Ubers National Dex Ubers Stage 5 - Spider-Man [Sticky Web Suspect Test]

[Bobsican]

Leaping straight into a Sticky Web suspect before taking action on specific elements of the archetype may come across as extreme at a first glance. In the interest of transparency, the process that led to this course decision will be in a spoiler at the bottom of the post.

Why Sticky Web?

There has been extensive discussion in both public and private spaces over the last few months regarding the eventual subject of a suspect test. While there have been a myriad of suggestions, there have only ever been three realistic options: Smeargle, Sticky Web, and Yveltal. Although Yveltal is the prescribed option by policy, it has never been seriously considered for the simple reason that suspecting it has a zero chance of materializing into a ban – wasting everybody’s time. Consequently, the discussion over the last few months has been whether or not Sticky Web would be knocked down to an acceptable power level without Smeargle as a setter.

After an extensive amount of debate the majority of the council has concluded that Sticky Web is a better target for tiering action than Smeargle. Although the archetype is powerful, this doesn’t stem from any individual element. The primary choke points both in battle and in the teambuilder, Yveltal and Chi-Yu have more than proven that they operate effectively regardless of the setter. Smeargle may be far and away the best setter, but Shuckle is entirely serviceable whilst Ribombee despite being little more than a means of counterteaming Smeargle as Sticky Web is strong enough that this alone makes it a fairly viable Pokémon.

This is further illustrated by Smeargle dropping Stone Axe / Ceaseless Edge for Perish Song to cover an otherwise problematic matchup in Dragon Dance Zygarde. The archetype being as controversial as despite lacking the assistance of other entry hazards should be setting off some alarm bells. Although the other setters are a significant step down in strength, they are more than serviceable and many of the issues raised by the pro-ban contingent would remain valid. Consequently, the council believes that moving forward with a test on Sticky Web itself is merited after receiving confirmation that there is enough community support after the last survey.

Our pre NDPL survey returned results that could justify a Sticky Web suspect, but we opted to hold off and monitor NDPL as it features the highest level play our tier has to offer. Sticky Web did not see high use during NDPL, but that is also a small sample. When taking a deeper look at the teams that were brought, most would have handily lost to a well-played Sticky Web team.

Combined with the previous survey results, we felt that the time had come to address some element of Sticky Web. However, we are very cognizant that banning anything from Ubers is a tall order, especially a move, and wanted to consult the community to better understand how risky it would be to proceed with a suspect test on Sticky Web itself as opposed to Smeargle as a failed suspect is worse than not having one at all.

Ban Viewpoint

Finding the line for what is ‘reasonable’ to deal with in Ubers metagames is tough. Additionally, the bar for what is considered reasonable to handle in Ubers metagames is substantially higher than others. Even the most rigid do not ban voters acknowledge that Sticky Web has been the primary centralizing force in the metagame for the last year and a half.

Sticky Web has been characterized as a ‘fish,’ but this is an ankle deep way of analyzing the metagame. Even if Sticky Web is ‘fish,’ it is only one because of the stringent demands that Sticky Web imposes in the teambuilder. Teams that are unable to prevent or reliably facilitate the removal of Sticky Web have been considered unviable for some period of time - illustrated by the lack of teams that have demonstrated the ability to consistently win games without removing the webs despite having more than a year to surface. The Sticky Web archetype is simply too powerful and common to ignore, essentially forcing teams to chose from the tiny pool of options.

While this may lead to Sticky Web being perceived as a fish, that is only due to potentially losing at team preview should it not be treated with the level of respect it deserves. While some techs have popped up such as Scale Shot Rayquaza, these often rely on the element of surprise. Furthermore, all of these moves attempt to exploit Smeargle’s low bulk and do not prevent Shuckle or Ribombee from setting Sticky Web. This dynamic further exacerbates the issue when the tech can’t even execute reliably and heavily incentives additional, more robust counterplay despite its presence.

It isn’t as simple as removing Sticky Web guaranteeing a win as given the common Pokémon on Sticky Web structures are effective regardless except Chi-Yu. Notably, most of our top tier Pokémon have retained this status due to the essential offensive and defensive utility they provide despite being unable to function properly without Sticky Web being removed and their inability to contribute to contribute to this task. These roles still need to be filled, so builders are often forced to turn the same limited pool of options to support them which has severely diminished the diversity of nearly every archetype except for Sticky Web itself. It has reached such a degree that a Ribombee, a Pokémon that is little more than an anti-webs fish is a solid Pokémon. Terapagos is considered to be a viable Pokémon for similar reasons because the sixth slot on a Sticky Web structure is inconsequential enough to accommodate a Pokémon that provides minimal value outside of essentially guaranteeing a win against opposing Sticky Web structures.

In contrast, almost every other archetype has seen massive consolidation in consistent teams due to the difficulty of incorporating counterplay to Sticky Web without massively compromising their ability to handle the rest of the metagame. At the end of the day, other top threats can be handled with superior play, but not Sticky Web. For example, Glimmora HO has been absent from the metagame due to its truly atrocious matchup into Sticky Web despite Glimmora being better than Deoxys-S into the rest of the metagame. Even Deoxys-S is forced to run a Rocky Helmet or it risks losing to Smeargle. Giratina-O has become a fringe Pokémon largely due to Sticky Web despite facing similar roadblocks against hazard stack, but that matchup can be won with good play as the counterplay to the same threats is actually able to function. The same is true of its fishy companion.

We have seen some Pokémon and sets get significantly better such as Mega Diancie and Choice Scarf Yveltal. However, we are not seeing much development of the offenses where they are actually good, but seeing them chucked onto balances where they often make teams worse against the rest of the metagame, but at least they won’t lose to Sticky Web. This happens even at the highest level of play and has resulted in balance structures that are deceptively frail that quickly crumble to even modest offensive pressure or momentum.

National Dex Ubers will always be an offensively leaning metagame, but it has been a long time since we’ve seen one as offensive as this. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. However, the question this suspect aims to answer is if the equilibrium we’ve reached is. For many the answer is no and Sticky Web is the primary reason why.

Do Not Ban Position

At the end of the day, the standards for tiering action in Ubers differs from other tiers due to necessity. The power level of Ubers formats results in a level of centralization and acceptance of elements that would be deemed unacceptable in other tiers. This is demonstrated by controversial Pokémon such as Zacian-C and Zygarde failing to return survey scores that would trigger a suspect test.

Being one of the metagame’s staples, teams are now usually equipped for it. Therefore counterplay to Sticky Web does exist (mainly Choice Scarf Yveltal, Mega Diancie + a Defogger, and Ho-Oh + Fezandipiti or Primal Kyogre) and major archetypes have known structures that do not automatically lose to Sticky Web. Once an Ubers metagame reaches that state, tiering action is not required. The NatDex Ubers circuit exceeded even the most optimistic expectations with almost 200 participants and this would not have happened if the tier was in a dire state. After all, the burden of proof is on the pro ban proponents to make their case when it comes to tiering action.

Due to the nature of the archetype, matches usually end up being effectively 5 vs 6, where the potential removal of Webs completely flips the matchup. This puts the Webs team at risk of being unable to handle common metagame threats such as Zacian-C, or Dragon Dance Arceus-Ground. Therefore, as “free” as the archetype might seem, it is usually forced to respect a strict sequence of moves and mons to send into the battlefield, an aspect many opponents can take advantage of.

Behind the scenes

‘Modern’ Sticky Web structures have existed for quite some time now. They first started popping up on ladder in late spring 2024. These structures differentiated themselves by dropping the seemingly undroppable Ultra Necrozma for Chi-Yu. This single change elevated the archetype from solid, but inconsistent to top tier. Although popular on high ladder for a couple a months, the wider community was introduced to this structure when Emoxu9 showcased his spin on it to his 2024 ND Ubers Open title.

While the strength of Sticky Web was clear, the jury was still out on whether it had any sticking power or was a brief metagame trend. When something new bursts onto the scene it tends to take over the metagame and fall back to earth as teambuilders started to account for it. It was clear that the metagame would have to adapt to Sticky Web’s newfound strength, but it would take some time for teambuilders to figure out how to do so.

The conundrum wasn’t, and still isn’t, beating Sticky Web. Making a team that beats Sticky Web is easy, the challenge is doing so without compromising matchups into the rest of the metagame to an unreasonable degree. As the months rolled by surprisingly few options had surfaced and it became clear that Sticky Web was the primary centralizing force in the metagame by early 2025.

In February, the council began internally discussion the possibility of tiering action in the future. At the time, the majority of the council was opposed to tiering action, but we had a discussion with the tiering folks to ensure we understood our options for tiering action as a precautionary measure. Nobody expected a suspect test to materialize, but given Sticky Web seemed likely to at least appear on future surveys at this point, knowing the right questions to ask is important.

Sticky Web ended up being a last minute addition to our post NDBD survey and received a surprisingly high score comparable to long time controversial presences in Zacian-C and Zygarde. Although the scores were nowhere near high enough to consider a suspect test, they were notable given we asked about Sticky Web and not Smeargle. We continued to monitor the situation as promised and decided to survey the community again before NDPL while leaving enough time for a suspect test if needed should the community indicate one was warranted.

The results of that survey were…not great to say the least. Metagame enjoyment and stability had continually decreased over the past year and were approaching dangerously low numbers despite minimal change on the surface. A point of pride is that regardless of how the tier is perceived outside our community, our playerbase has always enjoyed the metagame and that was pretty clearly no longer the case. Furthermore, they’d made it pretty clear that the biggest reason for this was Sticky Web and a score of 6.6 | 5.5 was higher than anybody was expecting.

Accordingly, a discussion was had amongst tier leadership on whether or not tiering action was needed before NDPL started. The numbers whilst high, were borderline and the situation was not dire enough to require immediate tiering action. We planned to monitor NDP/FL closely and assess a path forward afterwards as tiering action on something seemed to be a matter of when, not if. That has now come and gone and while Sticky Web did not have a dominant showing, after reviewing every game, it quickly became apparent that this was due to low use as a shocking number of teams would have essentially lost at preview. Although a suspect on something was likely in the near future, we decided to once again consult the community to get a better idea of the most popular path forward as a failed suspect test on this subject is worse than not having one at all. The results of this most recent survey left us with the impression that the community is comfortable testing the move itself instead of Smeargle.

Suspect Test Information

• Create a new account OR use an existing one with no National Dex Ubers games played (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played National Dex Ubers before the test, full stop). You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in National Dex Ubers before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements.
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• If you want to double check your account eligibility after following these instructions; play at least 1 game on the account, then run the /rank command on that account. You should see a field on the far right that reads "Suspect Test Eligible?"

Example

• If this field says "No" then you have either not set up the account correctly or need to use a different/new account. You do not need to complete your entire reqs for this field to say "Yes".
• After you believe that you have achieved reqs, double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, or have any questions about the new process, please contact entrocefalo or Bobsican.
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted.
• We will be using the regular National Dex Ubers ladder for this suspect test, and Sticky Web will remain legal throughout the entire suspect test.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2980 or more. The suspect test will go on for roughly two weeks, lasting until December 15th at 11:59pm GMT-6, and then the voting will be done here. For Sticky Web to be banned, a 66.6% supermajority will be required.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Here's a list of rules that we expect all posters to follow:

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the National Dex Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering to these will help out the moderation team and present your arguments in a better and more educated light.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have an informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokémon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result of this suspect, then so be it. "I told you so" arguments on their own also contribute little to the discussion without supporting evidence and are rather unwelcomed.
  • This is not the place to complain about the suspect process. Please PM Bobsican or entrocefalo if you have any questions regarding this, and any broader questions about this test.

Keep in mind that the outcome of our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote and voice their opinion.

 

[Splendid Silver Star]

Banning web in an Ubers tier is just ridiculous, especially when this playstyle is actually not broken. I always say that web, stall, and trick room are three main MU fishing playstyles in the meta, and this claim still holds true. All three require you to invest resources in your teambuilding. If you don't show enough respect to them, you will be autopiloted. For the amount of resources required (mainly for balance teams), I would say web=stall>trick room (trust me, as a player who beats Arcfairy and unban nat AG, including his alts, hundreds of times on the ladder, I can tell you that a well-played stall team is also not easy to beat).

The problem is clearly not that web overcentralizes the meta, but the real issue is that we have too many issues to deal with in teambuilding, and we don't have enough resources to handle all of them, which is just common in a tera-legal tier. In many cases, people pay more attention in other playstyles like GHAZ balance instead of web, and they complain that web is broken. It just makes no sense. Web only appears 4 times in NDPL, and won 2 games. The reason for the first victory is that bumbo missed a crucial Dtail, and the second win comes from a very unorthodox web team. Xinnobu said that he lost that game mainly because of his misplay due to his lack of experience against Basculegion. The fact is that for all NDUB players with multiple appearances in NDPL alongside a positive record, the usage of sticky web is 0. The best players in this tier tell you that they didn't consider web as the best playstyle to win, and actually, our single best player emoxu9 openly claims that he didn't use web a single time because he thought that this playstyle was not genuinely good right now. Also, it's very arbitrary to assert that most NDPL teams would lose against web. All those teams might have some unshown anti-web tactics, and the reason you didn't see them was that there was no web team for them to beat.

The anti-web toolkits are there, and some of them are underexploited. You may use the move magic coat (currently only DeoS is using it); you may use Scarf Lando-T to defog; you may use the item mental herb to defog; you may use boots Ekiller to defog; you may use an unexpected multi-hit attack move; you may use the mon Mega-Sableye; you may exploit Smeargle by an unexpected sub/tera electric/tera ground. Yes, some tactics rely on the element of surprise, and some of them would only work against Smeargle, but that's just how the meta evolves and how players adapt. Smeargle is the current premier web setter because it's overall superior that Shuckle and Ribombee in the current meta, but that could change, and new strategies could pop up afterwards. You can't say that web is broken because you are not able to reliably beat all kinds of its variances. In that case, we would need to say that the web is unviable. Web might not be the best part of the meta, but it is an acceptable part. I myself don't like spamming web teams, but I don't want it to disappear.

