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One of my BH peaks this OMPL, mostly using my normceus team from w2 (on mobile rn but check back tomorrow I will add some pastes from this tour for anyone who wants them).
edit: as promised these are the three teams I built that worked okay
Went 80-12 on this alt this time around, largely my fault for most of those losses because I either loaded a bad team or played bad but is what it is...
I can say confidently this is my favorite OM and the meta feels like it has the right amount of standard balance mons/comps while still being easy to maneuver with HO or fatter teams, really diverse metagame that is fun to play. I plan on playing and building this upcoming OMPL
This is, unfortunately, not really the case anymore. The amount of webs offense and PsyTerrain cheese teams brought the latter half of this tour is really sad because there are several things that could be done to effectively bring balance and bulky offense back to the forefront but they just aren't being done for reasons I won't get into here...
I won't post a million lines here because others have already addressed a lot of the obvious concerns and none of those have seemingly made progress towards tiering action so I'll just skip to the tldr portion below.
-> unhealthy, warps the teambuilder to the point that you have to effectively pick a few matchups you're willing to lose to stop this from just claiming a kill every time. Big contributor to why offense and PsyTerrain especially is being spammed in my opinion and worth removing to bring RegenVest balance back...
-> If you find yourself absent of skill and willing to risk your primary wincon to a speed tie or two then I have just the thing for you. Triple Arrows is about as close to the definition of uncompetitive as it gets, with the primary abusers (Koraidon, Zamazenta, Marshadow, sometimes Ghostceus even) being absurdly cringe fishing bots for the secondary effects to carry them to undeserved wins. Zero reason to keep this in the tier don't even bring up Cloak that's cope.
-> Utility pdon is so good. Offensive pdon is cheems but I am of the opinion a metagame without mdia + tarrows would allow this to be a good presence since offense would get worse as a whole. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd love to play a meta with this mon and not mdia + tarrows.
Ghosty is fine, it feasts on teams that try to fit all the answers for the plethora of offensive cheems but without as good of offensive cheems...
Kart also good, another mon enabled by offense as a whole that probably just slots into A territory in a more balanced meta.
I would not look forward to playing more of this tier as it stands now, I do not personally care about what tiering action(s) are addressed first but clearly something has to be done this meta is insanely bad and unfun to invest time into.
Thanks Akira and cityscapes for the help in the BH slot this tour, I know I went negative with your builds and ended up building a bunch of jank shit myself that got vetoed endlessly (justifiably so) but we all experienced this hell together so I appreciate you.
What's up guys. OMPL XIV finalist and resident rizzler here. Today I reveal the secrets of BH Balance teambuilding in a post-apocalyptic metagame. Before that, I would like to talk about what I personally feel about the meta:
I don't actually care that much about the meta at all. I realised that I'm not responsible for what the meta is, and you are not either. The meta could be purely skill-based, pure cancer or anything in between but I decided I would just focus on what I can do given the meta state and stop thinking about "what ifs" scenario where some things are banned or unbanned. At the moment I don't really care what the council decides to do moving forward, I will just adapt and find new ways to build BH teams regardless of the outcome. I have always said that if I ever find teambuilding too hard or boring, I would just stop and do something else. There have been times where I didn't have good ideas or I found the meta too hard/boring to deal with so I just move away from BH for some time.
This post is going to go over what I feel like is the best way to build balance in this meta and how you can do it too. To put it plainly, I believe the best balance teams have these characteristics:
Clearly defined win condition and a holistic team focus in achieving that win condition
Have clearly defined scope and accept its own limitations
Stripped of as much unnecessary (coverage) moves as possible and focusing on objective progress moves
This may sound complicated at first but I'll try break it down for you.
i. Defining the scope of your team
This is a very common teambuilding trap that a lot of people fall for: the idea that your team has to "beat everything". This is simply an unreasonable expectation. I think BH gives you the illusion that you can wall everything because of the existence of Fur Coat, Regenerator, Ice Scales, Strength Sap, Recover, Unaware, etc. but this is simply that: an illusion. Offensive options are simply even more numerous and unpredictable than defensive options. In every other tier, it is never possible to wall every single set of every single mon, and the options are much more limited. BH is no different. Trying to build a team that beats everything will only lead to a team that beats nothing. Therefore, I believe defining the scope of your team - and more importantly managing "scope creep" is the most important aspect of building teams.
ii. How to define the scope of your team
Now that you understand the importance of scope (aka The Vision™), let's move on to how you can define it. I personally look at the meta and/or public replays when defining my scope. There is a big difference in ladder teams and tournament teams. Generally speaking, ladder teams have a wider scope while tournament teams have a narrower scope. Basically, ladder teams need to be more balanced because you will encounter a more diverse set of mons whereas for tournaments, you only need to win one game so you can afford to improve certain matchups at the expense of others because they are unlikely. I know some people like to call this "counterteaming" but I think that's a bit disingenuous. I personally think having a narrow scope is actually a sign of confidence in your scouting ability and the team you built.
So how do you actually define your scope when looking at the meta/replays? You basically list down what mons you need to beat offensively and defensively. For example, let's say ghost arceus usage is approaching all-time highs. You may choose to focus on beating as many ghost arceus set as efficiently (re: investing as little resources) as possible. Maybe you notice that the meta/your opponent is weak to a certain threat like Nasty Plot Miraidon. You will then build a team which support that set by considering what mons may be troublesome as well as how you can create the opportunity for Miraidon to click Nasty Plot. Defining the scope is difficult. It takes a lot of experience to find the gaps in the meta which you can exploit, and the only way to get better is to make a lot of bad teams and trying them out.
iii. Hiring pokemon based on their CV and your scope
We're finally at the part where we put mons on the team. In this meta, I believe there are three criteria in judging whether or not a pokemon set should be on your team:
How many and what jobs can it undertake
How well can it conduct each of those jobs
How closely do the jobs align with my scope
Let's do a practical example: vs , both of which are Steelworker.
Kartana @ Choice Band
Ability: Steelworker
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Gigaton Hammer
- Sunsteel Strike
- Bullet Punch
- Sacred Fire
These are the exact same mon with very similar movesets but different item. Their CV (curriculum vitae) are completely different.
- Most effective against slow mons in can OHKO
- Rely on the very weak Bullet Punch to kill fast offensive mons. Might not even be worth running that move.
- Deals way more damage
- Cannot attack twice against faster FCs like
- Much more effective with Magic Bounce because the range to kill fast FCs is narrower
- Can be used as the lone single offensive mon in the team because enough power
- Sometimes better vs Imposter
- Can be outsped/speedtied by opposing 100+ speed mons
- Most effective against slow mons it can OHKO
- Is fast so you can come in and click Gigaton Hammer to OHKO fast offensive mons
- Deals way less damage
- Can attack twice against faster FCs like
- Less reliable as a solo breaker because damage may be lacking
- Sometimes better vs Imposter
- Never outsped by any unboosted mon
As you can see, every Pokemon SET (including Ability, Item and Moves) have their own unique CVs. It is your job as the recruiter to select which set you need based on your scope and the current state of your team. So for example if my team lacks speed and my scope includes killing non-speed boosting setup sweepers, then I would be interested in . However, if I already have good setup control but I lack damage, I may want to opt for instead.
Not only do you have to consider what your mon can potentially do, you also have to consider how well they do it and the difficulty and/or resources required for it to do their job. In this case, requires much more resources for it to do its job compared to . Here is the list of reasons why:
on FCs are relatively common so to "enable" it, you ideally have a means of connecting a Knock Off on an FC. This is not as simple as putting Knock Off on a RegenVest because a competent opponent will not leave their FC in on a RegenVest. An example would be running another physical mon such as who is much more likely to bait in an FC because of its high attack.
The number of mons that you outspeed is far lesser compared to scarf. The number of pokemon an offensive mon outspeeds translates to the size of opportunity it has to come in. For example, if you are running a RegenVest as a slow pivot, you can U-turn your scarf kart into things like or whereas it's not possible to do so for the band one because it might just die to an attack. This can be resolved with resources such as Paralysis (a mon that can connect Nuzzle/Glare on fast mons) or Sticky Webs (requires a move slot as well as further investment into stopping hazard removal) which again are more resources that you have to commit to make it work.
My point is that the set you run always depends on your team. Obviously if you can set sticky webs and your opponent doesn't run Ability Shield FCs, can absolutely just 6-0 on preview. There are other sets available which under the right circumstances can win the game with a little support such as Normalise , Turboblaze SG LO , Specs , and more. What sets them apart is how much resources is required to enable them to win the game. In my opinion, you can actually make ANY reasonable set work with enough support. However, I recommend finding sets that require as little support as possible based on your scope to make your team better.
This idea also applies for defensive goals. For example, MG Revelation Dance is probably the best general check available. Non-MG variants are unreliable vs Knock Off and Mortal Spin, two very good options on ghosty. However, it does very little else other than walling it and being a reliable Rapid Spinner. It offers very little when it comes to switching into other meta threats like . It can wall psychics too but MG is not that good into them because they rarely run utility moves which MG is good against. This leaves Yveltal vulnerable to straight coverage moves like Fleur Cannon or Electro Drift which could've been solved by Ice Scales.
iv. Why I don't recommend pure offensive mons and coverage moves
To begin with, let's define what I consider as "pure offensive mons". These mons actually used to be meta but I never liked them much. I don't like the fact that their gameplay is inflexible - you basically have to spoonfeed them momentum for them to do their job. Let's look at what I mean:
Garchomp-Mega @ Choice Band
Ability: Sword of Ruin
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Glaive Rush
- Headlong Rush
- Bolt Strike
- Sunsteel Strike
Blaziken-Mega @ Choice Band
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- V-create
- Close Combat
- Electro Drift
- Glaive Rush
Kartana @ Choice Band
Ability: Steelworker
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Gigaton Hammer
- Sunsteel Strike
- Bullet Punch
- Sacred Fire
Groudon-Primal @ Choice Band
Ability: Sword of Ruin
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Headlong Rush
- Pyro Ball
- Bolt Strike
- Glaive Rush
Diancie-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Boomburst
- Extreme Speed
- Blue Flare
- Earth Power
These sets are not bad per se, I just think they have very limited uses. The only scenario they operate in is when they are safely brought in against a slower pokemon in OHKO range. Outside of this exact scenario, their effectiveness is severely compromised. They are basically completely useless. I didn't like them before and I think they are even worse now.
So what kind of offensive mons do I recommend? We simply go back to the CVs. The first two I like are and
Greninja-Ash (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Jet Punch
- Steam Eruption
- Fiery Wrath
- Moonblast
Alakazam-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beads of Ruin
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psycho Boost
- Volt Switch
- Astral Barrage
- Armor Cannon
Alakazam-Mega @ Life Orb
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Expanding Force
- Pain Split
- Seed Flare
- Blue Flare
So what's the difference between these choiced mons and the ones above? It is the length of their CVs. Primordial Sea Greninja can revenge kill PDon and Ghosty as long as you provide slow pivot support. This is an extremely useful ability to have because it significantly lessens the pressure on your other mons. Alakazam is very fast so it can also outspeed and OHKO dangerous non-speed boosting setup sweepers. Basically, these mons can contribute to your society outside of being a nepo baby dragged across the finish line by everybody else.
Once again these offensive sets have a longer CV. They provide additional defensive layers to your team in some way or another. The more uses a mon have, the easier it is to use. I value this flexibility and recommend you to consider it when building teams. I dislike the one-dimensional offensive mons because of how clunky and resource-intensive they can be to utilise. I am not saying they are not viable. As I said before, if you have enough support then any mon can work. The problem is are you willing to allocate so much of it to your nukes in a balance team right now? I say probably not.
v. The final step - iterating your team
How can you tell if your team is good once you've finished it? An experienced OMPL XIV finalist and BH connoisseur such as myself would simply reply: "vibes and aura". The truth is, you don't know. If you've adhered to your scope throughout your teambuilding process and put in time and effort mentally thinking about matchups, you can guess your team would perform well, but you can never know for certain until you actually play the game. To be honest this is actually a step I struggle with since I don't actually like playing BH that much because I don't want to put in the time and effort to become good at piloting at BH. I consider this a hobby, and I enjoy building more than playing. Also, if you don't test your team it is schrodinger's good. It could secretly be absolute trash but you can't confirm it until you actually try it. However I can't deny that the best way to improve the team is to open that pandora's box and find out it works (amen) or it doesn't, in which case you have to salvage it by replacing sets or move on to your next team. Don't worry about failing though, people who build good teams have failed more times than you've even tried.
vi. Practical example and sample team submission: The Call of Silence
Scenario: it is the semifinals of OMPL XIV and your BH starter XxLazzerpenguinxX is going on a family trip. He tells you he will be unavailable to play that week (only to come in and play as a sub for PiC, revealing that he had time to play after all. Perhaps wanting to dodge his BH opponent?) Your french manager comes knocking on your door telling you that you have to actually play BH (putain merde!). You booted up the good ol' scouter and looked at your opponent's teams:
After looking at these teams, I thought that Nasty Plot MG LO Miraidon can be extremely effective. The main hurdle are and Imposter . The usage is very high which is great because that mon disintegrates to a +2 LO Thunder Cage. Their electric resist is which explodes a +2 LO Dragon Energy.
Let's go over why I decided I wanted MG on my team: All of the Pdon moves in the scout are usually Fire, Ground, recovery and some form of utility (Spikes, Knock Off, Mortal Spin, etc.) I wanted to provide paralysis support to Miraidon and mono-Brave Bird mence with Glare is perfect for this role. Miraidon has good synergy with Paralysis support because it is immune to paralysis, so it provides free turns against enemy Imposter wishing to click it. Secondly, mence baits in everything that I wanted to paralyse: Regen steels, Imposter and Zamazenta/Koraidon. I am also running Spikes because these mons are usually spinners so the opponent will want to bring those in. All in all, MG have a very good CV that aligns with my team's scope.
RegenVest is another Imposter magnet like most regens. Once again it also gives MG Miraidon a free switch because it does not fear Nuzzle. Salt Cure is also an option though I did not end up running it. Furthermore, baits in and I was confident my mence would wall it easily. I hope you can appreciate how these mons (mirai - mence - regi) come together and fulfil my scope i.e beating the mons in that scout.
Next up is Knock Off . Ghosty is a RegenVest/special wall magnet. This means it is perfect as a Knock user because it will pave the way for my Miraidon by removing AV, lefties, boots, cloak or whatever. I made it FC because I haven't ran it in the tour and I knew I wanted to add Imposter because sevag and I have not used it once all group stage. Imposter is a solid check to and . Anyways the most important part of the set is Knock Off because it enables .
The last mon was the most difficult part for me. I was very happy with my first 5 mons. I think they achieve the purpose I set for them very well. I actually went 4-0 in tests and my Miraidon always end up winning. I needed a mon that can wall as many Ghosty set as possible as well as not be dead weight in every other matchup. This was how I settled on Revelation Dance Ice Scales Dialga. I used to have Ice Scales Eternatus but Normalise was becoming common so I couldn't use that anymore. There were four Ghosty checks which can beat Normalise:
Change Arceus to Dark or Normal - I thought Ghost is way better so I didn't want to do this.
MG Yveltal - I needed more raw bulk and I did not like how non-MG becomes scuffed against Knock Off/Mortal Spin and Stone Axe.
Ice Scales/Unaware Pogre - Once again non-MG are weak vs Knock Off, Mortal Spin and Stone Axe.
Ice Scales Dialga - The option I ended up running, this mon is more resistant to chip thanks to the godly steel typing (cannot be poisoned and resist rocks) while also having an immutable item .
BH teams are more than a team. It is a society. You don't merely "build" BH teams. You are a recruiter, meticulously combing through graduate and intern CVs to determine which individual can contribute most to that society. Define the scope. Find The Vision of your ideal society. Reduce your unemployment rate. Give the gift of employment to select BH mons around the world.[/spoiler]
went 5-1 in fl, unfort got elim in tb, here's teamdump.
week 1 i was tryna get back into bh so i built some specs dmaw mirai thing as a solo breaker on balance. it could not break for shit, so like a day before game i changed it to band kart. shuriken pogre is mid, if u use this team make it revdance, but i wanted priority to cheese torchburden don after looking at cats scout and realized it was filled with cheese. cat loaded 6-0ed by np sap ghosty, with counterplay being trying to force out my ghosty with their ghosty. after getting like 3 kills i turned off my brain for like 2 turns and let pogre get knocked and mortaled after tryna get greedy with shuriken. it was fine because they loaded non ashield zama into kart and that helped clean up endgame
this week i started to get the hang of it. i loaded regenvest pert into vn who is a shitmon but proofs diancie and has gotten slightly better. sflo dia is a crazy wallbreaker with high bp moves on 180/180 offenses. vn is known to load exclusively and only offense and is a monster at the game, and dtail blades flip turn rv pert hits a lot of stuff and stops lots of scary things. they ended up loading treeko sun offense, prob passed by clas, but idk if they realized it was on samples lmaooo. day before game i checked them and i was like "wow this sun team is very cool", hence why i was able to remember it for the game. pert put in work, and trading carefully with etern and using imp helped stop the scary breakers, especially since i knew their coverage. spooky plate imp was goated into ghostceus, and managed to pick up a ko. lwk i got lucky with speed ties a few times, if imp took too much damage it couldnt sponge hits as well as it could. vn is a monster. vn is a goat. vn is amazing at the game.
i used reverse psychology and loaded spooky plate imp when they expect me not to. this cheesed ninjas whole team and won. specs mirai was finally brought, but it only clicked steam eruption once. pretty basic balance team with mold don fc fighting rv steel mg ghosty imp pdon and wallbreaker.
vn had to sub out unfortunately but i had heat planned. simple plot ghosty is really good but i went agressive on a roll for regi, but it crit so LOLLLL. spooky plate chans was good and rolled norm ghost and they really couldnt stop imp.
i looked at cats scout and saw a lot of sap. they are very sap reliant and dont run shore up as often. this isn't bad, i do the same, but i decided to run sapblock with bounce etern. originally it was a gag poisonceus with gigaton but the typing of etern and speed tier provides more value than slightly extra bulk. agren has seen falls and rises in pl and fl, but generally it goes well into 2 of the big 3 that got unbanned (pdon and mdia). mdia that has pix espeed can be a problem, but if scouted and it is like sflo, jet punch or surging strikes can prob ko. game was finnicky and cat loaded some weird ass shit tsong tachyon sap topsy heatran?? but whatever. there were a few lines i think if they stayed in with diancie and went for speed tie onto imp or whatever they mightve gotten a chance, but in the end they threw by letting my imp cycle in and heal off their pogre's regen
the team that got us eliminated. this weak i planned some sflo pdon balance but my team told me to switch it up and rc suggested psyspam. starshine passed something from their teamcord by treeko, tho i suspect this is a version that is not the best. i de eved and re eved for more optimization, and i made ghosty over torchburden dia who doesnt even selfproof and does nothing. i shouldve prob asked for more variants but the past is the past. we loaded into the shittiest mu with 2 rvs (registeel who resists psychic) (pogre, the fattest rv alive), and steelceus (fat guy who resists psychic). the game was very shitty and a roll with deo failed to ko ting leaving it at like 5 hp and it ended up regening in and out back full and killing the guys 1 by 1. chomp missed a pblades that wouldve killed pdon, idt it should be hlr, tho many have told me it should be hlr. +1 special defense is for impproofing purposes and there is no better drag stab than glavie rush. it was a sad game that i shoulve won and carried us to finals, but instead we got mechaniced on tiebreaker.
