Announcement BW Draft Suspect Process, Round 1 - Bite Me

[Monai]

With permission from Hacker and format lifted from Finchinator

Hello everyone, the BW Draft Council has decided to suspect Garchomp.

Garchomp has spent BW Draft's short history on Smogon as the clear top dog; even when Terrakion and Jirachi could be argued to rival Garchomp, very few players seriously considered anything else for that round one pick. As the format progressed and centralization around the top Dragon-types, Garchomp became even more sought after as both the fastest and most flexible one, reaching a tipping point among the team tour community that it was just too powerful in Draft and leading to BW Swiss 2 to try a format with it banned.

Garchomp has an incredible movepool and base stat allocation that grants it a huge range of sets and elevates it above the other Dragons in the meta, who tend to use fairly straightforward wallbreaking or sweeping sets. But that's not to say Garchomp is a less capable wallbreaker than them either, its incredible STAB combo alongside Swords Dance and any coverage, utility, or even a second more reliable Dragon STAB of its user's choice makes it nearly unwallable, both on paper and in practice. Even after Garchomp locks itself into an Outrage, its minimal weaknesses and huge bulk can make revenge killing a healthy Garchomp a risky proposition for most non-Ice Types, who often need STAB to KO through a Yache Berry, with Haban potentially stuffing Choice Scarf Dragons. While its Special Attack is middling compared to its competition, its still totally capable of using a mixed breaker set with Draco Meteor and Fire Blast to push through the few physical walls that could otherwise handle it. Garchomp is hardly limited to breaking sets either; Rocky Helmet TankChomp is an iconic set, setting Stealth Rock while dishing out huge recoil to contact physical attackers and punishing pivoting attempts, and great base Speed and a spammable Dragon-STAB in the late game lets it fulfill a Choice Scarf role if the team needs. With the team foresight that draft provides, Garchomp's unique flexibility alongside its power makes it seriously difficult to prep against.

While Garchomp might be the best Pokemon in the meta, it's not without ways to limit it. Earthquake and Outrage are committal moves that Garchomp might not want to use into the wrong targets, while Dragon Claw and Dual Chop are unremarkable at best. Despite its bulk and propensity to limit it with Yache Berry, it does still have a quadruple weakness to Ice, letting multiple Pokemon splash Hidden Power Ice or other coverage to keep pressure on it. Garchomp must also be compared to its competition; as the highest cost Dragon-type, it struggles to sweep compared to Salamence and Dragonite, lacks the immediacy of Kyurem and Hydreigon's Draco Meteors, and can't match Kyurem-B's insane power on either side of the spectrum. Considering the point portion of Draft, increasing Garchomp's cost to 19 or even 20 might make it more palatable to face. While Garchomp is undeniably the best Pokemon in the format with many great attributes, it will be up to the individual whether or not it's overwhelming.

• Due to the format lacking a ladder, qualifications have already been decided based on BW Draft tournaments. The following team tournaments and tournaments with 128 or more entrants will be included:
  • BW Draft I - Top 16
  • BW Draft II - Top 16
  • BW Swiss I - Top 8
  • BW Swiss II- Playoffs
  • Cucumber Cup Classic - Top 8
  • ZTL Classic Circuit - Top 8
  • DWL I - One Win or 3 Games Played
  • Martini Premier League - One Win or 3 Games Played
• The suspect test discussion will go on for roughly one week, lasting until September 15th at 11:59 pm (GMT-4), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• No discussion on the suspect process -- this includes retesting Garchomp vs other potential suspects;

Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you.

 

[bobbiswas]

I'll vote as ZTL CC Winner and also BW Draft Top 4 .

50% winrate (worse than the other Round 1s , https://lbdfour.com/ogdraft.html?mon=Garchomp&gen=5) is the most obvious indicator that Garchomp is not banworthy (at least not more than terrakion/ jirachi (56%) /dragonite (53%) / kyurem-b (53.4%) / thundurus-t (53%) ) .

It's also the worst dragon besides Haxorus:

From the original post:
"Garchomp must also be compared to its competition; as the highest cost Dragon-type, it struggles to sweep compared to Salamence and Dragonite, lacks the immediacy of Kyurem and Hydreigon's Draco Meteors, and can't match Kyurem-B's insane power on either side of the spectrum."
Garchomp is well-understood to be lackluster compared to the other Dragons from the original post, which is backed in data by having the
worst winrate of all the dragons (even worse than cheap Flygon/Kingdra) besides Haxorus. (https://lbdfour.com/ogdraft.html#).
Another point is that Garchomp lacks the recovery / healing moves of other dragons like Kyurem-Black/Kyurem/Hydreigon/Dragonite/Salamence/Flygon.

Its low winrate is not the actual reason that I will never seriously draft fraudChomp , but rather its widespread weaknesses/counterplay, which are detailed in the original post (there are actually many more weaknesses/counterplay than detailed in the post!!! I will detail, explain, and analyze them) but I will also analyze why exactly they severely hold it back in practice.

There are a lot of words in this post explaining that Garchomp is a somewhat usable (its winrate is bad for a ) Round 1 pick , and this same logic doesn't stretch as far as making it banworthy in practice, as its weaknesses severely limit it.
It struggles to accomplish its wins (50% winrate) and goals and its (oftentimes low) ceiling for the following reasons:

The worst part of Garchomp is its 4x Ice Weakness , and when any Pokemon can run HP Ice or stronger Ice moves like Ice Punch/Beam , it can just be OHKO'ed by the majority of an opponent's team . Literally anything with base 80 or higher SpAtk running HP Ice (or base 50 Ice Beam or base 70 ice punch) , can ohko it the majority of the time (you can explore the calcs , I ran many common situations that arise and sets which I and others regularly run and are easy to fit , but if you really wanna be nitpicky you could increase the threshold to base 85-90 which isn't even that high in BW anyways like Zapdos has base 90 atk . I even nicely assumed no choice specs/band from my calc numbers analysis ) . Considering common bulky waters that Garchomp struggles to 2hko learn ice beam and often ohko garchomp back due to their relatively high spatk , this is an extremely common counterplay on most drafts. There also exist the move Ice Shard (common on Donphan, a mon that avoids 2hko from Garchomp) and ice types that always OHKO with STAB Ice Beam/Punch .

This ice weakness is extremely crippling and is the biggest contributor to Garchomp struggling to win more than the other Round 1s and the other dragons.

Garchomp dying quickly (to said ice moves) is also backed up by the stats, which show it takes the 5th most damage out of all BW Pokemon, on average: 80.37% (69th of 73 https://lbdfour.com/ogdraft.html?mon=Garchomp&gen=5) , and it's turns active as 11th worst: 3.77 (62nd of 73) .

Another obvious counterplay to Garchomp is to just burn it , whether it be will-o-wisp that's on every ghost type (ghost type spinblockers are extremely common in BW , and every ghost type either lives a hit from garchomp due to being bulky or outspeeds it like the levitating gengar/mismagius ) and also on fire types like rotom-heat and all the other levitating rotoms , or Scald Burn , which is universal on common bulky waters that garchomp usually struggles to 2hko (in addition to the aforementioned ice beam ohko) . A burned garchomp is a pretty useless garchomp.

Now the next question is what does garchomp even do if it lives a hit from said ice move that any Pokemon can run and also avoids burn. Looking at its most common moves (https://lbdfour.com/ogdraft.html?mon=Garchomp&gen=5) , it will reveal Earthquake roughly 40% of the time. This also makes sense , obviously , that Garchomp most often clicks Earthquake. Considering that basically every team has a ground in BW , every team similarly has 1-2 ground immunities , not to mention bulky physical walls/tanks and additional ground resists , this earthquake will not usually accomplish much. There is even further universal counterplay to Earthquake in Air Balloon , an item that makes the Pokemon not only immune to Earthquake and other ground moves , but also spikes and toxic spikes which are common in BW.

