Metagame NP: NU Stage 9 - Sandstorm (Gigalith banned from NU)

[etern]

Hi everyone, we're moving forward into the next stage of NU by suspect testing Gigalith.

​

As we would like to remain as consistent as possible with our tiering philosophy and keep bans as simple as possible, Gigalith was agreed upon as the component of the sand archetype which made the most sense to be tested. Gigalith provides sand teams with unmatched support thanks to its amazing bulk, fantastic Attack, great defensive utility, and ability to consistently set up sand with little in the ways of preventing or punishing it. The effectiveness of sand teams is inherently dependant on which Sand setters are available and what degree of support they're able to provide to the team as a whole. Thus, due to the lack of drawback in using Gigalith, Sand teams are able to wreak havoc on the meta with almost no offensive counterplay and minimal defensive counterplay existing to minimise the damage done by Sand Rush abusers.

Gigalith will be allowed on the ladder during this suspect test.

The voting requirements will be a minimum of 40 games played and 79 GXE. This suspect period will last for 2 weeks, ending Sunday, July 1st at 11:59 PM EST.

Tagging The Immortal for the ladder.

/!\ Rules for posting in this thread /!\

1. No one liners nor uninformed posts;
2. No inappropriate / meme posts that would be deemed off-topic.
3. No discussion on other potential suspects;
4. No discussion on the suspect process;
5. You are required to make respectful posts;

Failing to follow these simple guidelines will result into your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning and at the complete discretion of the tier leaders.

 

[Abejas]

This has to be the most controversal suspect test NU had in a while. While Gigalith alone isn't broken, Sand Stream made a whole archetype like sand, transform from being mediocre at best to one of the most threatening in the tier. Thanks to it's combination of great bulk, offensive stats and it's ability, which boosts it mediocre Special Defense this mon can be both a great offensive and defensive mon. Not only that, this Pokemon also complements Sand Rush abusers that would eitherwise be unrelevant in the tier, such as Stoutland and Sandslash, and transforms them into top tier threats.

The main issue I find with Gigalith is the way it overcentralizes the Sand Archetype and making it borderline broken. The combination of hazard stacking+ sand abusers make it close to impossible to counter since most of these archetypes usually run a pivot with eject button (like slowbro/slowking and even garbodor) making it hard to deal with. While there are checks and counters to sand such as torterra, tangela and even palossand (tho this mon struggles against sandlash) they are easy to pressure out and with hazard stacking it can be a nuisance.

Why do I think Gigalith should be banned and not Sand Stream?. Sand before Gigalith dropping wasnt relevant, since the only other Sand Stream abuser was Hippopotas and it wasn't broken back then. The sand abusers also weren't relevant due to the limited turns they had to abuse, due to either the lack of bulk or the lack of sand turns Hippopotas could provide.

TL;DR: Sand Archetype is broken and overcentralized. The thing that pushed it over the limit was Gigalith, due to the combination of it's great defensive and offensive capabilities that can provide the Sand Abusers an easier time to abuse the sand turns. Yes it has counters, but they made mons that had close to no usage be a requirement in teams to not lose to this archetype. And even then, thanks to hazard stacking these counters can be muscled through. Because of this I would say Ban Gigalith.

 

[Captain Maybe]

Oh, boy, this is gonna be a fun one.

So, to start off, I'm gonna say that Sand is broken, and by that, I mean it's ABUSERS are broken. I think we're jumping the gun here with a Giga suspect. I don't think banning Giga is gonna really... help a lot. Here's what I mean: Giga is good out of using a full Sand Team with Slash and Stoutland. It's a soft Vanilluxe check and a good SRer. If we ban Giga, we lose 1 pokemon and 2 others into the depths of unviability. By keeping Giga and banning SAND RUSH + SAND STREAM, we keep a good rocker that gives the finger to Vanilluxe (sometimes).

The *problem* is Sandslash and Stoutland. Gigalith itself is not the broken mon here. I believe banning Gigalith is the incorrect move, and banning Sand Rush and Sand Stream combo should be the move. The only innocent bystander of this is Lycanroc, who doesn't touch the ability in the first place.


You're not bringing Torterra, Tangela, and others to solely counter just Gigalith, you're bringing it to counter sand abusers too. We're focusing on the wrong problem here. I've seen a few people say "Well sand rush wasn't good before cause we only had Hippopotas." To me, that doesn't really matter because that's not focusing at the problem now, and that problem is the combo of Sand Rush and Sand Stream. You can't tell me that Gigalith alone is the problem here. Just because Gigalith caused the problem doesn't mean he's the MAIN problem. I do not believe that this is a matter where we can pull the problem from its roots and expect the tier to sustain the aftermath well.

As long as I believe we are focusing on the incorrect issues, I thoroughly believe we should NOT BAN Gigalith.

But that's just me. Feel free to disagree.

 

[Havens]

Hi all, putting my 2 cents in.

From a competitive standpoint, I believe a Gigalith suspect was the best possible way to go about the effectiveness of sand teams, without delving in to any other solutions, with most of them involving potential complexity in Sand Rush, Sand Stream, or anything else of the like. The synergy between Gigalith, Sandslash, and Stoutland is just so well rounded that any team would have to be pressured into a defensive option, or pick one to sack in order to gain a better footing against it. That's not even including other potential teammates such as Heliolisk, Slowbro, and Slowking to cover their combined weaknesses. At the teambuilder level, running niche mons such as Tangela and Torterra (similar to how during the Venusaur meta teams ran Golbat or Bulletproof Hakamo-o), shows the absolute restrictive teambuilding and counterplay to the sand archetype, as you either run these kinds of mons to counterplay it, or you'd give in to what it offers and simply play Sand offense yourself.

Some could compare the effectiveness of Gigalith to Hippopotas as a sand setter, for which that is absolutely asinine. There's no way I'd ever be convinced that Hippopotas sand teams would have the same success as Gigalith, especially in a meta with threats like CB Sneasel, Specs Vanilluxe, Piloswine, Slowbro, Whimsicott, Sceptile, and literally everything else looking to kick its teeth in with one hit.

If it could happen any other way, I'd strongly believe that Sand Rush is the broken element here, and not Gigalith itself, since I believe it is just the enabler, and not the actual issue. From that perspective, I lean towards no ban.

On a similar note, could another possible way to limit the effectiveness of Sand teams include the banning of Smooth Rock? While I'm unsure of how effective the item is in comparison to Eject button and others, teams without Vanilluxe I find would often struggle with having 8 full turns of sand every time Gigalith comes in, as it makes sand sweepers infinitely harder to deal with. Perhaps it might be a bit complex of a ban for this time, and a topic of discussion later if Gigalith remains unbanned, but it's worth looking into (though that issue would probably just be eliminated if Gigalith got the boot anyways, so perhaps I jumped the gun a bit.)