After two years we have our first council additions! Treeko928 and damflame 3 are both current top players with very active presences, please welcome them.
Tiering side you will notice we haven't made any actions post tour. With some late advancements/developments we wanted to take some time to observe for adaptations through SSNL before making actions. There is potential for actions before and during HPL.
Resources side, there has been a Post OMPL Pre HPL VR update, Role Compendium has also been updated. Sample Teams have also been pruned, and we are always accepting new submissions. You can view the VR votes here. The numbers columns allow you to easily sort to view each members individual VRs sorted.
You can interpret the following as both VR explanations and general metagame observations: Very clearly one of if not the most threatening Pokemon in the tier. Lots of flexibility with ability, offensive sets are immensely dangerous. Monopolizes Arceus slot which is rather unheard of before. Levitate has emerged as the primary utility set with sets like RegenVest and DesoLand falling out of favour, while offensive sets are split between SG Teravolt, Torch Unburden, and other Unburden and Speed Boost sets. Neutral Fur Coats are quite good especially non-Arceus ones, considering all variants of Ghosty need a(nother) FC. Koraidon trades Chomp mu and Glaive/Glance weakness for Gren mu and Bitter Blade resistance. Registeel is like the only SpD Steel with enough bulk to get by, while Celesteela finds its way into teams with its Ground-immunity and half capability to spinblock Fightings. The former two form the second tier of wallbreakers on Balance behind Diancie and Kartana, while Zam is also the centrepiece of the ever-more-popular Psysurge HO. Chomp has mostly found its home on offensive teams, as it is more difficult to justify on Balance with its vulnerabilities. Arceus formes that have struggled to keep up with the reign of Ghostceus. Waterceus has problems with Bolt Strike being the most common coverage on SG PDon as well as Kartana sets running Grass STAB. Steelceus has found it difficult to make consistent progress against the defensive meta, so despite Fur Coat sets being useful defensively it takes up the Arc slot and concedes momentum. With decline of other setup Arc formes as well as the old set of mixed attackers Eleceus loses out on stuff to check, and offensively is unimpressive. Fightceus manages to avoid a rank drop thanks to still retaining a niche of bulky neutral. Between numerous defensive resists and offensive priority and faster Pokemon running around, the meta has not been so hostile to Flutter in a while. Anti-Ghost abilities are still useful in blanking bulky special setup, and offensive sets are still deceptively dangerous in longer games with a fair share of teams relying on short term answers like limited longevity revenge-killing. Somewhat bulky special attackers that have fairly good offensive profile especially with setup, with decline of other special setup outside of Ghosty pushing anti special setup more towards anti-Ghosty these guys can often be neglected in the builder. Offensive Water SpA in particular is hardly resisted well. Palkia is also notable for its decent defensive presence. Ho-Oh has a good typing here, but its physical bulk cannot keep up. Defensive Fairies are not very useful especially when they are huge momentum sinks unlike Flutter Mane. Audino in particular has the honour of being a Ghostceus check that consistently gets owned by Ghostceus.
As usual if you have any questions/clarifications regarding any changes feel free to ask on Discord.
Currently, many people dislike the way the meta, claiming that there are broken and uncompetitive things out there. While I do believe there are certainly uncompetitive things out there, I personally like the meta as of right now, but I believe this is because the new tiering updates benefits my preferred teamstyles. This is a very subjective opinion, and depending on what you like to load, it might not be as friendly to you. Stall is hard to use right now because of the 3 new wallbreakers, and HO is easier because of the 3 new wallbreakers. I like it more than the old meta, but that doesn't mean it's better.
More concretely, the current meta is obviously quite different from the pre-V-create ban meta. It is more offensive and, in a way, more dynamic. Games are more based around pushing through with own wincons while staving off opponent's wincons, rather than slow grinding and positioning and bringing in slow breakers to grind down teams (with the standout exception of select Blaziken sets you know who they are). The faster pace is obviously due to tier shifting more offensive with more offensive threats particularly ones that cannot be consistently answered long-term at all, but so far I haven't actually found that a bad thing despite losing some of that "defining BH characteristic" of long positioning sequences. It feels more dynamic and exciting to play and watch which can definitely be good for spectator experience considering that has always been a complaint.
A bit of an old post, but I do agree with Chessking. I believe this new meta is more dynamic and I enjoy it more than the previous meta. This is obviously, a subjective opinion, but I find it more exciting than slow-paced games that were incredibly dull before. Perhaps I like to use offense more, and hence that is more appealing (someone respond with OMFL scout of me where I loaded only balance). Basically, the big unbans of Primal Groudon, and Kartana make the meta more appealing to me. I understand some people dislike the meta it has gotten a little more centralized, though I do think that, with the nature of the tier, not much can be done.
I also think there is much innovation to be made, as evident of some lesser explored sets and Pokemon I gave examples in the previous post. While its certainly perhaps true that new drops have concentrated the selection of Pokemon (score of centralization reflects this), the set variety is still respectable and we do see innovations and shifts week to week, with previously thought to be obsolete attackers like Alakazam and Gren rising quite respectably.
I also am a big fan of the innovation. The big 3 shifted the tier up, directly and indirectly. For example, Ash Greninja has had more and more usage, as it goes well into non-Pixilate Extreme Speed Mega Diancie and Primal Groudon. Mega Alakazam has been getting more popular, specifically its Psychic Surge set. Psychic Surge helps stop revenge killers like Mega Diancie and lets Mega Alakazam click a strong 160 Base Power Expanding Force. Ordinarily, you would probably run Choice Specs Beads of Ruin. But given the current meta, Psychic Surge might be as good as Beads of Ruin, if not better.
However, I do believe Primal Groudon is unhealthy. With its immense set variety, it can pose a threat when unscouted, which is highly possible.
I think the above post goes well into talking about Primal Groudon's set variety, as Primal Groudon probably has the most viable sets in the current meta (excluding Arceus). To start off, not all sets I think are good, Magic Bounce and Good as Gold are rarer and I think not as impressive as other abilities. However, the surprise factor can be very important, as it can catch players off guard by randomly blocking Strength Sap or Topsy Turvy.
Torch Song Unburden is crazy strong. Primal Groudon's unnoticing 150 base Special Attack can get paired with an instant self-proof +2 boots and doubling speed thanks to consuming Throat Spray. Most RegenVests get 2HKOed such as Registeel which can get forced out easily by bluffing a physical set, and many explode to random coverage. I would say the best counters include Dragon Tail RegenVest Ting-Lu and RegenVest Primal Kyogre with Dragon Tail or a Water attack like Revelation Dance. This can catch teams off guard however, and 6-0.
Shift Gear Life Orb Mold Breaker is arguably the most scary set, and it absolutely 6-0s teams without a Fur Coat with Ability Shield. Fur Coats would much rather be running Rocky Helmet to punish Ash Greninja, Covert Cloak to stop Salt Cure, Nuzzle, and Mortal Spin, or even Heavy-Duty Boots to take less from hazards. Now, they are forced to run the most stupid item Ability Shield, just in case Mold Breaker comes up. Bitter Blade and Headlong Rush and one other coverage moves creates mindgames beyond mindgames if you want to fully wall it. Glacial Lance hits Levitate Dragons such as Eternatus and Miraidon. Glaive Rush hits Palkia-Origin and Koraidon. Bolt Strike hits Primordial Sea Celesteela and Fur Coat Arceus-Water. This set can setup in front of a Fur Coat and 1v1 it with the right set. Unlike Mega Blaziken, he has the bulk to 1v1 a Fur Coat.
Levitate is a good defensive ability. It helps dodge Primal Groudon's Ground weakness and lets it run utility like Mortal Spin, Fire Lash, and Precipice Blades to be almost unblockable at spinning. Fire Lash and Precipice Blades force out Steel types allowing it to click Mortal Spin. Fire Lash lowering defense also makes it a very pressing set.
Desolate Land increases the power of Fire moves and eliminates Primal Groudon's major Water weakness. A bit rarer, but it stops things that "check" it and try to click a Water attack.
Primal Groudon is very unhealthy for this meta in my opinion. You can load something that beats all these, but lose to Band Tough Claws. You can load Triage Strength Sap and run into Good as Gold and Magic Bounce. Good as Gold and Magic Bounce aren't Primal Groudon's best abilities in my opinion, but they exist, and therefore, you have a chance of randomly getting fished by it. If not broken, which it is in my opinion, it has to be unhealthy at the very least.
Mega Diancie also has ridiculously high offenses and Choice Specs Pixilate hits extremely hard. Dual STAB + Dual coverage isn't bad either, and I think physical Mega Diancie is unexperimented. With Fighting type Fur Coats running around, Mega Diancie can easily beat them. Sheer Force Life Orb Mega Diancie also tries to hit everything it can with 4 moveslots, and it can do that reasonably well, and Diamond Storm hits insanely hard. That said, I do think this is not as bad as Primal Groudon, so I will let it slide for now.
Originally, I thought this would be the second most broken after Primal Groudon. I think Choice Band Tinted Lens/Sword of Ruin are its best sets, but Steelworker/Steely Spirit isn't bad. This mandates Ability Shield on Fur Coats, along with Primal Groudon, but you kind of get used to it now. All I can say is Fur Coats with Ability Shield answer it reasonably well, and while it is annoying to run Ability Shield, you kind of have to deal with it. Probably the most healthy of these 3.
I find it diabolical to have to run this. Ability Shield is a stupid item, and not having Covert Cloak makes it very hard to wall things like Mold Breaker and Kartana. I've gotten used to it by now, but this makes it super easy to run over Fur Coats with Mortal Spin or Knock Off. You basically have to play with precision and load a few Knock Off absorbers so you don't get Knocked.
This way older post above goes very well on talking about how we can't fix all this. Given the nature of the tier, we can't really make a "ideal" meta, and as far as I know, I don't think there is an "ideal" meta out there.
Shifts In Meta Presently (SIMP for short)
Anyways here I my thoughts on what became good and not good with the unbans.
V-Create Banned This guy is no longer good. He needed the V-Create for big damage, we all know this.
Kartana Unbanned Likely less common because Kartana likes to run Grass STAB. Have to run this now. Quad-resists Sunsteel Strike and Gigaton Hammer.
Primal Groudon Unbanned This guy got better. He is fast and strong and has Water STAB. RegenVest who doesn't really beat him but can tank 1 hit and kill with Water STAB. Fur Coat who quadresists Bitter Blade. You would expect it to be more common, but Desolate Land "beats" him. I don't think it actually does, nor do I think that Desolate Land is as good as people say. Koraidon got more popular as he resists Fire STAB. Have to run this now. with People like Ground-immune Eternatus with Ability Shield as their answer to Primal Groundon. With Ground immunity and , it checks Primal Groudon.
Mega Diancie Unbanned As long as it's not Pix-Espeed Greninja can kill. RegenVest who can switch in as long as not Choice Specs. Hates Pixilate Boomburst. Yes, Ting-Lu usage is at an all-time low. With Ground immunity, this checks Mega Diancie.
Things I Want Banned
Normalize - This is probably the biggest matchup fish in the history of Balanced Hackmon. Normalize Arceus Ghost has completely taken over other Normalize sets and has been getting a ton of traction. It’s unknockable Spooky Plate and 120/120 defenses make it difficult to wear down or shut down. Not speaking as a low ladder player, but I find Normalize very annoying and should be banned. There aren’t many reliable and sound answers to check this guy, none that I have found anyways.
Toxic Debris - Mandates a Poison type on the team as removal can easily blocked. It is better than standard Toxic Spikes because of not needing to waste a turn on setting them up. Red Card + Toxic Debris can turn very annoying very fast, choosing a random Pokemon from your team to get poisoned. Removal options are also limited, hence why you want a Poison type. Primal Groudon running around with Precipice Blades also makes it difficult to run Poison types.
Primal Groudon - I don’t have to say more.
ok thats it be sure to check out my rmt coming out soon ReSolaris Chessking smells teehee
It has been a very long time since SV BH has had opinions been as divided as now. People have significant disagreements in how they find the meta in competitivity and enjoyability, as well as what element they view as most problematic. However, there is some degree of consensus, even for the players that find the meta to be in a fine state, that it can be improved and some actions should be made.
We saw a significant amount of continuous development throughout OMPL, particularly in the later stages with examples including but not limited to refinement of Psysurge, advent of Normalize Arceus-Ghost, and better execution of Mega Diancie. This is why the council after discussion elected to wait the extra weeks to see if any developments are seen in the middle rounds of the ongoing SSNL, before making a decision prior to HPL start.
We ended up not seeing particularly noteworthy developments. Thus, in preparation for HPL we chose to tackle the element that had the most established and proven success.
Chess
Damflame
QT
Treeko
Tech
Arceus-Ghost
Ban
Suspect
Suspect
Ban
Ban
Arceus-Ghost is hence banned. Reasonings can be found throughout this thread recently, with the addition of Normalize being significantly more tested, established, and prevalent compared to the time of writing for some previous posts.
Future stuff:
Diancie-Mega is the most standout element and the top of our watchlist. Already a possibly overbearing presence especially with more noteworthy usages of dual coverage sets with Water moves having regular appearance, the primary reason it wasn't picked as the first action is due to a comparative lack of stellar performances throughout OMPL and the highlight SSNL games. As to why we did not also vote on it simultaneously, 1. we would like to see some more developments for it and 2. Arceus-Ghost ban will lead to rise of other Arceus formes of which several are decent Diancie answers.
Unburden is something we will continue to observe with increase in HO exploration. On one hand HO loses one of its best Pokemon in Arceus-Ghost, on the other hand we've seen HOs like Psysurge avoid the Pokemon entirely and thus only potentially getting better.
Triple Arrows will be back on the discussion table due to the change. Arceus-Ghost was one of the very few, if not the only common non-STAB user, and is one of the users that more regularly relied on the secondary effects to win games. However, it is also one of the more splashable answers to the Fighting-types using it. We will have to see how this exchange turns out for the move.
Kartana and Groudon-Primal are likely not the highest priority right now but nevertheless still on the watchlist. Ability Shield Fur Coats being a common sight is perhaps not the greatest thing, but the two presences along with some minor stuff like Normalize Flutter and other Mold Breaker users do make the item not a specific answer to one Pokemon (unlike Utility Umbrella). We are also unsure whether Mold Breaker could be the problem over Groudon-Primal, which will depend on whether other abusers end up being potent (generally depending on Diancie-Mega's status).
Resources hotpatch:
Illegal samples are removed.
Some VR hotpatches, mostly directly impacted drops and conservative estimates: S- -> Gone Shift within rank Shift within rank B+ -> Low A- B- -> C-
Alright lets try this again. I apologize for the incident this has caused and any confusion regarding the tiering action and will work to improve future processes. For those confused, Arceus-Ghost will not be quickbanned right now, and will be legal for BH SSNL Round 9 and HPL Week 1.
We still believe the meta would benefit from tiering actions, and so we encourage current players to fill this form out (with honesty). We particularly encourage those that have played the tier in OMPL as well as upcoming HPL players to fill.
Reasonings for all these elements can be found in the previous post and posts before that on this thread, we encourage reading through those if there are unfamiliarities over what causes them to show up on the form. We will not be considering anything that is not the listed elements, if there is something problematic and is not listed, its probably related to another element so make the respective response to that.
There is a short answer section where you can leave some reasonings, but if you find the margins to be too small thread posts are encouraged.
Form will close <t:1786647600:f>
Part One: Thoughts on the meta and its difference compared to before V-create ban
Ok since nobody is saying anything and the survey is closing soon I thought I would share some ideas on how to "fix" the tier. Firstly I want to say that I don't believe an idealistic BH tier (or any tier, for that matter) exists. The truth is that everybody have different concepts on what the "perfect BH tier" looks like. For example, pre V-create ban we basically had the perfect balance slop tier. If you liked playing Balance, you were happy because as long as you stick to Water Arc/Etern/Ting/Registeel/Flutter/Zamazenta/Imposter looking teams, you'll have good success and very few truly bad matchup. As evidence you can look at how well TTTech and QT performed in tours even though they run almost the same mons every time. Arguably, the meta should have stayed as is until gen 10. I don't even remember the last time BH banned something due to a supermajority in a suspect test. The V-create quickban itself may not be justified since it was not common consensus that it deserved a ban.
Let's look at what the meta is like now. This part is subjective. I think that the power level of offensive mons have remained relatively unchanged BUT the diversity has increased significantly compared to before the V-create ban. Ask yourself this: how viable would Blaziken be RIGHT NOW if it still has access to V-create? Assume NO OTHER MON has it. Would it see play? Yes it would, because it's still one of the strongest mon ever. However, will there be times when you'd prefer Kartana or Pdon instead, even if they DO NOT have V-create? Yes you would, and it'll probably be more often than you think. My point is that the offensive sets (physical AND special) available right now are comparable to V-create Blaziken in terms of the specificity of checks they demand, which means that the V-create ban did not significantly alleviate teambuilding pressure on defensive mons, if at all. I believe this is one of the reasons why the community is divided. When V-create got banned, I expected the defensive options to open up. Because of V-create, I and a lot of people believe that we have to fit an FC fire resist or Psea mon on every team to handle it. I was getting tired of running FC Water Arc, Koraidon, Etern and Zamazenta on every team and thought it would be great to actually use other defensive mons like FC Mewtwo, Yveltal, Maud, Zacian, etc. But then I found out Pdon, Kartana and Diancie are here so I have to deal with them instead. Two months later we're back to only a handful of FCs being viable (and of course it's Arceus, Zama and Koraidon) because the speed and bulk requirement for FCs has not lessened from before.
A significant topic that we have to address is the rise of Mold Breaker and Ability Shield. This is a very important topic that massively contributes to how suffocating it is to build balance teams. I don't claim that my reasoning is truth, and I actually challenge everybody to answer this question: "why and how did Mold Breaker & Ability Shield become such an integral part of the meta?" I look forward to hearing your responses. Anyways I think there are two reasons that caused the surge in viability of Mold Breaker. Firstly is the introduction of better offensive mons. Let me explain. Garchomp had a massive weakness: both of its STABs have immunities in Fairy and Flying, and Celesteela was a very common mon. Blaziken's best move is V-create but it is resisted by Dragons and Water Arc which are both very common and Primordial Sea which used to be much better than it is now. As a quick aside, the popularity of Torch Song and V-create meant that Primordial Sea used to let mons simultaneously wall certain physical AND special mons but now the popularity of PDon has instead increased the presence of Water coverage which significantly hurts Primordial Sea as a defensive ability. Burning Bulwark and Beak Blast are also much worse now. Finally, Greninja had the luxury of Sniper which was a 50% multiplier to its STABs. Without Sniper, it simply lacks the power to break walls. Furthermore, it always had a weakness to Zacian, Zamazenta and Koraidon, all of which outsped it and threaten to almost OHKO it with super-effective moves. These are the issues facing Mold Breaker mons that really held it back. So what changed?
