np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 2 - Spider Man [Metagrossite remains OU]

[Grim]

Not going to write a whole essay because not only am I bad at writing them but no one likes reading them, so just going to briefly post my thoughts on the Mega Metagross suspect test.

When looking at Mega Metagross the first thing that stands out is that its stats are great overall, stat-wise Mega Metagross has no weaknesses. With 145 base Attack coupled with Tough Claws it hits very hard, and because of its 110 Speed it has more than enough opportunities to fire off its strong attacks. Even if you have a faster Pokemon, such as Thundurus, Talonflame, or Weavile, they won't KO Mega Metagross if its at decent health because of that amazing 80/150/110 bulk, which makes Mega Metagross capable of easily tanking neutral hits and even some (STAB) super effective ones. This Defense stat along with its typing that resists most priority moves also makes Mega Metagross capable of easily tanking priority not named Sucker Punch. Speaking of its typing, Steel/Psychic is a great typing even though it was nerfed in gen 6. Mega Metagross easily switches in against non Will-O-Wisp Gardevoir, Latios, Latias, Dragon-locked Dragonite, Venusaur, Tornadus-T, Celebi, etc and force them out, Pursuit-trap them in the case of Lati@s and Celebi, or set up with Agility.
Another thing to look at is Mega Metagross' amazing movepool. It has so many options that you never know what exactly to send in. If you send in the wrong Pokemon, the Pokemon is gone by the appropiate coverage move.

A list of moves Mega Metagross can possibly run: Meteor Mash, Zen Headbutt, Earthquake, Ice Punch, Thunderpunch, Hammer Arm, Grass Knot, Bullet Punch, Agility, Pursuit, Refresh (fuck you scald), Rock Slide.

Is there any Pokemon that can take on all variants of Mega Metagross? I cannot think of one. This versatility coupled with its amazing stats and ability make Mega Metagross a somewhat overcentralizing threat with very few counters that does great against all playstyles, be it offense, balance, or stall. Admittedly Mega Metagross cannot run all of those moves at once and there will always be Pokemon capable of walling the move combination you've chosen, but by the time you have figured that out one of your Pokemon is usually crippled or fainted already. The popularity of Choice Scarf Landorus-T is also somewhat annoying for it, but Landorus-T can't switch in and has to watch out with being locked into Earthquake because of the huge amount of Flying-types in the tier that also happen to synergize well with Mega Metagross. Earthquake is also not even a guarenteed OHKO.

Mega Metagross is a Pokemon with almost zero flaws, and those flaws (slight 4MSSS, Choice Scarf Landorus-T popularity) are so tiny that it is no problem at all to cover them with the other 5 Pokemon in the tier. I might still change my mind because Mega Metagross is not so broken that I just want it gone as fast as possible, but for now ban.

 

[Lord Wallace]

I'm going to reserve any conclusions until I actually get around to laddering for this, but my initial reaction is no ban.

The prevalence of Landorus-T and Bisharp on balanced or offensive teams is enough to keep this thing in check imo, it's not even comparable to the amount of strain that for example Greninja gave to teambuilding as most of its best checks are perfectly viable in OU and there are no shortage of them (Sableye, Ferrothorn, Slowbro, Alomomola, Mandibuzz, Hippowdon, Bisharp, Talonflame, Scizor, Suicune, Rotom-W, Mega Gyarados, Charizard) and do note I mean checks, not counters.
Mega Metagross doesn't have real counters I'll concede that much, but honestly the concept of a Pokemon with no switch ins is not a terribly new or unique quality thanks to the power creep of Gen 5 and 6, but a Pokemon with limited or no switch ins isn't necessarily broken as I'm sure will be pointed out again sooner or later.
The 110 base Speed tier is also quite congested, the most notable rival being Gengar, which has experienced a rise in popularity. Starting out at 70 isn't too hot either.
The point is no one playstyle is singled out in terms of being unable to pressure/check M-Gross effectively to the point of any game with M-Gross being "match up based".
Not to mention Metagross has real 4MSS.
I just haven't really felt the same strain on teambuilding with Metagross that I did with Greninja or Mawile. I take it into account the same way I'd regard checking M Scizor or SD Talon.

Why does this have to happen at the same time as ULT ;__; sigh

 

[Force Majeure]

Howdy, y'all. I'm glad we're suspecting Metagrossite. I don't typically try to get reqs for suspect testing, but I think I'll try this time around.

