Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread

[ojr]

Half metagame discussion post/half tutorial on how to deal with Woobat for dummies.
Well, Vullaby didn't get banned (unfortunately) but I still believe there is one more threat in the meta that deserves a suspect, and that's the bat.
Woobat has been terrorizing LC since the end of LCPL and has always been seen as something that could potentially be broken. For the non-lc players reading this let me introduce you to woobat:


Woobat @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Simple
Level: 5
EVs: 76 HP / 252 Def / 180 Spe
Timid / Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power / Air Slash
- Heat Wave
- Roost

Well, what are the checks to Woobat?
Scraggy is one of the better checks to Woobat as it can DD up and knock 2HKO. The problem is Air Slash variants that kill Scraggy after a CM boost.
/ Scarf Mag can be annoying as it can fire off strong stab Thunderbolt and Volt Switch. Berry Juice variants can endure (if rocks are up) and twave making it much easier to revenge kill woobat afterwards.
Diglett is maybe not the most reliable but it can force mind games with Final Gambit leaving Woobat at very low hp and making it easy to pick off. It can also make use of rock tomb which is almost the same as a twave.
Onix can risk the speed tie vs 17-speed versions and do about 75% to bold variants with head smash. Rock blast variants can fish for a crit if they are the less popular Air slash set.
/ Abra and Staryu are faster than Woobat and can twave it to limit it from sweeping your team.
/ These mons wouldn't naturally strike you as good woobat checks and they aren't but they are able to check Grookey and prevent woobat from setting up or make it worse at doing so. Foongus doesn't die to stored power without a CM boost and can spore woobat neutralizing it that way. Koffing deactivates simple and only gives woobat a +1 in defense instead of the +2 which makes it way more manageable.
Scarf Vulpix is a more offensive way of checking GrookBat as it's resistant to grassy glide and OHKOes woobat without a CM boost.
This was everything I came up with for now.

Now on to the metagame discussion part. Woobat has distinguished itself as a classic set up sweeper and a very good one at that. Checking it would seem not that hard if you look at the things I mentioned above. But here is the problem, Grookey is very good vs the majority of the mons I mentioned above. Which makes for a very dangerous duo. You could say that it looks manageable in theory but a lot of these mons would get overwhelmed in practice. Then there is also the question of who do we suspect then? Grookey or Woobat? I think Woobat is the core problem of these 2 and that Grookey only functions as the needed support while also being a great standalone threat. I think one of the most notable things when playing around Woobat is just not letting it set up. I don't think this is healthy for the meta at all. Besides that, the checking with scarfers can just be thrown out of the window when Woobat is paired with webs. While I'm writing this I'm honestly not sure if I would vote ban but would most definitely want to see a suspect for this demon. I hope to see more posts regarding Grookey / Woobat now that the Vullaby suspect is over.

 

[Berks]

I think that’s a good post, ojr, but woobat would be a solid B- tier pokemon without the help from Grookey’s Grassy Terrain. Grookey is, in my opinion, the constraining force in this metagame.

For example, very few teambuilders that I know of look at a pokemon and say: “oh no, this Pokemon loses to Woobat, so I can’t use it on this team structure”. However, I do know that Grookey has that effect. Grookey is the reason that bird checks (and Woobat checks) like every non-Tyrunt fossil are difficult to use well. It acts like Fletchling acted in ORAS but with actually good stats and decent coverage.

Like, honestly, pre-Grassy Surge Grookey, who was using Woobat? It has had access to Calm Mind, Roost, Stored Power, Air Slash, Heat Wave, etc. ever since it was introduced, and it has never needed a suspect before. The only thing that changed this gen is a free +2 Defense boost from Grassy Seed under Grassy Surge coming from a mon that invalidates a lot of Rock-types. It is my personal opinion (as much as I love to use it) that Grookey is the problem. The removal of Grookey would open the teambuilder to more options to deal with both Vullaby and Woobat, and it would make Woobat much, much worse. I hope that there’s not a world where Woobat gets suspected before its enabler, Grookey.

 

[Wail Wailord]

1. When should we suspect a Pokemon?

LC is in a unique position in terms of tiering on Smogon, especially in relation to the other lower tiers (we are not a lower tier policy wise, but our tournament representation and player base size and behavior in relation to the larger Smogon community puts us basically in line with them) with which we overlap in player base. Our pool of viable Pokemon is significantly more shallow than OU, and unlike usage-based tiers we have no powerful drops to worry about every month. I think that given this limited pool of Pokemon Game Freak has given us to work with we can and should take our time with suspects more than other official tiers, and make sure that we don't rush into premature and unwarranted suspects and bans.

I mention premature suspects and bans because they are traps that I believe we have fallen into or have come close to falling into in the past. I will use the Web suspect as an example as most everyone reading this thread should remember it: That particular suspect was largely based off Webs' performance in Snake, where everyone was struggling (and often failing) to find ways to deal with Webs properly. This is exemplified nowhere more clearly than dcae's run: Many of his opponents somewhat expected him to use Webs and prepped extensively for the playstyle, but he was still able to use it multiple times in a row for win after win. At the start of the suspect I was personally fairly convinced that Webs would end up getting banned, but even by the end of that short suspect people had started to figure out ways to get consistent positive matchups against Web teams (even if they had to bend-over-backwards a little bit to do it) and ended up voting against a ban.

At the beginning of LCWC it was looking like Web based setup spam teams might still be broken, but as that tournament progressed people continued to come up with new ways to beat them consistently without sacrificing too much viability against non-cheese. By the end of the tournament Web usage had dropped significantly, and it was only used once in playoffs. I think it's fair to say that now that the metagame has adapted to have more of a fighting chance against webs and that there is not a serious push to get Web resuspected, and even many of us who ended up voting ban now consider Web not ban worthy (for transparency I did vote ban, but it was more a 'whatever' vote as I ended up going back and forth for too long and the suspect was over before I decided). There are some who believe that Webs are still broken as a playstyle, but I think its fair to say that this constituency is far less significant than it was immediately after the conclusion of Snake.

Webs is the the public example of this, but this pattern of a particular Pokemon or move getting a serious push for its suspecting/banning but then losing it when the meta shifts away from them is even more true of the Pokemon who were not publicly suspected around the end of Snake. I'll use Scraggy as an example: I don't think that the push to suspect Scraggy ever manifested in council members actually posting about it to gain community support, but such a move came very close to a majority around november (I share this screenshot with permission):
View attachment 311612
I think my position in this screenshot has been vindicated by how the metagame has developed: only one of the people on that list is still in favor of a Scraggy suspect and it is currently solidly below both Timburr and Mienfoo in fighting type usage. I won't post more screenshots from around this time period regarding the various other threats on setup spam, but suffice to say that the general council mentality in November after snake was that some combination of the various members of the setup spam archetype were completely broken and many of us even thought that we might have to follow up with a series of bans even after the webs suspect in order to return to a meta where balance could reasonably deal with cheese. This sentiment that multiple bans might be necessary to nerf setup spam was not just held by us: dcae's popular critique of our decision to suspect Webs did not dispute that some aspect of the play style was broken; it simply accused us of targeting the wrong one.

I'm glad that the web suspect did not succeed, as I think its clear with the benefit of hindsight that we were wrong; the meta shifted away from cheese.