 

[unfuuny]

Let's just start by saying that I don't think webs is broken. In my opinion, the main ways in which the meta has adapted to dealing with webs - scarftal, mdia and fez-oh - are plenty of good options to deal with webs, and while these require a sizeable investment in some cases, these mons are most definitely not deadweight in other matchups and scarf yveltal, mdiancie and fezandipiti are good enough mons to be running regardless of if you are expecting a smeargle at team preview or not. I do definitely agree with SSS that other options of dealing with webs are underexplored. Of course you can't really just run pheromosa to deal with webs because it gets slowed down and running boots means that its the first mon to deal no damage, but other options can definitely be looked at, like the new rising spinner terapagos or toedscruel. Of course a big downside of rapid spin is that it doesn't work on ghost types and with chi-yu webs running meat beam lunala that means that it has to be dealt with first, and the only mortal spin users are the ho leads glimmora and the culprit itself smeargle. A big option is an unexpected multi hit move. Murkrow guy and I famously use scarf calyrex ice with double kick, but mons like dd kyurem black or scale shot rayquaza, or even rock blast pdon or dual wingbeat bandoh are pretty unexplored. Of course you can just use a faster defog, like how SSS mentioned scarf lando-t, or boots ekiller, but also stuff like defog megamence or mlatios could be very good options. Or something entirely different could be found, like teams that do not mind webs going up because they all underspeed the common HO mons anyways. (many GHAZ teams already kind of do this aside from the darkceus)
Looking at usage and WR the brokenness or spammyness doesn't really jump out to me either. In NDFL, of the 62 teams used, webs was only used 12 times and won 6 games, a nice 50/50. I myself did not use it a single time in 8 matches played, instead going for in my eyes more consistent options (aside from finals, i just wanted to floober some1 lol). And when I looked at the replays, I don't think webs carried the players either. The losing side made clear misplays or got unlucky.
In conclusion I don't think webs is unfair in the current NDubers landscape because the metagame has adapted plenty to webs and smeargle, and there is enough more to look at for options to remove or prevent webs. Therefore, I will be voting DNB
anyways thank you for reading look at my chud son floober

breezai out

 

[scarletnetto]

Hello, after achieving reqs, i am voting to ban sticky webs. To me, webs ought to get canned more on the basis of uncompetitive, than broken. I believe that speed is by far the most important stat in competitive pokemon, and while a lot can be said for other means of altering speed tiers (para mainly,and in this tier most accurately, glare zygarde-c), that's a discussion for another day.

On the subject of webs, i am of the opinion that they affect the most important stat in pokemon in an uninteractive way, akin to how baton pass used to work back in the day,in terms of non-interactive game play (not to the same extent, of course). Especially for offensive builds with a not so great defensive backbone, either u have a defog or rapid spin user n manage to clear the field of webs, or you are getting steamrolled most likely (if u know how to pilot webs at a basic level). Even for bulkier, non stall, playstyles, its often a do-or-die proposition to get rid of webs,lest they run the risk to be run over by boosted set up sweepers or powerful breakers, without being able to do much in return. The fact that u have to use (imo) otherwise mediocre mons like fez or pheromosa,only exacerbates the issue. Pick a mon to deal with webs and be ok into said archetype at the cost of being worse into the rest of the meta, or accept a loss at preview each time u play against webs.
Just as a quick example to differentiate between 1.a cheesy but non broken or uncompetitive playstyle, that, similar to webs, wants to affect speed tiers and 2.an uncompetitive one, let's take trick room. In a natdex ubers context, thats mainly tied to hatt and arceus as setters and melm as the main abuser. Because trick room is limited in the number of turns that's active, u can play around melmetal, stalling trick room turns, even with a generic offensive build, not to mention the existence of tera water zygarde-c. On the contrary, once sticky webs are up, if u lack the specific counterplay, there is very little if any room to outplay the webs abusers, such as taunt yveltal and chi-yu. So,in conclusion, that's a ban vote for me.

As a quick aside, i'd like to thank bumboclaat for their contribution to this tier's development and maintenance. I followed natdex ubers since its inception, but after the first months i mostly have been in touch with the tier's development through their excellent posts regarding the meta. If u read those posts, among other things, it's not too difficult to throw together a team that fits and is generally good into the meta, in case u do not want to use a sample team, and be good right away.So, thank u for ur efforts.

 

[emoxu9]

bumb wanna me to share my opinion,as a experienced tour player in this tier,I personally don't think web is too strong,but I can't speak for everyone's opinion, it will impact on the ladder too,whatever there always strongest type of team,I don't mind change my teamstyle to use the stronger team,ban web may let the fat have more possibility to face offence,this is the first time uber tier sus web,hope it exert a positive effect,at last hope this tier become better and better

 

[Roufail]

I came into this suspect believing Webs to be broken but after qualifying and actually thinking about the metagame at large for once I have changed my mind. Yes, Webs, especially when Smeargle is involved, are a really strong HO option, but they're not impossible to counter nor are the options too niche to justify putting on a team. Glimmora, M-Diancie and, as Unfuuny already mentioned, choice scarf Caly-Ice are all capable of countering Smeargle Webs while also being decent in other matchups to boot, while a well maneuvered stall team has the potential to shut down most Webs teams without needing to bring a dedicated check of any kind. This is the first time I do one of these things so Idk if I'm just waffling but I do believe that Webs are simply a strong option that must be respected when teambuilding, but not quite overpowered, so I will be voting DNB, also, here is a snat I found.

 

[Mewtwo's Greatest Soldier]

Confirming as penultimatetoast8.

This was really painful to do especially when people started cteaming me midway through my run LMAO. There was a lot of hax (lost a game to a double stone edge miss) but ladder is bad so I got it done.

Used a Glimmora hyper offense because the post said it fell off due to smeargle beating it. I saw smeargle many times because ladder spams webs but the matchup was very playable, all but one of the losses were due to hax such as here

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2491677492-0kw6vif2cyimlphslme26nimcttyt8dpw

where zacc wins the game easily but misses play rough in 1v1 with the fish.

Paste used was https://pokepast.es/5aff02aabf618fc7. The team is decent into most archetypes with GHAZ generally hating how quickly pdon gets overwhelmed while webs is repeatedly teched for with sub zacc, slow glimm, and fog boots arc. You don't give up much by going for this either. Arc's fourth slot is very customizable, zacc can clean easily with this set with ho-oh and groudon dropping after around 50% and foul play, ssneak, etc getting blocked, and glimmora evs are customizable anyways. Glimm outspeeds -1 pao, 40 evs are sample, and 216+ hits surprisingly hard. For example, defensive pdon is almost always 3hkod by power gem, specially offensive yveltal always drops after rocks, and specially offensive giratina is always 4hkod. Because you're slower than smeargle they have to tera which is big for zacc or fish for para which gives you tspikes anyways (unless they mortal in which case they gave you an extra turn to fish for not-para and chip them down). Just spam mortal and it works unless you get unlucky, if you ever get full parad swap to mud shot and defog later.

Zacc glaze coming later

Unec glaze coming later

Pogre set is not mine and I don't know what it does but it's goated.

saved replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2491642557
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2491656886
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2491669697-idigfvxhhsryg5p838nn52d57pwxa3npw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2491677492-0kw6vif2cyimlphslme26nimcttyt8dpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2491680223-ourvq0b2ggeyyq70c6ivm4q34fu1gjvpw opponent donates the game lol i should not have won this

I'll update this later with some more reasoning but imo webs is easy enough to include counterplay to while not killing your team into everything else that I'm going to vote DNB. Also toxic spikes are broken if you get a good matchup for them more people should put this on etern etc.

 

[Jumpheart]

TL;DR: Ban webs, a lot of the things being mentioned in this thread are not good examples of why webs are fine and are in fact evidence that Webs are broken.

Just got my reqs. If you've heard me talk about the tier you'll know I don't exactly have a favorable opinion on the current metagame, to the point where I took multiple months off from playing the metagame at all. I recently got the bug to play again and have spent a while playing friendlies, and when I heard from Bumbo this test was happening, I decided to make one or two attempts at braving the ladder to get reqs, despite the grief it normally gives me. I had a fairly easy run--one or two losses to hax, one or two to a bad matchup, one to me choking a game that would have gotten me reqs 3-4 games earlier.

I came into this suspect leaning ban, but I wanted to come in with an open mind. I did face a couple real webs teams and won those but frankly my team was built to be fairly webs-agnostic (it was a semi-stall with boots

Eternatus) so hard to tell from my suspect run alone. After reviewing my teams I've recently built, reading the posts here, and discussing with a couple friends, I have decided that I will be voting ban.

I do empathize with the people who are saying that a lot of webs counterplay is still being developed, mainly Diancie offenses, Defog M-Mence, and Fez teams that use Icy Wind + Ho-Oh. I think that all three of these ideas have merit. I especially I think what Mdian offenses look like have a lot of room to develop. While I didn't use it for my suspect run, I have made some pretty competent teams using it and I think it is a really cool innovation that helps revive traditional offense, which has been a dying breed in this tier.

With that said, though, the options for removal are still incredibly restrictive and many webs teams have learned to play around them. As far as common removers, we have Ho-Oh, Gira-O, and scarf Yveltal, along with the aforementioned Mega Diancie and Mega Salamence. I find a lot of the things cited in this thread as really lacklustre on paper, things that are niche at best; on top of this, there is a common trend among them that, even were they to be viable (something I am skeptical of), raises a bigger issue that these posts are not seeing.

Going to go through the things cited here and explain why I don't personally find them compelling. This list honestly reads like a gish gallop from the DNB side but I will try my best to respond to these in good faith. If I missed something sue me, this post is long enough; I've put it in a spoiler to avoid a bigger wall of text than this post already is.

Spoiler

SSS:
Magic Coat is mostly a tool for other Hyper Offense teams. There are a couple mons that, in theory, could run Defog + Magic Coat, specifically Gira-O and Lunala (which is an underrated Defogger I admit but suffers many of the same issues as Gira), but... are we really going to run two whole moveslots just to try and get webs off? Especially on mons that are already strapped for moveslots? Gira would have to drop its status condition which makes it much less threatening, especially if you can get it to waste its Draco, which honestly isn't that hard. Even if Gira gets other value out of it (punting back Toxic is genuinely quite nice) it still requires you to keep up momentum, and if you have momentum vs. webs, you're probably winning anyways. Overall I... see the vision? But I have a hard time believing this is going to be more than a niche option that occasionally shows up in tournament.

Scarf Lando-T is a cool mon that I have built. By slotting Defog you do get Webs off, while also serving as a nice check to Zacian-Crowned. However, it is fairly restrained on the types of teams that can slot it, suffering many of the same issues as Scarf Yveltal without some of that mon's best strengths, so it is fairly limited on team comps. I think a balance with this mon exists but it is fairly limited to offense I would say. Also this mon allows in some scary stuff for free so tread with caution when building, you need serious checks to some stuff when building with this.

Mental Herb to deny Taunt is... an option that technically exists. Genuinely, what are we doing here? What mon exists that wants to run Defog and has an item slot? All I can come up with is Defog Arceus, which I will get to later in my post. Besides that, uh... if we are seriously citing, like, Mental Herb defensive Yveltal as a reasonable webs counterplay, I don't think you're making the argument you think you are. This is a seriously suboptimal item just to cope in a response to a notable playstyle.

Sableye-Mega seems cool on paper until you actually play with it and you realize this mon has serious issues. Its bulk is just not impressive by Ubers standards, it risks being passive as all hell (Toxic is annoying but if you opponent has an immune this mon can be basically useless), and worst of all, it's not even that great as hazard removal. If you load Mega Sableye as your remover of choice than it's basically just a fish for Smeargle Webs or Deo-S Spikestack. Yes, these are the two most common HO styles, but if they go for a more off-meta style ( Ribombee jumps to mind) or even a hazardstack offense using Primal Groudon, it's going to struggle. Also, this is very limited in style: you're running fat balance at best or far more likely a stall, and it's a stall that has one slot as possible deadweight--so, in my eyes, a bad stall. (I actually faced a Sableye-Mega stall twice in my run, the second time being an effort to counterteam me; I had a good matchup but even outside of that context I was not impressed with the team.)

Unfuuny:
Pheromosa is a mon that unfuuny actually slandered in his own post but I still feel the need to comment on it. If it's Band, you can't spin; if it's Boots, sure you probably get webs off, but then you die for it and Pheromosa loses its biggest strengths on a team in its power, and even then you are getting a single opportunity to spin--if you fuck it up somehow (specifically by getting spinblocked or losing Pheromosa to a misplay) you just kinda lose.

Terapagos is actually a cool mon and if it was more real I think it would be the most compelling thing stated in this thread. However, I've tried to make it work myself, and I've come to the conclusion that, yeah it's real, but it is only fringe viable because of the serious teambuilding effort you need to put into it to make a team with it work consistently. Outside of its off-brand Multiscale it has basically no defensive utility outside of trolling Marshadow, which as a slow bulky spinner you really can't have. If you're running a more offensive set, you're committing the same sins as Boots Pheromosa in that you really get one shot to spin. Despite all this, though, I do think Terapagos is one of the better options listed.

Multi-Hit Moves are, yeah, sure, I guess this works? However many of the moves Unfuuny listed are exclusive to countering Smeargle and if the meta shifts to be more Shuckle- or Ribombee-focused. (This is actually something Bob referenced in the OP.) Also, not dissimilar to Magic Coat, while certain users might have merit outside of the webs matchup a lot of these are Webs matchup fishes by mons that typically are run on offenses or even opposing hyper-offenses (I think of Kyu-B when I say this).

Mewtwo's:
Glimmora is exclusive to other hyper offenses and isn't even that good at removing Webs since Tera Steel is quite common, and even outside of that, Zacian-Crowned is borderline mandatory on Webs. This isn't even to mention how many Glimmora hyper offenses are feasted on by common Webs structures, so if you do fail to get them down, you are going to be in trouble. Also also,

Boots Defog E-Killer is a fine option on certain teams if you accept that it gives up E-Killer's biggest strengths--in this case, quite literally its strength, by running no boosting item, along with taking a precious moveslot. Also, E-Killer is best on hyper offenses on its own. And by running this you're running Defog on HO. C'mon. Yeah this set probably works on certain offenses but Defog E-Killer on Glimmora HO is a conflict of interest. Even if you save it for when Glimmora doesn't cut it, you're still going to be Defogging away your own hazards.

Overall, after looking at this list and reviewing my thoughts on all of them, here are two common trends between the listed options:

1. A lot of them are incredibly niche at best, reserved for little more than a hype tournament tech. They are either fringe moveslots that require you to make up very notable losses in the teambuilding department (ex.: losing a status condition move on Gira-O for Magic Coat) or they are fringe Pokemon that require you to design an entire team around them to maybe perform well (ex.: Terapagos). While if the fish works and you get the Webs off you can point and say it worked, can any of these techs be truly consistent into non-Webs teams? Nothing I see here strikes me as such because of the massive holes you have to fill. NatDex Ubers, for better or for worse, doesn't have a lot of teambuilder freedom, so be investing so heavily in Webs do you still have the structure to beat, say, GHAZ balance? What about Deo-S HO? Alo fat?

I do not believe any of the listed options provide enough value to not massively sacrifice other matchups. Yes, many of them will remove Webs; but they are a large cost that sink the matchups of the teams they fit on (if they even fit at all on serious teams).

2. They are largely exclusive to certain playstyles that further polarize the metagame. Many of these are offense-exclusive or even hyper-offense exclusive. One of them (Msab) is a stall exclusive. If Webs are getting a suspect because of the stranglehold it has on the builder (which is the reason--no one is arguing that Webs is 6-0ing most matches because it is in-game broken), this is actually proof that Sticky Web is broken. The response to Webs stuffing out traditional removal options would be to innovate new removal options, yes, but the removal options listed are largely restricted to polarizing roles, further limiting and pushing out bulkier structures than Webs by themselves already do.

Note that I am not saying balance or anything is unviable; NDPL proved this. But, generally speaking, the fatter the structure you're running, you're getting less and less freedom to run a varied team composition, which allows hyper offenses to tailor their teams to better beat those restricted comps.