The 2nd most common (also unreliable) move that Garchomp reveals (roughly 31% of the time) is outrage . We all know that Outrage is bad to be locked into , considering the 1+ steel on every team that can just come in and take advantage however it wants , which includes running an ice move to ohko garchomp or guarantee 70%+ damage (a Garchomp at 25% is even more unthreatening due to its lack of recovery) . If Garchomp clicks outrage it might as well be toast in many game situations. The aforementioned bulky physical walls/tanks also can take as little as 30% from outrage, and both they and the steels can run rocky helmet to further chip or KO garchomp after attacking it. The worst part of being locked into outrage is that garchomp is locked into 3 turn outrage for half the time it clicks it , which means Garchomp is basically dead in these situations assuming the opponent prepares for Garchomp at all. And even if garchomp gets 2 turn outrage and immediately gets confused afterwards , the opponent still gets a free turn to KO or heavily damage garchomp with an ice moves or take advantage in other ways like setting hazards or setting up , and ALSO oftentimes gets a 2nd free turn regardless due to the 50% confusion self-hitrate in BW or Garchomp being forced to switch out due to the unreliable situation of said 50% confusion self-hitrate . There are other moves that garchomp clicks / reveals , but they are less common (71% of earthquake / outrage vs 19/16/13% for the next 3 highest ) . This makes sense as Garchomp's other moves are somehow even worse to click in many situations due to having less benefits and damage output , although not being completely useless. 4 moveslots further limit what the other moves can do, too.

Another point is that Garchomp is not really fast and every team will have 2-4 Pokemon faster than garchomp (could be 4-5 mons faster than chomp if more than 1 scarf), meaning that in any draft battle the opponent can choose to run a team where the majority of their team is faster than garchomp. Considering that each of these Pokemon can run an ice (or dragon) move that it can KO garchomp with before chomp can attack , this contributes to Garchomp struggling to accomplish significant wins more than the other Round 1s and dragons.

Considering Garchomp's long list of weaknesses and counterplay and the predicted uselessness of garchomp in many real in-game situations , one might wonder how can Garchomp even be worthy of a Round 1 pick. I will say that Garchomp's 50% mediocre , while worse than the other Round 1's and dragons, still manages to win half the time so apparently it sometimes does something. The aforementioned ice weakness can be circumvented via running Yache Berry, as mentioned in the original post, so Garchomp can choose to get 1 turn to try to somehow do something. Earthquake and Outrage are the most common and generally best moves , although the easy aforementioned counterplay and struggles during in-game situations limit what those moves actually accomplish. The other moves Garchomps less frequently uses are not completely useless and help it try to actually accomplish something useful. However , if it chooses to run yache berry to avoid being useless vs ice moves , that means it can't run another item to try to do something useful and overcome its burn weakness, inability to 2hko / ko , and lacking speed , thus still limiting it in the other ways. This is not to mention that air balloon and rocky helmet are universal counterplay but is possible yet limiting to counter , since choosing to do so makes garchomp run a worse set with worse ev's / moves / item or waste a whole turn .

Garchomp is a Pokemon with the worst winrate of the threatening Round 1's , the worst winrate of all dragons (worse than Flygon/Kingdra) besides Haxorus , and in practice is held back by it's extensive flaws and counterplay in addition to struggling to accomplish wins and kills during in-game situations.

To add another point, about half of drafts will have bronzong, skarmory, ferrothorn, scizor, or forretress, which are pokemon that resist outrage and are immune to or not weak to earthquake and avoid 2hko from it. While some of these Pokemon fear fire blast, this is an easy situation to switch to a bulky water and threaten ice beam or scald burn or to a scarfed dragon and threaten to ohko garchomp with a dragon move. In these cases even if Garchomp switches out to avoid dying, the switch-in is punished by taking heavy damage from a strong dragon move or suffering a scald burn. Also each of these steel types can just run occa berry and do like 70% to garchomp with hp ice or gyro ball (or skarm can even icy wind chomp twice and KO it).

Regarding comparison to other dragons, an understated point was the Kyurem-Black and Kyurem with their huge bulk and Hydriegon with it's 8 resistances/immunities to half the moves in the game (and dragonite multiscale, salamence intimidate) , in addition to all of them being able to Roost , give those mons more defensive utility and longevity. One of the most annoying parts of Kyurem-Black and Kyurem is when they don't die and last a long time , one of the most annoying parts of Dragonite is Multiscale , etc. And all of them being able to roost to have defensive utility allows them to run defensive sets like sub roost toxic kyurem , sub roost kyurem-black , roost thunder wave dragonite , roost taunt/sub hydreigon , etc.

 

[Aleksanteri]

Hello. I feel obligated to make a post having been the person behind Swiss 2:s tiering. I am firmly voting ban. To give the tldr from the start, I think tiering should focus on improving metagame health, and Garchomp itself represents a strain in drafting and building. At the highest level, making gameplans around Garchomp are close to impossible due to the sheer amount of set variance it has along with having one of the most powerful sweeping sets in the game. Garchomps ban improves the tier by lessening pressure on drafting above 102 speed control, allowing for better defensive cores. Garchomp itself is an unhealthy enabler and should be gone as this tier evolves.

First of all, I wanna preface that I do not think the databases winrate calculation is super relevant to this discussion. The sample size is far too low for it to matter. While it is cool, I am not largely taking it into consideration. However, even looking at the database, showing 10th in KDA while having 100 more games than half of the mons in the top 10 should be enough of a statistic to show how strong this Pokemon is. Add the fact that on top of good direct dmg numbers on top of being 29th in indirect damage while not using Toxic commonly just speaks how much damage this Pokemon is able to dish out game to game.

I would like to go over why I think Garchomp is broken by replay examples. All of these replays are either from DWL or MPL, where prep on average is much more intensive than at individual level.

Replay 1

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5draft-2521354274

The first game I wish to go over is Sammy against Jake in Week 1 of DWL. Lets take a look at the matchup first.

On paper, this looks like a fairly average matchup for Garchomp itself. Sammy in this instance has a good check to most variants of Garchomp in Suicune, he has a good Ground immunity in Uxie, a decent outspeed in Jolteon and Cofagrigus can check most of the physical variants of Garchomp. Now, a question. What set will Garchomp bring? What will it aim to primarily target on Sammy's team? It doesn't need to click Stealth Rocks, Jolteon doesn't seem like a big enough threat where Choice Scarf is forced. So what do you bring as Jake.

Ultimately what ends up happening in game is that the Garchomp reveals to be a Stealth Rock attacker. However, the different variations Garchomp most likely has shown in the mocks for this game against Sammy can be seen in game. Sammy ends up bringing a team focused on beating Garchomp, which ends up opening Jakes Weavile to a demonic level.

My point in this specific instance is that Garchomp worked as an unhealthy enabler for a sweeping threat in the back. It forced enough prep almost on it's own where you had to sacrifice team integrity against a Weavile of all things.

Replay 2

Lets now look at https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5draft-2545057119

This game was from DWL, and it was a Week 5 replay with Phonytail against Glop. Lets similarly look at the matchup

This matchup is probably 1 of the worst matchups for Garchomp, on paper. Phonytail in this instance has 3 outspeeds with HP Ice coverage (on paper) and 3 good defensive checks, including on paper Garchomps hardest counter, aka Bronzong.

All it took for the castle to fall was a Specs Jellicent breaking the Bronzong and Garchomp got a position where it could sweep. While we can speak about the crit and how it could have mattered, 2x crit means this Outrage was a 2 shot already on the Scrafty.

