field indefinitely.
Decent, but again just like Moldy Gar is niche. Sand TTar is not that great rn.
-Partial Trapping. Moves like Infestation will KO Shedinja at the end of the turn, although these can be dodged with a Red Card.
Hardly used at all and Shed can U-turn out.
-Ability removal will instantly delete all defensive capabilities Shedinja even has. It can outslow Core Enforcer, however.
Shed just switches out.
-If it somehow winds up with a Life Orb, it cannot attack. This is a really rare situation though.
Like you said yourself, this is beyond really rare. Hardly any offensive mon used Life Orb, and wtf would Trick do on a Life Orb set.
-Other indirect damage. Like Leech Seed, Curse, etc. Shedinja can block some of these with Magic Coat, but otherwise it has no defense against them.
Again, you scout for these. Leech Seed isn't that common unless its PH and shed doesn't beat PH already. Curse is only on Ghost mons and Shed doesn't beat Ghost so ???
"Opinions"
All your said weaknesses have been addressed so theres nothing here.
Offensive Utility
Shed isn't an offensive mon, its a pivot. Most of these points can be addressed that Shed just U-turns out anyways but ill dive deep anyways. Oh and it can set hazards too.
Refresher: 90/45 offenses and Bug/Ghost STABs. The STAB combo ain't bad since the only natural wall in the entire meta is Mega-Audino. But the actual stats... they exist. That's it. 90 was kinda sorta passable in 510 EV settings due to the drastically lower bulk of the meta. But like... 45 Sp.A ain't doing jack. 90 can chip pretty decent with the STABs, and hurt some stuff like MMY, but it's a far, far cry from a sweeper or a wall breaker.
Mentioned before, 90 is solid enough. Almost no one runs Ghost Moves on shed. Who cares what resists its STAB it has Endeavour ???
Shedinja's offenses have a few other good points. The first of which is Shell Smash. It doesn't care about the defense drops at all and doesn't need a Sash to not care. It can Smash to its heart's content with no fear of suddenly being OHKOed by a stray Weedle's Banded Bug Bite.
Who tf is running Smash Shed. Abyssal hell region of ladder probably.
It gets STAB U-Turn and STAB Spectral Thief, two very nice utility moves.
Yes indeed. Except it usually doesn't run Spectral.
Shedinja also usually beats Imposter, which is cool.
This is true (!!!)
The other point is its friggin' amazing synergy with Endeavor. Endeavor + priority allow it to 2HKO almost the entire meta, which is just disgusting. This is why Ghosts are near mandatory on all teams
Wow who wouldve thought shed would use Endeavor. This is the reason why Shed is so annoying. You have to run Ghosts basically. And I mentioned before that there aren't a lot of good ghosts.
Shedinja cannot use Belly Drum, cannot use Life Orb (more than once), it cannot run any offensive ability, it cannot use any recoil moves.
WTF
Spiky and Baneful are real problems without the right items. As are Rocky Helmet and Iron Skin. Flame Body, Aftermath, and other junk are too, but those are super rare. Like... low ladder exclusive rare.
Yeah it runs Protective Pads.
Shedinja must choose between two priority moves: Extreme Speed and Ice Shard. The former has low PP and contact issues and does nothing to Ghosts. Ice Shard has much lower power, which is problematic. Like... Endeavor/Ice Shedinja cannot KO Poison Heal Gigas, for example. Ice Shard can also be outsped by Prankster Recover.
You should always run ESpeed. Being walled by ghosts doesn't matter if you are already walled by ghosts.
Shedinja cannot break most dual Regnerator cores, as they can just switch back and forth until Sheddy takes its ball and goes home.
Dual Regen is quite horrible rn because of massive imp bait (unless you are running shed to improof them :/). Furthermore Shed shouldn't be needing to break anything, it just pivots and gets massive momentum because it underspeeds everything and regen mons can't even touch it. Leave it to the teammates to break.
Some Fur Coat users can be a problem too, tanking an Ice Shard or even an Extreme Speed with just 7% of its HP.
Fur Coat is like super rare in the meta. Again, you can U-turn.
Shedinja struggles with Substitutes.
Not a move.
Endeavor also has low PP, making it stallable. It's also a Normal move, so it's blocked by Ghosts, Imposters switching in, and, ironically, Shedinja. Heck, Shedinja tends to wall Shedinja. It can avoid this with Foresight, but that can be bounced, believe it or not.
Ok so shed is walled by ghosts, wow, who would've thought. You just set Hazards lol.
Shedinja also requires a copious amount of scouting to use safely, lest it just suddenly die unexpectedly while trying to do its job. It also must be slow pivoted in if the enemy moveset is not known well enough lest the Shed user be willing to take a risk.
Imposter is the best mon in the game and scouting isn't that hard lol. Just use Imp or make Doubles.
Shed pretty much must run Endeavor + priority to have offensive impact. If it only uses Endeavor, it'll likely be outsped and the damage healed off or the opponent will use a Shedinja-killing move. If it only uses priority, its damage will be straight up garbage and useless. Shedinja needs a third move to KO Dazzling users.
No shit. Do you know what the standard shed set is? Because I'm nice, its Endeavor Uturn ESpeed SR/Pursuit/Whatever. Hey look, U-turn is the 3rd move that kills Dazzle.
It cannot run Moldy Moves itself, because then it goes from beating Imposter to losing to Imposter, hard.
WTF
Heck, if you wanna look clever, you can just Imprison Shedinja easily since it's super predictable.
WTF
...also, minor, but Shedinja is the only Pokemon in the entire game that can only Struggle once. Literally the entire rest of the game can do so up to 5 times from full HP/correct HP EVs/IVs.
If your shed is about to struggle, you lost. Why haven't you won yet???
"More opinions including more complex ban ideas"
Did you read the above posts. We are not going to complex ban it. Even without Endeavor it still has slow af U-turn.
Shedinja has shown to be able to run support sets reasonably well in the past. Most of these never became mainstream, like Recycle Red Card hazard shuffling when Infestation/Magma Storm were the only common anti-shed options. Probably the most successful and popular use was Baton Pass Shedinja, in which it used a boosting move on the opponent's switch, like Shift Gear, and then passed to a check/counter to wall break or sweep with. A variation of this was to do something like set Tail Wind, Sunny Day, Trick Room or othersuch on the switch, but this was a lot less common.
Yeah these sets are garbage LOL.
However, that's basically the extent. The Core Enforcer bug fix/nerf meant it can't really utilize that super well anymore since most of its targets want to switch anyway. A lot of other support moves, like hazards, Defog, etc. are putting it on a lot of danger from Magic Bounce/Coat or it just can't run them period. Knock Off and Spectral Thief run the risk of getting bopped by residual damage.
Shed is one of the best SR setters hello? Explained viability of bounce ghosts above.
Beyond that... I dunno, Shedinja's support utility ebbs and wanes. And, currently, it's very rare. I don't have any thoughts here.
Again, Shed only needs one good moveset because its just that good.

