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Hello, the RU Council has decided to suspect test Meloetta.
Meloetta’s newfound access to Celebrate has given it a new niche from an upper tier walllbreaker to a dangerous sweeper. Unlike other Celebrate mons, Meloetta's coverage is near flawless, able to hit would be counters with 2HKOes after a boost. Furthermore, its natural bulk and unique typing make it difficult to revenge kill after a boost and allows it to setup on a diverse amount of offensive mons, while shrugging off attacks from the Choice Scarf users capable of outspeeding it. Due to the countermeasures towards Meloetta narrowing down to specific defensive checks, of which cannot stand up to its other sets, this has made Meloetta an arguably restricting threat to prepare for and an unpredictable threat to deal with, warranting a suspect.
There will be no suspect ladder. Instead we will use the normal RU ladder which will remain open for the duration of the test. A message will pop up at the beginning of ladder games to indicate that the suspect is going on (Tagging Marty to implement, thank you!). Anyone who wishes to participate in this suspect test will use a newly-made alt with a suspect-specific tag to indicate that you are trying to achieve reqs. The requirements for this suspect test are the following:
All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! RU ladder on a new alt with the following format: "RUSM (nickname)" For example, I might register the alt RUSM Feen to ladder with.
Do NOT impersonate other people in your ladder alt, do NOT use any usernames which are offensive, flame-baiting, or targeting specific users, and do NOT use usernames which could be interpreted as breaking any of the username rules on Pokemon Showdown! Failure to abide to this will result in you being barred from voting in this suspect, and potential infractions.
To qualify for voting, your alt must play either minimum 40 games with a minimum GXE of 80 or 35 games with a minimum GXE of 82
The suspect test will last for 10 days, ending on Saturday the 19th at 23:59 EST.
/!\ NOTICE /!\RU will not be tolerating any form of voting manipulation. Any attempt to manipulate votes can result in an infraction, loss of eligibility to vote in the current test, and loss of the Tiering Contributor badge. While we won't necessarily enforce super strict punishment, this won't be tolerated and will be handled accordingly. Voting manipulation can simply be described as attempting to get people to vote a way on the test in inappropriate manners. Bribing with teams to vote a certain way, directly messaging people to vote a certain way, publicly announcing "vote this way" all fall under voting manipulation. For more query feel free to PM me.
Now that I got the reqs for the suspect and I've played with and against Meloetta, I'll be voting ban. Meloetta's issue with the z celebrate set isn't necessarily the power (although it is still very strong), it's the titanic bulk post celebrate. With the boosted defenses, Meloetta can live some absurd hits which you can see in the Calcs tab on the bottom. Another thing is not only does Meloetta gain this absurd bulk after z, but it doesn't even have a hard time setting up thanks to it's good natural bulk and unique typing which makes it hard to prevent the setup in the first place. It's speed gives it a leg up on the majority of scarfers while beating any faster scarfer that's tasked with stopping it. This means you're forced to rely on many forms of priority or rely on winning the sucker punch 50 50 (which none of them will kill Meloetta if it's healthy) if you even have a faster scarfer in the first place. This really constrains teambuilding. And you can't really pivot around Meloetta thanks to it's amazing neutral coverage which makes nearly any team liable to lose to it given a little chip. It also doesn't help it works well with most of the better hazard stackers in the tier. This makes Meloetta able to dismantle many styles from offense to balance with little issue. I won't even get into Meloetta on screens, which is a whole other issue. For all these reasons, I believe Meloetta is an unhealthy and broken component for the tier.
252 SpA Mega Launcher Blastoise-Mega Dark Pulse vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Meloetta: 146-172 (42.8 - 50.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Gardevoir Moonblast vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Meloetta: 123-145 (36 - 42.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Raikou Thunderbolt vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Meloetta: 109-129 (31.9 - 37.8%) -- 91% chance to 3HKO
252+ Atk Flygon Earthquake vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Meloetta: 124-147 (36.3 - 43.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Stakataka Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Meloetta: 225-265 (65.9 - 77.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Drapion Knock Off vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Meloetta: 138-164 (40.4 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Meloetta: 204-242 (59.8 - 70.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Ok so I just got reqs and I would like to leave some thoughts. I find Meloetta to be quite an overbearance to the tier as it acts as one of the best wallbreakers and setup sweepers simultaneously. What really pushes it over the edge for me is the attributes of its great bulk, relatively good defensive typing and good offensive coverage. After one Z-Celebrate it can outspeed the majority of the metagame and can be quite difficult to revenge kill due to the added bulk. Added to the fact it can further boost its offenses and bulk with Calm Mind means Meloetta can both dismantle offensive and defensive teams alike. Calm Mind sets with Z-Focus Blast and even Z-Psychic are also still formidable trading its ability in dealing with offensive teams for being one of the most difficult thorns to the sides for more balanced teams. All to say that Meloetta has all the qualities of a great offensive threat that makes it quite too much for the metagame imo, and is why I will be voting ban to hopefully have the metagame get back to the original balanced state it was before Meloetta obtained Celebrate.