Metagross warps team building around itself to a great extent, especially for HO players but also for certain Balance cores. As threatening as its offensive stats are (+ tough claws), its natural bulk is what pushes it into potentially broken territory. It's somewhat like Mega Salamence; with its boosted defenses M-Mence was able to tank Ice Beams and Shards that were previously able to break it. Similarly, Metagross-Mega's boosted defense makes it hard to break without STAB, SE physical attacks. Granted, Meta is not as obviously broken as Mence, but the similarities are there.

I'm just gonna c+p what I pasted in the other thread, 'cos it pretty much applies here:

How people can state Mega Metagross needs to go just baffles me. This is an EXCELLENT pokemon, but no more - yes, it is difficult to counter, but it has a number of checks and it has to use more than four slots to get through all of them. It also has no recovery, and suffers from the resurgance of spikes that has been seen recently.

At some point, we're just going to have to accept that the metagame has got more powerful, rather than move from suspect test to suspect test until we can finally say "stall is viable!!"

The only reason I can see to try and swing the banhammer at the minute is "to avoid the meta getting stale". I feel like a lot of people are just getting on the suspect happy bandwagon for the sake of it, due to nostalgia "for the good old days" before the power creep, instead of adjusting to and enjoying what we have, now that we've removed the obviously broken 'mons.

tl;dr I'm happy with where the meta's at right now.

I'm pretty happy with the meta right now, but suggesting that we're just banning so that "stall is viable" is silly and suggests a lack of familiarity with Stall. This guy (kind of like Gren tbh) isn't making Stall less viable, it's eviscerating offensive teams that have no switch-ins or Scarf users that don't have enough unboosted power to take it down.

So, yeah, I'm pretty open-minded about whether or not Gross is gross enough to warrant banning, but it's pretty important that we know exactly what is being suppressed the most by it.

 

[North]

Mega Metagross is extremely unhealthy for this metagame. It restricts team building to the point where it forces balance teams would need a bulky water like Slowbro or Suicune, or other physically bulky things like Skarmory. Most offensive teams would really have no switch ins to this monster, and because of its great typing it can come in on a lot of things in the meta. It also has the same factor as Greninja where it's a guessing game to what move set is has. The access to moves like grass knot and hammer arm allow it to bypass its counters. And moves like pursuit can make it form amazing offensive cores with pokemon like Keldeo and Clefable.

This thing is a monster in the metagame. It restricts team building and can pick and chose what its counters are with its vast move pool.
BAN

 

[BasedCannon]

Skrelp. I should have known that this was coming. Mega Metagross has amazing coverage, great stats, in addition to a solid typing and that scares people. I guess this was inevitable; I've been waiting for the next suspect test and it only fits that we address one of the hard hitters. However.. now I have to ladder to make sure that Smogon doesn't make a mistake because I strongly disagree with banning Metagrossite.

One of the reason that Mega Metagross is so good right now is because it helps to beat Fairies that would other-wise sweep teams. It prevents threats such as CM Clefable or DD M-Altaria from overcentralizing the tier while still being able to be countered. Yes Landorus-T and Gliscor can be hit by a well-played Ice Punch, however Mega Metagross can't beat Stallbreaker Mew even if Mew switches in. It'll still survive and be able to potentially burn and cripple said Metagross.

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252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Meteor Mash vs. 252 HP / 104+ Def Mew: 175-207 (43.3 - 51.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

It also cannot beat Scizor or Mega Scizor Variants.

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252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Hammer Arm vs. 248 HP / 0+ Def Mega Scizor: 107-127 (31.1 - 37%) -- 78.9% chance to 3HKO

And barring Hammer Arm variants, it cannot beat Ferrothorn whom can just set-up a leach seed and/or stack hazards.

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252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 79-94 (22.4 - 26.7%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

Now I've seen some people post that Fairies are kept in check by Heatran and Ferothorn. This isn't exactly true. For instance Clefable is very capable of beating Ferrothorn. The standard analysis set on Smogon lets CM Clefable with Calm Mind, Moonblast, Flamethrower, and Soft-boiled. At neutral Clefable 2HKO's Ferrothorn with said Flamethrower. If it has any calm minds up, different story entirely.

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0 SpA Clefable Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 192-228 (54.5 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+1 0 SpA Clefable Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 284-336 (80.6 - 95.4%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

Heatran also cannot beat Calm Mind Clefable unless it has Roar, Taunt, or Flash Cannon. Else-wise said Clefable can just proceed to Calm Mind until it's +6/+6 and then out-damage said Heatran. With Meta Metagross, Clefable cannot proceed to stay in safely even at +1. Sure it might be able to get a decent hit off, but that's all it's doing.