 

[EviGaro]

This has to be the most controversal suspect test NU had in a while. While Gigalith alone isn't broken, Sand Stream made a whole archetype like sand, transform from being mediocre at best to one of the most threatening in the tier. Thanks to it's combination of great bulk, offensive stats and it's ability, which boosts it mediocre Special Defense this mon can be both a great offensive and defensive mon. Not only that, this Pokemon also complements Sand Rush abusers that would eitherwise be unrelevant in the tier, such as Stoutland and Sandslash, and transforms them into top tier threats.

The main issue I find with Gigalith is the way it overcentralizes the Sand Archetype and making it borderline broken. The combination of hazard stacking+ sand abusers make it close to impossible to counter since most of these archetypes usually run a pivot with eject button (like slowbro/slowking and even garbodor) making it hard to deal with. While there are checks and counters to sand such as torterra, tangela and even palossand (tho this mon struggles against sandlash) they are easy to pressure out and with hazard stacking it can be a nuisance.

Why do I think Gigalith should be banned and not Sand Stream?. Sand before Gigalith dropping wasnt relevant, since the only other Sand Stream abuser was Hippopotas and it wasn't broken back then. The sand abusers also weren't relevant due to the limited turns they had to abuse, due to either the lack of bulk or the lack of sand turns Hippopotas could provide.

TL;DR: Sand Archetype is broken and overcentralized. The thing that pushed it over the limit was Gigalith, due to the combination of it's great defensive and offensive capabilities that can provide the Sand Abusers an easier time to abuse the sand turns. Yes it has counters, but they made mons that had close to no usage be a requirement in teams to not lose to this archetype. And even then, thanks to hazard stacking these counters can be muscled through. Because of this I would say Ban Gigalith.

There's a couple of issues I have with this post, honestly:

First off, you point out how the Sand Archetype works: setup sand, stack hazards, use your pivots, then apply offensive pressure. The problem here is that Gigalith only really applies two out of four of those elements, being sand and rocks, and I'm unsure about those elements being the significant issue at hand here. Gigalith has a decent advantage against several of the removers, but that's not exactly breaking the tier. Sand is good but it alone doesn't make Gigalith broken, as otherwise you'd have ended just there. So, really, how does it make the archetype overcentralizing? Because sand + good mon? Honeslty the way you're describing it, Gigalith is much more of a support role for what is actually overwhelming both in the teambuilder and in actual play.

The second, and I've seen it in the previous thread too, is that Hippopotas couldn't do that role in a previous metagame. And honestly, that doesn't matter at all. What happened in a previous metagame should never ever be used for new tiering decisions because 1 - it's dead and never coming back and 2 - because that doesn't quite tell you what is problematic currently. If you believe Sand Rush is problematic the way Gigalith is enabling it, then I simply do not see how Gigalith is the ban worthy element here, like Havens just said. To give a relatively bad example but it points out a SM tiering decision, we didn't ban Snow Warning, we banned Aurora Veil. It helped preserve more of the metagame while banning the most problematic element that was easier to enable in such a scenario.

And it's really on that point that I thought the most about this issue, honestly. Gigalith by itself is a very good mon in the metagame. It doesn't force you to run absurdly niche counters, it doesn't apply an incredible amount of pressure in teambuilding / gameplay, it's just a darn solid mon overall that got a significant boost this gen. Sand Rush however is simply too easy to enable in this current format, makes it incredibly difficult to not use niche counters, and can easily wear down your resists due to setup / Stoutland's general coverage and offensive pressure. So I'd push for no ban on Gigalith.

 

[Finchinator]

Personally, I believe that the Sand archetype is pretty ridiculous. Double rush + Eject Button builds are what I am most familiar with and those are simply potent and largely regarded as cheese. The thing is that they chew up pretty much any opposing offensive team and balances/stallier builds hinge on having something like Tangela or Weezing in conjunction with normal physical pivots such as Slowbro, Steelix, etc. and while Tangela has been trending up lately, it is still a tall order to ask for such specific defensive counterplay. The fact of the matter is that the inherent element of Sand Rush abusers getting 2x their speed with a simple condition being met, which is having sand up, that Gigalith reliably provides, largely eliminates a fundamental element of counterplay -- revenge killing/offensive counterplay. This argument is largely similar to some arguments made in BW OU for the banning of Swift Swim and Sand Rush back in the day, but watered down as this metagame has lesser abusers and lesser defensive presences/revenge killing methods -- regardless of this, the fact of the matter is that there are not many strong priority abusers who can minimize the damage done by the Sand Rush abusers and no common scarfers outrun Stoutland, Sandslash, or Lycanroc in Sand. So basically the archetype of hyper offense or even outright offense becomes inherently risky to use when metagame conditions are what they currently are and even bulky-offense has to take more of a balanced approach as per necessary defensive presences mentioned above.

A well-built Sand is not only consistent in general, but is also insanely effective against offensive teams and in a tier with arguably limited defensive options, it should be no surprise that equipping a couple offensive threats with semi-reliable 2x speed is simply not reasonable. There isn't sufficient defensive counterplay outside of a small handful of Pokemon I discussed above and there clearly is not sufficient offensive counterplay, even if it takes looking beyond Gigalith itself and on to the Sand Rush abusers to see this. Gigalith should be banned given its role in setting Sand.

 

[Rabia]

So I've already mentioned my thoughts on Discord and had back and forth exchanges with some people there, but I'll try to better articulate my thoughts here since a) I was on my phone so I really could not have been bothered to write all that great and b) I was still waking up lol.

I'm going to start this post with me disagreeing with a Gigalith suspect. This isn't to say I think Sand is a balanced archetype - quite the contrary - but I believe the problem never lied with Gigalith being in the tier. The problem, in my eyes, has always been dealing with the combination of Stoutland + Sandslash (and occasionally Lycanroc, though the core of Sand's offense is clearly Stoutland and Sandslash); while not impossible by any means to deal with these Pokemon - we've seen the rise of Tangela as well as Pokemon such as Palossand, Diancie, and Steelix aiding against this core in some way or another (btw use Sand Veil on Palossand until Sand is irrelevant lol), along with speed control outside of sand such as Scarf Passimian and Whimsicott - the impact these two have from an offensive standpoint is felt hard. Sandslash in my opinion is the bigger problem since it's somewhat difficult to revenge as long as sand is in effect given its good Defense, access to Knock Off to aid in dealing with Tangela, and +2 Tectonic Rage forcing you to basically play Pursuit 50/50s with your Flying resist/immunity. This is definitely not me saying "ban Sandslash"; Sandslash is clearly only a problem because we have a reliable sand setter.

