ok time to stop salting about mence and post
So, when we ask whether or not we want to ban Skymin, we have to consider five things:
1) What does it do to the viability of various mons?
2) Does it force certain play-styles out of viability?
3) Is it overly popular by itself?
4) Is playing against it "un-fun"?
5) How does it affect the teambuilding process?
1) What does it do to the viability of various mons?
Skymin definitely has good matchups vs a load of strong mons in the current meta. However, it's quickly apparent that many of the mons it "forces out of the meta" still see very high usage and (as previously mentioned) are actually tier 1 or tier 1.5. Many people have brought up statements such as "if skymin were banned, we can finally use other grass type mons". However, we can clearly see it isn't skymin that is forcing things like serperior and non-sun normal venusaur out of the meta. These two mons have their own weaknesses and issues that do not directly have anything to do with skymin. In addition, other grasses fill different niches and different roles than skymin. You can't take bunnies and replace amoonguss with skymin, that's just dumb. Amoonguss fills a much different role that can't be simply just replaced with skymin. In addition, its popularity makes
aboma more viable, something I and many others have started to pick up in the new suspect ladder.
2) Does it force certain play-styles out of viability?
I know fangame and many others have been salting quite a bit about skymin air slash flinches stopping trick room, but other serene grace flinchers do this just as well. Also, while skymin is a threat to trick room, it certainly isn't a full stop and has easy counterplay, in addition to being extremely punished if it loses a single 57/43 roll.
Also while Haruno is a more knowledgeable person on the subject, Skymin is also a soft check to bunnies, which is powerful enough already.
3) Is it overly popular by itself?
This question is harder to answer because I've already pointed out that ladder stats don't mean shit and seasonal stats aren't done yet, so I'm going to leave this question unanswered. We can see that it's definitely not autoinclude on every team though.
4) Is playing against it un-fun?
This question is also harder to answer, as it depends on why you play mons. Before we get deep into existential questions, it's important to consider a few things.
Skymin has counterplay
Lots of people are saying "skymin turns the game into a game of luck" and while there are admittedly cases where seasonal games have come down to a seed flare drop or a air slash flinch. However, it's important to realize that luck will always be a factor in this game. Despite this, good players regularly find methods of counterplay to skymin. At risk of sounding repetitive of what everyone has already said, multiple checks/counters such as follow me, speed control, priority, etc etc etc.
Element of Luck
I know a lot of people have been bringing up skymin being too dependent on luck, but honestly, luck will always be a factor of mons. As long as there's no swagger/confusion clause, then I highly doubt we can ban skymin solely on the basis of "it adds luck to the game". There are lots of resources and arguments about rng in games, such as poker, tcgs, mmos, etc. and I'm not going to repeat it all here but this:
removing skymin won't remove hax from the game. T-wave, accuracy misses, all these things will always exist as aspects of the game. But, good players will be able to maximize their chances of winning, and, on an overall record, consistently pull through victories.
5) How does it affect the teambuilding process?
Simply put, skymin is not a huge threat to team compositions. Unless you're running some kind of mono-water non-rain team, your team likely isn't "weak to skymin". The abundancy of checks, many of which are tier 1 or tier 1.5 (say talonflame, thundurus, landot, char y, kang) means teams likely aren't going to be particularly afraid of skymin. In addition, skymin has many horrible matchups in which it can be dead weight, such as vs hail or sand or rain (and if these were more popular I'd probably nom skymin for 1.5), adding to the strength of these weather archtypes, and strengthening unpopular archtypes is good.
I suppose the argument can be made that skymin forces out mons that are "fast but not that fast" (ie darkrai, raikou) but those are less popular for different reasons, and still see play.
Alright time to address some individual points I've seen in this thread
Seed Flare is too powerful
A Skymin is only going to have the space to seed flare if it's a kill, otherwise they're going to have to fish for flinch, because, the way skymin works is that the moment you lose momentum you're screwed. Seed Flare + partner move is a double target, meaning if you predict it / see it coming you'll be fine... also it's a double target, of course it'll be powerful.
Also the drop chance is a 68%,
not 80%, so say I want to seed flare + hydro pump (which btw doesn't kill some cress sets iirc) I have a .85*.80*.80 = .544 chance of pulling it through, and there's a chance any of the said moves will miss/not get a drop, and then I'll be screwed.
Sure, nothing can switch into seed flare
assuming it gets the drop, but skymin only can get the opportunity to seed flare on things that are ohkos. And, even then, many things that resist grass can switchin, and still pull through.
Also, if you look at its damage values, seed flare and air slash really don't hurt very hard, especially considering you have to run focus sash because you can't tank anything unlike mons like keldeo.
Inhibits Trick Room too much
I know fangame has been talking a lot about how skymin hurts trick room, but it really doesn't hurt it that bad. First of all, fake out is a thing. Secondly, most setters can live two air slashes before being in range of seed flare. That means, assuming the other mon is busy trying to keep down your partner, ie jelly+partner vs keld+skymin, skymin has a .57*.57*.85 or ~ .28 chance of winning all those rolls, and this is assuming skymin's partner has great matchups vs tr setter's partner, which is very often not the case. Skymin+taunt isn't very powerful either, as it can either be predicted (tect setter and kill with partner, (looking at you n10) or threatened by the partner, or, if you're not bad and using powerful setters, just attack with your setter and net free kos.
Also, mons such as jirachi/togekiss are way bigger threats to trick room than skymin, as they don't become absolute dead weight after tr is up.
Anyways sorry if post was too long/convoluted, tried to structure it properly and seperate sections, etc.
P.S.
TheFourthChaser you're mistaking a preface for an actual argument and misreading it at the same time