Replay 3

In my last example, I wanted to bring a replay from MPL https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5draft-911705

This final game was Checkm8 against Tycarter in Week 7 of MPL.

Watching the replay one might think why I am bringing this specific replay up. In this game, all Garchomp did was click Earthquake once, get Rocks up and die. But I wanted to showcase this because it shows how well Garchomp enables it's partners, where Checkm8s Scizor was given 2 kills of the opening it got, leading to a win.

I think in many ways the tier for now is overly centralized around Garchomp. That on it's own is not a bad thing, but when you have to it take into account along with the other strong Dragons, Fighting types, not to mention the sweeping Psychics and Raikou, I think it puts far too much stress into the drafting and building in BW Draft context. Banning Garchomp alleviates pressure from drafting for the other Dragons, as they are much more linear in how they work. Garchomp achieves something no other Pokemon does, being great at everything in the tier and being able to work as a breaker, defensive answer or sweeper, occasionally doing multiple roles at once. It's an unhealthy aspect and banning it will improve the tier in the long term.

Some small notes to the end

-A big worry I had originally regarding a Chomp ban was how it would influence drafting positions in the later half of the wheel. However, I am glad to see this not an issue. Hydreigon itself has risen up to be a premier Round 1 already, and fits nicely into that final Round 1 position. This to me is also reason why Chomps ban improves the tier, as it forces there absurd Dragons into weaker teams, making drafting again easier. It's a pretty big nerf.

-I do admit to cherry picking replays for this post, but even in cases where Garchomp lost (especially during DWL), the outcries about it in prep side were huge. Something I am sure jscurf will touch on in his post is the final game with Lax against Jake. Even though Lax won, the amount of pressure Garchomp put into that weeks build was absolutely ridiculous.

I am hoping for discussion regarding this suspect and am interested in talking to people about this!

 

[profchipboard]

To echo Alex's point, I don't think stats (especially pure winrate) aren't a good measure of what is healthy for the metagame here. Firstly the sample size is too low to be significant, and secondly a lot of these stats will be based on games where there are players learning the tier. I really don't think its valid to read into these too much; draft stats are a bit infamous for being incredibly high variance.

I think the obvious comparison in draft is to ORAS chomp, in which it is still generally considered a top 3 mon in the tier as it is the most similar to gen 5 mechanically/meta wise.
in general-
BW meta is slower (no mega pokemon) and latis etc are banned
BW only has spin for removal and the only spinners that consistently 1v1 chomp are blastoise and starmie. Rocks are op.
The one resistance to dragon stab is steel, and chomp can hit every steel in the game for supereffective damage
Wisp is 75% accurate this gen
no fairy types
140 bp draco and 120 bp fire blast for mixed chomp

All of these things are good for chomp.

In terms of the things that are worse for chomp:
HP ice does have 10 base damage more
There are a lot more other dragons in the tier that are drafted so are forced to be scarf in more matchups to cover off dd and scarf sets form the other top tier dragons.

A lot of the same counterplay for chomp (bulky waters, running hp hp ice or just outspeeding and picking off a wekaned chomp with whatever supereffective move) exist in both gens; but there's significantly more counterplay in gen 6 where the mon is still very good.

Bobbi also mentioned wisp as crippling counterplay to chomp. We do not want to have the only viable counterplay feel like gambling on wisp hitting or hoping they aren't yache for icy wind/hp ice to ohko on your ghost type that dies on entry to a lot of chomps moves. It's not healthy for the meta and doesn't reward smart prep or play.

Even in a bad offensive mu, chomp still has a very high floor with rocks+toxic sets; or can normally at least trade with yache/ catching out a physdef wall with life orb draco into eq etc.

On important thing to note- chomp is the fastest dragon in the tier. In offense vs offense builds this can mean scarf chomp (or something like sub salac) can come and be very close to winning at team preview.

I would lean ban. Chomp has an incredibly high floor even vs teams with a good mu and threatens to end the game into teams that dont have a good check. Chomp doesn't have to be 6-0ing games to be unhealthy for the meta.

 

[jscurf]

I will firmly vote ban on Garchomp and I frankly didn’t even think this decision needed to go to suspect.

While our surveying and data has shown a near supermajority has preferred the tier without it in the recent BW Swiss event, there’s still a (loud) vocal minority who will always vote to keep chomp and is simply noisier than the other 80+% of people. Disingenuous points like saying Chomp is only better than Haxorus and a bad dragon kind of just prove this point to a tee and makes me question the qualifications of this thread.

BW was probably the most heavily criticized tier in DWL which is to be expected and also a good thing. It is still pretty young and experiencing growing pains. In the feedback only one BW Pokemon was mentioned, formally in feedback and informally in discussions, can you guess what it was? Garchomp was cited as making the tier way more unbalanced and less fun to play. This is exactly what you don’t want the pick 1 in a format to be. If Chomp is driving experienced tour players and newcomers away, there’s no way to frame that positively.

There’s so much evidence to support this ban. Chomp drafts in team tours were almost strictly brought over other slots when the choice was to be had. It has been consensus pick 1 entirely. This Pokemon on paper beats every singles round 1 except arguably Starmie. Every other high tier is literally Ground or Dragon weak and and almost all will underspeed Chomp, it effectively has mono good mus. It completely warps drafting where you have to have multiple Chomp checks, multiple outspeeds, and more to have a considered safe draft. This was literally the checklist I was explained when I first started BW. Even ORAS Mgarde for instance isn’t nearly like that. You need a steel and you naturally have an easier time getting a couple outsoeeds. Chomp’s speed tier which is elite in this Gen and the complete lack of bulky counterplay and high tier counterplay make it a mess. If you stake your prep on beating it via a specific interaction you will simple learn the flexibility Chomp has. It can be Lum, it can be Yache, it can be CB or CS and any of these can just render your paste useless on a dime if you guess wrong at times. Even when you manage to check Chomp the question pivots to does this leave enough room to check the remainder of the team. Alex verbalized this well. In DWL we played chomp in finals for instance. We had to run mixed defences max bulk Kyurem, incredibly bulky ice punch Gurdurr, helmet bulky Azelf with ice coverage, and screens wisp Wash, and we still felt uncomfortable vs Chomp and almost lost to it because it ran a smart mixed dragon fang set.

Chomp may not be outright BROKEN in every matchup but that’s not the floor for a ban. It is certainly unhealthy, it is certainly disliked by the vast majority, and it completely warps prep to an unseen level in settled draft metas. Just recently we banned Zarude in SV and I think it’s similar to that case. Chomp can’t just 6-0 every matchup but it always has a great spread and if you don’t win with it specifically, it’s still constraining the builder so much your draft is infinitely more likely to win anyways and it will still make considerable progress.

I definitely urge people to vote ban as I will.

 

[Dr. Geo]

I am seeing surveys mentioned here as evidence to ban. Can someone publish them here or give direct references so people can find them? Thank you.

 

[magialice]

ok first of all one of the replays of chomp being op alex has posted is of a chlorophyll tangrowth. you do lose if the wrong ability is on your chomp. i would never. i think chomp has enough to beat it that it's a fine pokemon to keep around. i think having multiple scarfers as speed control is very strong in bw, and while scarfchomp is faster scarfchomp is exploitable for being scarfed. it just can't do everything at once. i think some chomp checks are underdrafted also. im specifically talking about cresselia, who's pretty excellent into chomp, and looking at the stats has not been drafted much. 5 times in bw 2, none in dwl. this is kinda all i have to say draft cress more.

edit: hail is good too yeah. i forgot to write the verdict which is no ban.

