Approved by forum leaders.
The ZU council has found stall teams to be very concerning since Sneasel’s suspect test and even more since Drampa leaving the tier and Articuno dropping and offering stall a reliable counter to breakers like mixed Flapple. We considered many options to nerf stall such as banning Audino or Pyukumuku. However, we realized that building extremely successful stall teams not carrying one of these Pokémon was totally possible and that we’d need several Pokémon to solve the issue. So we decided to take the route of a non Pokémon ban and ban Heavy-Duty Boots from SSZU.
Without Heavy-Duty Boots, it gets far easier to pressure stall staples like Audino, Altaria, and Articuno therefore nerfing the archetype enough in our opinion. Furthermore, without Heavy-Duty Boots, it is clear that Magmortar isn’t as problematic as before, being far more easily pressured. So the council decided to also unban Magmortar.
Tagging Kris to implement this, thank you.
The ZU council has found stall teams to be very concerning since Sneasel’s suspect test and even more since Drampa leaving the tier and Articuno dropping and offering stall a reliable counter to breakers like mixed Flapple. We considered many options to nerf stall such as banning Audino or Pyukumuku. However, we realized that building extremely successful stall teams not carrying one of these Pokémon was totally possible and that we’d need several Pokémon to solve the issue. So we decided to take the route of a non Pokémon ban and ban Heavy-Duty Boots from SSZU.
Without Heavy-Duty Boots, it gets far easier to pressure stall staples like Audino, Altaria, and Articuno therefore nerfing the archetype enough in our opinion. Furthermore, without Heavy-Duty Boots, it is clear that Magmortar isn’t as problematic as before, being far more easily pressured. So the council decided to also unban Magmortar.
Tagging Kris to implement this, thank you.