Metagame np: DOU Stage 3 - Smooth Criminal | Marshadow Remains DOU!

Idyll

xD
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RBTT Champion

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It was the sound of a crescendo
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He left the bloodstains on the carpet


Welcome to the third Suspect Test of SM Doubles OU! After being only recently released this July, Marshadow has already established itself as one of the premier offensive threats in the metagame. With high Attack and Speed stats alongside dangerous Fighting / Ghost coverage and Technician, Marshadow has proved to be both a powerful and versatile attacker; in particular, its Speed lets it capably outrun and maul a good majority of the metagame, up to Mega Salamence, while it can also choose between sniping faster foes with Shadow Sneak or sniping particular threats such as Mega Salamence with Hidden Power Ice. Most notable, however, is a move unique to Marshadow's arsenal: Spectral Thief! With it, Marshadow can capably suppress most sorts of boosting with ease as the move allows it to take a foe's buffs before dealing damage; for example, Marshadow can Spectral Thief a boosted Calm Mind Tapu Fini in order to disarm it while also boosting its own Special Defense, or it can Spectral Thief a boosted Zygarde, taking the boosts while also having the +1 to Attack factored in the damage! With all that said and done, we are here to determine whether Marshadow's unique characteristics make it a fine fit or a little too much for the metagame.

As usual, the only requirements to vote for the suspect are the ladder points required further below on the post. There are NO posting requirements; still, we advise everyone to actually read the arguments others present for and against Marshadow's overbearing metagame presence (or lack thereof) and still attempt to participate in discussion on this thread. A sheer volume of people saying one thing or another will change nobody's opinion so make sure you're actually doing something to make people think.

Important Info!: The ladder will only be open for eight days. Yes, you read that right! The suspect ladder will now only be open for four days at the end of the week only and there will be two laddering periods. This will hopefully concentrate competitive players into a tighter time period as they now can't play games on early weekdays against less (high level) competition, alleviating concerns about the competitiveness of the suspect ladder.

Ladder Period 1
Start: Thursday 8/3 12:01 AM (GMT -4)
End: Monday 8/7 12:01 AM (GMT -4)

Ladder Period 2
Start: Thursday 8/10 12:01am (GMT -4)
End: Monday 8/14 12:01am (GMT -4)

Note: The ladder rankings from the first laddering period will carry over to the second. The suspect ladder will only be up at those listed times (Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun) and will be taken down between sessions. The vote will commence after Ladder Period 2.
Marshadow will be allowed on the suspect ladder.
The B value for this suspect is 14.5. One will need to achieve a COIL of 2600 to qualify. In addition, one will also be required to have a minimum of 77 GXE with a game limit of 60 maximum.
N=14.5/log2(40*GXE/2600)

Remember to keep an open mind in this suspect! Please respect the opinions of others; remember, just because you believe in your side does not mean the other is wrong!

Have fun :heart:
 

Level 51

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Haunted was a better song :pirate:

=== edit since apparently people dont get it DISCLAIMER HI STUFF BELOW THIS LINE IS HOW I FEEL ABOUT MARSHADOW INHIBITING MY PERSONALLY PREFERRED STYLE OF PLAY NOT A STATEMENT FROM THE COUNCIL ===

Still, my initial thoughts which may or may not change after laddering depending on how many times I lose to Marshadow: Spectral Thief has the capacity to undermine an entire aspect of DOU play, that being slow-paced setup. In order to use something like Calm Mind Tapu Fini, Coil Milotic, or maybe even Dragon Dance Zygarde safely, one has to pair the setup user with redirection or Fake Out, a trait typical of hard / fast setup teams (think Porygon-Z and Azumarill). It thus becomes much, much harder to justify running these threats.

It's easy to say "yeah, it's just a novelty thing - a month on and barely anyone's using it". However, the threat of autolosing to a Marshadow alone is sufficient deterrent to running these Pokemon at all. It's easy to identify that Marshadow's presence narrows the range of viable threats significantly - though whether this is by a banworthy amount is debatable, I suppose.

It's also common to say "hey, the metagame just has to adapt", but this is the biggest mid-gen shake-up we've had in the history of DOU, so there's no precedent to this - the metagame's never had to suddenly shift course halfway through a generation and "adapt" so wildly before. I also personally think that perhaps removing the equivalent of an entire "class" of Pokemon is a rather big thing for the metagame to adapt to.

