GG Godly Gift

Ok, some people want Zacian-C banned, and so do I. However, I wanted to talk about 2 things that, altough they are not over-centralazing at the moment, can be really unfun to play against, those things being (ordered by annoyance in my opinion):
  1. Unaware: The main reason as to why Unaware is balanced in most metas is that the 2 best Unaware users, Clefable and Quagsire, have not-so-good defensive stats. However, in Godly Gift you can make Unaware users absurdly bulky (being Quagsire and Pyukumuku great examples of this), to the point that the only way to OHKO them is with setup, which they completely ignore. I actually need a Toxic user + a Mold Breaker Sweeper + A Grass/Electric Choice sweeper in my team at the same time to deal with these things. I most of the time have add Cleric and a defoger (or a rapid spin user) in my team too, simply because of how annoying these teams can be with Toxic + Rocks. This means that I either have to dedicate 5 slots to deal with these mons or that I have to compress 2-3 roles into a single Pokémon.
  2. Eviolite: I honestly don't think Eviolite is as annoying as Unaware, mainly because of how easy it is to remove, how passive Eviolite users tend to be and how much they rely on it, making them more than excellent targets for ChoiceTrick users. Also, Knock Off is an overall good move with great power and typing, and a ton of good mons (both gods and recievers) get it. Honestly not so much of a problem, but it can be somewhat annoying.
also please ban zacian-c no one likes fighting agaist it and encourages ditto teams and having kartana, zacian and ditto on the same team completely trashes any attemp for both bulky and fast setups
 
  1. Unaware: The main reason as to why Unaware is balanced in most metas is that the 2 best Unaware users, Clefable and Quagsire, have not-so-good defensive stats. However, in Godly Gift you can make Unaware users absurdly bulky (being Quagsire and Pyukumuku great examples of this), to the point that the only way to OHKO them is with setup, which they completely ignore. I actually need a Toxic user + a Mold Breaker Sweeper + A Grass/Electric Choice sweeper in my team at the same time to deal with these things. I most of the time have add Cleric and a defoger (or a rapid spin user) in my team too, simply because of how annoying these teams can be with Toxic + Rocks. This means that I either have to dedicate 5 slots to deal with these mons or that I have to compress 2-3 roles into a single Pokémon.
Why exactly do you need all three at once?
Toxic and Toxic Spikes should normally do the trick, and if they have support with TSpikes absorbers/Removers and Heal Bell, a God such as Kyurem-B/W should be good enough, especially if you have Substitute. If you want to use a God other than the Kyurems and Zekrom, then having a strong SpA donor of Leaf Storm or other Freeze-Dry Pokemon shouldn’t be too difficult. Even simply just using Taunt should be enough for Pyukumuku.
If you need all three at once to just beat a Pyukumuku with 150 base HP, idk what teams you are using or how you play.

Edit: To avoid double posting, I would like to say that after playing a bit, I think both Zacian forms and Thick Club should be banned.
Zacian-Crowned has been a topic for a while now, and I’m surprised that it has yet to be banned despite universal agreement to ban Zacian-Crowned.
However, I feel like it should be mentioned that even though Zacian-Hero is not used as often, one of Zacian’s most broken attributes is passing 138 Spe in both forms. While the most common user is Marowak-A, which is it’s own type of broken, granted 138 Spe to any Pokemon is just pretty broken. While there exists faster Pokemon, you are severally crippled by using the likes of Pheromosa, Regieleki, Accelgor, Dragapult, Zeraora, or Ninjask as a God to just pass a Speed stat. What makes Zacian even better is how much of a potent threat itself is on its own and it does not lack in its other stats.
And when I say threat, I mean both forms. Zacian-C is by far more popular, no doubt to its speed tier, but also probably a lot of kids who don’t know you’re only giving Zacian’s Hero form stats, so their Light Ball Pikachus and Victinis only have 130 Atk instead of 170.
Due to the nature of this Metagame, Zacian-H and Zacian-C are arguably on par with each other, with Zacian-H potentially (although people are gonna have to play with it to prove me right) being even better, since that Steel typing matters less, and you can have Anti-Ditto measures without Substitute. Plus Zacian-H with an item does a lot more damage, which will have a greater impact on non-ubers.
Now let’s talk about Marowak-A now. This thing is seriously way too strong for something that can patch-up it’s main weakness in the current Metagame. Every team requires a Super Effective Priority move or some surprisingly effective Acid Armor set from a certain slug dragon.
Once Zacian is gone, the next best thing would be having Mewtwo or Eternatus give Marowak-A a similar speed tier, and those 2 are also pretty big offensive threats, which are more managable without the Marowak-A threat.

So please, for the love of god *wink*, ban these things already.
 
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Played some games.

Zacian-C should be banned. Not becauase the stats it passes, but because the stats it has. It is insane to deal with it and it's receivers. It's the physical counterpart of Calyrex-Shadow.

Calyrex-Ice made trick room teams much more viable. Amazing bulk and 165 atk makes things like stakataka, uxie, marowak-alola reliable setters/abusers. It can even stomach some hits and get weakness policy activated. And then, it sweeps. No, really. +2 Glacial Lance 2hkos quadruple resists.

The Kyurems are the more versatile and balanced donnors.

Still a fun meta since I last played.
 
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Why exactly do you need all three at once?
Toxic and Toxic Spikes should normally do the trick, and if they have support with TSpikes absorbers/Removers and Heal Bell, a God such as Kyurem-B/W should be good enough, especially if you have Substitute. If you want to use a God other than the Kyurems and Zekrom, then having a strong SpA donor of Leaf Storm or other Freeze-Dry Pokemon shouldn’t be too difficult. Even simply just using Taunt should be enough for Pyukumuku.
If you need all three at once to just beat a Pyukumuku with 150 base HP, idk what teams you are using or how you play.
To add to this, Alolan Marowak 2HKOs the most defensive Clefable and Quagsire variants, so a combination of Attack-slot Marowak-A + Kyurem-W basically covers all three Unaware users while still running an extremely offensive team.

