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Just got done with reqs and i would like to take this time to explain why i will be voting 100% hard no ban on Zygarde in OU. Reading through the pro ban points, i couldn't stop wondering if people are bandwagoning or just being dumb. Because yeah Zygarde does do all of what you say...since 2016. Consequently, either we had a broken pokemon in the tier for 3 years and nobody took notice or we just decided to label useful and necessary as broken.
Do you see the reasoning error ? Moreover, check the definition of broken, uncompetitive and unhealthy. No one says that Scizor is broken.
"If scizor goes, half the tier becomes broken. That is not an opinion, but a fact. "
The metagame post-ban is an entire speculation. So you don't know the impact of the ban of Scizor because you can't know. And this is a fact, not an opinion. Scizor may be the last to be banned from USUM UU.
So people comparing Scizor to Landorus-T is not available for discussion in your book, but then you make some shit tier meme comparing it to the Zygarde suspect test?...
I don’t understand where this mentality that you cannot possibly consider a metagame without the suspect comes from when deciding your vote. The OP literally states word for word that Scizor is a Pokemon that keeps some of the most threatening pokemon in the tier in check, and that this suspect is taking place to determine whether keeping Scizor is in the tier’s best interest. Yet instead of actually discussing this topic there seems to be some recurring rhetoric from some of the people who conveniently want to ban Scizor that you absolutely can’t discuss this at all!
Just got done with reqs and i would like to take this time to explain why i will be voting 100% hard no ban on Zygarde in OU. Reading through the pro ban points, i couldn't stop wondering if people are bandwagoning or just being dumb. Because yeah Zygarde does do all of what you say...since 2016. Consequently, either we had a broken pokemon in the tier for 3 years and nobody took notice or we just decided to label useful and necessary as broken.
Do you see the reasoning error ? Moreover, check the definition of broken, uncompetitive and unhealthy. No one says that Scizor is broken.
"If scizor goes, half the tier becomes broken. That is not an opinion, but a fact. "
The metagame post-ban is an entire speculation. So you don't know the impact of the ban of Scizor because you can't know. And this is a fact, not an opinion. Scizor may be the last to be banned from USUM UU.
How is this misinformation? I think it’s pretty clear that when a Pokemon with around 40% usage that is a fantastic offensive check to Terrakion, Latias, and Mega-Altaria leaves the tier, those Pokemon will much better than they were before. How is it that he can’t know the tier post Scizor ban? The only reason the tier leaders went through with this suspect is because they knew we had enough time for multiple suspects after this one. I’d hope that you’d make some actual points instead of making a Zygarde comparison that doesn’t even make that much sense because it’s a completely different Pokemon in a completely different tier. If Scizor isn’t broken, why are we testing it? You can’t just say oh let me replace every Scizor with Zygarde and say “Do you see the reasoning error?” and then not explain it.
I got reqs on Wednesday and I'll be voting NO BAN on Scizor, as I believe this mon has a net positive effect on the tier and encourages skill and pragmatism in terms of metagame knowledge, building and actual battling skill. I'd like to start by going over a couple of the arguments/points made in the OP and the rest of this thread:
Some Swords Dance variants require completely different counterplay from what one would expect (for example, Swords Dance + Quick Attack can pick Rotom-H and Moltres apart a lot more easily than traditional sets, but proceeds to lose to either Mega Slowbro or Steel-types in the process)
While it is true that Scizor has tools to bust past some of it's answers, the same can be said of pretty much any offensive threat past C rank: ignoring A+/S ranks, which should be self-evident, Celebi runs Gleam, HP Fire, Grass Z or Psych Z to break steels/Blissey/Sciz, Cobalion can run CM Sets to circumvent traditional SD answers, Bro can use CM Beam/3 Attacks Flame depending on what it wants to beat, Toge can use Twave to cripple/cheese Aero or Fight Z to break steel types, Bisharp can use Dark Z or Low Kick for steels/Coba/Rak, Mamo can use Knock or Edge, Gengar can use Ghost/Fight Z, Hypno, WispHex to beat different answers, need I go on? While this is usually advantageous for the Scizor user, it also leaves SD Scizor with a pretty tough case of 4MSS. Ideally, every SD Scizor set wants to run SD, Roost, Bug Bite/U-Turn, Knock Off, Quick Attack, Superpower and Bullet Punch. So while sets like Knock/QA LO have obvious benefits they also carry a significant opportunity cost, preventing the Sciz from being able to get past bulky steels and sacrificing the defensive utility provided by Roost sets, while Roost sets don't have the coverage/power to consistently sweep. Even if the Sciz user does manage to overcome this, being able to break past the most spammed checks and counters is a hallmark of any good offensive pokemon/sweeper in any tier, particularly UU. Consider the most influential pokemon in this tier: Sciz, Lati, Alt, Drei and Rak. All of them are defined by their ability to break past their go-to checks and counters, which creates a tier where checking the top threats is slightly more nuanced than slapping an Aggron on a build and thinking you're prepped for Alt, Sciz and Lati. This strikes me as healthy as it encourages an innovative, dynamic metagame where new sets rise to prominence and fall out of favour independent of actual tier shifts. We've seen this in action over the last few weeks and months with the rise of BoltBeam Lati a few months back, Scarf Sciz gaining a lot of traction over SPL and the fall of 3 attacks Altaria, which has seen hardly any tournament usage over UUPL.