Just my thoughts at the start of this suspect phase, looking forward to hearing what everyone else has to say on this Pokemon!
 
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In order to use something like Calm Mind Tapu Fini, Coil Milotic, or maybe even Dragon Dance Zygarde safely, one has to pair the setup user with redirection or Fake Out
Marshadow's a ghost, so you need even more specialized Fake Out at that.

Marshadow's also the fastest ghost besides Mega Gengar, faster than every Psychic but Deoxys and Mega Alakazam, every Fairy but Tapu Koko, and only a few fliers outpace it. It's really hard to hit it with STAB super effective moves, which helps its relatively meaty (ectoplasmic?) 90/80/90 bulk and big ol' Drain Punch to keep it going.

I haven't done nearly enough DOU post-Marshadow to really come down on it, and I run Trick Room with psychics which colors my perception anyway, but it's definitely a lot more than just Spectral Thief to think about. Broken Pokemon are sometimes a voltron of assets.
 
I'll drop my thoughts on Marshadow as well as I feel I might be in the minority at the moment, even though my opinion of Marshadow is far from set in stone and I think this is really a time when we need to hammer out some discussion on a pokemon that we really aren't all that familiar with.

Level 51 said that we might have to give the meta time to adapt but was cautious because the meta has never seen a shift like this, and i think this is pretty true. Marshadow is a huge change to the metagame and it presents a lot of challenges to a lot of teamstyles and sets that have been prevalent in DOU. Something I disagree with is the idea that this pokemon invalidates an entire playstyle. The nature of doubles is that there are two pokemon on the field and while some pokemon do not need help setting up like Coil Milo, CM fini, DD zyg this does not mean that they operate in a vacuum. I won't write you a novel about the nature of pokemon interactions in a doubles format, but Professor shaian could! I think people in this community are reluctant to change too much of their style or try to adapt to a new pokemon, in part because shifts like this rarely happen. I won't get to into this as I really haven't made up my mind on whether Marshadow is too burdensome for players to prepare for/play against so perhaps there is too much adaptation required; for the rest of my post we will assume that it is possible to adapt to Marsh and discuss potential options for dealing with marsh.

The first thing that needs to be brought up when discussing Marshadow and its potential checks is the ubiquity of Fairy-types in DOU, many of which present threats to Marshadow. All of the Tapus have sets that present immediate threats to Marshadow. A Z-move Koko, scarfed Lele, bulky Fini and really any Bulu set all present offensive threats to Marsh. Pokemon like Shaymin-Sky could prove much better in a metagame where its 388 speed is once again an important benchmark. Set up sweepers can still be potent as redirectors are a factor that shouldn't be just glanced over and more offensive set up sweepers can obviously present a more immediate threat to Marsh.

I really haven't made up my mind on whether I think marsh is too strong so don't take this post as me trying to refute Level 51's or anyone else's arguments on why Marshadow is potentially broken but more as a call for voters to really enter this suspect with an open mind. Look for creativity and an ability to adapt to a meta with a new, very threatening pokemon and assess if its really on another level than other pokemon after we've really looked at as just simply another pokemon we have to prepare for rather than just some new pokemon thats easier to ban because it hasn't had a chance to settle in so let's try to give marsh a fair shake in this suspect.
 

Haruno

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Haunted was a better song :pirate:

Still, my initial thoughts which may or may not change after laddering depending on how many times I lose to Marshadow: Spectral Thief has the capacity to undermine an entire aspect of DOU play, that being slow-paced setup. In order to use something like Calm Mind Tapu Fini, Coil Milotic, or maybe even Dragon Dance Zygarde safely, one has to pair the setup user with redirection or Fake Out, a trait typical of hard / fast setup teams (think Porygon-Z and Azumarill). It thus becomes much, much harder to justify running these threats.

It's easy to say "yeah, it's just a novelty thing - a month on and barely anyone's using it". However, the threat of autolosing to a Marshadow alone is sufficient deterrent to running these Pokemon at all. It's easy to identify that Marshadow's presence narrows the range of viable threats significantly - though whether this is by a banworthy amount is debatable, I suppose.

