Vulpix and the sun abusers aren't broken by themselves. In my opinion, ban heat rock instead. If you want to nerf sun heavily but not remove a mon who is only broken under specific circumstances, just remove heat rock. Sun teams need to get as much value as they can every turn to finish the game as quickly as possible. With only 5 total turns of sun every time it is set, pulling off sets such as growth Cherubi or growth Oddish will be far more difficult.
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Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Coconut
- Start date
Isn't the certainty in which you say "Cherubi isn't broken without vulpix" paired with the uncertainty in which you say "Vulpix doesn't seem broken to me without Cherubi" pretty telling?
In other words, it is obvious where the power lies if Cherubi without Vulpix isn't broken but Vulpix without Cherubi may still be broken (or at least strong enough for you not to be certain). Even if you don't think it's broken without Cherubi, I think it's pretty obvious, and I think you would at least have to agree considering your above statement that simply ignoring Vulpix makes no sense.
Again, I'm not convinced sun is broken at all. IMO it's pretty mu dependent and has trouble vs common things like quitefly and Trapinch/Dig.
Frankly, I think we've definitely been looking at what we're banning without enough of a critical lens but that's neither here nor there......
My point remains that I think it is completely illogical to look at Chlorophyll and Cherubi without looking at Vulpix.
That's possible but I believe at some point in the Discord Quote said the council unanimously agrees something needs to be done about sun, so arguing for/against this isn't gonna do anything anymore.
I word it with less certainty because Vulpix was banned last gen. Below that I give reasons why I think it is less of a problem to keep it this gen by comparing the tools sun had last gen to current, and I state why I feel like keeping Vulpix is justifyable now. You completely ignored those points.
I absolutely agree with this, that's why I'm defending Vulpix with other arguments than "having an offensive fire type is good for the meta".
I agree almost entirely with this post; I think Vulpix should be the candidate of choice up for a ban. I also agree with your take on the "healthy aspect of the metagame" not being great reasoning; the term is entirely arbitrary in the first place.
The bigger part of your post I'd like to call attention to is the fact that the chloro sweepers can be Pokemon outside of sun; the fact that they are Grass-types helps our metagame if anything (hasn't everyone been complaining about the lack of Grasses?). Even if you think they don't help our metagame at all, removing them still has some sort of "collateral," exactly like Vulpix does. I really hope we see less of the argument about some sort of arbitrary "collateral" happening as a result of Vulpix being removed from the tier, and more of an argument about what ban actually solves the problem. Instead of working off assumptions of a post-Cherubi-ban meta, which we don't even definitively know solves the problem (just because some people think it does, doesn't mean there's definitive evidence), we should focus on solutions that address the problem at hand effectively without arbitrarily trying to remove the least viable mon on the list. The fact that Cherubi is C-rank or D-rank or whatever without sun shouldn't weigh into its current effect on the metagame.
That's a pretty defeatist attitude - they posted in this thread for a reason and nothing is written in stone. Maybe they'll ignore us maybe they won't but we aren't doing our part if we don't provide thoughts.
I completely ignore all points where someone discusses gen 7 because they are at best completely irrelevant and at worst extremely misleading. Don't take it personally.
If you had written arguments with respect to in gen 8 and how Cherubi is certainly the only "broken" aspect of sun and backed it up then I would have definitely drawn my attention to it, I promise!
I don't get it either. Drifloon is literally coin flipping counters and only slightly worse than it was last gen (CM is just as strong). I think i'd rather discuss this being broken versus the relatively balanced sun.
Okay, I'll address why a majority of the council currently thinks Cherubi is the mon to ban.
Firstly, I don't think any solutions outside of banning Cherubi or Vulpix should even be considered. To clarify, Chlorophyll was brought up in the council chat in the context of a later metagame that potentially has Bulbasaur, not what we plan to do about the current metagame. I don't think Chlorophyll was actually the first choice to ban for anyone (please correct me if I'm wrong); myself/tazz/star/coco/ninja lean toward a Cherubi ban, fatty/kingler lean toward a Vulpix ban, and quote/shrug are undecided.
Tiering with Bulbasaur in mind doesn't make sense when it's not even released. We have no idea when it'll be released, nor the circumstances surrounding its release; for all we know, it might be released in a radically different home meta, or it might even be an unbreedable level 10 event Pokemon that isn't available in LC. There really isn't a point in trying to tier with a mon that doesn't exist in current LC and may continue to be absent in the foreseeable future.