I got reqs and I played vs this mon like 3 total times and it did nothing. But it appears to have copious amounts of answers in the tier from AV escav, mandibuzz, first impression mons, or sucker punch mons. I feel like it is does not have good enough set up opportunities vs offensive teams to where it is weakened enough to be revenged by like zygarde-10%'s espeed. And it is pretty vulnerable to status vs defensive teams where it can be easily toxiced and stalled out. While it is threatening as a wall breaker it feels to be on the same level of other wall breakers in the tier. Z-Celebrate can be a scary late game sweeper, but with it being weak to common priority it really is not that hard to handle. I will be voting no ban because honestly theres just too many answers for both offensive and defensive teams I feel.
On a side note Mega-Blastoise is probably more ban-worthy than any other mon in the tier from my brief 2 weeks of playing the tier. I get a very similar vibe of Alomomola from gen 5 and 6 and how no one wanted to ban that mon either because it can easily "be checked". However it is ridiculously centralizing and the fact that literally no ghost can reliably spin block this mon is a bit absurd and provides a huge strain on offensive teams. Obviously this thread is about meloetta but I feel like Mega-blastoise is much more toxic towards the tier then any other mon. Im confident if we had a tier without mega-blastoise it would allow for a lot more creative offensive teams and healthy metagame
What sets Celebrate Meloetta apart from other sweepers and makes the Pokemon as a whole an undesirable presence is those defensive boosts. Thanks to them, it's free to set up on a ton of slower attackers that can't status it, including the most common Pokemon in Blastoise, even if it doesn't outright force them out. Though it'll probably take a decent bit of damage in the process, it can still be out of KO range of every revenge killer that isn't Golisopod and Sucker Punch users. That alone is a pretty ridiculous teambuilding restriction. Another problem is that Thunderbolt is a totally viable alternative to Shadow Ball, which is only super useful against Bronzong. Mandibuzz is no answer then. Celebrate Meloetta simply has everything it needs to easily sweep all but the fattest of teams: bulk, Speed, coverage, and power. If you're not using Golisopod or Sucker Punch (no sucker punch can ohko btw), it's most likely that you can't do anything about late-game Melo. It's stupidly easy to use compared to other Speed boosters like Barbaracle and DD Zygarde-10%, which lack the bulk to set up nearly as consistently and are limited enough in coverage to have counters; you need to play pretty well or dedicate your team to them, which isn't the case for Melo. You can slap it on anything thanks to its noncommital typing and coverage options, and cleaning with it is usually just a matter of getting in on something slower that lacks Toxic. There are also Calm Mind Z-Attack sets to consider. Though not nearly as problematic on their own thanks to no Defense or Speed boosts, they can bluff Celebrate to force certain plays and lure specific Pokemon, and they're still potent against teams relying on fast special attackers to revenge kill. With all of its potential sets and variants, there's only one way to make a team truly safe against Meloetta: Golisopod. That's a major reason why I use the bug so much, and I'd say a pretty big indicator of Meloetta being bad for the meta. Its coverage is pretty much perfect and allows it to always be a top pick; if something starts getting used a lot to answer a given Melo variant, it can just choose a different coverage move or Z-Crystal to address it. It exists in a sort of uninteractive vacuum thanks to this; it'll always be primed to rip common teams apart, and I just don't think that's the kind of presence RU should have.
I mean meloetta loses 1v1 to Modest Mega-Blastoise and loses to timid mega-blastoise if there is SR on the field which is not uncommon to presume. So I wouldn't call it free set up vs the most common pokemon in the tier. And it will probably never get free setup vs offensive teams so we can assume its taking ~40-50% from whatever its setting up on. This allows the next pokemon to live a hit and then revenge kill. The list of offensiveish pokemon that live an attack from +1 Melo after SR 100% of the time include: Mega-Ampharos, Araquanid, Mega Blastoise, Mega Camerupt, escavalier, goodra, Shaymin, Bulky Metagross, Necrozma, and snorlax. Pokemon that have a decent chance of living an attack from +1 Melo after SR include: Tsareena, Feraligatr, Gardevoir, Flygon, and Donphan. All of these are guranteed to live if no stealth rock. Plus having to rely on focus blast to hit dark types like drapion is never ideal.
The above list is only including "offensive" pokemon and not even defensive pokemon that is commonly found on bulky offensive teams. Theres also just scarfers/faster pokemon that outspeed melo such as scarf drapion, speed boost yanmega, scarf flygon, and mega-banette. Plus I am just listing pokemon in RU, there is a good amount of lesser known pokemon that can be used if you are brave enough to use them. For example, I am using SpDef restalk spiritomb on a spike stack stall team that beats both Meloetta and Mega-Blastoise. I'm sure if you look in the lower tiers you will be able to find even more quite capable pokemon able to beat this mon.
I don’t think you’re giving the potential of z move calm mind sets enough credit. You can easily bluff celebrate, cm, then kill something with your z move attack. Also, you’re acting like the Meloetta player won’t remove potential threats like Golis, Drapion, and mega Blastoise before setup. They’ll also be smart enough to chip other bulky threats that it can’t kill it via hazards and stray attacks, which isn’t hard due to Melo working well with other hazard setters. Also, if you took the time to check the calcs I posted, you’d know even sucker punch from adamant Honch doesn’t kill Meloetta. And I didn’t know that a lot of those bulky threats liks Amphorus and Goodra can even hit Melo hard after setup in the first place. And saying that dark or steels can dodge focus blast just shows what you have to do to stop Meloetta should it set up. My whole point with this post is to say the z cm sets provide another threat and influences the checks and counters to Meloetta and that the Meloetta user with beat the bulky pokemon that can actually manage to hit Meloetta hard or wall it after celebrate via hazards and attacks in general as most of it’s measures have no recovery outside leftovers.