It's also common to say "hey, the metagame just has to adapt", but this is the biggest mid-gen shake-up we've had in the history of DOU, so there's no precedent to this - the metagame's never had to suddenly shift course halfway through a generation and "adapt" so wildly before. I also personally think that perhaps removing the equivalent of an entire "class" of Pokemon is a rather big thing for the metagame to adapt to.

Just my thoughts at the start of this suspect phase, looking forward to hearing what everyone else has to say on this Pokemon!
That is not a problem however, and I'm unsure of why but in every single suspect test held on smogon in recent memory people bring up the whole "preserving an archetype" and as has been stated many times, that is full of shit. Preserving an archetype should not be a reason for a an un/ban on a mon. If the mon gets shit due to new threats, then stop using bad shit.

THe problem right now is, I think there are zero players qualified to comment on this topic since the metagame is like a week old or two after the swagger ban which frankly completely changes marshadow's utility since swagger was very important to its utility.

Not like there are any relevant dou tournaments for at least 5 months so there is plenty of time to adapt a metagame for spl.

tl;dr fuck people that say shit like "preserve stall/balance" in general.
no comments on marshadow but l51's arguments are a fallacy in a not even week old meta.
 
On the one hand The point of the tiers to case the widest net possible, to allow the most amount of pokemon to be used to the best of their ability. With that said, this is also where there are multiple tiers in the first place.

Then again the metagame is still a week off the Swagger ban. Are there other cases with consecutive (quick)bans (besides the obvious cases of box mascots)?
 

Mr.GX

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Here's my two cents on the suspect.

Marshadow with Swagger was an issue. But certainly not invincible. Now that Swagger got banned, Marshadow usage have been lowering from my experience. Usage aside, it doesn't KO things like it used to with Swagger assist. Is it game breaking? I don't think so. We are in an early stage of the post-swagger-ban meta. It would be wise to give this some time to see how the meta develops. What other tricks can this prankster come up with. People need a bit of time to adapt, and if they can't? If the mon is simply too broken? That's when we should think of a suspect. As of now, I would go for a no ban.
 

Mizuhime

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I have a few questions regarding this and i'm going to voice them here before someone yells at me on discord to make a post BabyRage

Swagger was voted on by council less than 2 weeks before this suspect was announced, typically a vote by council means something needs to be addressed immediately so the tier leaders decide to forgo a public vote on the matter. First, I don't think swagger should have been brought to a council vote but to a regular vote and second, it being brought to a council vote indicates the tier leaders thought it was worthy of a quick ban which indicates a large shake up to the meta game which brings me back to my original point of why are we suspecting something not even 2 weeks after a large shake up to the metagame has occurred?

Regardless of my thoughts on the nature of this suspect being held at this point in time i'd also like to address a point that level 51 has made within his post.

Still, my initial thoughts which may or may not change after laddering depending on how many times I lose to Marshadow: Spectral Thief has the capacity to undermine an entire aspect of DOU play, that being slow-paced setup. In order to use something like Calm Mind Tapu Fini, Coil Milotic, or maybe even Dragon Dance Zygarde safely, one has to pair the setup user with redirection or Fake Out, a trait typical of hard / fast setup teams (think Porygon-Z and Azumarill). It thus becomes much, much harder to justify running these threats.
This post says Marshadow being legal makes the standard set up heavy teams that plague doubles currently become harder to use and you run a risk by using them... but who's to say this is a bad thing.

Myself, and at least a few other people have thought that the slow-paced setup oriented metagame that doubles is currently in and has been since the ban of Kangaskhan is cancerous and not fun in the slightest. Marshadow hinders these teams yes, but it's also going to force people to adapt to a new meta for once in their lives and build more than the 3 teams they've been using for the last 4 months.

I'd also like to say coil milotic isn't a set up mon but used to just spam sleep ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

GenOne

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I'm still undecided on my stance, but right now I'm leaning a bit towards saying Marshadow should stay in the meta.

