np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 5 - Run The Jewels

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Hello, the tiering OU Council has decided to test Sablenite and Shadow Tag this round.

Mega Sableye, with Magic Bounce, paired with its typing, its good utility movepool (Recover, Will-o-Wisp, Calm Mind, Knock Off, Foul Play), and the defense stat boosts given by its Mega Evolution, Mega Sableye has become a centralizing force in the OU metagame that is not easy to take down.

Being the only bulky Magic Bounce Pokemon in existence, Mega Sableye makes it extremely difficult to set-up any sort of entry hazard once it has Mega Evolved. Only a few Pokemon can afford the luxury of setting their hazards against Mega Sableye without sacrificing viability. This issue makes it extremely difficult for anyone to beat a defensively oriented Mega Sableye teams. Due to Mega Sableye's presence, setting hazards up and pivoting until a hole is created is nearly impossible now when it used to be one of the most efficient ways to break defensive play styles.

By making pivoting impossible and increasing difficulty to break defensive teams, Mega Sableye forces the use of specific Pokemon or specific sets that have the ability to beat almost every form of stall team that were not commonly seen before the rise of Mega Sableye stall. Togekiss and Mega Pidgeot are two examples. Most of these Pokemon / sets find their usefulness against and only against these teams archetypes. That means using them is definitely risky because they can be absolute deadweights against any other type of team (ex: Mega Pidgeot against offense). Without the use of these specific breakers, making every right move and prediction is not enough, the chance of winning is non-existent or very slim.

We are not saying that it is impossible to beat a good team based around Mega-Sableye, but the fact that this Pokemon forces the use of specific Pokemon or specific movesets to beat the team archetypes in which it works best creates a massive both teambuilding and metagame development restriction. We believe the centralization it brings to the tier is worthy of a suspect test.

Shadow Tag has been identified by both tournaments and ladder players as an issue. This ability denies the opposing side one of the key elements in Pokemon; switching. There are a few exceptions to this, such as Ghost types and opposing Shadow Tag Pokemon, but only four Pokemon are remotely viable in OU.

The most popular abuser of the ability is Gothitelle, which gets Trick, Rest, Calm Mind, Thunder Wave, and other viable moves. Gothitelle has the ability to give its item (typically a Choice Scarf) to a Pokemon that cannot kill it, forces it to lock itself into a move, and then proceed to a PP stall until the Pokemon dies by using Struggle. The only way a trap from Shadow Tag can be avoided is continuously double switching until the Shadow Tag user dies to hazards (that means hazards have to be on the Shadow Tag user's side of the field) or giving a Pokemon Shed Shell, which only has one very niche use.

We decided to not suspect Gothitelle because we think Shadow Tag is the main part of the problem. Gothorita has the same trapping abilities as its evolution, and thus could also become an issue should Gothitelle be banned. We also think Wobbuffet and Wynaut, despite being quite unseen and less effective than Gothitelle, are problematic, as they can punish the opponent by trapping a target and create a hole and punish the opponent with little to no counter play.

Due to the fact that the ability works extremely well with a Mega Sableye stall team, we have decided to only ban Sablenite from the Suspect Ladder. Then, the voters will vote on Sablenite and Shadow Tag. That way, if they think Sablenite was the only issue, they can remove it and only it. If they still think Shadow Tag is the issue even without Sablenite (based on the ladder experience, where it will be allowed even without one of its main supporter, Mega Sableye), they can vote to boot it out while keeping Sablenite. Obviously, the voters will have the option to boot both of them or neither of them.

For this round we are going to have two alternative ways to qualify for voting:
  1. Laddering: you will need to achieve a COIL rating of 2700 (or more) in a /!\ game limit of 75 games /!\ on the OU Suspect Test Ladder (in which Sablenite will be banned, but not Shadow Tag), that will be implemented very soon.
  2. Suspect Tours: check McMeghan's thread.

The suspect test will last for approximately 2 weeks and will end on Wednesday 9th December. The vote will take place in roughly one week after that.

Use this thread to discuss the suspect and your thoughts on the suspect metagame. If you have any questions, then feel free to contact AM, boudouche, M Dragon, McMeghan, PDC, TDK or Tesung through a PM. These threads tend to get derailed so please make extra effort to stay on topic. Future suspects need not be discussed in this thread.

Keep in mind that, as usual, it's going to be up to the playerbase to decide the outcome of this test. Good luck and have fun laddering!

/!\ Rules for posting in this thread /!\
  1. No one liners nor uninformed posts;
  2. No discussion on other potential suspects;
  3. No discussion on the suspect process;
  4. You are required to make respectful posts;
  5. You are required to read this thread before posting.

Failing to follow these simple guidelines will result into your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.

Antar's edit: as with the previous OU tests, the B value for this test is 17.0. To figure out how many battles you will need to have in order to achieve reqs, first determine your GXE (shown on the ladder and when you type /rating) and plug that into the following formula:

N=17.0/log2(40*GXE/2700)

(Google calculator is awesome for this kind of thing).

Here are some sample values:
Code:
GXE N
100 30
90 41
85 52
80 70
75 112
70 324
 

UltiMario

Out of Obscurity
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It's finally damn time, Sableye has been a mon that's always inherently way too strong in the game, and it's power level is honestly above many other current Ubers, it's just been hanging on by a thread due to the fact the types of teams it supports are inherently weak without it.