I now consider Webs a bad suspect given how the meta developed afterwards. So, what does a good suspect look like? I think a good archetypal suspect (without going back too far; I'm a boomer so my impulse was to cite ORAS Swirlix but I don't want to lose all you zoomers) for the purposes of this post would be the recent Rufflet suspect pre-DLC. Rufflet was popularized during SPL and rose from #25 usage in LC Snake to a premier threat, but as it became more and more popular it became clear that it didn't work like other strong type based threats. When Timburr shoots up in usage you would expect (and we received in late LCPL) a surge in Mareanie use, but Rufflet had the ability to muscle through its "checks" no matter what the opposing team was running through a combination of Close Combat 50/50s and Trapinch support. A healthy threat (like the aforementioned Timburr, for instance, or Scraggy that had its usage rate plummet as Timburr was popularized) should wax and wane in relation to the options people can run to check it. It is at that point of stagnation where the metagame around a threat has been exhausted and it cannot be properly dealt with where we should look for a ban.

Tiering policy says that we should suspect something (a mon, a move, an hability, etc...) when that is uncompetitive, broken or unhealthy.
So when that happens we should immediately suspect it, not "wait and see what happens". I do not think that premature suspects really exist. There are good suspects (when a uncompetitive/broken/unhealthy thing is suspected) and bad suspects (when something that is not suspect worthy at the moment it is suspected). I will continue with my point in a second, but im going to post what a broken or uncompetitive mon means first (i will not post the unhealthy one because it is kinda subjective).


I.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

• This can be matchup related; think the determination that Baton Pass took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team matchup issue, where even the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
• This can be external factors.
• This can be probability management issues.

II.) Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

• They are broken because they almost dictate / require usage, and a standard team without one of them facing a standard team with one of them would be at a drastic disadvantage.
• These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere.

Apart of vullaby, i don't think that you can really think about a mon right now that completely fits with the broken or uncompetitive description (not grookey, not scraggy and not even woobat). But look at the second part of broken definition, "These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere".
Some months ago, when webs used to be broken, was because people didn't prepare well their teams agaisnt webs. Now the metagame have changed, people prepare agaisnt webs, but that has a cost. Teams well prepared agaisnt webs/cheese are in a disadvantage agaisnt teams that are not prepared at all agaisnt webs/cheese (i might include woobat on this, so not only screens/webs). So if you decide to prepare agaisnt those, you are kinda accepting to be in a disadvantage agaisnt standard teams that doesn't prepare agaisnt those, but if you do not prepare agaisnt woobat, webs or screens obviously you'll lose when you face them. This is not the case of scraggy tho. Most of the fighters fit in standard teams and so do fighting checks. Scraggy's case might have been a case of an uncompetitive mon, which due to rng (being rng a external factor out of players hand) used to destroy teams even if you prepared well agaisnt him. But is definetely not a broken mon. Grookey is a little bit more hard. Grookey is clearly not an uncompetitive mon, but it might be broken if you consider koffing (grokey´s best check) as a "niche Pokemon that puts the team at a large disadvantage". Which honestly i don't think it is true, you are not in a disadvantage using koffing but thats just because of grookey. Without grookey in the metagame koffing probably wouldn't be the main fighting check anymore (or at the very least mareanie would have more usage, mareanie almost not existing right now shows how much overcentralizing grookey is). Despite the fact that grookey makes koffing good, and that grookey with his different sets (sd itemless acro, sd lo mega kick or wood hammer, evio knock taunt...) is able to destroy the poison mons that check him. You almost have to run honedge in order to check him 100%, which is a niche mon. But alright, it is true as well that vullaby + some of this poision checks is usually enough to check him (althought you are chipping your vullaby aka best offensive mon of the tier just to check other mon), so maybe it is not broken.

What i mean and want to say especially to the council after more or less giving an opinion about the biggest threats of the metagame right now is, that don't be afraid of making suspects, the metagame develops but not always does it in a good way. If we continue like this, the metagame will develop, people will prepare more agaisnt screens, which will make them weaker to webs. It might end up just fliping a coin and pray not to get the wrong cheese. I understand that we had a vullaby suspect, it hasn't even passed a day since that happened, but l had rather a "premature" suspect than a late one.

As summary:

Scraggy is not broken, grookey might be broken but i don't have a strong opinion on him for the moment (i might post a thread about the monkey soon), woobat is probably broken, im up to suspect him asap but i don't know yet if i would vote ban and letting the metagame develop without making any type of ban (like happens in VGC) might end up in a bad metagame.
Im making this post mainly just to make sure that after this suspect it won't happen too much time before the next suspect, because yes we have a lot of time, but none to lose.

 

[ghost]

Shrug and I are back to discuss where we go after the Vullaby suspect and whether a Woobat suspect is warranted (we both agree that it is). Give it a listen.

 

[DC]

Here is a resource to help newer players get a glimpse of what moves and sets certain Pokemon run. Its hard to stay on top of everything regarding meta shifts that translates to move and set differences, but hopefully this is inclusive enough to handle any minor shifts. This list reflects the meta on 2/16/21 (16/2/21 if using a different date standard).

S Rank

Vullaby

Common Moves: Brave Bird, Knock Off, U-turn, Heat Wave, Defog, Nasty Plot, Air Slash, Dark Pulse, Roost
Common Sets: Offensive Pivot, Nasty Plot
Uncommon Moves: Endure, Dual Wingbeat, Iron Defense, Protect, Whirlwind
Uncommon Sets: Defensive Pivot, Choice Scarf, Iron Defense

A+ Rank

Mienfoo

Common Moves: Fake Out, High Jump Kick, U-turn, Knock Off, Taunt
Common Sets: Fast Pivot, Slow Pivot
Uncommon Moves: Close Combat, Swords Dance, Substitute, Acrobatics, Stone Edge, Drain Punch, Protect, Poison Jab
Uncommon Sets: Swords Dance Sweeper, Choice Scarf, Choice Band

Diglett

Common Moves: Earthquake, Earth Power, Final Gambit, Sucker Punch, Substitute, Rock Slide, Beat Up
Common Sets: Choice Scarf, Life Orb, Eviolite
Uncommon Moves: Stealth Rock, Rock Tomb, Sludge Bomb, Ancient Power, Protect, Memento
Uncommon Sets: Air Balloon, Focus Sash Lead

Ferroseed

Common Moves: Giga Drain, Spikes, Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Thunder Wave
Common Sets: Defensive
Uncommon Moves: Explosion, Protect, Revenge, Bullet Seed
Uncommon Sets: Focus Sash Lead

Pawniard

Common Moves: Knock Off, Iron Head, Sucker Punch, Stealth Rock
Common Sets: Stealth Rock
Uncommon Moves: Swords Dance, Rock Polish, Thunder Wave, Brick Break, Low Sweep, Protect, Steel Beam
Uncommon Sets: Setup Sweeper w/ Swords Dance or Rock Polish, Focus Sash Lead

Grookey

Common Moves: Grassy Glide, Wood Hammer, Drain Punch, U-turn, Protect, Swords Dance
Common Sets: Life Orb
Uncommon Moves: Fake Out, Acrobatics, Knock Off, Mega Kick, Taunt
Uncommon Sets: Berry Juice, Grassy Seed, No Item Attacker