Looking at what could potentially make Marshadow broken / unhealthy, here are the factors I've taken into account:
  1. Spectral Thief:
    • Steals an opponent's boosted stats, then attacks with a Ghost-type 90 BP move (if you steal an opponent's attack boost, you gain it before damage is calculated for this attack)
      • Ghost-type attacks are some of the most spammable; only Dark-types and Normal-types resist or are immune to them
    • Some feel that the stat-stealing mechanic of Spectral Thief is uncompetitive or restrictive to teambuilding, because it discourages the use of setup sweepers (e.g. Calm Mind Tapu Fini, or Misty Seed Zapdos).
    • It's not just that Marshadow has access to this attack. It's also that Marshadow has a base 125 Spe stat which outpaces pretty much any setup sweeper that isn't also getting a speed increase from its boosting move
    • GenOne's stance:
      • This is partially true, but there's really only a few setup users that took a hard hit from Marshadow's introduction
        • Tapu Fini's Calm Mind set becomes a lot less usable, because Marshadow outspeeds Tapu Fini and any attempts at setting up Calm Mind just lead to Marshadow stealing the SpD boost to better survive an unboosted Moonblast in return
        • Misty Seed Zapdos becomes less usable because Marshadow outspeeds it and prevents it from just endlessly clicking Roost with +1 SpD, which is the main draw to using Zapdos historically speaking in this metagame
        • Coil Milotic was annoying af before, I have no sympathy for it :)
      • For most other commonly-used setup users, they have counterplay options once they've set up. Is Marshadow still annoying / disruptive to them? Absolutely. Does Marshadow stop them completely? In a lot of cases, no.
        • Mega Salamence outspeeds Marshadow after its first Dragon Dance and has super effective Flying-type attacks to retaliate with. Just have to be wary of Marshadows that pack HP Ice, but this can be scouted out, and in practice I feel like the majority of people right now are preferring Shadow Sneak due to the priority option and ability to preserve defenses (I could be wrong though)
        • Zygarde *can* outspeed Marshadow after its first Dragon Dance, but it depends on EVs. One of the more common spreads is designed to outpace Tapu Koko and Mega Gengar at +1 Spe, and I'd say Marshadow's existence is just more incentive to use that spread. Depending on the game, you might not be KO'ing Marshadow after you DD, especially if you've burned your Z Move, but Zygarde is definitely in the driver's seat for the first few turns after it sets up. It just needs to make sure Marshadow is within KO range before attacking, otherwise it does risk losing its boosts and eating a boosted Spectral Thief.
        • Snorlax is actually immune to Spectral Thief, but Marshadow arguably still discourages this setup mon because Close Combat does so much. In practice, a Snorlax team that's worth its weight is also using Trick Room, and Marshadow in general is pretty helpless when Trick Room is set. Snorlax still has ample opportunity to set up during those TR turns. Marshadow just prevents Snorlax from endlessly Recycle/Curse stalling once TR is over, and in my opinion that's a healthy thing for this meta.
        • Porygon-Z outspeeds Marshadow after a boost. Don't use Ghost-type conversion in this meta otherwise you could drop to a Shadow Sneak, but otherwise it again just comes down to making sure Marshadow is within KO range before leaving it open to a Spectral Thief.
        • Those were just a few examples, but those are the most prominent setup mons I can think of.
      • Marshadow's viable movepool consists entirely of single-target moves, so a redirector can help your set up mons set up. SPOILER ALERT: redirection supports were already important for setup-based teams anyway
        • To be fair, redirection in this meta pretty much just means Amoonguss, and that's not a mon you want on every team, especially since a lot of the Dragon Dancers are also Ice-weak. Still, Marshadow doesn't pose a lot of new threats to setup mons that weren't already addressed by redirection support
      • One of the most common complaints against the SM DOU meta before was how setup-heavy it was, and Marshadow kind of helps with that; Spectral Thief gives you a move not named "Haze" that lets you cancel out opposing setup. Gamefreak gave this move to an arguably OP 600 BST Pokemon, as opposed to something weaker, but it's worth stepping back for a moment and asking if the pre-Marshadow meta is something people were actually happy with.
  2. Unresisted Coverage on a 600 BST Pokemon:
    • Marshadow's Ghost / Fighting typing means it can break apart opposing teams with STAB attacks without much regard to the type chart. This takes an aspect of skill out of battling and teambuilding, because Marshadow just becomes a low-risk, high-reward offensive clutch
      • There isn't a single Pokemon in this metagame that resists both Ghost- and Fighting-type attacks
      • Ghost-type attacks are some of the most spammable; only Dark-types and Normal-types resist or are immune to them
      • Fighting-type attacks hit Dark-types and Normal-types for super-effective damage
      • Cumulatively, Ghost / Fighting STAB attacks hit super-effectively against seven types, which is a lot for a Pokemon that has virtually un-resisted STAB coverage
    • Unresisted coverage was also one of the main complaints against Mega-Kangaskhan, which was banned earlier this year
    • Marshadow also has enough bulk (90 HP / 80 Def / 80 SpD) that it isn't a super frail mon like Deoxys-A or Weavile that drops to anything that touches it
    • It only has four weaknesses, none of which are x4 weaknesses: Fairy, Flying, Ghost, Psychic
    • GenOne's stance:
      • This is all true, and if someone was to convince me that Marshadow needs to be banned, it's likely that I'd be swayed more by the "perfect coverage" argument than the "Marshadow shuts down setup" argument.
      • Despite perfect coverage, Marshadow is far from a perfect Pokemon
        • With the exception of HP Ice, all of Marshadow's moves are physical. The physical moves are backed by a base 125 Atk stat which, while nothing to sneeze at, isn't anything to sing home about after an Intimidate drop. If you don't have Intimidate support on most of your teams, reevaluate your teambuilding priorities. In general Marshadow struggles to deal significant neutral damage without Life Orb or Marshadium, although its "perfect" coverage also isn't something you can just wall.
        • Marshadow's base 125 Spe stat is a blessing but also a curse. It's a great offensive Pokemon until Trick Room is set, at which point it becomes relatively helpless. While its offenses aren't paper-thin, it doesn't exactly have the bulk to withstand an onslaught of hard attacks from bulky Trick Room sweepers. Tailwind, while a less effective speed control tactic overall, can sometimes be enough to throw off opposing Marshadow. Marshadow loses a lot of street cred once it loses its speed advantage.
        • It doesn't exactly want to pivot into a lot of attacks, so finding the right opportunity to deploy Marshadow can be challenging (although it does make a great lead)
        • Marshadow still faces some competition from Aegislash as the best pick for a Ghost-type on the team. Aegislash has better utility, stronger STAB attacks that don't get worn down by Intimidate, and a far better ability to pivot into opposing attacks.
        • The omnipresence of strong Fairy-types in this metagame help keep Marshadow in check. Tapu Koko outspeeds Marshadow and can hit back either with a terrain-boosted STAB Thunderbolt or a Dazzling Gleam. Tapu Lele typically loses to Marshadow, but Choice Scarf variants are in the driver's seat. Tapu Fini can easily tank a Marshadow attack and retaliate with Moonblast.
        • Overall, Marshadow isn't a Pokemon that you just slap onto every team and expect that team to improve. Unless you're running hyper offense or looking for an offensive presence on a balance-oriented team, there are still in many cases better options than Marshadow for that team. It isn't nearly as mindlessly splashable as some of our past suspect Pokemon, like Jirachi or Mega Kangaskahn.
 