Can you like maybe play the Meta first before making these bold claims or sets lol.
 
Objectively

Defense: Great until suddenly dead, easy to account for naturally.
Offense: Holy crap awesome, but is almost as one dimensional as a line.
Support: Usually meh
hey bro just because you use a big brain word doesnt make it true
okay now to actually break down this mess


-Spiky Shield, Baneful Bunker, Rocky Helmet, Iron Barbs/Rough Skin. Shedinja cannot safely make contact moves without Protective Pads provided it is not removed.
pretty irrelevant, considering any and all sheds are running pads, and knocking them isnt an easy task considering how much scouting is going to happen facing a shed team. Avoiding knock is easy


-Ability removal will instantly delete all defensive capabilities Shedinja even has. It can outslow Core Enforcer, however.
literally the only pokemon that can do this at all are normgar,giratina, and sableye, which shed doesnt stay in on anyway. You outslow every core enforcer not using lagging tail EXCEPT sableye. You can freely set hazards on non bounce giratina and sableye, or click uturn for FREE on tina.


taking an Endeavor to the face is not ideal, true, but there are numerous ways to mitigate it, like Prankster with Recover/Destiny Bond or putting the helmet on a Regenerator, etc.
Prankster recover and dbond do not work after you decide to take an endeavor and have your helmet do nothing because good shedinja is ALWAYS pads. Shed clicks espeed


Will-O-Wisp, Toxic, and Toxic Thread are not popular moves and have some problems with Bounce (which, let's be honest, is not THAT common), but are a lot better than gambling on a Scald or whatever if you need that status.
Shed teams have bounce. Oh oops sorry, we're talking about something I'm assuming you arent very familiar with here, I should be more clear. Good shed teams have bounce. Every. Time. Theres also the rise of hazard setting ph users such as mmx and xern, making bounce, in fact, very common. Odd detail you seem to be unaware of.