Enter Pdon and Kartana, the two flagship Mold Breaker mons that together are forcing FCs to run Ability Shield. Unlike previous physical nukes, these mons are on a league of their own. Pdon has better STAB combinations. It doesn't have natural immunities like Garchomp, and the viability of Primordial Sea is much lower for reasons mentioned above. Ground is arguably the best offensive type because Grass and Bug mons are typically frail and Flying-type mons are cursed with Rock weakness which means they have to choose between running FC and Boots which is vulnerable to chip damage and Knock Off or Magic Guard which means they have to actually wall a 180/150 mon with just their raw bulk. Pdon is notably one of the best Mortal Spin users and sometimes carry Bolt Strike or Glacial Lance so Flying type mons can sometimes just lose to one of those. Pdon has even higher attack AND special attack than Blaziken, Garchomp and Greninja so a loss of Sword of Ruin or Desolate Land is less painful since it has so much attack that non-FCs struggle to wall it. The point is, Pdon does not have the same issues that held back Garchomp, Blaziken and Greninja were they to run Mold Breaker.
Now let's move on to Kartana which has Mold Breaker BUILT IN to a move: Sunsteel Strike. It also has Gigaton Hammer which is only second to V-create in terms of raw power. Kartana is so much better offensively than other steel types (Metagross, Lucario & Solgaleo) that it would be disrespectful to compare them. Kartana has significantly higher Attack and a much better typing because Grass hits Water (which is a great defensive type against Pdon) and quadruple Fire weakness to punish Imposter. Freeing up the ability slot means Kartana can run Steelworker, Tinted Lens or Sword of Ruin, an advantage that further sets it apart from other physical attackers. This increases Kartana's damage so much that it is basically impossible to wall Kartana (particularly Tinted Lens) without Fur Coat or a quadruple resist. If we want to boil it down, Pdon and Kartana are so strong that they can afford the power loss from Mold Breaker relative to another ability or a stronger move (Gigaton Hammer), and they do not have issues related to stats and/or typing that held back previous physical breakers from abusing Mold Breaker.
Alright, now let's talk about the variety of threats. I actually think this is the root of community dissatisfaction. There are simply more things that you have to respect compared to before. The most obvious example is comparing Garchomp and Blaziken to Pdon. The former are usually stuck with a Choice Band, with Shift Gear and Choice Scarf being viable albeit less common sets. On the other hand, Pdon has significantly more sets to them thanks to a variety of reasons. Continuing the Pdon glaze: Pdon has much more bulk so it can abuse Bitter Blade unlike Blaziken. Fire/Ground is not naturally walled by Celesteela so it doesn't need to go out of its way to run Bolt Strike to hit it. 180/150 offenses means it's much more threatening on mixed or even purely special sets, something that Chomp/Chicken struggle with. It's naturally immune to Burn and Nuzzle which makes it much easier to setup. It has a quadruple weakness to water AND also weak to ground so punishing Imposter is much easier compared to Blaziken. It has fantastic physical bulk and typing which means it can be a utility mon BUT IT STILL FORCES IN PHYSICAL WALLS because it hits so hard with no item or ability. This issue is compounded by the fact that Covert Cloak, an item which would shut down Mortal Spin and a few other moves has to compete with Ability Shield, directly making utility Pdon sets better. Next is Diancie. Diancie has 160 Attack which makes a world of difference compared to Gardevoir. It can run Headlong Rush and Pyro Ball to smash through RegenVest Registeel which troubles Gardevoir. It has a much stronger Extreme Speed which lets it threaten fast but frail offensive mons like Greninja and Alakazam from a much higher range than Gardevoir. I don't even need to compare Kartana with Lucario. Reiterating my point: all of these new mons and sets demand a level of respect greater than their closest counterparts before the V-create ban, and equivalent to Blaziken with V-create. Except compared to before, the number of such sets is two or three times as many.
Let's now get to the implications. I have a theory:because of Arceus and Chansey, I believe that no individual mon has the power to be broken in SV BH. What does that mean? Let's assume we are in a meta without V-create, but the unbans did not occur. All of a sudden, Mega Ray is unbanned. Would it be broken? No, because there will be a Arceus + Chansey + RegenVest combination that can just barely handle it. Alright, let's imagine that instead of Mega Ray, it was Mega Mewtwo X. Would MMX by itself be broken? No, because once again the combination of a particular Arceus, Chansey and a RegenVest/FC will just barely make it balanced. My belief is that Arceus is a defensive outlier that is able to make any single mon balanced, and Chansey puts a power cap that limit how strong offensive mons can be. In the Blaziken era, Water Arc was that Arc that kept Blaziken and Garchomp wallable. But now, things have changed. There are too many "Blazikens" around and only one Arceus. Unlike before, defensive Arceus no longer cover enough percentage of meta threats to relieve teambuilding pressure. I have already mentioned Water Arc as the premium FC but we can also bring up FC Fairy Arc and Ice Scales Electric Arc as solid blanket checks to a lot of offensive threats. At the moment, Steel Arc is arguably the best defensive Arc but it cannot switch into Pdon and running a plate leaves you vulnerable to Sunsteel Strike, especially vs Tinted Lens Kartana. Once again Diancie have 160/160 offense unlike Gardevoir so it cannot cover Armor Cannon AND Headlong Rush at the same time. I actually think explains why Ghost Arc is so good right now. It is a combination of defensive Arceus becoming inadequate as well as itself being another mon that demands "Blaziken-level" respect.
This next part will be what our options are moving forward. To make it simpler, I will be defining terms and using an analogy.
"Blaziken": A very strong threat that demands a lot of respect. At the very least an FC or Ice Scales with decent bulk and higher speed, or an FC/Scales Arceus.
Previously, we had about two or three Blazikens running around. These Blazikens were very strong but because of Arceus, Chansey, RegenVests and some FC/Scales, we were able to handle them. After the V-create ban, we now have over a dozen Blazikens. There is a Ground Blaziken with Ground type V-create and "Earthy Land" which boosts ground moves by 50%, there is a Steel Blaziken with Steel type V-create and "Steely Land", there is a Fairy, Ghost and Psychic Blaziken that have Fairy, Ghost and Psychic V-create except they're all special moves. Oh, they also have "Fairy/Spooky/Weird Land" that also boosts damage by 50%.
Now we're thinking okay so we used to handle that fire Blaziken well, and these new Ground, Steel, Ghost Blazikens aren't stronger (in fact may be a bit weaker) so why are we struggling so much? How can we ban the Ghost Blaziken when the original Fire Blaziken never got supermajority, and now there are other Blazikens that are about the same level as it? This is basically the situation I believe we are in. The BH meta has always been held together by Arceus, but the addition of Pdon, Kartana and Diancie has fractured Arceus' control. If Diancie is the only one unbanned, Ice Scales Arceus can keep it in check. If Only Pdon is unbanned, Water Arc would probably keep it in check. Ghost Arc and Alakazam can be kept in check by Scales Arc. However, we reached a point where a singular Arceus cannot cover enough of the meta threats, leading to the suffocation in defensive options. I believe we are basically back to running FC Zamazenta/Koraidon/Palkia + RegenVest Registeel as the only solid "catch-all" solution to these threats. Once again: There are some other options here and there but for the most part outside of these handful, the defensive options has shrunk compared to before V-create ban.
Part Two: What to do moving forward
Alright, now that I've shared my thoughts on the state of BH, let's get into what options we have going forward. To be honest this post is way above my pay grade. Updoots bottom right, like and subscribe to my youtube channel and follow my socials.
Option 1: Do nothing
As mentioned earlier, the "ideal BH meta" is completely subjective. The community is divided enough that I believe we cannot reach a mutual conclusion on what to do next. In that case, we simply just leave the meta as is. The fact that not a single element can be considered broken beyond reasonable doubt can be taken as a sign that the current meta is in fact balanced. Sure it might suck building or playing the tier for some people, but if there is no consensus on what's broken, by democratic standards nothing should be done.
Option 2: Accept the new standard and release more Blazikens
A radical solution to say the least, but certainly worth considering. Kart, Pdon, Diancie and Ghost Arc are clearly a league above the other mons. We may call them outliers. But what happens when outliers become the standard? When everyone is super, nobody is super. This solution has actually already been proposed by Akira before, who suggested unbanning Mega Gengar as a way to deal with Ghost Arc, Pdon and Kart. This is basically a callback to the pre-gen 8 "broken checks broken" philosophy. The idea is that if a few mons can 2HKO the entire tier without setup, those mons should be banned because they are too good. However, if twenty mons can 2HKO the entire tier without setup, then that power becomes the benchmark and hence no longer banworthy. We can also unban moves like Substitute, Tail Glow, Shell Smash or Belly Drum or Abilities such as Poison Heal, Contrary, Innards Out or Protean rather than mons to achieve this effect.
Option 3: Remove some or all of the outlier elements (Ghost Arc, Kartana, Pdon, Diancie, Unburden)
This is the common and generally accepted consensus of what the community believes needs to be done. Albeit a bit boring, it seems the most likely. The question then is HOW should this be done. As I mentioned earlier, the presence of Arceus and Chansey means that any single Pokemon cannot be considered broken. I believe that Pdon, Kartana or Diancie individually can be balanced because the community will find a defensive core with Arceus that keeps it in check.
My personal suggestion is to look at it from a Physical and Special perspective. We can try banning Pdon and Kartana first. These two mons put massive strain on FCs thanks to Mold Breaker and just their raw strength. Without them, there are still very strong physical breakers available (Garchomp & Greninja) but it will give us more breathing room to slot in special walls (notably Ice Scales) or a second RegenVest to deal with Ghost Arc, Diancie and Unburden.
The Special option is the opposite. We ban Diancie, Ghost Arc and Unburden because those put massive strain on Ice Scales and RegenVests. Again, there are still plenty of powerful special breakers like Alakazam, Gardevoir, Eternatus, etc but it relieves the pressure so we can run maybe double FC or put more physical walls on our teams.
Part Three: TLDR and your thoughts
This final section will be a summary of my thoughts and a challenge for you to post what you think. I feel like we are in a critical point in tiering. Although it might be almost impossible to reach mutual agreement, I encourage everyone to at least express their thoughts and contribute to the discussion.
I think that the ceiling of power remain relatively unchanged or at the very least was not significantly reduced. The mons that were unbanned (Kart/Pdon/Dia) as well as Ghost Arc and Unburden all demand a level of respect almost equal to Blaziken with V-create. Therefore, the ban simply increased the number of threats that players have to prepare for.
I believe that any individual mon CAN be kept in check by Arceus and Chansey. Chansey limits the power of mons because it forces you to have an improof. Generally the more unwallable your set, the worse your improof and your team gets which is a huge tradeoff. Arceus has outstanding bulk and speed which means that a certain Type will probably wall any individual mon, even if that mon is MMX, Mray, MGar or whatever. However, because the current number of threats is so high, a single FC or Scales Arc does not cover enough threats to be worth it. For reference, FC Water or Fairy Arc were very good FC walls that can wall Blaziken, Greninja AND Garchomp reliably. Ice Scales Electric/Ground Arc were bulky enough to halt basically every special attacker. This is no longer the case. On the other hand, Ghost Arc was basically the only offensively inclined Arc thanks to its valuable Ghost Judgment. The new meta just suits it very well because it has more focus on a large number of powerful sets that demand specific answers, thus overloading defensive mons.
There were many things holding back previous nukes if they chose to run Mold Breaker over a different ability.
Garchomp: Both STABs have an immunity. Primordial Sea is much worse now because V-create and Torch Song are less common. It's vulnerable to Bulwark and Beak Blast.
Blaziken: Fire is resisted by the common Dragon and Water so it competes with Tinted Lens and Desolate Land. Also bricks into Primordial Sea and Ghosts anyways if you click wrong.
Greninja: Does no damage if you don't run Sniper.
The current abusers (Pdon and Kartana) are so strong that they can afford the opportunity costs. Pdon also has the luxury of running utility sets while maintaining high raw damage. Mortal Spin in particular is helped a lot by FCs being forced to run Ability Shield, which is a buff for utility. Pdon and Kart don't have the stat/typing related problems that hold previous Mold Breakers back. Kartana is just lightyears ahead of Lucario it's not even funny.
I think there are four options -
1: Do nothing. There is not enough support to garner a supermajority on any of the elements that people claim are broken. Everybody have different "ideal BH" and it's impossible to make a meta that everyone enjoys.
2: Fuck it we ball. Unban ALL the goodstuff. Make broken the new normal.
3.1: Ban Kart and Pdon, see if we got enough breathing room to deal with Diancie/Ghosty/Unburden
3.2: Ban Dia/Ghosty/Unburden instead, see if we got enough breathing room to deal with Kart/Pdon.
4: unban SLAKING (and ban all the stuff that makes it broken like Population Bomb) so we can run FC SLAKING to wall Kartana, Pdon and Ghost Arc
I don't think there is a right answer, but at the same time we should choose a path and stick with it because if we don't commit the balancing is going nowhere and it will just make people more upset.
sharing my preferred course of action after reading the post above (very good post btw)
+ - QB Triple Arrows + Normalize
This is the only thing I'd want to happen before HPL concludes. Both of these, but especially Triple Arrows, are primarily cheese strategies which do not majorly affect teambuilding otherwise. Triple Arrows in particular is egregious to me, as the sheer amount of effects it can cause are unrivaled by basically any move, with all three being impactful and dangerous. Normalize has recently gained popularity on Ghosty, but it's been a constant thorn in the side of anyone who's ran into a Norm Flutter in the past. Banning both of these moves aren't going to majorly affect most teams, as Triple Arrows can be easily replaced by the much less problematic Combat Torque, and Normalize (at least from my experience) often has negligible effects on what people actually use unless they're specifically expecting it, similar to other banned elements like Power Trip.
- Suspect Diancie-Mega
I find Mega Diancie to be the most obviously broken of the unbanned Pokemon as of now. Primal Groudon is extremely stupid, but it also offers valuable defensive options via Levitate. Kartana kills everything, but at least you can pretty safely check it via AShield FC, and if it outspeeds you it often lacks damage. Mega Diancie doesn't have this, it just kills everything. Your Steels die to Headlong Rush, and the ones that don't die to whatever fire move it chooses to run. If you think you can outspeed and kill it, you're wrong, because you die to ESpeed + Boomburst basically always. Suspecting Mega Diancie could potentially lead to a better metagame that can handle other problematic elements like Ghosty and PDon more effectively, as you no longer need the world's bulkiest Steel + Imp to not immediately crumble to a pink rock.
- Suspect Groudon-Primal
Primal Groudon is very controversial, and I've had my opinion on it flip-flop a few times at this point. However, as of now, I believe it's the 2nd most broken thing in the metagame, behind Mega Diancie. This is mainly due to the pressure brought on by both its Mold Breaker and Levitate sets, in two completely different ways. Mold Breaker, in conjunction with Kartana, force an AShield FC onto most teams to reasonably handle them, as otherwise you kinda just have to hope Imp beats it or you lose instantly. Levitate, meanwhile, exerts an unreal amount of control over the hazard game as the best Mortal Spinner in the entire tier, able to blow up every Steel that switches into it while being entirely selfproofed. Either one of these sets in a vacuum would probably be just reasonable enough to handle (like I said in the Discord, they're like bad colds, you live with them). However, when these two sets are on the same Pokemon, on top of several other dangerous sets like SFLO, TorchBurden, or DesoLand, I find PDon to be too much. Still, it should be suspected after Mega Diancie, as the lack of such a dangerous Fairy could allow for people to fit things like Arceus-Water more frequently.
- Wait
After two massive meta-warping bans, I feel it right to wait and see how the meta evolves. I can't really say what could be broken here, as I believe both Kartana and Ghosty are meta elements that are only as good as they are because of the circumstances forced by Groudon and Diancie. Maybe Kartana would prove to be manageable now that you're able to freely run FC Arcs that outspeed and sap it. Maybe Ghosty gets significantly easier to handle as your Darks aren't just a free switch-in for Diancie to do Diancie stuff. Maybe even a new Pokemon becomes broken, I dunno. This whole post is just rambling.
Oh yeah, it's propaganda time. Today I am announcing the #YesKings movement, a motion to free Slaking and Regigigas. I think this is a very lucrative solution to the current meta we have right now for a variety of reasons. Full disclosure that I don't know if this will work out as planned but I challenge you to tell me why it won't, and what you think we should do instead.
"Slaking was originally banned when Poison Heal was legal, as it was by far the best user of the ability, and so would inevitably skew the suspect if it remained legal. It was unbanned after Poison Heal was banned under the assumption that it would be fine, and for a time, it was. Population Bomb sets were incredibly potent wallbreakers but had to deal with either Speed or item dependency issues, meaning they were fairly balanced; Fur Coat sets also cropped up from time to time due to their incredible bulk, lack of notable weaknesses, and ability to spread paralysis. Over time, Koraidon's increased presence and Population Bomb sets' lacking instant threat level led to the rise of the Guts set, which is the reason why we're banning Slaking. Guts is nearly impossible to reliably wall, with the only real option being Fur Coat Rock-types like Garganacl, and it boasts immense bulk and utility for such an offensive powerhouse. Many team structures require multiple Fur Coat users just to handle it at an acceptable level, which also feeds in to one of Slaking's strengths, being that Slaking walls match poorly into the rest of the meta, with physical attackers like Koraidon, Hoopa-U, and Groudon primed to take advantage of structures like Fur Coat Ghost + Fur Coat Zamazenta-C. Tera Normal strips walling back even further, with non-Normal resists being simply inadequate and Well-Baked Body Zamazenta-C, a supposedly good check, being 2HKOed by unboosted Facade. Many recent posts in this thread go into great detail on the difficulty of checking Slaking and its unhealthy presence in the tier. It is for this immense offensive presence that Slaking is being banned." - Tea Guzzler, 22/05/2023
First we need to look at the context of the meta:
This occured during Pre-Full Dex so a lot of moves and mons were notably missing.
V-create was legal.
was an unrestricted mon (it can run any legal Item and Ability), but there is a Forme clause so you can't run it AND hero in the same team.
Mons are generally weaker, for example offensive Koraidon and Groudon were considered some of the best available.
Terastallization was legal.
Alright now let's summarise the reasons why Slaking was banned:
Population Bomb was great but it had item/speed-related issues holding it back.
Fur Coat was sometimes good.
Neither of these sets were considered broken, partly due to Koraidon's rise.
The primary reason for ban is the Guts set because it is "impossible to reliably wall".
The best Guts check was Fur Coat Rock-types (partly because of V-create breaking Steels)
Slaking checks suck outside of walling Slaking ( hits supereffectively).
Forces teams to run multiple Fur Coats.
Tera Normal means it can blow up Rock and Steels through raw power.