And if Bulbasaur does get freed with its full movepool in a relatively short timeframe, into a metagame where Drought Vulpix is legal (and Cherubi isn't), then we will know beyond a reasonable doubt that Bulbasaur is broken, because Cherubi is broken and Bulbasaur is better than Cherubi in every way that matters. This means that we can alter the banlist as we see fit with the full understanding that Chlorophyll Bulbasaur + Drought Vulpix must be disallowed in some form. There is no benefit whatsoever in trying to tier for a Bulbasaur metagame in advance instead of waiting for its actual release.
With that in mind, banning a non-Pokemon trait becomes much less worth considering. I realize that a Drought ban was mainly only brought up in response to Chlorophyll being on the table, but I'll briefly address it anyways. A Drought ban is less ideal than a Vulpix ban by our current tiering policy because in most cases, we try to tier Pokemon. It helps here that banning Vulpix and banning Drought are almost completely equivalent - Vulpix has no viability without Drought, so we gain nothing from trying to preserve Droughtless Vulpix. In either case, we're removing Vulpix from the equation entirely (but banning Vulpix is preferable policy-wise).
A Chlorophyll ban is even less of an option in a Bulbasaur-less metagame. Not only is it worse policy-wise - we'd be banning the ability instead of the mon - but it'd literally just be banning Cherubi with more collateral by eliminating manual sun, because Chlorophyll is Cherubi's only legal ability.
Heat Rock is not being seriously considered for a ban because it's unlikely that it would solve the issue at all; Vulpix would still be nearly as capable at maintaining Sun throughout the game when wielding a defensive item like Berry Juice or Heavy-Duty Boots.
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I do not believe that a Vulpix-Oddish core would be broken, and I don't think Oddish and Cherubi are even comparable in terms of threat level.
Oddish and Cherubi flat out do not share a majority of their checks. This isn't like last gen, where every Chlorophyll sweeper had almost the exact same checks; Bellsprout was just slightly better at dealing with them because Weather Ball was stronger than Hidden Power. Oddish's STAB options consist of Grass and Poison. This leaves it walled by most Poison- and Steel-types + Drifloon, which is a reasonably large group of Pokemon that includes its fair share of defensively valuable mons or generally viable mons. Grass/Poison is honestly kind of pitiful as coverage for an offensive mon, and as a result, Oddish is fairly straight-forward to accommodate defensively. Its main advantage is Sleep Powder, which is both unreliable and burns the valuable Sun turns that Oddish needs to sweep.
On the other hand, Cherubi has Grass and Fire pseudo-STABs, and Fire is among the best offensive typings in LC. The defensive checks of Cherubi are limited to bulky Fire- and Dragon-types. There are no Dragon-types worth serious consideration (or aren't total liabilities outside of resisting Cherubi). Fire-types are weak to Stealth Rock, and most have low defensive stats + no recovery; the sole exception to the latter is Growlithe. The list of defensive answers to Oddish and to Cherubi aren't even remotely close in scale or quality.
Vulpix as a standalone threat is almost surely not broken. Non-scarf Vulpix's speed tier isn't terrible, but it's too low for it to be classified as a serious sweeper; as a wall-breaker, it carries substantial defensive answers in Mareanie and Munchlax, both of which would likely be among the best defensive mons in the game regardless of Vulpix's presence. Choice Scarf Vulpix isn't unstoppably powerful - its Timid Fire Blast is roughly as powerful as Jolly Farfetch'd's Close Combat, for reference - and on top of still being walled by key defensive mons, it suffers from being vulnerable to every entry hazard.
So the issue isn't Vulpix as a standalone mon, or Cherubi as a standalone mon, or the Vulpix + Oddish core, or even Vulpix + dual Chlorophyll. The issue lies strictly in the Vulpix + Cherubi core, which allows Cherubi to gain doubled speed AND a Fire-type pseudo-STAB without the defensive drawbacks of carrying a Fire typing, immediately upon switching in without the need for a manual setter. Cherubi would not be broken without Vulpix's support; equivalently, Vulpix, Oddish, and the Sun archetype as a whole would not be broken without Cherubi.
Only with the understanding that banning Vulpix and banning Cherubi are equal in terms of tiering policy, and that both solve the issue at hand of Vulpix + Cherubi, can we start considering other factors. I'm sure we can all agree that the result of a Vulpix ban, which is a spin-less Gossifleur in Cherubi, is not going to be very helpful to diversity; compare this to the result of a Cherubi ban, which is a decent (but not broken) wallbreaker in Vulpix, as well as a neat (but not overbearing) archetype in Sun.