All of this and I haven't even mentioned that, if you get Webs off, that doesn't necessarily auto-win you the matchup! In fact, sometimes that Defog turn is what ends up losing you the game.

All in all, a lot of these arguments are unconvincing, and after mulling them over (I wrote this post over the span of 2 hours), have in fact solidified my opinion to ban webs. Banning webs opens up team structures immensely by allowing more consistent hazard removal and giving the large threats that loom over the tier a nerf. I ask that if you wish to respond to this you do so in good faith. Thanks for reading.

Jumpheart out.

 

[Cancel cult]

It's no secret I am DNB. But I want to throw my hat into the ring and explain why.

I have seen a lot of disdain for the current meta, and to be honest, I don't get it. I really love the format as it is, and I don't think it needs to be "fixed" or "saved". Now, I would like to start this off by saying that all things considered, a webs ban wouldn't be the worst thing ever, and I wouldn't actually be that upset. To be honest, the most personal attachment to webs is that it lets me use , and that's really funny.

Scarf Horse Tangent

To clarify since this can easily be misinterpreted without the context you probably haven't gotten, Double Kick isn't meant to be an insane webs check to save the format. The history of dates back to me. While talking about this and that in the discord, I realized that a +1 outspeeds by one point of speed, which ultimately culminated in me coming up with the joke of on webs. This slowly went from a joke to a "holy shit, that might actually work!" and I started cooking. is actually a pretty threatening Pokemon on webs, capable of running away with the game with its big dumb Ice STAB once the opponents Steel type Pokemon are chipped enough. Really though, that's basically 's only worthwhile button, and the vast majority of the time, its not clicking anything else. Obviously two of its other moves are High Horsepower and Trick, but those are already going to be clicked pretty rarely, so the last move really doesn't matter. It could be Seed Bomb to hit basically one Pokemon, or Aromatherapy on the off chance the match somehow lasts long enough for you to need a cleric, A.K.A. only useful against Stall. At some point, unfuuny caught wind of this Pokemon, and started using it himself, eventually becoming one of its few believers. But instead of Seed Bomb or Aromatherapy, unfuuny came up with something else: Double Kick. This move does one thing: goob . This tech is hyper specific, but it does come up sometimes (I won a tournament game with it), and really, this moveslot doesn't matter anyways, so you might as well choose the funny option. That is it. That's Double Kick . It's not a Pokemon you can slap onto a team to improve you webs matchup. It's only usable by webs teams, and even there it's a very niche option. It was never intended to be anything else, and I think unfuuny only brought it up because it's really funny. I don't think he or anyone else ever tried to claim it was a relevant and legitimate counterplay option to webs, so if you were given that impression, I'm sorry.

Anyways, I don't think webs would be too big of a loss for the tier. However, I do think we are better off with it, and that a webs ban is not at all called for.

So, first of all, what do we lose if webs gets banned? Well, this would have a profound effect on Hyper Offense. Hyper Offense in general makes up quite a large portion of the meta, and a webs ban would make Hyper Offense much worse, reducing the diversity of the meta. Without webs, most high level games are just going to be Bulky Offense and Balance vs Bulky Offense and Balance. Hyper Offense will of course still have a presence in the tier, but it will be much worse. Not quite to the level that Stall is at, but B tier at best. Many people don't like Hyper Offense and would be happy to see it go, but I don't think it's any less of a style than anything else. There are people who really enjoy playing Hyper Offense, and there's still a lot of skill involved in Hyper Offense. Since the games last much slower, every turn matters a lot more, so you have to do a lot more thinking in advance to plan out your resources. In addition, I personally find Hyper Offense harder to build with. While there's a lot more that building Balance demands, it's usually pretty straightforward. Check everything. With Hyper Offense though, you don't really check a whole lot so much as you blow them up first. That makes it conceptually simpler, but it means your ability to handle the entire metagame comes down almost entirely to your ability to hit everything in the meta. I find it much harder to accomplish that than to make a defensive backbone that can reliably handle everything thrown at you. Hyper Offense is undeniably simpler to pilot, but isn't the brain dead style I see people claim it is sometimes. Hyper Offense and the diversity and creativity it brings with it is an important part of the meta. I think that Hyper Offense is in a good spot right now. It's not at all a dominant style, slotting in behind Bulky Offense and Balance, but still relevant. If webs goes, Hyper Offense is going to become much less common, and the diversity of it will decrease. A lot of Pokemon rely on webs to have a purpose in the tier, and even the ones that don't would still be hard to justify taking up residence on the viability rankings if Hyper Offense becomes worse. Essentially, if webs gets banned, Hyper Offense becomes a lot more boring, and the tier becomes more monotonous.

I've seen a lot of people say that webs is way too restricting in the teambuilder. I certainly do feel its pressure when building teams, but not really that much. I still think there are plenty of options to deal with it. There's still a lot of Pokemon you can use to make the webs matchup a lot easier, such as , , , , , , and . And , , and to some extent are very good into it. in particular is something I think people are sleeping on. It pairs very well with structures, as the two Pokemon pair very well together. I really think that these two Pokemon make a core that is very strong and flexible. And don't think is only good for the webs matchup. It has a lot of offensive pressure, capable of 2HKOing a lot of the metagame with its fantastic coverage. It can be genuinely difficult to play around, and I think as time goes on its only going to become a better and better option. Overall, you really have a lot to work with against the webs matchup.

Let's address the elephant in the room. I've seen complaints about GHAZ, but I don't really think that's the fault of webs as much as people think. is most teams primary answer to , but even if we were to ban that, it's basically the only thing that gives most teams the illusion of safety against , as it 2HKO's basically everything else. Of course, you need another switch-in to it (and by that I mean a Pokemon that can take one hit from it so you can bring back in ) in case comes in on it, and for most teams that comes in the form of an Arceus form, thanks to their strong bulk and utility. Of these, there's a clear standout for those. doesn't actually have a whole lot that resists it or can deal super effective damage to it. That's a great place to start, but its Ghost resistance makes it great against the ever oppressive , and it's one of the few great check to . And even without webs, is still pretty powerful, so a Pokemon that can resist its big dumb Dark STAB is appreciated. is easily the best Defogger in the game thanks to its outstanding special bulk and Regenerator making it a great Pokemon you can fall back on, and it's a lot more threatening offensively than you'd think at first glance, making it an incredibly valuable Pokemon. And 's outstanding physical bulk and access to Coil makes it similarly useful as a great switch-in to basically any physical threat, being able to check even the most absurd things like and , and it is also one of the very few Pokemon capable of reliably stopping from cooking your whole team. Now, the thing about all of these I have mentioned is that none of these benefits are actually that dependent on webs. I don't think GHAZ is used because it's good against webs. GHAZ is good because the pokemon in it are just generally great. It's a very strong core with or without webs, and I can't see a webs ban making GHAZ a whole lot less dominant. But that's not to say it's your only option. is exceptionally hard to replace, but the other three really aren't as necessary. As long as your team has a Pokemon capable of taking a hit from , a strong defensive core, and a Defogger, you don't need the HAZ part of GHAZ. And those things are actually way more accessible than you'd think without them. GHAZ is used because it works, it's easy, and it's flexible, but what it decidedly isn't is your only option. structures still work, and still maintain the structural soundness of GHAZ.

That's not the only thing I think people are overstating webs influence on. I don't think that a webs ban is going to magically bring us to a free teambuilding utopia. I only really ever see people talk about webs, but what I don't see addressed are the Pokemon on webs. would for sure fall off without webs, but a lot of the biggest Hyper Offense threats will still exist without webs. They will be less relevant, but they will still exist, and you will still have to prepare for them. is still incredibly dangerous outside of webs, and the countless Dragon Dance abusers such as and are still going to be absurd. So many of the strongest threats on webs will still exist, and will still be nearly as dangerous without webs. A webs ban will make things easier, but so many of the problems that I and I assume others encounter when preparing for webs will still exist.

But beyond that, I think the challenge Hyper Offense and more specifically webs provides in the teambuilder isn't necessarily a bad thing. Hyper Offense is inherently more oppressive than other styles, and it usually is, but as long as it isn't too oppressive, it doesn't ruin the meta. In fact, the pressure it provides makes teambuilding a more difficult puzzle. Pressure on the teambuilder isn't an inherently bad thing, and why is the pressure from Hyper Offense any more unhealthy than the pressure exerts? Difficult teambuilding challenges like this make creating a worthwhile team more satisfying, and open the door for creative new solutions.

Of course, it also may close the door for other strategies. When I have previously talked about the diversity webs brings to the table, others have said that what it takes away outweighs it. But the argument that webs snuffs out other strategies isn't actually something I see examples of. I haven't seen anyone bring up any strategies or Pokemon that would be viable if not for webs. This part isn't really an argument for webs, I think that this part is in general something people don't think to bring up examples of, and I really would like to know what you think webs takes away from the tier.

In summary, I don't think webs is a negative force on the tier. I think that there's a lot it brings we can appreciate, and I think that it has a place in this tier. At least, that's what I feel about webs as a whole. There is something uncompetitive about webs, and that is...

THIS FUCKER!
I hate it. I hate it a lot.
I don't think there is a good argument for being in this tier, as it is so incredibly uncompetitive it's almost funny. First of all, it has both Spore and Nuzzle. That's hard enough to play around, but it running both would almost be a mercy, as at least then we could stop fighting and accept our fate. No, very rarely runs both. Instead, you have to guess which one it is running. Guess wrong, and one of your Pokemon is crippled. This on a lead archetype as strong as webs is utterly insane, and makes counterplay to inconsistent. Having to guess which goblet it poisoned is already incredibly terrible and already puts it on shaky ground, but the other thing has makes this sound like a good idea. gets Moody. How exactly is this acceptable? This is literally pure, unfiltered RNG that is as uncompetitive as it gets. All of this makes fighting feel like playing slots outside during a thunderstorm. How is this OK? In what world should this be in this format? What does this do for the tier? This thing is comically horrible for the game, and action against it is the only logical conclusion.

 

[Bobsican]

It's no secret I am DNB. But I want to throw my hat into the ring and explain why.

I have seen a lot of disdain for the current meta, and to be honest, I don't get it. I really love the format as it is, and I don't think it needs to be "fixed" or "saved". Now, I would like to start this off by saying that all things considered, a webs ban wouldn't be the worst thing ever, and I wouldn't actually be that upset. To be honest, the most personal attachment to webs is that it lets me use , and that's really funny.

Scarf Horse Tangent

To clarify since this can easily be misinterpreted without the context you probably haven't gotten, Double Kick isn't meant to be an insane webs check to save the format. The history of dates back to me. While talking about this and that in the discord, I realized that a +1 outspeeds by one point of speed, which ultimately culminated in me coming up with the joke of on webs. This slowly went from a joke to a "holy shit, that might actually work!" and I started cooking. is actually a pretty threatening Pokemon on webs, capable of running away with the game with its big dumb Ice STAB once the opponents Steel type Pokemon are chipped enough. Really though, that's basically 's only worthwhile button, and the vast majority of the time, its not clicking anything else. Obviously two of its other moves are High Horsepower and Trick, but those are already going to be clicked pretty rarely, so the last move really doesn't matter. It could be Seed Bomb to hit basically one Pokemon, or Aromatherapy on the off chance the match somehow lasts long enough for you to need a cleric, A.K.A. only useful against Stall. At some point, unfuuny caught wind of this Pokemon, and started using it himself, eventually becoming one of its few believers. But instead of Seed Bomb or Aromatherapy, unfuuny came up with something else: Double Kick. This move does one thing: goob . This tech is hyper specific, but it does come up sometimes (I won a tournament game with it), and really, this moveslot doesn't matter anyways, so you might as well choose the funny option. That is it. That's Double Kick . It's not a Pokemon you can slap onto a team to improve you webs matchup. It's only usable by webs teams, and even there it's a very niche option. It was never intended to be anything else, and I think unfuuny only brought it up because it's really funny. I don't think he or anyone else ever tried to claim it was a relevant and legitimate counterplay option to webs, so if you were given that impression, I'm sorry.

Uh, Double Kick Scarf Caly-I is bad for a variety of reasons, for one, outside of anti-leading *only* Smeargle, it still doesn't OHKO other setters like Ribombee and Shuckle, but most notably the Smeargle user can easily adapt if this ever becomes meta, more specifically:

252 Atk Calyrex-Ice Double Kick (2 hits) vs. 40 HP / 252 Def Smeargle: 220-260 (84.2 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

And yes, Smeargle can easily afford this as there's a noticeable gap between its own Speed tier and the next highest notable thing, namely Adamant Necrozma-DM and Paralyzed Deoxys-S, and this is ignoring the fact that such set at best still leaves itself as setup fodder for whichever revenge killer that comes in, even after an As One boost the move hits like a wet noodle, and that's ignoring Ghost-types.

Anyways, I don't think webs would be too big of a loss for the tier. However, I do think we are better off with it, and that a webs ban is not at all called for.

So, first of all, what do we lose if webs gets banned? Well, this would have a profound effect on Hyper Offense. Hyper Offense in general makes up quite a large portion of the meta, and a webs ban would make Hyper Offense much worse, reducing the diversity of the meta. Without webs, most high level games are just going to be Bulky Offense and Balance vs Bulky Offense and Balance. Hyper Offense will of course still have a presence in the tier, but it will be much worse. Not quite to the level that Stall is at, but B tier at best.

I'd think that this is a slight exaggeration, the main representatives of non-Webs HO (Deoxys-S and Glimmora) currently sit in B rank in the ND Ubers VR, if Sticky Web was to be banned, then Glimmora would get a spike in viability as the main thing holding it back right now is its inability to properly anti-lead Sticky Web teams (Tera Steel being common just to prevent Smeargle from Mortal Spinning stuff and all), while Deoxys-S wouldn't be limited to bulky Rocky Helmet sets for similar reasons, admittedly plenty of other things would also raise in viability as then they wouldn't be as constrained by being a liability against Sticky Web teams, turning overall viability changes from there rather variable, but ultimately other branches of Hyper Offense would be easier to justify.

Many people don't like Hyper Offense and would be happy to see it go, but I don't think it's any less of a style than anything else. There are people who really enjoy playing Hyper Offense, and there's still a lot of skill involved in Hyper Offense. Since the games last much slower, every turn matters a lot more, so you have to do a lot more thinking in advance to plan out your resources.

In addition, I personally find Hyper Offense harder to build with. While there's a lot more that building Balance demands, it's usually pretty straightforward. Check everything. With Hyper Offense though, you don't really check a whole lot so much as you blow them up first. That makes it conceptually simpler, but it means your ability to handle the entire metagame comes down almost entirely to your ability to hit everything in the meta.

I find it much harder to accomplish that than to make a defensive backbone that can reliably handle everything thrown at you. Hyper Offense is undeniably simpler to pilot, but isn't the brain dead style I see people claim it is sometimes.