The general argument I've seen from the pro-ban Gigalith is this: Sand was trash before Gigalith dropped, and now Sand has a reliable setter that is sturdy enough to set Sand easily multiple times, enabling sweepers/breakers such as Stoutland and Sandslash too greatly. What I take problem with here primarily is the idea that "oh Sand was shit before Gigalith so that must be the problem"; to me that is oversimplifying the issue at hand, which I believe to be Sand Stream (or Sand Stream + Sand Rush, but people don't like complex bans so). While the thread preaches to be following Smogon tiering history, it's actually the opposite; Drought got banned in UU, not Mega Houndoom (alright doomer was banned but they realizing their tiering inconsistencies lol), along with Drizzle being banned and not Politoed. Similarly, Ninetales and Politoed are not banned in NU; the abilities Drizzle and Drought are (yeah we technically adopt the bans from higher tiers but could've chosen to not ban the abilities just like RU chose not to ban Drought). So why ban Gigalith instead of Sand Stream? Some have cited the problem lies within Sand as an archetype lacking viable abusers; Sand is limited to Stoutland and Sandslash (and Lycanroc sort of) as solid abusers, while there are significantly more Chlorophyll and Swift Swim users. Therefore, Drizzle and Drought are more problematic than the Pokemon enabling the ability.

I would vote ban on Gigalith were I to get reqs; regardless of me disagreeing with the suspect test chosen, Sand is simply too dominating a playstyle to let stay in its current form. And I do think many people are simply letting their biases here toward letting Gigalith stay get in the way of making an unbiased decision. I definitely agree with the mentality; Gigalith outside of Sand teams is clearly not broken, and I don't think anyone disagrees with that. But at the end of the day, banning Gigalith will allow for a potential revisiting for banning Sand Stream later, while simultaneously fixing the current problems plaguing the tier.

as a sidenote ban incineroar thx

 

[Skelos]

As long as I believe we are focusing on the incorrect issues, I thoroughly believe we should NOT BAN Gigalith.

i think it's really unfair if we're not getting rid of sand just because of the notion of "suspecting the incorrect thing". i understand the sentiment of gigalith not being the main issue but rather the sand abusers, although you should understand that we're doing this suspect because it's the most optimal management we could do on sand. if you think we're gonna do some sand rush etc. etc. ban sooner to handle sand, no, i just don't think we have any business doing such complex ban just to preserve a single mon in gigalith. then again, gigalith is the one thing being suspected for simplicity's sake, and still plays a huge role in the success of the said playstyle anyway. besides, there are a lot of good reasons why gigalith should leave as aforementioned by allstar and finchinator and mewbby so i'm not going to dwell on these things anymore, but i also feel the meta would develop more and be better off without sand.

anyway, i just hope people in here are going to vote either ban or don't ban depending on their take on sand being unhealthy or not, and not because you don't like gigalith being suspected as of the moment.

 

[Captain Maybe]

i just don't think we have any business doing such complex ban just to preserve a single mon in gigalith

I agree in the fact that complex bans are very bad and hard to do. Especially if we're keeping *just* Gigalith.

However, I just don't think it would matter much or really at all for any other mon. If it was banning sand rush, I'd say yes. Hell, if it was banning sand stream, I'd say yes, but if you wanted me to vote like that you should've suspected correctly. It's a very fine line. Gigalith is not broken by himself and he is the suspect. Who do you arrest first; the crime committers or the ones that let it happen? Even if the committers never do it again, I'd still walk away feeling dirty and wrong. As well, I believe there are plenty of examples in other tiers where a mon got really good because another dropped over the years and the one that got better was suspected.

I very much apologize for being stubborn, but I don't like taking the easy way out, and I think it all comes down to how you feel about doing that in this particular suspect. I thank you for the response.

 

[TheFlawlessWin]

Here are my reqs: http://prntscr.com/jwdzv4

I'm voting for Gigalith to stay. I honestly don't think sand is that broken in NU. The tier's two relevant Sand Rush users, Stoutland and Sandslash, both have their respective counters and must be played strategically in order to set up a sweep. I also found Vanilluxe to be especially good at checking sand while laddering, as it is usually timid and thus outspeeds both adamant Stoutland and Sandslash after setting up hail. I don't think sand teams are unhealthy for the NU metagame, but they will force players to prepare for them and adjust their teambuilding.

 

[Ktütverde]

Hello, I would like to reflect on the previous posts and arguments.

I think the question NU players should be asking themselves right now is not "Does Gigalith deserve this ban?", "Is Gigalith actually transforming the meta too much?" or "Is this suspect in keeping with a consistent tiering policy?" but rather "What is good for NU?". You can complain about gigalith being a balanced mon and risking a ban because of things like Stoutland and Sandslash, but the fact is that Gigalith is suspected BECAUSE of the sandstorm issue and the tier council has decided that it was the best thing to do. Now you can decide not to ban gigalith because it is a cool mon, but the NU meta will remain centralized around sand teams, so justice for Gigalith won't bring anything else than more injustice for NU. This is why Skelos is absolutely right in my opinion when he/she says: "anyway, i just hope people in here are going to vote either ban or don't ban depending on their take on sand being unhealthy or not, and not because you don't like gigalith being suspected as of the moment. "

What you should imagine is a scenario like:
2071. A scientist has created a magical panacea turning humans into poweful superhumans who are immortal and gifted with psychic powers making them unstoppable. He is the only one in the world who knows how to make this panacea. The World Government is going to jail the scientist on Saturn and is thinking of executing him. The jailing decision has already caused worlwide outrage, and the outcome of this decision will decide on the future of humankind.

The scientist is Gigalith, he has brought an incredible amount of support to sand teams with its rocks, bulk, power, sandstream ability, and being able to check vanilluxe (in addition it is not an unmon like hippopotas). What would you do? He is a human like all of us and deserves to live. But what if him being alive means that life for everybody is going to spin out of control because he is the only one knowing the secret of a devastating sandstorm that supervillains like Stoutland and Sandslash might steal to destroy the world? This is a psychological test for all of us.


I would jail the scientist in NUBL. He may return in another suspect test, and might stay in NUBL forever. I don't mind executing him for NU's sake.

 

[teal6]

Hello, I would like to reflect on the previous posts and arguments.