"Hello everyone! The new meta is only a few days away, so we've been through the returning Pokemon and have a preliminary banlist! This is only what we have so far, so it's subject to change, but this wouldn't be major and we'll update you if anything does change.
Calyrex-Shadow - No surprises here. Still egregiously broken with no good long-term answers. Mega Rayquaza - 180/180/115 with a good amount of different viable abilities that have completely different counters, from Aerilate to Tough Claws to Speed Boost. Primal Groudon - Even if we banned V-create, this would likely still end up overbearing. The typing and base stats are just too good. Slaking - We're pretty confident that the Guts set is still going to be broken the same as before. There isn't much new that can really wall it, and it still outruns everything at +1. Regigigas - See the above. The bulk differences aren't enough to cause any notable shifts in what it does. Shedinja - No moves with built-in Mold Breaker (Sunsteel Strike, Moongeist Beam, Photon Geyser) remove any chance this had of being freed."
- Tea Guzzler, 28/07/2023
Context for this time period:
Due to unexpected data in the SV cartridge, it was possible to access almost every Pokemon (including Megas) in an online battle.
As an unfortunate consequence, it was discovered that almost all in-battle Forme changes such as were no longer legal.
This was before the Indigo Disk DLC so some notable moves like Sunsteel Strike, Moongeist Beam and Photon Geyser were still NOT legal. V-create was still legal.
The listed mons () were all QUICKBANNED without any tests.
There's nothing to summarise this time. The BH council were confident that Guts Slaking would still be too strong because none of the new mons can wall it. They did not mention this but the removal of did not help even though it was as weak to V-create as ever. They then argued that is almost exactly the same as besides a minor shift in bulk, hence it was banned along with it.
II. How can Slaking remain banned even without V-create?
Due to the scope of the banned element, we then held votes on several elements on the banlist that directly connects to V-create:
Element
Chessking
QT
TTTech
Verdict
Groudon-Primal
Unban
Unban
Unban
Unban
Diancie-Mega
Unban
Do not unban
Unban
Unban
Kartana
Unban
Unban
Do not unban
Unban
Rayquaza-Mega
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Regigigas
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Slaking
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Mewtwo-Mega-X
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Deoxys-Attack
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
"V-create has been a controversial element in SV BH for a while now. Its unrivaled base power has enabled offensive Pokemon in ways that no other move has. Outside of being the main force behind the controversial Blaziken-Mega (who dodged a ban by 1 suspect vote), V-create has since found its impact growing. Garchomp-Mega has always been the 2nd main abuser of the move, using it as an effective 3rd STAB that invalidates otherwise soft checks like Celesteela and Levitate Arceus-Steel while being just as strong as Ground STAB into neutrals. The pressure from the two physical nukes, with notably Garchomp abusing any Fur Coat Dragon-types like Eternatus that aim to check Blaziken, has limited physical defensive cores to either stack up on 2 Fur Coats, or use one of Fur Coat Arceus-Water or Ho-Oh, and the latter is not even safe as it immediately folds against Garchomp teching Jolly nature. Since the Blaziken suspect, we have also seen V-create being a key part of some rising offense structures, most notably Drought teams. While not necessarily problematic, their presence further adds to the Fur Coat fire-resistant meta. Overall, we deemed both the move to be too powerful (to the point where almost any physical attacker uses it) and its effect on the meta to be over-restrictive and unhealthy.
Groudon-Primal has never been freed in any BH tier since its ban in Gen 7, with no small part due to V-create. Without V-create though, we must give it a chance in the meta, as on paper its offensive power is only marginally stronger than Garchomp-Mega while not having the Dragon-STAB to delete Dragon-types. Its excellent defensive profile can also be a valuable asset to the tier.
Diancie-Mega is being given a second chance due to V-create being a notable part of its kit prior to its ban. V-create was the strongest coverage move against Steel-types since its Rock-STAB covered Fire-types. Its raw power also allowed it to do some truly disgusting benchmarks like 2HKOing Scales Arceus with Life Orb V-create into Extreme Speed. Without V-create, the power drop of the coverage prevents Diancie from outright OHKOing and 2HKOing soft checks, and also prevents the matchup problems of Fire/Ground immune into respective coverage.
Kartana similarly is given a second chance. Though V-create type-wise isn't its best coverage compared to the likes of Headlong Rush, its raw power was critical in annihilating soft switch-ins such as Registeel without needing a boosting ability, Celesteela, and crucially Imposter.
Both of these also gain a new check in the freed Groudon-Primal.
Understandably, these elements are borderline and so they will be monitored very closely, especially with BH Open coming up, and can be subjected to a reban. Players are strongly encouraged to experiment with them and post thoughts. By pushing these actions early, we also open up a suspect slot prior to OMPL, so any constructive discussion are welcome to help with tiering."
- Chessking, 02/03/2026
Some context regarding this time period:
has been the strongest physical nuke since forever thanks to its insane damage from Desolate Land + V-create alongside Choice Band or LO. Other sets include Tough Claws and Tinted Lens w/o Shift Gear put a lot of pressure on teams to run an FC fire resist or a Primordial Sea mon
A suspect test FAILED to reach a supermajority despite this, and one reasoning raised was that V-create was the broken element, rather than itself.
This occurred at the end of SV where all DLC were released so Sunsteel Strike, Photon Geyser and Moongeist Beam were all legal.
Since there was no reasoning provided for a Do Not Unban vote, we'll just have to assume that the reason Slaking & Regigigas remain banned is the same as before: the Guts Slaking set is still too powerful. However, we can actually go further than this. Unlike , three mons were freed after the V-create ban: . Here is a summary of the reasons given:
Some soft checks such as and (Levitate) which were invalidated by V-create can now wall the freed mons.
Drought teams were abusing V-create too hard.
Almost any physical attacker can use it.
offensive power is only marginally more powerful than (the next best offensive Ground-type).
best coverage was V-create.
really liked V-create especially against Imposter.
will wall and .
Let's turn our attention to the fact that Slaking/Regi received a UNANIMOUS Do Not Unban. What does that mean? That means that the reasoning provided to freeing the three mons are NOT also applicable to Slaking/Regi. In other words, the council believes that Guts Slaking and Regigigas would still be too powerful EVEN WITHOUT V-create.
Now hang on a second. Did you notice the elephant in the room? I hope you did.
The reasoning provided when unbanning Kartana, Diancie and Pdon SHOULD HAVE ALSO been applicable to Slaking and Regigigas. Celesteela and Levitate Steel Arc would have an easier time walling Slaking/Regigigas. Slaking/Regi would absolutely abuse Drought + V-create. They are physical attackers. V-create is one of their best coverage moves against Steel types. I challenge you now to argue that the reasonings provided to free Kart/Dia/Pdon after the V-create Ban can NOT be applied to Slaking and Registeel.
Alright, but it may be possible to argue that Guts Slaking was not nerfed ENOUGH by a V-create Ban, and would have still been too strong anyways. This next part will debunk the mystery. First, let's address the OTHER elephant in the room.
Primal Groudon - Even if we banned V-create, this would likely still end up overbearing. The typing and base stats are just too good.
Remember this statement? You should. It was the reason why was quickbanned when full dex arrived. Clearly what we're seeing here is a disconnect in tiering philosophy. Tea Guzzler believed that even without V-create, Pdon's typing and base stats would still be too strong. Reminder that a quickban is reserved for elements that are so broken that a suspect test would be a formality. However, Chessking clearly believes that Pdon would not deserve a ban if it lost V-create. We have to give some benefit of the doubt here. It is true that the tier at the start of Full Dex is drastically different from the tier now. However, it does not change the fact that the council used to believe that Pdon would be too strong, but now they don't. So we have to ask this question: would Slaking and Regigigas actually be too strong now?
III. Argument for Slaking Unban and Population Bomb Ban
That last one was a trick question, because I think they are in fact too strong right now... ONLY if you are running Population Bomb with a 50% multiplier Item or Ability.
Slaking @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Population Bomb
- Shift Gear
- Bone Rush
- Strength Sap
Slaking @ Wide Lens
Ability: Sharpness
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Population Bomb
- Kowtow Cleave
- Shift Gear
- Strength Sap
Slaking @ Choice Band
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Population Bomb
- Zap Cannon
- Magma Storm
- Dynamic Punch
Unlike those goofy Guts sets, these Slaking/Gigas are ACTUALLY broken. It blows up everything unboosted, and if you can sneak a Shift Gear in (very easy because non-resists are OHKOd immediately) you'll see some demonic numbers come up. Especially since Rocky Helmet is at an all time low thanks to the prevalence of Mold Breaker and Sunsteel Strike forcing Ability Shield on every FC.
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 190-230 (52.1 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 250-300 (62.8 - 75.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 430-520 (83.6 - 101.1%) -- approx. 0.4% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 360-430 (89.1 - 106.4%) -- approx. 5.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 240-280 (78.9 - 92.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 340-420 (87.6 - 108.2%) -- approx. 10.9% chance to OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 330-400 (74.3 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 390-460 (101.5 - 119.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Yup. All that Guts Slaking Glaze? All LIES. Just smokescreens and mirrors to the real broken Slaking set: Population Bomb. Next time you see someone mention Guts Slaking, you need to let out a mocking guffaw at the realisation that you are, in fact, superior to this person in matters regarding Slaking.
Now that we've established what a REAL Slaking set looks like, let's compare Guts Slaking to the meta threats available now. A unanimous Do Not Unban indicates Guts Slaking is in fact better than no? Let's revisit and debunk the reasoning provided from the very first ban:
1. Tera Normal lets it do even more damage and 2HKO WBB
Terastallization is now banned so this reasoning no longer matters.
2. The best FCs were Rock or Ghost Types since V-create blasts through Steels
V-create is now banned so this reasoning matters less. It is still relevant because the next best coverage to hit steels (Headlong Rush and Pyro Ball) are both still strong but it's still notably 60 less BP than V-create. Also at the time FC and , two very popular FCs right now, were non existent. Using means giving up on which was a massive opportunity cost, especially since the extra speed didn't matter when was not legal. FC was vulnerable to offensive . Compared to before, the popular FC Fighting types already have good matchup into Slaking with Sap and Triple Arrows. We also cannot ignore the prevalence of Ghost Arc which completely stops Facade. Notably, Wicked Blow was only a bit stronger than neutral V-create (225 vs 180) and does not hit steels nearly as hard. This means that mons like Regen Registeel and Celesteela are much safer soft checks.
3.1 Slaking checks suck outside of walling Slaking.
Firstly, this has been partly answered right above. FC Fighting types, Ghost Arc and Regen Steels all clearly do NOT suck outside of walling Slaking. Remember that this statement was made PRE-FULL DEX so despite losing we have gained a lot of Steels and even Ghost and Rock types ( anyone?) Secondly is to do with the Guts Slaking set. Specifically, the coverage option. Because it's Guts and not MG, you HAVE to run a recovery move outside of HO. Without it, your opponent can simply click Salt Cure, Stone Axe, Dragon Tail, etc and your Slaking will be dead in no time.
3.2 Bad Imposter Chansey matchup.
We have established that Guts Slaking/Gigas are basically locked into Sap and Facade. This leaves it with two slots, one of which should probably be a coverage to hit Ghosts or Steels. That leaves one slot left. Without a setup move, Slaking likely is not broken because it will never win 1v1 against a faster mon with Sap. It is also not that fast so a fast offensive mon can kill it. Basically, it's probably around Pdon's level. Very strong mon but has exploitable speed, sap & weakness to chip damage. It also matches poorly into Triple Arrows without DD/VD/SG to make it go faster.
The other big "Slaking check" is actually Imposter. Running Sap significantly worsens the Imposter matchup, because not only is Eviolite Imposter a safe switch in to Guts sets, Sap allows Imposter to permanently wall all non-SD set. You can't even run Spirit Shackle to trap Imposter and as coverage to hit Ghosts at the same time. This problem can be circumvented through Knock Off and Paralysis but if we include those things, the real question is what offensive mon CAN'T beat an itemless & paralysed Imposter? The other massive caveat that people often overlook is the difference between Poison Heal and Guts. You see, Poison Heal is poison-specific whereas Guts benefit from ALL status including Burn and Paralysis. This is important because it means that if you status Imposter, then your own Guts Slaking/Gigas becomes even less self-proof. Virtually every offensive AND defensive mon appreciates Imposter getting statused but that is not always true for Guts sets. For example, if you poisoned an Imposter via Mortal Spin, then your opponent can slow u-turn the Imposter into your Slaking and force you out. So not only do you have to deal with Imposters walling you with Sap, you also have to think twice about clicking Mortal Spin, Nuzzle, Glare or Bulwark because it will allow Imposters to triple their damage.
+1 252+ Atk Guts Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 520-613 (103.1 - 121.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Guts Facade (140 BP) vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def 348-409 (49.4 - 58%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage
In conclusion, Guts Slaking/Regigigas were primarily banned for the power of their Guts set. However, the meta has changed significantly since then, and I don't believe the Guts set is enough to justify its ban anymore. New defensive options such as FC Fighting types with Triple Arrows, Ghost Arc & Imposter are already very popular. It lost arguably its best coverage move in V-create. We have had much stronger options introduced since the full dex including Garchomp, Blaziken, Greninja and more recently Kartana and Pdon. Don't get me wrong, it may still be one of the best sets available but relatively speaking, I don't think it is on a league of its own.
I don't feel too strongly about a Population Bomb ban either. Although I think the move itself is broken with Technician/Sharpness + Wide Lens right now, I would not push for its ban. It may be reasonable to test it out first to see if it is broken (even though I am confident it is).
IV. Defensive Slaking & Regigigas as a healthy addition to the meta
Alright I know we've just spent a long time talking about the power of Guts /Population Bomb Slaking/Regigias but this section is what really convinced me to make this post.
I believe that Slaking and Regigigas can serve very important defensive roles that will improve the metagame by providing new options to walling the top meta threats.
It's easy to overlook but these mons are not only strong, but they also have a very good defensive profile that are not available anywhere else outside of Normal Arc.
100 base speed - As we all come to realise, Speed is extremely important on walls, because being slow means taking two hits instead of one. If you've tried walling Kartana or Pdon with a slower mon you'll understand. As evidence, mons like FC Mega Audino or Ho-oh are no longer good enough FC walls because they are too slow. Slak/Gigas has 100 speed which is enough to be faster with a +speed nature. At the same time, Koraidon, Zama, Palkia and Arceus all comfortably still outspeed +speed Kartana and Diancie. If Slaking/Gigas makes +speed more attractive, this will actually lessen the burden on faster and slower walls because they obviously do less damage.
Very good bulk - 150/100/65 and 110/110/110. Slaking has one of the best physical bulk available, while Regigigas is a slightly worse Arceus which is not bad at all. I think these mons can make use of a plethora of defensive abilities such as Fur Coat, Ice Scales, Regenerator and even Magic Guard, Magic Bounce or Good as Gold.
Normal typing - There are two reasons why this is so good. The first is that it is a "neutral typing" similar to Zamazenta. Although physical Fighting moves are much better than physical Fairy, Flying and Psychic moves, they are competing with Fire and Ground which are both also very good coverage. On the other hand, Special fighting moves are not very good. The second reason is because of . I've been pondering how we've reached a point where and can be considered broken, and I think one of the reason is that got banned. Although there are other Normal types , there is one big reason that sets Slaking/Gigas apart from the rest.
Has a real offensive presence thanks to 160 Attack. Unlike the other Normal types, Slaking and Regigigas can actually run offensive moves and kill stuff. Although we lost Return and Frustration, there are still some good options you can run. Facade is obviously the best for Guts but you can run it or Double-Edge with MG as well. Body Slam is the Scald/Lava Plume/CTorque equivalent. There are also cute options like Extreme Speed, Explosion and even Rapid Spin. Because of their Attack, these mons can threaten the mons that it wall, something very difficult for the other passive Normals.
Slaking @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Double-Edge
- Mortal Spin
- Flare Blitz
- Strength Sap
Slaking @ Ability Shield
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Strength Sap
- Salt Cure
- Knock Off
- Topsy-Turvy
Regigigas @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Ice Scales
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Body Slam
- Topsy-Turvy
- Recover
- Knock Off
Regigigas @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- U-turn
- Body Slam
- Stone Axe
- Knock Off
Regarding - A lot of people think that are not very good Ghost Arc checks anymore. I agree and I think it is true that one reason so is because they don't do much else other than walling Ghost Arc. However there is another reason: Ghost Arcs are not running Secret Sword as much as they used to. You see, Secret Sword is an awful move into . Setup Ghost Arc running Judge/Sword simply cannot break through either. However, nowadays we see Ghost Arc running Knock Off, Spikes and Mortal Spin. Unlike Secret Sword, these moves DO beat non-MG Maud/Yveltal, because they both eventually just die to chip. IF we were to introduce into the tier, these mons can effectively run either Guts or MG which do NOT lose to Knock/Mortal and Spikes to a lesser extent. We introduce a dilemma: if Ghost Arc were to run Secret Sword again, then non-MG walls it, but if they don't then they will be lose to MG/Guts . Regarding Normalise Entrainment, it is probably the best set to beat in general but there are some counterplay like Ability Shield (which you already want on FC) or Revelation Dance from Yveltal.
Against , Slaking/Gigas offer an additional Fc/Scales/RegenVest option largely thanks to their Speed on top of bulk.
V. Freeing Mega Gengar and banning Normalise as a follow-up
Originally I was going to write about this but I realise this post is getting way too long. Therefore I decided I'll keep this short and probably revisit this topic later if we manage to get there.
What is the purpose of freeing Mega Gengar?
The goal is to introduce a threat that matches up well with Kartana, Pdon, Diancie and Ghost Arc. At the same time, Gengar would not be overbearing thanks to the available tools in the meta. In doing so, I am hoping we can decentralise the meta around Pdon/Kart/Diancie/Arc by offering a new offensive solution. Gengar is an offensive solution which threatens to kill these mons (and not die to Diancie's Espeed) rather than a passive one. Passive solutions like FC and RegenVest are vulnerable to coverage move and abilities which make them feel fishy. On the other hand, offensive Gengar does not care about these things and will simply just OHKO them with minimal setup/investment. The idea is that Gengar is bad news for all the offensive threats but will not raise the ceiling of what teams need to prepare for because already-existing checks already beat it.
Is Mega Gengar actually balanced?
Truthfully I don't know. In theory after are freed those two (with Ice Scales or RegenVest) should help handle Gengar. are classic checks that will probably still work. We also have RegenVest . Finally, 130 Speed is not what it used to be. Unlike Flutter, Gengar can't actually switch into a Zamazenta or Koraidon with Knock Off which is a big deal. I am convinced we have enough tools to deal with Gengar but obviously I could be wrong. Notably it lost Quiver Dance, Tail Glow and Shell Smash which are the best setup moves.
What about Normalise?
Now that you've made it this far, I can reveal the fact that everything you've read is a distraction and my real goal is to ban Normalise. All seriousness aside, we have to compare Gengar with Flutter Mane, because both of them can run the same set. I am inclined to believe Gengar would NOT be much better, if at all. Admittedly it's stronger so Nasty Plot is much more threatening but the lower speed is a big deal. You can't even tie with Koraidon who will completely shut you down with Knock Off. Finally it's also locked into Ghost Judgment unlike Flutter who can run Fairy. Poison can be immuned and means you lose to Ghost Arc and maybe even Imposter depending on the set.
