np: ORAS OU Suspect Testing, Round 1 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [Greninja is Uber]

[Norne]

I personally ran Pgunk Ice beam Esensory and dark pulse on my most successful team with Greninja, and let me tell you as you start to get higher in the ranking the HP fire paranoia gets bigger and people who optimize speedy air balloon empoleon(That was a thing) sets tend to get paranoid about low kick enough to sack a mon in order to scout it.

It's no joke that ninja became an obstracizing point in team building to the point he became a deterrent to the opponent winning condition if I managed to get the switching initiative with Greninja, and that happened 80% of the time, heck almost 5 out of 6 against competent players, add a dedicated trapper on top of that and the paranoia gets high enough for some forfeits after the probable checks get softened to 80% HP sans SR.

No pokemon should promote these brutal momentum shifts that end up obstracizing team building to a point in which it becomes stale till Greninja adapts it's 2 moves to what check becomes a "hot topic". The frog is just unhealthy to the OU metagame, as I stated before ban this thing with extreme prejudice.

If this post isn't elaborate enough, please excuse me as I'm using my phone whole my bros bring the booze they forgot at their place. On a side note happy new year to all XD.

 

[ginganinja]

Here's another thing that keeps coming up. Good players. Skilled players. Decent players.
Why does the skill of a player affect whether or not a Pokemon is useful?

The reason the skill argument comes up is because frequently someone with 5 posts will claim that "they havn't had any issue with Greninja and they beat it all the time". Frequently, what comes to light is this user playing at the lower end of the ladder and thus against opponents that are less skillfull, which distorts the perception of the suspect. This is why people tend to assume players are reasonably skilled, and on a similar level to their opponent for purposes of the prediction argument or otherwise.

 

[Zebstrika]

Here's another thing that keeps coming up. Good players. Skilled players. Decent players.
Why does the skill of a player affect whether or not a Pokemon is useful? I've seen it stated multiples times that either Greninja is a noob cannon that makes all players God just by having him on your team and I've seen that if you don't know that he needs the ban than you're garbage at the game.
Point is, skill is also subjective and such things should not affect the decision because a healthy meta should be fun for all players and not just the ones Smogon deems "good."

I'm on a mobile so it makes responding to everything difficult which I understand is something I have been called out on recently. I have been reading the thread and I still do not get the idea that the move pool is the end of the world. Laddering has you see a majority of Greninja using the same moves, so preparing for those moves is the best way to deal with him the same way you prepare for Mons in OU that are used. Be them individual techniques or actual different Pokemon, the usage data is a useful tool in objectively looking at the meta. If you say Greninja its broken because he could be carrying HP Grass, but only something like (hypothetically) 1% actually uses it, then how much of a threat is that really?

Read through the Greninja thread and you will see posters getting torn new ones for thinking such moves as Grass Knot and Extrasensory are viable, and yet here we are saying it needs to be banned because it has the potential to run those moves, I just don't get the double standards of this community.

In your last paragraph, each of us have our own opinions about which moves are viable. You can't call out the "community" for having double standards when Smogon is not a hive mind, it's really different groups of people voicing different opinions.

As for the usage stats argument, I have 3 problems with it.

First, you're basically relying on getting lucky. I know it's the opponent's choice for which move they put on Greninja, but it is not their choice that specific player is sent into battle against you, that is the luck of either the ladder matchup system or the tournament rules. It's like arguing that OHKO moves are fine because 30% accuracy sucks; sure, theoretically they should be fine, but a theoretical probability doesn't guarantee anyone jack shit. What am I supposed to do if my opponent brings Sheer Cold and sweeps my team because they hit more than 30% of them? Suck it up because I know it wasn't that likely to happen? I'm similarly screwed if the opponent brings a Greninja with rare moves that I'm not prepared for.

Second, there seems to be a pattern in Greninja's usage statistics where Greninja never really settles into a sort of equilibrium with its moves. Ice Beam is on nearly every set, but other than that, Greninja's moves are constantly shifting based on the meta, which is constantly shifting to adapt to Greninja's more common moves. So a move like Grass Knot/HP Grass might be rare now, and you could put on Greninja checks that are only weak to that move, like Suicune. But then Greninja could adapt right back, and drop out another move for Grass Knot if Suicune actually gets popular, opening up other pokemon to check the new type of common Greninja. So basically, looking at the usage stats and picking checks to Greninja's most common moves causes those rare moves to become more useful and more common. And as many people have already pointed out, trying to avoid all these meta shifts by putting in 100% reliable checks or counters results in either very fast offense or very passive stall.

Third, due to the usage stats constantly fluctuating, when we get to the end of a month, we are using usage stats that are several weeks old. Also it's all a pain in the ass. To either look up the usage stats every month, or play a lot of games to witness trends first hand. And then have to adjust our teams afterwards. All that just to not ban one pokemon.