STag on the other hand I'm not so sure about, but that's what the test is for.
 

The Goomy

Whitest Mexican Alive
I think this is a really interesting suspect for this main reason: I don't think either Mega Sab or Shadow Tag (Goth really) are broken by themselves. The main issue is when they're on the same team together since the best ways to break + get up hazards against Sab are (in general) trapped and killed by Goth.

Both Sab and Goth make the tier really matchup dependent IMO and it's really annoying that so few viable mons can have a prayer of setting up rocks against Sab itself, let alone Sab teams.

To be honest I'd like to see both go since I think they make the tier matchup dependent and Goth is used by players that patch teambuilding flaws with a mon that can trap and kill whatever it wants. :S
 

DennisEG

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Finally it's here, To begin with i think the real problem with Sableye + Goth Stall archetypes is Mega Sableye because the ability to set up hazard against stall team is the way to can beat them, but with Mega Sableye around is really hard to set up hazards specially when every common stealth rocker is beaten by Sable bar Heatran that can somehow can beat Sableye without CM or at least PP stalled, or the uncommon Rocks Clefable although now on days on ladder people dont run at all rocks clef because the T-wave CM set is way more superior. So unable to set up freely hazard or spam status moves really difficult playing against stall not to mentioned that Sable also is a amazing spin blocker able to switch into Starmie (Bulky version) and Excadrill without a fear ( No Life Orb) and block the spin because stall team are based on spike stacking too. On top of that Sableye is a reliable check agaisnt physical attackers as well due to his amazing bulk and access to will-o-wisp, also is able to check some stronger special attacker such as Mega-Kazam (without Dazzling) and Gengar which threats this types of archetypes.
Paired with a Shadow Tag users this types of teams are able to handle the Stallbreaker or Wallbreakers such as Manaphy or Togekiss being Goth able to trapped trick away his scarf and proceed to PP stalled with another fat mon with reliable recovery, but the metagame is so centralized now that people are force to run Shed shell on his Stallbreaker/Wallbreaker and a Pursuit Trapper to get rid of Gothitelle, but Goth is only able to trap one mon dispite of this, this team it's all they need. I think the real problem is the absolute control of hazard and support Sableye give to the entire team with his incredible types and being bulky as hell limits the building process just to handle this types of teams specially paired with Goth.

For the other side Goth by itself is like another trapper in the metagame, great partner to get rid of others check/counters. It's like DragMag or Alt+Mag really good strategy but not overwhelming at all, being ORAS a tier with a lot of threats and massive heavy hitters i dont think Goth is than usufull in terms of paired with another mon forming a core, because is too passive if running scarf and too slow if you running specs not to mention that can be a dead weight if you playing agaisnt offense or HO.

In Conclusion let's ban Sablenite and keep Goth around :toast: . Thanks for reading !
 

bludz

a waffle is like a pancake with a syrup trap
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I am very excited to play on the suspect ladder. I really look forward to being able to build a team without worrying about how I set up hazards against Mega Sableye. I mean realistically the only pokemon (which are relevant and good in OU) that can reliably set up Stealth Rock against it are Clefable, Heatran and Mold Breaker Excadrill. Two of those three are not ideal Stealth Rock setters in general, and Heatran isn't exactly a 100% win, especially if you account for Calm Mind Sableye. Yeah, SD + Lum Berry Garchomp / Landorus-T can do it, but there are 50 50s that the Sableye player can make -- not Mega Evolving turn 1 to get a 2nd wisp off -- to prevent it from happening.

I think in just about any battle, regardless of the style of each team, getting up hazards is imperative to winning. The ability to switch without any repercussion makes it much easier to counter opponents' plays and that is why Stealth Rock has been such a centralizing force in competitive battling ever since its released. I've always hated the ability Magic Bounce because of how powerful it is, but no pokemon besides Mega Sableye has the bulk or typing to utilize it effectively to block hazards and stallbreak. I think this will remove a big constraint on teambuilding in the current metagame, but I think now we will see offense start to dominate any more. While yeah, Sableye is a big reason that bulky balance disappeared, Hoopa and Manaphy are other reasons for that and also Sableye + Gothitelle was one of the strongest stalls in the current metagame which is heavily populated by wallbreakers that can overpower most other bulky archetypes.

Anyway, pretty obvious thoughts would be that we'll see more Spikes, potentially more ScarfTar (to remove Latis/Starmie) which is popular in Spikes builds already, and more heavy offense. There may be some resurgence in bulky balance simply because those teams no longer get completely shut down by Magic Bounce, but it's pretty hard to prepare for all the offensive threats. I'll make a post on Shadow Tag later probably
 

Lord Wallace

Hentai Connoiseur
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Ok first impression is that STag needs to go, not just because of stupid fat Goth Stall which I agree is dumb in conjuction with what Sableye brings to the table but also because of Goth's use for more balanced or offensive teams. It gets access to just the right moves it needs to trap and snipe some very prominent bulky Pokemon in the tier for some very powerful sweepers in the tier such as Altaria, Diancie, and Gyarados.
There's just very little skill involved in using STag Gothitelle and it's a lot more versatile than say, Magnezone, a Pokemon with a similar role but can only trap Steel types. Gothitelle has no such restriction and despite having mediocre stat distribution overall, it has just the right moves and stat total to do its job almost every game unless the opponent plays flawlessly, and the burden to do so will always be on the opposing player, and not the Goth player.
Lower tiers have long since banned STag and it's about time OU followed suit, the ability just has no place in competitive battling in my opinion.