...
However, I feel like it should be mentioned that even though Zacian-Hero is not used as often, one of Zacian’s most broken attributes is passing 138 Spe in both forms. While the most common user is Marowak-A, which is it’s own type of broken, granted 138 Spe to any Pokemon is just pretty broken. While there exists faster Pokemon, you are severally crippled by using the likes of Pheromosa, Regieleki, Accelgor, Dragapult, Zeraora, or Ninjask as a God to just pass a Speed stat. What makes Zacian even better is how much of a potent threat itself is on its own and it does not lack in its other stats.
...
Now let’s talk about Marowak-A now. This thing is seriously way too strong for something that can patch-up it’s main weakness in the current Metagame. Every team requires a Super Effective Priority move or some surprisingly effective Acid Armor set from a certain slug dragon.
Once Zacian is gone, the next best thing would be having Mewtwo or Eternatus give Marowak-A a similar speed tier, and those 2 are also pretty big offensive threats, which are more managable without the Marowak-A threat.

So please, for the love of god *wink*, ban these things already.
A) I'm not sure why the idea of using Dragapult as a God is under consideration when you can just run Dragapult and outspeed everything other than Zacian-C, Zeraora and Regieleki. Kyurem-W-SpAtk-slot Dragapult is an amazing nuke. Besides that, you seem to be forgetting about weather-based speed boosters and Trick Room, which are pretty popular.

B) As much as I love using it, I'll begrudgingly agree with the Marowak-A assessment. The only way to beat it is to check it offensively, which turns matches with Marowak-A into a game of sacking and revenge killing (or threatening to, anyway). But I'd say the Trick Room variants are far more threatening than speedy ones. On top of having higher base Atk stats, the options for offensively checking it dwindle as well, leaving you with...what, Banded Sucker Punch from Bisharp? 'Cause max HP Wak lives even Banded Aqua Jet from (regular Atk stat) Crawdaunt.

Edit: With regards to Zacian-C, I think I overall tend to come out favourably vs. most Zacian teams, but I feel they generally don't play the matchup very well. The mon is terrifying the higher you climb up the ladder, so I wouldn't mind it being gone.
 
A) I'm not sure why the idea of using Dragapult as a God is under consideration when you can just run Dragapult and outspeed everything other than Zacian-C, Zeraora and Regieleki. Kyurem-W-SpAtk-slot Dragapult is an amazing nuke. Besides that, you seem to be forgetting about weather-based speed boosters and Trick Room, which are pretty popular.
I only mentioned it since it technically can be a God, and it’s in the pool of Pokemon that are faster than Zacian-Hero. And if you wanted a too fast Marowak-A (or several other hard hitting Pokemom), the compromise with the other Pokemon would be much more restricting Gods. Like sure you can get a 151 Spe or 142 Spe Marowak-A, but the backbone of your team would be awful with Pheromosa’s and Dragapult’s defenses.
Mewtwo and Eternatus have similar compromises with 95 and 90 Def/SpD not being so groundbreaking, but still have good HP stats.
I also just ignore Zama since it’s garbage offensively, and better offensive Pokemon give better stats as well.
 
I think that an often overlooked mon in the format has the potential of be extremely banworthy, but since it's under people's radars due to Zacian-C and H being mindnumbingly broken, they're ignoring it.

:ss/Kyogre:

This whale is going to be a nightmare, since its best non restricted checks in the form of Chansey and Blissey are banned, and it'll likely force a lot of Eternatus/Palkia as resists when the meta adapts to notice how it's a problem. Not even Ferrothorn with Ho-Oh's special defense can avoid a 2hko from Modest Specs, and the fact that it can pass 150 Special Attack to something coupled with 140 Special Defense, a decent speed tier and a balanced statline overalll should be considered.

Calyrex-Ice should also be considered for a ban since the format has no answers to it either, and the fact that it can donate such amounts of bulk without even having a good downside since it can easily be put in the Special Attack slot and donate low speed to a Trick Room abuser. This likely can change if, as Cuddly above said, Thick Club is banned from the format, but we can't be sure.
 
I think that an often overlooked mon in the format has the potential of be extremely banworthy, but since it's under people's radars due to Zacian-C and H being mindnumbingly broken, they're ignoring it.

:ss/Kyogre:

This whale is going to be a nightmare, since its best non restricted checks in the form of Chansey and Blissey are banned, and it'll likely force a lot of Eternatus/Palkia as resists when the meta adapts to notice how it's a problem. Not even Ferrothorn with Ho-Oh's special defense can avoid a 2hko from Modest Specs, and the fact that it can pass 150 Special Attack to something coupled with 140 Special Defense, a decent speed tier and a balanced statline overalll should be considered.
It is powerful, but so is nearly every Uber. With Modest Specs, it may not have an easy switch-in to Water Spout (besides Kingdra, Palkia, all Water Absorb/Storm Drain Pokemon, Multiscale Dragonite, Giratina, Lugia, Latias, ect. (and assuming the Non-ubers have a defensive buff)), it’s not that hard to deal with.
After being forced out twice against Stealth Rock makes its Water Spout only 113 BP, and that will happen a lot since Kyogre is pretty slow, especially here and without Timid, and plenty of Pokemon can tank a hit too.
Also giving just 150 SpA and 140 SpD isn’t too impressive either. 150 Offenses are super common, while legendaries like Dialgia, Palkia, and Zekrom can give 120 in their respective Defenses, which isn’t too far behind 140.
And what about Groudon?
It may not 2HKO most things, but it gives a more valuable 150 Atk and 140 Def, where the latter uses Body Press.

As for Calyrex-I, it is probably the second best God legal, but definitely not close to being broken. For its passing, it’s a more offesive, Physically based Lugia that is incredibly slow. You give up Lugia’s Speed for having it’s bulk and Kyurem-B’s attack.
 
It is powerful, but so is nearly every Uber. With Modest Specs, it may not have an easy switch-in to Water Spout (besides Kingdra, Palkia, all Water Absorb/Storm Drain Pokemon, Multiscale Dragonite, Giratina, Lugia, Latias, ect. (and assuming the Non-ubers have a defensive buff)), it’s not that hard to deal with.
After being forced out twice against Stealth Rock makes its Water Spout only 113 BP, and that will happen a lot since Kyogre is pretty slow, especially here and without Timid, and plenty of Pokemon can tank a hit too.
Also giving just 150 SpA and 140 SpD isn’t too impressive either. 150 Offenses are super common, while legendaries like Dialgia, Palkia, and Zekrom can give 120 in their respective Defenses, which isn’t too far behind 140.
And what about Groudon?
It may not 2HKO most things, but it gives a more valuable 150 Atk and 140 Def, where the latter uses Body Press.