Ive already posted my thoughts on marshadow somewhere before (cant remember what thread) but ill say it again. I think marshadow is the best thing thats happened to sm since the start, rather than being an overbearing thread, it balances out the bad/boring parts of the metagame (cm fini, milotic etc.) Its a strong offensive presence but struggles to switch into attacks even with decent bulk. Its not even that strong really, esp with intimidate support which is on the most common mon in the meta, you have to run lo to do consistently good damage, ive never liked marshadium z. It has to choose between hp ice and sneak, but really wants both. This is not a bad mon for the meta, it actually forces you to take the initiative against it rather than just cm 3 times and win. Yeah maybe with swagger this thing was a bit silly but thats gone now. I wont get into whether this was too hasty or not because i dont think it ever should have been a suspect to begin with. It doesnt 'kill' any playstyle either, gearing towards setting up with mence, zygarde and even fini is still a win condition, theres just another thing to work around. Fini still has a decent matchup vs marsh, zygarde can still take a hit or even just z thousand arrows it, and mence outspeeds after +1 and if not at +1 doesnt have any boosts to be taken.

Basically, marshadow adds balance to an otherwise stale meta by buffing offense (but not by an absurd amount) while not nerfing setup out of existence.
 
Here's my thoughts as a full Trick Room user :

Once TR is up, his high speed becomes a dead weight. He's a bit bulky yeah, but not enough to survive against those slow hard hitters that a TR team packs. He hits hard with his unresisted STAB coverage, but not hard enough to always secure direct kills, especially with an Intimidate. And I think that a setup based meta is a bit boring (Coil Milotic, I'm looking at you), so Marshadow is a good thing to balance it without making this kind of tactics trash. And with all the commonly used fairies here, you can't just put him in your team and wreck shit.