Mega Sableye is a different matter that I'm honestly leaning no ban on. It just doesn't have the raw bulk to be broken for it's defensive merits. It's typing has too few resistances and gets hit very hard neutrally in such a powerful metagame, not to mention Fairies are on almost every team save for some HO squads and they all completely shut down Sableye. Considering CM isn't even that good anymore, I'm not convinced that the support set with one turn of Prankster WoW before Mega Evolving is fat enough or threatening enough to merit a ban.

In conclusion think just banning STag should bring down the amount of cancer stall on the ladder significantly, Sableye on it's own is nowhere near broken in my opinion because although it does have Prankster WoW, a good typing, and Magic Bounce post-Evo, it doesn't have too many good resistances to take advantage of and in addition to that Sableye lacks the raw bulk to wall out most of the metagame contrary to popular low ladder belief.

Ban Shadow Tag
Do Not Ban Sablenite
 
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MANNAT

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credit to fleggumfl for picture and can also be found in the stall thread
^I don't think any of us are going to miss this but w/e. We all knew that this was coming, but I'm just going to lay out my 2 cents on this before the thread really gets rolling

I believe that Mega Sableye is an extremely constricting force on the metagame when coupled with Gothitelle as Mega Sableye in itself completely shuts down every single common rock setter in the S and A+ ranks of the viability thread besides only rocks clefable and rocks tran (which loses 1v1 vs cm sets) along with the uncanny ability to spinblock for its team, being able to keep hazards on the field for prolonged periods of the match, and having multiple sets to put immense strain on the opposing team. This is especially important since Mega Sableye keeps rocks off of its side of the field while keeping rocks on the opposing field, giving the Mega Sableye the hazard advantage at team preview. Not only that, but mega sableye's excellent defensive typing allows it to wall a myriad of threats when coupled with its stats and movepool. Another thing that is problematic with Sableye is the fact that it can run multiple sets. To give an example, you have your lum berry dragonite out (after taking rocks damage) vs a mega sableye, but you don't want to set up dragon dance in fear of being foul played, attacking it with outrage just gives the mega sableye user a free chance to pivot out to skarmory, or a chance to heal up with recover and proceed to burn your dnite with wisp when u use up your lum berry, allowing it to set up, so in this scenario, if you attack, and it's a calm mind set, then you are giving the mega sableye a chance to set up, but if you setup to do north of 50% to the mega sableye user, then you are risking your dragonite. However, there are many stallbreakers that can threaten a well built mega sableye team, so normally mega sableye stall isn't really an unwinnable matchup as you can put a stallbreaker on your team with a couple mons that have a decent matchup vs stall, but if your stallbreaker's stallbreaking abilities have been diminished, then the matchup is nearly unwinnable for you. This is where Gothitelle comes in the picture: it can completely remove stallbreakers from the game with the opposing user having little to nothing that they can do about it. Let me lay out another scenario for you to illustrate this: imagine that during turn one of the battle that the stall user send out they mega sab while their opponent send out tail glow rain dance manaphy (a really good stallbreaker). The manaphy user's set is tail glow, rain dance, scald, and ice beam holding the item leftovers, and the opponent has standard scarf trapping goth on their team. The manaphy user obviously won't use ice beam turn one as they are facing a Mega Sab and they want to remove it ASAP so they can set their entry hazards, but the gothitelle in the back forces the manaphy user to make an important decision. If the manaphy uses scald to get damage on the sableye to get damage, which is a decent play, then the stall user can simply switch into their gothitelle and trick the manaphy a choice scarf, stopping their ability to break chansey. If the manaphy user uses tail glow in order to deal large damage to the stall team, then the same thing will happen to them as the previous scenario, and the same with the other two moves. Instead, the manaphy user has to make an extremely difficult play of doubling out to their mon to deal with gothitelle, let's say ttar in this case, but if the play goes wrong, then the manaphy user has a burnt ttar that is unable to trap gothitelle with pursuit and a very difficult time for the rest of the game. This can happen with many other mons, and gothitelle can even pp stall mons to death with its choice scarf and take out multiple mons per game in this fashion with little to no effort from the goth user, so the skill is essentially taken out of the game. As a result of this, I think that shadow tag needs to be banned.
 
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credit to fleggumfl for picture and can also be found in the stall thread
^I don't think any of us are going to miss this but w/e. We all knew that this was coming, but I'm just going to lay out my 2 cents on this before the thread really gets rolling