However, this is all assuming that Vulpix + Oddish is indeed not broken, since then we would want to keep them to encourage diversity. If Vulpix + Oddish is a problem (as fatty and kingler believe), then of course Vulpix would be the mon to ban to actually solve the issue (which would be Vulpix + Chlorophyll, not Vulpix + Cherubi). And if that is the case, then I'm ultimately okay with taking the chance and admitting that we wasted a few extra weeks to discover that we'd initially misread the problem.
We're discussing Drifloon as well, but it hasn't seen as much discussion just because Drifloon took longer to come online as a potentially suspect-worthy threat (whereas Star's team already used sun like twice during week 1 of ekans). Feel free to give your input on that as well!
Firstly, I don't think any solutions outside of banning Cherubi or Vulpix should even be considered. To clarify, Chlorophyll was brought up in the council chat in the context of a later metagame that potentially has Bulbasaur, not what we plan to do about the current metagame. I don't think Chlorophyll was actually the first choice to ban for anyone (please correct me if I'm wrong); myself/tazz/star/coco/ninja lean toward a Cherubi ban, fatty/kingler lean toward a Vulpix ban, and quote/shrug are undecided.
Tiering with Bulbasaur in mind doesn't make sense when it's not even released. We have no idea when it'll be released, nor the circumstances surrounding its release; for all we know, it might be released in a radically different home meta, or it might even be an unbreedable level 10 event Pokemon that isn't available in LC. There really isn't a point in trying to tier with a mon that doesn't exist in current LC and may continue to be absent in the foreseeable future.
And if Bulbasaur does get freed with its full movepool in a relatively short timeframe, into a metagame where Drought Vulpix is legal (and Cherubi isn't), then we will know beyond a reasonable doubt that Bulbasaur is broken, because Cherubi is broken and Bulbasaur is better than Cherubi in every way that matters. This means that we can alter the banlist as we see fit with the full understanding that Chlorophyll Bulbasaur + Drought Vulpix must be disallowed in some form. There is no benefit whatsoever in trying to tier for a Bulbasaur metagame in advance instead of waiting for its actual release.
With that in mind, banning a non-Pokemon trait becomes much less worth considering. I realize that a Drought ban was mainly only brought up in response to Chlorophyll being on the table, but I'll briefly address it anyways. A Drought ban is less ideal than a Vulpix ban by our current tiering policy because in most cases, we try to tier Pokemon. It helps here that banning Vulpix and banning Drought are almost completely equivalent - Vulpix has no viability without Drought, so we gain nothing from trying to preserve Droughtless Vulpix. In either case, we're removing Vulpix from the equation entirely (but banning Vulpix is preferable policy-wise).
A Chlorophyll ban is even less of an option in a Bulbasaur-less metagame. Not only is it worse policy-wise - we'd be banning the ability instead of the mon - but it'd literally just be banning Cherubi with more collateral by eliminating manual sun, because Chlorophyll is Cherubi's only legal ability.
Heat Rock is not being seriously considered for a ban because it's unlikely that it would solve the issue at all; Vulpix would still be nearly as capable at maintaining Sun throughout the game when wielding a defensive item like Berry Juice or Heavy-Duty Boots.
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I do not believe that a Vulpix-Oddish core would be broken, and I don't think Oddish and Cherubi are even comparable in terms of threat level.
Oddish and Cherubi flat out do not share a majority of their checks. This isn't like last gen, where every Chlorophyll sweeper had almost the exact same checks; Bellsprout was just slightly better at dealing with them because Weather Ball was stronger than Hidden Power. Oddish's STAB options consist of Grass and Poison. This leaves it walled by most Poison- and Steel-types + Drifloon, which is a reasonably large group of Pokemon that includes its fair share of defensively valuable mons or generally viable mons. Grass/Poison is honestly kind of pitiful as coverage for an offensive mon, and as a result, Oddish is fairly straight-forward to accommodate defensively. Its main advantage is Sleep Powder, which is both unreliable and burns the valuable Sun turns that Oddish needs to sweep.
On the other hand, Cherubi has Grass and Fire pseudo-STABs, and Fire is among the best offensive typings in LC. The defensive checks of Cherubi are limited to bulky Fire- and Dragon-types. There are no Dragon-types worth serious consideration (or aren't total liabilities outside of resisting Cherubi). Fire-types are weak to Stealth Rock, and most have low defensive stats + no recovery; the sole exception to the latter is Growlithe. The list of defensive answers to Oddish and to Cherubi aren't even remotely close in scale or quality.