I don’t think you’re giving the potential of z move calm mind sets enough credit. You can easily bluff celebrate, cm, then kill something with your z move attack. Also, you’re acting like the Meloetta player won’t remove potential threats like Golis, Drapion, and mega Blastoise before setup. They’ll also be smart enough to chip other bulky threats that it can’t kill it via hazards and stray attacks, which isn’t hard due to Melo working well with other hazard setters. Also, if you took the time to check the calcs I posted, you’d know even sucker punch from adamant Honch doesn’t kill Meloetta. And I didn’t know that a lot of those bulky threats liks Amphorus and Goodra can even hit Melo hard after setup in the first place. And saying that dark or steels can dodge focus blast just shows what you have to do to stop Meloetta should it set up. My whole point with this post is to say the z cm sets provide another threat and influences the checks and counters to Meloetta and that the Meloetta user with beat the bulky pokemon that can actually manage to hit Meloetta hard or wall it after celebrate via hazards and attacks in general as most of it’s measures have no recovery outside leftovers.
I mean you can usually tell the meloetta set based off the situation because one is a late game sweeper and the other is a wall breaker. So depending on their team composition and when they bring meloetta into the game the opponent will have a pretty good idea if its CM or celebrate. Also meloetta isn't getting free set up vs offensive teams so its probably down to 35-45% after the celebrate making it much easier to live a hit and take it down even with specially offensive pokemon. Overall, I just haven't seen enough or played against meloetta for it to demonstrate its effectiveness. If you can provide high level gameplay of it then that will help me make a better decision. Because currently I have played only 2 or 3 teams with meloetta which is shocking enough for a supposed overcentralizing pokemon.
I mean you can usually tell the meloetta set based off the situation because one is a late game sweeper and the other is a wall breaker. So depending on their team composition and when they bring meloetta into the game the opponent will have a pretty good idea if its CM or celebrate. Also meloetta isn't getting free set up vs offensive teams so its probably down to 35-45% after the celebrate making it much easier to live a hit and take it down even with specially offensive pokemon. Overall, I just haven't seen enough or played against meloetta for it to demonstrate its effectiveness. If you can provide high level gameplay of it then that will help me make a better decision. Because currently I have played only 2 or 3 teams with meloetta which is shocking enough for a supposed overcentralizing pokemon.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-420300- in this game, Pojhis chipped the Brongzong and Delphox into range with hazards then the Meloetta set up and won with no way for henii to stop it. He had 3 checks in Delphox, Bronzong, and Shaymin and he couldn’t win.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-844895026- If Cryo hit the blast on Brongzong, then his Meloetta would’ve probably won as he wouldn’t have been toxiced and it wasn’t hard for him to set up for the Meloetta’s potential sweep.
These were all from ruwc and there was way more Meloetta usage overall. But I only wanted to put replays where Meloetta did something of note, whther it’d be breaking a wall for a teammate, doing a set that isn’t celebrate, and or sweeping in the end game.
I mean meloetta loses 1v1 to Modest Mega-Blastoise and loses to timid mega-blastoise if there is SR on the field which is not uncommon to presume. So I wouldn't call it free set up vs the most common pokemon in the tier.
No, you're not beating Blastoise one-on-one. You're waiting until it's in KO range of +1 Psychic or Thunderbolt if you have it, then coming in through a sack. You shouldn't be doing this if the opponent has something to KO after that damage, of course; you'll probably be able to find a setup opportunity elsewhere, and if you can't, might as well throw it out there to deal damage Melo's teammates can work with.
This allows the next pokemon to live a hit and then revenge kill. The list of offensiveish pokemon that live an attack from +1 Melo after SR 100% of the time include: Mega-Ampharos, Araquanid, Mega Blastoise, Mega Camerupt, escavalier, goodra, Shaymin, Bulky Metagross, Necrozma, and snorlax. Pokemon that have a decent chance of living an attack from +1 Melo after SR include: Tsareena, Feraligatr, Gardevoir, Flygon, and Donphan. All of these are guranteed to live if no stealth rock. Plus having to rely on focus blast to hit dark types like drapion is never ideal.
How often are those Pokemon going to be at 100% by the time Meloetta tries sweeping, though? It's not at all uncommon to pair it with Spikes, and you'll want to use pretty much all of those mons earlier in the game for other stuff. Even if the opponent has something that can take a hit, you can't assume it'll be able to KO. The Meloetta could've gotten setup from a weak Choice-locked attack or a forced switch. Having to use Focus Blast for certain targets sucks, yes, but it's still in your favor and Thunderbolt can deal with weakened Dark-types not named Umbreon.
The above list is only including "offensive" pokemon and not even defensive pokemon that is commonly found on bulky offensive teams.
Registeel? Easily weakened, usually in KO range of Focus Blast by sweep time. Bronzong? Easily weakened and KOed by Shadow Ball, can be punished by teammates or even Pursuit trapped if you opt for Thunderbolt. Milotic? Takes a lot from Thunderbolt and isn't that hard for teammates to address. Mandibuzz? Thunderbolt.
