My thoughts on Goodra suspect:
tl;dr:
- Goodra can easily switch in versus multiple Pokemon on any team.
- Once it comes in, it always KOs something on unprepared teams.
- To prepare, every team must bring multiple (2-4) Pokemon dedicated just to stopping Goodra;
- Therefore, Goodra is
overcentralizing and
restricts teambuilding to an excessive degree.
- The
prediction game Goodra creates every time it comes in (even versus a prepared team!) is
unhealthy for the metagame.
- Thus, Goodra should be BANNED.
As phantom said above, balanced teams are required to run entire cores (Steel + Fairy + 1 or 2 specially bulky mons, such as Mantine, Snorlax, or SpDef Scrafty) to prevent Goodra from flat-out winning. This is necessary because Goodra is both extremely powerful and gets tons of opportunities to switch in. Against balance teams, Goodra can use its great bulk and the resistances provided by its Dragon typing to come in against Vileplume, Jellicent, Mantine, Coalossal, Gastrodon, and plenty of other defensive Pokemon that are unable to damage it significantly. (Note that I listed Mantine as a switch-in earlier! Specs Goodra can also switch in to Mantine and OHKO it with Thunderbolt. If it is weakened at all, thru a fighting type's Knock Off removing its boots or status / chip damage, it becomes an extremely shaky check. Under ~65%, Goodra breaks thru with Draco, circumventing the prediction game entirely).
Once it comes in, Specs Goodra can 2HKO almost anything in the meta. Steel-types die to Fire Blast, Fairies die to Sludge Wave, and basically everything else dies to Draco. It comes in very frequently versus balance teams, forcing at least 5 predictions every game where a Pokemon will usually die if you make a mistake.
My first RU Kickoff game is great evidence of this. I didn't have a fairy (i.e. Silvally-Fairy or Aromatisse) on my team, and so I spent the first 20 turns getting slight chip on Goodra and trying not to die to it. If he clicked Draco rather than Goodra's coverage moves on a few turns, Goodra would have been even more lethal).
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ru-1077535409-ylinrib7pgac13wcbb9h8exaeu3e9wlpw
( I always switched my Goodra out vs his because I realized that I was Modest :/ )
However, Goodra can come in versus offensive teams as well! Offensive teams must run wallbreakers for balance teams; due to its Base 80 Speed, Goodra can outspeed almost any other "wallbreaker" (the only exceptions: Ninetales, Salazzle, and CM Indeedee). If Goodra gets in front of a slower wallbreaker, either through a double switch or by revenging after the wallbreaker KOs a mon, something will die. Goodra's Special bulk and typing also allow it to come in and wall many Special offensive staples (such as Ninetales, Salazzle, and Rotom), drop a Draco, kill something, and repeat.
When I tried to build a team that was more offensive than the typical balance squads we see in this meta, I was forced to always use both Slurpuff and Silvally-Steel, since they were the best Fairy / Steel offensive core and I needed a Fairy/Steel core to prevent Specs Goodra from auto-winning.
Goodra restricts teambuilding for every playstyle. This means that I can only really experiment with 2-3 different slots -- I've built about 10 teams in this meta, and they all look more or less the same, with a few mons swapped in and out of the few slots not devoted to the Goodra prediction game.
Goodra basically turns the meta into a guessing game every time it switches in. This is unhealthy for the metagame, where skill and creative teambuilding should determine what wins a battle instead of mindgames, guesswork, and how well-prepared your team is for one extraordinarily dominant threat alone.
Therefore, I recommend that we
BAN GOODRA.
an extra benefit: we make bkdrew re-do the entire VR again >:-)
one final point which I forgot to mention: there are also no trade-offs to using Goodra. It puts in work against any team, whether it be through Sap Sipper blocking grass-type attacks from the likes of Vileplume/Rillaboom, walling/checking so many special attackers, or dropping Specs Dracos and demolishing the other team.