I believe that Mega Sableye is an extremely constricting force on the metagame when coupled with Gothitelle as Mega Sableye in itself completely shuts down every single common rock setter in the S and A+ ranks of the viability thread besides only rocks clefable and rocks tran (which loses 1v1 vs cm sets) along with the uncanny ability to spinblock for its team, being able to keep hazards on the field for prolonged periods of the match, and having multiple sets to put immense strain on the opposing team. This is especially important since Mega Sableye keeps rocks off of its side of the field while keeping rocks on the opposing field, giving the Mega Sableye the hazard advantage at team preview. Not only that, but mega sableye's excellent defensive typing allows it to wall a myriad of threats when coupled with its stats and movepool. Another thing that is problematic with Sableye is the fact that it can run multiple sets. To give an example, you have your lum berry dragonite out (after taking rocks damage) vs a mega sableye, but you don't want to set up dragon dance in fear of being foul played, attacking it with outrage just gives the mega sableye user a free chance to pivot out to skarmory, or a chance to heal up with recover and proceed to burn your dnite with wisp when u use up your lum berry, allowing it to set up, so in this scenario, if you attack, and it's a calm mind set, then you are giving the mega sableye a chance to set up, but if you setup to do north of 50% to the mega sableye user, then you are risking your dragonite. However, there are many stallbreakers that can threaten a well built mega sableye team, so normally mega sableye stall isn't really an unwinnable matchup as you can put a stallbreaker on your team with a couple mons that have a decent matchup vs stall, but if your stallbreaker's stallbreaking abilities have been diminished, then the matchup is nearly unwinnable for you. This is where Gothitelle comes in the picture: it can completely remove stallbreakers from the game with the opposing user having little to nothing that they can do about it. Let me lay out another scenario for you to illustrate this: imagine that during turn one of the battle that the stall user send out they mega sab while their opponent send out tail glow rain dance manaphy (a really good stallbreaker). The manaphy user's set is tail glow, rain dance, scald, and ice beam holding the item leftovers, and the opponent has standard scarf trapping goth on their team. The manaphy user obviously won't use ice beam turn one as they are facing a Mega Sab and they want to remove it ASAP so they can set their entry hazards, but the gothitelle in the back forces the manaphy user to make an important decision. If the manaphy uses scald to get damage on the sableye to get damage, which is a decent play, then the stall user can simply switch into their gothitelle and trick the manaphy a choice scarf, stopping their ability to break chansey. If the manaphy user uses tail glow in order to deal large damage to the stall team, then the same thing will happen to them as the previous scenario, and the same with the other two moves. Instead, the manaphy user has to make an extremely difficult play of doubling out to their mon to deal with gothitelle, let's say ttar in this case, but if the play goes wrong, then the manaphy user has a burnt ttar that is unable to trap gothitelle with pursuit and a very difficult time for the rest of the game. This can happen with many other mons, and gothitelle can even pp stall mons to death with its choice scarf and take out multiple mons per game in this fashion with little to no effort from the goth user, so the skill is essentially taken out of the game. As a result of this, I think that the combination of Mega Sableye+Shadow tag needs to be banned.
I concur with the aforementioned solution. Although Mega Sableye is inherently meta-defining I don't believe it is unhealthily over centralizing on its own, as it is often pressed to do multiple roles and can eventually inundated by a multitude of wall breakers in OU, such as Hoopa-U, Kyurem-B, and Mega Pinsir, etc.

I do have one question, though: What about Wobbuffet specifically merits Shadow Tag being banned instead of just Gothitelle (and its lesser evolved sibling)? I'm just genuinely curious.
 
Where to begin... Ban Sableye-Mega.

The main reason why Sableye is unhealthy is its restrictive nature in regards to teambuilding and matchup. With Sableye in the tier, matchup becomes a more prevalent issue than it needs to be, and there are a few key reasons why this occurs.

Firstly, there is the ease of hazard prevention. I know not everything can be looked at by theory-moaning but people often exaggerate how easy it is to get hazards vs Sableye. In regards to specific pokemon and their ability to get hazards vs Sableye, any viable spiker (skarm and ferro) is 100% shut down by Sableye, so I will solely discuss stealth rockers.

Heatran, Clefable, Diancie, and Excadrill are the only ou-viable mons that can reliably set rocks vs Sableye. Heatran is fine as a rocker (except for free Starmie spins), but the others have serious issues running sr in OU. As for Clefable, it would simply rather run calm mind 90% of the time, and even if it does get rocks vs Sableye, it isn't preventing Exca / Skarm on a Sableye team from removing hazards. Diancie I won't go much into because it's an offensive mon that has better moves to run like protect and coverage options. Excadrill too would rather run rapid spin, coverage, sd, etc. over stealth rock, and this is also ignoring the fact that Skarmory freely defogs vs it.

For pokemon like Azelf, Mew, and Jirachi, no. If they have to run some stupid gimmick like skill swap or dazzling gleam in the first place then that alone shows the unhealthy effects of Sableye on the meta. For Landorus, it really has to run earth plate and even then Skarmory freely defogs vs it. Terrakion has plenty of issues in OU already, as seen in its non-ou usage, but even if it were to run rocks in OU with life orb, it wouldn't be doing so freely vs Sableye teams. Two of the most common hazard removers in OU are Starmie and Latios, so Terrakion isn't really going to excel at setting rocks.

I believe that covers most of the disputed viable rockers in OU. My point is, you can't just look at pokemon theoretically getting rocks up vs Sableye in a vacuum. You have to look at the viability of sets, as well as the hazard control support alongside Sableye. It really is very difficult to effectively get hazards vs Sableye teams.

Why is this unhealthy? Here's why. My main issue with Sableye, and thus Sableye teams like the full stall that is commonly attributed to me... is that in order to beat it you need to run sets / mons that are otherwise unviable in the metagame. Having a team that functions well vs stall should not directly hinder the ability to handle other playstyles. Using hazards, smart pivots, and simply a larger range of potential wallbreakers with Sableye gone, should be feasible on any team. With the way ORAS OU currently functions with Sableye in the tier, preparing for stall generally becomes a huge hinderance to dealing with the rest of the metagame. You can't just use a well functioning team to beat stall; you have to use a specific combination of hazard setters / wallbreakers to beat stall (an example of this is Gardevoir + healing wish). I believe banning Sableye will allow for more creativity, freedom, and overall health in the metagame.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for the next part... Ban Shadow Tag.