Theres also just scarfers/faster pokemon that outspeed melo such as scarf drapion, speed boost yanmega, scarf flygon, and mega-banette.
Scarf Drapion can't even do half. Timid Speed Boost Yanmega requires a lot of support and does 57-67. Flygon's okay I guess because it can keep U-turning, but that just means Meloetta's destroying the rest of the team. Mega Banette works, but it's only justifiable on hyper offense.
Overall, I just haven't seen enough or played against meloetta for it to demonstrate its effectiveness. If you can provide high level gameplay of it then that will help me make a better decision. Because currently I have played only 2 or 3 teams with meloetta which is shocking enough for a supposed overcentralizing pokemon.
I implore you to try it yourself so you can have a clear picture of how it works. It's a bit silly to vote on a Pokemon you've only encountered a couple of times. Ladder simply has no clue how to use Meloetta; Relic Song, Assault Vest, Rest + Snore, Charge Beam, if it's in its movepool, ladder will pull it on you.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-844895026- If Cryo hit the blast on Brongzong, then his Meloetta would’ve probably won as he wouldn’t have been toxiced and it wasn’t hard for him to set up for the Meloetta’s potential sweep.
I'll admit, I didn't play this game well at all and made an awful call in giving Meloetta Thunerbolt over Shadow Ball despite not having any reason to believe my opponent would bring Mandibuzz. The Focus Blast miss didn't matter, it wouldn't have KOed. Had I been Shadow Ball, though, all those bad plays would've been wiped away; I would've cleaned up despite being so far in the back. The fact that Meloetta can take a situation so dire and completely turn it around in a single move is quite concerning.
Finally a song from Carly Rae Jesus featured on a suspect test!
Got reqs a few days ago, and I didn't think Meloetta was broken until I saw some guy using a weird set:
However, from my little to average knowledge in RU obtained via playing it frequently on Tours' room, I think Meloetta has some solid answers, or at least that's how I felt during getting reqs (where I faced like 3 Melos), but it's important to say that I was using a kinda stallish team and since I got some solid answers to Meloetta on it, the team could've been easily threatened by Trick Melo-set, and I understand that it has a centralizing presence in the meta at the moment. I'm still unsure about my vote but I'm leaning towards no ban
Meloetta is certainly an enigmatic case of a suspect here cause lets be real, on paper it doesnt look like the type of super clear cut for a mon that is clearly broken but boi, the z-celebrate adds a whole different dimension on how to handle it.
If it was just for the calm mind set it would be another wallbreaking of a bunch (a really effective one mind you) but that degree of versatility is what makes it lets say, hard to nail down despite the preview argument. I will use the preview coming from CryoGyro cause what makes us think that the Meloetta isnt the typical z breaker to punch holes for shaymin/doublade for it to sweep? If the Meloetta play it down correctly making you guess on which set it is and given both sets have way different matchup advantages (cm will destroy anything bulky if you dont get to kill first, z-celebrate will clean any non golisopod offense) so yeah, and isnt like the cm set is overbearing at all, it is just a pretty effective breaker but the fear of z-celebrate really narrow down the options to effectively deal with it.
Weak to common priority people say... since when is bug and dark priority common? You could say golisopod is somewhat common but I dont see people running honchkrow and sucker punch lycanroc at every corner and thats precisely the issue. Meloetta typing while not spectacular leaves it weak to a couple priority options that arent exactly easy to fit for every team. Honchkrow is niche and requires a rather dedicated team to it, sucker punch lycanroc and golisopod are more splashable for offense but either you run that or you will have a really easy time losing to it after some slight chip damage since Meloetta can grab a very easy boost with many special scarfers, and many scarfers cant revenge kill it properly. I dont think narrowing down the options to just 2 and hope you never give it a window to setup is a healthy thing for the metagame as a whole. And Scarf Drapion needs jolly and with that it cant even revenge kill viriz from full, absolute dogshit.
As far as offensive threats in the metagame goes, Meloetta is certainly one of the main offenders here and tbh I really wish getting rid of Celebrate was a plausible idea but in the end Celebrate Shaymin is a balanced option since it will always have the issues with coverage, which is something Meloetta doesnt have (it can work very well with 3 moves between the incredible pool of options it has) and per precedent people from all the other tiers just banned the broken recipient of z-celebrate (Charizard, Venusaur, and such). The metagame is new but still feels very constricting in terms of options and having something out would be very helpful to free up the meta options a bit.
And Mega Blastoise can be punishing yes, but I think it is somewhat of a necessary evil here. This metagame lost a bunch of glues in a matter of a tier shift and getting rid of just one for the sake of it is silly. Personally I dont see it as broken, really effective yes, but not something without its counterplay which the metagame keeps finding day after day, but thats for another time.
In the end, Melo is cool but the z-celebrate option adds a whole new dimension of not cool to deal with. Freaking gamefreak giving it Celebrate, was a terrible idea. 49 was right...
First off I believe this suspect to be a very controversial but the correct way to approach the relatively unbalanced new metagame that we face after the recent tier shifts. Melo despite being a recognizable force of its own heavily profited from the shift in the metagame.