Oh yeah, it's propaganda time. Today I am announcing the #YesKings movement, a motion to free Slaking and Regigigas. I think this is a very lucrative solution to the current meta we have right now for a variety of reasons. Full disclosure that I don't know if this will work out as planned but I challenge you to tell me why it won't, and what you think we should do instead.
"Slaking was originally banned when Poison Heal was legal, as it was by far the best user of the ability, and so would inevitably skew the suspect if it remained legal. It was unbanned after Poison Heal was banned under the assumption that it would be fine, and for a time, it was. Population Bomb sets were incredibly potent wallbreakers but had to deal with either Speed or item dependency issues, meaning they were fairly balanced; Fur Coat sets also cropped up from time to time due to their incredible bulk, lack of notable weaknesses, and ability to spread paralysis. Over time, Koraidon's increased presence and Population Bomb sets' lacking instant threat level led to the rise of the Guts set, which is the reason why we're banning Slaking. Guts is nearly impossible to reliably wall, with the only real option being Fur Coat Rock-types like Garganacl, and it boasts immense bulk and utility for such an offensive powerhouse. Many team structures require multiple Fur Coat users just to handle it at an acceptable level, which also feeds in to one of Slaking's strengths, being that Slaking walls match poorly into the rest of the meta, with physical attackers like Koraidon, Hoopa-U, and Groudon primed to take advantage of structures like Fur Coat Ghost + Fur Coat Zamazenta-C. Tera Normal strips walling back even further, with non-Normal resists being simply inadequate and Well-Baked Body Zamazenta-C, a supposedly good check, being 2HKOed by unboosted Facade. Many recent posts in this thread go into great detail on the difficulty of checking Slaking and its unhealthy presence in the tier. It is for this immense offensive presence that Slaking is being banned." - Tea Guzzler, 22/05/2023
First we need to look at the context of the meta:
This occured during Pre-Full Dex so a lot of moves and mons were notably missing.
V-create was legal.
was an unrestricted mon (it can run any legal Item and Ability), but there is a Forme clause so you can't run it AND hero in the same team.
Mons are generally weaker, for example offensive Koraidon and Groudon were considered some of the best available.
Terastallization was legal.
Alright now let's summarise the reasons why Slaking was banned:
Population Bomb was great but it had item/speed-related issues holding it back.
Fur Coat was sometimes good.
Neither of these sets were considered broken, partly due to Koraidon's rise.
The primary reason for ban is the Guts set because it is "impossible to reliably wall".
The best Guts check was Fur Coat Rock-types (partly because of V-create breaking Steels)
Slaking checks suck outside of walling Slaking ( hits supereffectively).
Forces teams to run multiple Fur Coats.
Tera Normal means it can blow up Rock and Steels through raw power.
"Hello everyone! The new meta is only a few days away, so we've been through the returning Pokemon and have a preliminary banlist! This is only what we have so far, so it's subject to change, but this wouldn't be major and we'll update you if anything does change.
Calyrex-Shadow - No surprises here. Still egregiously broken with no good long-term answers. Mega Rayquaza - 180/180/115 with a good amount of different viable abilities that have completely different counters, from Aerilate to Tough Claws to Speed Boost. Primal Groudon - Even if we banned V-create, this would likely still end up overbearing. The typing and base stats are just too good. Slaking - We're pretty confident that the Guts set is still going to be broken the same as before. There isn't much new that can really wall it, and it still outruns everything at +1. Regigigas - See the above. The bulk differences aren't enough to cause any notable shifts in what it does. Shedinja - No moves with built-in Mold Breaker (Sunsteel Strike, Moongeist Beam, Photon Geyser) remove any chance this had of being freed."
- Tea Guzzler, 28/07/2023
Context for this time period:
Due to unexpected data in the SV cartridge, it was possible to access almost every Pokemon (including Megas) in an online battle.
As an unfortunate consequence, it was discovered that almost all in-battle Forme changes such as were no longer legal.
This was before the Indigo Disk DLC so some notable moves like Sunsteel Strike, Moongeist Beam and Photon Geyser were still NOT legal. V-create was still legal.
The listed mons () were all QUICKBANNED without any tests.
There's nothing to summarise this time. The BH council were confident that Guts Slaking would still be too strong because none of the new mons can wall it. They did not mention this but the removal of did not help even though it was as weak to V-create as ever. They then argued that is almost exactly the same as besides a minor shift in bulk, hence it was banned along with it.
II. How can Slaking remain banned even without V-create?
Due to the scope of the banned element, we then held votes on several elements on the banlist that directly connects to V-create:
Element
Chessking
QT
TTTech
Verdict
Groudon-Primal
Unban
Unban
Unban
Unban
Diancie-Mega
Unban
Do not unban
Unban
Unban
Kartana
Unban
Unban
Do not unban
Unban
Rayquaza-Mega
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Regigigas
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Slaking
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Mewtwo-Mega-X
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Deoxys-Attack
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
Do not unban
"V-create has been a controversial element in SV BH for a while now. Its unrivaled base power has enabled offensive Pokemon in ways that no other move has. Outside of being the main force behind the controversial Blaziken-Mega (who dodged a ban by 1 suspect vote), V-create has since found its impact growing. Garchomp-Mega has always been the 2nd main abuser of the move, using it as an effective 3rd STAB that invalidates otherwise soft checks like Celesteela and Levitate Arceus-Steel while being just as strong as Ground STAB into neutrals. The pressure from the two physical nukes, with notably Garchomp abusing any Fur Coat Dragon-types like Eternatus that aim to check Blaziken, has limited physical defensive cores to either stack up on 2 Fur Coats, or use one of Fur Coat Arceus-Water or Ho-Oh, and the latter is not even safe as it immediately folds against Garchomp teching Jolly nature. Since the Blaziken suspect, we have also seen V-create being a key part of some rising offense structures, most notably Drought teams. While not necessarily problematic, their presence further adds to the Fur Coat fire-resistant meta. Overall, we deemed both the move to be too powerful (to the point where almost any physical attacker uses it) and its effect on the meta to be over-restrictive and unhealthy.
Groudon-Primal has never been freed in any BH tier since its ban in Gen 7, with no small part due to V-create. Without V-create though, we must give it a chance in the meta, as on paper its offensive power is only marginally stronger than Garchomp-Mega while not having the Dragon-STAB to delete Dragon-types. Its excellent defensive profile can also be a valuable asset to the tier.
Diancie-Mega is being given a second chance due to V-create being a notable part of its kit prior to its ban. V-create was the strongest coverage move against Steel-types since its Rock-STAB covered Fire-types. Its raw power also allowed it to do some truly disgusting benchmarks like 2HKOing Scales Arceus with Life Orb V-create into Extreme Speed. Without V-create, the power drop of the coverage prevents Diancie from outright OHKOing and 2HKOing soft checks, and also prevents the matchup problems of Fire/Ground immune into respective coverage.
Kartana similarly is given a second chance. Though V-create type-wise isn't its best coverage compared to the likes of Headlong Rush, its raw power was critical in annihilating soft switch-ins such as Registeel without needing a boosting ability, Celesteela, and crucially Imposter.
Both of these also gain a new check in the freed Groudon-Primal.
Understandably, these elements are borderline and so they will be monitored very closely, especially with BH Open coming up, and can be subjected to a reban. Players are strongly encouraged to experiment with them and post thoughts. By pushing these actions early, we also open up a suspect slot prior to OMPL, so any constructive discussion are welcome to help with tiering."
- Chessking, 02/03/2026
Some context regarding this time period:
has been the strongest physical nuke since forever thanks to its insane damage from Desolate Land + V-create alongside Choice Band or LO. Other sets include Tough Claws and Tinted Lens w/o Shift Gear put a lot of pressure on teams to run an FC fire resist or a Primordial Sea mon
A suspect test FAILED to reach a supermajority despite this, and one reasoning raised was that V-create was the broken element, rather than itself.
This occurred at the end of SV where all DLC were released so Sunsteel Strike, Photon Geyser and Moongeist Beam were all legal.
Since there was no reasoning provided for a Do Not Unban vote, we'll just have to assume that the reason Slaking & Regigigas remain banned is the same as before: the Guts Slaking set is still too powerful. However, we can actually go further than this. Unlike , three mons were freed after the V-create ban: . Here is a summary of the reasons given:
Some soft checks such as and (Levitate) which were invalidated by V-create can now wall the freed mons.
Drought teams were abusing V-create too hard.
Almost any physical attacker can use it.
offensive power is only marginally more powerful than (the next best offensive Ground-type).
's best coverage was V-create.
really liked V-create especially against Imposter.
will wall and .
Let's turn our attention to the fact that Slaking/Regi received a UNANIMOUS Do Not Unban. What does that mean? That means that the reasoning provided to freeing the three mons are NOT also applicable to Slaking/Regi. In other words, the council believes that Guts Slaking and Regigigas would still be too powerful EVEN WITHOUT V-create.
Now hang on a second. Did you notice the elephant in the room? I hope you did.
The reasoning provided when unbanning Kartana, Diancie and Pdon SHOULD HAVE ALSO been applicable to Slaking and Regigigas. Celesteela and Levitate Steel Arc would have an easier time walling Slaking/Regigigas. Slaking/Regi would absolutely abuse Drought + V-create. They are physical attackers. V-create is one of their best coverage moves against Steel types. I challenge you now to argue that the reasonings provided to free Kart/Dia/Pdon after the V-create Ban can NOT be applied to Slaking and Registeel.
Alright, but it may be possible to argue that Guts Slaking was not nerfed ENOUGH by a V-create Ban, and would have still been too strong anyways. This next part will debunk the mystery. First, let's address the OTHER elephant in the room.
Primal Groudon - Even if we banned V-create, this would likely still end up overbearing. The typing and base stats are just too good.
Remember this statement? You should. It was the reason why was quickbanned when full dex arrived. Clearly what we're seeing here is a disconnect in tiering philosophy. Tea Guzzler believed that even without V-create, Pdon's typing and base stats would still be too strong. Reminder that a quickban is reserved for elements that are so broken that a suspect test would be a formality. However, Chessking clearly believes that Pdon would not deserve a ban if it lost V-create. We have to give some benefit of the doubt here. It is true that the tier at the start of Full Dex is drastically different from the tier now. However, it does not change the fact that the council used to believe that Pdon would be too strong, but now they don't. So we have to ask this question: would Slaking and Regigigas actually be too strong now?
III. Argument for Slaking Unban and Population Bomb Ban
That last one was a trick question, because I think they are in fact too strong right now... ONLY if you are running Population Bomb with a 50% multiplier Item or Ability.
Slaking @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Population Bomb
- Shift Gear
- Beat Up
- Strength Sap
Slaking @ Wide Lens
Ability: Sharpness
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Population Bomb
- Kowtow Cleave
- Shift Gear
- Strength Sap
Slaking @ Choice Band
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Population Bomb
- Zap Cannon
- Magma Storm
- Dynamic Punch
Unlike those goofy Guts sets, these Slaking/Gigas are ACTUALLY broken. It blows up everything unboosted, and if you can sneak a Shift Gear in (very easy because non-resists are OHKOd immediately) you'll see some demonic numbers come up. Especially since Rocky Helmet is at an all time low thanks to the prevalence of Mold Breaker and Sunsteel Strike forcing Ability Shield on every FC.
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 190-230 (52.1 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 250-300 (62.8 - 75.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 430-520 (83.6 - 101.1%) -- approx. 0.4% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 360-430 (89.1 - 106.4%) -- approx. 5.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 240-280 (78.9 - 92.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 340-420 (87.6 - 108.2%) -- approx. 10.9% chance to OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 330-400 (74.3 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Technician Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 390-460 (101.5 - 119.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Yup. All that Guts Slaking Glaze? All LIES. Just smokescreens and mirrors to the real broken Slaking set: Population Bomb. Next time you see someone mention Guts Slaking, you need to let out a mocking guffaw at the realisation that you are, in fact, superior to this person in matters regarding Slaking.
Now that we've established what a REAL Slaking set looks like, let's compare Guts Slaking to the meta threats available now. A unanimous Do Not Unban indicates Guts Slaking is in fact better than no? Let's revisit and debunk the reasoning provided from the very first ban:
1. Tera Normal lets it do even more damage and 2HKO WBB
Terastallization is now banned so this reasoning no longer matters.
2. The best FCs were Rock or Ghost Types since V-create blasts through Steels
V-create is now banned so this reasoning matters less. It is still relevant because the next best coverage to hit steels (Headlong Rush and Pyro Ball) are both still strong but it's still notably 60 less BP than V-create. Also at the time FC and , two very popular FCs right now, were non existent. Using means giving up on which was a massive opportunity cost, especially since the extra speed didn't matter when was not legal. FC was vulnerable to offensive . Compared to before, the popular FC Fighting types already have good matchup into Slaking with Sap and Triple Arrows. We also cannot ignore the prevalence of Ghost Arc which completely stops Facade. Notably, Wicked Blow was only a bit stronger than neutral V-create (225 vs 180) and does not hit steels nearly as hard. This means that mons like Regen Registeel and Celesteela are much safer soft checks.
3.1 Slaking checks suck outside of walling Slaking.
Firstly, this has been partly answered right above. FC Fighting types, Ghost Arc and Regen Steels all clearly do NOT suck outside of walling Slaking. Remember that this statement was made PRE-FULL DEX so despite losing we have gained a lot of Steels and even Ghost and Rock types ( anyone?) Secondly is to do with the Guts Slaking set. Specifically, the coverage option. Because it's Guts and not MG, you HAVE to run a recovery move outside of HO. Without it, your opponent can simply click Salt Cure, Stone Axe, Dragon Tail, etc and your Slaking will be dead in no time.
3.2 Bad Imposter Chansey matchup.
We have established that Guts Slaking/Gigas are basically locked into Sap and Facade. This leaves it with two slots, one of which should probably be a coverage to hit Ghosts or Steels. That leaves one slot left. Without a setup move, Slaking likely is not broken because it will never win 1v1 against a faster mon with Sap. It is also not that fast so a fast offensive mon can kill it. Basically, it's probably around Pdon's level. Very strong mon but has exploitable speed, sap & weakness to chip damage. It also matches poorly into Triple Arrows without DD/VD/SG to make it go faster.
The other big "Slaking check" is actually Imposter. Running Sap significantly worsens the Imposter matchup, because not only is Eviolite Imposter a safe switch in to Guts sets, Sap allows Imposter to permanently wall all non-SD set. You can't even run Spirit Shackle to trap Imposter and as coverage to hit Ghosts at the same time. This problem can be circumvented through Knock Off and Paralysis but if we include those things, the real question is what offensive mon CAN'T beat an itemless & paralysed Imposter? The other massive caveat that people often overlook is the difference between Poison Heal and Guts. You see, unlike Poison Heal is poison-specific whereas Guts benefit from ALL status including Burn and Paralysis. This is important because it means that if you status Imposter, then your own Guts Slaking/Gigas becomes even less self-proof. Virtually every offensive AND defensive mon appreciates Imposter getting statused but that is not always true for Guts sets. For example, if you poisoned an Imposter via Mortal Spin, then your opponent can slow u-turn the Imposter into your Slaking and force you out. So not only do you have to deal with Imposters walling you with Sap, you also have to think twice about clicking Mortal Spin, Nuzzle, Glare or Bulwark because it will allow Imposters to triple their damage.
+1 252+ Atk Guts Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def 520-613 (103.1 - 121.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Guts Facade (140 BP) vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def 348-409 (49.4 - 58%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage
In conclusion, Guts Slaking/Regigigas were primarily banned for the power of their Guts set. However, the meta has changed significantly since then, and I don't believe the Guts set is enough to justify its ban anymore. New defensive options such as FC Fighting types with Triple Arrows, Ghost Arc & Imposter are already very popular. It lost arguably its best coverage move in V-create. We have had much stronger options introduced since the full dex including Garchomp, Blaziken, Greninja and more recently Kartana and Pdon. Don't get me wrong, it may still be one of the best sets available but relatively speaking, I don't think it is on a league of its own.
I don't feel too strongly about a Population Bomb ban either. Although I think the move itself is broken with Technician/Sharpness + Wide Lens right now, I would not push for its ban. It may be reasonable to test it out first to see if it is broken (even though I am confident it is).
IV. Defensive Slaking & Regigigas as a healthy addition to the meta
Alright I know we've just spent a long time talking about the power of Guts /Population Bomb Slaking/Regigias but this section is what really convinced me to make this post.
I believe that Slaking and Regigigas can serve very important defensive roles that will improve the metagame by providing new options to walling the top meta threats.
It's easy to overlook but these mons are not only strong, but they also have a very good defensive profile that are not available anywhere else outside of Normal Arc.
100 base speed - As we all come to realise, Speed is extremely important on walls, because being slow means taking two hits instead of one. If you've tried walling Kartana or Pdon with a slower mon you'll understand. As evidence, mons like FC Mega Audino or Ho-oh are no longer good enough FC walls because they are too slow. Slak/Gigas has 100 speed which is enough to be faster with a +speed nature. At the same time, Koraidon, Zama, Palkia and Arceus all comfortably still outspeed +speed Kartana and Diancie. If Slaking/Gigas makes +speed more attractive, this will actually lessen the burden on faster and slower walls because they obviously do less damage.
Very good bulk - 150/100/65 and 110/110/110. Slaking has one of the best physical bulk available, while Regigigas is a slightly worse Arceus which is not bad at all. I think these mons can make use of a plethora of defensive abilities such as Fur Coat, Ice Scales, Regenerator and even Magic Guard, Magic Bounce or Good as Gold.
Normal typing - There are two reasons why this is so good. The first is that it is a "neutral typing" similar to Zamazenta. Although physical Fighting moves are much better than physical Fairy, Flying and Psychic moves, they are competing with Fire and Ground which are both also very good coverage. On the other hand, Special fighting moves are not very good. The second reason is because of . I've been pondering how we've reached a point where and can be considered broken, and I think one of the reason is that got banned. Although there are other Normal types , there is one big reason that sets Slaking/Gigas apart from the rest.
Has a real offensive presence thanks to 160 Attack. Unlike the other Normal types, Slaking and Regigigas can actually run offensive moves and kill stuff. Although we lost Return and Frustration, there are still some good options you can run. Facade is obviously the best for Guts but you can run it or Double-Edge with MG as well. Body Slam is the Scald/Lava Plume/CTorque equivalent. There are also cute options like Extreme Speed, Explosion and even Rapid Spin. Because of their Attack, these mons can threaten the mons that it wall, something very difficult for the other passive Normals.
