Suspect Godly Gift Suspect #4: Kings and Queens

[UT]

​

More than half the respondents in the now-concluded tiering survey wanted action taken against the Nidos, and the council unanimously agreed. Their combination of power and coverage is almost impossible for defensive cores to handle, and certainly restricting in a metagame where there are plenty of threats to account for already.

Sheer Force is a great source of damage amp, but also significantly negates Life Orb’s recoil, allowing for a no-drawback 69% damage increase. In addition to being more powerful than Choice Specs competitors, the Nidos still retain the ability to switch moves and make the most of their wide coverage options. Between powerful Ground and Poison STAB moves and the wide coverage offered by Flamethrower, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt, switching into a Nido safely is no easy task.

Backed by a Special Attack donation from gods like Kyogre, Mewtwo, and Pheromosa, the Nidos have very few consistent checks. Gastrodon stands out as one of the most reliable answers, as it is not weak to any of their moves and boasts reliable recovery. Several other Pokemon like Rotom-W and Ho-Oh can get in on a smart switch and scare them out, but are in serious trouble if they predict wrong. Offensive teams are not safe either; despite their middling bulk, especially in the case of Nidoking, they are able to switch in on common offensive staples like Tapu Koko and potentially set up a Substitute to ease predictions.

The Nidos are far from perfect, however. They are very slow by Godly Gift standards, and their reliance on coverage and Life Orb usually precludes them from running Choice Scarf. Their bulk is also not fantastic, so it can be hard to switch them in without the help of a slow pivot. While they technically can run team support options like Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes, they are usually relegated to exclusively wallbreakers. Lastly, to function well, they need to take a very in demand Special Attack slot, slightly restricting teambuilding for their own team.

The council decided to suspect both Nidos together. As Special Attack receivers, they have identical offenses, so it comes down to Nidoking's slightly better Speed (notably getting the jump on Necrozma-DM and non-Speed receiver Heatran) and Nidoqueen's slightly better bulk. You will be able to vote separately on them.

Suspect details: During a Suspect, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:

• Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown site and on a new account (creation date no earlier than today, July 10th, 2022) with "GGNIDO [Nick]"--for example, I could create one called "GGNIDO UT" to ladder with.
• To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 25 games, and you must have a minimum GXE of 75.
• Nidoking and Nidoqueen will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.
• The suspect test will end on July 27th, 2022 at 11:59 PM GMT-4.
• When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to civilly elucidate any topical opinions regarding whether or not Nidoking or Nidoqueen should be banned (Optional).
• It is mandatory to provide proof of ownership of the alt account as well. (Post a picture of your reqs with your smogon name featured).

As usual, the actual voting will take place in the Blind Voting Forum, so posting anything other than proof of reqs and discussion isn't necessary.

 

[termi]

where's the song. i think killing joke made a song with this exact title if u dont have a song for this

 

[Ransei]

where's the song. i think killing joke made a song with this exact title if u dont have a song for this

Media

I think this would work.

Edit: a new video is there in the OP. Hiding this.

 

[dhelmise]

id like to point out i did not approve a single one of these song choices

if i have time to get reqs i will likely vote ban, the nidos do nothing except make all games vs them insanely difficult since you're almost guaranteed to lose at least one mon each timee.

 

[Clas]

first off

id like to point out i did not approve a single one of these song choices

L


secondly, yeah nidos are broken, the safe switchins include very few mons (i.e. gastro, regenvest reuni, and p much nothing else without using like shuckle as god lol) and its hard to put pressure on the nidos in order to stop them coming in in the first place. using ompl games as examples rather than my own bc i dont use nido its disgusting it highlights just how oppressive it is in the right hands.