Hyper Offense and the diversity and creativity it brings with it is an important part of the meta. I think that Hyper Offense is in a good spot right now. It's not at all a dominant style, slotting in behind Bulky Offense and Balance, but still relevant. If webs goes, Hyper Offense is going to become much less common, and the diversity of it will decrease. A lot of Pokemon rely on webs to have a purpose in the tier, and even the ones that don't would still be hard to justify taking up residence on the viability rankings if Hyper Offense becomes worse. Essentially, if webs gets banned, Hyper Offense becomes a lot more boring, and the tier becomes more monotonous.

The first bit acts as if axing the move Sticky Web would remove the entire hyper offense archetype, which is far from the truth, besides the previously-explained hazard stack structures, there's also Dual Screens branches, Psyspam, and of course Trick Room, with some of these clearly having the potential to raise in viability if Sticky Web goes.

Ironically the problem with the current metagame is that because of the oppression Sticky Web teams inflicts to the tier, most other structures are heavily limited and punished in teams of *viable* teambuilding variety, more specifically if they try to diverge from what has been shown to work.

The tier had well over a year to adapt, so arguments based on the premise of just letting the userbase adapt with even more time don't work that well, and in fact often devolve into proving a negative, which is fallacious to say the least as the burden of proof would fall into the pro-Sticky Web side to prove that it doesn't impact the tier that much and that most teams can afford fitting tools for it without compromising significant options (typically a entire team slot), especially when it comes to legitimate teambuilding structures that don't trade the Sticky Web matchup for a good chunk of the metagame, this kind of issue in fact is a common cause for something to be suspect tested / banned in the first place.

I've seen a lot of people say that webs is way too restricting in the teambuilder. I certainly do feel its pressure when building teams, but not really that much. I still think there are plenty of options to deal with it. There's still a lot of Pokemon you can use to make the webs matchup a lot easier, such as , , , , , , and . And , , and to some extent are very good into it. in particular is something I think people are sleeping on. It pairs very well with structures, as the two Pokemon pair very well together. I really think that these two Pokemon make a core that is very strong and flexible. And don't think is only good for the webs matchup. It has a lot of offensive pressure, capable of 2HKOing a lot of the metagame with its fantastic coverage. It can be genuinely difficult to play around, and I think as time goes on its only going to become a better and better option. Overall, you really have a lot to work with against the webs matchup.

As discussed in the ND Ubers Discord, some of these options aren't really splashable, nor have strong merits outside the Sticky Web matchup, more specifically Eternatus requires Heavy-Duty Boots, has coverage issues as it often leans defensively, thus often being Zacian-C / Lunala / PDon / POgre (etc) bait, and even then isn't too hard to overwhelm offensively as it relies surprisingly a lot on its item slot for damage output as well, Fezandipiti is not a hazard remover and is limited as an enabler for a hazard remover, and even then it demands momentum as to hinder a foe with Icy Wind so that the Defogger it pivots in can remove Sticky Web, which often wears down both of them in the process, Primal Kyogre is a bulky breaker that can trade a Pokemon or two before it goes down, but that still leaves the rest of the team to have to deal with Sticky Web, which is rather variable between the remaining Pokemon on either side.

Choice Band Ho-Oh itself is weak to entry hazards and isn't that fast or bulky, so for these purposes it's a worse Primal Kyogre as it demands hazard control if it wants to perform well against more than Sticky Web, and even then it will struggle against Sticky Web team variants that also feature Stealth Rock (Stone Axe + Sticky Web Smeargle isn't unheard of, and of course there's also Shuckle with Sticky Web + Stealth Rock).

While M-Diancie + Alomomola is a good core, this misrepresents them here as the teams that fit Alomomola tend to be weak to Sticky Web, so it's really M-Diancie the one carrying the role of an anti-Webs answer, and while it does excel at this, it's not unknown that it's quite hard to fit as its lack of longevity limits the chances for it to enter the field or even Mega Evolve, so outside of offense it's really limited to "Sunstone" cores overall, which limits teambuilding quite a bit as the core is still vulnerable to special attackers, and I say this as the guy that mostly builds Alomomola stuff and even made a RMT with this core.

Choice Scarf Yveltal does little outside the Sticky Web matchup, given that Foul Play doesn't hit that hard without Tera, a fast Defog that invites passivity is also quite terrible against hazard setters with more longevity that can easily just set it again and are expected to be in the mid-game unlike the leads that are usually sacked early-game once their job is done.

Mega Salamence with Defog has coverage issues and as Bumboclaat explained has not seen any good performance outside a single team in months, so overall this seems to just list a ton of checks while ignoring why the suspect is being made in the first place, with this overall not being that much of a strong point in practice.

Ditto is not a Sticky Web answer as such teams naturally improof themselves well, Yveltal wins the mirror as Oblivion Wing outdamages *and* outheals Ditto's, Chi-Yu can overwhelm Ditto with the Z-Crystal or revenge kill with Arceus, Arceus is Ghost-type / Zacian-C bait, etc. The only notable Pokemon that Ditto punishes is Zacian-C, but it's possible to just keep it for the late-game after Ditto is KOed, leaving Ditto as a soft-check to these structures in practice, and certainly not something to rely on.

Finally, Arceus-Fairy is a bad Defogger as it's vulnerable to Sticky Web itself, leaving itself as Taunt bait for the likes of Chi-Yu and Tera Fire Yveltal, let alone Zacian-C eating it alive, or how it's outclassed by Arceus-Dark at most other roles, further showing the limitations the archetype places on the tier.

Let's address the elephant in the room. I've seen complaints about GHAZ, but I don't really think that's the fault of webs as much as people think. is most teams primary answer to , but even if we were to ban that, it's basically the only thing that gives most teams the illusion of safety against , as it 2HKO's basically everything else. Of course, you need another switch-in to it (and by that I mean a Pokemon that can take one hit from it so you can bring back in ) in case comes in on it, and for most teams that comes in the form of an Arceus form, thanks to their strong bulk and utility. Of these, there's a clear standout for those. doesn't actually have a whole lot that resists it or can deal super effective damage to it. That's a great place to start, but its Ghost resistance makes it great against the ever oppressive , and it's one of the few great check to . And even without webs, is still pretty powerful, so a Pokemon that can resist its big dumb Dark STAB is appreciated. is easily the best Defogger in the game thanks to its outstanding special bulk and Regenerator making it a great Pokemon you can fall back on, and it's a lot more threatening offensively than you'd think at first glance, making it an incredibly valuable Pokemon. And 's outstanding physical bulk and access to Coil makes it similarly useful as a great switch-in to basically any physical threat, being able to check even the most absurd things like and , and it is also one of the very few Pokemon capable of reliably stopping from cooking your whole team. Now, the thing about all of these I have mentioned is that none of these benefits are actually that dependent on webs. I don't think GHAZ is used because it's good against webs. GHAZ is good because the pokemon in it are just generally great. It's a very strong core with or without webs, and I can't see a webs ban making GHAZ a whole lot less dominant. But that's not to say it's your only option. is exceptionally hard to replace, but the other three really aren't as necessary. As long as your team has a Pokemon capable of taking a hit from , a strong defensive core, and a Defogger, you don't need the HAZ part of GHAZ. And those things are actually way more accessible than you'd think without them. GHAZ is used because it works, it's easy, and it's flexible, but what it decidedly isn't is your only option. structures still work, and still maintain the structural soundness of GHAZ.

I can concede that GHAZ has plenty of merits, and in fact is a common prey for Sticky Web teams if neither of the remaining 2 team slots fit sturdier counterplay / support for this matchup, but being forced to run at least one of Scarf Yveltal, Primal Kyogre, Fezandipiti, or M-Diancie + Alomomola in such cores isn't ideal for the purposes of metagame variety either, especially as it's quite known that outside the Sticky Web matchup GHAZ is mostly self-sufficient and could easily afford proper flex slots over stuff that limits its potential to accomodate for the current metagame.

That's not the only thing I think people are overstating webs influence on. I don't think that a webs ban is going to magically bring us to a free teambuilding utopia. I only really ever see people talk about webs, but what I don't see addressed are the Pokemon on webs. would for sure fall off without webs, but a lot of the biggest Hyper Offense threats will still exist without webs. They will be less relevant, but they will still exist, and you will still have to prepare for them. is still incredibly dangerous outside of webs, and the countless Dragon Dance abusers such as and are still going to be absurd. So many of the strongest threats on webs will still exist, and will still be nearly as dangerous without webs. A webs ban will make things easier, but so many of the problems that I and I assume others encounter when preparing for webs will still exist.

At the same time this acts as if this'd be the last suspect test in the tier, as usual arguments based on broken checking broken don't hold any weight, and in fact Sticky Web doesn't really keep in check anything, but rather lowers the viability of several things that weren't deemed sufficiently problematic as to do tiering action (or even to be brought up in surveys...) before Sticky Web's significant developments.

But beyond that, I think the challenge Hyper Offense and more specifically webs provides in the teambuilder isn't necessarily a bad thing. Hyper Offense is inherently more oppressive than other styles, and it usually is, but as long as it isn't too oppressive, it doesn't ruin the meta. In fact, the pressure it provides makes teambuilding a more difficult puzzle. Pressure on the teambuilder isn't an inherently bad thing, and why is the pressure from Hyper Offense any more unhealthy than the pressure exerts? Difficult teambuilding challenges like this make creating a worthwhile team more satisfying, and open the door for creative new solutions.

The enjoyability and competitiveness ratings have been on a consistent decline in surveys for months, as shown here:

I decided to graph the results on competitiveness and balance across the general userbase (there wasn't sufficient data to properly cover qualified voters like this) across the surveys made for this generation. It's quite clear that a good chunk of the userbase isn't happy with the current state of the metagame, and interestingly the notable decline started at around the time of the first survey directly featuring Sticky Web, so it'd be fair to say that there's a relation to say the least.

Of course, it also may close the door for other strategies. When I have previously talked about the diversity webs brings to the table, others have said that what it takes away outweighs it. But the argument that webs snuffs out other strategies isn't actually something I see examples of. I haven't seen anyone bring up any strategies or Pokemon that would be viable if not for webs. This part isn't really an argument for webs, I think that this part is in general something people don't think to bring up examples of, and I really would like to know what you think webs takes away from the tier.

For starters other branches of HO wouldn't be practically outclassed by Sticky Web teams, more notably not having to fit 1-2 dedicated team slots that just answer Sticky Web and either do little outside this matchup or have minimal optimal variety of teambuilding options around them as alluded to previously also comes to mind, other Defoggers that rely on their Speed to do so like utility Arceus formes would also bring more variety in terms of cores that have quite more merit when excluding Sticky Web as a factor, so overall it's fairly easy to see how Sticky Web is a patent case of the rich getting richer, especially as Sticky Web doesn't keep anything problematic in check as explained in a prior paragraph.

In summary, I don't think webs is a negative force on the tier. I think that there's a lot it brings we can appreciate, and I think that it has a place in this tier. At least, that's what I feel about webs as a whole. There is something uncompetitive about webs, and that is...
View attachment 790403
THIS FUCKER!
I hate it. I hate it a lot.
I don't think there is a good argument for being in this tier, as it is so incredibly uncompetitive it's almost funny. First of all, it has both Spore and Nuzzle. That's hard enough to play around, but it running both would almost be a mercy, as at least then we could stop fighting and accept our fate. No, very rarely runs both. Instead, you have to guess which one it is running. Guess wrong, and one of your Pokemon is crippled. This on a lead archetype as strong as webs is utterly insane, and makes counterplay to inconsistent. Having to guess which goblet it poisoned is already incredibly terrible and already puts it on shaky ground, but the other thing has makes this sound like a good idea. gets Moody. How exactly is this acceptable? This is literally pure, unfiltered RNG that is as uncompetitive as it gets. All of this makes fighting feel like playing slots outside during a thunderstorm. How is this OK? In what world should this be in this format? What does this do for the tier? This thing is comically horrible for the game, and action against it is the only logical conclusion.

The thing is that ultimately the userbase favored more tiering action to the archetype in general over specifically Smeargle, and realistically if this suspect goes nowhere (in the sense of the status quo not changing in the end), then what makes you think that Smeargle would be suspect tested (let alone actually banned) afterwards? This just comes off as admitting that there's something wrong with the archetype's impact to the tier and thinking that placing the blame into one of the enablers commonly seen in it is a more efficient / plausible option, which is a misinformed approach towards how suspect tests and tiering policy works, in fact this is exactly why "don't suspect X, suspect Y instead" arguments are generally discouraged or downright banned topics in suspect threads.

 

[Runo]

I have always retained the take that targeting the abusers should be prioritized over banning the subject as a whole. It's rather rare for metagame to be put in such a state in which it is both impossible to nerf the style via conventional Pokemon bans and that every abuser of it is otherwise balanced outside of the playstyle. NatDex Ubers Webs fails both criteria in my eyes.

Case A) Is it impossible to nerf the playstyle via conventional Pokemon bans?
note: I'm abridging the Pro-ban arguments a little in order to get to the point.


The interactions against Dragon Dance Zygarde via Perish Song, its ability to easily punish a large chunk of removal options with Poison or the rare Sleep and Paralysis, and the fact that it can keep opposing hazards off often puts Smeargle at the forefront of Webs discussions since it is reportedly a core factor towards making the playstyle insufferable. But what if it was simply not there anymore? Shuckle, Ribombee, and even the rare Slurpuff are much harder to utilize and have far more rigid moveslots. They have a much harder time keeping the hazards off and keeping their own webs on the field. The playstyle itself would become significantly more unreliable to use. This is something that the OP fails to elaborate on, mentioning that yes they are viable web setters but not explaining how the lead interactions change significantly when you change the webs lead. It's why bullshit like Galvantula is viable in SS Ubers but not here or elsewhere. If we want to make the claim that any other webs setter will still render the playstyle suffocating the play around this is fine of course, but consider the above statements and explain how the broken state of the playstyle will remain under Shuckle or Ribombee webs.


Taunt users on webs get a very annoying reputation because they can block the removal attempts. Yveltal is no different. This is an interaction that as always fallen on deaf ears for me because I can simply just say "well I'll just not put my fogger in a position like that against an obvious Taunt user" I still hold this claim, but I will assume that this interaction is inherently unhealthy for the purposes of the argument. The argument being that Yveltal is now removed from the equation and banned. One of the core anti-removal options for Webs is now gone and not a lot can substantially stand up to replace it. The Arceus Formes and Deoxys-Attack can probably taunt the Ho-oh, but it comes at a pretty hefty price if the Ho-oh attacks and they would frankly rather just kill it than ever click the move in front of it. Chi-Yu is still there though but losing out on the Taunt spam aspect is fairly significant. In general abusers would have to leverage their raw power over the disruptive utility in order to deny removal. Whether that is an interaction the community can tolerate, it's not for me to say. But that makes playing webs harder to some extent, not as brainless as some claim it to be right now.

Now the trade-off to a Yveltal ban is pretty clear: One less speed control option, one less removal option, one less priority option, one less pivot, one less Necrozma-Ultra check. It has a LOT of positive contributions to the metagame that would make banning it a questionable ask at minimum. That being said, what Yveltal is capable of doing is perfectly feasible to perform with other mons such as Arceus-Dark, Kingambit, Mega Salamence, Landorus-Therian, Rayquaza, etc. Not a guarentee that the building situation of the tier will be better with Yveltal gone, but it's not a guarentee it will be worse either.