 

[leremyju]

So..... Greninja can run many offensive sets. But so can other mons, maybe not as successfully as Greninja does. Personally I think the arguments and talk on this thread are getting really repetitive, but I'm gonna say that the reason greninja is being banned is because it completely beats balanced playstyle, has almost no switch ins, and restricts teambuilding. Of course being really fast and having the coverage are just other reasons for the ban side, but the three points I mentioned are probably the biggest reasons.

I'm gonna say that there are definitely greninja switch ins, depending on what moves it runs and that it isn't too hard to beat. I know people are saying that ninja switches out of obvious scarier or priority and that there is no opportunity cost for the ninja user. I think that we're looking at this on paper and not on the game. Your opponent may be skilled but what's stopping you from winning the 50/50 on switching out or not and what makes you not be able to play against greninja. I understand that we don't really appreciate 50/50's and try to avoid it but it's part of the game and I'm not sure banning greninja is actually going to help.

And yea I'm seeing more diggersby and other stuff so technically greninja being gone does bring up usage of some other mons, but it doesn't quite make the unviable.

 

[HiBrow]

I included my reqs since my post count isn't even in the double digits yet.

I think it's best if we ban Greninja for all of the reasons previously mentioned. I have more flexibility now when it comes to building a team (I basically climbed the ladder sweeping with og danknaught http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oususpecttest-198782258).

One of the fundamental ideas of Pokemon is type advantage and ninja frog just shits on all of that because it gets STAB on every type. When I battled this thing for the first time and discovered its ability it felt like my friend was hacking and I'm sure some of you reacted the same. No Pokemon should have that level of consistent attacking power. For example, I know Volcarona gets Giga Drain, but I can still take the hit with Azumarill and ohko back. If fire moth got stab on it, then that would be a different story. I would switch out of paranoia though there's a chance it's not even running Giga Drain.

It didn't need to get gunk shot to become toxic to the meta hehehehe.

 

[HardlySaucy]

I think it's been pretty clearly established that having things that can revenge kill doesn't really effect Greninja's viability. Most things that outspeed it are scarfed and can't get a safe switch. Nothing forces Greninja to stay in and whenever it does switch in either by slow volt turn or revenge kill, it almost guarantees a KO. It isn't a set up sweeper, so there is literally no cost to switching out.

 

[RufflesPro]

Just got reqs, and I want to share my opinion on Greninja:

First, I think it should be banned. After teambuilding in the Greninja-less meta and laddering there, I realized how much Greninja limits team building, like, immensely. You have to have at least a check to Greninja on every single team, why? Because it so so good and so damn common, and the biggest selling point Greninja has: It's so easy to use, that no matter how inexperienced you are, you are bound to get results with it. Seriously, it's sickening, anybody can slap Ice Beam, random water move, Dark Pulse/Extrasensory, and Gunk Shot/Low Kick/Grass Knot/ HP Fire and literally call it a day.

Greninja is so centralizing in the meta game, the biggest proof to that is that every single Dragon Dance user runs enough Speed EVs to outspeed Greninja at +1. There's a reason why Bulky Mega Gyarados wasn't all too viable when Grass Knot Ninja was around, there's a reason why Mega Tyranitar runs Jolly, and so on. Especially bulk builds, they run enough speed to outspeed Greninja and put the rest on Bulk.

Greninja is so centralizing, that if you don't have a proper check, you will lose most of the time. That's why things like Cresselia, Tentacruel, Bulky/Scarf Jirachi, and Empoleon came to popularity, they all served one very important thing: Countering/Checking Greninja.

Teambuilding and Laddering in the Greninja-less meta, you realize how the metagame is MUCH MORE healthier. Finally some balance between HO, Bulky Offensive, and Balanced. Finally seeing some old Pokemon that were deemed unviable or fell heavily in use simply because of the existence of Greninja. Such Pokemon are like Clefable, Mega Venusaur, Ferrothorn, Scizor, Celebi, Gengar, Azumarill, and Starmie. All which, at least in certain times, Greninja made their viability/popularity fall.

EDIT: gonna put my reqs here just in case since I don't see the reqs thread

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[Roylund]

By the way, I see many people arguing that Greninja isn't broken which is something I believe most people here agree with. However, as
Zebstrika mentioned, he does create an endless cycle of ninja adapts to the meta>meta adapts to the ninja>ninja counters the meta>repeat because of his massive movepool and Protean which is pretty unhealthy and unfun. Something I think should also be noticed is that there are a TON less scarfers in the suspect ladder. Bulky Leftovers Landorus-T is a thing again and I am seeing Keldeo with Choice Specs. More fairies run around but that isn't really an issue.