 

[OdinRM]

In terms of how Garchomp performs in games, Aleksanteri already said pretty much everything i wanted to and did an amazing job showcasing games where it shows its strenghts.

With that I'll mostly go through the Drafting aspect from my own experience with the tournaments Ive used to qualify for this vote.
I got to Top 8 in BW Cup I and from the Draft until then i knew that garchomp was a problem, to say theres a gap between Pick 1 Garchomp and Pick 2 picking anything else is a massive understatement. Theres certain checks you can draft to deal with Garchomp but they all seem inconsistent at best and depending on odds to beat it is a clear sign of it being unhealthy, specially when you compare to other Draft Pick 1 mons such as ORAS :Gardevoir-mega:, USUM :tapu-koko: or SV :Meowscarada:
When it comes to prep, DWL is the data to look at as prep in team tours is much more refined due to the multiple layers of effort players put into a matchup, and its not a coincidence that a large part of the playerbase found it to be the main problem of the format given how much it can warp a matchup with its Raw offensive presence and overall flexibility, you just cant prep for every option Garchomp has at its disposal.
Garchomp was almost universally considered unhealthy after the community experieced with it at the highest level of competition BW Draft has had so far, and for that i see no other option besides voting BAN.

 

[Dr. Geo]

As of right now, I am going to vote Do Not Ban on Garchomp.

I think any tiering action is a bit premature. I am sympathetic and think there are some real reasons to consider a ban on Garchomp. The comparisons to ORAS Garchomp and M Garde are most convincing to me how it could be a problem. But there is counter play in the format currently. Many of the steels that resist/neutral to the dragon/ground coverage have already been mentioned, plus bulky mons who threaten ice attacks and status back. For me, I think there is enough counter play that we should keep chomp in for now, but it is on a knife’s edge.

The main reason I suggest do not ban is that the tier is very young. Compared to other more established tiers, there have not been many games played or serious tours run and thus very little time for the meta to develop. This is a meta that is quickly developing, and in the past year we have seen things like Kyurem go from 14 points up to 17 points. With such rapid shifts, we may see more counter play to chomp develop. Or we may see less and have to give it the boot.

Let’s give the meta some more time to develop. In 6 months we should have another MPL, potentially another DWL and other individual tourneys. Each more meaningful than the last as the player base gets better and takes it more seriously.

I look forward to further replies and will keep an open mind to others opinions on the matter.

 

[bobbiswas]

Regarding JScurf's point, one does not have to go out of their way to draft chomp checks but they naturally exist in every draft, and it is thus not metagame warping. Every draft natually has checks/counters to dragons and grounds and physical attackers anyways, and a summary of counterplay includes common drafted mons like Steels , Ground-Immunities/resists , a Ghost with wisp , bulky Water with Ice Beam , additional physical tanks like bulky grounds , and the option to run helmet / balloon / resist berries and also run ice moves on any mon . Considering that every draft has a steel and also a ground-immune , not to mention additonal ground immunities/resists and the common ghost spinblockers and bulky waters and also possibly other physical tanks/walls like bulky grounds and more and ice types, this is all just the list of counterplay that is very easy to run.

Regarding ProfChipboards point "Chomp has an incredibly high floor even vs teams with a good mu and threatens to end the game into teams that dont have a good check." Well a high floor is not grounds for a ban , it just means the Pokemon is a good Round 1....Garchomp's numerous weaknesses I detailed hold it back from regularly accomplishing its intended ceiling and mean that in practice it oftentimes also has a low ceiling, even if a high floor. But if what you said about Rocks Toxic is grounds for having a high floor then that can be said about every Pokemon that learns Stealth Rock. Additionally, I just went through the long list of checks that are present on literally every draft already to check other dragons/grounds/physical attackers , so threatening to end the game into teams that don't have a good check is not a situation that would arise. Not to mention that the omnipresent hp ice and potential shuca/haban/airBalloon/Helmet/scarf add further lack of situations where Garchomp remains unchecked , in addition to every draft also naturally having multiple non-scarfed capable attackers that outspeed Garchomp and threaten to OHKO it with an ice move.

 

[bobbiswas]

Monai I saw a bunch of people complaining about the following requirements being too loose , including players who went 1-3 or 0-3 in DWL/MPL being able to vote. Shouldn't the requirement be higher , like having 2 wins? Getting requirements by playing 1 game seems extremely silly.

• DWL I - One Win or 3 Games Played
• Martini Premier League - One Win or 3 Games Played

 

[Aleksanteri]

Monai I saw a bunch of people complaining about the following requirements being too loose , including players who went 1-3 or 0-3 in DWL/MPL being able to vote. Shouldn't the requirement be higher , like having 2 wins? Getting requirements by playing 1 game seems extremely silly.

• DWL I - One Win or 3 Games Played
• Martini Premier League - One Win or 3 Games Played

Click to collapse...

Hello! The requirements are going to stand. I recommend taking more time to asses your posting, as example your newest post responding to Jscurf and Chipboard is close to impossible to read. Use proper grammar and avoid posting multiple posts in a row. Also, there is no reason to be passively aggressive when posting. Will delete further posts that do not follow these guidelines!

 

[violet river]

ok first of all one of the replays of chomp being op alex has posted is of a chlorophyll tangrowth. you do lose if the wrong ability is on your chomp. i would never. i think chomp has enough to beat it that it's a fine pokemon to keep around. i think having multiple scarfers as speed control is very strong in bw, and while scarfchomp is faster scarfchomp is exploitable for being scarfed. it just can't do everything at once. i think some chomp checks are underdrafted also. im specifically talking about cresselia, who's pretty excellent into chomp, and looking at the stats has not been drafted much. 5 times in bw 2, none in dwl. this is kinda all i have to say draft cress more.

edit: hail is good too yeah. i forgot to write the verdict which is no ban.

Click to collapse...

in this vein, the one featuring weavile did show a team that is basically 6-0d on preview by weavile and is generally just total garbage, like yea the team that drafted round3 jolteon lost this means nothing to me
generally speaking, I dont think "garchomp outspeed is forced" is real, its actually terrakion outspeed thats forced. needing a 350speed+ mon as a general baseline is fine actually
like Alice said, cress needs to be drafted a lot more as do many other pokemon. strongly think that the tier just needs a lot more gameplay - it is considered the most volatile compared to adv or dpp because it has been played the least by far.
wld be in favor of no ban. make it cost 20points sure

 

[profchipboard]

I've never argued that there isn't counterplay- I agree that most drafts will have counterplay; just that the counterplay in this gen is worse than in gen 6 where it's still a top 3 pick. The extent that chomp can force multiple mons to have to run coverage or items to check it due to naturally beating the normal dragon check (eg the steel) on the draft is unique amongst the top tier dragons. I do also think that the value of hp ice has been overstated a little, even coming off a base 100 mon it doesn't ohko uninvested chomp without a boosting nature.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that compared to the other top tier dragons, chomp doesn't care about rocks. Getting multiple entry points means you can go in multiple times and the chomp check will have to come in and eat hits while being worn down by hazards. In tours (where people will mock and have practiced sequences) most players players are more deliberate at playing forcing chip to open up wincons. Mence/kyub etc will struggle to have as many entry points (hydra less so).

I'm still leaning leaning ban
Chomp is clearly extremely strong (consensus number 1 on boards which include it). The mon is not so broken that this discussion isn't valuable-but it's just not fun to be forced to build in a limiting way and the overall health of the meta will be improved by it being gone.

 

[WraxiusGaming]

Hi as a resident oldgen draft player who likes garchomp but just barely didn't qualify, I would like to talk about the power level of BW and how it pertains to Garchomp specifically.