Another deplorable Taunt user in the eyes of the Websphobic mob. Very similar to Yveltal except it will just nuke your check. Taunt I never really considered a real tool outside of the fat-breaking matchup because no self-respecting Ho-oh is letting Chi-Yu click Nasty Plot for free. But let's explore what happens when you take this explosive fat-breaker out of the metagame. Not a lot of replacements for that nuclear power, maybe Deoxys-Attack again, Marshadow and Primal Kyogre don't seem that shabby either. Lunala is a pretty good Z-move using too if that's what you're looking for. Something to note however is that they are all much much easier to pacify than Chi-Yu. This again makes the webs interaction significantly less frustrating when you know that these mons have some sort of out that doesn't involve outspeeding them.


My personal hated threat Zacian-Crowned is pretty popular on a lot of webs compositions, something that the arguments to ban tend to gloss over. Very few mons actually want to take a +3 attack from Zacian-Crowned and even less can outspeed it, much less on Webs. Sure you got your Physically Defensive Primal Groudon to force a trade but its ruined by Tera Ground (something that shouldn't be dismissed). The emergency Tera Button in the event Zacian does it back, which is something that Ho-oh employs a lot to deal with it. But the trade off is that you no longer have that button to deal with the other webs breakers. Seems concise enough of a justification... it's GONE, who's replacing it? Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, bless their heart, is slow as hell and the power drop is pretty significant. Would have to run Z-moves on it to get to a similar power level, which means you drop it on Chi-Yu or Arceus formes. Other explosive Fairy and Steel types don't exist. Maybe Kingambit if you play it incredibly well. Pretty immediate balancing factor even outside of webs since Zacian forces a lot of fairly tailored compositions in order to not have your core shattered by it + partners.

People really like to bemoan that Zacian-Crowned is actually a great anti-offense mon itself and "helps" balance HO. Technically it's not incorrect but I think this really only applies to the most janked of HO teams. A lot of HOs will have their Primal Groudon, their Necrozma-Dusk-Mane or Tera sweepers to bypass. Zacian needs a Swords Dance boost to get through those reliably. Similar users also complain that Zacian mirrors (in which the only way to stop an opposing Zacian is with your own Zacian) is really toxic. In any sense I think we have enough offensive power attacked to our defensive tanks to dissuade HO teams or at the very least put them in a state of general unreliability and at a similar level to the other extreme playstyles. You could make this claim for Zacian-Crowned too but the raw power from Zacian-Crown is fairly irreplacible when trying to force more standard teams to be put in unfavorable positions.


Tera Normal Double Edge does send its checks to the moon no doubt, and its especially harder to circumvent when under webs. So lets get rid of it. There's no other real priority spammer outside of Deoxys-Attack, the Sucker Punchers, and the insanely rare Mega Lucario which doesn't even want to use Extreme Speed. Not entirely sure if removing this has any real downside but it probably does because priority is fairly important. A dealbreaker for the tier, probably not though. Most teams don't even use priority.

In general there are a lot of avenues you can take to limit webs via tiering that doesn't involve removing it from the game outright, many of which get dismissed because they are supposedly fine outside of webs.

Case B) Is every abuser of webs, balanced outside of webs?

Full stop I'm just going to say that most of them probably are balanced or at least tolerated outside of webs. Chi-Yu and Yveltal, that's nothing ol' Marshadow or Eternatus can't fix up. Arceus...? Marshadow and I guess Zacian-Crowned if it stays legal I guess.


Zacian-Crowned though??? You still have to play the mirror, I don't see how that's suddenly fixed with the removal of Webs as a whole. Practically all of the toxic interactions with it are left unchanged. It's still more than capable of strong-arming its checks, it did not need webs to do this. That's kind of what happens when its one of the most fastest, hardest hitting mons in the tier. Tera sets are still going to put a very significant strain on the builder and its HO partners in Arceus-Ground, Kyogre-Primal and friends really love Zacian just doing really permanent damage and forcing Defensive Teras to be procced for it. No new counterplay is going to be realized because of a webs ban, otherwise they would've been used irrespective of webs. It was never really a Pokemon that had "sturdy" defensive checks to begin with. That's why it made for really obnoxious parings when pairing it with past brokens like Xerneas or Koraidon and also why it has been a constant on HO teams since the tier started essentially. Zacian was always something that you needed to seriously give hard prep towards and has been constraining building for a very long time. Regardless of the positive interactions it brings to the tier for being an "anti"-offense mon, it is hard to deny its metagame warping impact.

---

I don't wish to countermand my fellow DNB voters despite disagreeing with them on a large chunk of points (pulling random shitmons and techs out of the void for example). And this is more because I think the wrong thing was targeted. So why am I voting do not ban then? It's not a protest vote, but more because I am perfectly fine with webs being legal. It's maybe not the most skill intensive thing in the world but I've always been fine with my webs counterplay (essentially what cancel cult said in their post just more in-depth). Is it a massive constraint in the builder? Sure. But I'm going to frankly say what most other DNB voters don't want to say outloud: I signed up for this when I play Ubers. That's sort of the allure to Ubers from my perspective ever since I first got into it. The metagame was always going to be overcentralized with a behemoth amount to account for, part of the challenge as cancel cult again alluded to. This is why I loved the Xerneas metagame more than I will ever love current or future NatDex Ubers despite the mon being very clearly terrorizing the builder. Now keep in mind, that is a mon that actively feigns skillful expression and invalidates counterplay to an extreme extent and almost always on its own. Webs is cheap and I might curse you out for loading it against me, but I rarely thought that if I had a good team and I played the game well that Webs could somehow invalidate competitive play. Playing against it has a high skill floor in both the builder and in-game but I do not think that is inherently a bad thing. Sure you might see me bitch and moan about it on occasion, but end of the day I'm not going to say that NatDex Ubers is a bad tier because of Webs or anything similar. Zygarde interactions? Possibly. Zacian? More than probably. But not really the extreme playstyles itself or at least not as whole.

To that end, i'm not going to comment to pro-ban arguments unless it is responding to the points I made in my post. The only exception to this I will be making is regarding the use of surveys. Stop. This is not an argument Bobsican. Ignoring how egregiously small the sample size can be, the concept of majority opinion = truth is just wrong. We do not dictate tiering via pure democracy because of this. People can be ignorant, bad faith, or frankly have zero merits to speak of. It's too unregulated to work. I couldn't care less if the public opinion of the few dipped by a single integer point. The job of surveys is to let council know what the playerbase thinks about the tier, not to be the final say on what should be legal in it. What the general player base wants and what the council wants, it's great to have them relatively unified but in the end this is all up to you. Nobody was forcing council to hold multiple surveys on Sticky Webs including a special survey with exclusively Sticky Web.

 

[Runo]

View attachment 790166

Confirming as penultimatetoast8.

I'll update this later with some more reasoning but imo webs is easy enough to include counterplay to while not killing your team into everything else that I'm going to vote DNB. Also toxic spikes are broken if you get a good matchup for them more people should put this on etern etc.

Hi friend, you need to use /linksmogon and follow the instructions to make sure your reqs actually count. You are listed as an unverified user as of right now.

 

[Cancel cult]

Uh, Double Kick Scarf Caly-I is bad for a variety of reasons, for one, outside of anti-leading *only* Smeargle, it still doesn't OHKO other setters like Ribombee and Shuckle, but most notably the Smeargle user can easily adapt if this ever becomes meta, more specifically:

252 Atk Calyrex-Ice Double Kick (2 hits) vs. 40 HP / 252 Def Smeargle: 220-260 (84.2 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

And yes, Smeargle can easily afford this as there's a noticeable gap between its own Speed tier and the next highest notable thing, namely Adamant Necrozma-DM and Paralyzed Deoxys-S, and this is ignoring the fact that such set at best still leaves itself as setup fodder for whichever revenge killer that comes in, even after an As One boost the move hits like a wet noodle, and that's ignoring Ghost-types.

OK, since I really need to get this across to people:
I know this. I am not saying that Double Kick is affecting webs place in the tier in any way. I cannot stress enough that is a certified Shitmon, borderline viable at best, and a move on that Pokemon that it's only considering running in the first place because it has no other moves it wants to use is not going to "fix" webs. And yes, if this was SOMEHOW relevant, could simply adjust its EV spread to account for it. I agree with everything you say here. This is all true. None of this needs to be said.

 

[Mewtwo's Greatest Soldier]

Mewtwo's:
Glimmora is exclusive to other hyper offenses and isn't even that good at removing Webs since Tera Steel is quite common, and even outside of that, Zacian-Crowned is borderline mandatory on Webs. This isn't even to mention how many Glimmora hyper offenses are feasted on by common Webs structures, so if you do fail to get them down, you are going to be in trouble. Also also,

Boots Defog E-Killer is a fine option on certain teams if you accept that it gives up E-Killer's biggest strengths--in this case, quite literally its strength, by running no boosting item, along with taking a precious moveslot. Also, E-Killer is best on hyper offenses on its own. And by running this you're running Defog on HO. C'mon. Yeah this set probably works on certain offenses but Defog E-Killer on Glimmora HO is a conflict of interest. Even if you save it for when Glimmora doesn't cut it, you're still going to be Defogging away your own hazards.

The ekiller point is real and true, defog ekiller is decently weaker than regular. I do dispute that it wastes a precious moveslot, in my eyes guaranteeing that you can get webs off in that matchup is worth as much as recover or random coverage. Because it's already holding boots double-edge misses the ranges you want anyways.

I do however want to mention that Glimmora here isn't intended to remove webs after they are set. The set I was posting was actually evd to be slower than a regular smeargle to guarantee that you can remove webs the turn they click it. Forcing smeargle to commit tera for webs was something I found to be very useful when backed with dual priority. The only other way they can get webs through is nuzzle and parafishing which either forces them to bring in eternatus or to mortal spin and waste a turn on removing tspikes.

Aside from that, I was doing some experimenting and came up with a silly webs cteam in

Arceus @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Multitype
Tera Type: Water/Fire/Fairy/Whatever
EVs: 248 HP / 76 Def / 8 SpA / 32 SpD / 144 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tera Blast
- Taunt
- Calm Mind
- Recover

Which actually puts in a decent amount of work. Obviously, it anti-leads smeargle by taunting and denying mortal and nuzzle. However, it's actually not incredibly horrible, just decently so. EVs are for offense ho-oh brave bird 3hko, creeping people creeping people creeping 339, and something relevant I swear. The set pretends to be a fairy/darkceus except if you run fairy or dark coverage webs destroys you with zacian so normally it's fire coverage and sometimes you just don't even tera it. Seriously, ghosts really struggle to hit this and if you can status them or get hazards and block their attacks you basically pull a 7ph arceus and watch them slowly die in front of you. Cloak is huge for this because it blocks sacred fire from defensive ho-oh from burning letting you pp stall it or someone tries to use Fezandipiti to check you but it can't get chain or lower stats so it's setup fodder. With hazard support especially tspikes 6/0s are more common than you'd think especially when the tera matches up well (for example fairy blast versus fezandipiti sample).

Definitely not a very good set but can sometimes 6/0 stall with hazards up and goobs smeargle really hard. I threw it on https://pokepast.es/1ac2a242c67887ef and got reqs a second time pretty easily. Might even try for reqs a third time with some other meme sets.

yes i know multiple reqs don't count but it's decent to check if teams are ok

 

[bumboclaat]

I enjoy yapping, but this suspect thread was surprisingly difficult to write. I’ve been incredibly vocal about my stance on Sticky Web’s place in the metagame for a bit over a year now and was concerned about them seeping into the do not ban section of our suspect thread. Consequently, I reached out to a DNB few players to incorporate their perspective into the suspect thread as the best rationales I’d seen for keeping Sticky Web in the tier were primarily that it wasn’t broken / unhealthy enough to ban from Ubers. Surprisingly, none of these conversations yielded appropriate arguments to include in the suspect post.

I’d planned to make a post after my suspect run later this week, but the DNB posts have provided sufficient motivation to expedite it. I disagree with most of the content of these posts, but they are built on a faulty premise that should be addressed before getting to the specific points raised.

The natural conclusion of these posts is that the pro ban camp are lazy teambuilders that are not using the available tools and are seeking the easy way out as opposed to adapting to an ever-changing metagame. This is not only a false assertion, but a mischaracterization that entirely sidesteps the points raised via fallacious reasoning.

In a vacuum, Sticky Web is manageable. There are dozens of options to remove webs and any decent player could probably build a dozen teams that will beat any Sticky Web structure 100% of the time within an hour. The issue is incorporating them into a consistent team that can also handle the rest of the metagame. Every archetype has good teams, but once you dig past the surface there is a reason why there is minimal variety within them, even for an Ubers tier, and how swift the punishment is the moment ones deviates from established standards.

Most of the big threats in the tier can be contained with some soft checks and good play, but not Sticky Web. It has been a top tier archetype for more than enough time for teams to emerge that can navigate the matchup without removing them yet they have not. It is either prevent them from being set or have a consistent way to remove them and the options do to either without making a team worse are incredibly limited.

What is Counterplay?​

In the couple of days since the suspect test has gone up there has been a lot of discussion in the ND Ubers discord server and it has been pretty clear that some terms, particularly ‘fish’ and ‘cheese’ are interpreted differently. These terms have an element of subjectivity so that is to be expected, especially when Sticky Web is undeniably cheese in most tiers. It isn’t here, everybody has different thresholds, but in my opinion, when an archetype is as strong as Sticky Web, it is simply good or ‘meta’. One of the things that has frustrated me is that the DNB posts just present a list of any and all potential counterplay devoid of any context.
This is a distinction worth making because an uninformed reader simply sees a massive list of options that are presented as equally viable and easy to simply slap on a team and is left with the impression that the ban camp is failing to make use of the tools available to them when this is far from reality. The best place to start is a section of Silver’s post that stood out to me.

The anti-web toolkits are there, and some of them are underexploited. You may use the move magic coat (currently only DeoS is using it); you may use Scarf Lando-T to defog; you may use the item mental herb to defog; you may use boots Ekiller to defog; you may use an unexpected multi-hit attack move; you may use the mon Mega-Sableye; you may exploit Smeargle by an unexpected sub/tera electric/tera ground. Yes, some tactics rely on the element of surprise, and some of them would only work against Smeargle, but that's just how the meta evolves and how players adapt. Smeargle is the current premier web setter because it's overall superior that Shuckle and Ribombee in the current meta, but that could change, and new strategies could pop up afterwards. You can't say that web is broken because you are not able to reliably beat all kinds of its variances. In that case, we would need to say that the web is unviable.

Is it is pretty clear to me that we have very different perspectives on what constitutes a competitive / healthy metagame and counterplay. The underlying frustrations myself and many others have with Sticky Web’s presence in the metagame stem from the harsh restrictions it imposes in the teambuilder. The community has been exhaustively searching for a long time for structures that can function without removing them, yet nothing has surfaced. The abusers of the archetype are synergistic and powerful enough that counterplay centres around Pokémon that reliably prevent it from going up or can help to facilitate its removal.
This post just talks about all of the ways one can potentially remove entry hazards without any consideration for whether or not they are even applicable in a reasonable manner. Yes, Magic Coat exists, but when you look at the Pokémon that actually learn it, what is reasonably fitting it outside of Deoxys-S? Same with Mental Herb. This really is a gish gallop of stuff that Jump took the time address and really feels just throwing out anything that comes to mind that could possibly work with no consideration for how this plays out in practice as opposed to paper. You even acknowledge this yourself.