Happy New Year's to everyone!

Enjoy the dank memes.

 

[Black117]

Hi Everyone! I am relatively new here in the Smogon forum and just got my reqs to vote on this suspect test just recently. Here’s the proof.

reqs

My thoughts and opinions on Greninja.

I’ll be frank, Greninja is no doubt the best low-risk, high rewards pokemon in the OU tier atm with a flexible movepool, amazing ability in protean, highly-coveted speed tier (base speed 122), and offensive capability that doesn’t take much skill for any player to use. The addition of gunk shot and low kick in ORAS transformed Greninja from a worthy, yet manageable S-tier mon by the end of XY to a suspect that is unhealthy for the OU metagame. I’ll list my reasons down below.

Unpredictability: Probably the most popular argument for the anti-ban bring up is 4MSS. In my opinion, this works to Greninja’s advantage arguably considering it can hit everything unresisted already with the combination of gunk shot, ice beam, hydro pump, and low kick/dark pulse. With said coverage and some wild card attacks (HP Fire/Grass, Extrasensory), players have to keep in mind none of their pokemon would want to risk coming onto one of its attacks with being 2HKOed. The best part about using Greninja is anyone can tailor their Greninja set to any particular build that fits their team’s needs while enabling team support for Greninja. Is your team team weak to Gengar or Slowbro? Slap dark pulse! Is Keldeo or Mega Venusaur being an issue? Use extrasensory! Want to lure in Ferrothorn and Mega Scizor? Slap HP Fire! Want to screw over would-be “counters” like Empoleon or Chansey? Use low kick! Want to predict a volt switch/electric move while applying hazards? Use spikes! The opposing player has to scout out what moves Greninja has order to assess it properly yet Greg’s movepool is so extensive no cannot keep in mind every coverage move. The only pokemon I can think of capable of handling Greninja are physically-defensive Porygon2 and Umbreon, which neither aren’t as viable in the ORAS OU metagame. If people are starting to run obscure or less valued pokemon in OU just to handle Greg, then there is something wrong.

Checks and Counters: Alright to my understanding, a check is a pokemon that is able to come in, often after a team member has fainted, yet still fears if the opposing pocket monster has a move capable of either a 2hko or 1hko against it. Let be honest, not a single pokemon other than maybe those two and a few others I haven’t mention are able to at least check Greninja without fear of being 2hkoed by one of its attacks. Something has to die on your team if you to have the chance of beating Greninja in a 1v1 scenario. Problem is any skilled players won’t sack Greninja to their opponent that easily when they can just switch out and repeat the process all over again. Hell most of the time Greninja will only be taking stealth rock damage/life orb recoil and kills itself after firing off a sendoff attack. I know the prevalence of scarf pokemon like Keldeo and Latios has risen just to revenge-kill Greninja but honest those pokemon can be scouted and handled accordingly with Greg’s five other teammates. What happens after you lose your so called scarfer/checks? Then it’s only a matter of time before Greninja picks off your team once your team's “checks” are gone.

Teambuilding: If it weren’t for both gunk shot and low kick, Greninja wouldn’t have be too much of a concern in teambuilding, yet it is. Gunk shot now enables Greninja to 2hko previously known counters in XY like AV Azumarill and Clefable. That said, Greninja can singlehandedly destroy both balance, and bulky offensive teams while can still be a pain to face in HO and stall if played correctly. What can common pokemon like Rotom-W, Landorus-t, Lati@s, Azumarill, Clefable, T-Tar, Thundurus, Ferrothorn, or any OU mon can do to stop Greg from picking off their team? Seriously you have keep in mind at least one or two worthy checks to handle Greg alone which is kinda ridiculous considering how extensive its movepool is. Finally I want to add nearly all playstyles (i.e Balance, BO, stall, HO) will benefit in a Greninja-less metagame. Pokemon like Starmie, Jirachi, Gengar, Victini, Celebi, Tornadus-T, Dragonite, and plenty others will see a rise in usage. That'll pretty much make the ORAS OU metagame more balanced without the omnipresent Greninjas.


TL:DR Greninja has a profound influence in the OU metagame that is highly unhealthy and has merited its own suspect test at this time. Admittedly, Greninja was a personal favorite of mine, but the transition to ORAS has made it just almost broken yet so much difficulty handling it in battles. I honestly think Greg will have to join Blaziken as the second starter pokemon to be banned from the OU tier.