I think the question NU players should be asking themselves right now is not "Does Gigalith deserve this ban?", "Is Gigalith actually transforming the meta too much?" or "Is this suspect in keeping with a consistent tiering policy?" but rather "What is good for NU?". You can complain about gigalith being a balanced mon and risking a ban because of things like Stoutland and Sandslash, but the fact is that Gigalith is suspected BECAUSE of the sandstorm issue and the tier council has decided that it was the best thing to do. Now you can decide not to ban gigalith because it is a cool mon, but the NU meta will remain centralized around sand teams, so justice for Gigalith won't bring anything else than more injustice for NU. This is why Skelos is absolutely right in my opinion when he/she says: "anyway, i just hope people in here are going to vote either ban or don't ban depending on their take on sand being unhealthy or not, and not because you don't like gigalith being suspected as of the moment. "

What you should imagine is a scenario like:
2071. A scientist has created a magical panacea turning humans into poweful superhumans who are immortal and gifted with psychic powers making them unstoppable. He is the only one in the world who knows how to make this panacea. The World Government is going to jail the scientist on Saturn and is thinking of executing him. The jailing decision has already caused worlwide outrage, and the outcome of this decision will decide on the future of humankind.

The scientist is Gigalith, he has brought an incredible amount of support to sand teams with its rocks, bulk, power, sandstream ability, and being able to check vanilluxe (in addition it is not an unmon like hippopotas). What would you do? He is a human like all of us and deserves to live. But what if him being alive means that life for everybody is going to spin out of control because he is the only one knowing the secret of a devastating sandstorm that supervillains like Stoutland and Sandslash might steal to destroy the world? This is a psychological test for all of us.


I would jail the scientist in NUBL. He may return in another suspect test, and might stay in NUBL forever. I don't mind executing him for NU's sake.

what the fuck

 

[Clefable]

In Ktütverde's post, he challenges the reader to take a stance on the question of whether or not to ban Gigalith from NU. In a 4 to 6 paragraph essay, answer two out of three of the following discussion questions based on what you have read. Your response should contain direct quotes from the post that relate to the discussion topic.

1. What stance does Ktütverde take on the Gigalith ban, and how does he argue for it? How does Ktütverde use metaphor and imagery to bolster his argument? Does it add to or detract from his point?

2. In the final lines of the post, Ktütverde only half-reverts back to the original topic of the thread. Fully connect the metaphor that Ktütverde sets up in his post. What is Gigalith's role in NU? What does Saturn represent?

3. Ktütverde's post poses the reader a philosophical question: "[w]hat would you do" if you could control the scientist's fate? Using examples from your own life, argue for or against sparing the scientist at the expense of humanity.

 

[Lil Infant Tylenol]

Now That I have got my reqs, I feel like I can speak on the issue.
The sand teams break through almost every team archetype. Offense has no chance. The only viable scarfer that can outspeed this thing is heliolisk (and thats if stoutland is adamant). And here is the calc for heliolisk
252 SpA Heliolisk Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Stoutland: 142-168 (45.6 - 54%) -- 43% chance to 2HKO. Yeah and LO Stoutland OHKOs it with return. So HO becomes unviable because of the fact that they really cant deal with it. Then Bulky Offense struggles too for the same reason. Its pivots get worn down by spikes and the sand rush mons outspeed their offensive threats. There is Tangela, but tangela is really easy to deal with. Spikes and hard hits from stoutlamd can really wear down tangela (I understand Xatu can be answer, but Garbador 2hkos Xatu). Tangela can also easily be dealt with by special attackers. Non-Sand Balanced face a similar fate. This type of team gets warn down by spikes sand, and stoutland/sandlash/sp atk of choice hits. The only thing that can deal with this is tangela stall, but that is just one play style. It is still possible to beat this archetype as spikes can wear down this style too through sand and spikes. With SD Groundium/Rockium Z Sandslash and Stoutland, These 2 become wallbreakers that can have +2 speed in sand. Also Vanullixe and Aurorus are not answers to this team. Stoutland is naturally faster than both and can ohko with superpower. Not to also mention SR weakness wearing them down.

From reading the posts, I think most people agree that sand is broken. However, people still feel that sand is the problem not just gigalith. Well, I feel that isn't the case. Gigalith is miles ahead of Hippo in terms of sand setting. Hippo's base stats is almost 200 less than gigalith. It also cannot really switch on most mons because it is weak and frail. So I feel that Gigalith is the only viable sand setter As a result, I feel that we should just ban Gigalith.

 

[Finchinator]

I feel like the level of confusion towards this suspect and perhaps the general lack of understanding as to why it is Gigalith, what this suspect means, and why it is taking place to begin with is significantly higher than normal levels, especially for non tier-mains. This is entirely understandable seeing as despite its effectiveness, Sand has not been particularly common until recently and people who do not frequently play the metagame may not be familiar with the archetype's outlook, let alone how it functions. In addition, Gigalith itself clearly is not a broken Pokemon standalone. Therefore, I will be making a post to not only answer the three pressing questions I pose above, but also back my opinion on Gigalith being banworthy that I briefly touched on in my initial post.

For those of you that do not know, Gigalith was introduced to NU a couple months back due to it having minimal usage in RU. Prior to this point, Sand based teams never saw use in serious settings, Stoutland was unviable, and Sandslash was only viable in the Alolan form as a utility Stealth Rock setter or Rapid Spinner. Upon the introduction of Gigalith, people started to use teams based around Sandstream Gigalith and Sand Rush users such as the two aforementioned Pokemon, Stoutland and Sandslash. While initially it was mainly a ladder phase which people such as Meeps took advantage of to obnoxious extents (using a Triple Sand Rush team that a lot of people used for suspect reqs back during the Venusaur test and around that time in May), it has seen more widespread, consistent usage as time elapsed and June came around while maintaining and even seeing increased usage in a ladder setting, too.

Gigalith was the subject of this suspect because it represents and holds together this archetype of team. Before Gigalith's drop to NU, Hippopotas was NU usable for the entire existence of the tier, but never once saw usage on a serious, viable Sandstream based team like this. Gigalith allows these teams to get seven turns of Sand with Smooth Rock, sets up Stealth Rock reliably, and has the ability to be a defensive sponge with Sand up (85 HP / 130 Def / 80 SDef with the boost in Sand) while hitting quite hard with base 135 Atk. Yea, Gigalith itself is just a good Pokemon, nothing broken -- that's not what anyone should be looking at. What we should be looking at is if the archetype revolving around it is broken as we are merely using Gigalith as the element that makes it broken, which is clearly the case given the timeline and usage patterns I mentioned above. A lot of people wonder why it is not Sand Rush and the general council response to that likely would be that this was not an issue before Gigalith entered the metagame and suspecting a Pokemon outright, as opposed to an ability, is much more concrete and better overall. It is true that suspecting Sand Rush would have less collateral and for a while I believed this was the best option myself, as you can see by my post here, but over time I have changed my mind and I personally stand by the tier leaders's decision to make it a Gigalith suspect. Regardless of this, people should not be thinking if the Pokemon Gigalith is broken or not per se; rather, they should be determining if the archetype Gigalith is the glue of is not competitive or simply banworthy or not. I understand why this may be confusing or out-of-the-ordinary to those who have not been in the loop for the last while seeing as it is not necessarily a "normal" suspect, but I hope this increases general public understanding on the matter. Now, I would like to transition more into my own personal thoughts on the suspect itself.