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+1 0 SpA Clefable Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Metagross: 170-202 (56.4 - 67.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

M-Altaria functions the same way. It can beat Ferrothorn or Heatran depending upon the variant while it, in the same right at as Clefable, cannot beat Metagross 1v1. So by eliminating Mega Metagross, you're allow Fairies to be more powerful and forcing users to use more precautions which can restrict team building. You're allowing fairies to become over-centralizing by banning a mon that isn't overcentralizing.

At the end of the day Mega Metagross is just a strong mon. It can hit hard and damage a team that isn't prepared for it. As presented above, there are very obvious counters out there to stop said "monster" but if you don't use them, I can kind of see why you'd be trying to argue that it's too good for OU. All I can say is do your calcs and play the Suspect Ladder and see how much worse the meta is without Mega Metagross. I will. I'll be laddering to vote no ban. I hope you all do the same.

 

[shellsamurai]

I would say NO BAN for megagross. While it is powerful with tough claws and has really good stats, it isn't able to boost very easily thanks to it having quite a few checks (like slowbro, landorus. skarmory-t, heatran, crawdawnt, diggersby etc) , so it's power is very limited and quite frankly not enough to outright sweep the metagame. It also isn't very centralizing, at least not as centralizing as Greninja was, and although it has moves to beat it's checks- it does not commonly run moves like thunder punch (ice punch or earthquake provides better coverge) and hammer arm (too detrimental to speed to be worthwhile) so some of those checks are pretty much counters. It is not nearly as versatile as greninja, and it's speed tier is great but not amazing, it speed ties with the latis and gets outsped by pokemon like talonflame, mega sceptile, mega manectric, mega lopunny, thunderus etc. I'd say it has a lot in comparison to char x of XY, amazing but not broken.

 

[Smurf.]

LOL at all these people saying ban. Mega Metagross is strong, no doubt, but is certainly no second coming of jesus like some of these people make out. The Agiligross set suffers so badly from 4 move sydrome in having to choose between Earthquake/Hammer Arm/Ice Punch. It is not going to sweep the entire metagame or even a significant portion of it without team support. read: like every other setup sweeper. The Wallbreaker set is also great at guess what. wallbreaking. You cant argue it broke my walls ; cry ; as a reason to ban it. Ridiculous. Post-Greninja ORAS is heavily biased in favour of balanced and stall teams, with offense barely even seen. Banning mega metagross would make for an even more unhealthy metagame than we have now.

 

[Grim]

You're allowing fairies to become over-centralizing by banning a mon that isn't overcentralizing.

I hope you realize that this argument is a fallacy, the slippery slope one to be precise. Until the suspect ladder is up there is no way of knowing that Fairy-types will become overcentralizing if Mega Metagross is gone, and even if they do we worry about that when they actually are centralizing instead of now. It's not like Mega Metagross is the only Pokemon protecting us from the Fairies. OU is the Steel-type tier, there are more than enough Fairy checks outside of Mega Metagross such as Bisharp, Scizor, Ferrothorn, Excadrill, Heatran, Jirachi and Magnezone, as well as non Steel-types such as Victini, Tentacruel, Mega Venusaur, Amoonguss, Mega Charizard Y, and Talonflame. Saying that Mega Metagross' removal from the OU tier means Fairy domination is not only impossible to say but should also not influence the votes.

 

[Tesung]

Dont Ban. There are a lot of solid checks depedning on movepool. It also just lack's the pwer needed to really broken. Doesnt even ohko shit like latios for example. While it may lack completely hard counters (although scizor rle does more or less as well as shit like skarm, physdef gliscor JIRachi which I guess arent foolproof but mostly do the job), it is checked pretty easily and struggles with rle stnadard cores like ferro-rotom-lando-t, needing perfect prdiction to even have a chance and still most likely losing. I can see the argument cuz its hard for offense to rk, but offense has shit like excadrill or just shit that can live a hit p easily and ohko back like zard x/chomper. All in all I can see the argument cuz it has a very low opportunity cost and can threaten a lot of shit, but if people just tried a bit harder to chekc it its not that hard.

Also 90 acc everything sux

 

[Inflikted]

This is not a surprise

I don't think of Metagross as such an unbearably broken pokemon as Greninja was in ORAS, but it's probably too much for the tier anyway. Its offensive and defensive checks are not so few, but they are all really unreliable as Metagross has the movepool to run the coverage that its team needs by taking care of almost all of its most common switchins. Its speed is incredibly high for a pokemon with this wallbreaking power, and makes it capable of 2HKO the majority of the switchins without getting outsped and damaged. Its bulk is also incredible, tanking huge super effective hits Earthquake from Scarf Lando T and Sucker Punch from Jolly LO Bisharp is unprecedented for fast and hard hitting pokemon. This combination of traits makes it incredibly difficult to prepare for if not with multiple answers (and your team will tend to cover less threats if you do so), or with pokemon that you wouldn't probably run in certain team archetypes if not for Mega Metagross, such as random defensive mons like Bulky Starmie or Slowbro that turn many would-be offensive teams into balance (even if admittedly this may also be an effect of the Lopunny's presence tbh). I'm leaning towards ban most likely; still not 100% sure though, I'll see how the suspect ladder metagame will look like.