 

[master_marshmallow]

Just got reqs, and I want to share my opinion on Greninja:

First, I think it should be banned. After teambuilding in the Greninja-less meta and laddering there, I realized how much Greninja limits team building, like, immensely. You have to have at least a check to Greninja on every single team, why? Because it so so good and so damn common, and the biggest selling point Greninja has: It's so easy to use, that no matter how inexperienced you are, you are bound to get results with it. Seriously, it's sickening, anybody can slap Ice Beam, random water move, Dark Pulse/Extrasensory, and Gunk Shot/Low Kick/Grass Knot/ HP Fire and literally call it a day.

Greninja is so centralizing in the meta game, the biggest proof to that is that every single Dragon Dance user runs enough Speed EVs to outspeed Greninja at +1. There's a reason why Bulky Mega Gyarados wasn't all too viable when Grass Knot Ninja was around, there's a reason why Mega Tyranitar runs Jolly, and so on. Especially bulk builds, they run enough speed to outspeed Greninja and put the rest on Bulk.

Greninja is so centralizing, that if you don't have a proper check, you will lose most of the time. That's why things like Cresselia, Tentacruel, Bulky/Scarf Jirachi, and Empoleon came to popularity, they all served one very important thing: Countering/Checking Greninja.

Teambuilding and Laddering in the Greninja-less meta, you realize how the metagame is MUCH MORE healthier. Finally some balance between HO, Bulky Offensive, and Balanced. Finally seeing some old Pokemon that were deemed unviable or fell heavily in use simply because of the existence of Greninja. Such Pokemon are like Clefable, Mega Venusaur, Ferrothorn, Scizor, Celebi, Gengar, Azumarill, and Starmie. All which, at least in certain times, Greninja made their viability/popularity fall.

EDIT: gonna put my reqs here just in case since I don't see the reqs thread

Hide

This is the kind of argument I want explained to me. Pokemon get usage based on their viability. Let's say without Greninja we can play Pokemon a, b, and c, finally. With Greninja, we play Pokemon x, y, and z. Saying that Pokemon x, y, and z should not be considered viable because you want to play Pokemon a, b, and c shows bias.

You also say the game is healthier because of a, b, and c and that the game is better off without x, y, and z. I want to know why this is. Why is it better for something like Clefable to be more viable but not Tentacruel or Empoleon.

I'm not trolling, I want a legitimate answer. Perhaps it will also answer the question of "what even is a healthy meta?" Like, what does it look like? What signs make it obvious.
I don't care if Greninja gets banned, I'm just in the anti ban club until I see quantified reasoning that proves it makes the game worse just by existing and isn't just a really strong threat that exemplifies the nature of shifting viability. I haven't seen too many changes in teams, so I guess I must be bad or something.

 

[HiBrow]

This is the kind of argument I want explained to me. Pokemon get usage based on their viability. Let's say without Greninja we can play Pokemon a, b, and c, finally. With Greninja, we play Pokemon x, y, and z. Saying that Pokemon x, y, and z should not be considered viable because you want to play Pokemon a, b, and c shows bias.

You also say the game is healthier because of a, b, and c and that the game is better off without x, y, and z. I want to know why this is. Why is it better for something like Clefable to be more viable but not Tentacruel or Empoleon.

I'm not trolling, I want a legitimate answer. Perhaps it will also answer the question of "what even is a healthy meta?" Like, what does it look like? What signs make it obvious.
I don't care if Greninja gets banned, I'm just in the anti ban club until I see quantified reasoning that proves it makes the game worse just by existing and isn't just a really strong threat that exemplifies the nature of shifting viability. I haven't seen too many changes in teams, so I guess I must be bad or something.

He didn't say the meta is healthier since he could play with a, b, and c instead of x, y, and z.

He said the meta is healthier since he could play with a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, and k instead of just x, y, and z.

 

[HardlySaucy]

This is the kind of argument I want explained to me. Pokemon get usage based on their viability. Let's say without Greninja we can play Pokemon a, b, and c, finally. With Greninja, we play Pokemon x, y, and z. Saying that Pokemon x, y, and z should not be considered viable because you want to play Pokemon a, b, and c shows bias.

You also say the game is healthier because of a, b, and c and that the game is better off without x, y, and z. I want to know why this is. Why is it better for something like Clefable to be more viable but not Tentacruel or Empoleon.

I'm not trolling, I want a legitimate answer. Perhaps it will also answer the question of "what even is a healthy meta?" Like, what does it look like? What signs make it obvious.
I don't care if Greninja gets banned, I'm just in the anti ban club until I see quantified reasoning that proves it makes the game worse just by existing and isn't just a really strong threat that exemplifies the nature of shifting viability. I haven't seen too many changes in teams, so I guess I must be bad or something.