-Mold Breaker Moves, like Photon Geyser, OHKO it unless it has a Focus Sash. It can only take one hit unless it has Recycle and doesn't get Knocked Off or Tricked.

Worth noting a Mold Breaker hazard setting is the antithesis of Shedinja. You can even double down on this and run it on Solgaleo or Duskmane to take advantage of moldy Gear Grind, which OHKOs both Sash Shedinja AND cheeky Sash Diancies. And it also does the same damage as Sunsteel, so you don't lose out. Or go Gengar and have something that can switch into Shed.
Right so I keep seeing this argument and I'm so tired that its treated like the holy grail of shed counters lmao. Moldy moves all have low pp. It is stupid to assume that you are always able to hit shedinja with a moldy move, because users of it tend to be fairly obvious, ignoring imposter support that comes with shed. Good shed teams have easy switchins for moldy moves, putting you in a tough position. Do you click moldy move in case it decides to go for endeavor and kill it, risking using 1/8th of your pp for 20% against shedinjas teammate? Or do you attempt to predict the switchin, hitting it with a stronger coverage move or pivoting out, leaving yourself vulnerable to an easy endeavor? This is assuming your moldy move user is capable of switching into shedinja in the first place.

Simple Beam because Contrary ban.
Simple beam was never good.


...either way, if you were to remove Sturdy, Shedinja would lose all of its defensive utility and become little more than a high-risk, low tier gimmick.
I think youre having a little trouble understanding how bans in this meta work. Lemme see..

An Ability should be considered for ban based on:
  • "Splashable"ility:
    Can be slapped onto nearly any 'mon, regardless of role, stat spread or moveset .e.g. Shadow Tag and Wonder Guard
  • Extreme Augmentation:
    The capabilities of the 'mon it is on that the set in question are difficult or impossible to check or counter. This implies that the power originates from the ability and that the choice of 'mon, item and even moveset, is irrelevant. e.g. Pure Power, Parental Bond
Sturdy fits literally none of this. I dont know what else to say to get that to sink in, but it is neither. It is not splashable because nothing else uses it
The power does not originate from the ability regardless of moveset because sturdy shedinja without endeavor is significantly less problematic.


Refresher: 90/45 offenses and Bug/Ghost STABs. The STAB combo ain't bad since the only natural wall in the entire meta is Mega-Audino.
Might be the most irrelevant thing here. In case you missed it, its main form of damage is endeavor. Not its stabs. Noting an irrelevant aspect of the pokemon does not improve the argument that its offensive capabilities are not good.
Shedinja cannot use Belly Drum, cannot use Life Orb (more than once), it cannot run any offensive ability, it cannot use any recoil moves.
see above


If you take away its offensive utility, Shedinja becomes a hell of a lot easier to plan around. Yeah, it'll still be a pain in the butt to kill, but you could at least reliably resort to PP stall without fear of the 2HKO if all else fails. And you'd also have more freedom to run Shed counters too, since they wouldn't need to be expected to survive Endeavor.

Hence why I feel, if anything is done, complex is the best answer. It's, like I said, like the previous complex ban of Comatose + Sleep Talk. Shedinja isn't as toxic or overbearing, sure, but it's in a very similar boat. Shedinja without Endeavor is annoying, but infinitely more manageable. Endeavor without Shedinja is... yeah, it's a thing. Seperate them and neither are a problem.

Yes, I know Smogon policy and blah blah blah, but compex bans DO happen on occasion. Yes, some flounder eventually, like Baton Pass in standard. But some are successful. For us, Comatalk is a big win and works very well. Either way, I'm not a big fan of complex myself and usually oppose them, so keep in mind I don't suggest one lightly and only do so if I feel it were the best course of action to take if a suspect were to come up.

And, IMO, I'm probably gonna get the angry faces from the usual group for this, if they didn't do so the moment I posted, but in a metagame with lots of weird edge cases and synergies that straight up don't exist elsewhere, we should be a little open to complex at least. Like... they should still be avoided whenever possible. But we shouldn't use a sledgehammer ban when a scalpel will do just because scalpels are bad.