BW Draft has a very high power level relative to other draft formats due to the lack of real checks. Just about no pokemon has a real check, and this does not only apply to the dragons. Pokemon lower on the scale but are still very good such as Cloyster, Darmanitan, Excadrill, and Volcarona are all obviously very powerful, and arguably harder to wall due to the type charts and how difficult it is to find pokemon that resists these things while staying good pokemon. When you include the dragons, just about none of them are actually even checkable, you just pivot through and try to out-offense all of them. Kyurem-Black is the most obvious example of this concept, but Salamence, Kingdra, Hydreigon, and Dragonite are all extremely difficult to wall thanks to their extremely wide movepools and access to resist berries, removing the simplest and most common counterplay. In this way, I believe Garchomp is no more pressuring on the format than any other powerful pokemon. Garchomp's combination of Dragon and Ground STAB is scary, but Bronzong, Ferrothorn, Skarmory, and Scizor are all steel types that are neutral or immune to ground, high quality enough to reasonably be drafted in the vast majority of draft pools, and have reasonable threat back into Garchomp. Mixed sets including Fire Blast or going full physical and using fire fang do exist, but occa berry, counter, boom, hp ice, STAB options, or simply threatening the ability to set hazards are all enough to keep Garchomp from just clicking it freely without forcing other sets. Bulky waters and bulky grounds, such as Suicune, Rotom-wash, Milotic, Blastoise, Jellicent, Gliscor, Donphan, Hippowdon, and bulky levitate psychics like Cresselia or the lake spirits all also take outrages, take draco meteors, and trade back as well. Even the steels which can't take earthquakes well, such as Metagross, Cobalion, Empoleon, and most other steels, they are all more than capable of taking dragon moves and using either air balloon or shuca berry to maintain threat into Garchomp, just as they would into all the other dragon types. I never leave my Registeel without a shuca berry, for example, regardless, and I always have plenty of options to threaten Garchomp back, with either targeting the 4x weakness or by using my steel as a pivot option. Garchomp's utility, while very strong, is nothing worth banning it over when pokemon such as Tyranitar, Landorus-therian, and Jirachi all have access to similarly insane utility with offense, and we all mostly agree they're fine enough in the format (even if Jirachi is a war criminal). Garchomp's need for salac berry is another aspect of what makes it fine. Without a way to naturally boost its own speed, scarfers can consistently and reasonably outspeed it, and if salac berry is procced, it should be in range of just about every priority user, good and bad thanks to the fantastic distribution of bullet punch, mach punch, extreme speed, and vacuum wave.

I also want to note some other things about the dragons besides Garchomp. Yes, the primary way they are used is for wallbreaking, but I have made fantastic use of them outside of that role since just about every single one gets Roost, including the ones without flying type like Hydreigon and, more obviously, Kyurem. Both mons having access to such a strong tool makes it impossible for someone to pivot around them, and this is a tool Garchomp sorely lacks, relying entirely on its (admittedly very high) natural bulk to maintain itself in battle. This actually was a meaningful change when I did some quick skims through the MPL I and DWL I games, where Garchomps that were focused on their offensive presence often only claimed kills on mons that had already traded and were at 30% or less, and the few times Garchomp did claim two or more kills in a game, they were endgame scenarios where just about every mon preserved to that point will claim more than one kill. In fact, the most successful Garchomps had Rocks + 2 attacks (usually 2 of DClaw, EQ, and Fire Blast) instead, most certainly not a combination I would think is worth banning. If anything, I think we should be looking at mons like the Nidos or slotting hp fire onto offensive rockers like Metagross and Landorus-therian more because of just how effective a bulky rocker that threatens most other rockers is. Obviously Garchomp still had heavy presence in the builder I am sure, but in the games presented, Garchomps spent very little time on the field providing value, and the times it did give persistent presence was by setting rocks, not with SD or its powerful set variey, it kept on being the same set that is mostly about providing consistent, easy value. Of course, it's not all the games present for this suspect test, and not all games were the fairest test, in one game a player click sword dance after popping the salac berry and losing as a result (where I think that not clicking it gives favored odds to win the game outright) and in another game Garchomp is crit by snorlax that it otherwise lives and traded with, but there is enough sample size I think to reasonably say that Garchomp is not the most powerful mon to grace the BW Draft board even if it is objectively very strong. As for what others have said, I looked through the game jscurf talked about and the mixed dragon fang garchomp took out half of Azelf's health early in the game with a 48% damage dragon claw, just barely missed an ohko on kyurem, and otherwise provided minimal value. The star of that game was the Zapdos if anything, which hit everything with tbolt and got a bolt paralysis on Kyurem. The bronzong got broken down for Haxorus to actually end the game, which would've won by itself if not for double confusion hit, and Excadrill, which stays unwallable my goat. Other games where Garchomp won from DWL is stuff like this where the sole steel bronzong trades its entire life before turn 5 only to later lose to the mon you need a steel type to check, just about every dragon won from this position, even lower quality ones like Druddigon. I don't discount the idea that Garchomp has undue pressure on the builder, I am sure it did, but so does Terrakion, and Jirachi, and Salamence, and any other number of things, thats the reason its a big expensive powerhouse mon.

Lastly, I want to look at the replays Aleksanteri posted for why he thinks Garchomp is ban-worthy, since he is one of the most outspoken Garchomp banners and he provided some replays to illustrate his point. Replay 1 features a zapdos that can't be stopped, not weavile. Sammy gets caught out by a Nasty Plot Cofagrius which instantly kills the steel type, the dark resist, and the electric resist in 1 Excadrill, which allows Jake ample time to use Zapdos to chip down the entire team, and because Sammy can't utilize uxie because of Garchomp in the back (Or they arguably can, they just have to risk the fully asleep Suicune to check Garchomp by itself later) due to the Excadrill vs Cofa interaction, the game eventually ends with Garchomp and Weavile finishing off what Zapdos mostly did. I don't discount the effect Garchomp had on this game, if the Chomp were a lesser dragon, Sammy may have gone to Uxie vs Zapdos and traded that instead, but the fact there was only 1 Zapdos check and 1 Weavile check put into 1 pokemon always meant this game was going to be a win for the Jake. Even if the Garchomp was any other potent pokemon, such as Terrakion or Infernape, the game ends in the exact same way in the exact same route I'm reasonably sure. Replay 2 features a game I said above, where the Bronzong was a trick set to begin the game. If the Bronzong was instead occa, lum, or leftovers, it did actually live to the point it could have checked Garchomp. Because of the fact it had to trick in its first turn, Bronzong just ended up sacrificing all of it's hp to Jellicent when, as the sole steel, it needs to preserve hp for the dragon, as you would in any matchup against a dragon type. I do not believe this game is a good example of Garchomp showcasing it's strength. Replay 3 features an Ancient Power Tangrowth without regenerator... In this game, Scizor gets an opening from the dragon type clicking the fire move and rocks into the steel type, allowing it break through because the other physical wall forgot its ability at home and Espeon cleaned up the endgame because both psychic resists just let themselves die, one to kamikaze turn 1 and the other to trade with the dragon. Just looks like a cleanly played game where the gameplan worked out well.

