Announcement Gone Too Soon - Blaziken, Kyurem-B, Solgaleo & more are now banned in SV Monotype

[DugZa]

As expected, the results of the first quickban slate is here! Following input from both the community as seen both on forums and discord, along with opinions from the council, in total, we opted to vote on 7 Pokemon, moves, and items this time: Booster Energy, Smooth Rock, Shed Tail, Blaziken, Gouging Fire, Kyurem-Black and Solgaleo. As a reminder, the threshold for a quickban is 6/8 votes.

Blaziken
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Blaziken has been one of the constants on Monotype banlists since the inception of the tier, and this will not change in a new generation. The combination of Speed Boost and Swords Dance offers an unmatched potential to snowball quickly, and adequate support from both types it can be used on (such as Healing Wish from Ninetales, or Screen setup on Fighting) further enables it to an unmanageable degree.

Kyurem-Black
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Baxcalibur walked so Kyurem-B could run! To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Kyurem-B was quick to prove that it was too overpowering for the metagame despite the significant power creep in SV. It's newfound access to Loaded Dice and Scale Shot along with Icicle Spear gave it extremely spammable and reliable STAB options to fall back on. This, in tandem with its signature coverage move in Fusion Bolt virtually gave it near unresisted coverage against the entire tier. This was backed by excellent support on both types; Ice-type teams provided it with amazing Snow and Aurora Veil support, giving it enough and more setup opportunities while Dragon-type teams complemented it with a myriad of similarly strong hard hitters that perfectly complemented Kyurem-B's role as a strong breaker.

Solgaleo
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It did not take long to show how centralizing Solgaleo can be. Its Calm Mind set in particular coupled with its defensive makeup can prove to be difficult to handle for a number of types. It can also successfully pull off more niche sets such as Weakness Policy + Agility sets or even running Substitute on the aforementioned Calm Mind set to better deal with certain matchups. All in all, there is no reason for this Pokemon to be legal and does not provide any positive value for the metagame.

Booster Energy

Booster Energy has already pushed many previously existing Pokemon such as Flutter Mane, Iron Valiant and Roaring Moon over the edge. With the recent addition of new Pokemon, such as Gouging Fire and Iron Boulder, it is clear that Booster Energy has not missed a beat and it is evident that it requires immediate tiering action. Banning it will allow us to look at each controversial Pokemon closely, without giving us a skewed vision of them that a Booster Energy free meta would have otherwise provided.

Smooth Rock

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With Excadrill recently being allowed back into the tier, it's ability Sand Rush in tandem with Ground-type teams having access to 8-turn sand thanks to Hippowdon has proven to be overbearing. With some types not having the luxury of running Ground immunities, the matchup is easily skewed towards the sand user with little to no counterplay. Not to mention, the matchups that do have reliable Ground-immunities are easily rendered useless by the Gravity support provided by Landorus on such sand structures. All in all, Smooth Rock has easily pushed the sand playstyle over the top which we believe would otherwise be perfectly balanced in the current metagame and hence opted to ban it similar to previous generations.

Shed Tail
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With feedback from the community taken into account regarding Shed Tail vs. Cyclizar, the council ultimately opted to vote on Shed Tail due to it's unhealthy and overbearing influence over the metagame. Albeit being most efficiently executed by Cyclizar on Dragon and Normal-type teams, both Steel and Grass teams have extremely potent setup users such as Kingambit, Gholdengo and Ogerpon that can easily spiral out of control if given a free substitute with little to no risk whatsoever by Orthworm and Sceptile, respectively.


The breakdown for all the votes is as follows;

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Tagging Kris to implement; below is the list for ease of readability:

Bans

Booster Energy
Smooth Rock
Shed Tail
Blaziken
Kyurem-Black
Solgaleo

We will most likely follow this with another quickban voting slate next weekend if deemed necessary. Any Pokemon that remained unbanned in this slate (Gouging Fire) and any other Pokemon that prove to be overbearing over the next week will be in the council's radar for the next voting slate.

Looking forward to seeing more people sharing their thoughts on the new bans and any other potentially problematic Pokemon that need to be looked at, in the metagame discussion thread. Enjoy!