 

[The Pyromaniac]

having quite a few checks (like slowbro, landorus. skarmory-t, heatran, crawdawnt, diggersby etc)

I fail to see how Crawdaunt and Diggersby check Mega Meta and Heatran would have to be scarfed to check it. And Lando-T is far from a reliable answer to it.

it does not commonly run moves like thunder punch (ice punch or earthquake provides better coverge) and hammer arm (too detrimental to speed to be worthwhile) so some of those checks are pretty much counters.

Most people opt for hammer arm > eq now so that point was irrelevant. Hammer Arms speed drop is hardly detrimental since your opponent will more than likely bring in something that forces you out after that would still force you out without the speed drop. It only really comes into play occasionally late game.

 

[michaeloche]

I would say NO BAN for megagross. While it is powerful with tough claws and has really good stats, it isn't able to boost very easily thanks to it having quite a few checks (like slowbro, landorus. skarmory-t, heatran, crawdawnt, diggersby etc) , so it's power is very limited and quite frankly not enough to outright sweep the metagame.

Those aren't always good checks. In fact, some of them outright lose depending on what moves Metagross has. Lando loses to Ice Punch, Slowbro to Grass Knot, Heatran to EQ, etc. Also, let me remind you having checks/counters does not necessarily make something not broken. (And really, how common are Diggersby and Crawdaunt anyway?) That, and the only boosting move you will ever see it run is Agility/Rock Polish, barring Meteor Mash hax.

It also isn't very centralizing, at least not as centralizing as Greninja was, and although it has moves to beat it's checks- it does not commonly run moves like thunder punch (ice punch or earthquake provides better coverge) and hammer arm (too detrimental to speed to be worthwhile) so some of those checks are pretty much counters.

I'll give you that those moves aren't as good as others and that Megagross has a bit of 4mss, but it has enough moves to beat its checks (see above). And you have 5 other mons on your team, so it's not like those can't help. And why are you saying it isn't centralizing? It's VERY centralizing, arguably more so than Greninja because you have to dedicate at least two teamslots to beat it, as I and others have alluded to before. And even then, if you do, often one is dead and another is weakened.

It is not nearly as versatile as greninja, and it's speed tier is great but not amazing, it speed ties with the latis and gets outsped by pokemon like talonflame, mega sceptile, mega manectric, mega lopunny, thunderus etc. I'd say it has a lot in comparison to char x of XY, amazing but not broken.

But how many of those can actually do anything back? Mega Manectric's Overheat only has about a 1 in 3 chance to KO a full HP Megagross, and the others don't even come close except Talonflame, which doesn't even run Flare Blitz half the time.

edit: partially ninja'd, but w/e

 

[Mr. Goodra]

This is going to be a close one.
First post here is just gonna be my initial thoughts whilst I catch up with the thread.

Mega Metagross is without a doubt a suspect worthy mon. Phenomenal stat distribution allows it to take a hit and hit back harder, and it sits at the new crucial speed tier of 110 so it's not the easiest thing to outspeed. It has a somewhat diverse move pool that allows it to threaten the majority of the meta. It appears to be the perfect mon.

However, damage output is somewhat mitigated by poor type coverage STAB moves. Typing is an issue in general as steels are well prepared for in OU, and psychic typing only leads to more detrimental weaknesses. EQ and knock off are everywhere and with types like fire being common coverage, Metagross can rarely afford to safely set up. Furthermore, it has a lousy pre-evolution speed of 80, meaning it's not as easy to get going as paper suggests. It is answered by mons already prevelant in the tier like Landorus-T and Slowbro (although admittedly this is coverage dependent) so does not require specialisation to deal with. In my opinion, it fits in the tier very well and whilst definitely one of the best, I do not personally see it broken currently. Even as the king of the tier, it is manageable. However these are very rushed initial thoughts written on mobile, so I'll be keeping an eye on this thread and expanding my points where necessary.