Slaking @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Double-Edge
- Mortal Spin
- Flare Blitz
- Strength Sap
Slaking @ Ability Shield
Ability: Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Strength Sap
- Salt Cure
- Knock Off
- Topsy-Turvy
Regigigas @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Ice Scales
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- Body Slam
- Topsy-Turvy
- Recover
- Knock Off
Regigigas @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful Nature
- U-turn
- Body Slam
- Stone Axe
- Knock Off
Regarding - A lot of people think that are not very good Ghost Arc checks anymore. I agree and I think it is true that one reason so is because they don't do much else other than walling Ghost Arc. However there is another reason: Ghost Arcs are not running Secret Sword anymore. You see, Secret Sword is an awful move into . Setup Ghost Arc running Judge/Sword simply cannot break through either. However, nowadays we see Ghost Arc running Knock Off, Spikes and Mortal Spin. Unlike Secret Sword, these moves DO beat non-MG Maud/Yveltal, because they both eventually just die to chip. IF we were to introduce into the tier, these mons can effectively run either Guts or MG which do NOT lose to Knock/Mortal and Spikes to a lesser extent. We introduce a dilemma: if Ghost Arc were to run Secret Sword again, then non-MG walls it, but if they don't then they will be lose to MG/Guts . Regarding Normalise Entrainment, it is probably the best set to beat in general but there are some counterplay like Ability Shield (which you already want on FC) or Revelation Dance from Yveltal.
Against , Slaking/Gigas offer an additional Fc/Scales/RegenVest option largely thanks to their Speed on top of bulk.
V. Freeing Mega Gengar and banning Normalise as a follow-up
Originally I was going to write about this but I realise this post is getting way too long. Therefore I decided I'll keep this short and probably revisit this topic later if we manage to get there.
What is the purpose of freeing Mega Gengar?
The goal is to introduce a threat that matches up well with Kartana, Pdon, Diancie and Ghost Arc. At the same time, Gengar would not be overbearing thanks to the available tools in the meta. In doing so, I am hoping we can decentralise the meta around Pdon/Kart/Diancie/Arc by offering a new offensive solution. Gengar is an offensive solution which threatens to kill these mons (and not die to Diancie's Espeed) rather than a passive one. Passive solutions like FC and RegenVest are vulnerable to coverage move and abilities which make them feel fishy. On the other hand, offensive Gengar does not care about these things and will simply just OHKO them with minimal setup/investment. The idea is that Gengar is bad news for all the offensive threats but will not raise the ceiling of what teams need to prepare for because already-existing checks already beat it.
Is Mega Gengar actually balanced?
Truthfully I don't know. In theory after are freed those two (with Ice Scales or RegenVest) should help handle Gengar. are classic checks that will probably still work. We also have RegenVest . Finally, 130 Speed is not what it used to be. Unlike Flutter, Gengar can't actually switch into a Zamazenta or Koraidon with Knock Off which is a big deal. I am convinced we have enough tools to deal with Gengar but obviously I could be wrong. Notably it lost Quiver Dance, Tail Glow and Shell Smash which are the best setup moves.
What about Normalise?
Now that you've made it this far, I can reveal the fact that everything you've read is a distraction and my real goal is to ban Normalise. All seriousness aside, we have to compare Gengar with Flutter Mane, because both of them can run the same set. I am inclined to believe Gengar would NOT be much better, if at all. Admittedly it's stronger so Nasty Plot is much more threatening but the lower speed is a big deal. You can't even tie with Koraidon who will completely shut you down with Knock Off. Finally it's also locked into Ghost Judgment unlike Flutter who can run Fairy. Poison can be immuned and means you lose to Ghost Arc and maybe even Imposter depending on the set.
I don't know if I fully agree with unbanning MGar/Gigas/Slaking, but I do agree with banning Population Bomb, and to a lesser extent, Normalize.
If we are really at the point where we think slow as balls mon Ghostceus is broken because of Normalize, we just need to get rid of Normalize. I do not believe that Ghostceus should be in the discussion for a ban, because sets like FC, MG, and MBounce are all good, certainly better than they were before the unbans, but that isn't due to any fault on Ghostceus's part.
1) The legalization of three nuclear breakers forced every team to figure out how they were going to beat them. Diancie is a fucking menace that should be banned, and it forces very specific checks that have to not get coverage fished, but that isn't related to what I want to talk about with Ghostceus here. Mold Breaker PDon and Sunsteel Kartana being legalized heavily fucked up the tier, and basically mandate an AShield FC to check them. If you aren't using an AShield FC, you're using an Ashield Levitate Dragon to check them, and a FC for all the other phys mons. In addition to this, there are a lot of teams using two FCs, one with AShield, one with some other item. This is the first change to the meta that has made Ghostceus more of a problem. Your teams are forced into more rigid forms, leaving you with less room to fit splashable/solid checks to Ghostceus.
2) There is significantly less competition for your Arceus slot. A lot of Arceus forms have fallen off hard, meaning Ghosty is going to be splashed more, because there's less cost to it. If you look at what types you might use as a FC Arceus, you have things like Fighting, Water, Fairy, Steel, and Ghost. Fighting is replaced fairly easily by Zamazenta or Koraidon, especially because they make up for lower bulk by acting as speed control, and in Koraidon's case, checking non-Glacial Lance Moldy PDons. Water is hard to justify, because you don't need a super bulky Fire resistant FC anymore, with the V-Create ban, and if you wanted to check an offensive DLand mon with a bulky water, Waterceus would need to use an entirely new set compared to the TH TCage sets pre V-Create ban, and it isn't super happy about this in my experience. Waterceus sets are generally just less threatening and less impactful, primarily because of PDon. Waterceus also isn't happy about Kartana being allowed, because while it might resist Steel, it gets chunked by Flower Trick, and can't even use SSap to stem the bleeding. Arceus-Fairy had been falling off for a while, but it got kicked on the way down because of PDon sponging most Fairceus would throw at Don. Levitate Don stops any Fairy+Ground Fairceus sets, you can't use TH+TCage Fairceus because of Don, unless you drop Fairy STAB or Recovery, etc. Kartana also destroys Arceus-Fairy, and teams are more likely to stack Fairy checks because of Diancie. Arceus-Steel is a FC Arceus that doesn't beat PDon, so it necessitates a PDon check, and while it's pretty good at checking Diancie, it doesn't check Blue Flare Diancie sets very well, meaning you're playing with fire. The big takeaway from all of this is that Arceus-Ghost is the best FC Arc set by a wide margin, which makes it a common set on 2 FC teams. Despite this though, there are enough other viable FC users that you don't need to use Arceus-Ghost as a FC, so you can fit things like MBounce, MG, or Entrainment sets.
3) A lot of the pokemon that would threaten or check Arceus-Ghost have not liked the meta changes. Flutter Mane and Greninja-Ash are both pokemon that used to see a lot more usage, and this naturally kept Arceus-Ghost in check. Arceus-Ghost didn't run FC as often, so Ash-Gren would be able to threaten it out pretty easily, and Flutter could threaten out non-TH Arceus-Ghosts. Multiple defensive checks to Arceus-Ghost, like Scales Normals, just haven't had a good time, as a result of the meta pivoting towards Regenvest cores as your SpDef plan, instead of Scales mons. The meta has been changed in a way that just keeps helping Arceus-Ghost, and the council has decided to take action on the symptom, not the cause.
4) The Entrainment Issue. Entrainment is cheese, there's no two ways around it. It was cheese on Dragapult, it was cheese on Gengar-Mega, it was cheese on Flutter, it is cheese on Ghosty. The thing that sets Ghosty apart is it is harder to stop with anti-cheese measures. You can't just use a Steel Rev Dance and nuke it like you would Flutter, you can't PixiSpeed it easily like you would Flutter or Pult, Judgment Arceus forms are very rare at the moment, etc. You also can't just use an Ashield Scales mon, because most teams don't have Scales mons, they have Regenvests, and they don't really 1v1 Ghostceus very well with Rev Dance because of Arceus's bulk. You also can't easily fit a Bounce mon like you could in earlier metas, because a team slot is at an all-time premium, and just using one pokemon to maybe check Arceus-Ghost just isn't good.
I can go into more detail on these later if you aren't convinced, but it's late and I have other things I want to talk about here. To summarize, harder time fitting Ghosty checks + less opportunity cost + flexibility + splashability = Ghosty looks broken.
This move is bullshit and should be banned. I should not be able to use a resisted STAB move off a 120 attack pokemon and threaten a 2HKO on a Registeel or neutral FC switching in while being selfproofed and resilient against status and sap. This move is a MU fish for no helmet mons, and Helmet is harder than ever to justify, especially on FCs. Oh, and if you think Helmet will save you, Knock Off and Protective Pads are both coming for you. Please kill this move with Gigaton Hammers, that is all.
Please do not unban this piece of shit. It is not just a Normalize bot, and it will 2HKO your entire team and there is nothing you can do about it. You think your Ting-Lu will save you? the MGar team will Knock your Vest then 2HKO you with Specs Astral. You think "Oh, I just won't get Knocked?" The MGar will click Tinted Lens Astral and 2HKO you through your damn vest. Unbanning this fucker might as well be like saying Legalize Nuclear Bombs, Swag Messiah.
These goobers might be appealing on paper as defensive choices, but unless you ban both Facade and Population Bomb, every team will need to run either a FC Ghost or a FC Steel or just get smoked by these two. Nothing else will survive, and you can't even use Sap to stop them, these mfers have the flexibility to pack Taunt. Also, Imposter doesn't even check Guts sets because no Flame Orb. If you ban both Pop Bomb and Facade, I guess that these two can be let in to help check Ghostceus, but I suspect they will become broken anyways.
i regularly feel like people say shit in this thread without considering the ramifications of doing so and the shit I'm reading here is near the god damned top.
i feel like regularly, people forget that this is an om that even compared to other oms and especially tiers, the council is basically always hesitant to take any action. this stems from a philosophy where it was believed for the longest time that "the ideal hackmons is a meta where there is the most stuff legal without breaking the meta". and you want to unban three mons here knowing full well that doing so will only add to the existing problems we have and will cause bh council to further put off any action that would verifiably improve the meta.
the absolute picosecond mega gengar is legal again, there will be crying from the bottom all the way to the top of the hackmons skill range, because the bottom rung of players won't be able to win against it without using prankster or heavy speed control, while the top rung will end up getting fished by some stupid setup gengar set that magically 6-0es their opponent.
gigas and slaking are mons that people think are good defensively, and they are pretty good if you have an answer against koraidon/zamazenta. the problem with them is that even if they offer good defensive sets, their offensive sets are broken. people don't do calcs with these things and guts facade will instantly clean 90% of the metagame on the spot, with very few fur coats being able to take on the amount of raw damage these things provide. we aren't even discussing population bomb here, but i'm sure some people will theorymon some shit that bruteforces common fur coats. e.g.
+1 252+ Atk Sharpness Regigigas Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat Zamazenta: 340-420 (87.6 - 108.2%) -- approx. 99.2% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
slaking and gigas will inevitably cause further cascading effects where balance further gets shit on because the only answer to them is a fur coat which enables you to bring in a special breaker for free if you play even slightly well. lets ignore the fact that we would be allowing a 160 base attack mon that can spam STAB self-destructs with only rocky helmet being a viable means of counterplay.
this is kind of a weird tangent, but i'm sure that the people asking for mega gengar and gigas/slaking unban are hearing stories about how smbh was the best metagame for hackmons, how it had so much activity, and how svbh is basically "smbh-lite". well i'm gonna break the truth to you kids. smbh was unbalanced as fuck. spore mega mewtwo y, belly drum dusk mane, mixed shell smash mega mewtwo x, tail glow mega gengar, poison heal regigigas. the list goes on. people think that because smbh was considered the better meta, that we should be aiming to go back to it. smbh was objectively an offense hell meta with similar problems to svbh right now where instead of outplaying your opponent, many games were more based around how hard one team fished another. this is because balance couldn't reliably handle like 70% of threats people theorymonned. shit like unburden, triage, belly drum, shell smash, etc. and a lack of ice scales lead to balance being viable by a hair line with offense and bulky offense being the kings of that meta.
i'm sure everyone is already aware, but not one single time in any relevant metagame or tier has the solution to improving a metagame been repeatedly unbanning shit. even bwou was more based around complex bans which lead to smogon's modern tiering policy. with people already raising shit about primal groudon and mega diancie, i don't know how people are coming to the conclusion that more unbans will fix shit. it fucking won't.
stall is dead in hackmons right now because of primal groudon, and balance is already strained. any further unbans would make the meta shift more towards offense as the recommended playstyle. because if you can't reliably outplay most wincons with balance, the solution then becomes to out-offense those wincons. this is why psyspam is a thing; people hate losing to mega diancie and the fall of ting-lu as a result of it means psychic types with coverage for registeel end up steamrolling teams. if you unban mega gengar and regigigas, the meta will implode as a result and people will stop trying to run balance on most teams if they know they can't win on a tour level, let alone ladder level.
anyways, that's all i have to say to that dude. i guess i'm supposed to make a forum post with some actual substance. so let me throw a bone to the newer players, or those that are simply struggling to learn svbh.
Are you a chud at Balanced Hackmons? Do you want to be a chad instead? i've been a hackmons player for a very, very long time, and i've noticed that not only is ladder activity decaying, people are struggling to deal with even the newly introduced Kameron Bot and on top of that, a lot of games just often end up cleaned quickly and the skill floor is about 20 feet underground compared to other metagames. i'll write an assessment on hackmons, how to improve at it, and underrated mons as well as shitmons.
ladder, frankly, sucks. on the lower end, we have a lot of people running hyper offense, but without any real synergies or coverage for meta threats. if you're new to BH, you'd think HO is the main playstyle. even kameron bot has a (bad) offense team. it isn't the main playstyle, and don't be fooled by what you see. the most common playstyle right now is balance, followed by hyper offense, followed by bulky offense. as i said above in my hallward comment, stall is dead. don't use it.
on the higher end, you have more balance and bulky offense.
"what's the difference?"
balance has 1-2 wincons, bulky offense has 2-4 wincons, hyper offense has 4-6 wincons (sixth mon is usually prankster).
balance is the bulkiest playstyle you can get away with, and one that's the easiest to start out with. hyper offense is difficult to play and learn, but om discord and om chat on PS can definitely help you get started on doing that. for all intents and purposes, i'm going to cover balance here.
while ladder occasionally uses good sets, its best to be skeptical and use the resources here for advice on good sets. namely, the resources thread.
i like to abide by ten principles while building.
imposterproof your shit. if you do not build your team with imposter in mind, you will lose to imposter. a choice band primal groudon set is improofed by a fur coat since imposter doesn't have the choice band boost. always think of a way your defensive core can take on your wincons. there's also spirit shackle as a consideration, but you shouldn't be reliant off it as Covert Cloak imposter is uncommon but still notable.
never build without a fur coat and ice scales. teams without fur coats will almost always get rolled by physical setup, while the same is true for ice scales. yes, regenvests have more leverage to click dragon tail on problematic shit, but you should still attempt to run something that can click haze or topsy on special setup. a passive mon is not inherently bad. it just won't gain any progress other than forcing your opposing mon out, and it can cause you to be put into precarious situations if your opponent double switches. however, non-passive ice scales are still viable.
a normalize answer is mandatory unless normalize gets banned. this is non-negotiable. you should not be using your fur coat with ability shield to check normalize ghosts. magic bounce is the most common answer to this, and can work on a lot of balance archetypes. revelation dance can beat most crappy dragapult sets, and beat most flutter mane sets if you use registeel, but registeel is not an answer to normalize ghostceus. i'll post some sets below which can check normalize ghostceus, should you have trouble with it.
secondary walls will raise your winrate considerably. people sometimes use levitate dragons as a support mon to your fur coat, since it can help with primal groudon. regenvests are the obvious answer to a secondary special wall, and they give momentum easily.
your team should never be slow. if your team is overwhelmingly below Arceus in speed, you should rebuild it. zamazenta and koraidon are popular for a reason. having one wincon with priority or a speed control wincon is a wise choice. if your team is slow, you lose harder to ghostceus, and mega diancie is much harder to check.
do not run passive moves if you don't have an improof for them. salt cure, nuzzle, knock off, mortal spin, etc. om discord and om chat will probably laugh at you for not running knock off, but if you don't have a plate arceus or similar, it can usually be worse for you to trade your item than just run different utility instead. mortal spin should have a poison type or covert cloak improof. so on, so forth.
pivoting is good. use it. teleport is one of the best moves in the metagame, especially if you're facing a team reliant off slow pivoting. you may not think you're at a disadvantage, but you are. i like to have two means of pivoting on my teams.
hazard removal is non-negotiable, try to have two forms of hazard removal. toxic debris being legal (i really still don't know why this is legal despite cityscapes showing its ludicrously broken) as well as low committal hazards in the form of stone axe means you are at a significant disadvantage if you can't remove hazards from your side of the field reliably.
ability shield is used for a reason. it blocks sunsteel strike's secondary effect, but more importantly, you don't get rolled by most mold breaker pokemon. you can use it on your fur coat or your secondary physical wall if it has an immunity ability. you are significantly more likely to lose if you don't use it.
imposter is a wincon. do not treat it like defense. if you run imposter, then you have to sacrifice a wincon for it. always keep this in mind. that being said, imposter chansey on your team makes for a decent imposter-proof itself to special attacking wincons on your team. imposter won't transform into a transformed pokemon, so you get the base chansey and moveset. don't ignore chansey's moveset for this reason.
let's go over shitmons first, then we'll go over some underrated and meta mons Shitmons never run these. they are terrible. they have zero offensive presence, and better pokemon, both defensively and offensively can utilize their utility sets better than they can. this isn't dppt ou where people ran explosion stealth rock azelf on every team. this mon is bad in the current meta and even though its still ranked on VR, it probably shouldn't be at this point. i made a point on not having a slow team, but if you want a fast wincon, you definitely want mega alakazam. it hits harder than mega sceptile and won't instantly die to extreme speed from most mons at full health with beads, assuming its even vulnerable to begin with (psychic surge). zacian is only liked by most people right now because it fishes fighting fur coats with pixilate. its not good as a wall, psyspam HO rolls it hard and on top of that, zacian really doesn't appreciate letting in primal groudon for free. it also loses to most torchburdens if it isn't running topsy turvy + spirit break. use flutter mane or ghostceus. normalize is not good on this, and it is not good period. another mon on VR, this mon does not check opposing pdon well. its only good if you're running mixed pdon or bolt strike pdon and improofing them with it. landorus should not be used on most teams and its better to have an immunity mon which doesn't get ganked by flip turn or glacial lance instantly. this also means not using extremely hard to improof pdon sets if you can help it. your defensive core will be better overall. time to rage bait some people and farm "haha" reacts in doing it. eternatus is not a good mon right now. it doesn't check pdon with earth eater since people caught on to it, its offensive sets almost always lose to registeel and ting-lu, it being speed control doesn't help when you lose to almost every single mon faster than you (miraidon/koraidon/flutter mane/mega alakazam all force you out easily), it isn't good as a setup wincon any more, and the primary set used right now is a regenerator trick black sludge set which is an admission by people here that it simply can't beat a well played regenvest. the only redeeming qualities of eternatus is that it is poison type and soaks toxic spikes (use a different poison type if you want that quality so badly) and it has above average bulk and speed allowing it to check ghostceus reasonably well at the cost of losing to a lot more shit.