As for Calyrex-I, it is probably the second best God legal, but definitely not close to being broken. For its passing, it’s a more offesive, Physically based Lugia that is incredibly slow. You give up Lugia’s Speed for having it’s bulk and Kyurem-B’s attack.
Nothing can switch into kyogre. multiscale dragonite, giritina, lugia, and latias fall to ice beam(lugia taking too much from thunder), palkia has no reliable recovery, most water absorb mons die to thunder, and those who don't like quag and gastro, are easily nuked by ice beam forcing them to spam recover, allowing a free sitch into ur second breaker that benefits from kyogere stats. Also specs isn't its only good set, sub calm mind, restalk, and scarf all have varied counters and for a mon to make you have to run 4 diff mons to check all its sets, means that its restrictive. Period.
 
Nothing can switch into kyogre. multiscale dragonite, giritina, lugia, and latias fall to ice beam(lugia taking too much from thunder), palkia has no reliable recovery, most water absorb mons die to thunder, and those who don't like quag and gastro, are easily nuked by ice beam forcing them to spam recover, allowing a free sitch into ur second breaker that benefits from kyogere stats. Also specs isn't its only good set, sub calm mind, restalk, and scarf all have varied counters and for a mon to make you have to run 4 diff mons to check all its sets, means that its restrictive. Period.
Firstly, Defensive Palkia actually can still switch in to Specs Kyogre Thunder, even after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Choice Specs Kyogre Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Palkia: 140-165 (36.4 - 42.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
In addition, even a plain Gastrodon takes at most 40.6% from Kyogre’s Ice Beam.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Kyogre Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon: 147-173 (34.5 - 40.6%) -- 97.7% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Even having Gastrodon in the Defense slot is still sufficiant enough to switch into Kyogre. If you don’t want Defensive Palkia or Gastrodon that can 100% switch into a full health Kyogre with any attack, you can Guzzlord in a SpD slot, as even having just Darmanitan’s SpD let’s Guzzlord tank 2 hits of Specs Ice Beam.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Kyogre Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest (Darmanitan SpD) Guzzlord: 248-292 (42.2 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Secondly, Kyogre’s shareable stats are pretty weak. The only other stat that’s especially high on Kyogre is SpD, which doesn’t even get its own version of Body Press. Only something like Barraskewda outside the Atk/Speed can become a threat, which Gastrodon in Def won’t mind too much since it already is immune to Water. If they have a powerful Grass attacker in the SpA slot or Kyurem with Freeze-Dry, you can just switch yourself.

Third, being uncounterable does not mean your restrictive. While Kyogre far better than the likes of Hoopa-Unbound or Golurk (yes, Golurk with Choice Band technically does not have counters in the regular meta), Specs Kyogre is still flawed. Pretty much no Offensive team will have trouble against it since it’s not the physically bulkiest thing in the world and it’s extremely slow. Offensive teams will also likely have a strong backbone like Eternatus for Scarf Kyogre as well, or just simply use something even faster.
Kyogre’s problem is that its powerful Spec set can be easily accounted for on Defensive teams with Pokemon like Gastrodon or weakening its Water Spout, while Offensive teams just won’t care as much. And just saying that “Kyogre will have teammates that can fix its issues” doesn’t say much since this is a 6v6 game and its best stat is so common among other Gods, which will commonly give 120 Atk/Spa depending on the user.
Unless I’m using a Rain team specifically, why would I use Kyogre over something like Kyurem-W for this metagame? Kyurem-W gives better stats than Kyogre in everything besides SpD, which definitely won’t be missed. Your Spe Pokemon will get 95 Speed to beat the crowded 90 Spe tier, you can put in a competent attacker into Atk instead of a specific attacker reliant on its ability or a defensive Pokemon, and HP is so large that support/defensive Pokemon and Ditto are much harder to KO.
Also if I wanted to run a Rain team, the obligatory Barraskewda slot would need to be either in HP or Defense, Ferrothorn and Pivot Tornadus-T/Corviknight have to fight the SpD slot, and then a fast Special Rain abuser in the SpA slot and maybe Crawdaunt in Speed.
So aside from Kyogre itself, only SpA and SpD are more than just slightly buffed regular Rain team Pokemon.
With that, Kyogre is honestly one of the weaker Ubers in GG, since as a God, it only gives out a high SpA and high SpD at the same time, something Palkia already does, and something Ho-Oh and Calyrex-I can do but on the Physical Side. It is also pretty weak since it’s too slow vs offensive teams and not reliable enough to break past strong defensive teams. Those defensive teams may have to account for Kyogre, but in doing so, they are not making themselves more vulnerable to other teams as well. It is also pretty much outclassed by Kyurem-W in every stat besides SpD. And arguably Groudon is better passer despite having redistributed Kyogre stats, mostly because Def gets Body Press and Def is just better to have than SpD, on top of Sun Teams being less restricting.
 

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Okay, two things:

First,
:ss/zacian-crowned:
Zacian-C is now banned. General discussion in the OM room and this thread basically sums up that Zacian-C is entirely broken. Tagging Kris to implement.

Second,
I agree with Kyogre being a sleeper threat and being lowkey broken. I'm going to make a poll in this thread (it ends in 4 days) and encourage some discussion on whether or not it (or something else?) should be suspect tested, because the metagame is fairly unstable, and with Zacian-C being banned, more previously under-the-radar threats will surface.
 
If we are going to be talking about sleeper threats.