The fact is, Empoleon and Tentacruel just aren't that good. Yes, they can both remove hazards which is a relatively rare trait, but at the moment they have very little standing in the OU meta other than specifically countering checking Smogon Frog. Clefable, on the other hand, is very viable, but the frog held it back, making it much harder to use. I don't know if I agree that it's necessarily a good thing, but the bad Pokemon stayed bad and the good one got better. However, there are others in UU whose usage in OU will rise greatly assuming Greninja is banned, which is nice to see.

 

[Fafnir]

We assume that the mon in question is being used by a good player for a couple reasons. One, any broken mon can be easily killed if piloted by a bad player simply because the player will create unnecessary openings (i.e. a Mega Lucario setting up in front of Mega Charizard X). Second, any player that is bad now may still have the potential to become a good player. Players who are bad and stay bad generally don't care enough about the game to attempt to get better and will likely just drop the game when they get bored, thus it makes little sense to cater a meta based on them. However, if the upper ladder suffers because of a suspect, then when a bad player becomes good, what then? They go from a reasonable meta to a bad one. This is why we make the assumption that a mon is being used by a good player: the players that care the most about the state of the meta may not be the best, but they will certainly not be the worst, and they deserve a meta that they can call fun. That's not to say that a ban always leads to this, but it's why each side strives to reach its goal: they either believe the meta is fine, or they believe that removing an element will improve it.

I'd also like to point out, as far as game balance is concerned, that being in a position where you're forced to rely on being more skilled than your opponent can typically be seen as disadvantageous. You should always assume a scenario against the most skilled opponent possible.

 

[TheEnder]

This is the kind of argument I want explained to me. Pokemon get usage based on their viability. Let's say without Greninja we can play Pokemon a, b, and c, finally. With Greninja, we play Pokemon x, y, and z. Saying that Pokemon x, y, and z should not be considered viable because you want to play Pokemon a, b, and c shows bias. You also say the game is healthier because of a, b, and c and that the game is better off without x, y, and z. I want to know why this is. Why is it better for something like Clefable to be more viable but not Tentacruel or Empoleon.

I just wanted to address this, becuase the question is actually interesting, unlike a lot of other stuff in this thread. Much similar to the case of Aegislash, which was the closest voting in XY OU, the arguments were based on the evolution of the metagame, rather than the sheer poweress of the Pokemon itself. Aegislash was, indeed, very powerful, and had the capability of running multiple sets, all of which very equally viable. The thing was, though, that Aegislash forced every team to run multiple checks or "counters". Running Mandibuzz and Bisharp on the same team, on every team, wasn't something the community was fond of, as it close to killed the Hyper Offensive playstyle. The same went for the Stall playstyle; handling the variety of sets cost multiple teamslots, which made the team have holes and weaknesses to other dangerous Pokemon. However, it checked dangerous Pokemon such as Mega Gardevoir and Mega Medicham, of which were otherwise hard to check. The feud between the two sides of the case were mostly discussing the state of the metagame after an eventual ban. The pro-ban side won in the end, and the metagame evolved into something many players think of as a very balanced, and good metagame. Greninja is much alike Aegislash, but in a different way; it is, to an extent, capable of running different sets, and it forces teams to run multiple ways of taking it on, either by checking it defensively, or having options to revenge kill it. We could, indeed, let it stay in OU, but that would severely limit the amount of teambuilding options we have. Banning it however, doesn't just let us use a, b, and c, as you refer to them as. In Aegislash's case, we thought Gardevoir, Medicham, and Heracross would rise drastically in usage. However, one of the biggest raises in usage was caused by Slowbro, of which few of us expected. Banning an important and powerful Pokemon in a metagame doesn't just allow certain Pokemon to suddenly get viable. It starts a process, that might lead to a healthier metagame, with more and freer options for teambuilding. :)

 

[master_marshmallow]

He didn't say the meta is healthier since he could play with a, b, and c instead of x, y, and z.

He said the meta is healthier since he could play with a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, and k instead of just x, y, and z.

Way to miss the point entirely.

If you label a Pokemon unviable then it is unviable, in this case group abc. Just because you like the Pokemon in group abc doesn't mean they should be viable or that the game is better if you get rid of enough threats so that it is viable.

Conversely, you cannot say that group xyz is unviable or that they shouldn't be just because you don't like them. The fact that they get used and group abc doesn't disproves the viability fallacy going around, by proof of the actual data from game play.

You can list a bunch of letters acting like I was talking about specific Pokemon, but in reality, group abc contains every unviable Pokemon in existence.

I want facts, not theory Mon that proves that xyz being viable is bad for the game.

 

[Fafnir]

The idea is to make group abc as small as possible, within reason. The problem is that certain pokemon become so central to the metagame that it invalidates the use of a large chunk of the meta, and forces everything to revolve around almost solely them.