Vulpix as a standalone threat is almost surely not broken. Non-scarf Vulpix's speed tier isn't terrible, but it's too low for it to be classified as a serious sweeper; as a wall-breaker, it carries substantial defensive answers in Mareanie and Munchlax, both of which would likely be among the best defensive mons in the game regardless of Vulpix's presence. Choice Scarf Vulpix isn't unstoppably powerful - its Timid Fire Blast is roughly as powerful as Jolly Farfetch'd's Close Combat, for reference - and on top of still being walled by key defensive mons, it suffers from being vulnerable to every entry hazard.
So the issue isn't Vulpix as a standalone mon, or Cherubi as a standalone mon, or the Vulpix + Oddish core, or even Vulpix + dual Chlorophyll. The issue lies strictly in the Vulpix + Cherubi core, which allows Cherubi to gain doubled speed AND a Fire-type pseudo-STAB without the defensive drawbacks of carrying a Fire typing, immediately upon switching in without the need for a manual setter. Cherubi would not be broken without Vulpix's support; equivalently, Vulpix, Oddish, and the Sun archetype as a whole would not be broken without Cherubi.
Only with the understanding that banning Vulpix and banning Cherubi are equal in terms of tiering policy, and that both solve the issue at hand of Vulpix + Cherubi, can we start considering other factors. I'm sure we can all agree that the result of a Vulpix ban, which is a spin-less Gossifleur in Cherubi, is not going to be very helpful to diversity; compare this to the result of a Cherubi ban, which is a decent (but not broken) wallbreaker in Vulpix, as well as a neat (but not overbearing) archetype in Sun.
However, this is all assuming that Vulpix + Oddish is indeed not broken, since then we would want to keep them to encourage diversity. If Vulpix + Oddish is a problem (as fatty and kingler believe), then of course Vulpix would be the mon to ban to actually solve the issue (which would be Vulpix + Chlorophyll, not Vulpix + Cherubi). And if that is the case, then I'm ultimately okay with taking the chance and admitting that we wasted a few extra weeks to discover that we'd initially misread the problem.
It's true that all of us currently believe that Sun needs to be dealt with, but it definitely wasn't meant to be construed as a reason to ignore that aspect of the discussion. Please don't be afraid to try and argue against Sun's brokenness if you think it's fine.
We're discussing Drifloon as well, but it hasn't seen as much discussion just because Drifloon took longer to come online as a potentially suspect-worthy threat (whereas Star's team already used sun like twice during week 1 of ekans). Feel free to give your input on that as well!
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I'm new to LC and I just want to say that it's such a fun format to play in. DD Onix has come in clutch for me in so many games haha. The move set I've been using on onix is DD, earthquake, stone edge, and dragon tail. Also, shout outs to Jcbc for giving me a team to play with on ladder! Also, sub drifloon with wisp, tbolt, and hex is hella scary to play against lol. I'll be looking forward to playing in tours for LC! I want to branch out in other tiers since I'm mainly a Dou player.
Sun = Not Broken
Floon = Broken
Vull + Pinch = As good or better than Sun
RIP this gen... offensive metas never last in LC
At this rate I predict that Sun, Floon, Vull, Pinch, Gull, and Fetch A are all going to be banned and were going to be in a lame Mare/Spritz/Ferro dominated meta by this time next year.
Floon = Broken
Vull + Pinch = As good or better than Sun
RIP this gen... offensive metas never last in LC
At this rate I predict that Sun, Floon, Vull, Pinch, Gull, and Fetch A are all going to be banned and were going to be in a lame Mare/Spritz/Ferro dominated meta by this time next year.
Not saying I agree with your opinion OR the Cherubi ban, but I think the statistics that you give here are very unrepresentative of how actual games work. Winrate is a really bad stat to show anything because there are a ton of factors involved in each game (Skill of player, hax, etc.). Therefore, winrate isn't very accurate at determining the viability / brokeness of a Pokemon, so I don't see how this post proves your point that trapping is more broken than sun.
Winrate will always be important. Yes things can affect it but thats why we need a bigger sample size.
The goal of every single game is winning, and if something is winning less then almost everything else... its not broken. Things that are broken will win more than everything else, until thier usage climbs drastically higher than, and thier winrate lowers back down to around 50% because of the amount of mirror matchups and prep.