Metagame
The new meta is more aggressive than the last one, without a doubt. RU seriously suffers from a lack of glue pokemon right now that can take on multiple threats at once while not necessarily being dedicated to only that role. Gligar as well as Doublade and MLix leaving created this huge gap.
Not only did old threats get a serious buff, linoone and zydog as an example, but new threats have been introduced to the meta. Checking all of the current threats defensively is a very hard thing maybe even impossible to do which leads the meta to be very offense-orientated. Meloetta is a very good fit onto offensive teams so it also has more leeway in teambuilding than in the last meta as offense in general is the superior playstyle (right now).
Meloetta
Melo is a pain to deal with when it comes to teambuilding. In general melo can choose its counters by switching coverage and/or stab moves which leaves you with no option but having a plan against multiple sets of it. The set that lead melo to be the first one of the offensive forces to be suspected is of course
Celebrate Z. Pairing the strength of a specs melo with not only a 1.5 boost in defenses but also in speed is a ridiculous thing. It cannot be outsped by heavyhitter scarfers like tyrantrum and every scarfer that is faster than melo after a boost struggles to deal damage that exceeds 40%. Even revenging with priority is limited to golisopod and sucker punch users, even though honchkrow is the only one that deals considerable damage.
Coverage moves on this set include
focus blast,
thunderbolt,
energy ball,
dazzling gleam,
hp fire,
psyshock,
shadow ball and of course its mainstabs being
psychic and
hypervoice. You can freely choose 3 of these moves depending on what your team needs. Just the fact that the player can basically click buttons and get free kills because your opponent doesn't know what moves you run is alarming.
The other thing is that other offensive sets that melo can run get a lot of room to work because everyone has to try to counter the zcele variant first. An example would be the
Z Focus blast set. Breaking past more defensively oriented teams that rely on steels or fat normals like lax to check melo isnt as important anymore due to the shift in the meta but it sure as hell is not a weak set by any means. Running calm mind also has its benefits since melo isnt limited to only boosting once that way. It works especially well against defensive teams with subcm sets also being an option. Melo doesnt care about opposing CM users too seeing as psyshock is a viable option.
Conclusion
Melo sweeps more often than not. The user can build his gameplan exactly around his melo set and has a better shot of executing a sweep than the opponent stopping him because of melo's unpredictable movepool. It's definitly not outright broken seeing as most sets can get statused, it being revengable at times and counterable as long as you have the right pokemon but it sure as hell puts a strain on teambuilding that doesnt do the meta any good considering the many worrying offensive presences. All in all I think that melo is too hard to handle in this metagame even though it kind of hurts to see it leaving. For now I think that voting ban is the right thing to do to see RU develop a new metagame that is as balanced as the one pre-shifts was. pce out ❊
Apologies, but you're thinking of banning meloetta because if given the freedom to setup it can sweep teams? Barbara Acles is laughing. It's not even melo's best set right now and there's a myriad of mons that can prevent the setup or shut it down afterwards. Toxic it! Toxic spike it! Use haze! Prevent it from sweeping by doing some damage and revenging it with a scarfer (306 spe at +1 isn't insane dog). I know this might seem a bit crazy but sometimes you might have to make a play to win. We should at some point stop banning offensive threats that make 2016 defensive cores irrelevant and just get on with the goddamn program. No, the fact that your doublade doesn't wall/priority sweep it ain't good enough dear pokemonuser1999, oh it killed your milotic? maybe milo shouldn't be on every team you make randomladderman69.
RU has been the most stale tier for a while because of bans like this. Hopefully some wisdom and sense will come upon the many.
Apologies, but you're thinking of banning meloetta because if given the freedom to setup it can sweep teams? Barbara Acles is laughing. It's not even melo's best set right now and there's a myriad of mons that can prevent the setup or shut it down afterwards.
Melotta insane spdef bulk and typing give her a lot of opportunities to setup vs most of the special attackers in the tier. Barbaracle instead has a bad defensive typing, mediocre bulk and -1 in defenses after setting up, so its easily revengkillable.
Toxic it! Toxic spike it! Use haze! Prevent it from sweeping by doing some damage and revenging it with a scarfer (306 spe at +1 isn't insane dog).
Youre not setting up on mons with toxic in the first place, toxic spikes arent much viable and the only haze users are Mantine and Milotic, and they lose vs Meloetta. Also yes, 306 + 1 is really good, the only scarfers that outspeed her are Salazzle(252 SpA Salazzle Fire Blast vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Meloetta: 87-103 (25.5 - 30.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO) Raikou (252 SpA Raikou Thunderbolt vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Meloetta: 73-87 (21.4 - 25.5%) -- 0.2% chance to 4HKO), Drapion (252 Atk Drapion Knock Off vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Meloetta: 138-164 (40.4 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO not even a 2hko lol) and Flygon, the only actual scarfer that can deal with it with u turn.
No, the fact that your doublade doesn't wall/priority sweep it ain't good enough dear pokemonuser1999
My point is that maybe you should build a goddamn team instead of complaining that your 2016 team loses. You're saying it's defenses give it lots of chances of setting up. ONCE. There is a thing in this game that is called a switch. I understand that you feel like a late santa giving reqs to everyone by losing on ladder, but have you thought that barbaracle can switch out when you go to a revenge killer, and come right back on your defensive pivot, setup again and destroy? Meloetta, after being chipped cannot switch out because it never gets the chance to setup again and is basically dead weight for the rest of the game while allowing every physical scarfer to ko back.