For example, prior to the ban of Aegislash, many otherwise solid pokemon were almost entirely irrelevant to the metagame, due to Aegislash's power and ubiquity. Additionally, even those pokemon that weren't made entirely unviable were forced to build with Aegislash in mind to the point that it severely impacted their abilities to perform their roles well. Not only did this lead to a meta with a more limited breadth of options than it could of had, it also lead to a fairly stale one where the vast majority of gameplay revolved around dealing with a single specific pokemon.

 

[baddummy]

I just wanted to address this, becuase the question is actually interesting, unlike a lot of other stuff in this thread. Much similar to the case of Aegislash, which was the closest voting in XY OU, the arguments were based on the evolution of the metagame, rather than the sheer poweress of the Pokemon itself. Aegislash was, indeed, very powerful, and had the capability of running multiple sets, all of which very equally viable. The thing was, though, that Aegislash forced every team to run multiple checks or "counters". Running Mandibuzz and Bisharp on the same team, on every team, wasn't something the community was fond of, as it close to killed the Hyper Offensive playstyle. The same went for the Stall playstyle; handling the variety of sets cost multiple teamslots, which made the team have holes and weaknesses to other dangerous Pokemon. However, it checked dangerous Pokemon such as Mega Gardevoir and Mega Medicham, of which were otherwise hard to check. The feud between the two sides of the case were mostly discussing the state of the metagame after an eventual ban. The pro-ban side won in the end, and the metagame evolved into something many players think of as a very balanced, and good metagame. Greninja is much alike Aegislash, but in a different way; it is, to an extent, capable of running different sets, and it forces teams to run multiple ways of taking it on, either by checking it defensively, or having options to revenge kill it. We could, indeed, let it stay in OU, but that would severely limit the amount of teambuilding options we have. Banning it however, doesn't just let us use a, b, and c, as you refer to them as. In Aegislash's case, we thought Gardevoir, Medicham, and Heracross would rise drastically in usage. However, one of the biggest raises in usage was caused by Slowbro, of which few of us expected. Banning an important and powerful Pokemon in a metagame doesn't just allow certain Pokemon to suddenly get viable. It starts a process, that might lead to a healthier metagame, with more and freer options for teambuilding. :)

Agree in some parts, others less so. Sand Hyper Offence was very viable before and after the Aegislash ban, and Stall got worse AFTER the Aegislash ban precisely because of it having to handle these new threats you mentioned by having yet another of its teamslots taken up by the only, very niche, thing able to tackle them: Doublade. In this way, Aegislash didn't particularly do much to stop any one playstyle, but it did force you to run multiple pokemon to handle its different sets.

Greninja, however, is a different story, because it has no defensive merits. This meaning, unlike Aegislash, it doesn't come in on certain threats, and then deal damage, you have to figure out a way to get it in for free. That being said, I find it worse for the metagame, precisely because it does restrict playstyles, more specifically balance and bulky offence. No specific new threats will suddenly get more viable, because really, it doesn't stop anything from dealing damage, it just wrecks anything slower than it, which is almost the entirety of the meta. Due to Greninja's frailty, the case is different from Aegislash, it isn't run something that hits for supereffective damage, and doesn't care about KS, such as Bisharp, the choices are either go unbelievably bulky with full stall, running Chansey to handle Greninja, with a reliable way to keep hazards off the field, such as Sableye, or just go even more offensive, and pack your team with priority, scarfers, pokemon with an even higher speed stat than Gren such as Mega Lopunny, and of course Greninja itself. In this way, the principle is less specific, but more widespread on a team, while Aegislash took up about two slots on any one playstyle, Greninja applies a more general principle, applying a chokehold on an entire archetype itself.

That being said, despite Greninja having such a serious impact on balance teams, many players did use them, and trends such as Tentacruel could be spotted on them, which balance will no longer have to use, so you're absolutely correct when you say that a Greninja ban will free up slots on balance. In any case, because Greninja doesn't contribute to the meta defensively, keeping only pokemon most synonymous with balance/bulky offence from being more commonly used, such as Clefable, which of course has other contributing factors to its decline in usage, it can be treated in a vacuum in a way that Aegislash just couldn't be.

As to how it should be treated, anybody who agrees with the idea that the healthiest meta consists of one in which a variety of play styles are viable would want Greninja banned, because its polarising effect on the meta is clear, and has already been discussed in detail.

 

[Mowtom]

Way to miss the point entirely.

If you label a Pokemon unviable then it is unviable, in this case group abc. Just because you like the Pokemon in group abc doesn't mean they should be viable or that the game is better if you get rid of enough threats so that it is viable.

Conversely, you cannot say that group xyz is unviable or that they shouldn't be just because you don't like them. The fact that they get used and group abc doesn't disproves the viability fallacy going around, by proof of the actual data from game play.