Personally, I have been using this team for the past while and I have had ridiculous amounts of success in tournament play and ladder play with it. Yes, it is, more or less, glorified "cheese" for those familiar with the term. However, the rate at which it is effective and has a favorable match-up is insanely high compared to that of other "cheese" (i.e: Webs, Screens, and even Stall teams, which are probably the main other type of cheese that people even see at the moment). The fact of the matter is that unless you go out of your way to use some combination of durable resists/immunities to Normal/Grounds (Tangela, Palossand, Torterra, Golbat, Weezing, and Gourgeist can be issues to break as you have to outplay them consistently and force them in to Knock, chip, etc. if they are played properly), Protect Pokemon that are not entirely passive (Xatu most notably, but Vaporeon can help if you do not give Sandslash a free turn switching it in and Blastoise with Protect has been a slight cockblock in some of my experience, too), or other niche defensive elements, then you're either going to pretty much outplay the entire game or be incredibly vulnerable throughout. In addition, it is worth noting that none of the aforementioned means of stopping this team are particularly viable on offensive teams, which brings me to a point I will expand upon a bit later about the Sand archetype lacking offensive counterplay.

To expand on how this team should be used and its history as to give some backing to my argument and assertions throughout this post, I will provide some tournament and ladder replays showcasing it. The best example comes in HPL finals against Starmaster, which went like this. The team ideally functions in a way where you set Sand and perhaps get Stealth Rock up and then proceed to safely get Sandslash or Stoutland in -- usually the former to break holes for the latter or at least claim a kill or two. From there, you make progress with the momentum and speed you have acquired naturally at that point and then the game should break down fairly clearly from there. This match is obviously an extreme because Sandslash straight-up won, but Starmaster was using a pretty standard team for the time (yea, it was Venusaur metagame, but that does not impact Sand's viability whatsoever and if it does, then it helps it as that is one less thing to prepare for) and there are often very similar outcomes against other offensive teams as the metagame has little room to adapt in this regard to the archetype, thus part of why I deem it very banworthy. A similar game to this one happened in NUPL when Meeps used his original variant of the team that mine is based off of and it can be found here -- his opponent had an offensive team and it was very clear that he had no shot whatsoever at winning this game given the way it played out.

Another example of the team being used in tournaments would be Elodin's game against Orphic for NUPL, which can be seen here. While the non-Sand Rush members of the team do a good job opening the door earlier on in the game due to Eject Button getting Knocked off, Sandslash still manages to pick off four kills (assuming you include the Rotom at the end prior to the forfeit with it being the last Pokemon) against a standard offensive team that even had a Hail setter to remove the Sand temporarily. Elodin did outplay his opponent, but it was a very straightforward, routine, and even systematic win regardless of that so long as he took a remotely optimal approach throughout given the overwhelming presence of Sandslash (and the eventual Stoutland which simply wasn't even needed in this specific game). There are a number of other tournament games in which other Sand teams prove to also have no competitive place in the metagame; I will hyperlink a handful (1, 2 (this one isn't THAT bad), 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) that should all display the clear problem, but I want to also get into some ladder examples as well seeing as it is time to get reqs atm.

I personally laddered 80 games with this team on the suspect ladder in order to get my own reqs, prove the point I am making here, and just have more evidence to showcase how ridiculous this archetype is and thus how banworthy Gigalith is. My two alts were likeagee6 and driedupblood and I combined for a 69-11 record with about half of those losses being to opposing Sand teams -- i.e: 1 and 2, including my own (most of the others were to dumb shit, too, but that's besides the point). I'm not here to toot my own horn, but through auto-piloting the build I essentially got both alts in the top 15 and I can imagine that if others took the team and tried to get reqs with it, they could do so quite easily if they understood how to pilot it. This is normally not as easy to attain so easily unless someone is a really consistently good player or they are using stall, which tends to rake in free wins on the ladder. The fact of the matter is that this team really is "cheese" that is borderline match-up proof (yea, there are some defensive cores that prove troublesome, but they're comprised of rare Pokemon and this is not enough to keep it from being broken). I strongly implore people who are uncertain, looking for some examples of how the team is played or why it is effective, and perhaps in need of their daily dose of salty Finch to check out some replays under either of these accounts as I saved every game I remembered to and all of them are public unless my opponent hid them at some point. I will also go through a couple example ones just to further showcase how it performs like I did for the tournament games.

This game shows me playing a fairly standard build and digging a hole for myself early on by making a couple poor plays, but still pulling through with Sandslash sweeping later-on despite facing a Tangela. Usually, Sandslash breaks things open for Stoutland, but the opposite happened here and Sandslash won in a close game by cleaning out over half of the opponent's team. Here is a replay where my opponent pretty much knew my sets from the start and used a balanced team that had some defensive leverage, but still easily got overwhelmed by the team after losing an early 50/50 between Ice Shard and Pursuit (the game would have been won regardless, but that really opened up the flood gates) -- games like these really show how vital the momentum and pressure of this team comes into play and why it makes the Sand Rush abusers as potent as they are. Here is another quicky where Sandslash just runs through an offensive team that is actually somewhat prepared for a choiced Stoutland, just showing that offensive teams cannot really be prepared for this stuff even if they have immunes and resists that normal offenses sometimes lack. Here is a game against a fairly good opponent, actually, who was using a team that had a Steelix, Xatu, Slowbro, and a means of changing the weather to Hail, but the Sand rushers came through in the end despite losing Silvally-Steel to a freeze earlier on -- the tier just does not have sufficient tools to handle the offensive onslaught that these teams pack unless you want to have people overloading on fat shit every single time to be sufficiently prepared. Again, there are dozens of other examples that can be found in the replays of "driedupblood" or "likeagee6" for those that wish to see more and this post is getting insanely long, but the fact of the matter is that this team archetype simply is not healthy in the current metagame.

The presence of multiple effective Sand Rush abusers in a metagame that outright lacks offensive counterplay, which I mentioned I would touch upon earlier, is a clear cause for concern. There are no ways to revenge kill Stoutland and Sandslash in Sand and that is a necessary component of counterplay in a competitive metagame. Weather boosting abilities have proven to be problematic in a number of competitive settings in the past, especially in lower tiers, and this is simply put another classic case of that occurring. If Gigalith remains in the tier, the metagame will be forced to gravitate towards much more dedeicated defensive based teams in order to combat any of these Sands, especially the one I emphasized throughout this post, and that will totally ruin the semblance of balance and widespread viability that our metagame has identified with for so long and that we as a playerbase may take for granted quite a bit, but also enjoy thoroughly as teambuilders and players if we recognize it or not. To me, this is even more clear-cut than Venusaur or any past suspect dating back to the early Quick Bans and Gigalith 100% has to go if we wish to have a stable metagame moving forward.