Onix

Common Moves: Stealth Rock, Earthquake, High Horsepower, Rock Blast, Explosion, Dragon Dance, Head Smash
Common Sets: Weak Armor Stealth Rock Setter, Dragon Dance Sweeper
Uncommon Moves: Body Press, Endure, Protect, Taunt, Stone Edge, Dragon Tail
Uncommon Sets: SturdyJuice

Timburr

Common Moves: Drain Punch, Mach Punch, Knock Off, Thunder Punch, Ice Punch
Common Sets: Offensive
Uncommon Moves: Defog, Bulk Up, Fire Punch, Stone Edge
Uncommon Sets: Guts

A Rank

Foongus

Common Moves: Spore, Sludge Bomb, Giga Drain, Synthesis
Common Sets: Defensive Pivot
Uncommon Moves: Clear Smog, Stun Spore
Uncommon Sets: Fast Defensive Pivot

Koffing

Common Moves: Sludge Bomb, Fire Blast, Thunderbolt, Will-O-Wisp
Common Sets: Offensive
Uncommon Moves: Pain Split, Corrosive Gas, Clear Smog, Toxic Spikes
Uncommon Sets: Physically Defensive, Levitate

Mareanie

Common Moves: Scald, Sludge Bomb, Knock Off, Covet, Recover
Common Sets: Defensive Pivot
Uncommon Moves: Gunk Shot, Liquidation, Toxic Spikes, Iron Defense
Uncommon Sets: Iron Defense

Porygon

Common Moves: Tri Attack, Ice Beam, Psychic, Thunderbolt, Recover, Agility
Common Sets: Agility, Choice Scarf
Uncommon Moves: Thunder Wave, Trick
Uncommon Sets: Defensive Trace

Staryu

Common Moves: Hydro Pump, Scald, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Psychic, Rapid Spin, Recover, Thunder Wave
Common Sets: Offensive, Defensive
Uncommon Moves: Surf, Flip Turn, Teleport, Reflect, Light Screen, Dazzling Gleam
Uncommon Sets: Life Orb, Screen Setter

Trapinch

Common Moves: Earthquake, First Impression, Giga Drain, Superpower
Common Sets: Trapper
Uncommon Moves: Quick Attack, Rock Slide, Feint, Rock Tomb
Uncommon Sets: None

A- Rank

Abra

Common Moves: Psychic, Dazzling Gleam, Counter, Protect, Thunder Wave
Common Sets: Focus Sash
Uncommon Moves: Substitute, Fire Punch, Submission, Shadow Ball, Energy Ball, Knock Off, Reflect, Encore, Light Screen
Uncommon Sets: Life Orb, Choice Scarf

Scraggy

Common Moves: Dragon Dance, Hi Jump Kick, Knock Off, Substitute
Common Sets: Dragon Dance (Moxie)
Uncommon Moves: Zen Headbutt, Dual Chop, Drain Punch, Iron Head
Uncommon Sets: Dragon Dance (Shed Skin), Choice Scarf

Woobat

Common Moves: Calm Mind, Roost, Stored Power, Heat Wave
Common Sets: Grassy Seed
Uncommon Moves: Air Slash, Nasty Plot, Substitute, Psychic
Uncommon Sets: Berry Juice

B+ Rank

Dewpider

Common Moves: Surf, Scald, Sticky Web, Giga Drain, Icy Wind
Common Sets: Focus Sash, Berry Juice, Eviolite
Uncommon Moves: Substitute, Magic Coat, Liquidation, Leech Life
Uncommon Sets: Choice Scarf

Magnemite

Common Moves: Volt Switch, Thunderbolt, Flash Cannon, Steel Beam, Recycle, Endure
Common Sets: Choice Scarf, SturdyJuice
Uncommon Moves: Teleport, Iron Defense, Charge Beam, Rest
Uncommon Sets: Magnet Pull

Mudbray

Common Moves: Earthquake, High Horsepower, Stealth Rock, Close Combat, Rock Slide, Heavy Slam
Common Sets: Eviolite
Uncommon Moves: Substitute, Counter, Rest, Sleep Talk
Uncommon Sets: Berry Juice, Choice Scarf, RestTalk

Ponyta

Common Moves: Flare Blitz, Will-O-Wisp, High Horsepower, Morning Sun, Wild Charge, Flame Charge
Common Sets: Defensive Eviolite, Offensive Berry Juice
Uncommon Moves: Mystical Fire, Solar Blade, Fire Blast, Solar Beam
Uncommon Sets: Special, Mixed

Galarian Ponyta

Common Moves: Psychic, Dazzling Gleam, Mystical Fire, Morning Sun, Protect
Common Sets: Eviolite, Life Orb
Uncommon Moves: Calm Mind, Substitute, Low Kick / Double Kick, Healing Wish
Uncommon Sets: Calm Mind Eviolite

Spritzee

Common Moves: Moonblast, Wish, Protect, Covet, Psychic, Nasty Plot, Draining Kiss
Common Sets: Defensive, Nasty Plot
Uncommon Moves: Trick Room, Encore
Uncommon Sets: Trick Room Nasty Plot

Vulpix

Common Moves: Weather Ball, Fire Blast, Energy Ball, Overheat
Common Sets: Choice Scarf
Uncommon Moves: Will-O-Wisp, Hypnosis, Encore, Extrasensory, Sleep Talk, Memento
Uncommon Sets: Heat Rock, Eject Pack, Choice Specs

B Rank

Archen

Common Moves: Rock Blast, Dual Wingbeat, Acrobatics, Earthquake, Head Smash, U-turn
Common Sets: Berry Juice
Uncommon Moves: Defog, Aqua Tail, Stealth Rock, Substitute, Stone Edge
Uncommon Sets: None

Magby

Common Moves: Belly Drum, Fire Punch, Thunder Punch, Mach Punch
Common Sets: Belly Drum
Uncommon Moves: None (In OU)
Uncommon Sets: None (In OU)

Natu

Common Moves: Thunder Wave, Reflect, Light Screen, Teleport
Common Sets: Dual Screen Setter
Uncommon Moves: None (In OU)
Uncommon Sets: None (In OU)

Alolan Sandshrew

Common Moves: Swords Dance, Triple Axel, Icicle Crash, Earthquake, Knock Off
Common Sets: Hail Sweeper
Uncommon Moves: Aurora Veil, Icicle Spear, Iron Head, Rapid Spin
Uncommon Sets: None

Tyrunt

Common Moves: Dragon Dance, Rock Blast, Close Combat, Psychic Fangs
Common Sets: Dragon Dance Sweeper (Eviolite)
Uncommon Moves: Stone Edge, Earthquake, Fire Fang
Uncommon Sets: None

Wingull

Common Moves: Scald, Hurricane, U-turn, Knock Off, Substitute
Common Sets: Berry Juice, Life Orb
Uncommon Moves: Defog, Air Slash, Ice Beam
Uncommon Sets: None

Edit 1 (3/11/21): Added Pokemon for B+ and B ranks!

 

[PQRDG]

Hi. Curious newcomer joining the fray. Just have a couple questions based on the information I am seeing.

1) Why is Alolan Vulpix vanned? It clearly isn't because of Snow Warning, as you have two other mons in the tier with the same ability in Amaura and Snover, and regular Vulpix appears to have been unbanned in the generational shift.

2) Why are the trapping abilities of Shadow Tag and Arena Trap legal? These are often banned in other common Smogon metagames, most commonly when looking at OU.

