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

[Whatever.]

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.

I completely agree with your points. I can theoretically see an outcome where Webs doesn't end up destroying the meta, however I cannot see one where the solution doesn't consist of increasing both this tier's teambuilder strain and meta centralization to an even greater extent than it is currently at now.

Despite what it may have originally been intended for, Ubers hasn't—on a functional level—been regarded solely as a banlist for broken OU Pokémon since Mega Rayquaza was initially exiled from the Standard format back in ORAS. We do not have to put up with unbalanced, uncompetitive, or unhealthy mechanics (within reason) if they are actively damaging the game, anymore. What good is it to preserve the old guard's "image" of Ubers as a competitive cesspool with limited to no bans if doing so causes its very own playerbase to actively suffer from it?

Perhaps if Webs was temporary—or benefitted all reasonably offensive Pokémon equally I would consider voting dnb, however in practice, the only thing that it tends to do is make Pokémon that were already high tiers and/or constricting, even worse.

Perhaps for many competitive players, meta diversity is not an object so long as they can continue to win, however as someone who views this franchise not from a top-down (i.e. joining the game for competitive reasons and subsequently liking Pokémon according to their expediency), but from a bottom-up perspective (i.e. trying to get good because I grew to care about the franchise over time): I cannot justify voting in a manner that will result in a meta that is fundamentally antithetical to my beliefs or the identity of this franchise as a whole.

I am all for sending little timmies and their unserious Charizard teams running home: we don't need that kind of unserious faux-diversity wasting the time of people trying to actually improve—however when genuinely usable Pokémon end up being discouraged—or when questionable Pomémon end up being forced upon teams because the alternative is getting 3-6'd by Webs: we really should take the opportunity to deal with the disease while we still can.

If you have not yet settled on a stance and are reading this: please consider that Webs does not leave any significant positive impact on the tier. Even many of the dnb arguments largely come down to it simply being manageable. If your house was infested with pests, would you really not call the exterminator simply because they weren't "bad enough"? At best, Webs can be played around at a price. At worse, it is actively degrading the player experience on the ladder and encouraging degeneracy.

 

[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
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breezai out

I wanted to make an update post because I have changed my stance on webs and wether I will be voting ban or not. It largely comes down to one issue for me: Laddering this past week has been absolutely miserable. Usually when I ladder, I encounter a large variety of team structures that keep laddering fresh, wether I am 1600 or 1800. A little cteaming here and there has never really stopped me from at least enjoying a few ladder games per day. But with the new influx of players due to the suspect and with webs in the spotlight I have been enjoying it less than ever, and it is largely because like two thirds of teams I encounter is a webs structure with smeargle in the lead. The typical Smeargle moveset is Webs, Perish Song, Nuzzle and Mortal Spin. But with a lot of players running Smeargle, the unpredictability has gone through the roof. If the only web setters were Shuckle and Ribombee I would not be here at 12 am writing a love letter to the pro ban authorities, they are very fair, but Smeargle's ability to pull the most random shit out of their ass has me intensely frustrated. Expecting Nuzzle? nope, here's Spore and now your pdon is a sitting duck against their zac and pogre! Oh and I'm not running Perish Song so I'm setting 3 layers of Ceaseless Edge! Expecting Mortal Spin and set up hazards with NDM? Nope here's Rapid Spin, try again later! Bait Spore so your next mon is safe? Nope! Double Status! Whirlwind, Taunt, Explosion, Endeavor, random bullshit, go! And don't get me started on Moody. Here's a Speed boost so I can Spore everything and when you finally hit precipice blades through 2 turns of sleep I can Endeavor 2 of your mons!! Moody is such bullshit and I have wanted it banned since early last year at least, but this past week has really just doubled my hatred for that dumb ability.

To the topic of unique hazard prevention methods in my last post, we had a big discussion about it on discord and the whole multi hit move thing ended up being pretty much nothing because turns out if u invest in bulk (which both Smeargle and Ribombee can afford) u live the majority of multi hit moves. Looking back a lot of the defoggers were also too large investments to be worthwhile (aside from scarftal, who is the goat), not doing enough other things besides defogging fast. I also came to the realization that many of the "weird" webs counters, eg Scarf Horse, Defog Ekiller, Loaded Dice Kyurem Black - viable or not - were pretty much exclusive to HO itself, who can deal with webs in other ways, such as with Rocky Helmet Deo-S, lead mDiancie or Toedscruel.
I must say I do enjoy the beef Runo and Whatever. have goin on it is a very enjoyable read, so I'm gonna add a little fuel to the fire

Remember what rank this player has, by the way.

A badge doesn't mean shit if it's for a different tier. And for his ladder elo, I've probably gotten higher with worse. Iron Moth, lv100 Togedemaru, Perish Song mAltaria, mGlalie. All shit I've used succesfully at 1760+. An ex-council member famously brought Swadloon to top 10. If a player knows what they're doing, they can get any bullshit up to a high elo, and IMO, mBanette isn't even so strange.

tldr: I changed my mind, moody is bald, and it is always toedscruel tuesday somewhere in the world
anyways look at my chud son again

breezai out