Plus there numerous pokes able to stop blizzspam, slowking and lanturn being the 2 most common.
Lanturn dies in like 6 seconds to Glaceon j/s :(
Very disappointed in the people who voted to keep Cress in the tier, Hail is going to weaken Cress slightly and move it from being obnoxiously broken and walling 95% of the tier to still quite broken and walling 90% of the tier. Unfortunately the focus is going to be shifted off of Cress and on to Hail for a while and I'm starting to worry that we may have missed our chance to remove the most broken Pokemon the tier has ever seen (three times!) from our midst with the shift to a rotating council over the Senate. From what I've seen so far, Hail is powerful but not dominant, but will require a moderate shift in teambuilding to account for it. Stall in particular can no longer rely on a combination of Cress and a special tank (not wall) to take all of the special attacks that will come flying its way, particularly if the opposition loads up on Cresselia checks as well as Blizzard spammers. Lanturn in particular, lacking recovery cannot be seen as a decent Hail check as it will be 3HKOd by Glaceon's Blizzard without being able to do anything significant to it in return.
Shifting topics again, I'm going to take the opportunity to promote one of the best sets in the tier at the moment, both before and I believe also after drop of Hail. Calm Mind RestTalk (abbreviated as CroTomb) Spiritomb holds claim to being one of only two foolproof Cresselia counters I have come across (the other being RestTalk Escavalier). Spiritomb boasts remarkable bulk, allowing it to begin to set of on the majority of physical attackers one will face, as well as any special attacker lacking a behemoth attacking stat. Once it accruse two Calm Minds, even things such as Life Orb Moltres and Magmortar begin to struggle to break it. Most importantly, it has no shortage of opportunity to come in and begin setting up when Cresselia arrives, putting Pressure (hehe) on the opposing team, particularly given its lack of status vulnerability.
As for Cresselia herself, the vast majority of Pokemon she outright walls and turns into set up fodder is ridiculous. People list out her relatively limited list of checks and counters (usually along the lines of Drapion, Spiritomb, Escavalier and then a few others) and claim that for this reason she isn't broken, but they tend to ignore the fact that, without fail, she
100% walls just about every single other Pokemon in the tier. With the EV spread I run, 252 HP 116 SDef Calm, Cresselia becomes an instant counter to every special attacker in the tier, meaning only the aforementioned Pokemon and then scarce physical attackers such as Swords Dance Gallade and Swords Dance Kabutops have a shot at breaking through Cress. What's more, with the exception of Gallade (who Cress can in fact beat with smart play) every other Pokemon I've listed is defeated by Poliwrath, Cresselia's perfect mate. In short, we have two Pokemon who wall every single option the tier has bar a select few, with 95% of the work being done by Cresselia. Remember those outdated qualities of an Uber? Cresselia qualifies for
BOTH the defensive characteristic due to it walling such a massive percentage of the tier, but also the support characteristic for the remarkably easy paralysis support, dual screens support, and weather support it provides -- though admittedly its support features would be unlikely to banworthy in and of itself.
Furthermore the centralisation that I, SilentVerse and Windsong talked about in our suspect votes has become increasingly clear among both ladder and more serious battles. Essentially, if you don't carry 1 hard counter plus a check or multiple checks to Cresselia, you will lose without fail. If you use Pokemon that are easily walled by Cresselia you not only compromise the offensive or defensive integrity of your team you allow Cresselia to spread its status of choice without consequence throughout your team. What's more, Cresselia is somewhat versatile with its moveset options, and a single moveslot change can render your counter of choice moot, leaving Cress to destroy you unchallenged. Hidden Power Fire suddenly makes Escavalier a liability, as well as invalidating Drapion as an option. Calm Mind plus Ice Beam means that Cresselia can take out Crotomb with a crit, whereas Spiritomb must crit itself to take out Cress. Speaking of crits, did you know that in a Cresselia stall war, using the spread I listed above, opposing
+6 Cresselia will fail to 2HKO you with consecutive critical hit Psychics? This is typically the point where one raises status, particularly Toxic as a means to stop Cresselia. This is a reasonably valid point so I will only say four things against it. First, on a defensive team, status should be irrelevant because a competent player will run Heal Bell to support both Cress and a team that likely carries at least one RestTalker. Second, offensive teams have no room or time to fit Toxic and are thus irrelevant in the equation. Third, Toxic is commonly run on only a few Pokemon, and is almost always telegraphed, making it very easy to predict from the most common Pokemon used to check Cress, Slowking and Cryogonal specifically coming to mind. Fourth and finally, if Toxic is indeed your primary option of dealing with Cress, you are completely screwed when you run into a SubCM Cress.
(n.b. Trick is as easily telegraphed as Toxic, specifically from Manectric, one should always be scouting Uxie before leading their Cress against it)
Now I'm not sure how this post shifted into a "why Cress is broken post," but I'll cap it off by saying that a well built stall team with the focus being should never lose, except to a combination of hax and the opponent carrying a surefire Cresselia counter. In fact, this is exactly what I found when laddering, and other battles. Except when the opponent carried RestTalk versions of Spiritomb or Escavalier, there was no Pokemon or combination of Pokemon that could pose a threat to Cresselia, and then an assortment of hazard setters/spinners/clerics that covered off niche options to reduce the burden of Cress having to
wall the entire tier. Even when hax struck and took out CroTomb before it could sweep, I found myself more than once in a situation where I was down 4-2, 5-2, and was inevitably, slowly but surely wearing down the opponent because they could not break through the Cresselia / Poliwrath combination. I could not sweep because they still carried a Spiritomb or Escavalier, but nor could they wear me down thanks to Poliwrath shoring up Cresselia's few weakness. Thus, I was slowly able to wear down a team with forced switches and phazing.
So, this post was initially just comment on the state of Hail and then a few of my experiences, seems its morphed into primarily about Cress. I'm out of things to say, so make of it what you will.