Some other stuff I wanted to mention because the post got more responses as I writing this.
Garchomp's lack of weakness to hazards - While this is a meaningful difference, Garchomp did not enter the field often anyway in most of the games, even compared to other similarly strong pokemon that like pivoting in such as Infernape or Kyurem-Black. Garchomp is extremely spike-weak and tends to use its hp on one of its first two interactions, and has to spend almost all of it in order to accomplish its goal. This might be why the Garchomps that were more utility based worked out so well, because they didn't feel a need to stay in and trade, they just got out and tried to repeat the interaction later. This is something I want to recheck, but I've watched the replays enough to give myself a headache multiple times already. Worth looking at more, but I don't remember Garchomp entering particularly more when it was just a set that clicked buttons and provided value compared to setup sets.
Garchomp outspeed - We need 109+ speed mons already for Terrakion, and you want a mon faster than 100 because of how contested that speed tier generally is, and Thundurus-Therian contests 101. We're pressured in the speed tier department plenty, but Garchomp is not part of the reason. If anything, 102 is just between that point because 105 is a hot speed tier featuring a couple mid tiers, Zoroark and Mienshao, and then you hit the very important 108 speed tier with the swords of justice and Infernape, into Durant, into the 110+ like Espeon, Archeops, Gengar, and everything above.

In summary, I do not believe Garchomp is any more pressuring on the builder or the draft phase as Terrakion, or Jirachi, or Landorus, or Thundurus are. It's a very reasonable, very fun pokemon in the format and I encourage voting not to ban.

 

[bobbiswas]

Aleksanteri I just went through your replays and they don't indicate Garchomp as banworthy:

In the 1st replay Garchomp the (non-yache) Garchomp came in on HP Ice Jolteon and would have immediately died at the beginning had the Jolteon stayed in and used HP Ice. Suicune running Ice Beam and Jolteon running HP Ice is not excessive prep at all , it is literally just normal sets and prep. Additionally, your point about Weavile is regardless of garchomp, considering that the only weavile checks are suicune, jolteon, and excadrill. These Pokemon were KO'ed by Cofagrigus, Zapdos, and the last mon Suicune was not going to win a 1v4. I think the Zapdos and the clever Cofagrigus were more impactful in winning that game than Garchomp.

The 2nd game seems like poor representation due to extremely questionable gameplay and building tactics. For some reason the bronzong led and was sacked and exploded early when there was a whole Garchomp. I think it just poor tactical gameplay to allow Bronzong to get KO'ed turn 1, considering Zapdos could also have been Specs Heat Wave considering no opposing electric resist. The starmie then didn't ice beam the garchomp and also didn't burn with scald, indicating further questionable building and prep. The player could have also brought Piloswine which is a Garchomp counter, but chose not to. And then the Garchomp crit the Scrafty, too, which was also not intimidate.

The 3rd game featured non-regenerator tangrowth , a piloswine that was not brought vs Garchomp , and a rotom-wash that was not brought in vs garchomp. Not to mention the Metagross that was not running Ice Punch despite running Air Balloon to counter Garchomp. I think this is another example of extremely questionable gameplay and building tactics.

Is there any reason the requirements would not be improved to a 2-win threshold for the team tours? The suspect requirements seem too low for Smogon Standards, considering they can be met by playing 3 games and losing all of them, or by playing 1 game and winning, or by playing 2 games and winning 1.

 

[a12qsd too]

Qualifications: Diggersby Enthusiast (I also played DWL but that matters less)

My Vote: Ban

My Reasoning:
This is generation 5, before the introduction of fairy types so dragon ground offers perfect coverage while providing insane utility and diverse sets where each set requires a slightly different answer. I can yap for a bit but I think I will essentially regurgitate what Jscurf and Chipboard said so instead of doing that I am going to respond to the pro ban arguments I have seen.

Argument: Just Burn it

Response:
With what? Garchomps speed tier was elite in bw. There are only 2 pokemon 16 points and above that outspeed it. There are only 4 pokemon with will o wisp that naturally outspeed chomp and one of them is a Rapidash and the other 3 get ohkod if the chomp is lum. This leaves the just burn it counterplay questionable at best.

Argument: Just Hp Ice it

Ok, once again with what? Garchomps speed tier is elite in bw giving it multiple opportunities in the mid game where things are chipped to come in and revenge kill. And that also ignores the possibility of the chomp being yache.

Argument: Mons like foretress exist which makes chomp awkward to lock moves (This I think had to be a rage bait)

Ok, you use foretress to bait the fire blast then go into ur bulky water. congrats. the chomp just pressed substitute to scout your switch or it pressed swords dance on forretress since it is incredibly passive and you just lost multiple pokemon due to making that brilliant play. Forretress doesn't counter Garchomp; it forces Garchomp's opponent to correctly predict which of several threatening options Garchomp will use and it only takes the garchomp making the play correct once.

Argument: Analytically, it hasn't performed well in one specific tournament.

I always take tournament stats with a grain of salt, like there is a reason I can roll in with the loyal 3 and make seasonal top cut decently often. Early rounds of tournament play can be filled with a lot of newer and less experienced players. Also, it is far too small a sample size to make any judgement off of.

Argument: Outrage is a bad move to lock.

It really isn't in a meta where there is no immunity and even when resisted it hits for effective base 90 bp. (120*1.5*0.5)=90. Getting steels chipped is fairly manageable in a game time scenerio, since pokemon will not be at full hp the entire game.

Argument: Garchomp dies too quickly

If your switching chomp in at bad times yeah its going to faint but that sounds like a skill issue. Chomp can KO most moderately weakened mons and getting it in isn't hard.

Argument: Garchomp is not as pressuring as terrakion, jirachi, landorus or thundurus

I think this is the strongest argument, but each of those mons have some notable flaws. Landorus-T is notably slower than Chomp and doesn't have the almighty BW Dragon stab, as it is a mono ground stab attacker. I think the strength of the dragon type in the bw format is one of the main things that pushes chomp over the breaking point, since nothing resists dragon+ground typing. For thundurus the weakness the stealth rocks is very noticeable and leaves it more prone to getting chipped and gives it harder entry points throughout the game. The weakness to stealth rocks makes Thundurus way more dependent on the player keeping the hp high and not letting it take hits throughout the game compared to garchmop. Thundurus also lacks a lot of Garchomps utility like stealth rocks. For Jirachi, Jirachi is really strong but it does lack some of the immediate power chomp provides, especially since a lot of chomps value comes from how strong its dual stab is. For Terrakion, this is probably the best argument for anti chomp, but terrakion does have a noticeable weakness in its unreliable secondary stab in stone edge. Its kind of like how Iron Bundle would be arguably broken if it always hit hydro pump, the chance of missing makes actually pressing stone edge much more of a commitment and risk than pressing a 100 percent accurate move like eq.

 

[Icewing97]

Qualifications: CLDL Top 8
Greetings all,
I want to offer the perspective of a newer player who has competed mostly in individual events to this point. I recognize the importance of team events like DWL, but this ban will have far reaching consequences for individual events moving forward. As stated already by Dr. Geo and others, the BW draft format is young. Any decision made here will be forever impactful on a still growing format.

As a brief anecdote, the very first BW tour I ever played was Smogon BW 1 last year. I distinctly remember that the talk amongst draft heads at the time was that Terrakion, not Garchomp, was the sleeper best pick to start drafts. I remember when Kyurem was 14 points and seen as almost mediocre by virtue of not being Kyurem Black. Volcarona and Cloyster are still warned about on the BW draft guide despite their lack of results and price drops over the last year. A lot has changed.

There are a myriad of ways the format has already changed in the less than calendar year that I have played. These changes range from player views on different structures, different pricing for mons, and overall draft rate for mons. The format is constantly evolving, and that is without any major bans to this point. All that to say, the argument that we know enough about BW as a format to declare there is not consistent counterplay to Garchomp seems largely unfounded. We ought to give the format more time to develop before making hard and fast calls about what needs to change.