...besides, a lot of you guys were straight face advocating for stuff like a V-Create ban instead of Primal Groudon or Photon Geyser instead Psychic Terrain or a few specific moves instead of Contrary. I think there were calls for Water Spout instead of Water Bubble or only certain CFZs instead of all CFZs, but it's been a while. Either way, is Endeavor really any different than those?

Yes, I know they failed but... come on, there was actually a lot of support for some of those.
A banworthy move would be:
  • An attack with either no counters, or unreasonably niche or unusable ones e.g. OHKO Moves
  • A move (attack or status) that removes the emphasis on skill, planning and/or preparation and moves the outcome to forces not in control of the player e.g. Chatter
They would be effective without needing real synergy with the Pokemon itself, its ability, the rest of its moveset, item or any in-game condition
Please read.
Also note that there was not a lot of support for those. If you believe otherwise, bring forth multiple direct quotes showing such.

Overall, your post fails to present any new information and is stating things we already know while reaching askew conclusions from the information.
Now that ive actually responded, allow me to get in petty low blows, because thats just who I am.


I have no idea if you actively play this metagame, and I'm inclined to say that its likely you dont because multiple posts give evidence that your knowledge of the meta itself is lacking, as is your ability to accurately give examples of how a game will play. Please play more.
 
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E4 Flint

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Based on the discussion so far, I think we need to prioritize on what we should look at. Seems like we have consensus on the following:
  1. mega Ray
  2. Shed
  3. Other (setup including bdrum, species clause etc etc)
I will provide my thoughts on them (very briefly).

Out of all the topics, Megray seems to be the most straightforward in terms of consensus. The landscape has changed from last gen on Megaray. While aerilate has gotten weaker, the gen has been kinder for its other strengths. It has better access to physical moves and abilities that let it hit both sides of its great offenses much more effectively than gen 6. Triage has been a buff to its old Gale Wings sets, now allowing it to make use of increased priority coverage, that is able to outspeed Espeed. My only counterpoint would be that Ray usually sticks to its STABs in its moveset making it mostly predictable and both of them are resisted by the same type, and have some other common resists. However, I also think it is getting to the point of being too diverse and good at what it does, and while it may be able to be stopped once the set is known, there may not be enough time to scout it properly and the turn or two you take to figure out if the Ray in front of you is a Specs Ate, Band TC or LO Triage mon, you're already looking at being down a mon and being unable to recover. While one of its fearsome sets in Contrary is gone, it probably a good time to once again test whether it has a place in the meta.

I think I would like more discussion on the next two. I acknowledge that Shedinja can make games very lopsided in terms of matchup reliance, but based on the discussion I see so far, it still seems up for debate on whether the opportunity cost for preparing for it is too high or whether its team support is often too good to break. For discussions about various means of setup, I think there might be some merit in looking at the mold moves as they have consistently seemed to have caused problems when discussing a lot of set up sets. Ultimately it boils down to, "you can just use <mold move> and easily get around a wouldbe check". I also personally feel like the desire to have a species clause is reflective of a deeper problem in the mons or sets being used for teams with a single mon, but I'm open to hearing more about it.
 
Im just going to errrr ignore the last few posts above and focus on addressing SL's response to my non ban argument because as far as I can tell, he was the only one that addressed the points I brought up.

feel like this post only considers shed's defensive utility and not the other things it can do. yeah an fc mon might counter more pokemon than shedinja does. but what happens when you switch in your fc mon on a physical attacker? you force them out but can take 30+% in the process, forcing you to recover while the opponent goes to one of their many switchins (most fc mons can be switched into by a lot of things) and regains momentum, often by forcing your fc mon out into something else and/or getting hazards up. meanwhile, if shed switches into something that doesnt kill him, he is free to set up almost unblockable hazards and uturn while the opposing player is forced into one of a very small and easily abused pool of pokemon. the situation is so much better for shedinja because he just drains all the opponents momentum away instead of fur coat where its the opposite situation. this is also why fur coat itself is rarely seen.

this reason is also why people claim that shedinja polarizes the matchup game because he can just grab momentum off mons that he comes in on, meaning that against a shed weak team, outplaying is practically not an option because shed can just throttle your momentum and prevent you from doing anything at all, let alone making the proactive plays that you typically need to actually beat shed teams.
I want to start by saying that I don't disagree with pretty much anything in this post, everything above is pretty valid and translates into real game situations. I would however like to bring up a few points. The first one is a point about momentum. It is true that shed acts as a very large momentum drain on opposing teams unable to deal with it, however, the way teams running shedinja are structured usually makes it harder to capitalise on this momentum than it would appear on paper.