For those still unsure or who wish to experience things first hand, I advise you to take this team or another proven Sand team (plenty in replays or above or just going around) and ladder for reqs with it -- the playing of it will very likely make the decision quite easy for you from there if you come into it with an open mind. I would be beyond glad to answer any questions about piloting this team or the archetype in general, be it in this thread or in private, so do not hesitate. I really think people need to understand what this suspect is about and how the Sand archetype functions before making a rushed, uninformed decision about this suspect, especially for those that have not used or faced teams like mine a fair amount. I hope that everyone at least skims through this post, watches some replays, and/or tries out the team a bit so that they can see how ridiculously effective it is and we an all come to the conclusion to ban Gigalith for the sake of the metagame moving forward.

 

[Jarii]

For those still unsure or who wish to experience things first hand, I advise you to take this team or another proven Sand team (plenty in replays or above or just going around) and ladder for reqs with it -- the playing of it will very likely make the decision quite easy for you from there if you come into it with an open mind. I would be beyond glad to answer any questions about piloting this team or the archetype in general, be it in this thread or in private, so do not hesitate. I really think people need to understand what this suspect is about and how the Sand archetype functions before making a rushed, uninformed decision about this suspect, especially for those that have not used or faced teams like mine a fair amount. I hope that everyone at least skims through this post, watches some replays, and/or tries out the team a bit so that they can see how ridiculously effective it is and we an all come to the conclusion to ban Gigalith for the sake of the metagame moving forward.

I disagree with this, alot of people are debating between banning and not banning just because they think Gigalith isn't the problem but Giga + Sand Rush is. Alot of people don't agree to ban Gigalith (myself included) because you make the tier unhealthier with banning Gigalith while Sand Rush fixes the problem itself. Now that the council has prefered to suspect Gigalith and not Sand Rush (what I don't agree on), does that mean we just have accept that and then ban Gigalith? In my oppinion not, if the council wants to do it the easy way and you don't agree on that then vote no ban, if you have your own oppinion about what should be banned and what not (which is what a suspect test is all about) then you can just vote no ban for the fact that you don't agree on what the council is suspecting. Don't feel discouraged to vote no ban just because the council said so.

Now my own oppinion, yes we can go through that hippopotas thing again but I won't. I want to state another fact Hail + Aurora Veil, we banned A-Veil instead of the Hail users so we could keep the Hail users since they weren't the issue itself. What makes this case different then the Sand Stream Sand Rush issue? A-veil in itself is useless, same thing goes for Sand Rush without Sand Stream Gigalith yet we still banned A-Veil and not the weather. Complex bans happened so many times why would this be different? Because of this I will vote no ban. Because I refuse to ban a mon that is perfectly healthy for the tier itself. (if the council then won't suspect Sand Rush they make their own tier worse so that's on them not us)

 

[ceal]

Stuck without a computer for the forseeable future so I'm gonna have to make this post on mobile, sorry I can't put in any fancy gifs or nothing.

In my opinion, the best option toaddress Sand teams is to ban Gigalith. Sand teams were a non-issue until Gigalith was introduced, an incredibly bulky setter that is in no way passive and can set rocks for the sweepers in the back. The sweepers have been around since the beginning of the gen, and, despite the presence of baby Hippo, they have never made any kind of splash in the tier until Gigalith. I understand if it's difficult to see a support mon as broken, since it's technically not the pokemon doing the actual killing, but Gigalith can support its team in ways baby Hippo simply can't, and give the sweepers way more chances to get in and sweep.

A lot of people have floated the idea of banning Sand Rush instead, which I disagree with. Banning an ability over a mon is much more complicated and causes much more collateral, all for preserving a single pokemon. What does Gigalith actually do that's worth preserving it in NU? As far as I can tell from this thread, it's take away Hail from Ice Cream which, while nice, should speak a lot to what people think about the state of the tier when they think we need to instate a complex ban to preserve a pokemon just so it can kinda prevent another from doing its job. A better argument comes from Jarii, who compares banning Sand Rush to banning Aurora Veil over Hail: I don't think this is a great comparison. Veil is not a weather playstyle; although it may require Hail up to use Aurora Veil, none of the sweepers on the team actually abuse Hail to sweep. Hail on Veil teams is more of a necessary evil then it is a benefit that supports the sweepers. Sandstorm, meanwhile, defines Sand as a playstyle, not a screen move that requires hail to use, and without hail, sand sweepers cannot function, whereas Veil team sweepers only need hail up long enough to get up Veil. As such, I think it's clear that the weather condition in this case is the broken element, whereas on Veil builds weather is only a means to an end.

In closing, I think Gigalith supports sand teams in a way that makes them too powerful for the tier, and since no other pokemon can enable them so well, Gigalith is the one deserving of the boot. Ban Gigalith.

(Sorry again for any misspellings or broken grammar, hard to write a consistent sentance on mobile while being bounced around on a bus ;-;)

 

[dodmen]

A lot of people wonder why it is not Sand Rush and the general council response to that likely would be that this was not an issue before Gigalith entered the metagame and suspecting a Pokemon outright, as opposed to an ability, is much more concrete and better overall. It is true that suspecting Sand Rush would have less collateral and for a while I believed this was the best option myself, as you can see by my post here, but over time I have changed my mind and I personally stand by the tier leaders's decision to make it a Gigalith suspect. Regardless of this, people should not be thinking if the Pokemon Gigalith is broken or not per se; rather, they should be determining if the archetype Gigalith is the glue of is not competitive or simply banworthy or not.

The order in which the mons dropped to NU, which is completely arbitrary since it is decided by usage in different metagames, should not make a difference in deciding what to ban. If it was Sandslash that dropped months after Gigalith and Stoutland, the sand playstyle wouldn't have been broken until Sandslash was added (I strongly believe that it is the combination of the three mons - Gigalith, Stoutland, Sandslash - that makes the sand archetype broken. The combo of the two sand rushers allows you to play straight up mindlessly whereas just using one requires much more thoughtful and interactive play). Gigalith happened to drop later than the sand rushers based on the whims of the ladder players of other tiers, and we shouldn't let that decide NU tiering. If you think about what would have happened if all three Pokemon had dropped at the same time, it's easy to figure out that Gigalith wouldn't have been the one banned.