3) Why the Chlorophyll ban? Excluding Bulbasaur and Cottonee, the other (Unbanned) mons with the ability only have a base 30 or 40 speed. Plus with the handful of weather setters and unsetters, I don't entirely see why this would be that broken, even if Cottonee was banned worst case.

Still exploring the thorough information listed here, I may come back and edit this shortly. I am not necessarily disagreeing with your standpoint, I am just trying to get an understanding of what led to this situation.

 

[Kipkluif]

Hi friend. Glad you took a look at LC. For next time, I think it's better to pose these kind of questions in the Questions thread, but for now I'll answer them here.

1) Why is Alolan Vulpix vanned? It clearly isn't because of Snow Warning, as you have two other mons in the tier with the same ability in Amaura and Snover, and regular Vulpix appears to have been unbanned in the generational shift.

Alolan Vulpix has 17 speed plus the combination of Snow Warning and Aurora Veil, which makes it way too good at supporting setup heavy hyper offense teams. It outspeeds or speedties most viable Taunt users (not that there are many), immediately halves all damage taken for 8 turns, and has options like Encore or Hypnosis to fish for even more free turns.

2) Why are the trapping abilities of Shadow Tag and Arena Trap legal? These are often banned in other common Smogon metagames, most commonly when looking at OU.

The pokémon using these abilities aren't broken in LC. Due to higher overall damage output, the momentum loss of a switchin after trapping something is more of a setback than in other tiers. Especially now that Grookey has Grassy Surge, the Earthquake using Diglett and Trapinch have their main damage output hindered, and require skillful piloting in order to actually get an opportunity to trap without losing the game afterwards. That's not to say it isn't good - it very much is, just not broken.

3) Why the Chlorophyll ban? Excluding Bulbasaur and Cottonee, the other (Unbanned) mons with the ability only have a base 30 or 40 speed. Plus with the handful of weather setters and unsetters, I don't entirely see why this would be that broken, even if Cottonee was banned worst case.

Chlorophyll pokémon with fire/grass(/poison) coverage were an immense pain to deal with. At first we banned vulpix, but then people started using Sunny Day Riolu/Diglett and whatnot and it still turned out to be a massive issue. Dealing with 2 or 3 pokémon per team that outspeed the entire metagame with 0 switchins just isnt very healthy.
Hope this answers your questions!

 

[Merritt]

To provide a little bit more context on Chlorophyll - even 30 base speed is able to hit sufficient speed to outspeed the entire unboosted metagame under sun. High speed investment (196 EVs with a positive nature) is sufficient to outspeed everything up to 17 speed Choice Scarf Pokemon like Mienfoo, meaning that outspeeding even the slowest Chlorophyll Pokemon is difficult. This allows Chlorophyll Pokemon to usually invest fully in their offensive stats to make checking them defensively harder.

Keep in mind that LC stats are more compressed than L100 stats, so +2 speed can allow even the slowest Pokemon in LC (Munchlax) to outspeed everything unboosted with full speed investment.

 

[PQRDG]

Keep in mind that LC stats are more compressed than L100 stats, so +2 speed can allow even the slowest Pokemon in LC (Munchlax) to outspeed everything unboosted with full speed investment.

Ah right, I am totally unused to the level 5 playstyle of this meta. I am slowly getting through these pages of reading, so I am seeing the original Chlorophyll debate and somewhat getting an understanding of it. Just a lot to wrap my head around lol

 

[Merritt]

Grookey is perhaps the most absurd Pokemon that we still have legal. Enabling Woobat cheese is a minor factor compared to Grookey's own ludicrous offensive firepower and stranglehold on what Pokemon are safe to use due to Grookey's priority and how it breaks most traditional defensive cores. To provide some necessary background, this is going to be talking about LO Grookey simply because the other items don't really highlight how problematic Grookey is.

Grookey's priority is a menace. Much like Fletchling did back in Gen 6, Grookey is able to singlehandedly hold back the viability of most Pokemon weak to its STAB, but a significant difference that helps push Grookey over the edge is that Grassy Glide just hits much harder than Fletchling Acrobatics. This means Grookey is able to simply nullify more Pokemon from ever winning a game, decreases the threshold before Grookey can just click Grassy Glide and win, and overall just prevents more Pokemon from use than Fletchling was able to. Long and short of Grassy Glide it that it lets Grookey avoid being checked by frail, faster Pokemon and instead asks for a defensive answer. The problem with this?

Grookey Wood Hammer is one of the single hardest hitting moves in LC.

There's no exaggeration here. Nothing you'll reasonably see in LC hits harder than Wood Hammer - it doesn't hit Band Rufflet levels of damage but it's absolutely on par with or surpasses other banned offensive threats. This, paired with Grookey's extremely solid 17 Speed makes checking it without running a Grass resistance difficult to say the least. It's obviously doable, as seen from taking a look at games in the current meta, but it forces a noticeable teambuilding burden which is only exacerbated because of how free Grookey's other moveslots are.

The sheer power of Wood Hammer and Grassy Glide mean that Grookey's free to pick and choose its checks. Grookey has two essentially free moveslots to let it get around attempts to stop it. SD is an option to turn Grookey into something that simply deletes Pokemon that do not resist Grass. Knock Off allows it to weaken would-be checks for later in the game so it can run over the opposing team or provide even more team support for a second offensive mon. Fake Out sees use for free damage that lets Grookey take out Pokemon like Scraggy and Vullaby who would otherwise outspeed (after a boost) and not be taken out by Grassy Glide alone. Drain Punch lets Grookey surprise and beat Steel-types that would attempt to check it, be that hard checks like Ferroseed or softer ones like Pawniard. Protect is an odd choice that turns an attempted Trapinch First Impression check into an extra free KO for the Grookey user. In the absence of anything more specialized, Grookey can slap on U-turn and get free chip damage on its checks while leaning on the rest of its team.

Grookey warps the metagame in a stunningly unhealthy way, enforcing that teams have multiple working Grookey checks in order to not lose. From circuit top 4 and finals, there was not a single team with less than 2 grass resistances, and more than one with 4, and even that isn't always enough to stop a well played Grookey with assistance from its team. Mandating this many Grass type checks leaves holes elsewhere without using general glue Pokemon like Vullaby or Koffing, significantly contributing to the current landscape of the LC metagame. It also pushes back against using offensive Pokemon that are weak to Grookey's Grassy Glide such as Wingull or Carvanha, simply because Grookey's capable of bashing through defensive cores that aren't explicitly anti-Grookey, in a way much more characteristic of banned Pokemon like Gastly and Rufflet than healthy offensive threats like Abra.

I believe pretty solidly that Grookey's a banworthy Pokemon, not because it'd deal with any Woobat problems, but because Grookey itself is broken.

 

[Shrug]

ok short post that's a copy paste of something i wrote in council chat explaining why i want to forbid cheese:

i think part of the problem is that what i want to eliminate is the part of tour games where screens and webs are essentially conceptually uncoverable. you cannot build a team that will address webs and screens sufficiently at the source or in all their iterations -- at least, without resorting to a specific and narrow set of exploitable counters that essentially create a matchup triangle. now obviously there are several objections to this. when im building im not thinking about a specific type of cheese team, im thinking about many of the possibly combinations that could be viable, and this requires an opp who can actually make one of those teams coherent. when it reaches the ladder level it's basically just the best / easiest / most prominent versions of those teams which have sorta secondary counterpackages you can use in the contexts that those teams appear. more importantly essentially all competitive pokemon creates a sort of matchup triangle, but what makes cheese worse is that it also degrades the gameplay, which we all sort of know instinctively but pretend not to.