:Zacian:
Since :Zacian-Crowned: was banned instead of Zacian as a whole, Zacian-Hero can now just replace Zacian-Crowned on the same teams, potentially being a bigger threat than Zacian-C was. Before, it not only had to compete with Zacian-C, but would also be outsped by Zacian-C if it wasn’t running Scarf.
Well, now that Zacian-C is banned, and Calyrex-S was banned before, Zacian-Hero can run rampent across Godly Gift with (almost) uncontested Speed, a Zacian-C with even more power, and gives the same stats as Zacian-C. You only give up Behemoth Blade, which wasn’t that great without Dynamax, and the Fairy/Steel typing, which only really affects Substitute sets. That tiny price to be the second fastest available Uber (or practically the fastest), and having one of the highest damage outputs for a God.
And in a previous post, I mentioned what made Zacian-C so broken was how it could pass its insane speed to any Pokemon, which brings me to the next thing I want to bring back up.

:Marowak-Alola:
Marowak-Alola, potentially Regular Marowak as well, is ridiculous here. I mentioned it before, and among the Pokemon that benefited the most from Zacian-C’s speed was Marowak-A. That speed boost turned its awful 45 Speed into the 7th fastest available Pokemon in the tier.
Now obviously, the only Pokemon that can give 138 Spe to Marowak are Zacian-H and both forms of Zamazenta, and the faster Pokemon available aren’t too spectacular as Gods, Marowak seriously forces you to run some serious speed control or a hard counter. If you don’t have Sucker Punch/Shadow Sneak/Aqua Jet, or do not have a Pokemon that is immediately faster like Dragapult, your entire team will be devistated by Marowak-A. I honestly had to account for Marowak-A more so than I did with Zacian-C, since Zacian-C not only has coverage issues (such as being set-up bait for Def Volcarona, being stopped by HP Rotom Heat, and struggling against Weezing-G if it didn’t have BB, while Alolan Marowak could care less about them), but also status effects. Marowak-A can not be burned without some set up like Soak, and it can also absorb Prankster Thunder Wave with Lighting Rod. Oh, and because of Thick Club, Marowak is also Imposter-proof (even being imposter-proof, Marowak-A still sus), unlike Zacian-C which would lose them the entire game.
But if Zacian as a whole does get banned, what would be the issue?
Well potentially Zamazenta could be used solely for its Speed boost, as it gives identical stats Zacian has, and Mewtwo/Eternatus/Spectrier could all pose a problem as well, since they are all incredibly fast as well. 138 to 130 isn’t that much of a jump, and while the pool of Pokemon able to outspeed Marowak has increased. it still is very much restrictive since you absolutely have to account for it on Defensive, Balance, and Offensive teams.
It may not hit as hard as Specs Kyogre’s Rain boosted Water Spout, but it certainly matches the rest of Uber’s power with even better Speed and not taking up a God slot.
Also, it’s technically not a “sleeper” threat since I think everyone is familiar with Marowak-A.

And not technically a sleeper threat either, or even a threat.
:Kyurem-White:
I mentioned this in my previous post, but Kyogre honestly outclassed by Kyurem-W in this metagame, and I’ll repeat some of my reasons and give some new ones.
1. While Kyurem’s Raw power is much weaker than Kyogre’s;
252+ SpA Choice Specs Turboblaze Kyurem-White Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 427-504 (105.6 - 124.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Kyogre Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mew in Rain: 672-792 (166.3 - 196%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Kyogre Origin Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mew in Rain: 493-582 (122 - 144%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Kyurem-W’s power is a lot more consistent. No matter how much damage Kyurem-W takes during battle, it won’t make Draco Meteor any weaker. After just 2 Stealth Rock, 2 layers of spikes and Stealth Rock, a few turns in Sand/Hail, ect, it’s main source of being hard to switch into are gone, and you will need to switch to Origin Pulse. Kyurem-W doesn’t like Hazards either, but is can potentially use Roost to gain back its HP, while Kyogre needs Rest.
The dependency Kyogre needs on its HP stat being high also means that Kyogre is pretty weak to priority as well.
Also, I should say this, but yes.
You. Need. To. Respect. Full. Power. Water. Spout. Besides ORAS and Gen 7, this fact has always been true for Ubers, especially in Gen 4 and 5. Very few Pokemon can switch into a Specs Rain Boosted Water Spout regularly. It is also a bad practice to assume you’ll get the best case scenario, and should often assume the worst may happen.
But on the flip side, you got to respect a ton of things in this Meta as well. Being able to give Kyurem-Black’s Attack to something like Hawlucha, or giving Nidoking one of the many 150 SpA in the meta. The stats you give a Pokemon almost define what how good your God is.
2. Segwaying into my next reason is the stat distribution of both.
Kyurem-W has
25+ HP
20+ Atk
0+ Def
20+ SpA
40- SpD
5+ Spe
In every stat besides SpD and Def, Kyurem provides a better stat to its subjects.
And while I just said 138 Spe isn’t much different that 130 Spe, 95 Spe vs 90 Spe makes a far bigger difference.
The 90 Spe tier is very crowded with Gods. Dialgia, Zekrom, Giratina, Giratina-O, Ho-Oh, Groudon, Reshiram (which isn’t particularly good), and of course Kyogre. Also, due to the nature of this Meta, several teams could potentially have 2 Base 90 Spe Pokemon, which your Kyurem-W and Speed Slot Pokemon will almost guarantee to outspeed automatically. At worst, they will only have one Pokemon with 90 Speed being the God themselves, but that still means you’ll likely outspeed a literal Uber. Often, teams will have more Pokemon that are even slower than Base 90, since some will be defensive walls in HP/Def/SpD as well.
And back to its other stats.
100 HP is pretty good, but 125 HP is much better by a mile. The Low HP High Def types like Pyukumuku appreciate having even more HP, and Ditto can become near impossible to kill with 125 HP. Shuckle can also be great since Kyurem can fit well on HO.
100 Atk is pretty awful, and even contradictary too Rain teams. It forces Barraskewda to take up a valuable Defensive Slot if you want to run a Rain team, otherwise its weaker or slower thanks to Kyogre. A more defensive Pokemon could go into that slot, but if it’s a Rain team, you are only hurting yourself by loading your team with Defensive Pokemon. Rain teams can only really function in Gen 8 if they are able to put in the work while Rain is up.
If you would say, why not just use a non-Rain team, then go back to see Kyurem-W’s and Kyogre’s stats again, as 120 Atk isn’t half bad.
Defense on both are literally identical, however Kyurem-W doesn’t have to decide on being in Speed or Defense, as Def is its lowest stat, and only something like Clefable would benefit from it. Though, it would absolutely not matter if you really wanted to run five 96+ Spe Pokemon on a Kyurem-W team.
150 SpA is lower than Kyurem-W’s again, so using a non-rain team would also be weaker. However, this is one of the few parts where Kyogre isn’t hopelessly out matched by Kyurem-W in this meta. Giving 150 SpA to any Swift Swimmer, like Kingdra or Ludicolo, or just a fast Special Water type, can provide a decent edge over Kyurem. Unfortunately, this is still limited to Rain teams, as Kyogre’s weaker offense is still bad. But then again, Kyurem-W can run a lot more different Pokemon on its teams, and most of them won’t be checked by Pokemon that are similarly to what checks Kyogre.
In addition, 150 SpA is also pretty crowded like Kyogre’s Speed stat. So many Ubers get in the range of 150 SpA (adding in Mewtwo and Eternatus since they are close enough), and most of those Ubers still give a decent Atk stat (or in Rayquaza’s case, give an equal amount of Atk to SpA and is also in that 95 Spe tier). The exception being Mewtwo and Eternatus, which instead give insane speed.
Lastly, Kyogre also gives a much better SpD. The second highest passable SpD from the Uber Pokemon, behind Ho-Oh and Lugia. But again, Rain teams need to be fast paced. Even the more defensive Pokemon in regular Rain teams help in that regard. Ferrothorn putting up Hazards to making KOing easier, Tornadus-T having a strong Hurricane, a Item removal move, and a Pivot move, and Pelipper setting up rain while also having a pivot move (something Kyogre also lacks as well). You can make Ferrothorn, Tornadus-T, and maybe Avalugg or Doublade super bulky on the Special side, but it honestly is not that interesting.
Also I will say, having higher Physical Defense is much much better than having higher Special Defense. In general, being physically oriented is MUCH better than Specially oriented, even without Blissey or Chansey. Groudon may have just the Physical version of Kyogre’s stats, but because it’s more physical, Groudon is a much better God as well. 150 Atk on something like Victini or Shiftry is absolutely terrifying, and 100 SpA is ironically still decent since Venusaur will have identical SpA, unlike Barraskewda who otherwise will have less Atk in the Atk Slot on a Kyogre team. Additionally, 140 Def is simply better than than 140 SpD, since in general, Physical Attackers are a lot more deadly than SpA, even in a Zacian-Cless meta. They will have moves like Flare Blitz or Close Combat while Special Attackers get Over Heat and Shadow Ball (they are great moves still, but FB and CC are in general better overal). Oh and you can give a Pokemon 140 Def Body Press too, where as SpD has nothing similar.