Yes, some tactics rely on the element of surprise, and some of them would only work against Smeargle, but that's just how the meta evolves and how players adapt. Smeargle is the current premier web setter because it's overall superior that Shuckle and Ribombee in the current meta, but that could change, and new strategies could pop up afterwards.

I really don’t see this can be said in good faith. If a tech only works because it is a surprise, can it even be called counterplay? As you’ve acknowledged, most of these only work against Smeargle, and even then, Tera Steel lets it survive every relevant multihit move anyways and still set Sticky Web. If I’m going to load some anti-web tech, it shouldn’t be contingent on having to load into a specific setter and then have it flop anyways if my opponent is aware of its existence. These options exist to attempt to prevent Sticky Web from going up in the first place and if there are so many conditions attached, then they fail to serve their purpose and you’re forced back to square one and the same, intensely limited options. Additionally, there is no way to fulfil this condition. If another year passes without further developments, is that enough time or must we still wait?

Consistent & Established Options​

So what would I call reliable counterplay? That bar differs for everyone, but I think a Pokémon should actually be somewhat meta relevant. For example, Fezandipiti is the most consistent counterplay available to balance, but Zarude functions near identically in this regard. Yeah the role compression is amazing, but if it wasn’t able to contribute to removing Sticky Web I’m not sure I’d consider it viable due to the amount of additional support it would require. There is some stuff beyond what is listed here, but it tends to be inconsistent enough that you're very likely to want it alongside the stuff listed below or it is an incredibly niche Pokémon. When I look at the lists of counterplay other people have provided, Ribombee honestly clears most of the options not listed below despite bieng an anti-webs fish itself that works because the abusers are powerful enough that simply setting webs is sufficient.

Deoxys-S kind of needs a Rocky Helmet to be able to prevent Sticky Web as Smeargle can otherwise set Sticky Web on it somewhat reliably. Rocky Helmet Deoxys-S has been common and existed for as long as the tier has been around, but it has become the de facto set due to Smeargle.

The only hazard removal that doesn’t require additional support. Choice Scarf Yveltal compresses a lot of important roles, but is usually a pretty poor choice unless a team needs the specific role compression it offers in a single slot. Choice Scarf Yveltal is seeing more use than ever, but a lot of this use is something I’ll get into later.

+ or Mega Diancie does shut down every setter by itself, but it is wildly inconsistent unless paired with actual hazard removal otherwise a Zacian-C counter-lead into a double probably loses the game on the spot.

+ or Sure offensive Ho-Oh can beat Yveltal 1v1, but it will exit the exchange Taunted and/or at low enough HP that multiple sacrifices are needed to allow it to regen enough HP to Defog and the webs player is making progress while you’re doing that. Fezandipiti is by far best way to facilitate the removal of webs. It works with Giratina-O as well, but essentially sacrificing Giratina-O or half of its HP, tera, and its defensive value against Extreme Killer Arceus makes it awkward. Primal Kyogre handles Yveltal through sheer strength and special bulk whilst enabling lines depending on the team. It truthfully isn’t great, isn’t pretty, but does the job well enough while still being leagues better than just about everything else.

Including this mostly so I don’t get yelled at by Runo. Defog Mega Salamence does clear Sticky Web, but I’ve tried to build with it a ton during and since the ghosting tour and have found that every variation I’ve come up with ends up being worse than the original six. Those teams are fine enough, but every change has introduced more problems than the minor ones they’ve solved. The initial idea was a Choice Scarf Yveltal that actually does stuff outside of the HO matchup.

Innovation or Cope?
​

When you stray away from the above it quickly becomes clear why so many structures look ‘samey’ these days. Ubers metagames are never going to be particularly diverse, but the centralization in Nat Dex Ubers right now is absurd even for an Ubers metagame. You’re often forced into accepting a near auto loss to Sticky Web or choosing an option that makes your team much worse against the rest of the metagame. This really isn’t a players overlook the options available to them.

Instead, it has become a I can deal with everything else, but I’m going to run Double Defog Balance with Choice Scarf Yveltal because I don’t know what to do. Sure, my team is going to be worse against Pokémon balance (and bulky offense) already struggles with and the rest of the metagame, but that is fine because at least the defensive counterplay can somewhat function without Sticky Web. The same applies to a lot of these Mega Diancie teams as well. It also sort of works because a lot of those Pokémon are less common because of how difficult it is to support them while also dealing with Sticky Web. Somehow Sticky Web is a fish, but these sort of things are not.

You know what can afford to fish though? Sticky Web structures . That sixth slot is free enough that a Pokémon like Terapagos is considered viable despite not doing much of anything besides auto winning against opposing webs because it can remove them. Likewise with Ribombee.

A couple of these posts really drive this point home. Somehow the answer to the minimal diversity in the metagame outside of HO are things such as Scarf Caly-I Webs and Defog HO. Somehow including boots Defog Arceus on your Glimmora team to avoid autolosing to webs is not “killing your team into everything else.” Somehow Nat Dex Ubers without Sticky Web isn't a "real Ubers tier," but fishing with what can politely be described as nonsense isn't an issue. The last few days and some irl stuff that happened today and my motivation to finish this post is pretty much nil. Gave a more detailed opinion in July here. Don't really consider my post in this thread to be particularly high quality, but figured it was better than nothing and I'm not gona finish a proper one anyways.

As a quick aside, i'd like to thank bumboclaat for their contribution to this tier's development and maintenance. I followed natdex ubers since its inception, but after the first months i mostly have been in touch with the tier's development through their excellent posts regarding the meta. If u read those posts, among other things, it's not too difficult to throw together a team that fits and is generally good into the meta, in case u do not want to use a sample team, and be good right away.So, thank u for ur efforts.

Thank you so much for the kind words <3. My main motivation for NDUbers at this point is helping people get into it and growing the community.

 

[Cancel cult]

Oh cool, now I can comment on the rest of it.

I'd think that this is a slight exaggeration, the main representatives of non-Webs HO (Deoxys-S and Glimmora) currently sit in B rank in the ND Ubers VR, if Sticky Web was to be banned, then Glimmora would get a spike in viability as the main thing holding it back right now is its inability to properly anti-lead Sticky Web teams (Tera Steel being common just to prevent Smeargle from Mortal Spinning stuff and all), while Deoxys-S wouldn't be limited to bulky Rocky Helmet sets for similar reasons, admittedly plenty of other things would also raise in viability as then they wouldn't be as constrained by being a liability against Sticky Web teams, turning overall viability changes from there rather variable, but ultimately other branches of Hyper Offense would be easier to justify.

This is fair, I think I was too hasty to assign it a ranking.

The first bit acts as if axing the move Sticky Web would remove the entire hyper offense archetype, which is far from the truth, besides the previously-explained hazard stack structures, there's also Dual Screens branches, Psyspam, and of course Trick Room, with some of these clearly having the potential to raise in viability if Sticky Web goes.

What I was trying to do is defend Webs as a play style, and more broadly Hyper Offense as a whole. I've seen a lot of anti HO sentiment, and it seems to me some people think that HO in general is just not interesting or valuable. I think that there are probably even a few people who want Webs banned entirely because they hate HO. I wanted to try to illustrate how HO has an important place in this tier, and that it has value to it.

Ironically the problem with the current metagame is that because of the oppression Sticky Web teams inflicts to the tier, most other structures are heavily limited and punished in teams of *viable* teambuilding variety, more specifically if they try to diverge from what has been shown to work.

I disagree. Hyper Offense by its very nature is more oppressive than other team styles, but in moderation that's not a bad thing. I think it's a matter of personal opinion of how much Hyper Offense should be allowed to have a hold on the metagame, but by definition, if HO isn't oppressive at all, it's bad. And I think HO is worth preserving in this tier.

At the same time this acts as if this'd be the last suspect test in the tier, as usual arguments based on broken checking broken don't hold any weight, and in fact Sticky Web doesn't really keep in check anything, but rather lowers the viability of several things that weren't deemed sufficiently problematic as to do tiering action (or even to be brought up in surveys...) before Sticky Web's significant developments.

As you can probably imagine, I have a lot to say about the "broken checking broken" discourse, but I don't think any of it is relevant at this very moment. First of all, there are people who would want Webs to be the last ban, and would imagine the tier to be "acceptable" after that. What I was saying there is that a Webs ban "fixing" everything isn't likely. The problems people have with the tier extend beyond just webs, and several abusers would be about as oppressive with webs gone, and you should think harder about what bans would do what before proceeding. After all, Webs is only as good as its abusers, so perhaps banning them would accomplish the desired outcome in a better way.

In terms of it not checking other things, that's kinda typical of Hyper Offense in general if I'm not mistaken. That doesn't mean we should just ban them at the first discomfort. If you think Webs has crossed the line, that's fine. And that might be all you are saying here, I'm not good at reading people. But in case you aren't, I want to make it clear that just because something doesn't keep elements of the meta in check doesn't mean its presence isn't appreciated.

You've talked a lot about how Webs reduces the viability of "non problematic" elements, but I'm not sure there's anything it makes completely unviable. Now, this might be enough to justify a ban, but I don't think its fair to say webs is pushing anything else out of the tier, just that it's limiting them. Now, a decrease in accessibility of different structures would be a problem, but I don't think that webs is contributing as much to the ossification of our metagame as you think. In terms of structures, the current structures that are tending to be used GHAZ and teams. If anything, I think that and contribute more to this.

 

[WohMi]

I got reqs.
GG to everyone on ladder, but I'm not gonna lie - it was VERY EASY!

I don't think sticky web should be banned, plain and simple. Like Splendid Silver Star said:

... web, stall, and trick room are three main MU fishing playstyles in the meta, and this claim still holds true. All three require you to invest resources in your teambuilding. If you don't show enough respect to them, you will be autopiloted.

It's not like the tier is starving for good answers to webs, either. Ho-Oh and Yveltal both don't care about webs, and can remove them incredibly easily. If your team loses off of being -1 speed against your opponent, it's not because sticky web is overpowered - your team was just not prepared for it!

Side tangent, but I don't even think Smeargle is the best webber in the tier - at least, I would rather use Ribombee, Araquanid, or even Shuckle. Smeargle is SLOW, WEAK, and FRAIL, and its high usage is Propaganda by Big Sketch.

 

[MirrorSaMa]

I think web HO, Stealth Rock HO, balance, stall, and the selection and strategy of various teams are also part of battles.

 

[Sami]

TLDR: I am voting ban.

Originally, I believed that Sticky Web was not a major issue within the tier. I shared a similar belief to a lot of what DNB suggests when it comes to developing new strategies to help counter it. However, Sticky Web's influence has pushed much further past this initial point over quite a long period of time, to the point where I've changed my mind on it being a non-issue for the tier. Sticky Web is punishing if you don't invest resources into countering it, but it's also difficult to actually counter reliably, making the playstyle as a whole much less of a "fish" and much more akin to Deoxys-S HO back during the Xerneas metagame. Calling Sticky Web an "MU fish" is just ignorant to how teambuilding in this tier actually works; I personally do not believe Sticky Web is of the inconsistency that other playstyles, such as PsySpam, Trick Room, and even Stall have, to justify calling it this term, because Sticky Web has much more flexability and much more successful results than all three of these, which has led to its insane spike in popularity, not only on ladder, but in tournaments too.

For context about tournaments, Smeargle had a 16% usage rate (ranked 12th) in NDUbers Last Chance, and a 13% usage rate in Summer Seasonal (ranked 15th). Despite it having a lower usage rate in NDPL/FL than many would expect, this is not as representative as the aforementioned tournaments, due to its lower sample size, and the impact that the BO1 dynamic has on deciding which teams to use. Relying on a winrate and usage rate in a tournament between ~10 people actually playing is far from a valid argument as to why Sticky Web shouldn't be suspected, especially when bigger tournaments for NDUbers suggest Sticky Web dwarfs other formes of HO such as Deoxys-S (almost half the usage as Smeargle in Last Chance, and almost a quarter of Smeargle's usage in Summer Seasonal, with it notably being played twice in the last set by Entrocefalo). If we want to compare it to another Ubers level threat, then Basculegion in UWC III only had a 50% winrate and a 10.5% usage rate (ranked 16th with 40 uses), the tournament before Last Respects got suspected and banned. These statistics aren't that impressive either yet it still received enough support for a ban. Suggesting that Sticky Web and Smeargle aren't justified to be suspected from NDPL/FL is invalid as far as I'm concerned.

But lets take a step back from numbers, and focus more on the metagame at hand. I said at the start that Sticky Web is a problem in the tier since its difficult to counter reliably. Now of course, we have counterplay options, such as Mega Diancie, Defog Mega Salamence, Fezandipiti + Ho-Oh (if positioned correctly, mind you), Ditto, Choice Scarf Yveltal, and Taunt DD Arceus-Ground to an extent. I'm sure a lot of those voting DNB can suggest more options, but there's a reason why I stopped there specifically, and its because you start to realise that these are the only consistent and reliable counterplay options we have to Sticky Web. For an archetype that has been creeping into power for almost a year now, the fact that these are the most consistent checks to Sticky Web is a bit weak, because it's not like these are splashable answers that can be used on a majority of teams. As the OP states, these checks barring Fezandipiti + Ho-Oh and DD Arceus-Ground are frequently thrown onto teams simply because they beat Sticky Web, and not necessarily because they synergise with the team. Of course, some examples aren't as extreme as others; Defog Mega Salamence is definitely more niche and overall less viable than Ditto. But this experience makes teambuilding clunky, awkward, and sometimes monotonous, at least in my experience, and the survey suggesting that enjoyment rates have been declining for a good while, is only evidence that I'm definitely not the only person that's experiencing this. There's also a massive oppurtunity cost in using these Sticky Web counterplay options over others. For example, using DD Arceus-Ground not only means you have to find another Ultra Necrozma answer, but also another Life Orb Yveltal answer, and while some people may enjoy the challenge of building against all these threats, this isn't a valid argument as to why Sticky Web is healthy for the tier. It only exemplifies the issue that NDUbers has too many threats to deal with consistently, and Sticky Web is a significant one at that.

This example with Arceus-Ground vs Arceus-Dark is also noteworthy because it somewhat proves that, NDUbers being a Terastalization metagame does not necessarily make managing threats in a team more difficult. Ultra Necrozma cannot Terastalize, and since Arceus-Ground denies Sticky Web from being set, Yveltal would almost never use Tera Fire. Using the excuse that Terastalization is broken is, in my opinion, a really lazy reason as to why Sticky Web is so powerful. Even with Terastalization, all of the threats on Sticky Web HO, such as Zacian-C, Yveltal, Lunala, and Arceus, can be defeated either via more successful Tera Trade that isn't hampered by the Speed drop, or by just having a better range of tools to handle them, such as Marshadow who can actually check Arceus now, or having Zacian-C who can revenge kill almost all of these consistently. Having to sacrifice these teamslots into just denying or removing Sticky Webs is what makes these threats so obnoxious to deal with, since Terastalization makes them more potent at their trading capabilities. Additionally, we suspected Terastalization TWICE and it was not banned, with the second attempt receiving such little support for a suspect it was basically called off. I find it very unlikely that all of a sudden, Terastalization is to blame, and not another element of the tier.