Cherubi has barely seen usage... and hasnt been winning. We need more than 1 week of a meta without stuff like dynamax, goth, and gastly centralizing everything to get a accurate handle on Cherubi.
The goal of every single game is winning, and if something is winning less then almost everything else... its not broken. Things that are broken will win more than everything else, until thier usage climbs drastically higher than, and thier winrate lowers back down to around 50% because of the amount of mirror matchups and prep.
Cherubi has barely seen usage... and hasnt been winning. We need more than 1 week of a meta without stuff like dynamax, goth, and gastly centralizing everything to get a accurate handle on Cherubi.
I thought I'd write up a post like coco did last week, but to avoid the concerns of last week I'd like to post it as early as possible. The LC council is currently looking at Trapinch and Drifloon as potential candidates for a quickban/suspect
Trapinch is back doing the same things it did last gen, with the added bonus of being able to trap a plethora of Pokemon that it could not trap in the past thanks the addition of first impression and knock off losing its wide distribution. It excels at trapping integral defensive Pokemon like Munchlax, Pawniard and ferroseed that are often all that is stopping strong special attackers like cutiefly from running through teams. It also limits the viability of ground weak Pokemon like Croagunk that might otherwise see more widespread use.
Even without recycle Drifloon is able to terrorize teams with its incredible variety and blistering speed after an unburden boost, and now that 17 is the new 19 spe it is even easier than before for it to safely set up substitute. Particularly worrying for the council is the hex set, which can give teams incredible trouble in conjunction with mareanie. It can use a variety of options to cripple Pokemon that might otherwise be able to stop it (thief for munchlax, for example) and even in the few cases where you know what the set is is still a massive pain for any team to deal with.
I should mention that the council is nowhere near unified in opinion on either of these Pokemon, nor do we have the sense of urgency to ban an obviously broken element like we did last week. There is much more room for persuasion here, I myself have decided on neither question. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Trapinch is back doing the same things it did last gen, with the added bonus of being able to trap a plethora of Pokemon that it could not trap in the past thanks the addition of first impression and knock off losing its wide distribution. It excels at trapping integral defensive Pokemon like Munchlax, Pawniard and ferroseed that are often all that is stopping strong special attackers like cutiefly from running through teams. It also limits the viability of ground weak Pokemon like Croagunk that might otherwise see more widespread use.
Even without recycle Drifloon is able to terrorize teams with its incredible variety and blistering speed after an unburden boost, and now that 17 is the new 19 spe it is even easier than before for it to safely set up substitute. Particularly worrying for the council is the hex set, which can give teams incredible trouble in conjunction with mareanie. It can use a variety of options to cripple Pokemon that might otherwise be able to stop it (thief for munchlax, for example) and even in the few cases where you know what the set is is still a massive pain for any team to deal with.
I should mention that the council is nowhere near unified in opinion on either of these Pokemon, nor do we have the sense of urgency to ban an obviously broken element like we did last week. There is much more room for persuasion here, I myself have decided on neither question. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Do you think this thing is healthy for the metagame? I've lost the count of times I've gone through the following thought process:
"I am going to build a team with this cool underused mon. Oh wait, it gets completely stopped by Ferroseed! Using this mon means it's nearly dead weight against teams with Ferroseed, and Ferroseed is so common that I'm going to try something else..."
It goes the other way around as well: many commonly used mons in the tier are easy to keep fitting into teams as they can handle Ferroseed quite conveniently. Ferroseed's array of annoying crippling moves discourages the use of numerous mons that provide it an opportunity to switch in for free.
While Ferroseed can handle several threats in the metagame, the amount of mons that have absolutely no tools in their movesets to deal with it is quite disheartening, and I've started feeling like Ferroseed is one of the mons that restricts teambuilding the most.
Ferro is certainly as good as it's ever been now that HP Fire is gone, but I feel like a lot of Pokemon still get Fire/Fighting coverage that it's nowhere near broken; munchlax gets fire punch, fetch exists, vulpix still exists, just as a few examples. It gets no recovery too so it's pretty easy to wear it down. The Pokemon that check it are all VERY good, like A+ level, so it's not hard at all to slap one on the team. If you even have just one of them you shouldn't struggle too much.