The point about banning an ability vs a mon is pretty much a non issue too, there have been several abilities (and moves) banned from most tiers this gen without any problem. In fact, UU originally banned a Pokemon (Mega Houndoom) before going back and banning the ability (Drought) after realizing that banning the ability was the right tiering decision. There's not really a concrete argument against banning abilities or moves anymore; someone who (rightfully) argued for Arena Trap's ban in OU instead of Dugtrio should know this better than anyone. Hell, I'll go out on a limb and say that Hippopotas is at least as usable in NU as Diglett would have been in OU, lol.

Anyway, what I'm obviously getting at is that Sand Rush (or Sand Stream, but I don't think anyone prefers this) should be banned, as it is the actual broken element of the sand archetype, and it would simply be better for the tier than banning Gigalith. You saying "Gigalith is the glue that holds sand together" is just as arbitrary as me saying "Sand Rush users only use Gigalith as a tool to break the tier"; you can spin the words any way you'd like, but in the end what we should be looking at is: what is actually broken, and what is good for the tier?

 

[Modulo]

I want to preface this post by saying: Yes, Sand Stream plus Gigalith is broken and something needs to be done about it; and if I had to decide only between banning Gigalith and doing jack, I'd do the former in a heartbeat.

That said, I would be vastly in favor of banning Sand Rush over banning Gigalith mainly for two reasons.

1) I think that if a combination is deemed broken (which Sand Rush+Gigalith definitely is), one should first look at taking away the half that impacts the metagame less. In this case, it's clear what that is: Gigalith without Sand Rush is perfectly usable, good but not broken. Sandslash and Stoutland without Sand Rush are nothing to write home about. Ergo: Banning Sand Rush essentially results in two ´mons leaving, banning Gigalith results in 3.

2) The other point is to make a decision that is less likely to have to be revisited. Pretty clear winner here again: As stated, Gigalith by itself is not broken. Sand Rush, however, could still be. Say we ban Gigalith, what happens if someone finds a way to make Hippopotas work? Smooth Rock Uxie/Mesprit/Diancie? We'll have the same discussion again. Will we ban the sand setter again? Or will we ban Sand Rush? In which case: Why didn't you ban it in the first place?

On some of the points others made:

The thing that pushed it over the limit was Gigalith, due to the combination of it's great defensive and offensive capabilities that can provide the Sand Abusers an easier time to abuse the sand turns.

"Hey, that bomb has been lying around there for over 10 years and everything went well until that spark hit it; so the spark is to blame for the explosion."

The fact of the matter is that the inherent element of Sand Rush abusers getting 2x their speed with a simple condition being met, which is having sand up, that Gigalith reliably provides, largely eliminates a fundamental element of counterplay -- revenge killing/offensive counterplay. This argument is largely similar to some arguments made in BW OU for the banning of Swift Swim and Sand Rush back in the day, but watered down as this metagame has lesser abusers and lesser defensive presences/revenge killing methods -- regardless of this, the fact of the matter is that there are not many strong priority abusers who can minimize the damage done by the Sand Rush abusers and no common scarfers outrun Stoutland, Sandslash, or Lycanroc in Sand.

I remember these arguments being made as well; which is why I wonder why especially you are advocating for a Gigalith ban over a Sand Rush ban. It was rightfully decided back then to not just ban permanent weather or their setters, neither of which were broken by themselves. Since then weather got nerfed to not be permanent anymore. Yet now we want to make a decision to ban the weather setter instead of the weather abusers, especially since all of our posts are centered around how the "abusers" are enabled by a mon that is "not broken by itself"? Why not take the abusers' tool away?


In the end, I would love to see this suspect being revoked to a Sand Rush suspect, if anyhow possible. If not, I'd expect the council to revert the Giga ban in the future as banning the ability is clearly the correct thing to do over banning the pokémon.

 

[Finchinator]

I have no clue why people took my post explaining the previous council stance that led to the suspect as an open invitation to argue what the suspect should be in their opinion when the suspect already was initiated -- this thread is meant for discussion of the suspect itself, not other things that are being brought up. I also want to respond to a few things.

I disagree with this, alot of people are debating between banning and not banning just because they think Gigalith isn't the problem but Giga + Sand Rush is. Alot of people don't agree to ban Gigalith (myself included) because you make the tier unhealthier with banning Gigalith while Sand Rush fixes the problem itself. Now that the council has prefered to suspect Gigalith and not Sand Rush (what I don't agree on), does that mean we just have accept that and then ban Gigalith? In my oppinion not, if the council wants to do it the easy way and you don't agree on that then vote no ban, if you have your own oppinion about what should be banned and what not (which is what a suspect test is all about) then you can just vote no ban for the fact that you don't agree on what the council is suspecting. Don't feel discouraged to vote no ban just because the council said so.

This is complete and utter nonsense and if people subscribe to this line-of-logic then not only will you put the metagame's future in serious jeopardy, but you will also be undermining the suspect process/voting system itself. Just because you disagree with the subject of the suspect test does not mean you or anyone should vote do not ban if you feel there is a problem with the archetype and something needs to get banned. Arena Trap was banned overwhelmingly in OU despite a lot of individuals favoring Dugtrio (for good reasons, too). I understand the other side and as I referenced in my last post -- I even initially agreed with Sand Rush, but we opted to go with Gigalith and there is at least clear justification behind it, agree with it or not. If you think there is a clear problem with the archetype, then you should vote ban -- no real exceptions. If you do not, then we keep this metagame where Sand pretty much invalidates a vast majority of teams just for the sake of...preserving one Pokemon??? It's even worse if people think that preserving Gigalith is necessary for Vanilluxe counterplay, too, as we had a metagame before Gigalith where it was not broken and this literally is not how we ever make tiering decisions -- if something turns out to be broken after we ban one thing that was holding it back, then we can easily suspect it afterwards without keeping other broken things to create some uncompetiitve broken-checks-broken metagame, which is pretty much dire and worst-case-scenario. Basically, if you are of the opinion that Sand is broken and you still think that voting no ban is worthwhile for the sake of proving some petty point and preserving one Pokemon, then there is something seriously wrong that is beyond my comprehension.

---

In response to the two others, I'll try to keep it brief because if I respond fully then I will partially be regurgitating stuff said in prior posts.

Banning Sand Rush would mean that we are banning the ability on a number of Pokemon that simply do not strike anyone as banworthy with Sand Rush. Hell, you could go as far as saying that teams with only one Sand Rush user, be it Stoutland or Sandslash, are arguably much less problematic than those with two and no individual Sand Rush abuser is outright broken itself, but that assertion itself is controversial, so I'll mainly leave it at the former assertion.

