Announcement Banlist Updates 1.3 - Too buff (to handle)

[Mateeus]

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As a brand new year is upon us, a brand new wave of bans is (finally) on its way as well. Following the 4/5 vote threshold, this is what will be quickbanned before the Welcome Tour kicks off:

• Mega Medicham​
• Annihilape​
• Iron Bundle​
• Chi-Yu​

Mega Medicham
Mega Medicham's absurd power and coverage is no stranger to the playerbase, as opposed to the new Scarlet and Violet additions. Despite that, however, it still remains too brutal for a good portion of the metagame to handle. For a wallbreaker, it still has an acceptable speed tier, and by virtue of its absurd power, it is very able to choose which types to screw up based on what other moves it's going to use. While not as impactful as in other occasions, the council agreed the metagame can potentially be more stable without it for the time being.

Annihilape
Similar to Houndstone and Last Respects last slate, Rage Fist turns Annihilape from a good Pokemon to an incredibly busted one. Rage Fist's cumulative power increase whenever Annihilape is hit makes it very hard to play against; if a move doesn't KO or dish significant damage to it, it will enable Annihilape become an even bigger threat. While the mentioned ways to stop it seem easy on paper, Annihilape's 110/80/90 bulk ensures that's way simpler said than done, which means most weak hits are just fuel for it to demolish teams later on. Access to Bulk Up, Taunt, Drain Punch, and Rest makes it even harder to face, hence why it warranted a ban.

Iron Bundle
Contrary to the "theme" of this slate, Iron Bundle doesn't seem stupidly powerful at all; its base 124 Special Attack, while great, isn't astounding on its own. However, the sum of Iron Bundle's attributes prove too much for a lot of types to handle. Thanks to its speed tier only matched by a few Pokemon and Freeze-Dry + Hydro Pump's perfect neutral coverage, Iron Bundle is able to limit its counterplay, for the majority of types, into revenge killing and getting lots of 50/50 scenarios right. It isn't even restricted to brainlessly spam its STABs, as the defensive "stops" for it can mostly be played around via its supportive movepool, which includes Taunt and Encore. For that reason, it got voted out of the tier.

Chi-Yu
Another newcomer who now joins the tier's banlist, Chi-Yu's combination of ability, typing, and stats turns it into a very centralizing threat. Thanks to Beads of Ruin, Chi-Yu's special attacks hit 1.33x harder by default, making it much harder to counterplay it defensively outside of few select answers, which are type-restrict. As a wallbreaker, it shares Mega Medicham's speed tier, but as opposed to that, it's able to boost up with Nasty Plot and run an item, be it a Z-Crystal which allows it to timely nuke common defensive threats, or a Choice item to give it immediate power or revenge killing capabilities. It's true that its movepool is rather shallow, but that's patched by its very good Dark/Fire typing.

Leppa Berry
Much because of Revival Blessing's 1 PP, Leppa Berry was voted out of the metagame to see how good the move actually is on its own.

Below is the vote tally:

	maroon​	Mateeus​	style.css​	Sunnyboi0​	Vodoom​
Mega Mawile	Ban	Do Not Ban	Do Not Ban	Ban	Ban
Mega Medicham	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban
Annihilape	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban
Iron Bundle	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban
Iron Valiant	Do Not Ban	Do Not Ban	Do Not Ban	Do Not Ban	Do Not Ban
Flutter Mane	Do Not Ban	Ban	Do Not Ban	Do Not Ban	Ban
Chi-Yu	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban
Chien-Pao	Do Not Ban	Do Not Ban	Do Not Ban	Ban	Do Not Ban
Leppa Berry	Ban	Ban	Abstain	Ban	Ban

The remainder of the watchlist is as follows:

• Mega Mawile
• Iron Valiant
• Flutter Mane
• Roaring Moon
• Chien-Pao
• Revival Blessing
• Landorus

Feel free to discuss the newest wave of bans in the discussion thread. As we approach the near end of the initial quickbans, resource development is set to start soon, in tandem with the Welcome tournament. Tagging Kris again to implement.