Shadow Tag makes gameplay less skillful, adds to the matchup issue that Sableye also contributes to, and is overall harmful to the tier's stability and development.

Let's start by talking about Gothitelle. With Gothitelle, I feel that many people don't understand its true potential as a threat to all playstyles, and its viability on all types of teams. Gothitelle is mostly seen on stall teams, and its not hard to see why. Primarily, Gothitelle serves as a means of beating threats to stall like Manaphy and Magma Storm Heatran that are otherwise difficult to handle. Gothitelle can also revenge kill Mega Heracross, paralyze Gardevoir, and trick other threats like SD Gliscor/NP Thundurus. This also lets stall teams beat opposing stall by tricking the hazard user/remover and/or the cleric. The list really goes on and on when it comes to Gothitelle's uses on stall. As for Gothitelle's uses on offensive teams, there are still plenty. On offense, Gothitelle primarily serves as the way to trap and kill opposing hazard setters/removers as well as walls to teammates. For example, Gothitelle can run HP Fire for Ferrothorn to support Gyarados, and can also trick the opposing lead chomp so defogging is very easy and the opponent can never keep rocks. An argument I really dislike about Gothitelle is that its easy to predict and pursuit trap it for example. Predictions really go both ways so that's a moot point.

For specific scenarios of this uncompetitive use of Gothitelle:

Let's take the example of a team with Charizard-Y + Goth vs. any team with Chansey. Before I get into this do note that the same logic can generally be applied to a situation where there is an offensive pokemon and a defensive pokemon that checks it. In this case, Chansey is the clear and obvious switchin to Charizard. So let's say Charizard uses a move on the switch and does x damage to Chansey. Chansey is now at a certain and hp and wants to heal so it can come in on Charizard the next time around. Without any skill by the Charizard user, this is a win-win situation (I will explain how this is not ordinary or healthy teambuilding advantage later on). Chansey either heals up and lets Goth trap it, or it switches out leaving it at 2hko range the next time it comes in. The issue is, Gothitelle can do this to a ton of defensive pokemon. The difference between Gothitelle and something like Magnezone though, is that Gothitelle can do this to any non-ghost pokemon, which is a lot more than just a few steels in OU. I believe, in situations like these, Gothitelle is an issue because there was not any real skill involved in wearing down the check or winning the game.

Now I'll explain in more detail how Gothitelle is, in my eyes, uncompetitive in a similar scenario except against offensive threats. Let's say someone is using Gothitelle stall this time, and facing a team with breaker x (Manaphy lets say). So the game can play out normally, except for when Manaphy comes in. Every single time Manaphy comes in, the Gothitelle user can switch freely. The most common exception to this is when the Manaphy user has a Tyranitar, in which case its really just 50 50s (which aren't too competitive either, especially if they occur every time a pokemon comes in, but I can understand a distaste for this logic). So, again, the Gothitelle user does not make any plays or anything "skill-based" to win the game or beat a threat.

Some people may say that this is just Gothitelle having a good matchup, and not some portrayal of uncompetitive play. The thing is, the main way to counteract such Gothitelle play is by running otherwise "unviable/undesireable" sets/teams. An example of this is the recently used shed shell Manaphy/Togekiss, or the need to use more than one pokemon that can threaten Gothitelle stall. What I am saying is, Gothitelle either restricts teambuilding to an unhealthy degree or forces uncompetitive play in the case that the opponent of Gothitelle did not unconventionally prepare for Gothitelle.

Personally, I prefer a metagame where I don't need to run obscure/otherwise unviable teams to beat a Gothitelle. Because if I don't do this, I'm just going to "unskillfully" lose to a Gothitelle due to the nature of Shadow Tag (+ mostly trick in this case).

Also, for those saying that Gothorita / Wobb don't deserve to be suspected, they do. Gothorita essentially does the same thing Gothitelle does, except its slightly more frail and can only outspeed ~base 105s. It can still trap pokemon in the same uncompetitive way Gothitelle can. Wobb's trapping abilities are similar to Goth's, except they just don't involve trick. Wobb can still effectively trap many of the same offensive and defensive threats.

This suspect test will decide the fate of the ORAS OU metagame, and it is so extremely vital to improve this metagame when given the chance.
 

MANNAT

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Honestly in all seriousness, i think ONLY mega sab and gothitelle should be banned. not shadow tag or anything but ye. the combination of them two is cancer so wai not just ban them both instead of shadow tag because then you would make wobbuffets viability go down
The problem with this is that Gothitelle's pre evolution, gothorita, can do the exact same thing that Gothitelle does in terms of crippling stallbreakers by tricking them a choice scarf and proceed to either pp stall them with rest or just continue along the rest of the match knowing that their opponent has nothing to break their team just as well as gothitelle, with slightly lower stats.
 
Dont ban this shit.

To understand why Goth+Sabelite shouldnt be banned
requires knowledge of humans and how they work in themselves. Nobody likes to be denied or have something get in the way of what they are doing, its only natural that things like Sabelite and Goth bother people on a personal level. However this doesnt warrant a ban in the slightest, though literally everyone else will tell you otherwise.