Which leads to the second point. What are you setting up against then if not defensive pivots? offensive mons that outspeed? You're in revenge range. You're mentioning some unsets. Surprise surprise, physical scarfers outspeed and can ko after chip. Also, nobody forces you to only run knock off on scarf drapion. You can pick 3 other moves too!
Finally, I don't know if you understand that your opponent doesn't pick 2 moves at a time. They can either thunderbolt or setup. There's mind games in that vs milotic but the same can be said about many other setup sweepers.
I'm not just saying meloetta has better sets, but I do stand by that statement. I'm saying that a mon that has enough defensive and offensive checks, should not be considered broken. That if a mon requires some counterplay, it isn't broken. Am saying that restricting lower tier metas to a handful of viable mons per role is making them uninteresting and that this choice of a suspect is unfortunate, given the trigger happy audience and the extremely easy to get reqs.
As you can see meloetta has 2 very good sets, both with different checks and counter. The z-celebrate set can sweep easily late game, setting up easily on special attackers like roserade due to it’s great 100/128 special bulk. This bulk also allows meloetta to survive repeated special attacks during late game as it is sweeping. Furthermore, the z-celebrate set is highly customizable, allowing you to pick and choose your checks and counter for your own meloetta, making it very hard to find solid checks that work against it. Also, meloetta has another set, which is the z-focus blast set, which has very different checks and counters for it. For example, while snorlax may check certain variants of the z-celebrate set, they are smashed by the fightingium-z set. Furthermore, both of these sets are viable, making it very difficult to find strong checks that can check both the z-celebrate and the fightingium-z set well.
Checks and Counters/Good Teammates:
Counters to meloetta:
Sp. Def Milotic: It May be the closest thing to a counter to meloetta, taking a +1 thunderbolt with 40%, and hazing away the z-celebrate set’s boosts. Also, taking very little from the fightingium-z set.
Checks:
Bronzong/Cresselia : Bronzong can tank a focus ‘blast and toxic it in return, but fails to do much afterwards. Also, shadow ball sets decimate it. Same thing with Cresselia, as shadow ball variants to heavy damage. Furthermore, fightingium-z variants win against both of them, setting up calm minds
Statataka/Registeel: Both mons can check non focus blast variants of meloetta, but most meloetta’s run focus blast, making it a very risky option for a meloetta check. Also, fightingium-z sets flat out beat both of these mons.
Mandibuzz: Very risky check to meloetta, as most run thunderbolt, which kos this mon, and is advised not to use this as a meloetta check.
Flygon: Probably the only scarier that can adequately check meloetta, but the only thing it can do it to u-turn, and sack mons until meloetta is kod.
Golisospod: First impression kos a +1 meloetta, and is a solid revenge killer for it, but no meloetta player would ever use z-celebrate before golisospod is kod, which is not hard to do due to a massive stealth rock weakness.
Honchkrow: Sucker punch can deal heavy damage to meloetta, but it will have to play mind games with the meloetta play. This mon must come in on a sack, as meloetta threatens to ko with thunderbolt or focus blast.
Escavalier: This mon can take many moves from meloetta, although it has to be aware of hp-fire variants.
I want to point out that meloetta teams are not just a one mon team, having team-mates to support it, and weaken some checks to the point where they are not checking it anymore. During the suspect test, I used frosslass hyper offense, and had multiple mons to support meloetta.
As you can see in my team, there can be multiple mons that will help a meloetta sweep, and each one has it’s own purpose.
Good Teammates and How my team supports meloetta:
Zygarde-10%: Zygarde is a very good teammate to meloetta, pressuring steel types like bronzong, registeel, and statataka with powerful choice band boosted thousand arrows. Furthermore, this set pressures mons like Cresselia and Mandibuzz, which are forced to check this mon instead to meloetta, and this mons wears them down.
Bewear: Bewear also heavily pressures steel type mons like registeel. However, this mon also performs a different function, which is nuking mons like Cresselia and Milotic, dealing heavy damage to them, making it very difficult for them to check meloetta. Also, this mon dos very well against golisospod, thanks to fluffy, and can also check Flygon decently.
Frosslass: Frosslass provides spikes support, which can wear down meloetta checks and counters to a point where it can just pick them off. Furthermore, will-o-wisp over destiny bond allows frosslass to lure in meloetta checks like Metagross and other physical attacker and cripple them, making them unable to do their job.
Honchkrow: Honchkrow pressures bulky psychic types like Cresselia and bronzong while dealing with mons like metagross. This allows meloetta to have a much better matchup against the other team. Furthermore, life orb boosted brave birds do so much damage to the other team, opening holes, which the rest of the team can exploit.
Necrozma: Provides stealth rock, and also a mega-Blastoise check, tanking a dark pulse and koing back with photon geyser. Also, it can lure in meloetta checks like escavalier and honchkrow and do some serious damage to them with heat wave.
Pangoro: This mon breaks down bulky psychic types and can cripple other meloetta checks like milotic with a knock off, Furthermore, this mon can also break steel types like bronzong and registeel for meloetta while luring in some meloetta checks like Flores with gunk shot.