There are certainly mons that deal with Ferroseed but they can't switch in without getting significantly crippled by Knock Off or Thunder Wave. Ferroseed on the other hand can safely keep switching into numerous mons such as Spritzee, Oddish, Meowth and Cottonee several times over the course of the match because those mons have zero ways to reasonably punish it other than making risky double switches.
It's almost as if a defensive Pokemon is being a defensive wall...
But really Ferroseed is far from a problem and there are plenty of things it can't do well against. Even so if it has multiple things it might need to check in a single match you can work to overwhelm it with multiple Pokemon working together because of lack of instant recovery. Even with some chip stuff like Cutiefly, Corphish, and Wingull can finish off a Ferroseed without too much of an issue. Pokemon being lower tier because of Ferroseed are just things that are gonna happen regardless of what metagame (an example I could bring up is Mega Medicham being rendered less effective in an Aegislash meta.) I would argue against your first statement and say Ferroseed is a pretty healthy mon to have since it adds a defensive mon for a lot of teams to play that adds Stealth Rocks AND a Water-type check while still being able to fulfill multiple other roles and check some of the scarier mons in the tier like Dwebble or some Corphish.
Drifloon being able to abuse from every Pokemon slower than 17 Speed allows it to safely set a Substitute up and start boosting with Calm Mind, even Hex with no status boost causes a decent damage on anything that does not resist it at +1, which is a quite remarkable trait. Due to its raw bulk it can also set up with no Substitute up against some threats like Spritzee and Cutiefly, and take a hit to trigger Unburden.
I think everything has been explained, but Drifloon's really versatile, as it can fit on any kind of team, whether it be offense, webs, bulky offense... But the archetype it excels the most in is hazard stack, specifically paired with Toxic Spikes Mareanie, enabling a really dangerous setup sweeper really hard to manage once it has boosted up. Not even Vullaby can easily manage it, as Thunderbolt covers everything as its best option against those meddling birds, being able to severely dent them or take them out. While Ferroseed may be an answer, Sun is still important to be taken into consideration due to Weather Ball taking Ferroseed out for Oddish to carve the path for a sweep. This means that teams usually have to carry a mean of dealing with Drifloon such as Onix which, despite getting burned, it still OHKOes it with Head Smash at +1.
As if it wasn't enough, Drifloon's utility sets offer an array of decent options to put a halt on threats like Munchlax, thanks to Will-O-Wisp + Thief for Pokemon such as Cutiefly, which see less use than Calm Mind + Hex, but are very important on their own.
Wynaut is a really menacing trapper thanks to the known combination of Speed and natural bulk, as well as Shadow Tag + Encore to shut down defensive threats such as Ferroseed, Munchlax and Mareanie, or take them out. Due to its raw bulk it can also tank strong hits such as Earthquake from Mudbray, or First Impression from Trapinch, and knock them out. If Wynaut faces a physical Pokemon it can use Charm to severely weaken it for a setup sweeper such as Quiver Dance Cutiefly, or it can take another Pokemon down with itself with Destiny Bond. All of these traits ensures Wynaut's success by trapping one Pokemon per game at the very least, which means losing a check or counter to a potential threat supported by Wynaut able to rampage on the opposing team.
With all of this in mind, what would happen if both Wynaut and Trapinch tagged along? We all already know how efficient Trapinch is, but coupled with Wynaut it is able to remove even more threats thanks to the combination of Encore + Shadow Tag from Wynaut, allowing Superpower sets to easily remove Ferroseed, as well as Giga Drain sets take Onix out much more easily. Wynaut also being able to remove certain offensive Pokemon or severely crippling them with Charm is insane for Trapinch, as otherwise it cannot trap them. Even Choice Scarf users such as Chinchou struggle a lot against these two, as they are forced to pick a move, fearing of getting trapped by Volt Switch with Trapinch incoming or Wynaut handling anything else for Trapinch.
These two form a trapping core able to support an ungodly and cursed amount of offensive threats: Quiver Dance Cutiefly, Dragon Dance Onix, Vullaby, Drifloon, Wingull, Corphish, Mudbray, Nasty Plot Croagunk, Shellder, Spritzee, Galarian Farfetch'd... and the list seems to go on eternally. To top it off, this core is really easy to slap into a team, considering that you don't even need anything for Ferroseed and that the simplest amount of momentum is able to make them go wild.
So yes, I'd also look out for Wynaut, and more in a Drifloon-less metagame, were it to happen.