Banning Sand Stream, which was briefly mentioned as an alternative that was not viewed as ideal, is indeed not ideal. Hippopotas was never used, let alone deemed remotely banworthy, throughout the entire existence of SM/USM NU and it is not like keeping Gigalith without Sand Stream would do much (among other things -- i.e: the fact that this isn't consistent with any tiering conventions, let alone those that NU this generation has historically subscribed to).

I personally believe this (Gigalith) was the simplest way to deal with things without breaking our own precedent, regardless of that of other tiers. This is what swayed me in the first place because I initially favored testing Sand Rush. If we follow what NU has been doing throughout SM/USM, Gigalith is 100% what should be the subject of this "Sand archetype" suspect test. It is true that we banned Drought in the early stages of SM, but that is essentially due to the fact that all the individual Pokemon in the metagame that had the ability Drought, including Vulpix, were deemed banworthy. Therefore, Hippopotas not being banworthy makes this inconsistent and Gigalith the solution (we never have considered, let alone acted on, Chlorophyll).

Regardless of all of this, it seems that very few people are coming up with actual arguments here that something is not the issue, so given what I alluded to at the start of this post, I really hope that the rest of this is straightforward and the result of the suspect test is ban.

 

[Onett]

Alot of people don't agree to ban Gigalith (myself included) because you make the tier unhealthier with banning Gigalith while Sand Rush fixes the problem itself.

Sorry for the short post, but can you explain why "banning Gigalith makes the tier unhealthy". Because at the moment, at least for my money, banning Gigalith looks like it could only make the tier healthier. This seems like a very classic case of X mon that uses weather dropping and suddenly all relevant users become viable. Which, as Finch pointed out, happens a lot. You can argue that Gigalith is not broken by itself (which is fair, it isn't), but I'd also argue that Sandslash and Stoutland aren't broken by themselves, nor has their ability been broken before this point. Even Sand Stream wasn't broken before Gigalith dropped. Which is why people are saying Gigalith is the problem. When I look at the situation, it and it alone are what caused the archatype to become unbalanced.

I would just like an actual explanation as to why "banning Gig would make the tier unhealthier".

 

[JustoonSmitts]

Okay, I'm only a casual competitive player (if that makes sense), but here are my thoughts on the whole thing:

The main problem is that Sand in NU has VERY few answers to it. In fact, it is downright STUPID in NU. Sand Rush sweepers in tandem with Sand Stream are stupidly hard to revenge kill, so it has few natural offensive countermeasures. Sand also has few defensive answers as well since Sandslash and Stoutland cover each other's weaknesses perfectly. Many Pokémon have really suffered from this trend, including the many Fire-types down here such as Houndoom and ESPECIALLY Delphox and many more previous NU titans like Sneasel, Altaria, and Golbat. Sand is such a strain on teambuilding that to beat it means bringing another Sand team to beat it. Even Stall fails since Stoutland powers through Pyukumuku easily. Yeah, there's Vanilluxe to eliminate Gigalith's sand, but Gigalith still annihilates the ice cream with Stealth Rocks and its Rock STABS one-on-one. Besides, hail hasn't been viable since Aurora Veil got banned.

Gigalith itself doesn't seem like an issue. It certainly has defensive and offensive answers to it since Rock is not a great defensive typing and it has no reliable recovery so it gets worn down by hazards, Toxic, Burn, and the plethora of Water, Grass, and Fighting Pokémon in NU. That and it's laughably slow. You could say its Sand Stream that's the issue, but before you would have to use Hippopotas (lol) to get Sand up. But let's be honest, it's Gigalith's bulk in tandem with Sand Stream that's part of the problem. It can set Sand up multiple times if it needs to since it has good natural 85 / 130 / 80 bulk to work with. It even boosts its Special Defense by 50% because of Sandstorm. so even dedicated answers only 2HKO Gigalith. It can eat at least one hit and has a great 135 Attack to revenge-kill most offensive answers. It's Gigalith itself that made Sand viable and it created this stupidly good archetype in NU. I know Smogon doesn't like doing complex bans, such as removing Sand Stream from Gigalith or banning Sand Stream + Sand Rush, so there's honestly no point asking for that.

So, I hope I sounded like I know what I'm talking about (lol) and I hope I got my point across. If I ever get the reqs for it, I'll be voting Ban.

 

[Meat Grinder ♫]

I agree on Sand + Stoutland/Sandslash/Eject Button is a broken archetype in NU and I can see why the suspect of Gigalith over Sand Rush can be a bit confusing to some. I'm just curious if the council considered banning Smooth Rock over Gigalith or Sand Rush? I believe that would make sand a lot more balanced, especially limiting the turns the Rushers. Especially Sandslash that to me is the most broken of the 2 (3), that often get a lot of free turns to set up and sweep would be limited to 1/2 kills if played correctly. Stoutland is for sure a good mon in NU, but i think the popular defensive cores handles the Dark/Fighting/Normal moves fairly well, and often forces it into 50/50's in the non-Stoutland users favor. Its probably too late, but i think its silly to throw away Gigalith + a non broken sand archetype, when it can be prevented by banning Smooth Rock instead.

 

[Skelos]

honestly it's already tiresome to read all these posts talking about different routes on trying to handle sand. as much as i understand the matter of creating this suspect is that the no ban side should be talking about why sand isn't broken, and not why gigalith should stay. the purpose of this suspect is to nerf the sand playstyle and not directed at gigalith itself. for the record, the council already have thoroughly discussed this for weeks and ended up deciding to suspect gigalith, and that's what the council is for. this community on the other hand should be responsible enough in voting but the no ban side has been regarding this as a gigalith suspect and not an action towards nerfing sand, which is very wrong imo.

besides, what's wrong in banning gigalith? does the tier not benefit from it?

 

[LanstarA]

If it were me, I would have added an extra suspect test ladder for Sand Rush. At least test and see what how the meta would look like if the Sand Rushers got banned and Gigalith remained, and see how people like playing in the tier. That way, we can gauge what people actually want in the tier, and who should go and who should stay.

What you should imagine is a scenario like:
2071. A scientist has created a magical panacea turning humans into poweful superhumans who are immortal and gifted with psychic powers making them unstoppable. He is the only one in the world who knows how to make this panacea. The World Government is going to jail the scientist on Saturn and is thinking of executing him. The jailing decision has already caused worlwide outrage, and the outcome of this decision will decide on the future of humankind.

Counter Argument: Gigalith came down because it was forced to come down to the tier against its own will, due to how the system works. It did not "create the Panecea" as much as the Sand Rushers did, too: A small handful - like, two or three - sand rushers were the ones that enslaved Gigalith into doing their bidding, and they were the ones that took advantage of its powers.

By this logic, you may be imprisoning the slave, not the instigator. In order to find out who caused the disaster, suspect what may be instigating this mess, too.