 

[Master B8s]

I'm not in favor or against metagrossite being banned but the 4mss arguments should not be used here. Like greninja, it can choose what it wants to hit and leave what it can't hit to its teamates cause it can't hit everything it wants in one set. Much like greninja, it will usually be running two moves all the time, meteor mash and zen head butt because they are tough claw boosted STABs that, even with redundent coverage, still are the hardest hitting moves metagross can run. As for the coverage moves, it can choose what it wants to hit. Your team Have trouble with bulky waters? Run grass knot or thunder punch. Steal types? Hammer arm or EQ. Dragon and Landorus giving you a hard time? Ice punch. Yes like greninja you can figure out what coverage moves it's running, but that involves sacking and/or letting your mons take massive damage. Unlike greninja however, it trades some of its speed for some great defenses. Example, it survives bisharps sucker punch and scarf landorus-T EQ from full. Those are both relatively high base power STAB moves from two strong common OU attackers. The bulk should not be underestimated on this guy. I'm not in favor or against a ban, Im just stating my opinion on it.

 

[Albacore]

At first I didn't really think this thing was broken, but much like MMawile the more I faced it, the more ridiculous it came off to me. and yeah I do think it's pretty broken now.

The main reason I find Metagross to be too much for this tier to handle is the combination of power and bulk which puts it above anything else in OU. Most Pokemon are either frail enough to prevent from coming in for free not too weak to be difficult to switch into, but Metagross completely skewers this by just not having any flaws. teams handle something by either a) having a consistent switch in to it or b) not letting it switch in easily. The former is very difficult and the latter is flat-out impossible for most competent teams and puts a massive strain on teambuilding.

Offense suffers from this the most since it doesn't have anything that can switch into it bar like, Manectric or Landorus-T, once. "But wait, offense isn't supposed to switch things into other things!" I hear you object. Which is true, but Offense doesn't usually need to switch things in, since it can always guarantee damage on anything that is powerful enough to be difficult to switch into, since Pokemon with good offenses typically suffer from okay-to-mediocre bulk and defensive typings. But when facing a massive hunk of metal with 80 / 150 / 110 bulk, how the hell are you preventing it from switching in? You need to make absolutely sure that every member of your team can threaten a lot of damage on it. This means no Latios, no Gardevoir, no Terrakion, no Mega Altaria or Mega Diancie. This limits teambuilding on offense a ton since you just can't use these Pokemon without being massively weak to Megagross.

Balanced teams are also annoyed by it a lot, since MMetagross easily gets a ton of switchin opportutities, and you absolutely need to run a full counter. Even stuff like Slowbro and Phys Def Hippowdon doesn't cut it, since even if MMeta doesn't hit GK the first time, it'll click it the second time or third time or fifth time because that's how many times it will be able to switch in. Any balanced team that doesn't run Counter Skarmory or Scizor is weak to MMetagross, because these are the only safe options, and the only things that can come into it many times during a match.

Stall isn't really troubled by it because it usually runs Skarmory, but besides that, not much can counter it as consistently as Stall can afford, so you kinda need Skarm. Once again, this is good evidence of it almost forcing certain Pokemon to be used on certain teams. Stall pretty much needs Skarmory, Scizor or Slowking so as to not be weak to MMetagross, and this contributes to a stale metagame overral.

It does get worn down, this is true. It is pretty vulnerable to stuff like Rocky Helmet and Iron Barbs. However, it's powerful enough to the point where it ends up getting worn down more slowly than you do whenever you face it, especially if you rely on stuff like Rotom-W and Ferrothorn to check it. In practice, it almost always outlasts all of its checks that are not direct counters.

As for Metagross's 4MSS, it just doesn't exist. STABs+Hammer Arm is all you need really. Grass Knot is usually the token last slot, but it's more of a luxury than anything, most of its targets being easily handled by its bulky Water and Grass teammates. Bullet Punch, Pursuit, Agility, heck even Substitute are all great options which heavily influence how one can handle it (but not Ice Punch, Ice Punch blows stop using it). This is not 4MSS, this is just versatility.

Also, did I mention the hax? The amount of times I've seen a Meteor Mash attack boost or a Zen Headbutt flinch decide a battle is pretty disgusting. I know hax isn't really an argument to ban something but it's still one of the most infuriating aspects of Metagross and definitely needs to be taken into account.

All that being said, I do feel like there would be one downside to banning it, and that it the fact that offensive teams lose their best check to Fairy-types. Without Metagross, a lot of teams will find it very hard to handle all the fairies we have especially given the great new fairy megas ORAS gave us. MMetagross is basically the only thing stopping Fairies from completely dominating the metagame. But they are other ways to handle these fairies, we still have Talonflame, Heatran, Scizor, Jirachi, Ferrothorn, Gengar, MVenusaur, etc... And if some fairies turn out to be broken, we can simply ban them. Of course, even if no Fairy type will be individually broken their impact on the metagame could be a negative thing for it, but surely it can't be as bad as MMetagross's complete and utter dominance over the tier. Even if you don't think it's broken you at least have to admit that the metagame revolves around it in a very real way, there it just no downside to running it to the point where it devalues other megas. It absolutely rules OU and will continue to do so if we do not ban it.