Now, a major argument to ban Chomp seems to be that the time needed to prepare against it is exorbitant compared to other top tiers. Additionally, some alleged that there simply are no good checks to Chomp. I disagree on both points. Just through this discussion alone, people have brought up Jirachi or Kyurem Black as “next” after this suspect test. In general, there is consensus that most of the round 1 pokemon have something broken about them. I struggle to see both in the arguments articulated here, and my own experience how Chomp is that much worse than these other top tiers. If we are talking about set diversity, then I would love to see someone hit a perfect parlay on what the exact set of their opponent’s Jirachi will be. If we are talking about investing in crazy ridiculous bulk just to live stab moves; then it seems Kyurem Black is who your ire should be directed to. Next we might have concerns about the speed tier, but draft players are advised in the BW draft guide to have at least one Pokemon with an offensive tool kit over 108 speed for Terrakion. Terakion: another fast mon who can resist rocks on switch, set rocks itself, and force massive damage trades if caught unprepared. Realistically, mons you draft to deal with these other top tiers like steel types generally, bulky waters like suicune or blastoise, glass cannons like azelf or gengar, bulky grasses like tangrowth and amoongus, or even budget mons like golurk or piloswine all have the tools to also check Chomp. Chomp is the best pokemon on your opponent’s draft so you inevitably will spend the most time and resources around stopping the land shark. Just like you would for any of these other top tier pokemon. This does not warrant a ban.

It is my view that Chomp is actually good for the meta. Garchomp, as mentioned by some, has a very exploitable 4x weakness to ice moves. Furthermore, its typing, while amazing, does also mean that it takes neutral damage from water and grass moves. Water especially is a big deal since it means Chomp will not want to switch in on strong water users for fear of a scald burn or getting 2hko’d by a water into ice move. If Chomp is gone, the next 4 top tier dragons (Dnite, Kyub, Hydrei, Mence) do not have that combination of problems. Kyurem Black is not even weak to ice.

Some have cited Chomp’s presence as a negative for the other dragons because of its speed tier, I think that speed tier is actually good. The mon that has some of the most exploitable defensive weaknesses to common offensive moves, can also function to ensure that the other dragons have an additional check that provides a clear hierarchy to them all. With Chomp gone, I believe you would see cores become even more dragon centric, with fewer consistent answers to the whole lot. To date, there is only one major tournament being cited where this ban was tested. One of the major trends out of that tournament was that hydreigon had risen as the next dragon to take garchomp’s place. I don’t really see how this makes all picks more equitable, or how it ensures fewer broken drafts. Especially when what truly puts pressure on most drafts is the rush for early spinners. If anything, banning Chomp increases the volatility of the format. We are very quick to cite the negatives of Garchomp being a centralizing force while ignoring the positives in terms of dictating healthy team structure to deal with all top tier mons. To me, Chomp is a lot closer to ADV Lax or USUM Koko than it is to other mons that have been banned. While these forces are no doubt centralizing, they also solve a lot of problems in the format, and teach new players good habits in team construction. Chomp’s centralizing presence helps an otherwise unstable meta make sense to both the new and seasoned player. This does not warrant a ban.

In conclusion: Chomp’s presence has merit as a positive centralizing force in the meta, concerns about a lack of checks is overblown, all round viable one pokemon demand significant resource allocation in prep, and the format is simply too young for such a major chance. If certain groups, despite this, feel that Chomp is too oppressive; the better solution would be for them to ban chomp in individual tournaments for more testing. Furthermore, there has been a lot of discussion about player opinion polls and database statistics on both sides. This comes despite the fact that all parties involved have a sample size far too small for these sweeping generalizations. The same goes for pointing to a specific game or experience and saying it is representative of the BW meta as a whole. I am not minimizing personal experience, but that experience can only go so far when we discuss a format wide change. In the absence of concrete data for either side to back up what are otherwise merely “vibes”, the best answer is to give the format more time to develop.

I will be voting DO NOT BAN. Cheers to all! I have appreciated the productive discussion from everyone.

 

[olivia]

In the 1st replay Garchomp the (non-yache) Garchomp came in on HP Ice Jolteon and would have immediately died at the beginning had the Jolteon stayed in and used HP Ice.

Click to collapse...

The Chomp that came in to revenge the Jolteon indicating to Sammy that it might be Yache or Scarf? Are we being serious? Is the counterplay to Garchomp really to just blind ourselves to its set possibilities in game and just click?

Anyway I will be taking my 1 DWL win and voting ban this guy just does way too much with way too little counterplay to be a healthy presence. 75% accurate Will-o-Wisp offers the thoughts and prayers approach to counterplay and even if you do land it you might be thudding into a Lum Berry anyway. Guy looks hideously broken every time I watch this tier. It's less about it just immediately winning games and moreso about the presence it commands being fairly dominant in all phases of Draft, be that drafting, prepping or playing.

BW is new and finding its feet but it was overwhelmingly the most criticised format in DWL and having played it I understand why, the board appears in a much better shape nowadays and I think this would be a largely beneficial one to making the tier more competitive and would probably make more people want to play it too. I mostly align with lowering the power level of the top end until nothing seems too ridiculous.

 

[Noocha]

Barely didn't qualify for this but wanted to add my thoughts. I had garchomp in ztl and got to redraft with it, whilst I personally really dislike it; I prefer more defensive teams and tiers which mons like chomp don't really allow for, I think that there are more than enough tools within the context of bw draft. At the end of the day, you can only run 1 chomp set, and each set has quite the glaring weakness.

Scarf lacks sufficient power unless you choose to lock yourself in (a lot of the time it's difficult to greed adamant since your opponent will have a dragon, which can also run scarf, and has sufficient power to run +speed between better moves (special dragons), better outragers (salamence has moxie, haxorus has higher attack and is not a first pick)).

Yache gives you 1 extra turn, moves with no drawback can often be too weak to kill (252 Atk Garchomp Dragon Claw vs. 0 HP / 0 Def 30 IVs Gengar: 199-235 (76.2 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery ) sure, you can swords dance however unless you are caught in a horrible position (one which can be amended by better prep/drafting) this will result in 1 kill since only way chomp can boost speed is salac. Put in mind you sacrifice momentum to bring in garchomp safely and click swords dance.

Salac berry on a mon resistant to rocks means, due to garchomp being your strongest mon, you don't want to gamble and bring salac without endure, endure leaves you with 3 slots, one of which you want to be swords dance to give you enough power, now you are left with 2 moveslots, oftentimes is not enough (between dragon claw being too weak, most teams having prio options make it gimmicky, and locking into outrage means the opposing steel can eat a hit and kill you).

Mixed chomp is strong and can catch smth off guard, ultimately its spattack stat is 80. Fat garchomp is a struggle to run in draft when most prep goes towards the first mon/2 mons, a lot of the team will have an ice move.

It goes without saying I am oversimplifying the issue, and of course a team may not be built to perfectly handle a specific set, however it is definitely not the mon with the most set variety, and prep for 1 set is prep for most sets, certain mons completely invalidate certain sets.

The biggest flaw with chomp in my opinion is that it is extremely difficult to switch it in.

This was my team, which believe was a very good chomp team, victini, scizor, (mainly) rotom-wash and accelgor allow for easy pivot, however most of the time (most games even) chomp was not even hitting the field because of how hard it was to bring in and how little reward I get from it, could be a skill issue; I struggled to find a good chomp set most games.

In conclusion, I think chomp is very strong in theory, especially playing against it, in practice however, it is both very underwhelming to use when prepping and playing with it. Below are my games from ztl.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5draft-2591436294
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5draft-2599333236
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5draft-2603303066-6t1ji67tm8ob6gifqg1pqabkbypmnvcpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5draft-2609956126
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5draft-2615143841-ck4k1e46kr555fwsp1kya12kfu8p91epw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5draft-2620847558

 

[Monai]

As seen with the post above and in various Discord discussions, there's been a sentiment that the requirements for voting are unreasonably lax. While they are not a high bar to achieve, this is not an unreasonable standard to set for a Smogon suspect vote, as shown by the examples here, here, and here, with plenty more examples I could point to. In retrospect the qualifications should have been slightly harder, especially for MPL, but this lower standard was implemented so that we would get a substantial pool of voters in a relatively new tier without a ladder.