However, going back to countering Sticky Web, I'm sure a lot of you are wondering about a certain Pokemon that's typically used to beat Smeargle: Pheromosa. I know its obvious, but Triple Axel and other multi-hit moves are used as a counterplay measure against Sticky Web, since Smeargle is the primary setter. But... is this really reliable? Triple Axel is notorious for its poor accuracy, especially when Pheromosa needs 3-hit Triple Axel to actually OHKO Smeargle. Additionally, there's the issue of Smeargle willing to burn Tera Steel to set Sticky Web up in front of Pheromosa; you could argue this is a good thing, but at the same time, if Sticky Web gets set up then the Pheromosa is practically useless, turning it into a 5v5 scenario (ignoring Smeargle). Furthermore, the opponent could just choose not to lead Smeargle and instead lead Arceus, forcing Pheromosa out immediately, which enables Smeargle to get Sticky Webs up either turn 2 via aggressive hard prediction, or later if the opponent cannot set Stealth Rock up early enough (which is especially true if its Taunt Arceus, not Double-Edge). I'm sure some of you will suggest that this is an "imaginary win for Sticky Web teams" but is there anything proving this cannot be done? Even if its a hypothetical, keep in mind that this is the BEST example of a multi-hit move user against Sticky Web, and there's already three potential issues with the strategy in question. Other multi-hit users, such as Kyurem-B, are even more niche than Pheromosa, making their inclusion in teams harder to justify; while others such as Scale Shot Rayquaza, Dual Wingbeat CB Ho-Oh, and Rock Blast Primal Groudon, as the OP states, purely rely on surprise factor to beat Smeargle, while ALL these options still lose to Tera Steel Smeargle regardless. The latter two options aren't flexible in the slightest by the way, CB Ho-Oh hasn't been popular at all in NDUbers's history, while Primal Groudon must be heavily Speed invested to outspeed Smeargle to begin with, sacrificing all of its other matchups just for Sticky Web. And keep in mind that, this multi-hit move argument is focusing on JUST Smeargle. Both Ribombee and Shuckle do not care about multi-hit moves, since the former will outspeed and the latter will always survive, both of which getting Sticky Webs up anyways. Even Pheromosa doesn't beat Ribombee:
252 Atk Choice Band Pheromosa Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Ribombee: 220-261 (84.2 - 100%) -- 0.1% chance to OHKO

While we're on the topic of poor Sticky Web counters, I might as well quickly address what's been brought up in this thread. Magic Coat Pokemon are extremely limited as it is. The only Pokemon that would ever consider using it would be Giratina-O. This is far from reliable. Not only is a Giratina-O without status conditions really passive and thus poor against everything else, but this set falls apart against Mortal Spin variants of Smeargle, who can repeatedly spin away any Sticky Webs that it sets up itself (similar to how Booster Energy Iron Treads beats Magic Coat Deoxys-S); switching to a Steel-type such as Necrozma-DM isn't a good excuse either, because Sticky Web has still be set on your side of the field, meaning Yveltal and other Flying-types such as Mega Salamence still pose a threat to your team. Using Mental Herb is also completely out the window, who is using it? Neither Ho-Oh or Giratina-O can hold it, meaning we're relying on either base Arceus or Yveltal to do the job. Both of these two sets are, again, weak into the rest of the metagame, since they can't really discourage other hazard setters such as defensive Primal Groudon outside of Toxic. Mental Herb (and Heavy-Duty Boots) Arceus in particular, is really bizzarre, because we already have a niche Normal-type who's sole purpose is to remove HO's hazards: Terapagos. But unlike Arceus, Terapagos doesn't remove your OWN hazards too, preventing a conflict of interest as Jumpheart puts it; speaking of whom, their point about the strangeness behind these counterplay options serving as proof of Sticky Web being broken is something I completely agree with. Carrying on, Choice Scarf Landorus-T faces a lot of the same issues that Choice Scarf Yveltal does in this metagame, such as being bad into any fatter structures, being hard to justify using outside of the Sticky Web matchup (ironically making it and Choice Scarf Yveltal the MU fishers, not Sticky Web), meaning it isn't really consistent, especially because nobody has even used it yet AFAIK. Same issue with Mega Sableye, nobody uses it, why are we bringing it up? At least Terapagos has usage in NDUbers and even in SV Ubers where they had a similar Sticky Web problem. Finally, spamming Substitute on Pokemon such as Zacian-C just sacrifices other matchups for no reason, since these Pokemon need their coverage. Smeargle gets Perish Song anyways, and this strategy becomes very weak if Smeargle decides to click Sticky Web first and not Nuzzle or Spore.

Let me just summarise what I've said so far in this post. Firstly, although there are viable Sticky Web counters, they are small in number, are not particularly splashable, and may not be useful outside of this anti-Sticky Web niche for other matchups such as against Stall or GHAZ balance. Secondly, a lot of other counterplay options, such as multi-hit moves and niche movesets, are too unreliable with accuracy or being anti-led, rely too much on surprise factor to be consistent (barring Pheromosa and Kyurem-B, neither of which do particularly well against opposing HO threats anyways), and will struggle against any alternative Sticky Web setter such as Shuckle or Ribombee, to justify keeping the unhealthy dynamic that Sticky Web brings to the tier. Thirdly, Sticky Web's consistent usage in tournaments despite what NDPL/FL shows suggests that Sticky Web is a prevalent part of the metagame, and not an MU fish that relies on Terastalization, which some people suggest it is, especially since it has made multiple appearances on surveys, and has received a multitude of complaints from the playerbase alike.

I've mentioned a lot of Smeargle in this post. It is the primary Sticky Web setter for a reason, since it can do a lot of things at once. But I don't really expect a Smeargle ban to change anything about the Sticky Web dynamic. The major point that people bring up against Ribombee and Shuckle is their inability to deny opposing hazards against Primal Groudon. While this is a good point and a significant downside, is the presence of Stealth Rock enough to make Sticky Web more balanced? I don't think so. Bumboclaat made a good argument regarding Sticky Web's flexability in the teambuilder, and we've both brought up how Terapagos can be used as a niche way of removing opposing hazards. Sticky Web teams have the space to afford Terapagos, which weakens the idea that Stealth Rock is enough to punish Yveltal, Chi Yu, and Power Herb Lunala. While removing Smeargle does make Sticky Web slightly less consistent, it doesn't make it so much worse to the point where I'd say its back to being an MU fish again. Ribombee and Shuckle do have their own merits above Smeargle too, such as the aforementioned resistance to multi-hit moves. Ribombee is also naturally fast, has Choice Scarf + Trick variants which can be annoying for Deoxys-S teams in particular, and packs STAB Moonblast to discourage Giratina-O and Yveltal from removing Sticky Web. Meanwhile, Shuckle has access to Stealth Rock, Encore, and "pivoting" in Final Gambit, as well as being able to use Mental Herb. It isn't like these two are objectively worse than Smeargle is, so suggesting that these two being the only prevalent Sticky Web setters would nerf the whole playstyle into balanced territory seems a bit misleading to me.

Another misleading idea is that Sticky Web is powerful because people focus too much on preparing for GHAZ, and that doing so is "ridiculous" because of how Sticky Web will dismantle you afterwards. I'm sorry but this take is terrible. Suggesting that preparing a good matchup into the most popular and structured archetype in the tier's history, is a BAD thing, has got to be ridiculous in of itself; this is like suggesting preparing against Gliscor in NDOU is a bad idea because it would make you worse into Volcarona or something. The issue isn't that there are too many threats for NDUbers teams to reliably check, its that Sticky Web in particular demands so much more attention because of how optimized it is, and its that unhealthy dynamic which makes it suspect worthy, unlike GHAZ which can be countered to a much more reasonable degree.

I feel like a distinct comparison needs to be made between Sticky Web and a GHAZ Pokemon people seem to complain about a lot: Zygarde. While they can both be an absolute menace in the right circumstances, many more teams are capable of preparing against the latter to a reasonabe degree, while preparing against Sticky Web is much harder to do consistently. Tera Fairy and Water Zygarde muddies this idea a bit, but there are still a wide range of answers to Zygarde that pretty much any team can incorporate successfully. Taunt CM Arceus-Dark, Tera Grass Whirlwind Ho-Oh (or just Defensive Ho-Oh), Marshadow, Yveltal, defensive Primal Kyogre, any offensive Eternatus, CM Arceus-Ground, Deoxys-A, Lunala, and Arceus-Fairy, are all viable and popular answers to Zygarde (whether it be Coil or Dragon Dance), that work well against a lot of other threats in the metagame. Compare this to the checks that Sticky Web has, such as Choice Scarf Yveltal, Taunt Arceus-Ground, Defog Mega Salamence, and Mega Diancie, and you begin to see that the latter's consistent checks are much less popular and harder to build or use. Additionally, there is no direct downside in banning Sticky Web for the tier's health, compared to banning Zygarde. Doing the latter could easily cause a massive chain reaction in the tier, potentially making the metagame even more offense-oriented due to threats such as Marshadow, Arceus, Mega Salamence, and Primal Groudon having one less counterplay option. Comparatively, banning Sticky Web... makes the metagame a bit more boring. This isn't a good argument for the unhealthy dynamic it causes in the tier. While you could give the argument of "broken checking broken should be avoided" for Zygarde, since this is NDUbers (not NDOU where bans like this are more justified), and the sheer significance of Zygarde for the tier, compared to something like Defensive Xerneas or Choice Scarf Koraidon (two broken Pokemon sets that were technically "healthy"), I think some leniency should be made with it, despite its controversy in the metagame. Sticky Web though, checks nothing, nor does it make the metagame any better AFAIK.

To wrap up the argument involving GHAZ, I've seen a small few people suggest GHAZ is outdated, and that a new metagame should arise from Sticky Web's presence. While I'm all for metagame developments such as the GiraMola metagame, and the DD Zygarde metagame, its been a while since Sticky Web was optimized like how it is today. And nothing has seemed to really change this year. GHAZ is still popular. If so many people use GHAZ and win with it, is it really outdated? And if it is... how? Its not inflexible since it has two free slots that are supported pretty nicely by the main four. The main four in question can run a wide variety of moves and sets (i.e Swords Dance Primal Groudon, Dragon Dance Zygarde + Defensive Ho-Oh, sometimes Trapper Zygarde, or Double Dance Primal Groudon). The speed control in NDUbers is already limited so suggesting that the speed control being poor is the reason why isn't the best example in my opinion, especially when you consider this is against Sticky Web. Sure, ladder probably sucks with GHAZ, but surely that's not a good excuse either.

Finally, I want to address the hero in the room: Zacian-C. The pressure this Pokemon exerts onto building shouldn't be ignored of course, and it does help Sticky Web when it comes to dealing with Mega Diancie and Arceus. But I feel people are exaggerating how playing against Tera Zacian-C impacts the rest of the matchup. Is forcing a Tera Trade necessarily a bad thing for the GHAZ team against Sticky Web? What other Tera option would you need to beat Sticky Web? The only example I can think of is Tera Fairy Eternatus to beat Chi Yu and Yveltal, but if we're using offensive Eternatus then this isn't a good answer to them to begin with. Using Tera Water Zygarde as the emergency Tera Ground Zacian-C check might not even impact the rest of the game, but it does prevent them from getting steamrolled by the Zacian-C (unless they go for the Tera Grass Ho-Oh 50/50 which, while it can work, isn't consistent I guess). Even then, Tera Ground Zacian-C benefits from Sticky Web too; it shuts down Pheromosa and Deoxys-A from revenge-killing it. So suggesting Zacian-C is unaffected by a Sticky Web ban (still being arguably unhealthy for the tier) isn't correct to me; Zacian-C benefits from Sticky Web as much as it helps it. Additionally, niche checks to Zacian-C such as Landorus-T, physically defensive Alomomola, and even Unaware Clefable to a far extent, are much less extreme than the counterplay options such as... Defog Arceus. Because they don't rely on surprise factor to work. And this makes them much more consistent.

Basically, in conclusion, Sticky Web, at least for me, feels like bullshit. To quote Zrp200:
"Either quickly fold to sticky web, lose to sticky web anyway when they predict your anti-webs fishing tech, run webs yourself, run tr and lose to everything but webs, or run extra scarf web-immune defog users just for webs."
This metagame does not feel very fun and I've had moments where I've genuinely felt burned out playing and building around this archetype. Some people like to blame other metagames such as SV Ubers but, and I'm being dead serious here, I've had more fun playing that over the past few months than I have been playing this tier. And I main this tier for goodness sake. I'm not saying that I'm going to storm off as soon as DNB goes through, I'm still council and I do still love this tier, but not nearly as much as I used to because of the state its in right now.

If you do vote DNB and think Sticky Webs are fine for the metagame, I'm not trying to call you stupid or naive, even if I disagree with your reasoning why. But if you put DNB purely because this is an Ubers metagame, then please reconsider. This is not NDAG or even something like XY/ORAS Ubers. We don't have to have these unhealthy dynamics just for the sake of it. We don't have to convince ourselves that playing against Sticky Web is balanced and fair, especially when we don't benefit from it even being in the tier to begin with. If you put DNB just because you think an Ubers metagame without Sticky Web isn't a "real Ubers tier," then go play something else. If you can't be bothered to respect this tier or even the council for that matter, then why are you even here? I know I've ended all this yap on a pretty harsh tone, but as a guy who got to where he is from NDUbers since the Koraidon metagame, these misconceptions get annoying to see.

 

[Whatever.]

I will be voting Ban

As much as I love aspects about this meta: NatDex Ubers unfortunately feels very unserious as a tier right now—and while certain aspects of this (low ladder shenanigans; Karen's Acolytes, theme-teams, OU spite-teams—and the rampant cTeaming in high-ladder) can't really be purged through tiering action: issues pertaining to the flexibility of the tier can be.

Powerful threats like Zygarde, Zacian, Yveltal, Dragon Dance Necrozma, and Tera Normal Double-Edge Arceus already place severe constraints upon the flexibility and diversity of the tier, however Webs stands out as a particularly egregious manifestation of this in how little effort or even conscious thought is actually required to pilot it compared to the massive returns it yields for its use.

I literally played a match against a 1700s bronzed player where the optimal strategy was to spam ineffective Groundceus Judgment into their Yveltal to wait out their taunt because I could immediately tell that their eyes glazed over and went into autopilot the moment they landed it
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2494429283-305jf2ym9ee09rs6jwho8wji2g4rqpspw

I also think the fact that a high level player felt like it was a good idea to bring a Banette to that match is further indicative of how powerful this strategy is. While most team structures have to fill each slot carefully to avoid getting steamrolled/stalled by the opposing team: this guy—in the same centralized environment—had the flexibility to run a literal unviable Pokémon because at that point, going 1 for 1 against the opponent at best, kind of does become worth it when said one Pokémon from their opponent's team may very well have been the only opposing Pokémon either not yet affected by—or immune to the effect of Webs, leaving them with little to nothing to oppose their autopilot flowchart-sweep.