Simply put neither of these mons are OP, neither of them fuck teambuilding either, and its stupid to think that.

Just because people dont like it doesnt mean it warrants a ban, people need to learn how to actually play smart and build correctly, instead of complaining about some rando pokemon with a half-decent ability.

What the OP says is true, to beat, (lets say Goth for example), you have to rely on rigorous switches or niche items. These arent the most entertaining matches, but people need to accept that they're a part of the game and not just ban anything that remotely challenges them in a way they havent seen before. The problem here relies more on people being lazy, bad players not on Shadow Tag or Sabelite being unfair or difficult to teambuild around.
 
Ok first impression is that STag needs to go, not just because of stupid fat Goth Stall which I agree is dumb in conjuction with what Sableye brings to the table but also because of Goth's use for more balanced or offensive teams. It gets access to just the right moves it needs to trap and snipe some very prominent bulky Pokemon in the tier for some very powerful sweepers in the tier such as Altaria, Diancie, and Gyarados.
There's just very little skill involved in using STag Gothitelle and it's a lot more versatile than say, Magnezone, a Pokemon with a similar role but can only trap Steel types. Gothitelle has no such restriction and despite having mediocre stat distribution overall, it has just the right moves and stat total to do its job almost every game unless the opponent plays flawlessly, and the burden to do so will always be on the opposing player, and not the Goth player.
Lower tiers have long since banned STag and it's about time OU followed suit, the ability just has no place in competitive battling in my opinion.

Mega Sableye is a different matter that I'm honestly leaning no ban on. It just doesn't have the raw bulk to be broken for it's defensive merits. It's typing has too few resistances and gets hit very hard neutrally in such a powerful metagame, not to mention Fairies are on almost every team save for some HO squads and they all completely shut down Sableye. Considering CM isn't even that good anymore, I'm not convinced that the support set with one turn of Prankster WoW before Mega Evolving is fat enough or threatening enough to merit a ban.

In conclusion think just banning STag should bring down the amount of cancer stall on the ladder significantly, Sableye on it's own is nowhere near broken in my opinion because although it does have Prankster WoW, a good typing, and Magic Bounce post-Evo, it doesn't have too many good resistances to take advantage of and in addition to that Sableye lacks the raw bulk to wall out most of the metagame contrary to popular low ladder belief.

Ban Shadow Tag
Do Not Ban Sablenite
It's not even Shadow Tag, Wobbuffet is hardly a problem at all. It is nowhere near the abusable level of Gothstall, except for Tickle sets which still lack any sort of consistency against offensive teams. Gothitelle is the only real problem that makes GothStall even overbearing to begin with.
 
It's finally damn time, Sableye has been a mon that's always inherently way too strong in the game, and it's power level is honestly above many other current Ubers, it's just been hanging on by a thread due to the fact the types of teams it supports are inherently weak without it.

STag on the other hand I'm not so sure about, but that's what the test is for.
pardon my french, but gothitelle's shadow tag is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up her ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond.

shadow tag is undoubtedly broken since it allows these pokemon to easily remove mon's without any cost other than a team slot; which really isn't that bad since shadow tag is advantageous against balance and stall. this suspect is pretty interesting though because much of sableye's success is thanks to gothitelle's ability to reliably trap a few threats. sableye is good on its own but much of its effectiveness is inflated due to users mindlessly pairing it with gothitelle. i wouldn't mind seeing all of them go but this is an interesting point.
 


Sableye
Damn its about time we suspect sable. Decided that i was gonna say my thoughts about this suspect. Honestly having faced this thing several times including using it myself i can honestly say that this things pretty damn good at supporting its team. Being able to pretty much prevent hazards from coming up, burn everything in sight while also crippling wallbreakers with knock off. Not to mention how you pretty much always need something to hit this thing hard or super effectively (aka clefable or specs keldeo) which pretty much restricts building as a whole. Just having this thing on your balance or stall team is a huge buff alone (think cores like sabletalon or sablegoth or sableshed). Sableye just pressures hazards so bad. Then you have sables typing which makes it even more annoying for teams to handle being weak to ONE type. combine that with recovery and you have yourself a support pokemon that is really hard to kill. With that being said you then have Goth+sable teams. This is probably one of the biggest threats to even opposing stall teams. Goth stall is really hard to take down simply because of how it cripples other stall with ease breaking down the defensive cores or cleric's such as chansey or clefable. The fact that sable has made even something as bad as shedinja somewhat good simply because of how good it is at keeping hazards off your side of the field is insane. Overall this things the king of defensive threats in the tier and is just over centralizing to the point you must pack coverage for it. I mean its a supporting pokemon that cant be taunted which means its job wont be disrupted by taunt. Some teams even use toxic moldbreaker excadrill just because of how annoying this thing is. Sableye being as popular as it is also stopped a rather annoying stallbreaker: mew which was a fairly effective stallbreaker at that but the presence of sable has prevented it from doing its job. Honestly i feel like S tag is also a issue because this thing still cripples stall almost always even without sable.

quick list of things sablegoth beats: (obviously not the whole thing just examples)

Stall Pokemon

Stallbreakers

Stealth Rock Setters

Megas affected badly by Sableye (minor)


These pokemon listed are some of the more common pokemon that sableye+goth shuts down completely now obviously Some of the listed pokemon can beat sable goth but only using certain sets such as shed shell manaphy, shed shell skarm, shed shell ferrothorn. However pokemon like clef and chansey are forced to play around goth as well as tank chomp so that goth wont trick scarf it. (think tank chomp trying to set rocks up) Overall sable just makes teambuilding a huge pain in the butt.