But I have to admit, this little boy threatens TR because he's good at KOing some TR users (Dusclops, Mimikyu when busted, Cresselia, Bronzong, etc). But he doesn't prevent TR as reliably as we can think : he's fast, so he will very often attack Mimikyu first and unmask it for example, and your other Pokemon can fire at Marshadow.


So I would say : don't ban him. In fact I would love to see him banned because he annoys me, but he isn't OP at all. Yes he's strong, but not enough to deserve a ban. He's healthy for the meta, especially since Swagger got banned, so let him stay there.
 
Maybe its just me but the only real issue that I saw with marshadow was taken care of by the swagger ban.

I dont really see how the whole spectral thief steals boosts aspects can be that problematic given that you have to set up on it in the first place, base 125 attack, while good, is hardly unreasonable, and the "it has good coverage" argument is frankly kinda silly.

I'd echo AuraRayquaza's sentiments that, yes it provides some challenges for setup mons but the matchups are still perfectly reasonable and not completely onesided, which is a good thing as far as im concerned. From what I have experienced playing with it, marshadow promotes a lot more diversity than it restricts, given that hampers that much complained about setup nature of the metagame, as well as shift the meta back towards a middle ground from being so specially dominated.
 
I know people don't really change their minds during a suspect process, but I think everyone's thoughts should be articulated in writing for the sake of curious on-lookers and future doubles players who want to understand this important chapter of doubles history.

What Marshadow does to the meta:

Our current meta primarily consists of bulky attackers, because our top offensive threats typically cannot break through the wide variety of tanks. This has created a playstyle that heavily relies on switching, conserving health, and breaking holes in the opponent's defensive core. Marshadow boasts an impressive speed, attack, and dual stabs that 2HKO most of the meta without Intimidate. This has allowed a more offensive playstyle to get the edge over certain bulkier teams, as threats such as Scarf Lele, DD Mence, and Tapu Koko are no longer shut down by certain team comps. Prior to Marshadow's release, the only common forms of speed control were Trick Room and Tailwind Zapdos. To be honest, it was plain easy for Zapdos or Hoopa to set up speed control against offensive threats and KO them before getting a chance to strike. Now bulky teams either need more creative /diverse forms of speed control, or they have to run more offensive threats to keep the offensive pressure under their control.

Why I think this is a good thing:

One of my biggest complaints about the meta pre-Marshadow is partially illustrated in the above paragraph. In that meta, each bulky mon probably has 1-2 counters on the opposing team that can break through their defenses. If anything happens to one of your Pokemon (it's haxed or you make one bad play and lose it) that is required to beat a CM Fini/CurseLax/TR Hoopa, you have almost a 0% chance of turning the game in your favor. In a more offensive meta, you have multiple opportunities to turn the match back on your side. That is why BW Doubles is the favorite meta for a lot of players. The main argument against this point "Get Gud. You should preserve the Pokemon you need to beat (X) until you need it" is fair, but completely avoidable in an offensive playstyle.

In conclusion, I see this suspect vote simply as a preference of meta. There are plenty of ways to beat Marshadow, but (as sick of people are of hearing this), teams Pre-Marshadow have to adapt, as Marshadow skews the meta towards an offensive playstyle. Marshadow alone doesn't break the meta, it just allows a plethora of offensive threats to work together and overpower bulky cores in a way that wasn't seen before.
 

DaWoblefet

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I laddered exclusively with Marshadow to get reqs. I want to preface my thoughts by saying I am a VGC player and have not done serious teambuilding for tournament in quite some time in DOU, so keep that in mind if you consider my thoughts.

Marshadow is a good Pokemon. Its speed tier makes it so only a few Pokemon can outspeed and chunk it, with three of those things (Mega Gengar, Deoxys, and Scarf Lele) susceptible to Terrain switches + Shadow Sneak. Ghost / Fighting doesn't have relevant resists, so only naturally fat Pokemon can switch into its hits well. Marshadow's filler move (assuming Spectral Thief / CC / Protect as standard) can range from Shadow Sneak's priority, to HP Ice for Mence and Lando, to Rock Tomb for Zard Y, and other niche options like Feint or Bulk Up. You can't use Fake Out or ExtremeSpeed as methods of priority to deal with it, either.