Most Shed teams are structured as follows:
Shedinja (obviously) / a bouncer (for keeping shed alive) / imposter (for scouting mold moves)
beyond that it gets a little bit more complicated. A shed team requires other walls to switch in on things shed can't. Imposter is a good start to this but is insufficient paired with bounce. Usually, to really cover the bases well this requires two other walls: say a prankster (which also deals with setup) and a regenerator or PH.

When you add up all those mons you only have 1 slot left. Some shed teams skimp on the extra wall in order to have more offensive presence, but for almost all shed teams there are going to be either 0, 1, or 2 offensive mons. This makes momentum much harder to capitalise on. If you have 0 breakers, it makes it nearly irrelevant, and if the opposing team has a mon that walls your 1 to 2 breakers than it also makes momentum much less important than it would otherwise be. I feel like this fact is especially important because while shed teams do grant momentum, their basic structure makes that momentum less important than it would be on a non shedinja team.

The second point I would like to bring up is that while worse in some aspects, fur coat mons (or other fat mons intended to fufill a shedinja-like, momentum draining role, say regen zy) require 0 team support and are inherently much longer lived than shedinja. They do not have the same positive aspects (lack of HP mantainence required) but they also possess none of the negative aspects. They do not die to mold pursuit, nor weather nor whirlwind. At this point it is a tradeoff between these two aspects.

I would argue that because of these two things (shedinja teams not being able to capitalise on momentum quite as freely as other teams using alternative walls and shedinja teams being inherently more frail (but also requiring less HP maintenance)) Shedinja is indeed a solid option in the team builder, but not far and away a better one than some other alternative walls. If this is in fact true, then I would ask why we are looking into banning shedinja, while altogether ignoring other walls.
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
Based on the discussion so far, I think we need to prioritize on what we should look at. Seems like we have consensus on the following:
  1. mega Ray
  2. Shed
  3. Other (setup including bdrum, species clause etc etc)
I will provide my thoughts on them (very briefly).

Out of all the topics, Megray seems to be the most straightforward in terms of consensus. The landscape has changed from last gen on Megaray. While aerilate has gotten weaker, the gen has been kinder for its other strengths. It has better access to physical moves and abilities that let it hit both sides of its great offenses much more effectively than gen 6. Triage has been a buff to its old Gale Wings sets, now allowing it to make use of increased priority coverage, that is able to outspeed Espeed. My only counterpoint would be that Ray usually sticks to its STABs in its moveset making it mostly predictable and both of them are resisted by the same type, and have some other common resists. However, I also think it is getting to the point of being too diverse and good at what it does, and while it may be able to be stopped once the set is known, there may not be enough time to scout it properly and the turn or two you take to figure out if the Ray in front of you is a Specs Ate, Band TC or LO Triage mon, you're already looking at being down a mon and being unable to recover. While one of its fearsome sets in Contrary is gone, it probably a good time to once again test whether it has a place in the meta.

I think I would like more discussion on the next two. I acknowledge that Shedinja can make games very lopsided in terms of matchup reliance, but based on the discussion I see so far, it still seems up for debate on whether the opportunity cost for preparing for it is too high or whether its team support is often too good to break. For discussions about various means of setup, I think there might be some merit in looking at the mold moves as they have consistently seemed to have caused problems when discussing a lot of set up sets. Ultimately it boils down to, "you can just use <mold move> and easily get around a wouldbe check". I also personally feel like the desire to have a species clause is reflective of a deeper problem in the mons or sets being used for teams with a single mon, but I'm open to hearing more about it.
I agree. I think Moldy Moves are a reason why not just Unaware won’t work, but why Shedinja, and even Fur Coat are bypassed to such a degree that Unburden Belly Drum is such a high-risk high reward option.