So yeah, support a ban on this one. Too powerful, too bulky, too fast, too good.

 

[North]

I personally don't have a problem with mega Metagross, and I don't think it should be banned even though most others on this post think so. It has alot of counters and it might have a good movepool but things like choice scarf landorus-t can easily take it out. And also other things like rotom can will-o-wisp it and then... it does no damage at all. It can't touch Skarmory's either so it really doesn't need to be banned. It also is a good thing for the meta game cuz of it's high movepool and can take care of things like bulky mega venusaur, that most ppl have problems with.

Landorus can't switch in without fear of an ice punch. Rotom is easily 3hkoed by a zen headbutt so if that's your "counter" you need to leave it healthy if you don' want to be 2hkoed. Skarmory is a good counter to it, but do you want every team to have a Skarmory? That's way too over centralizing. The other good "counters" are Suicune and Slowbro, who are both 2hkoed by grass knot. Mega Metagross makes the opponent play a guessing game to what its movepool is, like greninja.

 

[Cloud_Nine987]

I never thought I'd see the day when Metagrossite was suspected...

This is such a tricky subject for me. While I don't see Mega Metagross as flat-out broken, I also see him as a step above the other S-ranks...that is, a half-step above the rest, if that makes any sense. Nice typing, pretty good movepool, yeah, but what sets it off is its crucial speed stat. It hits that really nice 110, which is just about as good as it needs to be in a metagame like ours. Again, I don't see Metagross to be as broken as the likes of Greninja were, but I still recognize that it is one of the most powerful sweepers. I'd be fine with a ban,

but the problem for me is the metagame after that. I have a really odd (maybe, I dunno what the rest of you think) opinion on OU right now, as a mid-ladder player, and that's just repetition. The same things are being used over and over again. While that line may fit better on a metagame dicussion thread, where I'm going with this is the resulting metagame. This by no means should affect whether it gets banned or not, but I'm just sort of fearful it would lead to suspect tests of other Pokemon as a result of the Metagrossite's ban. At the beginning of XY, people thought fairies were going to be absolutely overpowered. They're immune to what was one of the most powerful types in the game, while they boasted super-effective coverage against said type, as well as against fighting and dark-types. Look at the Viability Rankings list. Keldeo, Mega Sableye, Mega Altaria, Mega Lopunny, Latios, Mega Gallade, Garchomp, Tyranitar...all of these top-tier threats are weak to Fairy. I know this may be irrelevant, but if we lose Mega Metagross, we lose offense's best check to fairy-types. Please give me a bit longer to explain my case here - Mega Diancie, Mega Gardevoir, Mega Altaria, Clefable, and Sylveon, some of the most common fairy-types, are stopped cold, for the most part, by Metagross. Without Metagross here to check them, I just somehow get a vibe that these fairies are going to run through OU. Sure, Scizor is a reliable check to most of them (bar Mega Diancie, Sylveon, and Clefable with a fire-type move, be it Hidden Power Fire or Flamethrower), Rotom-W can mess with unboosted Diancie, and Excadrill and Mega Venusaur can pose a threat, but that's very few true weaknesses to them. I don't know what to think...I'm in support of a ban, but I'm just afraid the resulting metagame will be in need of a fairy exterminator, if that's a thing.

 

[Srn]

Just gonna dump this here ._.
http://pastebin.com/thvDKcAy

Keep in mind all those calcs are factoring in a JOLLY meteor mash, not an ADAMANT one from agiligross sets.
These calcs can more or less show all you honestly need is stabs+hammer+gknot to kill 90% of everything; the other few can be removed with some different moves/sets and there stands only two counters in the end of it all: Mega scizor and gourgiest-L with phantom force :S

So it has the potential to beat everything practically in the game bar mega scizor on the switch in.
Now give it 110 base speed
An excellent defensive typing
And 700 BST with god-like bulk.
And an ability that boosts the power of almost every single one of its moves.
Did I mention its one of the only azu checks that can actually fit onto offense?

BAN.