Gothitelle
Last there's is goth. Pretty much its the exact same issue that sableye has with team building. It restricts it pretty bad lmao. Considering how goth alone has made stuff like shed shell manaphy a thing just because of how goth is sometimes one of the things that stops mana from doing is job at stallbreaking is pretty bad. Hell the thing with goth is that its not just something that can be used on stall. Literally every other play style can fit goth on and boom now stall has a harder time instantly which is why normal stall is near unplayable unless its goth stall, simply because of the threat of goth just destroys them if they don't run shed shell. Even then said goth user can outplay you later and trap something else. This things literally the bane of defensive teams and overall just annoys the crap out of boosting win-cons as goth comes in and traps them only to trick scarf it thus making that win-con practically worthless for the entire match. Its either slap a dark type on your team or run shed shell otherwise goth wins the war. Ive also got a replay showing off how goth cripples non goth stall.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-292232975 (yeah it was a room tour but you get the idea)

Also chances are they already said something but i'm curious to see what bludz and AM think.


Just gonna leave this here for no reason.
 

MANNAT

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Dont ban this shit.

To understand why Goth+Sabelite shouldnt be banned
requires knowledge of humans and how they work in themselves. Nobody likes to be denied or have something get in the way of what they are doing, its only natural that things like Sabelite and Goth bother people on a personal level. However this doesnt warrant a ban in the slightest, though literally everyone else will tell you otherwise.

Simply put neither of these mons are OP, neither of them fuck teambuilding either, and its stupid to think that.

Just because people dont like it doesnt mean it warrants a ban, people need to learn how to actually play smart and build correctly, instead of complaining about some rando pokemon with a half-decent ability.

What the OP says is true, to beat, (lets say Goth for example), you have to rely on rigorous switches or niche items. These arent the most entertaining matches, but people need to accept that they're a part of the game and not just ban anything that remotely challenges them in a way they havent seen before. The problem here relies more on people being lazy, bad players not on Shadow Tag or Sabelite being unfair or difficult to teambuild around.
The problem with your argument is the fact that you cannot simply beat gothitelle+sableye with normal teams, and you have to resort to using mons that have absolutely no use outside of breaking these specific teams (eg. shed shell togekiss), and that a team that is well built enough to deal with all other team archetypes can straight up lose to stall because of the teambuilding constraint that these mons put on your team.
 
I think Shadow Tag should be Uber, but not Sablenite, as I think setup sweepers can muscle past M-Sableye, as well as just raw power from strong wallbreakers can plow through it, so DO NOT BAN on Sablenite. Shadow Tag, on the other hand, needs to go, because the most viable user, Gothitelle, can easily trick a Choice Scarf onto a specific threat, PP stall it, and boom! Your opponent is now left without a counter to a threatening sweeper such as Mega Tyranitar, Mega Pinsir, Mega Lopunny, or even Talonflame.
 

Lady Alex

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This suspect test has been needed for a long, long time. My initial impression is that only Gothitelle should go. I don't think M-Sableye being able to keep hazards off the field as well as it does is necessarily a detrimental thing in the metagame, especially given how passive a pokemon M-Sableye is. It's no doubt a top tier pokemon, but I don't think that it's over the top, and that shadow tag is the main culprit in why M-Sableye has recently been seen as problematic. The amount of counterplay available to deal with M-Sableye is adequate enough that I'm pretty confident that I'll be voting to not ban it. I think that wearing it down to a point where it doesn't want to switch in and the fact that it's a fairly passive mon that takes up a mega slot make it a balanced aspect of the meta. Additionally, some of the pokemon that Sableye specifically aims to deal with have ways around it to get rocks up. SD Lum berry Garchomp, skill swap Azelf, and SR Clefable are all viable mons that give up relatively little (aside from clefable, I guess) in order to deal with one of their generally hardest checks.

I feel like Gothitelle is the real problem that needs to go. The ability to trap a pokemon I don't think is inherently uncompetitive. I don't think most people would say that dugtrio, for example, is an unhealthy aspect of the meta. Honestly, I don't feel that Wobbuffet or Wynaut are nearly as problematic, but I don't mind seeing them go if it means getting rid of the cancer that is Gothitelle. What sets Gothitelle apart as a trapper is its access to trick. This allows gothitelle to come in on a fatmon and get rid of it by pp stalling it to death and taking the scarf back as the fatmon dies. Essentially, gothitelle takes away any form of counterplay against it once it successfully traps what it wants outside of perfect play or running shed shell on everything. Also, though it's not an argument, who REALLY likes playing against gothitelle? No one. It adds literally nothing positive to the meta and is extremely unhealthy, regardless of the fact that its niche is fairly narrow and fits on only a handful of teams.
 
Correct me if rules have changed, but don't abilities only get banned if it is decided that every user of the ability can be broken? Wouldn't that mean that only Gothitelle (and Gothorita if need be) should get banned instead of the ability as a whole? Wobbuffet, Wynaut, and Gothita aren't broken even without Shadow Tag, meaning that banning Shadow Tag as a whole is unreasonable.
 