 

[tazz]

The council has been discussing the next suspect for a couple of weeks, and at this point we generally agree that it will be something addressing the strength of Screens and Webs archetypes. I think at this point we've narrowed it down to one of Woobat, Natu or Light Clay. I'll go through my own thoughs on each:

1. Woobat
Woobat is the Pokemon that I personally would like to go after at the moment. Woobat is too potent a matchup fish to be balanced in a single slot, and is the best option for nerfing both Webs and Screens at the same time. In my own experience Woobat is the only Pokemon that makes Webs problematic at the moment. The Pokemon that check the other Web abusers have significant overlap between them, while Woobat requires its own dedicated Pokemon to properly stop it. Without Woobat I can't see Webs ever getting a positive matchup against a team with Fake Out Grookey (or regular Grookey, for that matter), and teams will no longer be forced to run a fast Thunder Wave user to avoid losing on matchup.

The loss of Woobat would not be nearly as big a hit for Screens, but I think that the archetype has a decent chance of being balanced without it. I don't think of Woobat as the definite solution for balancing both archetypes, but by suspecting it we can hit both and reassess from there.

2. Natu
Picking Natu as the suspect hinges on the question of whether or not the setter itself is replaceable. Natu is at the moment the only Screens setter getting any use, largely for its ability to prevent Defog from removing Screens. Natu is the option I would choose if Screens remain broken after a Woobat ban, as in my extensive testing with Abra and Staryu Screens during Snake I could only get them to be inconsistent at best. Abra is extremely frail and has 4MSS between both Screens, Taunt, Twave and Teleport, and Staryu has no way of stopping Defog Vullaby from getting rid of the Screens. Natu also has no collateral as it is unviable outside of Screens

3. Light Clay
If Screens would remain broken even after both of the above bans I think that this should be our last resort, as it would functionally be banning the archetype as a whole. I generally think that cheese is always going to exist and can be a healthy part of teambuilding in every tier, so I would definitely prefer to avoid this.

 

[qweschuning]

Suspect diglett/arena trap
1.opens up metagame possibilities as far as team building and general game play
2.possibly removes an irrespondable answer to one of your already limited amount of checks to a meta that is currently struggling against chees- cough offense cough
3.all of the current top mons checks get trapped. Like no seriously the ones complaining about cheese and the ones saying those same mons arent broke are the same people no? Hmm i wonder why no one uses pony k to check phys grook/vull/foos... Anyway...
4. They can pick off weakened mons that they dont normally trap... While not taking dmg... And still being ready to trap what they're meant to trap. In extreme theorizing trappers can be far and away the most underwhelming thing to happen in a given match, however on the flip side; 'none of your mons need to kill any opposing mons w slower priority than your trappers'. This notion allows trappers the freedom to do irrecoverable damage/kill, especially if opposing mons are weak(which happens easily as you trade down make smart plays/sacs)... the weakened mons cannot be saved as sacs, no smart play, no finding a way, just gone... Of course "play a mon that responds well after your mon gets trapped"...ok well then i send my counter out... And if its trappable... Well the next time corphish/vull/w.e comes in its prime to sweep. Thats not cheesy... anyway feel free to argue their ineffectiveness while they steal kills and diglett abuses a broken game mechanic... Idk im just tired of everyone complaining about cheese when the biggest cheese is just tossed around on teams. the tiers ONLY S TIER MON has 1 of the most consistent checks to both sets that people complain about so much... And it has the potential to be trapped w.o so much as impacting the battle... explode... Your CHECK has to REMOVE itself to keep value in a game... Instead of doing its job...

Theres obv other ways around this but look at the learning curve to learn the LC meta ON TOP of the learning curve that it already takes to just get into the LC tier... i mean every tier has its layers but it shouldnt be this deep to amount to this much stagnancy ;-; But w.e im exhausted... I hope someone scraped some type of sense from my rambling and irrelevant points.

NoT LiKe ThEiRs NoT PaGeS Of FoRuMs DiScUsSiNg ThIs THROUGHOUT SMOGON

 

[Corporal Levi]

In my opinion, grookbat is our single most pressing issue right now. My stance is that Grookey as its own threat has a good chance of being broken, so I would be happy with a Grookey suspect; but my first preference would be a Woobat suspect, as I feel it is even more definitively broken. We don't have to ban Grookey to save Woobat since if Grookey remains an issue and gets banned after Woobat does, we can free or resuspect Woobat if need be.

ok short post that's a copy paste of something i wrote in council chat explaining why i want to forbid cheese:



i think part of the problem is that what i want to eliminate is the part of tour games where screens and webs are essentially conceptually uncoverable. you cannot build a team that will address webs and screens sufficiently at the source or in all their iterations -- at least, without resorting to a specific and narrow set of exploitable counters that essentially create a matchup triangle. now obviously there are several objections to this. when im building im not thinking about a specific type of cheese team, im thinking about many of the possibly combinations that could be viable, and this requires an opp who can actually make one of those teams coherent. when it reaches the ladder level it's basically just the best / easiest / most prominent versions of those teams which have sorta secondary counterpackages you can use in the contexts that those teams appear. more importantly essentially all competitive pokemon creates a sort of matchup triangle, but what makes cheese worse is that it also degrades the gameplay, which we all sort of know instinctively but pretend not to.

I mainly want to address this post and the general philosophy that we should try to remove cheese as a whole from the game by completely banning out cheese archetypes - screens and webs, but mainly screens at the moment. The first thing to get out of the way here is that screens and grookbat are effectively independent issues. Banning screens has almost no chance of bringing grookbat in line because grookbat is equally capable of abusing webs; I wouldn't even be confident that it would be balanced if both screens and webs were completely removed. Conversely, Woobat is only one of several prominent screen abusers, and it's up in the air whether just banning grookbat would be enough to deal with screen builds as a whole.

Cheese here is an archetype that deliberately looks to fish for strong matchups against specific teams, neglecting counterplay to other teams in the process. The idea behind a broad attempt to remove cheese is that simply banning abusers will never address the core issue, which is that cheese teams exist solely to fish for matchups to a potentially uncompetitive degree. We've been okay with other cheese archetypes in the past, though - XY webs or SM veils come to mind, but as far as "teams that deliberately fish for skewed matchup" goes, it goes a lot further than that. SM smashspam teams consisting of 2-3 smashers, an offensive rocker and Diglett were obvious matchup fishes; even an SM or SS team with, say, 3 Fighting-types and a trapper, fishes for matchups in a similar manner to screens/webs. If we look to ban the obvious cheese archetypes in screens/webs, then these builds should be comparably banworthy. Disregarding the implementation details of banning these out, I think it's safe to say that the majority of us wouldn't actually consider smashspam banworthy to begin with. There are also archetypes that would be less fishy than smashspam or screens/webs but still much more matchup-based than a standard team, such as Scraggy triple darkspam in XY/SM or waterspam in XY. Some teams will naturally force matchups more than others; this is usually unintentional, too, as it could come from personal building style or even just forgetting about a threat in the builder.