I really want to take this tier seriously—and I do believe that it has the potential to become an incredible tier—however in its present state, there are quite a few things holding it back from reaching that status, and since we're on the topic of Webs—which is one of them: we should start by purging it promptly.

Ban.

 

[Runo]

I will be voting Ban

Ok i lied I got a couple of complaints about this take.

Webs stands out as a particularly egregious manifestation of this in how little effort or even conscious thought is actually required to pilot it compared to the massive returns it yields for its use.

I literally played a match against a 1700s bronzed player where the optimal strategy was to spam ineffective Groundceus Judgment into their Yveltal to wait out their taunt because I could immediately tell that their eyes glazed over and went into autopilot the moment they landed it
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2494429283-305jf2ym9ee09rs6jwho8wji2g4rqpspw

If this replay was trying to prove this claim it did an amazingly poor job at it. Turn Two Taunt on the switch in, good move no doubt, but then they don't send in the Shuckle (a mon that cleanly avoids a 2HKO from Judgement) to immediately setup webs and then Encore lock whatever attempted to setup or remove it. But instead Yveltal comes in, which would've been fine if not for the frankly brainless Taunt turn when they could've just killed the Groundceus to minimize poison chip. Sub Zacian-C vs a Toxic'd Life Orb Yveltal was always winning there so not much to be done. Kyogre coming in on an Encore locked Shuckle is great, but then they waste it with a frankly useless Calm Mind to get chipped heavily when. Once more with Banette they just suddenly decide to Taunt the Giratina for no reason instead of chipping it down for a Zacian or Groundceus win. The rest of the team is unable to get past Giratina or Dondozo at this point. Overall just incredibly poor piloting from this person for the result to be exactly what I would've expected on preview: them not winning.

On your side it must of not been a struggle at all because plays like letting the Zacian-C go down and needlessly Defogging the webs at the cost of your Rocks went unpunished.

I do not see how this interaction is one of the egregious ones that are being spouted by the pro-ban side. "HO player turns off their brain and loses" is not exactly groundbreaking news.

I also think the fact that a high level player felt like it was a good idea to bring a Banette to that match is further indicative of how powerful this strategy is. While most team structures have to fill each slot carefully to avoid getting steamrolled/stalled by the opposing team: this guy—in the same centralized environment—had the flexibility to run a literal unviable Pokémon because at that point, going 1 for 1 against the opponent at best, kind of does become worth it when said one Pokémon from their opponent's team may very well have been the only opposing Pokémon either not yet affected by—or immune to the effect of Webs, leaving them with little to nothing to oppose their autopilot flowchart-sweep.

Well clearly this isn't the case because THEY LOST. One person loading up a shitmon on an otherwise good archetype again isn't exactly groundbreaking news, especially when it comes to the ladder. Like what would have been the explanation if this was something like Clodsire or Zarude on balance? "Yes this is clearly an indicator of how powerful balance is if a 1947 Elo player felt the need to bring it". People load unviable dogshit all the time, this doesn't change because the playstyle was webs instead of something else. I think it is significantly more telling in fact that this is the only webs replay of significance that was shared.

 

[Whatever.]

If this replay was trying to prove this claim it did an amazingly poor job at it. Turn Two Taunt on the switch in, good move no doubt, but then they don't send in the Shuckle (a mon that cleanly avoids a 2HKO from Judgement) to immediately setup webs and then Encore lock whatever attempted to setup or remove it. But instead Yveltal comes in, which would've been fine if not for the frankly brainless Taunt turn when they could've just killed the Groundceus to minimize poison chip. Sub Zacian-C vs a Toxic'd Life Orb Yveltal was always winning there so not much to be done.

This is not particularly an effective method of invalidating my claims, as it is actually substantiating them. You are effectively telling us that there is a player who is making egregiously suboptimal plays at several crucial moments—yet is somehow still doing well enough to earn a bronze medal. Either the entire ladder is filled with even more suboptimal players (which implicates all of us, by the way)—or something is present on this player's team which is powerful enough to effectively override their own poor decisions (i.e.: they are being carried).

Kyogre coming in on an Encore locked Shuckle is great,

You mean Zacian.

to immediately setup webs and then Encore lock whatever attempted to setup or remove it. But instead Yveltal comes in, which would've been fine if not for the frankly brainless Taunt turn when they could've just killed the Groundceus to minimize poison chip.

Yes, now you're getting it.

Once more with Banette they just suddenly decide to Taunt the Giratina for no reason instead of chipping it down for a Zacian or Groundceus win. The rest of the team is unable to get past Giratina or Dondozo at this point.

Remember what rank this player has, by the way.

On your side it must of

Must have. The trick to remembering this is that the last two letters of the contracted form ("must've") are actually just the last two letters of the word, "have". Must have.

"Yes this is clearly an indicator of how powerful balance is if a 1947 Elo player felt the need to bring it".

This is a very subtle yet insidious strawman of my actual argument. There is a difference between a player with a consistent history of piloting various logically sound teams to good results—whimsically deciding to experiment with a dubious mon/team for a game or two out of curiosity or hubris—and someone discovering that using said dubious strategy can not only catapult them to one of the highest positions on ladder, but insulate them from their own suboptimal plays to such an extent that they can afford to run failed experiments within experiments and remain virtually unaffected on ladder. Can you honestly tell me with certainty that someone like this guy—in respect to how they played in this replay—would make it even a single point above the 1500s if they were making equivalent plays with non-Webs HO or even GHAZ? Unless they ran into nothing but little Timmies, I don't think so.

—And lastly, I must—of course—remind you that a crucial point which we must have missed—is that it is not just about this one particular player. The point of this suspect is not to determine whether they played optimally or not: we are here to discuss the fact that Webs has an undeniable effect on the Teambuilder. We are here to discuss how even unlike other strategies like Trick Room: Webs lasts indefinitely—and can thus effect the game indefinitely. We are here to discuss how lacking the proper answer(s) to even a specific setter can be the difference in having a chance to win—and certain defeat.

Some players may believe that these aspects of the structure are healthy—or at least insufficiently venomous to the NatDex Ubers body to warrant a legislative antidote: As for me, I am not content with any amount of "venom" coursing through our veins; it is congesting the arteries of an already constrained builder; it is not healthy, and on my vote I will not tolerate it in our system any longer. Unleash the antibodies. Take the antidote.

Ban.

 

[Runo]

Either the entire ladder is filled with even more suboptimal (which implicates all of us, by the way)

Yes I'm saying this, I personally steamrolled through reqs with very minimal effort and I wasn't even using a webs team. I frankly do not care that a Bronze Medal with 1700 elo is winning with a shitmon because again there are actual ladder peakers doing the same thing (fabulous example: Lugia). Whether they got there from skill or because the rest of ladder was worse than they were I could not tell you, but it hardly matters when the outcome is still the same: The replay given still had them losing horribly.

Yes, now you're getting it.

But they in fact did not do this. Thus damaging their chances of actually winning. I can't in good faith treat this as a sign that webs is broken when this never actually happened and remains as theory.

Remember what rank this player has, by the way.

???

Must have. The trick to remembering this is that the last two letters of the contracted form ("must've") are actually just the last two letters of the word, "have". Must have.

Back in my day we used to discuss a person's argument and not their grammar. Don't be a smartass.

and someone discovering that using said dubious strategy can not only catapult them to one of the highest positions on ladder, but insulate them from their own suboptimal plays to such an extent that they can afford to run failed experiments within experiments and remain virtually unaffected on ladder.

There are massive amounts assumption and stretching that have to be done to even come close to making this claim. How can you speak for a person's experience and intentions from a single damn game in which THEY STILL LOSE?

Can you honestly tell me with certainty that someone like this guy—in respect to how they played in this replay—would make it even a single point above the 1500s if they were making equivalent plays with non-Webs HO or even GHAZ? Unless they ran into nothing but little Timmies, I don't think so.

How can YOU make this claim about webs from one game??? There is insufficient data about this player to make extreme claims like this. We don't know what they loaded in their prior 40+ games to 1700.

—And lastly, I must—of course—remind you that a crucial point which we must have missed—is that it is not just about this one particular player. The point of this suspect is not to determine whether they played optimally or not: we are here to discuss the fact that Webs has an undeniable effect on the Teambuilder. We are here to discuss how even unlike other strategies like Trick Room: Webs lasts indefinitely—and can thus effect the game indefinitely. We are here to discuss how lacking the proper answer(s) to even a specific setter can be the difference in having a chance to win—and certain defeat.

You don't convince anyone of your point by dropping a sloppy replay and then bending over backwards to explain how despite the example webs player losing, webs is still broken. This is really the only piece of evidence you have that webs is even close to broken, seriously? Can we at least pull a game of the webs user winning???

 

[Mewtwo's Greatest Soldier]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2494874978

This is very relevant to my post, but before that allow me to

Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread.

With that out of the way, I’d like to say that I am not a very good player. I play Ndubers casually, for fun. I am definitely not the type of player you’d expect to build a team on their own, hop on ladder for four hours, and get reqs. Most likely, that player would end up hardstuck in the 1400s or so and end up discarding the account. The obvious problem here, of course, is that I did that. Twice.

This is the main reason I support Runo’s argument. Ladder is filled with suboptimal players. For some anecdotal evidence, I have discovered a community dedicated to playing Ubers without “spamming” or “stalling” with over 100 members. Spamming is defined as using more than one Pokémon of each tier above RU (legend spam, yes, but also using two OU pokemon), stalling varies but it’s anywhere from pressing toxic and thunder wave to using any move that isn’t a hazard, setup, or an attack (not counting of course u-turn, foul play, salt cure, or other attacks that aren’t used because your Pokémon does a ton of damage on its own). This is basically a massive community of scrubs, who play by their code of honour and malign anyone who doesn’t obey arbitrary rules like using Ubers in Ubers. And yet, the people queuing literally mono-ghost with Ceruledge as their highest tiered Pokémon are making it to high 1400s. Quintessential Little Timmy players are within 50 elo of top 500.

It’s not only Edgar Clause players who are punching far too high. I myself should not be breaking into top 50 in a short ladder session. This team, featuring an unserious Arceus and a Zacian check of “just flip turn into ditto” making over 1650 before decay is laughable. I’d say something about the other team I’ve been testing but it’s actually kinda good (source I had breezai on fraudwatch). I believe someone got over 2100 recently, in a format where ladder starts around 1500- in SV OU, another meta where 2100 has been achieved, it starts almost 200 elo higher.

What I’m trying to get at here is that ladder is rather fraudulent recently and someone hitting 1700 with unviable shitmon is entirely possible. That’s not because webs is broken, it’s because the ladder is full of garbage unviable teams and wins versus those teams are incredibly easy to pull off. The help of webs makes those wins a lot easier, sure, but so do things like Ditto or strong priority. Just because someone got to 1700 with two traders, two taunters, and a fast guy doesn’t mean that webs is broken. It means that taunting Timmy’s shitmons before they press cheese, outspeeding them after, and trading them off in bad scenarios works well versus most of the stuff ladder throws at you.

in conclusion taunt spam is good at beating ladder stuff by shutting it down and webs wants to run taunt so you block defog making webs really good into ladder and allowing bad players to skyrocket with it. If you gave those players (me) ditto + marshadow + ekiller/rayquaza check as an example they’d probably do pretty well. It’s just slower to load that and you’re less likely to play well versus real players and lose those games. Before any comments on this, yes webs is easier to pilot than balance, such is hyper offense. Hstack is also easier to pick up than GHAZ.

if anyone wants the paste for the replay used above it’s this. This also helps prove my point, I’m hovering mid 1500 with it right now and about 2800 coil. Trying to get reqs to prove a point but it’s obviously garbage because it abides by most of the the rules of the previously mentioned community.

I already said in conclusion but in conclusion ladder bad = stuff that beats ladder good, taunt beats ladder, webs runs taunt, webs = beats ladder. Webs isn’t broken, dnb.

added edit because I forgot: garg is actually really heat because you can beat dedge arc, zacc after you hit +2, obviously farm marshadow, NDM/Unec+ pdon if you’re water, pao, kyub, mence, etc and GHAZ generally hates interacting with you because the samples aren't defensive ho-oh so as long as you have a zygarde check you can just idbp through most of the team. Arceus can be annoying for this but darkceus has to tera and fairyceus is more niche right now. FezGarg + zygarde check is a cool core to goob the samples, would totally recommend trying it out. My team above is a stupid meme following Mickey ruleset, I’m sure someone like Cancel cult could make something crazy.

 

[TerraShade]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldexubers-2494874978

Hi, it's me, the guy on camera being a fucking fraud and having literally no idea what I'm doing! In my defense, I've never played a game of Natdex Ubers (of either this or gen 8) of my life until yesterday evening, and I haven't made a serious push on any ladder for probably half a year. The rust is, uh, showing.

I say this to agree with the above point that this ladder is free, because I, as of about 45 minutes ago, have reqs. I'm a better player than this one game shows, I promise, but obviously I did this climb pretty completely on autopilot. This level of gameplay absolutely has not flied for me when I've tried to get reqs for other suspect tests in the past (See: my complete and utter failure to qualify for the BW OU Reuniclus suspect vote last year, a tier I actually understand). I'd like to think of myself as a good player, but I genuinely think it's alarming that I now have a vote here- I am still nowhere near the caliber of player who should be able to walk into a tier I've never played before and faceroll my way into 2980 COIL.

In other words, the Natdex Ubers ladder feels like a deeply unserious way to learn or analyze the Natdex Ubers metagame. (See: I still don't know wtf the point of Rocky Helmet Deoxys-S is. Are you supposed to run Psycho Boost over Magic Coat and break Smeargle sash so they die when they attempt to click Nuzzle?) I would agree with the point that nitpicking random replays from the ladder is a fairly useless sign of what is good or bad. I would also say that this sort of automatically discounts my own opinion, since I feel as though I barely have any clue of what actual top players are doing.

Nevertheless, the rules of this suspect apparently dictate that my COIL licenses me to have an opinion about Sticky Web. I am leaning ban, because my experience playing this tier has been fairly terrible? Of course, part of this is just because half the ladder players are running shitmons, but even the decent games I've played have simply not been very fun. I don't think I've ever walked into a tier and had this bad of a reaction in a long time: maybe I'm doing it to myself since I'm playing HO, but still, I don't want to accept "Sticky Web is not an overpowered archetype" as an argument to keep it around when it seems like a very centralizing archetype, and the banning of Sticky Web seems like a start towards making this format less counter-team heavy and generally coinflippy. Further discussion... well, I should probably leave it to players who actually know how this metagame has operated for years.

EDIT: I should mention, Mewtwo, I loaded up the wrong fucking sample team when I matched into you. I had never played that thing before in my life and had literally no clue what my sets were. That... should explain something.