Just a ping for the qualified voters so they're aware of the suspect before the vote happens:

Qualified Voters

CrashinBoomBang OdinRM 64 Squares Raiza SammyCe123 magialice branden VeeeKay kumiko bronzo Fc Shmur bobbiswas Monai Colteor Iride Quarante8 RavenEyeKSR Dr. Geo impersonxtor Sapphire_Eon DJS E Man EntryHazardous Azcelerator Charliezard7@Lux Meta qsns Puckbud benjaboynl Bird lives! LoveZepex Sibwind evakiyama! Freeday Wait2Seconds Capitão General Clb7 jscurf GBlade Wifike2 One Last Kiss Alexw Phonytail SlickPanther feen profchipboard LpZ Aleksanteri olivia Tech Froakies Glop Nalaa lax Hacker PZZ LogIce Gondra seraphz SammyCe123 TheRageSmogon A3ONFA

For those who qualified through non Smogon tours, please reach out to me directly to be added to the list.

 

[Freakzoid9000]

Yo, I miraculously qualified (3rd in ZTLCC) for this and while I'm only beginning to get into old Gen draft scene, I suppose I'll give some thoughts as to why I'm likely to be pro banning chomp, although I'm generally fine with whatever as the result of this voting.

Personally, I believe that the main contributions that should lead to its ban are the fact that: 102 speed, great stabs that hit the entire metagame practically, consistent rocker for offensive team structures, on top of multiple set options that generally feel pretty absurd to cover for most drafts. Yes, there are blobs that can scout the guy better than most as far as switching in (however that point is a bit mute i think since gen 5 notoriously struggles to have real switch ins to the majority of breakers within its confines) and it's not like chomp is outright sweeping most matchups, but its mainly the combination of those options it has that I think it's bar none the best overall guy. Now is that a bad thing? Not necessarily given that any metagame is going to have a central factor you need to prep for. Is that central force overwhelming for the meta? I feel like yes due to how overcentralized and specific prep needs to be for the guy and it still feeling like you're going in with your pants down. Honestly, it always feels like its that 102 speed that puts it over the edge too much in my mind since its able to quite easily force opposing dragons and base 100s into scarf roles that could otherwise likely check the guy and are comparatively easier to scout I think compared to a chomper. There's also the fact that like, you can very reasonably not be limited by your follow up r2/r3 picks just because of how good the guy melds with most any mons which I feel like is a extremely notable benefit, the only other guy that can really provide that is Jirachi consistently and terrakion can kiiiiiiiinda get away with it but needs more support later since that guy has actual counters it can thud into. Also the argument of "hp ice lol" just feels weak when you pair it with the fact that you can only have that one hp slot. A good chomp build with something that forces your guy to need another hp/coverage for the likes of maybe a scizor, ferro, etc. just complicates the situation and makes those guys even better.

In the end, I believe it to be healthier to ban the chomper than to allow it. Guy is really not fun in my objective subjective opinion

 

[Wifike2]

I find chomp naturally gets checked within the drafting process when accounting for grounds, dragons, and 108+ speed pokemon. Yes nothing walls it but that's just the nature of most of the top pokemon within the format. Additionally, for those few drafts where it isn't naturally accounted for, there are budget picks which are decent pokemon on the whole that act as a cheap band aid. I think its an extremely enjoyable presence on the whole, I don't find myself stressing about in drafting process or teambuilding nearly as much as mons with more unique traits and higher snowballing potential like thundy and terrakion. It feels like a very reasonable presence where when I lose to it I got out prepped or played generally, failing to keep my answers in good enough condition or not considering a set.

I think that people aren't focusing on the impact of forcing mixchomp enough. While mixchomp is an excellent pokemon itself, needing lorb usually entailing forgoing yache and scarf makes it much easier to deal with, opening itself up to ohkos and giving up so much cleaning opportunity. It makes it a stronger breaker, but I think the skill expression in pivoting around that or prepping around it is satisfying.

I also don't know why the pro ban argument(or the one anti ban argument that was terrible and I will ignore) is focusing on wisp as an answer. That's just....no? Especially with the propensity for mixed sets or sub, thats not something I would ever consider chomp counterplay.

I would like it to be known that replay 3, that week specifically our bw crew was cooked time wise and did not prep properly. As seen in the chlorophyll tangrowth whoops. The other replays also read to me more as poor preparation than anything, as detailed well in wraxius's post. Finally, a major source of anti chomp sentiment being DWL doesn't sit especially right with me, as many of the replays featured what are in my eyes clear mistakes and most of the entrants weren't very familiar with the format. I don't mean to insult anybody or claim I am a better player(hindsight 20/20 when critiquing replays and all that) but I don't think the "prestige" of the smogon team tour should sway anybody or lend more credence, and truthfully I'm more interested in the enjoyment of those playing it consistently.

TLDR I like biting

 

[EntryHazardous]

Hyper Offense and the Floor Raising of Chomp

As BW drafts resident HO bum I felt it would be apropos to discuss Garchomp's effect on HO build and how dramatically it raises the floor of these builds. For reference, I qualify for this vote 4 ways, with BW Draft II and BW Swiss 1 being with chomp, and MPL and ZTL being without it. Both Garchomp teams were weather HO builds with the common factors of Raikou and Chomp around a sun/hail core. While chomp did not single handedly sweep games for these teams the comparison point of these teams to other teams I've built is clear even from my side that prep drawn towards chomp made the other breakers and sweepers on the team even when chomp was limited on what it did in games. For example, chomp forces physdef on lando T because otherwise it's threat level and breaking is imposter to handle means Raikou has an easy game to get big damage. Chomp chipping a steel or a water because nothing else will switch in opens up threats like Zam and Victini. Chomp setting easy hazards early on and setting pace for these teams allows mons like suicune or abomasnow to find positions easily and creates strong endgame scenarios.
While emphasis on stats like winrate among top tiers feels to me like it shouldn't be taken into account here,(Chomp as an easy consensus best mon is more likely to be taken by someone who isn't experienced in the format or draft than something like terrak or rachi) I'd like to make the point of my win record with chomp as someone who has had some of the most successful outings with it in individual leagues. My chomp teams have gone a combined 13 and 2. My non chomp teams have gone a combined 18 and 10 of you include the current swiss, and 10 and 8 without including the current swiss. I don't think my drafting has fallen off badly enough to explain the difference in these results, more than it is simply the much higher floor created by chomp. While I'd prefer more time to feel out the chompless format, it is clear to me the unhealthy presence of chomp and for that reason I will be voting to ban Garchomp.

 

[TheRageSmogon]

Qualifications: DWL BW player, multiple other BW tour performances

Vote: No Ban

Reasoning: Garchomp at its core is a trade bot in this gen, and it’s really really good at it. it will consistently go 2-1. it’s the best mon in the format for that reason. That being said they does not make it broken, chomp will rarely if ever be able to win the game by itself, it’s just too slow. When you compare BW to diffirent formats, I think BW chomp is way worse then ADV Lax(can often just win by itself) or SV tera zarude(takes so much prep and often not enough). I think the top mon BW Chomp compares best too is ORAS Mega Gard, undeniably the strongest mon in the format, insane damage output with great utility, but is fairly easily revenged by status spam, and strong super effective coverage(70 power HP ice in this gen). For those reasons I do not think BW chomp is bannable, I do not think the desparity between chomp and mons like terrak or rachi is big enough to justify it.