 

[ClaptonRules64]

I personally think megagross is broken and is worthy of a ban. This monster punches holes through unprepared balanced teams and just totally shits on offense. It hits the best speed tier in the post greninja metagame at 110. It obviously hits like a truck, and its natural bulk gives it crazy sustainability and allows it to survive hits from scarfed lando and LO bisharp. Despite this, you really don't get into the broken-ness of megagross until you talk about its movepool. This thing has the perfect moves to hit most if not all of its checks. Gliscor, Lando-t, Garchomp etc get bopped by ice punch, it has thunderpunch for skarm, hammer arm for ferrothorn, grass knot for slowbro hippo etc... Even rotom wash gets 2hko'd by zen headbutt. It can boost with agility, hell it even gets refresh.... It suffers from 4 slot syndrome, but finding out which coverage it's running can often cost you 1 or 2 sacs. HO is more or less unviable with this thing flying around and with it gone there will be more diversity in play styles and mega choices. Overall, I think the meta would be healthier with this thing gone.

 

[Clone]

Dont Ban

the tl;dr version of this (ill post my full thoughts later) is that metagross is doing its job perfectly, and people seem to think that it makes it broken for some reason. Its job is to wallbreak, and thats exactly what it does: wallbreak. Another thing is that this balance infested metagame has trouble with it because its the playstyle gross has the hardest matchup against (except for some variants of stall). And even then, ferrotran cores + lando t give it trouble, for example (ik hammer arm is a thing but trust me when I say that this core gives gross trouble). It may be lacking in the counters department, but even then they still exist (phys def gliscor, physdef mew, bulky mega scizor, alomomomomomomola, etc). it also has its fair share of checks like rotom, lando t, bro, mega bro, ferro, jirachi, manaphy, suicune, and others. the main problem with gross is that its centralizing, but that doesnt make it broken.

also offense has plenty of ways to revenge kill it holy shit. stop saying it doesnt. prior damage is easy to get when gross is switching in on latios dracos,lopunny returns, etc. 20% isnt difficult to achieve, even if it does resist rocks. The two best revenge killers, talon and lando t, both beat it after that 10-20% prior damage. its not gonna be at 100% health every time. this is not a good argument to make when youre trying to simulate real game scnarios. the real game scenarios have it at 70-90% most of the time after its first switch in. not 100. if its at 100% every time it comes in, then youre not playing properly. make sure that you know that gross is using its resistances to switch in more often than not, and it taking chip damage every time it comes in. its not magic guard clefable that doesnt gaf about hazards and can heal. once damage is done to gross, its done for good. its only getting that back thru healing wish / wish.

 

[shellsamurai]

I fail to see how Crawdaunt and Diggersby check Mega Meta and Heatran would have to be scarfed to check it. And Lando-T is far from a reliable answer to it.

252+ Atk Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 332-392 (110.2 - 130.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO. Scarf diggersby outspeeds and can OHKO with EQ, so it wins 1v1 evrey time and therefore is a check.


Most people opt for hammer arm > eq now so that point was irrelevant. Hammer Arms speed drop is hardly detrimental since your opponent will more than likely bring in something that forces you out after that would still force you out without the speed drop. It only really comes into play occasionally late game.

1. 252+ Atk Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 332-392 (110.2 - 130.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO. Scarf diggersby outspeeds and can OHKO with EQ, so it wins 1v1 evrey time and therefore is a check.

Crawdawnt can check if it isnt carrying hammer arm.
0 SpA Tough Claws Mega Metagross Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Crawdaunt: 194-230 (72.3 - 85.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 302-359 (100.3 - 119.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

2.Really? Being the good late game sweeper that it is, mega metagross doesnt want to lose on something it would usually beat thanks to a speed drop. I could see it working for a wallbreaker set (since all they do is switch in and out) but for metagross there are better options.

 

[branflakes]

Up until now I haven't decided whether or not Metagrossite is banworthy, but some thought made me realize this thing bears similarities to Greninja.

First off, coverage. Mega Metagross has an exceptional move pool that allows it to muscle past most of its counters. We've seen this "no true counters" feature a few times lately, and it's not enough to make a pokemon broken or overcentralizing or banworthy on its own. Technically Emboar has like no counters now lol. Next is speed, and Metagross has just enough to make it really difficult to switch into, and thus it has the ability to grab KO's merely by getting in safely and clicking the appropriate stab or coverage. Lastly, the ability Tough Claws is sort of a pseudo protean/stab that applies to every single one of Metagross's coverage moves (grass knot included) except for Earthquake.

While Greninja has better speed and arguably better coverage, the most obvious difference is bulk and defensive typing. It goes without saying that 80/150/110 (or 80/130/90) defenses and nine resistances give Metagross at least a few opportunities to sneak in and possibly mega evolve if it hasn't already.

Considering these strengths, I'm inclined to say that Mega Metagross is slightly broken and it has a centralizing influence on the metagame (tldr: ban). More to come later, these are just my initial thoughts.