The issue with SS LC cheese isn't that it's cheese, because a) the degree to which teams force matchup is a steadily sliding scale, and any cutoff point on this scale would be arbitrary; b) screens/webs aren't the only archetypes on the far end of this scale. The issue is that SS LC is uniquely favourable to two dedicated matchup fishes: Natu screens and, to a lesser degree, webs. Between Abra's nerf as a safety net, Natu gaining Teleport, Woobat's general absurdity as a cleaner, and Grookey's powerful balance breaking, among other trends, the metagame has evolved to a point where a team of six mons that includes screens flatly feels, to a significant degree, more draining to prep for adequately than any other combinations of six mons; in other words, it's broken.

The most extreme option to deal with the screens archetype is to ban Reflect and Light Screen. If this is a simpler and lower collateral option than banning the abusers (if there are too many abusers who can abuse screens to a broken extent) or banning the setters (if Abra/Staryu are able to set screens over Natu well enough to maintain brokenness), then doing so would be fine; but I don't think makes much sense to immediately attempt the extreme option simply because the archetype is associated with cheese. In any case, I'm going to say again that all of this is assuming post-Woobat cheese; banning Reflect and Light Screen first wouldn't actually balance the biggest threat we have right now. I think the best course of action is to go for the more clear-cut and lower collateral suspect first and address grookbat, since it would allow us to better gauge how broken screens and webs are without their strongest abuser.


My issue with banning Light Clay is independent of the above, in that I'm not confident that it'll solve the screens issue to begin with (even in a post-Woobat metagame). What banning Light Clay does is that, after screens + Teleport, it reduces setup + sweeping turns from 6 to 3; in exchange, the screen setter runs some extra survivability from sash or eviolite so that it can get shorter screens up more reliably. However, 3 turns is still enough to force matchup issues, because a team only needs one sweeper who becomes too dominant with free setup turns against a particular opposing team to turn into a sweeping threat without counterplay. Screens expiring earlier does make revenge-killing more feasible, and from council discussions it seemed like the importance of that was the main point of contention, but I personally don't think this comes close to negating screens enough to balance it.

 

[Pamplona]

I will second merritt's notion that the problem is grookey and I agree with a lot of his post. When I won the ladder tour last year I brought 4 water type pokemon that would now get obliterated in 4 turns by grookey. Grookey not only erases a wide array of former viable pokemon from the builder, but also provokes certain playstyles that are seen as problematic. Because grookey has such an influence, people are resorting to building teams with as much as 4 resists like merritt mentioned, or using light clay praying that the damage reduction will buy them enough time for their own attack.

Former answers to screens that came from defensive builds involving spritzee has become a fringe pick for tour games in the current grookey era. Grookey hits spritzee insanely hard but also encourages the usage of koffing and foongus which makes spritzee a potential liability for a team opening its teammates to get wisped/spored/etc. Shellos has become obsolete like many other water types because it's in an even worse situation than spritzee as it's targeted by grookey and those who resist grookey. Mareanie, gifted with its poison typing to fight back, is one knock off away during its role as a fight check to now lose to grookey. Ferroseed, who has thunderwave, is waiting to be drain punched which will help fuel grookey with the health it needs in the final stretches of a game to tank weak priority moves like fake out and also suffers from koffing's fireblast.

So I believe grookey should be looked at as the main point of discussion. I would go as far as saying that screens should currently no longer be placed in the "MU fish" category. The meta has reached an incredibly stagnant state with grookey that you have a super high likelihood of facing a favorable matchup using screens and at worst a mirror which is often seen. If I interpreted levi's sliding scale theory right then I agree with his part (a) of that.

Eliminating grookey should not cause screens to rise to ban worthy levels and instead reintroduce pokemon back into the meta to force screens back into its former categorization as a C-team type strategy. From the woobat perspective losing the grassy seed boost weakens stored power and makes it so that dark types can do better damage to it -- woobat becomes a lot less threatening and more manageable.

 

[Berks]

I would like to post in support of what Merritt and Pamp said. I think that they are correct in their assessment that Grookey is the common overpowering denominator behind grookbat, screens, and webs. The best versions of these teams all have to have Grookey. I’d also argue that the best balance teams and the best offense teams need a Grookey to be optimal in most structures. It’s the common denominator behind every single thing people think is broken right now, which means it merits a suspect in my view.

e: I also want to argue against earlier posts of mine and Merritt’s that compare Fletchling and Grookey on the basis that they invalidated their checks. Off the top of my head, I can think of lots of Pokemon that were very viable in ORAS despite a Fletchling weakness, including Mienfoo, Foongus, Timburr, Larvesta, etc etc etc. It’s hard to think of Pokémon that weren’t outclassed in their roles that were left unused due to Fletchling. Even Pokemon like Gastly that got trounced by Fletchling were present and powerful. On the other hand, Grookey actually just cancels every non-Tyrunt fossil, removing from the teambuilder a variety of potential sweepers and hazard setters and bird checks. Onix escapes this, of course, due to outspeeding Vullaby.

Merritt also touched on the fact that Wood Hammer complicates the Grookey/Fletchling comparison. In my mind, Fletchling was preppable in the builder because its damage calcs were, honestly, not extremely impressive. Unboosted Acro never did more than 80% to 25/14 Evio Bulk Up Timburr (a weakness to a 110 BP STAB that doesn’t get OHKOd in LC?!), and +2 Acro isn’t doing more than that to 25/14 Evio Porygon. Fletchling wasn’t broken because bulky slowmons of every variety could check it pretty much no matter what. Grookey, of course, gets around this by having Wood Hammer and a Life Orb in Grassy Terrain. This attack outdamages Fletchling’s Acrobatics against that same 25/14 Timburr, which is not weak to Grass. Grookey has strong priority, of course, and it’s notably weaker than Fletchling’s was.

Why three paragraphs on the ORAS Fletchling / SS Grookey comparison when it’s got tinges of an apples/oranges debate? In my opinion, ORAS Fletchling is the perfectly balanced strong priority user. It is strong, you can build around it, and it does what it’s meant to do. You can beat it with resists or you can beat it with slow fatmons, meaning that its impact is manageable. Grookey, in comparison, has narrowed via Wood Hammer its checks and counters to only slow fatmon resists in themselves. This is narrower. This is why, in my opinion, Grookey is problematic. The comparison is one of type that differs in degree, and the degree difference is what I think breaks Grookey.

 

[ghost]

I want to address the monke problem

- Grookey is a healthy element of the metagame and, to my mind, does not warrant a suspect. Given that Woobat is the only Pokemon even remotely broken by Grassy Terrain support, it would not be appropriate to ban Grookey to "solve" Woobat in the way that Vulpix was banned to deal with sun teams. If Woobat is broken, we should ban Woobat; Grookey should be evaluated in isolation.