You can list a bunch of letters acting like I was talking about specific Pokemon, but in reality, group abc contains every unviable Pokemon in existence.

I want facts, not theory Mon that proves that xyz being viable is bad for the game.

If Greninja makes 10 Pokemon unviable while making 3 viable, it should go because we want a metagame with as many viable options as possible.

 

[master_marshmallow]

The idea is to make group abc as small as possible, within reason. The problem is that certain pokemon become so central to the metagame that it invalidates the use of a large chunk of the meta, and forces everything to revolve around almost solely them.

For example, prior to the ban of Aegislash, many otherwise solid pokemon were almost entirely irrelevant to the metagame, due to Aegislash's power and ubiquity. Additionally, even those pokemon that weren't made entirely unviable were forced to build with Aegislash in mind to the point that it severely impacted their abilities to perform their roles well. Not only did this lead to a meta with a more limited breadth of options than it could of had, it also lead to a fairly stale one where the vast majority of gameplay revolved around dealing with a single specific pokemon.

Abc encompasses all Pokemon not considered viable, and last time I checked, Smogon as a whole does not care about making Pokemon more viable but they care about the meta game as a whole. Greninja seems to be only causing the problem that people are running Pokemon that they don't like, from group xyz, when they want the meta to allow usage and viability for certain, not necessarily specific, Pokemon in group abc, but seeing as Smogon has already said we don't cater to such whims I have a hard time understanding why this concept, referred to as centralization, is bad for the meta game.

 

[master_marshmallow]

I hate when people say 'oh this Pokemon makes that Pokemon unviable,' because it's simply not true. No Pokemon makes something unviable, it just makes them harder to use. Greninja does not make things like Mega Chomp unviable, the same way that Talonflame doesn't make things like Breloom and Mega Heracross unviable. They just require a lot more team support to be efficient, and that's about it. Sorry for derailing this a little bit, but that bothers me.

Unfortunately, that is the case and some Pokemon are even blacklisted from discussion because of how unviable they are.
Prime example is Volt Switch Toxic Orb Jolteon who, when supported properly, annihilated Greninja because he out speeds most scarfers. But we're not allowed to talk about him so we won't.

 

[TheEnder]

Agree in some parts, others less so. Sand Hyper Offence was very viable before and after the Aegislash ban, and Stall got worse AFTER the Aegislash ban precisely because of it having to handle these new threats you mentioned by having yet another of its teamslots taken up by the only, very niche, thing able to tackle them: Doublade. In this way, Aegislash didn't particularly do much to stop any one playstyle, but it did force you to run multiple pokemon to handle its different sets.

Greninja, however, is a different story, because it has no defensive merits. This meaning, unlike Aegislash, it doesn't come in on certain threats, and then deal damage, you have to figure out a way to get it in for free. That being said, I find it worse for the metagame, precisely because it does restrict playstyles, more specifically balance and bulky offence. No specific new threats will suddenly get more viable, because really, it doesn't stop anything from dealing damage, it just wrecks anything slower than it, which is almost the entirety of the meta. Due to Greninja's frailty, the case is different from Aegislash, it isn't run something that hits for supereffective damage, and doesn't care about KS, such as Bisharp, the choices are either go unbelievably bulky with full stall, running Chansey to handle Greninja, with a reliable way to keep hazards off the field, such as Sableye, or just go even more offensive, and pack your team with priority, scarfers, pokemon with an even higher speed stat than Gren such as Mega Lopunny, and of course Greninja itself. In this way, the principle is less specific, but more widespread on a team, while Aegislash took up about two slots on any one playstyle, Greninja applies a more general principle, applying a chokehold on an entire archetype itself.

That being said, despite Greninja having such a serious impact on balance teams, many players did use them, and trends such as Tentacruel could be spotted on them, which balance will no longer have to use, so you're absolutely correct when you say that a Greninja ban will free up slots on balance. In any case, because Greninja doesn't contribute to the meta defensively, keeping only pokemon most synonymous with balance/bulky offence from being more commonly used, such as Clefable, which of course has other contributing factors to its decline in usage, it can be treated in a vacuum in a way that Aegislash just couldn't be.

As to how it should be treated, anybody who agrees with the idea that the healthiest meta consists of one in which a variety of play styles are viable would want Greninja banned, because its polarising effect on the meta is clear, and has already been discussed in detail.