Why Unhealthy:
Overall, with the combination of good bulk and 2 very strong sets meloetta deserves to be banned. The z-celebrate set is extremely difficult to revenge kill, and also has the ability to chose its checks and counters, which the rest of the team can be built around to support and beat those specific counter. Also, the fightingium-z set destroys many of z-celebrates checks like snorlax and mons like bronzong, which make checking meloetta much more difficult, and finally, meloetta can take advantage of team support to wear down checks and counter on the other team.
Addressing Anti-Ban Arguments:
Toxic Kills It: Meloetta would usually never set up against mons that can carry toxic like bronzong and registeel, and would prefer to set up against mons like shadow ball-choice locked raikou or choice locked roserade. Furthermore, meloetta is a later game sweeper, meaning that many toxic setter are often weakened by meloetta, and even when meloetta is hit by toxic, it will not really do much since it take time to work.
Scarfers kill it: Meloetta’s good bulk means that only physical scarfers can adequately deal with it. The only 2 scarfers that come to by mind are drapion and Flygon. Drapion’s knock off power is weakened by the z crystal, and while drapion has 3 other moveslots, it is hard pressed to sacrifice poison jab, earthquake, aqua tail, or pursuit for crunch to deal with meloetta. Like I mentioned before, Flygon can not do much to meloetta, only slowly wearing it down as it’s Teammates get sacked one by one.
But Barbaracle?: Barbaracle and meloetta occupy 2 different niches, and the only thing they have in common are that they are both late game sweepers. Barbalaracle has a worse defensive typing, allowing to revenge killed by Toxicroak. Furthermore, Barbaracle has much worse bulk and has difficulty finding times to set-up. Meloetta does not have any of these weaknesses. It has a decent defensive typing, good bulk, and has the ability to set up against multiple mons.
Replays:
I didn’t save many replays, but here are a few that I had saved:
Meloetta uses its good bulk, taking 30% from a blizzard from vanilluxe. Furthermore, the diversity of meloetta sets allowed me to surprise goodra with psy shock and ko it. Meloetta’s breaking prowess paved the way for a necrozma sweep late game.
This demonstrates the difficulty of dealing with z-celebrate meloetta late game. Meloetta utilizes it’s good bulk, setting up against slowbro, and proceeds to sweep the team afterwards thanks to the good bulk and +1 defenses due to z-celebrate.
This also demonstrates the brokenness of meloetta. It sets up against scarf-roserade, and breaks many holes in the team while taking not a lot of damage from the rest of the team, forcing my opponent to sack many mons until they are down to their last mon, allowing Zydog to clean up.
Sir Isaac Mewton most top players in this tier agree that Meloetta is broken and they have actually been doing their best to adapt to the meta time and time again. I'll have you know that for most of 2018 the meta was very stable and even during that time it developed, check out some games from last RUPL and compare them to last SSD, you'll find that not only does the meta look different from 2016, but even in a time where the tier was largely occupied by the same mons the meta went through a lot of changes with regard to what Pokemon and what types of teams were popular in serious competitive play. My point is that your idea that the meta is scared of any "new" threat whatsoever is based on fuck all, the meta is constantly evolving and players who play on a considerably higher level than you deem this Pokemon too much to consistently deal with while also keeping in mind all other major threats in the meta.
As a side note, drop the attitude. I don't know why you think you get to act all cocky to the people you are arguing with but all it does is make you look like a disrespectful clown to everyone else. Plenty of RU players who have success in major tournaments manage to stay level-headed and don't get arrogant or condescending towards others when presented with perfectly reasonable arguments, you and your 33-7 ladder record have a thing or two to learn from them.
I am probably going to be abstaining from this vote and I want to provide some thoughts about this suspect.
Obviously this was not a suspect that the masses were clamoring for, it was something that came from council and tour players. Note that there was no real discussion of this suspect in the previous NP thread other than a small mention that it could be on the docket, although several spl players were discussing zygarde and to an extent virizion. So as someone outside of those circles you might come here to see discussion from the people who called for this suspect, but as of me writing this with less than ten hours left in the suspect, there is only 1 post from a council member or even vr council, and 0 posts from spl players. On top of that, I laddered 40 games to get reqs and celebrate melo was not used against me even a single time. Obviously you can say that ladder isn't a great way to judge the metagame, but this is a suspect ladder and that is literally our only metric for determining if someone is qualified to vote. Further, this is the first week that tour games are being played in the current meta following a massive tier shift, so there are essentially zero relevant replays to look at as evidence as to why melo may be broken at high level play. Additionally, this suspect thread is pretty inactive even outside of council members/tour players. On the last day of the suspect, this will only be the 21st message, and very few of the previous messages actually contain quality discussion, half of it is ppl getting baited by a shitpost. Compare this to uu's bisharp suspect which reached 60 messages before the voting thread went live with posts from many high level players.
Essentially, all sources of information I'd look to in order to make an informed vote on this are not present (ladder games, tour replays, discussion from tour players/council, quality discussion in this thread). My vote would be based purely on theorymon and whether I just feel like it's broken or not. I don't find that this suspect has been successful in its goals, and I hope that this is considered when looking at future suspects. Possible remedies include waiting at least a week into a new meta so we can see tour replays, holding suspect tours that incentivize participation, and generally encouraging high quality interactions.