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I think Wynaut+Trapinch is pretty broken. Like AvS stated, Wynaut and Trapinch form a trapping core capable of removing a big part of the metagame - either Wynaut takes a hit, eats Berry Juice and retaliates with Mirror Coat or Counter, or it forces the opponent into a bad spot with Encore, allowing trapinch to come in and pick off a helpless foe. Encore also supports setup sweepers by giving them free turns, and synergizes well with the wide range of pokemon removed by these traps, which means most sweepers' checks or counters can be dealt with by the same two pokémon that help your sweeper set up. There is also little counterplay to it due to the nature of trapping, and Shed Shell simply isn't worth it in LC because it makes your matchup against non-trapping teams much worse. (Almost) every switchin against a team carrying Wynaut+Trapinch can be punished, making it very hard to play against even when neither of the two is on the field, because they might just expect your switch and switch in prematurely. And they can switch in on a lot, the pokémon in S or A tier that these two absolutely can't beat is Spritzee. In my opinion these two are too strong together, and I argue in favour of banning Trapinch, and see if Wynaut on it's own is also too strong.
Regarding Ferro, i think we have sufficient hazard removal. It's moreso an incredible defensive glue than a defensively broken threat, and I doubt any council member considers it broken tbh.
Re:the wynaut posts, I haven't used wynaut, but from your posts i don't get much of an idea of why it's so good with trapinch aside from the fact that both of them are trappers and wynaut can trap some of the same stuff trapinch can (tbh, I think that goes against your argument). Could you guys explain further why you think it's broken?
Re:the wynaut posts, I haven't used wynaut, but from your posts i don't get much of an idea of why it's so good with trapinch aside from the fact that both of them are trappers and wynaut can trap some of the same stuff trapinch can (tbh, I think that goes against your argument). Could you guys explain further why you think it's broken?
Encoring something into a setup or status move with Wynaut allows Trapinch to come in safely to remove something it would otherwise have a tough matchup against, like resttalk Munchlax. Wynaut can also fight back against a lot of moves that would threaten to KO Trapinch, like Scald from Chinchou. Trapinch can also be a loss of tempo after KO'ing a foe, but with Wynaut ready to switch back in the opponent can't just regain momentum by trying to set up on pinch.
Wynaut feels a lot less strong in it's own because the opponent can just choose not to attack it with certain pokémon, in this case it can only provide one free turn out of Encore. This means that without Trapinch to make the KOs out of this, a lot less foes will actually fall to Wynaut. Wynaut for example can't beat Onix on it's own, but an Onix can't be sent out into Wynaut if Trapinch is on the team, because it can't double switch back out. Ponyta against Wynaut is also doomed no matter what move it chooses - if it's a damaging move, Encore + Counter/Mirror Coat will deal with it, if it's Calm Mind or Protect, Trapinch will take advantage, and if it's Morning Sun you can PP stall it.
Another example I mentioned earlier is Chinchou, when it is in against either of these two it has to choose between Volt Switch and Scald, and a wrong guess will lead into a KO every single time, whereas a correct Scald doesn't even KO Trapinch from full health and Wynaut doesn't take that much damage from Volt Switch, and the tempo loss from a momentum switch by the opponent isn't insurmountable , even if you can't Mirror Coat the switchin.
I do agree that there is some overlap in what they trap, but given that your trapping core doesn't have recovery, this isn't a bad thing, because you can trap and remove more enemy pokémon during a match.
Wynaut feels a lot less strong in it's own because the opponent can just choose not to attack it with certain pokémon, in this case it can only provide one free turn out of Encore. This means that without Trapinch to make the KOs out of this, a lot less foes will actually fall to Wynaut. Wynaut for example can't beat Onix on it's own, but an Onix can't be sent out into Wynaut if Trapinch is on the team, because it can't double switch back out. Ponyta against Wynaut is also doomed no matter what move it chooses - if it's a damaging move, Encore + Counter/Mirror Coat will deal with it, if it's Calm Mind or Protect, Trapinch will take advantage, and if it's Morning Sun you can PP stall it.
Another example I mentioned earlier is Chinchou, when it is in against either of these two it has to choose between Volt Switch and Scald, and a wrong guess will lead into a KO every single time, whereas a correct Scald doesn't even KO Trapinch from full health and Wynaut doesn't take that much damage from Volt Switch, and the tempo loss from a momentum switch by the opponent isn't insurmountable , even if you can't Mirror Coat the switchin.