 

[BasedCannon]

Metagross have counters... But, let's if they can do it Well:

Slowbro:
0 SpA Tough Claws Mega Metagross Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Slowbro: 240-284 (60.9 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Scizor:
0 SpA Mega Metagross Hidden Power Fire vs. 248 HP / 176 SpD Mega Scizor: 156-184 (45.4 - 53.6%) -- 34% chance to 2HKO

Landorus-T:
-1 252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 24 Def Landorus-T: 340-400 (106.5 - 125.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Ferrothorn:
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 316-376 (89.7 - 106.8%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Hammer Arm vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 212-250 (60.2 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Rotom-W:
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Zen Headbutt vs. 248 HP / 216+ Def Rotom-W: 133-157 (43.8 - 51.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Zapdos:
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Zapdos: 163-193 (42.4 - 50.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Skarmory:
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 136-160 (40.7 - 47.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Mega Sableye:
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Meteor Mash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Sableye: 132-156 (43.4 - 51.3%) -- 4.7% chance to 2HKO

So, BAN IT!

I don't think you understand what a counter is because nobody in their right mind would say that Zapdos is a counter. If anything all you've done is use specific moves to beat specific mons, and HP Fire to beat Scizor is PRIME proof of that. I do hope you stick around in this thread and listen to actual arguments though. At least to strengthen your own because you're completely over-looking 4MSS with these calcs.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

Dont Ban

the tl;dr version of this (ill post my full thoughts later) is that metagross is doing its job perfectly, and people seem to think that it makes it broken for some reason. Its job is to wallbreak, and thats exactly what it does: wallbreak. Another thing is that this balance infested metagame has trouble with it because its the playstyle gross has the hardest matchup against (except for some variants of stall). And even then, ferrotran cores + lando t give it trouble, for example (ik hammer arm is a thing but trust me when I say that this core gives gross trouble). It may be lacking in the counters department, but even then they still exist (phys def gliscor, physdef mew, bulky mega scizor, alomomomomomomola, etc). it also has its fair share of checks like rotom, lando t, bro, mega bro, ferro, jirachi, manaphy, suicune, and others. the main problem with gross is that its centralizing, but that doesnt make it broken.

also offense has plenty of ways to revenge kill it holy shit. stop saying it doesnt. prior damage is easy to get when gross is switching in on latios dracos,lopunny returns, etc. 20% isnt difficult to achieve, even if it does resist rocks. The two best revenge killers, talon and lando t, both beat it after that 10-20% prior damage. its not gonna be at 100% health every time. this is not a good argument to make when youre trying to simulate real game scnarios. the real game scenarios have it at 70-90% most of the time after its first switch in. not 100. if its at 100% every time it comes in, then youre not playing properly. make sure that you know that gross is using its resistances to switch in more often than not, and it taking chip damage every time it comes in. its not magic guard clefable that doesnt gaf about hazards and can heal. once damage is done to gross, its done for good. its only getting that back thru healing wish / wish.

For your last paragraph, stop pretending the Agility set doesn't exist. With that set, pretty much nothing outside of Bisharp and Landorus-T revenges it on offense. This makes it such that on offense, much like Albacore stated in his post, you can't consistently beat Mega Metagross unless your team is specifically designed to give it no switch-in opportunities. This is similar to Aegislash in that if you were hard countered, you sucked in the metagame because you gave Aegislash a free opportunity to just fuck everything up; of course, for Megagross it doesn't apply to the whole metagame but rather to just one playstyle, but the point still stands.

 

[Prinz]

I guess you guys don't need to keep saying things like "Metagross is very fast, powerful, and can beat some of its checks with the right coverage move" as everyone knows it by now, and it's a top tier mon anyway if we ban or don't ban it so imo there isn't much reason to keep saying it's a very good mon. Also I think that while it's right to say why it's a top tier mon, you should focus on its flaws as well as even if it's good against HO teams it struggles against more defensive buildings (balanced and bulky offense are the best playstyles atm so yeh), and it has also lot of checks that are cool mons anyway (tesung and clone already nominated the most part of them, I think)

The other thing I'm afraid of banning Metagross is that idk if the tier will get better if it leaves, I mean I know it's theorymon but if Metagross leaves I guess fairy-type mons like Clefable, Altaria etc will be top threat and idk it will be good (Steel types would exists anyway but yeh Metagross is probs the best offensive one at checking fairies thanks to its godly bulkyness).

tl;dr (not that I have written too much anyway but yeh) I think that while Metagross is extremely good against offense (HO teams have still their ways to beat it, tho so w/e), it isn't as good against balanced and bulky offense that are the most common playstyles rn (it also requires lot of prediction to put work, forgot to say that before), and I also think is presence is more positive than negative in the current tier so I wouldn't ban it.

(Will prolly post other thoughts in the next days)