Underrated Mons note, this is Pikachu-Starter, listed in the teambuilder as illegal (who knows when that will be fixed. probably never.). specifically, it is the Let's Go! Pikachu, which is legal because Game Freak was too lazy to remove its code in sv. that being said, LGPE pikachu has higher stats than basic pikachu. it is as fast as arceus, it hits like a freight train, and a lot of people on ladder and even competent bh players will underestimate it and lose games as a result. people like cityscapes have went on about how imposter pikachu is an uncompetitive, broken sack of shit mon, but i'm referring to tough claws and other sets here. its stats are low, but doubled with the light ball, making it about as strong as an unboosted mega mewtwo x or so. it is deceptively powerful. flip turn trashes primal groudon, electro drift hits fur coats hard, glaive rush and collision course are good coverage moves, and it isn't even limited to tough claws, either. pikachu is an underexplored mon right now in general. it serves as a check to normalize ghostceus, annoying it with rev dance and sand stream chip, but has the added bonus effect of winning against mega diancie in a 1v1 if it doesn't have headlong rush or surging strikes. steam eruption, torch song, armor cannon, secret sword, etc. all lose to nihilego. nihilego is seen as kind of a shitmon, but it has some valid use in the current meta despite inviting in primal groudon. with leech seed, you can 1v1 any non-bounce ghostceus pretty easily. it doesn't like secret sword much, but that won't lose the 1v1 in most cases, especially with a buffed Shore Up from sand. it doesn't beat normalize ghostceus, and hates knock off ghostceus too, so it wants support from a secondary spdef that can handle it, but in turn, you have a psychic resist which deeply annoys mega alakazam and most other special attackers, and 130 special attack with stronger stabs in psystrike, boomburst, or extrasensory (unusually high pp, decent base power) let it deal more damage to those mons than mega audino on average. decent as a levitate ability shield mon if you really need something that hits normalize ghostceus while not committing to magic bounce. note that thunder cage from normalize doesn't hit you super effectively. becoming increasingly common, amuk lets you check mega alakazam and ghostceus in one slot. you can use toxic thread on one moveslot if you want to piss off normalize ghostceus users, provided you also have topsy turvy or haze to handle take heart boosting. you want to run knock off on it, but don't forget that you need to improof knock off... i have a somewhat weird opinion where i think that both levitate and magic guard are better than fur coat and speed boost, listed on the VR. levitate is good because it counters treecko desland primal groudon where fur coat does not, and palkia often doesn't need fur coat due to being neutral to most coverage primal groudon sets have. magic guard is just a generally good wincon that annoys a lot of passive regenvests and makes for a good mortal spinner as registeel doesn't like staying in on repeated scalds. generally disliked "because it loses to kartana and ash greninja". well guess what. unlike donbozo, mega slowbro has a usable special attack stat and will force out most pdon sets especially if it has an ability shield. it makes for a good partner with a fighting fur coat, either being a secondary fur coat, or a regenerator. i do not advise using levitate mega slowbro, but it does win against treecko pdon the same way palk-o does.
pikachu balance
pikachu and mega diancie complement each other, with pikachu trashing any mega diancie check and putting huge strain on most steel types and primal groudon, with mega diancie breaking most physical walls easily. this team is segmented in a very easy to understand way: two wincons, two physical walls, two special walls. mega audino can be used with covert cloak instead of ability shield, but the normalize ghostceus matchup is worse. i don't consider malignant chain common enough to warrant covert cloak currently. anyways, this team has a lot of pivoting, and pivoting is good. nuzzle helps make matchups easier here for pikachu and mega diancie.
nihilego fat balance
nihilego appreciates support from a scales ting-lu specifically to take on psyspam, but ting-lu also likes the support from pdon and nihilego in checking mega diancie. while surging strikes mega diancie is an annoyance, imposter can force it out if it comes up. the fightceus set can be changed as its very passive with jungle and shackle, but if you feel like you lose to moldy pdon too much, you can swap items with levidon. jungle is much more helpful in that case, and gives minor healing in the case of a sapblocker even if you run cloak. i've tried both fightceus ashield and levidon ashield, both had relatively similar winrates.
note that this team technically breaks one of my principles above. it is slow and lacks hazards. it is very reliant off defense breaking through bulky offense and hyper offense with imposter + several offmeta sets. it was built for this purpose. i do not recommend it for laddering or tours as a result. some may claim it is too passive to be of use, which i don't disagree.
mega alakazam balance
this is a weirder team of mine, since i went with two regenvests and a bounce mega audino that answered normalize, but this team certainly has room for improvement. cb pdon is insanely fucking strong and will usually leave a dent in most cores easily (fire stab is not needed with choice band sets, for the record), with you having speed control in the form of mega alakazam in place of zamazenta, as arceus-fighting is used here instead. it doesn't follow a structure like the above two teams, but you do have two forms of special defense despite having no ice scales, and a magic bounce mon which can still check a fair amount of special attackers.
some last notes i have is that you can only get so good playing ladder, your skill will eventually plateau with it as most players can't play well there even at high ladder. if you really want to improve, start playing tours after getting comfortable with ladder, and interact with the community more. if you learn to build and play balance, eventually you'll become flexible enough to play other archetypes and improve quickly. i've seen this happen with several players over the years.
anyways that's most of what i wanted to write. my current meta opinion is basically: don't even entertain this being legal there is nothing good from unbanning this. population bomb should be banned, but it shouldn't necessarily come at the cost of unbanning regigigas and slaking. busted ass mon makes stall unviable. i know most players hate stall but come the fuck on man. even ignoring the fact that its the best setup mon in the metagame and best utility mon in the metagame. i sure like a mon which can ohko every non-scales, non-regenvest mon in the meta with specs, and has strong priority, and can outplay registeel relatively easily, and is the strongest breaker in the metagame with sflo. now with viable rock utility unlike smbh!! stone axe ohkoes ho-oh so the one good mon at checking it is gone. specs boomburst 2hkoes primal groudon easily. normalize should be banned, ghostceus is fine itself. the meta gains nothing from having normalize legal as it is a matchup fish. toxic debris is broken and easily fishes games by introducing rng rolls with phazing and non-committal toxic spikes, but somehow gets the pass from most of the community. hey look its kartana. were we entertaining this being banned? no? okay. its not banworthy. its just kartana. we like this dude. i think.
i regularly feel like people say shit in this thread without considering the ramifications of doing so and the shit I'm reading here is near the god damned top.
i feel like regularly, people forget that this is an om that even compared to other oms and especially tiers, the council is basically always hesitant to take any action. this stems from a philosophy where it was believed for the longest time that "the ideal hackmons is a meta where there is the most stuff legal without breaking the meta". and you want to unban three mons here knowing full well that doing so will only add to the existing problems we have and will cause bh council to further put off any action that would verifiably improve the meta.
the absolute picosecond mega gengar is legal again, there will be crying from the bottom all the way to the top of the hackmons skill range, because the bottom rung of players won't be able to win against it without using prankster or heavy speed control, while the top rung will end up getting fished by some stupid setup gengar set that magically 6-0es their opponent.
gigas and slaking are mons that people think are good defensively, and they are pretty good if you have an answer against koraidon/zamazenta. the problem with them is that even if they offer good defensive sets, their offensive sets are broken. people don't do calcs with these things and guts facade will instantly clean 90% of the metagame on the spot, with very few fur coats being able to take on the amount of raw damage these things provide. we aren't even discussing population bomb here, but i'm sure some people will theorymon some shit that bruteforces common fur coats. e.g.
+1 252+ Atk Sharpness Regigigas Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat Zamazenta: 340-420 (87.6 - 108.2%) -- approx. 99.2% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
slaking and gigas will inevitably cause further cascading effects where balance further gets shit on because the only answer to them is a fur coat which enables you to bring in a special breaker for free if you play even slightly well. lets ignore the fact that we would be allowing a 160 base attack mon that can spam STAB self-destructs with only rocky helmet being a viable means of counterplay.
this is kind of a weird tangent, but i'm sure that the people asking for mega gengar and gigas/slaking unban are hearing stories about how smbh was the best metagame for hackmons, how it had so much activity, and how svbh is basically "smbh-lite". well i'm gonna break the truth to you kids. smbh was unbalanced as fuck. spore mega mewtwo y, belly drum dusk mane, mixed shell smash mega mewtwo x, tail glow mega gengar, poison heal regigigas. the list goes on. people think that because smbh was considered the better meta, that we should be aiming to go back to it. smbh was objectively an offense hell meta with similar problems to svbh right now where instead of outplaying your opponent, many games were more based around how hard one team fished another. this is because balance couldn't reliably handle like 70% of threats people theorymonned. shit like unburden, triage, belly drum, shell smash, etc. and a lack of ice scales lead to balance being viable by a hair line with offense and bulky offense being the kings of that meta.
i'm sure everyone is already aware, but not one single time in any relevant metagame or tier has the solution to improving a metagame been repeatedly unbanning shit. even bwou was more based around complex bans which lead to smogon's modern tiering policy. with people already raising shit about primal groudon and mega diancie, i don't know how people are coming to the conclusion that more unbans will fix shit. it fucking won't.
stall is dead in hackmons right now because of primal groudon, and balance is already strained. any further unbans would make the meta shift more towards offense as the recommended playstyle. because if you can't reliably outplay most wincons with balance, the solution then becomes to out-offense those wincons. this is why psyspam is a thing; people hate losing to mega diancie and the fall of ting-lu as a result of it means psychic types with coverage for registeel end up steamrolling teams. if you unban mega gengar and regigigas, the meta will implode as a result and people will stop trying to run balance on most teams if they know they can't win on a tour level, let alone ladder.
Normally I don't like arguing with people but I want to address your points and concerns. Although these are valid, I feel like you are a exaggerating a little too much regarding the impact of these mons.
Firstly, even if everything you've said is true, we can always just re-ban these mons. I don't know when people began to think that every tiering decision must be correct but I don't like it. We should be okay with trying things out, and if it really doesn't work, just ban it again and move on. For the people crying about how "it takes too long" or "what a waste of time", I tell you that balancing a tier takes a lot of time and effort. At this point, I don't think there is a clear-cut solution on what we should do next.
Now you mention that I "want to unban three mons here knowing full well that doing so will only add to the existing problems". I apologise because it seems I did not get my point across. Firstly as I said I don't claim to know "full well" what's going to happen. I can guess and make speculations but I would never claim that I know exactly what would happen. Secondly, I think the net change will lessen the overall problems, rather than increase it. Although it is true that Guts Slaking/Gigas is a very strong set, I believe the meta can handle it, and that its inclusion (alongside non-Guts sets) will lessen the Kartana/Pdon/Diancie/Arceus dominance. Not gonna reiterate my points here on why. I agree Population Bomb is the best set though.
the absolute picosecond mega gengar is legal again, there will be crying from the bottom all the way to the top of the hackmons skill range, because the bottom rung of players won't be able to win against it without using prankster or heavy speed control, while the top rung will end up getting fished by some stupid setup gengar set that magically 6-0es their opponent.
If I may criticise, I think you're being way too paranoid and exaggerating Gengar's power. You make it seem like Gengar is this omnipotent mon that can destroy any team effortlessly. While I could make that argument for mons like Calyrex and Mega Ray, I cannot do the same for Gengar. Once again although it will be a good mon, I think the meta has the tools to deal with it. It seems like you forgot that QD, Shell Smash and Tail Glow are banned, all of which are Gengar's best setup moves. I don't think you need a Prankster at all, and 130 speed doesn't require "heavy speed control", or at least more than what people are already putting into their teams. There are plenty of mons faster than it and it cannot boost its speed without Speed Boost. I could be wrong of course but we've dealt with Fluttet Mane, Alakazam and Eternatus before and I daresay Gengar won't be lapping those in terms of performance. Furthermore, if Slaking/Gigas were freed, that would be a major hurdle for Specs sets looking to spam Ghost-moves. I've already listed the other Gengar check but it seems that you remain unconvinced, so I guess we'll just have to disagree on this.
I feel the same way regarding your Slaking/Gigas is too strong argument. My stance is that they'll be strong but won't be broken. Am I 100% certain? No. Can we re-ban them if they are broken? It'll take time but yes. Is it worth trying them out? I think so. For what it's worth, I think suspect tests are a great way to boost ladder activity and discussions, so if you want a more active forum and ladder, I suggest you advocate for these things rather than dismissing them as a waste of time. You seem to be a ladder warrior. Surely you would enjoy lower queue times and more competitive games.
Regarding your tangent, I didn't play SM BH so I won't comment much on it. I have no idea how balanced or enjoyable it was.
[Spoiler: why we shouldn't unban]
i'm sure everyone is already aware, but not one single time in any relevant metagame or tier has the solution to improving a metagame been repeatedly unbanning shit. even bwou was more based around complex bans which lead to smogon's modern tiering policy. with people already raising shit about primal groudon and mega diancie, i don't know how people are coming to the conclusion that more unbans will fix shit. it fucking won't.
[/spoiler]
First of all, I think BH is far enough from a standard tier that we shouldn't care too much about standard policy, though that's not how the council feels. Secondly just because it doesn't work elsewhere doesn't mean it's never worked ever or it wouldn't work here. From the top of my head I think Zamazenta was freed in SV OU to deal with Kingambit and it didn't get re-banned.
I've already said enough about why I don't think Slaking/Gigas/Gengar would be broken. Your last point is claiming Stall is dead and the meta is shifting heavily towards offense.
My question here is: so what? This gen as a whole has been difficult for Stall because of the recovery PP nerf. If you don't have a way to actively win the game, you're just waiting to lose the game. This playstyle just inherently do not take advantage of momentum which is a massive concession. If you start adding win conditions, at what point do you determine that it is still Stall and not Balance? I think even 1 win condition like TH Arc with spikes support, regenvest and Imposter is borderline a Balance team already. Secondly, does Stall inherently have a right to exist? The devs themselves clearly do not want Stall to be a good archetype seeing the recovery PP nerf. Must we artificially create a metagame where it is a viable archetype? I think that's ridiculous. In my opinion, if an archetype cannot survive the meta, then so be it. The same goes for HO, Offense, and any other archetype too. It's nobody's responsibility to make sure that ALL archetypes are viable. For what it's worth, I don't think it's impossible to make a succesful Stall team as long as you narrow your scope enough (fishing) and that's completely fine. Trying to cover every threat in the meta is an impossible task, even if we were to remove the strongest mons from the tier. This is because the variety and coverage options available are way too high. I believe you have unrealistic expectations of what Stall should be able to achieve in BH.
Anyways I hope this. My main criticism here is I think you're too afraid of change and making mistakes, regarding unbans. Perhaps it is partially council's fault for being too indecisive or inactive but it is what it is.
Normally I don't like arguing with people but I want to address your points and concerns. Although these are valid, I feel like you are a exaggerating a little too much regarding the impact of these mons.
Firstly, even if everything you've said is true, we can always just re-ban these mons. I don't know when people began to think that every tiering decision must be correct but I don't like it. We should be okay with trying things out, and if it really doesn't work, just ban it again and move on. For the people crying about how "it takes too long" or "what a waste of time", I tell you that balancing a tier takes a lot of time and effort. At this point, I don't think there is a clear-cut solution on what we should do next.
Now you mention that I "want to unban three mons here knowing full well that doing so will only add to the existing problems". I apologise because it seems I did not get my point across. Firstly as I said I don't claim to know "full well" what's going to happen. I can guess and make speculations but I would never claim that I know exactly what would happen. Secondly, I think the net change will lessen the overall problems, rather than increase it. Although it is true that Guts Slaking/Gigas is a very strong set, I believe the meta can handle it, and that its inclusion (alongside non-Guts sets) will lessen the Kartana/Pdon/Diancie/Arceus dominance. Not gonna reiterate my points here on why. I agree Population Bomb is the best set though.
the absolute picosecond mega gengar is legal again, there will be crying from the bottom all the way to the top of the hackmons skill range, because the bottom rung of players won't be able to win against it without using prankster or heavy speed control, while the top rung will end up getting fished by some stupid setup gengar set that magically 6-0es their opponent.
If I may criticise, I think you're being way too paranoid and exaggerating Gengar's power. You make it seem like Gengar is this omnipotent mon that can destroy any team effortlessly. While I could make that argument for mons like Calyrex and Mega Ray, I cannot do the same for Gengar. Once again although it will be a good mon, I think the meta has the tools to deal with it. It seems like you forgot that QD, Shell Smash and Tail Glow are banned, all of which are Gengar's best setup moves. I don't think you need a Prankster at all, and 130 speed doesn't require "heavy speed control", or at least more than what people are already putting into their teams. There are plenty of mons faster than it and it cannot boost its speed without Speed Boost. I could be wrong of course but we've dealt with Fluttet Mane, Alakazam and Eternatus before and I daresay Gengar won't be lapping those in terms of performance. Furthermore, if Slaking/Gigas were freed, that would be a major hurdle for Specs sets looking to spam Ghost-moves. I've already listed the other Gengar check but it seems that you remain unconvinced, so I guess we'll just have to disagree on this.
I feel the same way regarding your Slaking/Gigas is too strong argument. My stance is that they'll be strong but won't be broken. Am I 100% certain? No. Can we re-ban them if they are broken? It'll take time but yes. Is it worth trying them out? I think so. For what it's worth, I think suspect tests are a great way to boost ladder activity and discussions, so if you want a more active forum and ladder, I suggest you advocate for these things rather than dismissing them as a waste of time. You seem to be a ladder warrior. Surely you would enjoy lower queue times and more competitive games.
Regarding your tangent, I didn't play SM BH so I won't comment much on it. I have no idea how balanced or enjoyable it was.
[Spoiler: why we shouldn't unban]
i'm sure everyone is already aware, but not one single time in any relevant metagame or tier has the solution to improving a metagame been repeatedly unbanning shit. even bwou was more based around complex bans which lead to smogon's modern tiering policy. with people already raising shit about primal groudon and mega diancie, i don't know how people are coming to the conclusion that more unbans will fix shit. it fucking won't.
[/spoiler]
First of all, I think BH is far enough from a standard tier that we shouldn't care too much about standard policy, though that's not how the council feels. Secondly just because it doesn't work elsewhere doesn't mean it's never worked ever or it wouldn't work here. From the top of my head I think Zamazenta was freed in SV OU to deal with Kingambit and it didn't get re-banned.
I've already said enough about why I don't think Slaking/Gigas/Gengar would be broken. Your last point is claiming Stall is dead and the meta is shifting heavily towards offense.