3. Prediction Reliability.
While Kyogre has coverage able to hit everything at least neutrally. However, due to this being and Uber’s Metagame, in addition to Zacian-C being banned, Kyurem’s STABs are not resisted by much either. Between the Viable Gods, it’s just Necrozma-DM, which Kyurem-W has Fusion Flare and Earthpower for. Kyurem-W can also run Freeze-Dry if it wants, so Pokemon such as Pyukumuku, Tapu Fini, and Slowbros can be attacked while using its main STAB, instead of being forced to use Thunder on them. This also means a Pokemon like Gastrodon or Rotom-Wash do not serve as a stop to Kyurem-W as much as they do to Kyogre. Because of that, and Turbo Blaze ignoring Flash Fire+Levitate, Kyurem-W is harder to switch into in practice. Those STABs also hitting many common Gods for SE damage, since most of them are Dragons. On top of that, the extra 5 Spe helps Kyurem-B a lot when being harder to switch into.

4. There is a pretty big fundimental difference between between Ubers, OU, and this Metagame. Even if the rule of 1 Uber in an OU team had its own Meta Game, the fact that you can pass Uber stats makes the meta a whole lot different.
Before in regular Ubers, Kyogre is actually A+ rank while Kyurem-W is C+. However, Ubers lets you use 6 different Uber Pokemon at once. In Godly Gift however, you have to consider what the sole Uber you’ll be using and it’s stats it gets in its base form.
For example, while Marshadow and Zygarde-Complete are top tier Pokemon in regular Ubers. Marshadow is a fast and strong attacker with a move that steals boosts, while Zygarde-Complete extremely Bulky. In Godly Gift, they are far from being top tier because the former simply only has good amazing Atk and Speed, while the later won’t pass its massive 216 HP (and only pass that and it’s Def stat, as every other stat is pretty low) since its an alternate form.
With just 1 Uber available, the rest of your team needs to support you as well. Here, you are also making those technically not Ubers into Pokemon that would be top tier in Ubers or something that can handle the landscape much better.
As an example I said earlier, Volcarona and Rotom-Heat were pretty decent answers to Zacian-C, something whose only true counter in regaler Ubers was Quagsire, with Ho-Oh and Necrozma being strong checks. Here, there is a lot of Pokemon who can approriate a ton of HP or SpD that would allow they to tackle Kyogre as defensive checks pretty easily. A lot of Pokemon that otherwise would be trash are also much more valuable in this Meta with the certain Bans and gaining massive stats gains.
Because of that, Kyogre is a lot easier to check or even counter defensively than it otherwise would in Regular Ubers.
On top of that, Kyogre also share a similar problem with Marshadow, in that it only has 2 excellent stats, one of which you’ll get the same results from tons of other viable Gods, and the other is the least important stat in the game. It has good HP, but tons of other Pokemon do as well.
Kyogre may have nuclear power with Rain boosted Water Spouts, but so do the vast majority of the Pokemon in this Metagame, and not just Gods either, and they can be much faster than it and not be so dependant on its HP stat.
Same with Victini, where something short of a Flash Fire user or an extremely Thick Snorlax can want to deal with a CB V-create.
Should Hawlucha be banned? It’s Atk on a Kyurem-B team is astonishing alone, and nearly OHKOs the entire Meta after 1 Sword Dance, while also outspeed almost everything in the Meta too.
Should Goodra be banned since a Def from Calyrex-I and a few Acid Armors makes its Body Press drop anything besides Ghost types and x4 resists, while making Goodra nearly unkillable to anything besides a strong Special Ice attack?
Hell, why not ban Calyrex-I too? Very few Pokemon want to switch into its CB attacks, on top of giving actually good stats to its team.
There is just so many Pokemon that can become nuclear bombs or become Fort Knox, and the only thing that makes Kyogre stand out is its ability in Drizzle and having both high Special Defense and Special Attack at the same time. It offers really nothing else unique that I should care about, and in some cases may be detrimental to the teams it would normally work with in this Meta.
Where utility is king, Kyogre flounders like a fish out of water.
And btw, Kyurem-W isn’t even that good in this Metagame, but it still is arguably better than Kyogre.
So it kind of shocks people so many people want a Pokemon who really borders on being unviable to be suspect tested.