jrdn vs Eli (W2) - in fairness this was scarf nidoking but it managed to claim 3 kills along with making it nearly impossible for eli to win after koko goes down. mence just finishes this off with a defog and then ferro cripples cloyster for nidoking to clean up for free. its important to note that nidoking reaches 442 at +1, faster than even pheromosa, showing how problematic surprise scarf sets can be for an underprepared team like eli's.
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drphdbj vs TPP (W2) - early nidoking double allows for bj to punish the incoming dragonite with ice beam, but yveltal's middling 131spa plus a timid nature fails to allow nidoking to 2hko with just ice beam + earth power, meaning he does have to reveal flamethrower against lando. it does go down to a bad read, however, but still allows for bj to clean up the game much later on thanks to the weakened lando. the most notable part of this game though isnt nidoking but rather regenvest reuniclus, a set only used to deal with the nidos (especially 175spa from kyuw gift since that was still relevant early ompl).
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Lily vs FlamingVictini (W3) - turn 8 double into the even more broken crawdaunt allows for nido to bait in gastrodon to attempt to claim a kill, although this happens twice and both times with the same outcome of knock off hitting clefable down to about 60% hp before rocks go up. nidoqueen comes back in again but has 2 bad reads, which is then followed by 10 turns of little action until nidoqueen comes in yet again to stop a boosting registeel, which ends up resting to avoid fainting, and then gastrodon comes back in again to prevent the free chip. crawdaunt comes in on the next turn to force out gastrodon before claiming the first ko - mandibuzz. bisharp comes in on a gira defog and ohkos that, then nidoqueen gets a crit on gastrodon with earth power and then a sludge wave ohko on clef to practically close out the game.
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lepton vs drphdbj (W4) - the threat of nidoking alone creates a dangerous prediction game for lepton immediately after it comes out. while 230spd corv can easily tank non-lo flamethrowers/tbolts, lo is a 2hko guaranteed if the predict is correct. lepton does thankfully manage to predict right with a well-timed knock against the switching rayquaza to remove nido's lo with lando, which couldve otherwise 2hkod on the spot. over a long period of time with rayquaza and cloyster forcing in landorus/clefable while nido forces in corv, the rocks chip racks up and means that lando falls to ray's v-create. clef then goes down to a bad predict against nido, sealing the fate of the game.
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cryingg vs jrdn (W6) - scarf tran gets an effective t1 kill on bee, then another on spectrier after the vaporeon trade. giratina ohkos volcarona on the swap, and burns lando-t before nido comes in to clean up. togekiss almost ends nidoking, but doesnt as cryingg used nasty plot twice instead, much to jrdn's fortune. celesteela claims nidoking, and diancie then kills celesteela right after. very uneventful, but nidoking also just couldnt touch much either due to it being sub ibeam. this game is just there because it shows off nidoking's possible output as a cleaner instead, but 19 turns gives few examples.

now theres a large amount of correlation between these games (barring the last) - nido paired with another breaker allows for games to come down to many 50/50s between if a swap would occur or not and the possible move choice. heres another funny thing though - nidoking/queen never lost. in fact, they were tied with kommo-o for best overall performance per games played (5 played 5 won), and kommo-o is nowhere near as oppressive thanks to its shared checks with a lot of standard mons. this isnt the case with nidoking/queen, as it becomes a guessing game for what it will do, and even what item it is a la jrdn vs eli. overall, these mons are not a healthy presence and therefore i believe they should be banned from godly gift.
(semi rushed bc not much time lmao)

 

[longhiep341]

Lost a game to a crit and another to a miss + freeze but overall the road to req was quite smooth for me.
Here are the teams I used if you need one to ladder yourself.


Shell Smash

This is arguably my strongest team, being able to beat most things if played correctly. Gyarados destroys common special walls in Tangrowth and Gastrodon so rest assured nothing can wall this comfortably.

This is my take on a Beat Up team. Kyurem Black can live a Dazzling Gleam from Boots Koko up to 150 SpA I think so keep that in mind. Fake Out on Persian-A also deals an absurd amount of damage for a 40 BP move without STAB so yeah.

This team I made while bored and tested while the ladder was the most active and it turned out to be stronger than I thought. Exploud destroys 115 SpD Tangrowth and 154 SpD Gastrodon, Brick Break on NDW is for HO and TTar, Nihilego looks weird for TR but it actually sets Rock pretty well and learns TR for some reason which it can set cause it does scare a lot of Pokemon outside of TR.