My question here is: so what? This gen as a whole has been difficult for Stall because of the recovery PP nerf. If you don't have a way to actively win the game, you're just waiting to lose the game. This playstyle just inherently do not take advantage of momentum which is a massive concession. If you start adding win conditions, at what point do you determine that it is still Stall and not Balance? I think even 1 win condition like TH Arc with spikes support, regenvest and Imposter is borderline a Balance team already. Secondly, does Stall inherently have a right to exist? The devs themselves clearly do not want Stall to be a good archetype seeing the recovery PP nerf. Must we artificially create a metagame where it is a viable archetype? I think that's ridiculous. In my opinion, if an archetype cannot survive the meta, then so be it. The same goes for HO, Offense, and any other archetype too. It's nobody's responsibility to make sure that ALL archetypes are viable. For what it's worth, I don't think it's impossible to make a succesful Stall team as long as you narrow your scope enough (fishing) and that's completely fine. Trying to cover every threat in the meta is an impossible task, even if we were to remove the strongest mons from the tier. This is because the variety and coverage options available are way too high. I believe you have unrealistic expectations of what Stall should be able to achieve in BH.
Anyways I hope this. My main criticism here is I think you're too afraid of change and making mistakes, regarding unbans. Perhaps it is partially council's fault for being too indecisive or inactive but it is what it is.
Hallward, respectfully, silence. I think you are the only person here that thinks that Gigas/Slaking would be used defensively, instead of just making the offensive issues even fucking worse. "Gigas and Slaking could check mons" yeah and regenvest MDia could be used to check Etern if that was a meta threat, but I don't think people would do that over just using the fucking nuke.
I don't think there is a single person here saying this is "a waste of time" or "takes too long," we're saying the mons are broken. Please do not make up demons in your head then reply to them here.
Guts Slaking/Gigas is not something the meta can handle. You seem to be under the impression that FC Fightings can beat Gigas/Slaking. This feels misguided at best, and asking to get hit with shit like Facade SPower Sap VDance Guts mons at worst.
As for MGar: The power is not exaggerated in the slightest. How do I know this? Because I've actually ran the calcs. There is not a pokemon in this godforsaken meta that MGar will not annihilate. REGENVEST TING LU is a 2HKO after one spike for crying out loud. Not to mention that is just one set that nukes everything. Then we get to shit like Judgment/SSword/NPlot/4th Speed Boost sets, which will nuke everything not named scales Maud/Yvel/Arcs. Then we get into Beads sets smoking everything. It just keeps going. Do not let this monster in.
You also haven't listed MGar checks, you've listed fodder. The only way that you would have an even slightly functional defensive check to MGar would be if we unban RegiKing, which would be a nightmare because now we have two more INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS offensive pokemon legal, so MGar probably actually gets even better, because of defensive cores being stretched even thinner.
As for the "suspects raise meta involvement" argument, there are better ways to do that. Maybe look at banning the things that everyone is calling a problem. Maybe remove cheese. Maybe see if you could get a ladder tour going, or a seasonal or open or something.
I will agree that we shouldn't feel beholden to tiering policy, but we should still follow common sense. Common sense says that dropping three new nukes into a tier won't solve the problem of "defensive cores are stretched thin checking all these nukes."
I don't have enough experience with stall to say for certain, but until the tiering action, stall was fine. A bit battered, perhaps, but fine.
As for your accusations of people being too afraid of unbanning things and they end up broken, I think it's a valid fear to have. I don't know about you, but I don't think that we should let in the actual war criminals that have not gotten slowed down in the slightest.
alright listen up. i dont have patience for this bullshit about regigigas or mega gengar. i have a thesis to make here
dumbass
free poison heal
like come on the meta is set up perfectly for this. regi/slaking are gone, salt/dtail regenvests are in style, mortal has been harassing everyone for far too long, qd is still banned for whatever reason, non-ghost arcs are underused, everything outside of like 10 guys is underused
poison heal is not broken because it simply does not do very much damage, you can trade with it using your pdon or whatever, and the really aggressive ones mostly lose to imposter, do far less damage than straightforward boosting sets, and have difficulty recovering from chip. maybe something like vdance facade taunt normceus is annoying but it still hits for underwhelming damage, is not realistically getting through fc fighting (similar to every other facade user), lacks sustain, and has 1 slot for coverage. cm 2a taunt/sap partial trapping arc is also good but doesnt get through regenvest until turn 80 unless you got like fairy into ting and they dont have pdon to beat you somehow (edit: also all of them lose to like topsy etern)
poison heal would also be awesome to have, its fun as hell to use, infinitely customizable, fits on all styles, beat up nerds who send out pdon and fc fighting and click mortal every single turn, im even giving you guys a free out to my evil ass bioweapon thats still seeing use in tours to this day, true gamers will still be bringing syringe even if ph gets freed though
"noo its like playing against 6 ghostceuses" SHUT UP!!!!! you kids got your wish you got pdon and kart and diancie and STILL pissed off at a guy whos 120 all stats with mid typing... embarrassing! as a woman of honor i will say this though: if ph gets freed ill let council ban normalize without siccing my cult of personality on them
As a member of the cult of personality, I can confirm that I won't get angry at Norm going down if PHeal is legalized. ignore that I want Norm dead anyways
edit: City, I thought that bioweapons weren't allowed
yeah yeah yeah all this bullshit going on while im on vacation fuck this fuck my chungus life
alright now shut the fuck up on regigigas and slaking unban, these zu normals power creep to bullshit pass fur coat zamazenta. i stress how bad that would be, as they can self proof as well. the argument that people would be more concerned with breakers not breaking (used in blaziken era) isnt a good one as we talk about guys with multiple sets, and can slot lots of utility with mortal knock glare and much more while also having an insane offensive presense. wait that sounds like something we already have!!! primal chuddon already exists, if youre saying its fine then idk what to tell you. however because theres only one right now, its easier to manage (not that we should have to manage it). so with that, we want to introduce more?
ban normalize, ban triple arrows, ban burning bulwark, ban mold breaker, ban — the cops got him for advocating for balanced hackmons bans
oh and dont free gar brooooooooooooo please
you dont want another broken to exist and the community just moves towards that then you ban it then they keep complaining about diancie and pdon
As for MGar: The power is not exaggerated in the slightest. How do I know this? Because I've actually ran the calcs. There is not a pokemon in this godforsaken meta that MGar will not annihilate. REGENVEST TING LU is a 2HKO after one spike for crying out loud. Not to mention that is just one set that nukes everything. Then we get to shit like Judgment/SSword/NPlot/4th Speed Boost sets, which will nuke everything not named scales Maud/Yvel/Arcs. Then we get into Beads sets smoking everything. It just keeps going. Do not let this monster in.
You also haven't listed MGar checks, you've listed fodder. The only way that you would have an even slightly functional defensive check to MGar would be if we unban RegiKing, which would be a nightmare because now we have two more INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS offensive pokemon legal, so MGar probably actually gets even better, because of defensive cores being stretched even thinner.
No need to be shy man, show us these calcs. Show the world that gengar is an evil demon thay can OHKO every mon in the tier. I have provided some worthy challengers below. Please tell me that not even these mons can wall gengar:
RegenVest:
Ice Scales
I don't want to set my expectations too high, so if you show me Gengar OHKOing all of these mons with no setup, I'll concede that I have been misled and the G in Gengar stands for GOAT.
No need to be shy man, show us these calcs. Show the world that gengar is an evil demon thay can OHKO every mon in the tier. I have provided some worthy challengers below. Please tell me that not even these mons can wall gengar:
RegenVest:
Ice Scales
I don't want to set my expectations too high, so if you show me Gengar OHKOing all of these mons with no setup, I'll concede that I have been misled and the G in Gengar stands for GOAT.
regenvest etern is not real, regenvest gigas shouldnt exist (he should be banned)
steela and registeel lose to coverage (fire)
ting lu loses to normalize
scales dia and yvel sucks. maud has its problems and therefore isnt used as much, though its not bad. gets recked by poison stab tho gg
again gigas shouldnt exist
leaves scales pkyo and arc who cant hit gar with normalize
Alright I feel like we were getting distracted by Gengar so I wanted to put us back on the right track. It's partially my fault because I originally wanted to write a lot more about it but the post was getting too long and I got lazy towards the end. Here is the short version of why I think freeing would be a good idea.
Why I think we should unban or suspect
Non-passive Normal to answer without Normalise or Secret Sword.
Good enough bulk and speed to be Fur Coat or Ice Scales. Specifically Fur Coat and Ice Scales . Notably good role compression.
Other "defensive" sets like RegenVest, MG, Bounce, Unaware & more.
Already has established checks in FC Fighting , Imposter , RegenVest Steels and Ghosts (depends on both sets).
Regarding the allegedly broken sets (Guts & Population Bomb):
Keep in mind current power level of offensive mons is higher than during time of ban. We have now.
I think Population Bomb is broken, we can ban that but I won't push for it since people are so focused on Guts.
Guts is definitely good but I think we have enough checks for it to at least test (see above).
Notably lost V-create which was arguably its best single coverage available.
If offensive turned out way better than Fur Coat or Ice Scales as we hoped, we can always just ban it again.
Forget about and Normalize for now, I want to focus on discussing the possibility of testing in order to improve the meta by adding a new solid defensive option.
I agree about the part where Population Bomb should be banned.
Not because of any of the stuff with Regigigas or Slaking or whatever I don't care.
Population Bomb is a fundamentally uncompetitive move.
Why? Population Bomb has 2-3 major drawbacks:
- it misses
- you die if you hit into helmet
- its a normal type move (wouldn't be as much of an issue if the big normals were freed but for now still is)
And all of these issues can be fixed!
- wide lens / coil / no guard
- magic guard / protective pads
- pixilate and other such abilities (scrappy also counts wrt fixing normal being bad)
first, let's discard the coil sets as being generally ineffective, none of them are able to be cleanly improofed except for the ones that selfproof with helmet (lol). They aren't strictly unviable, don't get me wrong, but they never run protective pads, and are clunky to use in general, since the only mons with enough speed to really get away with it are Zac-H and MAero, ZacH hates pdon's guts and you need to tech surging strikes now?? so you lose to steels. Aero is like fine I guess I tried to build bomb/coil/blades/sap in ompl and it went nowhere. Diancie running coil/bomb/espeed/surging is probably passable? but like you're not beating steels and you cant pretend to selfproof so your improof becomes completely reliant on another defensive mon with helmet (hard ask in ashield cloak meta) also you probably just lose to arcs.
So what do we have, we have a move that requires heavy investment to be used safely, since you need both an ability slot and an item slot to ensure consistency (mg+lens or no guard+pads) and you're still stuck with normal typing being yknow. bad. and it's not even that strong compared to the opportunity cost of a boosting item or boosting ability. You really wish you had sharpness or technician or what have you, even on a normal type.
So that leads us to the issue with the move: For Population Bomb to be effective, you cannot take the necessary measures to make it reliable. The most success pop bomb has seen this gen was throwing it out on an -ate mon like Diancie or Rayquaza or Iron Valiant, with no regard to accuracy or helmet, and just hoping it'd cheese through their spdef. This sucks because the move is just terribly inaccurate and games would come down to if it hits (bh has generally managed to be pretty good on accuracy issues compared to most tiers, with 85 as the lowest commonly seen.) and the constant risk of dying to item for clicking your main breaker reminds me a lot of the Ooze/Sap dynamic.
No need to be shy man, show us these calcs. Show the world that gengar is an evil demon thay can OHKO every mon in the tier. I have provided some worthy challengers below. Please tell me that not even these mons can wall gengar:
RegenVest:
Ice Scales
I don't want to set my expectations too high, so if you show me Gengar OHKOing all of these mons with no setup, I'll concede that I have been misled and the G in Gengar stands for GOAT.
-> unhealthy, warps the teambuilder to the point that you have to effectively pick a few matchups you're willing to lose to stop this from just claiming a kill every time. Big contributor to why offense and PsyTerrain especially is being spammed in my opinion and worth removing to bring RegenVest balance back...
-> If you find yourself absent of skill and willing to risk your primary wincon to a speed tie or two then I have just the thing for you. Triple Arrows is about as close to the definition of uncompetitive as it gets, with the primary abusers (Koraidon, Zamazenta, Marshadow, sometimes Ghostceus even) being absurdly cringe fishing bots for the secondary effects to carry them to undeserved wins. Zero reason to keep this in the tier don't even bring up Cloak that's cope.
-> Utility pdon is so good. Offensive pdon is cheems but I am of the opinion a metagame without mdia + tarrows would allow this to be a good presence since offense would get worse as a whole. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd love to play a meta with this mon and not mdia + tarrows.
vs 
on FCs are relatively common so to "enable" it, you ideally have a means of connecting a Knock Off on an FC. This is not as simple as putting Knock Off on a RegenVest because a competent opponent will not leave their FC in on a RegenVest. An example would be running another physical mon such as 
as a slow pivot, you can U-turn your scarf kart into things like 
whereas it's not possible to do so for the band one because it might just die to an attack. This can be resolved with resources such as Paralysis (a mon that can connect Nuzzle/Glare on fast mons) or Sticky Webs (requires a move slot as well as further investment into stopping hazard removal) which again are more resources that you have to commit to make it work.
is probably the best general 
and 
. The 
usage is very high which is great because that mon disintegrates to a +2 LO Thunder Cage. Their electric resist is 
on my team: All of the Pdon moves in the scout are usually Fire, Ground, recovery and some form of utility (Spikes, Knock Off, Mortal Spin, etc.) I wanted to provide paralysis support to Miraidon and mono-Brave Bird mence with Glare is perfect for this role. Miraidon has good synergy with Paralysis support because it is immune to paralysis, so it provides free turns against enemy Imposter wishing to click it. Secondly, mence baits in everything that I wanted to paralyse: Regen steels, Imposter and Zamazenta/Koraidon. I am also running Spikes because these mons are usually spinners so the opponent will want to bring those in. All in all, MG 
have a very good CV that aligns with my team's scope.
is another Imposter magnet like most regens. Once again it also gives MG Miraidon a free switch because it does not fear Nuzzle. Salt Cure is also an option though I did not end up running it. Furthermore, 
.
.
The former two form the second tier of wallbreakers on Balance behind Diancie and Kartana, while Zam is also the centrepiece of the ever-more-popular Psysurge HO. Chomp has mostly found its home on offensive teams, as it is more difficult to justify on Balance with its vulnerabilities.
Arceus formes that have struggled to keep up with the reign of Ghostceus. Waterceus has problems with Bolt Strike being the most common coverage on SG PDon as well as Kartana sets running Grass STAB. Steelceus has found it difficult to make consistent progress against the defensive meta, so despite Fur Coat sets being useful defensively it takes up the Arc slot and concedes momentum. With decline of other setup Arc formes as well as the old set of mixed attackers Eleceus loses out on stuff to check, and offensively is unimpressive. Fightceus manages to avoid a rank drop thanks to still retaining a niche of bulky neutral.
Between numerous defensive resists and offensive priority and faster Pokemon running around, the meta has not been so hostile to Flutter in a while. Anti-Ghost abilities are still useful in blanking bulky special setup, and offensive sets are still deceptively dangerous in longer games with a fair share of teams relying on short term answers like limited longevity revenge-killing.
Ho-Oh has a good typing here, but its physical bulk cannot keep up.
Defensive Fairies are not very useful especially when they are huge momentum sinks unlike Flutter Mane. Audino in particular has the honour of being a Ghostceus check that consistently gets owned by Ghostceus.
This guy is no longer good. He needed the V-Create for big damage, we all know this.
Quad-resists Sunsteel Strike and Gigaton Hammer.
RegenVest who doesn't really beat him but can tank 1 hit and kill with Water STAB.
Yes, Ting-Lu usage is at an all-time low.
+ 
- Wait
was an unrestricted mon (it can run any legal Item and Ability), but there is a Forme clause so you can't run it AND hero 
hits 
supereffectively).
Calyrex-Shadow - No surprises here. Still egregiously broken with no good long-term answers.
Mega Rayquaza - 180/180/115 with a good amount of different viable abilities that have completely different counters, from Aerilate to Tough Claws to Speed Boost.
Slaking - We're pretty confident that the Guts set is still going to be broken the same as before. There isn't much new that can really wall it, and it still outruns everything at +1.
Regigigas - See the above. The bulk differences aren't enough to cause any notable shifts in what it does.
Shedinja - No moves with built-in Mold Breaker (Sunsteel Strike, Moongeist Beam, Photon Geyser) remove any chance this had of being freed."
were no longer legal.
anyone?) Secondly is to do with the Guts Slaking set. Specifically, the coverage option. Because it's Guts and not MG, you HAVE to run a recovery move outside of HO. Without it, your opponent can simply click Salt Cure, Stone Axe, Dragon Tail, etc and your Slaking will be dead in no time.
and 
never run these. they are terrible. they have zero offensive presence, and better pokemon, both defensively and offensively can utilize their utility sets better than they can. this isn't dppt ou where people ran explosion stealth rock azelf on every team.
this mon is bad in the current meta and even though its still ranked on VR, it probably shouldn't be at this point. i made a point on not having a slow team, but if you want a fast wincon, you definitely want mega alakazam. it hits harder than mega sceptile and won't instantly die to extreme speed from most mons at full health with beads, assuming its even vulnerable to begin with (psychic surge).
use flutter mane or ghostceus. normalize is not good on this, and it is not good period.
another mon on VR, this mon does not check opposing pdon well. its only good if you're running mixed pdon or bolt strike pdon and improofing them with it. landorus should not be used on most teams and its better to have an immunity mon which doesn't get ganked by flip turn or glacial lance instantly. this also means not using extremely hard to improof pdon sets if you can help it. your defensive core will be better overall.
it serves as a check to normalize ghostceus, annoying it with rev dance and sand stream chip, but has the added bonus effect of winning against mega diancie in a 1v1 if it doesn't have headlong rush or surging strikes. steam eruption, torch song, armor cannon, secret sword, etc. all lose to nihilego. nihilego is seen as kind of a shitmon, but it has some valid use in the current meta despite inviting in primal groudon. with leech seed, you can 1v1 any non-bounce ghostceus pretty easily. it doesn't like secret sword much, but that won't lose the 1v1 in most cases, especially with a buffed Shore Up from sand.
it doesn't beat normalize ghostceus, and hates knock off ghostceus too, so it wants support from a secondary spdef that can handle it, but in turn, you have a psychic resist which deeply annoys mega alakazam and most other special attackers, and 130 special attack with stronger stabs in psystrike, boomburst, or extrasensory (unusually high pp, decent base power) let it deal more damage to those mons than mega audino on average.
decent as a levitate ability shield mon if you really need something that hits normalize ghostceus while not committing to magic bounce. note that thunder cage from normalize doesn't hit you super effectively.
becoming increasingly common, amuk lets you check mega alakazam and ghostceus in one slot. you can use toxic thread on one moveslot if you want to piss off normalize ghostceus users, provided you also have topsy turvy or haze to handle take heart boosting. you want to run knock off on it, but don't forget that you need to improof knock off...
generally disliked "because it loses to kartana and ash greninja". well guess what. unlike donbozo, mega slowbro has a usable special attack stat and will force out most pdon sets especially if it has an ability shield. it makes for a good partner with a fighting fur coat, either being a secondary fur coat, or a regenerator. i do not advise using levitate mega slowbro, but it does win against treecko pdon the same way palk-o does.
toxic debris is broken and easily fishes games by introducing rng rolls with phazing and non-committal toxic spikes, but somehow gets the pass from most of the community.