(tl;dr version: Kyogre good in Uber, mediocre in Godly Gift)

(also that Kyogre/Kyurem-W section is over 2000 words long lmao)
 
Two things:

Calyrex-Ice has great bulk and great atk, but still seems somewhat unpopular atm. Only its speed and SpAtk let it down, admittedly two pretty good-sized flaws. I like running Max Hp Assault Vest to catch special attackers by surprise and threaten back with its great coverage and power. I'll use Specs Dragapult(Kyrurem-W SpAtk) as a benchmark. Survives a hit, even a roll after rocks, and obliterates with glacial lance.

252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Assault Vest Calyrex-Ice: 272-324 (67.3 - 80.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

It does very well on more balanced teams but can struggle against stall sometimes. It does get Swords Dance and big substitutes against more passive mons and seed bomb for quagsire though.

Against offense it can be a great check against many dangerous threats but Volcarona and rain teams will give it issues.

I have not tried it in trick room as another poster above suggested which may unlock this monstrosity.

I do think it requires more team-building restrictions than something like Kyurem-W which is currently rated at A in the viability.

Secondly, Persian-Alola with band and Kyurem-B or Calyrex-Ice's Atk is a real menace, especially against hard stall. At base 115, with Adamant it out-speeds base 100 positive nature pokemon which is a great trait to have in an ubers-centric metagame. No contact + multi-hit on beat up, immunity to prankster and access to switcheroo, parting shot, and fake out are great as well. Calc below is for base 125 HP Shuckle, which is fairly common (it also 2hkos the most common phys-def Clefable which is crazy to me) What is less common is getting beat up to around 120bp (180bp after technician) which is a lot of resources just for a single mon.

252+ Atk Choice Band Persian-Alola Beat Up vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Shuckle: 222-262 (49 - 57.8%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO

Here's both of them in a single team that's quite fun to play but gets lit up by rain.

https://pokepast.es/f48e385a3d7e746e
 
I am pretty sure this has already been said before, but this needs more attention.

PIkachu is NOT a meme, it is legit a threat, especially with the right support. I will attach the team I am testing right here. Pikachu when paired with Kyurem-Black has now a 170 base attack stat, the highest it can since the ban of Zacian-C. That attack stat can then be doubled with light ball coming down to a maximum attack stat of 964. Now pikachu itself is decently fast but with it sharing it´s speed stat with many ubers (the very crwoded base 90) it won´t outspeed most common donors (groudon, kyogre, rayquaza, giratina, etc.) and outsped by most of the ¨better ubers¨ (kyurems, zacian, eternatus, etc.). So to get around this issue you have some options: let´s take a look at how to support your pikachu.

Priority

Pikachu has access to both fake out and extreme speed. Fake out is useful for when you need chip for extreme speed to pick up a KO, proven by some calcs:

Potential KO to bulky xerneas with rocks

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Fake Out vs. 0 HP / 168 Def Xerneas: 103-122 (26.2 - 31%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 168 Def Xerneas: 206-243 (52.4 - 61.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

KO on grassy/electric Lucha

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Fake Out vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Hawlucha: 100-118 (33.6 - 39.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Extreme Speed vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Hawlucha: 198-234 (66.6 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Caly Ice slowbro KO with no recoil (or overkill)

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Fake Out vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 63-75 (15.9 - 19%) -- possible 6HKO
252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 306-362 (77.6 - 91.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Volt Tackle vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 566-668 (143.6 - 169.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Bulky Kyurem B after some chip

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Fake Out vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Kyurem-Black: 118-139 (25.9 - 30.6%)
252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Kyurem-Black: 234-276 (51.5 - 60.7%)

Pikachu can absolutely pick of a wore down team or can even take some early KOs. The best option to support this pikachu are three simple steps for maximum pika anhialation

  1. Hazards support: It can be as simple as having a setter and defoger/spinner but can be extended to spikes for some of those close roles. Stopping hazards on your side is not as important depending on the matchup, as it mainly limits your volt tackles, but it is nice to have none the less.
  2. Steel, Rock and Ghost counters: These are the the only resisting types that can limit your sweep. In this category we have mainly the common steel types (ferro, skarm, corv, kartana, bisharp) can be easily be taken out by magnezone and help your pikachu succeed. Rock types are not that common, as the only troublesome are ttar and terrakion, but aren´t common enough to need a counter. Ghost types are the trickiest as they dont have a standar check, so pack some resists and a sucker-punch user.
  3. Terrain:psychic terrain will absolutely stop your pikachu. Best you can do pack your own; Electric will boost your bolt tackle to absoluely insane damage, misty will prevent your pikachu getting statused by static/flame body walls (mailnly your beefed up kanto birbs or some madman running a bulky volcarona).Finally, grassy will change it so that you can attack the faster mons (maybe restore some of the volt tackle or helmet recoil but might make some KOs not guaranteed, so use at your own peril)
Webs support

While a bit more niche, it can help free up your moveset so you can have some coverage (brick break, iron tail, play rough) or maybe transition to a special pikachu, since you won´t be relying completely on priority and have different coverage + set up

Sample special pikachu (pair with eternatus, mewtwo, kyurem-w) here

Thank you for coming to my ted-talk on how pikachu can demolish the world. Please give this little rodent some more attention.
 