So what about Grookey, then? Many have taken the obvious route of comparing Grookey to Fletchling, another meta-defining STAB priority user. Grookey is much stronger, of course, and more versatile in both movepool and its ability to run an item. The tradeoff is that Grass-type offense is much worse than Flying-type offense. Grookey is extremely good at cleaning up frail offensive threats and sweepers; there's a reason why the most common scarfers in SS are all either Grass-resistant (Magnemite, Vulpix) or bulky enough to eat one Grassy Glide (Porygon). With more recent developments in its toolkit like Fake Out, Grookey can close the door on DD Scraggy and even a knocked NP Vullaby (more on this later). Grassy Glide is a powerful, spammable priority move and is supplemented by Wood Hammer, which under terrain is strong enough to kill even the bulkier neutral targets after a knock. Grookey also can diversify its kit to give all kinds of would-be checks headaches - Knock Off can punish Vullaby and Foongus switching in; U-turn can bring powerful special attackers in on Foongus; the classic Swords Dance set can OHKO standard Vullaby with Wood Hammer (wow!) and power through Ferroseed and Pawniard. Protect can even save Grookey from certain death at the hands of Trapinch. Even the wild Mega Kick can demolish weakened Foongus and Koffing.

All of this sounds like a lot to handle, and indeed Grookey can hypothetically beat almost every top Pokemon. However, in practice Grookey will always be making sacrifices. I would guess that the most popular Grookey set right now is the utility set that forgoes SD (and often even Wood Hammer) for Fake Out, Knock Off, and U-turn. On hyper-offense, Grookey runs Taunt to help Woobat set up. Grookey will never be able to do everything it's capable of because of these necessary tradeoffs. Unless you have a high degree of confidence that your opponent will bring a Trapinch, Protect offers only marginal use and likely means you can't deal with the Steels or hit Foongus at all. Without Protect, you're forced to play Grookey extremely cautiously, as Trapinch is guaranteed to claim you in revenge for claiming something else. Mega Kick is devastating in theory, but it leaves it again leaves you vulnerable to the Steels and is also not particularly reliable with its 75% accuracy. Without Wood Hammer, you can't reliably deal with healthy Mareanie (even knocked) or 25/15 Timburr. Swords Dance is devastating in theory, but Grookey is frail and doesn't get many chances to set up, and if you don't get those chances, the moveslot is wasted. Compounding with the 4MSS is the fact that Grookey doesn't live very long - rocks, spikes, Ferroseed barbs, Wood Hammer recoil, all of this stuff adds up, and Grookey can't reliably heal or switch in to much of anything. Grookey also requires you devote a teamslot to a Pokemon with little to no defensive value, and non-HO teams usually have space for two of those at most. Grookey is undoubtedly very strong, but it is not overwhelmingly so.

As for the ways Grookey stilts team composition, those are real, but are also in flux. Grookey is still a new threat (we've had it with Grassy Surge for less than a year) and the meta is continuously adapting to it. It's not that hard to fit three or four Grass resists on a team - Vullaby, Pawniard, Koffing, Foongus, and Ferroseed are all top mons, and people are only starting to rediscover Kanto Ponyta, which absolutely smacks Grookey. Water types have certainly suffered, but many of those Waters would likely have been mediocre anyway. Staryu is in a great spot and Mareanie, once thought unviable as a Poison that doesn't resist Grass, returned first alongside Trapinch and is now back in full force. The main absent Water types are the smashers (Tirtouga, Omanyte, Shellder), Wingull, Corphish, and Shellos. I would argue that the return of Foongus with DLC1 was already a death knell for Corphish and Shellos, neither of which can overcome the mushroom. Oddish was a problem for both of them before, but Foongus is more durable than Oddish thanks to Regenerator. Grookey can't switch into Wingull but does revenge-kill it; frankly this a tough meta for unreliable old Wingull especially with Staryu back and it's generally outclassed by other special attackers now. That leaves us with the smashers, but to my mind it's neither here nor there that Grookey renders smash Omanyte and Tirtouga mostly unviable. There's no reason why these are core parts of the metagame we should preserve over Grookey. Shellder can even beat Grookey with Ice Shard! I think the real warping effect Grookey has is relegating Spritzee to fringe viability as a Fighting resist that doesn't really check Grookey, although Mareanie's revival under similar circumstances demonstrates that Spritzee doesn't have enough to offer to overcome this problem; it's more passive than Koffing, set no hazards, spreads no status, and can't reliably remove items. Spritzee's weak position in the meta has almost certainly aided the rise of Tyrunt/Scraggy/NP Vullaby HO teams, but banning Grookey won't suddenly make this Pokemon good again. Moreover, Grookey currently serves as the best check to webs offense and often screens too. All of this is to say...

The real problem with the meta is a combination of Woobat and screens offense.

First I will briefly mention webs offense. I voted to ban webs during the suspect a few months ago, but I believe counterplay has evolved since then and the resurgence of Abra combined with the rise of Fake Out Grookey and the steady presence of Staryu give players enough tools to deal with the archetype. The one obvious broken aspect of webs is also the most obvious problem with screens - Woobat.


This is the mon that needs to go more than any other. Woobat is not like Vullaby or Cutiefly or other suspect targets; it is not versaitle and it's not especially common. Its best and only set, Grassy Seed, only appears on hyper-offensive webs and screens teams that afford devoting two slots to one win-con with no defensive heft. However, Woobat's counterplay is so limited and its sweeping ability is so overwhelming that this is a no-brainer. Here is a comprehensive list of checks to NP Woobat on webs: Pawniard, Sturdy Juice Magnemite, Sash Abra, and Scarf/Balloon Diglett. Pawniard and Abra are the only common options among these, as Magnemite and Diglett are better off running other sets. Abra can paralyze Woobat (90% of the time) if it carries Thunder Wave, but it's still likely to die and possibly another mon with it. Sturdy Magnemite has to guess right with Endure and can't even KO after a second CM. Woobat obliterates most everything else after a single Nasty Plot and tanks the most common priority (Grass Glide, Mach Punch, Fake Out) thanks to its typing and the Grassy Seed boost. Screens CM Woobat is a similar story with slightly different checks. A healthy Scraggy can DD in +2 Woobat's face and kill it with Knock Off; fast Thunder Wave users like Abra and Staryu can trade their lives to stop a sweep, and Encore Abra, though worse in most contexts, can lock down Woobat entirely. Scarf Magnemite and Scarf Porygon can kill a +2 Woobat (after rocks for Porygon). However, if screens are up, the kill options go out the window, as nothing will hit Woobat hard enough to stop it. We've all seen games where Woobat pulls a game back from the brink and sweeps down four or five to one. This mon should be suspected and hopefully banned, as it's far too strong and exerts a terrible influence on the metagame.

Screens also should be dealt with. There has been some discussion of how to best deal with what is agreed almost universally to be a problem; different users have proposed bans of Woobat, Natu, and Light Clay. I no longer believe a Woobat ban is sufficient to deal with screens or vice versa; Woobat will still be broken on webs and screens has the means to replace Woobat and remain an unhealthy archetype. Part of my beef with screens is admittedly philosophical; screens teams are built to streamline the game as much as possible and deny interaction until a wincon is reached. Screens teams will almost always have a Sash lead to set rocks and paralyze something (often Mienfoo, which might otherwise deny Natu's screen setting), a Natu to set screens, deny Vullaby Defog, and paralyze something else, and sweepers that make it very difficult for Vullaby to find a turn to Defog. Woobat is one of these problem Pokemon that runs over everything with a free turn, but Scraggy behind screens is also an enormous problem, and it abuses the combination of Substitute and para hax to get free turns and run away with games. This entire playstyle is predicated on taking choice away from your opponent, and while it can be beaten, it always demands much more from the opponent than the screens user, often to the point that these screens teams only lose because of misplays by their pilots. Banning Woobat removes one broken aspect of screens, but it's not difficult to imagine Magby or NP Vullaby stepping in and filling this space adequately. For the sake of the enjoyability and balance of the tier, we should move on this archetype. While Natu is the best screen setter, I think suspecting Light Clay or even Light Screen and Reflect themselves are better options, as setters like Abra and Staryu have their own charms.