Thanks for clearing some things up, I probably should have been clearer in my post. Sand Offense was indeed viable pre and post the ban of Aegislash, so my statement was biased, but certain Aegislash sets, such as Air Balloon and offensive Life Orb, were still the bane of those teams. Hippowdon and Defensive Landorus-T also became popular partners for Aegislash, which allowed Aegislash teams to have incredible matchup against most HO. To add to this, I wouldn't necessarily say Stall's viablility as a playstyle decreased a lot after Aegislash's ban. Aegislash saw little to no usage on Stall, so it was only its presence which helped Stall teams. After its ban, however, when the infamous 'trio of stallbreaking' became viable, new Pokemon started to see usage on Stall. Jirachi, counterig Gardevoir, Slowbro, checking Medicham, and fast Gliscor, checking Heracross all became moderately common. Today, these are all very viable, even outside of their original purpose. Stall teams performed well, as these Pokemon were actually good for fulfilling multiple roles, which Stall desperately needs. Either way, my main point was that a ban may cause evolution, for the better or worse for the various playstyles, which is favorable for the metagame as a whole. :)

 

[Rarycaris]

No Pokemon makes something unviable, it just makes them harder to use.

That's basically what the word "unviable" means -- being sufficiently hard to use (which you seem to be defining by the number of scenarios in which they can perform well) that there's no point in doing so.

 

[Rarycaris]

Unviable, imo, means the Pokemon is so bad to the point where you shouldn't even consider it for a team. Tell me, do Mega Chomp and Breloom fall into that category?

The two definitions don't contradict each other, really. What makes a Pokemon bad? In the simplest possible terms, an insufficient number of situations in which it's useful and not completely outclassed. It's not in reality that simple, of course, but it's a decent heuristic.

On your second point, what does that have to do with anything? Why does what I'm saying depend in any way on me considering Mega Garchomp and Breloom unviable? (I won't comment on the question itself because I'm primarily a casual ubers/monotype player and have virtually no knowledge of the OU meta, so my opinion on that isn't really worth anything.)

Speaking purely theoretically, because I'm not knowledgable or skilled enough to offer anything more useful: if a Pokemon is *everywhere* and very strong, then it dramatically reduces the number of scenarios that something it wrecks is useful in, simply because the number of scenarios where it's present is so high, as is the number of scenarios where it could be present (i.e. switched in) to present a bad matchup. That's basically what "X makes Y unviable" means, IMO, and it absolutely can happen when X is sufficiently broken or omnipresent.

 

[Qazoo306]

Way to miss the point entirely.

If you label a Pokemon unviable then it is unviable, in this case group abc. Just because you like the Pokemon in group abc doesn't mean they should be viable or that the game is better if you get rid of enough threats so that it is viable.

Conversely, you cannot say that group xyz is unviable or that they shouldn't be just because you don't like them. The fact that they get used and group abc doesn't disproves the viability fallacy going around, by proof of the actual data from game play.

You can list a bunch of letters acting like I was talking about specific Pokemon, but in reality, group abc contains every unviable Pokemon in existence.

I want facts, not theory Mon that proves that xyz being viable is bad for the game.

It isn't said that xyz shouldn't be used because they're disliked. It's said they're unviable because they do nothing outside of checking threat G. ABC are three very good pokemon with great stats, move pools and abilities, yet since the centralizing threat g beats them, they suck. Say group xyz consisted of Raichu, Rotom F, and Azumaril. Only one of them is viable outside of checking threat G. Say that threat g beat both Charizard forms, lati@s, and Chancey. All three things threat g beats would otherwise be top tier threats. Which meta is more fun? The one where you need to run otherwise bad mons to win or the one where all pokemon that could be good are usable?

Edit: in case there's any confusion, I'm not saying Raichu and Rotom-f check Greninja, I just chose two random bad mons to use for example.

 

[HiBrow]

Way to miss the point entirely.

If you label a Pokemon unviable then it is unviable, in this case group abc. Just because you like the Pokemon in group abc doesn't mean they should be viable or that the game is better if you get rid of enough threats so that it is viable.

Conversely, you cannot say that group xyz is unviable or that they shouldn't be just because you don't like them. The fact that they get used and group abc doesn't disproves the viability fallacy going around, by proof of the actual data from game play.

You can list a bunch of letters acting like I was talking about specific Po

Okay dude.

No one said anything about favoring other Pokemon. I love Bellossom but I'm not begging anyone to ban all fire types to make it usable in OU. Most people favor an environment with more variety. I don't know what is so complicated about 8 or 10 being bigger than 3 or 4.

Here are our options in this situation:

1. Don't ban Greninja and use the few obscure counters checks on every team and basically do the same shit every battle.

2. Don't ban Greninja and don't use the obscure checks on every team and lose consistently.

3. Ban Greninja and have more flexibility with winning teams.

Edit: To clarify, its not as if Pokemon like Starmie and Venusaur aren't viable. They just compete for a slot with a Greninja check. If we're guaranteed not to run into Greninja, Porygon2's team slot becomes open to a dozen other Pokemon with better overall use that doesn't include checking Greninja.