Noms for VR Rankings

New Mons

:comfey: B/B+ (SpA) I've only seen calm mind sets with stored power. Some have substitute some don't. It is a decent win con that is somewhat support reliant and needs non passive checks to be chipped a fair bit before it can set up. Didn't realize it got stored power the first time i fought one and it did not end well. I'm still not sure if it is legimitately good or cheese.

:marowak-alola: (Speed, Attk) A- It is an incredibly scary mon to switch into, especially when its subpar speed has been patched up. It is too crippled by hazards and too reliant on hazard support to rank higher atm for me.

:skarmory: A/A+ (HP, SpD) - It is a fantastic wall that is a lot better than its companion imo. It is incredibly flexible in what it can do: blanket physical check, hazard setter/remover, phaser, wincon w/ iron defence and body press. I've been using 252/252 bold on an eternatus team with spikes/roost/id/bp which puts in a ton of work. The HP lets it eat powerful special hits surprisingly well.

:tangrowth: A-/B+ (SpD) - It feels better on paper than in practise. It eats hits like nobody's business, but feels a bit too passive once it has knocked something. I've only seen AV sets that knock things, but then the coverage moves whilst decent, generally don't do enough to make significant progress.

:volcarona: A- (Def) - Matchup moth is matchup moth in this format as well. It can be very good, but suffers a lot from 4MSS. I enjoyed using it a lot last time GG was the OTOTM, but it feels a bit worse this time around as the meta isn't as kind to it. Still trying to optimize it for my teams, 200 speed lets it outspeed pult at +1, but not sure where to go past there.

Rises

:dragapult: (SpA, Attk) A+ --> S- I'm not sure if there is any S worthy mon, but pult comes close. It is incredibly splashable, good, and flexible. Specs is a near insta include on many teams and offers the team both a pivot and immensly powerful breaker with a ton of coverage. Between the breaking power and speed control it offers offensive teams it is hard to forgo.


:pikachu: (Attk) B+ --> A- It has its issues and drawbacks, but it is a threat that you need to take into consideration and is a legitimate part of the meta. It is something you need to be wary of when teambuilding and in battle. A- reflects that.


:crawdaunt: (Spe) B-/B --> A-/A. This is the biggest rise i'll nominate. It is one of the mons that benefits the most from boosting its speed. There are near zero switchins to banded Crawdant in this meta. Calcs below

252+ Atk Choice Band Crawdaunt Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 242-286 (48.9 - 57.8%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers (145 hp from eternatus)

252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 192-228 (38.8 - 46.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
(145 hp from eternatus) pretty much the only long term counter)

252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 238-280 (48.1 - 56.6%) -- 35.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (145 hp from eternatus) Guarenteed after rocks

252+ Atk Choice Band Crawdaunt Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Kyurem-White: 442-522 (113 - 133.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Crawdaunt Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Snorlax: 406-478 (77.4 - 91.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (100 def from Ky-B)

:kyurem-black: B --> A Similar to the Pikachu nom it is a common and quite viable uber to use and A rank reflects that.


Drops

Not going to nominate any as the VR seems quite outdated so it doesn't seem worthwhile.
 

https://pokepast.es/b411a1e3672e203e

Offensive Mandibuzz and Slowking-Galar are quite fun. Kyurem-Black runs a bulky offensive Roost set, mainly to hit hard with an Adamant nature and to depend less on setting up with Dragon Dance. There are lots of possible sets for this team if you want to adjust something like Slowking-Galar can run Life Orb which is nice with Regenerator or cut Nastly Plot and run Assault Vest.



Edit: Slowking-Galar can also swapped out for Nidoqueen to have an electric immunity. It can run Stealth Rock, so I turned Clefable into a Wish + Teleport pivot.

https://pokepast.es/23a0735ad70c3a84
 
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Ive been looking at eviolite mantyke with zamazenta def (ik zama isnt that good but i wanna use it) would it be viable? It has tailwind to support too!
 
The more I play with beat up persian-a the more broken it feels. To be clear, after technician, it's equivalent to a pre-gen7-nerf pixilate boomburst, on a base 115 speed pokemon that multi-hits through sash/subs.
 
The more I play with beat up persian-a the more broken it feels. To be clear, after technician, it's equivalent to a pre-gen7-nerf pixilate boomburst, on a base 115 speed pokemon that multi-hits through sash/subs.
Hmm....​

[maybe beat up is not that good pea, its not worth your time]

[but i play games to have fun! beat up is fun!]​

[are you really going to build a beat up team? that's a horrible idea]

[even if it's horrible, what matters is me having fun!]
:tapu-bulu::persian-alola::excadrill::kyurem-black::kartana::glastrier:
poképaste available here!

If you ever get this strategy (clicking a single button) off, it's so fun. The EV spreads are optimized so you don't have unnecessary EVs laying around unused by Beat Up. After Technician, the base power of each Beat Up hit is:

66 (from Bulu) + 72 (from Persian inheriting KyuB's Atk) + 61 (from Excadrill) + 79 (from KyuB) + 76 (from Kartana) + 64 (from Glastrier)
which, in total, gives you a 418 base power Beat Up.

Sure, the choice of mons could be optimized, and this team is horrendously weak to Fighting-types (especially Buzzwole) but you're not going to rank highly with this team anyway so keep your expectations low. Beat Up has a lot of weaknesses and it can be easily exploited if your opponent knows how to.

Beat Up is a Dark-type attack that has no base power, but hits once for every Pokémon on your team. The base power of Beat Up, instead of being a set amount, is determined by the Attack stat of every Pokémon on your team divided by ten, plus five. Since Pokémon games round decimals down, it's recommended to have all your Attack stats perfectly divisible by 10.

The Attack stat calculation goes off of your stats after IV, EV and Nature calculations, and not just the base stat.

However, there are a couple limitations. Since the amount of times Beat Up hits is equal to the amount of Pokémon left on your team, you have to play carefully or you risk losing Beat Up damage. If one of your Pokémon is statused (burned, paralyzed, poisoned, etc), they will not participate in Beat Up calculations and you'll lose a hit.

Beat Up does not make contact with the target, and if you manage to break a target's Substitute/Disguise/Focus Sash, the move will continue to hit if there are hits left.