Hopefully we get the chance to act on these two big problems before Open - while we still have the time!

 

[Shrug]

formally "double liking" the above post. i think we have metagame cycles left to go with grookey, woobat and screens are both independently problematic and should be suspected. id favor the moves over light clay, no need to take the risk of a viable form re-emerging in the shorter turn window.

 

[DC]

Echoing my support for the Grookey suspect over Woobat suspect. I believe everything relevant about it has been said by Merritt, Pamplona, San Tomas, and even Pro-Woobat suspecters like Levi and KSG. I simply think that it skews the metagame way more than people give it credit for and is a broken standalone threat. It also supports Woobat and helps to mitigate many of its checks and counters, which is why I think that it should go before Woobat. My viewpoint on Woobat can be summed up by something KSG mentioned:
"it is not versaitle and it's not especially common. Its best and only set, Grassy Seed, only appears on hyper-offensive webs and screens teams that afford devoting two slots to one win-con with no defensive heft."
It is a mon that only pops up on certain styles and needs extensive support. If we were to remove its enabler and maybe tackle the issue regarding screens, I believe that it will be a less consistent threat that can be adequately handled.

As for screens, the preferred order would be Natu > Light Clay > Dual Screens.
Natu provides screens team with a consistency that other setters like Abra and Staryu cannot, since it ensures that your screens wont by denied by Taunt and makes it so that they also cannot be removed. That quality makes it standout from the other two that also has access to Thunder Wave and Teleport. Light Clay is the moderate option and its ban would also nerf something like Aurora Veil that maybe used after a potential Natu ban. The last ban is honestly a meme (pls don't ban dual screens).

 

[Fiend]

I don't have much new to add to the above conversation, besides feeling the need to rt KSG who gets a lot right, and to reply to some bad reasonings. To start, I think it is disingenuous to compare Fletchling to Grookey, and frankly besides the point anyway. Secondly, Screens and Grookey and/or Woobat need to be considered as separate issues. The general interactions between these should lead us to work on the latter problem first, however.

When I won the ladder tour last year I brought 4 water type pokemon that would now get obliterated in 4 turns by grookey. Grookey not only erases a wide array of former viable pokemon from the builder, but also provokes certain playstyles that are seen as problematic. Because grookey has such an influence, people are resorting to building teams with as much as 4 resists like merritt mentioned, or using light clay praying that the damage reduction will buy them enough time for their own attack.

There's just a lot wrong with this. It attaches a lot of weird or otherwise irrelevant ideas together towards the end of suggesting that Grookey is broken and the issue with the metagame. But the logical chain of Grookey existing -> Light Screen webs! is incredibly arbitrary and could be said about the strength of Scraggy, Tyrunt, Woobat, Magby, etc as a collective (Woobat or Scraggy individually-ish as well) and runs against one of the largest roles of Grookey in the metagame, which is acting as a blanket check to set up spam/mons generally. You can make tentative lines about the raw power of Grookey leading to this being the only viable fish archetype, which is how this reads to me, or whatever else you'd like about metagame warping power but these are generally reductive arguments beyond their demonstration of Grookey's power. For instance, Grookey makes Omanyte much worse, yeah. But it wasn't particularly good in SM and is essentially a matchup fish in XY because there are other metagame forces in play. Tirtouga no longer dancing along its constant cycle of middling to decent is a shame, but it is not a reason to ban a pokemon. The totality of these soft argumentative lines suggesting anything other than Grookey counterplay being inadequate within the tier amount to almost nothing because of how far removed these ideas are from actual tiering considerations.

I strongly favor a suspect of Woobat given that the tier has a fair amount of counterplay to Grookey. I think Grookey is extremely strong and deeply influential on the metagame, whereas Woobat is just extremely strong. I specifically find that Woobat counterplay tends to exist in a mode of existing or being an auto loss, such that it removes skill from a match far more than screens does independently, Grookey does ever, and otherwise creates deterministic outcomes far more than what is reasonably acceptable in my own opinion. I have wanted to tackle Grookey + Woobat for a long time, and the way to best do this once appeared to be Grookey given its potential to be banned in a suspect of its own. I however do not think that Grookey would be banned and currently do not think it should be banned. This opinion may change again in the future but this is my opinion now. Suspecting Woobat is naturally preferred in this instance, and with the consideration of a major showcase tour, I must suggest that we ban a generally agreed broken element now.

If we absolutely must touch Screens right now, I can only recommend that we focus on Natu. Light Clay is ~fine if someone can convince me that Abra and Staryu screens are viable enough.

 

[freezai]

Hi guys, with Woobat about to get banned and LC Open starting soon, I decided to make a guide to help with teambuilding in LC, I hope this helps!

 

[PQRDG]

I think looking at Grookey is important, and I think a ban on Grassy Surge specifically might be necessary. The fact is that there is no other Terrain setter in this format, and the only reliable way of removing the terrain is limited to Defog. This leaves the strategy of dealing with Grookey to waiting out the clock on the five turns of the Grassy Terrain.

As such, until such time that another terrain setter is introduced to Little Cup, I would strongly suggest banning of the ability Grassy Surge.

 

[|Powerman|]

I think looking at Grookey is important, and I think a ban on Grassy Surge specifically might be necessary. The fact is that there is no other Terrain setter in this format, and the only reliable way of removing the terrain is limited to Defog. This leaves the strategy of dealing with Grookey to waiting out the clock on the five turns of the Grassy Terrain.

As such, until such time that another terrain setter is introduced to Little Cup, I would strongly suggest banning of the ability Grassy Surge.

While I don't play LC, this isn't the best way to look at this. Lets look at a certain emotion ability, Moody! It is broken on every one Pokemon and thats why its banned, if we were to give a Pokémon like Applin, it won't just rise to the top of the metagame due to the fact that it doesn't have the stats to use it itself. LC won't ban an ability if its only breaks one Pokemon like the example of Gorrilla Tactics, it wouldn't break a lot of Pokemon, so it was banned instead of its ability.

 

[Coconut]

While I don't play LC, this isn't the best way to look at this. Lets look at a certain emotion ability, Moody! It is broken on every one Pokemon and thats why its banned, if we were to give a Pokémon like Applin, it won't just rise to the top of the metagame due to the fact that it doesn't have the stats to use it itself. LC won't ban an ability if its only breaks one Pokemon like the example of Gorrilla Tactics, it wouldn't break a lot of Pokemon, so it was banned instead of its ability.

We're not touching Moody. The game already gave Moody to a traditionally unviable mon in Snorunt and it's broken. LC also has two Moody users, the other being Remoraid.

 

[|Powerman|]

We're not touching Moody. The game already gave Moody to a traditionally unviable mon in Snorunt and it's broken. LC also has two Moody users, the other being Remoraid.

Yeah, I meant as giving an example that only if it’s broken on any every Pokémon it would be broken which grassy surge doesn’t fit. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough mb.