Thoughts on Nido: My stance on Nido is that Nidoking is banworthy, but Nidoqueen is not. To make that point clear, here is the list of relevant Pokemon that tie/get outsped by Nidoking but not by Nidoqueen: Blastoise, Blaziken, Buzzwole, Gyarados, Heatran, Kommo-o, Mandibuzz, Milotic, Necrozma-DM, Rillaboom, Tapu Fini, Venusaur, Zygarde-Complete. This list is big enough, and the Pokemon in this list are both defensive and offensive, which means there are more ways to deal with Nidoqueen offensively compared to Nidoking, and this is not to mention neutral nature base 90 and 95 Spe Pokemon. While the Speed difference in the Nidos seems small, 9 Spe = 18 actual stat = 72 EVs account for enough to make investing against Nidoqueen worth it but not Nidoking, especially when Nidoqueen also usually runs Modest due to getting outsped by most offensive Pokemon including said base 90 and 95. Considering a lot of Pokemon can afford to run Speed to outpace Heatran and NDM as well, I believe teams can adapt better to Nidoqueen's speed tier once Nidoking is gone. Nidoqueen can still break a lot of teams, yes, but its dual STAB combo is dreaded by the fact they both have immunities, so if opponent can predict correctly, it's easier to capitalize on its speed. Besides that, running Sub/hazards is a big opportunity cost, as going with Ice Beam makes it walled by SpD Corvi, Thunderbolt means walled by SpD Lando-T and Fire Blast means hardwalled by Balloon Tran. Teams being more offensive in general hurts Nidoqueen's viability more, as the bulk difference between it and Nidoking usually doesn't create many meaningful calcs (Boots Koko still 3HKOs both for example).

 

[Plushietran]

UT told me to post this or he's stealing my cereal

Oh and nidos are broken, they limit teambuilding hard, since they have no checks outside of spdef inheriting gastro, ban both

 

[Fraise]

nidos are broken

 

[Animesh_]

Confirming as GGNIDO Leaf
Team used-

 

[in the hills]

lost my first game bc i forgot how the meta worked lol... got the streak though

 

[HiZo]

I nidon't like em, but I am really glad I finally got a good run for this. I want at least 1 of em banned.
Team if any1 wants a go w/ it:

 

[bimber]

Didn't face that many nidos on the ladder. i laddered using the TR team Animesh shared.

My match-up against the nidos was really good, whenever someone brought it, it always got sacked. Didn't see a nido use a single attack. Will probably continue playing with a nido team to feel it out for myself.

 

[UT]

Confirming as GGNIDO U3

I will be voting ban on both. I find the Nidos overbearing on balance teams, to the point that Gastrodon and AV Reuni are the only really consistent switch-ins. Offense and stall can both handle the Nidos just fine, but I think that's exactly why we see Godly Gift teams polarizing to either extreme. Stall/Shuckle teams can succeed, and so can offense teams that never let the Nidos in, but balance is between a rock and a hard place trying to check the Nidos and everything else. I encourage any req getter who is on the fence and laddered with a HO/TR/Shuckle team to try playing with one of the balance sample teams to see how much more constraining it is.

I also don't see a meaningful difference between the Nidos; sure, you need more Speed to creep King, but we're still looking at largely the same pool of mons that can switch into either, and them being able to save a few HP EVs is not a meaningful difference in my mind. I think if King goes but Queen stays, we are in largely the same spot.

Good luck to everyone else, and congratulations to everyone who has gotten them so far!

Here is a full dump of my Godly Gift teambuilder for anyone who wants to play around, I was really carried by in the hills's team, which they did a rate my team on here!

 

[carlosrhv]

 

[Career Ended]

The nidos can probably go they restrict teambuilding so much. if they stay unbanned im stay running 297 spe lando as my balance "check"

 

[ponchlake]

"take them to detroit" - ban both please lol

 

[MagearnaTheBoss]

Ladder is rigged

 

[RoFnA]

proof for my alt: GGNIDO RoFnA

as MagearnaTheBoss mentioned: the ladder is Indeede rigged

I did not have any troubles at all with Nidoking. I used a Beat Up Persian team with Assault Vest Conkeldurr, which could handle Nidoking amazingly well. Other than that i don't see many other switch ins... So I am not 100% sure what I am going to vote.

 

[Maybca☆〜ゝ。∂]

 

[pannu]

free xern ban ogre

 

[r1dude]

godly gift, more like a trip to hell

Used UT's version of ITH team, I'm leaning more on banning both nidos.

 

[DIYUSI]

S/O Glimmer for the team. I will def ban both, it was painful to play around them, esp with sub variant.

 

[Dragonillis]

Osake is cool
Gman is perfect
Siamato is old
Heika is Akehi
LBDC is johnning

Tbh i'm 50-50 for nido, I don't know what I will vote atm.

 

[1729is56time]

 

[ctproonie217]