I was going to include calcs but the Showdown calculator does not have an easy way to calculate Beat Up damage, and I'm not about to spend hours calculating Beat Up hits on hundreds of Godly Gift walls. It 2HKOed a Landorus-Therian inheriting HP from Eternatus after Intimidate, and that's as much as you'll get. Oops!​
 
Hmm....​

[maybe beat up is not that good pea, its not worth your time]

[but i play games to have fun! beat up is fun!]​

[are you really going to build a beat up team? that's a horrible idea]

[even if it's horrible, what matters is me having fun!]
:tapu-bulu::persian-alola::excadrill::kyurem-black::kartana::glastrier:
poképaste available here!

If you ever get this strategy (clicking a single button) off, it's so fun. The EV spreads are optimized so you don't have unnecessary EVs laying around unused by Beat Up. After Technician, the base power of each Beat Up hit is:

66 (from Bulu) + 72 (from Persian inheriting KyuB's Atk) + 61 (from Excadrill) + 79 (from KyuB) + 76 (from Kartana) + 64 (from Glastrier)
which, in total, gives you a 418 base power Beat Up.

Sure, the choice of mons could be optimized, and this team is horrendously weak to Fighting-types (especially Buzzwole) but you're not going to rank highly with this team anyway so keep your expectations low. Beat Up has a lot of weaknesses and it can be easily exploited if your opponent knows how to.

Beat Up is a Dark-type attack that has no base power, but hits once for every Pokémon on your team. The base power of Beat Up, instead of being a set amount, is determined by the Attack stat of every Pokémon on your team divided by ten, plus five. Since Pokémon games round decimals down, it's recommended to have all your Attack stats perfectly divisible by 10.

The Attack stat calculation goes off of your stats after IV, EV and Nature calculations, and not just the base stat.

However, there are a couple limitations. Since the amount of times Beat Up hits is equal to the amount of Pokémon left on your team, you have to play carefully or you risk losing Beat Up damage. If one of your Pokémon is statused (burned, paralyzed, poisoned, etc), they will not participate in Beat Up calculations and you'll lose a hit.

Beat Up does not make contact with the target, and if you manage to break a target's Substitute/Disguise/Focus Sash, the move will continue to hit if there are hits left.

I was going to include calcs but the Showdown calculator does not have an easy way to calculate Beat Up damage, and I'm not about to spend hours calculating Beat Up hits on hundreds of Godly Gift walls. It 2HKOed a Landorus-Therian inheriting HP from Eternatus after Intimidate, and that's as much as you'll get. Oops!​
Ah, another man/woman of culture I see!

King's rock is funny, band is where it's at though. Check my other post for the team I got reqs with and has me number 2 on the ladder, definitely not JUST a meme team (still pretty memey though). Easiest way for me to check calcs is to make a persian-a set and just plug in 180bp for the power. 120 bp (6 hits averaging 20 bp) is 180 bp after technician.

Also, I'm not sure I understand your beat up mechanics. I was under the impression that each hit is (base atk)/10 + 5. Since it's base attack, having a fully defensive lando-t doesn't drop its hit's bp over an offensive scarf lando-t for example.

With band it completely destroys most stall and trick room that don't have bulky fighting types like conk or buzzswole. It will 2hko most common defensive clef too.
 

bp scrub

rub a dub dub one scrub in a tub
Also, I'm not sure I understand your beat up mechanics. I was under the impression that each hit is (base atk)/10 + 5. Since it's base attack, having a fully defensive lando-t doesn't drop its hit's bp over an offensive scarf lando-t for example.
This is correct; the team above should have a (130+170+135+170+181+145)/10+30 = 123.1 BP Beat Up, before STAB and Technician.
 
I recently found scarf Kartana with boosted SPD really potential in this meta, as special moves no longer OHKO him easily. this makes kartana really hard to revenge kill once it gets the first boost. Potential gods: eternatus, ho-oh, necrozma-dm
 
I recently found scarf Kartana with boosted SPD really potential in this meta, as special moves no longer OHKO him easily. this makes kartana really hard to revenge kill once it gets the first boost. Potential gods: eternatus, ho-oh, necrozma-dm
I think normally people would write SpDef (Special Defense) to not get confused with Spd (Speed). I think you're totally right though! Being ubers centric means most scarfers are base 100 or slower so scarf Kart becomes the fastest thing on the block outside of weather boosting abilities or unburden. It can also do pretty well in the Hp slot to better tank priority moves since that's the biggest obstacle usually to a nice late-game Kartana cleaning session.
 

dhelmise

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As per the suspect, Zacian was banned.

I'd like to see people's opinions on how GG should handle Thick Club vs Marowak and Light Ball vs Pikachu. Both Pokemon are unarguable lethal, and I'd like to see what everyone thinks we should do about them.
 

UT

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I am conflicted about if they need to be dealt with, but there is good precedent for banning items (even OU used to ban Soul Dew from Latios, and several other OMs have banned individual items) and I would consider going down that route. And it's very similar to how Huge/Pure power are already banned here. They're balanced on the mons that get them naturally, but when you can more than double their base attack, suddenly they're not.

Pikachu in particular needs a specific type of counter-play due to Fake Out+Extreme Speed on what can be 964 Attack. It severely limits offensive set up due to its revenge killing prowess, and Knock Off+Volt Tackle threatens the majority of mons that can handle its priority.

Marowak is arguably better, but feels less overcentralizing to me. If its in the speed slot, its Attack is "only" 518 (since you're probably Jolly) and it can still be outspeed by set-up, choice scarf, or sticky webs. I do often find myself just slapping it in the Speed slot of my non-rain offensive teams just because it is so good, and I wonder what the metagame would look like if it didn't exist, but there is still a lot of counter-play to it and I have a hard time calling it broken.

If its in the Attack slot its monstrous and virtually nothing can switch in, but unless you're running Trick Room it will be out-speed by everything and has terrible defenses.

In short, I don't think either are strictly speaking broken, but I do wonder if they're both overcentralizing (Pikachu in the counter-play it needs, Marowak in just being the easiest-to-use speed receiver). Since I feel they are more restrictive on teambuilding than actual battling, would it be possible to have a suspect test with Thick Club and Light Ball banned? If so, I would support that course to see how the metagame develops with them removed.
 
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