Thank you
quick edit: shoutout to the ppl who did put time and effort into their posts here, I don't mean to take away from that, keep doin great. also, this thing seems extremely broken but that's beside my point here
The "top players" (no comment on that) you are mentioning are the ones profiting from keeping the meta stale, as they do not need to use any extra brain cells to actually build a new team. If you count copy of teamusedinfirstsnaketournament as a new team because you changed the spiker and defogger then I rest my case.
The level they play at is questionable at best. My 33-7 record came with a team build in june 2018 and one from late 2017 I believe. The teams I faced where the same teams +- the occasional raikou. If you are claiming that it is a bad record, then direct your notion towards those setting the reqs for voting, I am all for tougher reqs, and then we would actually get legit people voting instead of the mindless voters begging to get a pixel, so bring it. If you are claiming it's a good record, then my point is proven and you have therefore made a fool of yourself.
Your whole talk on the importance of dropping the attitude and ranking players in what is and behaves like an anime fansite for 15-45 year olds is just priceless. I don't understand how anyone could take things as seriously as you seemingly do and ask people to idolize anyone here. Keep the life lessons for where they count is my suggestion.
The "top players" (no comment on that) you are mentioning are the ones profiting from keeping the meta stale, as they do not need to use any extra brain cells to actually build a new team. If you count copy of teamusedinfirstsnaketournament as a new team because you changed the spiker and defogger then I rest my case.
The level they play at is questionable at best. My 33-7 record came with a team build in june 2018 and one from late 2017 I believe. The teams I faced where the same teams +- the occasional raikou. If you are claiming that it is a bad record, then direct your notion towards those setting the reqs for voting, I am all for tougher reqs, and then we would actually get legit people voting instead of the mindless voters begging to get a pixel, so bring it. If you are claiming it's a good record, then my point is proven and you have therefore made a fool of yourself.
Your whole talk on the importance of dropping the attitude and ranking players in what is and behaves like an anime fansite for 15-45 year olds is just priceless. I don't understand how anyone could take things as seriously as you seemingly do and ask people to idolize anyone here. Keep the life lessons for where they count is my suggestion.
If you’re gonna telling us that we just want Meloetta banned just for keeping the metagame stale and so we “don’t have to use extra brain cells”, then you obviously don’t know why suspect tests happen. And if the level of top players are what you call “questionable at best” then I’d expect you to actually have experience as a top RU player. You don’t. Stop being a douche to everyone in this thread and even to the people who play this tier at a high level and show some replays or calcs or anything to prove your points rather than drawing parallels that aren’t there. Also, I like how as soon as someone posts disproving points of your stance and to not be an ass, you don’t defend your points and instead be an ass.
The "top players" (no comment on that) you are mentioning are the ones profiting from keeping the meta stale, as they do not need to use any extra brain cells to actually build a new team. If you count copy of teamusedinfirstsnaketournament as a new team because you changed the spiker and defogger then I rest my case.
The level they play at is questionable at best. My 33-7 record came with a team build in june 2018 and one from late 2017 I believe. The teams I faced where the same teams +- the occasional raikou. If you are claiming that it is a bad record, then direct your notion towards those setting the reqs for voting, I am all for tougher reqs, and then we would actually get legit people voting instead of the mindless voters begging to get a pixel, so bring it. If you are claiming it's a good record, then my point is proven and you have therefore made a fool of yourself.
Your whole talk on the importance of dropping the attitude and ranking players in what is and behaves like an anime fansite for 15-45 year olds is just priceless. I don't understand how anyone could take things as seriously as you seemingly do and ask people to idolize anyone here. Keep the life lessons for where they count is my suggestion.
Without reading much of this thread beyond this post, I'm just going to respond as to why you're really not making a solid case for anything here. To start with, the meta is the least stable (or stale) it has been since last january. The majority of 2018 had a pretty consistent meta, and now we've lost several cornerstones of the meta, most notably doublade and gligar. This is probably the least stale the ru meta has been since gen 7 was announced. Your multiple comments about the legitimacy of "top players" are highly unnecessary and not at all a valid point. The council has agreed with the suspect at large (otherwise it wouldn't be launched) as well as other relevant community members who have voiced their opinion on the issue at some point. Anything about you experiencing "the same teams" is anecdotal evidence at best, and an outright lie at the worst. Many folks have lost a good majority of their even legal teams with the recent shifts. Your record is irrelevant in this conversation, as is anyone elses'. I don't see any points here that even remotely illustrates why meloetta shouldn't be suspected, all I see is pointless ad hominem attacks coming from a source w/ no credentials.
As we can see in this replay, Welli0u only mistake was roosting with Noivern (which in the scopes of things going for the damage was the best, Meloetta spdef bulk was letting her survive that with ease anyways). Meloetta capitalizes on a single mistake and can flip the table of a game extremely easily. The game vs Ajna also was a showcase on how ridiculous it could be, but the burn helped Pohjis a lot in terms of pivoting and wearing Melo down.
Isnt like Barbaracle which while it outspeeds most of the meta, it at the very least lower its defense which makes revenge kill it with common, to uncommon priority, possible. This is just to add up to the conversations, no callouts or anything. Im beyond that.