I do agree that there is some overlap in what they trap, but given that your trapping core doesn't have recovery, this isn't a bad thing, because you can trap and remove more enemy pokémon during a match.
ferroseed, while having tremendous typing, utility and bulk, is far from broken. it checks a plethora of threatening mons but lacks the recovery to continue to do so easily throughout a match. continually, it’s often relied on to check numerous threats due to it being one of the only mons that can catch-all like ferro can, leaving it open to being overran. not to mention, vullaby, still the best mon in the tier, gets to switch in essentially for free, negating it’s hazards with Defog and threatening knock off.
as for wynaut + pinch, i get that wynaut encore into pinch can potentially be threatening, but i see this more as a pinch problem than wynaut. Wynaut isn’t broken by itself, in fact it struggles to consistently even be a threat by itself. pinch has shown to be a very consistent trapper and this is just one example of where it can shine. I’ve skimmed over some of the pinch arguments but I really don’t know what’s so different between this gen and last, and I could potentially argue pinch is better this gen with first impression access and no z moves allowing certain mons to break past it. It still severely limits counter play to birds and fairies exceptionally well and you’d be very hard pressed to find a matchup where it can’t trap something useful. I believe it is of utmost important we deal with pinch before any other action is taken due to the historical significant of trapping and pinch itself.
as for wynaut + pinch, i get that wynaut encore into pinch can potentially be threatening, but i see this more as a pinch problem than wynaut. Wynaut isn’t broken by itself, in fact it struggles to consistently even be a threat by itself. pinch has shown to be a very consistent trapper and this is just one example of where it can shine. I’ve skimmed over some of the pinch arguments but I really don’t know what’s so different between this gen and last, and I could potentially argue pinch is better this gen with first impression access and no z moves allowing certain mons to break past it. It still severely limits counter play to birds and fairies exceptionally well and you’d be very hard pressed to find a matchup where it can’t trap something useful. I believe it is of utmost important we deal with pinch before any other action is taken due to the historical significant of trapping and pinch itself.
Wynaut really isn't consistent enough at all. From most games I've played, against and using it, it just does very little. Half the time I just see myself outplaying it by doing something like use sd or sub or anything when it expects me to attack, or the other way around. It's almost a coin toss, but Wynaut does trap some very specific threats. Wynaut is definitely not broken, and is definitely the most underwhelming trapper in the tier. Also, using it really can stretch your team quite thin. At least with trappers like Diglett you get sr and some form of priority as well. Using Wynaut + Trapinch could really weaken your team since your four other mons would a lot of roles to fill.
Kipkluif
I get that you can use wynaut into pinch, but this seems dependent on poor play. Locking yourself into a non-attacking move with wynaut + pinch seems like a recipe for disaster to me. With the metagame being as offensive as it is, I don't see why this combination (which mostly takes advantage of defensive mons anyway) is any sign towards trapinchs brokenness lol (this goes to your point too fatty).
I'd like to respond to fattys point on trapping being problematic, and I guess a significant part of the userbase that pretty much unconditionally wants to ban trapinch. We haven't ever banned stag or arena trap in our history since ORAS. Goth is different from trapinch, and yes, trapinch last gen is different from trapinch this gen. They're two completely different metas, like actually almost completely different; this isn't just late SM minus a few mons lol. Movesets are completely different, we have new mons, stuff that was banned for most of SM isn't now (drifloon, wingull, and cutie are massive) We had 2 diglett suspects in ORAS (both dnb) and none in SM, and no one is complaining about it in this meta, so let's not use the blanket "trapping = bad" argument please.
I get that you can use wynaut into pinch, but this seems dependent on poor play. Locking yourself into a non-attacking move with wynaut + pinch seems like a recipe for disaster to me. With the metagame being as offensive as it is, I don't see why this combination (which mostly takes advantage of defensive mons anyway) is any sign towards trapinchs brokenness lol (this goes to your point too fatty).
I'd like to respond to fattys point on trapping being problematic, and I guess a significant part of the userbase that pretty much unconditionally wants to ban trapinch. We haven't ever banned stag or arena trap in our history since ORAS. Goth is different from trapinch, and yes, trapinch last gen is different from trapinch this gen. They're two completely different metas, like actually almost completely different; this isn't just late SM minus a few mons lol. Movesets are completely different, we have new mons, stuff that was banned for most of SM isn't now (drifloon, wingull, and cutie are massive) We had 2 diglett suspects in ORAS (both dnb) and none in SM, and no one is complaining about it in this meta, so let's not use the blanket "trapping = bad" argument please.