I think the other aspect is how Photon Geyser can shift between offenses, such as a MMX switching into a Kyogre-Primal only to be burned with Scald. While the Burn helps Kyogre-Primal survive, Photon Geyser can still function off of a still usable SpA, especially if backed by boosting items or abilities like Adaptability.


I believe that Shedinja is an enigma, you don’t want to face one, but you do want to use one. It can be frustrating bc it almost feels like you need to keep your Shedinja checks in reserve while it it still alive on your foe’s team, and that can feel like depending on their counter coverage for your Shedinja checks, you have to use your team without certain members of your team. I think the biggest issue is how self sufficient it is, Soak for Ghosts,
Magic Coat for Hazards, Protective Pads for Rocky Helmet/Beak Blast, and slow pivoting to dodge Core Enforcer and escape Entrainment the turn it is used on Shedinja.

It’s what every FEAR set wants to be, but with the tradeoff of less risk and much bigger reward thru re-usability.
As for Endeavor, I guess it could switch to Pain Split, but at that point you may as well just use Khang-Mega with Nature’s Madness.

I think Moldy Moves prevent the game from being too bulky, but the cost is that they give offense more than what it needs- a way to bypass bulk altogether: by abilities at least.
We still have items like Kyogre-Primal with Assault Vest, Chansey Eviolite, to help us handle Moongeist Beam Gengar, and Photon Geyser off MMY, respectively.
 
Im just going to errrr ignore the last few posts above and focus on addressing SL's response to my non ban argument because as far as I can tell, he was the only one that addressed the points I brought up.



I want to start by saying that I don't disagree with pretty much anything in this post, everything above is pretty valid and translates into real game situations. I would however like to bring up a few points. The first one is a point about momentum. It is true that shed acts as a very large momentum drain on opposing teams unable to deal with it, however, the way teams running shedinja are structured usually makes it harder to capitalise on this momentum than it would appear on paper.

Most Shed teams are structured as follows:
Shedinja (obviously) / a bouncer (for keeping shed alive) / imposter (for scouting mold moves)
beyond that it gets a little bit more complicated. A shed team requires other walls to switch in on things shed can't. Imposter is a good start to this but is insufficient paired with bounce. Usually, to really cover the bases well this requires two other walls: say a prankster (which also deals with setup) and a regenerator or PH.

When you add up all those mons you only have 1 slot left. Some shed teams skimp on the extra wall in order to have more offensive presence, but for almost all shed teams there are going to be either 0, 1, or 2 offensive mons. This makes momentum much harder to capitalise on. If you have 0 breakers, it makes it nearly irrelevant, and if the opposing team has a mon that walls your 1 to 2 breakers than it also makes momentum much less important than it would otherwise be. I feel like this fact is especially important because while shed teams do grant momentum, their basic structure makes that momentum less important than it would be on a non shedinja team.

The second point I would like to bring up is that while worse in some aspects, fur coat mons (or other fat mons intended to fufill a shedinja-like, momentum draining role, say regen zy) require 0 team support and are inherently much longer lived than shedinja. They do not have the same positive aspects (lack of HP mantainence required) but they also possess none of the negative aspects. They do not die to mold pursuit, nor weather nor whirlwind. At this point it is a tradeoff between these two aspects.

I would argue that because of these two things (shedinja teams not being able to capitalise on momentum quite as freely as other teams using alternative walls and shedinja teams being inherently more frail (but also requiring less HP maintenance)) Shedinja is indeed a solid option in the team builder, but not far and away a better one than some other alternative walls. If this is in fact true, then I would ask why we are looking into banning shedinja, while altogether ignoring other walls.
You do'nt need several breaker when you can just play Mega ray :p
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
E4 Flint
I don’t think the Species Clause is an issue except for meme Shedinja teams where they always show as 100% health, the PS! Stacks all moves of the same species together so it can be hard to know which set is which, and they can be difficult to take down depending on what they do.

As for Mold Moves, do you plan to suspect all of them? I feel like Sunsteel should be looked at more carefully than the other 2, since the others have a type immune to them.

For me, Sunsteel doesn’t seem powerful without Unburden or Simple Smash (Tyranitar-Mega), and while a complex ban is often looked down upon it wouldn’t make sense to ban all Moldy Moves when they are typically only too much when paired with a set up move.
 
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