However, Marshadow is not a broken Pokemon. Intimidate seriously limits Marshadow's damage output, which in tandem with bulky stuff, means Marshadow trades with other Pokemon frequently and must be sent in at an appropriate time. DOU is littered with Fairies that carry STAB for Marsh, with Koko being able to OHKO with a Z-move and capitalize on pressure with Volt Switch, and Fini being able to trade effectively with Marshadow. Speed control seriously hurts Marshadow, because although it has good bulk, it's not going to trade well if it's getting hit first by an attack in Tailwind or Trick Room. Finally, I'm not convinced that Marshadow equates to the "end of setup" like I've seen some players portray it as on Showdown; adaptation will happen, and I think that comes in the form of redirection for setup-based teams. Amoonguss was extremely useful for me on the ladder, and one of its roles was tanking hits from Marshadow for Mega Gardevoir to set Trick Room or to assist in general board position management. That's obviously not to say Marshadow gets invalidated by redirection, of course.

tl;dr Swagger + Marshadow was the broken part to me. Remove Swagger, and you have a healthy Pokemon that changes the meta to something different, but not a bad different. There's nothing broken about it.
 

Level 51

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In the FIRST EVER DOCUMENTED CASE of a Smogon user changing their opinion on a Pokemon after a suspect test, I now think Marshadow is way less of a threat than I did prior to playing those 80+ battles because I'm bad at getting reqs. I laddered with my Pory-Z team from earlier in the year, which one might expect to have a pretty poor Marshadow matchup due to all the boosting and the fact that Marshadow outruns and hits my two main attackers super-effectively, steals boosts from the third, and is immune to my Fake Outs. However, in actual practice Marshadow was surprisingly not impossible to beat; while it did exert a significant amount of pressure on my team (because it's Pory-Z / Zygarde / Metagross, mostly), it wasn't quite the auto-lose matchup I thought it would be. I even won a battle after Marshadow in Tailwind stole my Pory-Z's ConverZion boosts n_n.

I guess I was pretty incorrect in thinking that Marshadow kind of broke the meta; while it certainly does hamper super slow setup like Fini and maybe Snorlax kinda, there's still room in the meta for moderately fast-paced boosters like Zygarde or Volcarona, and I think that overall, after playing 80+ games of this version of the format, this is a turn for the better because no one really enjoyed playing Fini vs Fini or Snorlax vs Snorlax for 20 turns either. Overall, I'm just posting to backpedal hard on the earlier post I made decrying how Marshadow would kill the meta. Guess those 80+ battles were worth something, then.

e: Swagger sucks and I'm glad we banned it
 
Having just finished my suspect run, during which I faced a few (like 5-10?) Marshadow, might be time for me to drop my thoughts.

It never really felt like I struggled with Marshadow, or that it overwhelmed me. And I ran CM Fini, DDance TTar, Misty Seed Zapdos, things which people were worries would be made obsolete by Marshadow. It felt like it was vulnerable to speed control, intimidate and smart switching. Even if it could pinch a few KO's, it was never out of control, and only really trading. Without swagger, it certainly doesn't seem like a centralising threat, and there are plenty of archetypes that match up well against it, for all the ones that it supposedly punishes. Marshadow is also vulnerable in a doubles format to the second partner - even if it's ohko'ing things, it still has to survive strong attacks from elsewhere a lot of the time unless it has fantastic support itself. I think you'd have to go out of your way to build a team that auto-loses to Marshadow in a swaggerless metagame.

Also Level 51 stuff your PZ/Zygarde/Metagross team that was aids to face.
 
This is the first time I've ever laddered for a suspect test because nothing would have given me more pleasure than kicking Marshadow out of another format. So it's with great sadness that after getting reqs, I can't really justify banning it.

Both using it and facing it, I couldn't really see it being a powerhouse. While it has phenomenal STAB coverage, terrific speed and a really solid signature move; it does fall victim to being targeted by the partner. Lele preventing Shadow Sneak and allowing a Scarf partner (Or Scarf Lele itself) to pick it up certainly doesn't help it. I think that it needs to lean really hard on its support to be very good, and even then, I haven't found it to be ban worthy.

Also, I agree with Mindape, your PZ team is the worst Level 51
 

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