Lord Wallace

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I hear what you all are saying about Sablenite restricting hazard setting vs stall, but I just have no idea where this idea came from that there's no opportunity cost to switching in Sableye so it can just sit there and not let hazards through. Literally the only way the Sableye user has an inherently unfair advantage in theory is if we assume an opponent will always try to get up his hazards when Sableye can possibly switch in.
JUST. HIT. THE. GODDAMN. SABLEYE.
It has 50 Base HP. The standard support set gets 2HKOed most of the time by Jolly Garchomp's unboosted Outrage. In the grand scheme of things that's not a very powerful hit among OU's powerhouses that Mega Sableye is taking very poorly, from a Pokemon that can set up Rocks no less.
I'd venture to say that most of the offensive metagame easily 2HKOes or sets up on one variant or another of Mega Sableye.

The real threat to a healthy metagame is Gothitelle being able to trap stallbreakers for stall, that's just straight bullshit, I don't care if that means just Gothitelle gets the boot or Shadow Tag.
 

Josh

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I'm pretty average/borderline bad at OU, so I won't make a big post here and look stupid. But, can someone please explain to me why Wobb is being lumped in with Goth? In the event I get reqs, my vote will likely be ban MSab and ban Goth (family), but I don't quite get why I also have to vote to ban one of my favorite Pokemon, Wobb. I have read the replies relating to Wobb, but they aren't very helpful.


We decided to not suspect Gothitelle because we think Shadow Tag is the main part of the problem. Gothorita has the same trapping abilities as its evolution, and thus could also become an issue should Gothitelle be banned. We also think Wobbuffet and Wynaut, despite being quite unseen and less effective than Gothitelle, are problematic, as they can punish the opponent by trapping a target and create a hole and punish the opponent with little to no counter play.
What exactly makes you believe they're broken? They aren't anywhere near Goth's level of cancer.

Also, for those saying that Gothorita / Wobb don't deserve to be suspected, they do. Gothorita essentially does the same thing Gothitelle does, except its slightly more frail and can only outspeed ~base 105s. It can still trap pokemon in the same uncompetitive way Gothitelle can. Wobb's trapping abilities are similar to Goth's, except they just don't involve trick. Wobb can still effectively trap many of the same offensive and defensive threats.
What makes them the same level? Lmao. I fail to see how Wobb's trapping abilities are similar to Goth's, it traps so much less and does it so much less reliably.


EDIT: And just to clarify: I'm trying to say Goth and Wobb aren't on the same level.
 
I don't think that Sableye is the broken one, it's really not that hard to beat with things like Manaphy, most Substitute users, Scald/Lava Plume Burns, and other things that most people know of so I won't bother to list them. It's obviously great, but the reason it wins is because of Gothitelle trapping almost every single thing that beats it. Without Goth, Sableye steps back down to Earth and isn't that broken or annoying to play anymore. Sableye is actually good at balancing the meta. Think of how good Medicham, Alakazam, MMeta and co. would be without Sableye there to stop them.

Shadow Tag, on the other hand, is a disgusting ability that takes so much away from the game. We use the prediction argument in most suspects, where we say things like, 'Greninja isn't broken, I just go to Thundurus on the obvious Low Kick and click Thunder Wave, easy!' We all know that this argument is flawed and doesn't stand up, because both players can predict each other. However, when Gothitelle comes into play you literally can't risk making plays because if the opponent does predict your switch to Manaphy or whatever and double to Goth, goodbye game, hello x button. It takes prediction and fun in general out of the game. In what world do people actually fear a Pokemon that they know to have only Psychic coverage will stop their Bisharp? It's stupid and needs to go.

Thankyou for that picture, that is the greatest caption I've ever seen lol
 

busyguy

formerly mil
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"If I don't run Shed Shell on my stallbreaker, Gothitelle traps it and I lose. If I run Shed Shell on it, it is a worse option in the long run."
That is always my thought when building more balanced teams. That's overcentralizing.
I always found it hard to prepare for Sableye+Goth. It basically forces you to run more than one stallbreaker, which is limiting teambuilding. But even then your second stallbreaker isn't save, because Gothitelle can trick back the scarf to trap the next Pokemon which is problematic for stall.
It will be interesting to see ou without Mega Sableye though.

Some thoughts on the suspect ladder:
  • more hazards
  • a rise of hazard stacking cores like Hippo/Ferro/Starmie, because Mega Sableye shut them down
  • more hazard stacking offense with heavy hitting wallbreakers to counteract hazard stacking balance teams, with a trapper to get rid of hazard remover
  • new stall teams which still trap stallbreaker with Gothitelle, but are built in a way that they releave as much pressure from the hazard remover as possible
  • a little less usage of faries/ fairy coverage on Pokemon
 
K so i agree with Shadow Tag.

Mega Sableye though lol. Are you serious? Im sorry Mega Sableye punishes lazy team building (i.e you cant just spam hazards vs msable teams and call it a day or use lazy Toxic/Wisp and Taunt vs it and its team), just the same way CM MBro and other shit does because you cant just generic cookie cutter through it. Heaven forbid you have to think to stall break! Im sorry if you cba to use Faeries and a wisp/status absorber like tran you deserve to lose and the hilarious bias against a certain type of stall archetype is ridiculous and its clear to see here. Goth is the only reason sablegoth teams are broken because of shadow tag killing/crippling the majority of stall breakers.
 
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