tl,dr: Sciz can break it's checks but so can everything else, which helps encourages innovative teambuilding and feeds into healthy cyclical changes in meta trends.
Scizor is a threat that often forces people to sacrifice multiple slots on their teams in order to have all of its sets properly covered.
At risk of repeating myself, this is not a trait that is unique to Scizor. A lot of the issues that arise from the need to have multiple checks are in the builder, and in the need to account for all potential sets in battle. While Sciz does have a obvious effect on teambuilding (imagine having to account for S rank threats when building a team, oh the horror!) it's go-to checks and counter provide a ton of utlilty outside of checking Scizor. Common countermeasures to various sets in Hippowdon, Cobalion, Empoleon, Gligar, Aggron, Steelix, Nidoqueen, Z Krook, Swampert, Blastoise, Mantine, Rotom Heat, Tentacruel, Moltres and Volcanion all provide hazard utility and are generally pretty splashable. Other measures like Doublade, Manectric, Amoongus, Crawdaunt, Lucario, Suicune, Zeraora Jellicent and Infernape provide much, much more than just checking Scizor and none of these mons would see huge drops in usage with just a Scizor ban. While it may be true that there is no 'one size fits all' check to Scizor, or many other pokemon, the difficulty of maneuvering around Scizor in the builder is often overstated due to the utility and splashability of it's checks and counters.
Just got done with reqs and i would like to take this time to explain why i will be voting 100% hard no ban on Zygarde in OU. Reading through the pro ban points, i couldn't stop wondering if people are bandwagoning or just being dumb. Because yeah Zygarde does do all of what you say...since 2016. Consequently, either we had a broken pokemon in the tier for 3 years and nobody took notice or we just decided to label useful and necessary as broken.
Do you see the reasoning error ? Moreover, check the definition of broken, uncompetitive and unhealthy. No one says that Scizor is broken.
If no-one thought Scizor was broken we wouldn't be here. The Zygarde comparison isn't a particularly good one in my opinion, while there have been basically no 'new' Sciz sets over the last couple of years, Zygarde underwent a lot of experimentation in the months leading up to it's ban with the emergence of Ground Z for Clef and RestDD sets, as well as the omnipresence of Glare. This added another broken element as it made it able to cheese past any of it's counters with fortunate RNG, which (thank god) is not something Scizor is blessed with. On the other hand, even Quick Attack and Scarf Scizor have been around for a hell of a long time, and while I can't pin down an exact date for QA there was some notable Scarf usage during the Mega Latias suspect back in 2017. These tenuous comparisons are exactly what you said you wanted to avoid in a previous post, and I don't see a difference in comparing Lando and Sciz and comparing Zygarde and Sciz.
"If scizor goes, half the tier becomes broken. That is not an opinion, but a fact. "
The metagame post-ban is an entire speculation. So you don't know the impact of the ban of Scizor because you can't know. And this is a fact, not an opinion. Scizor may be the last to be banned from USUM UU.
While Sciz-less meta discussion is mostly theoretical, it doesn't take a genius to realise that banning the most effective offensive countermeasure to 3 extremely influential and borderline broken pokemon is likely to push them over the edge. It's pretty damn obvious to everyone else that if Scizor is banned, this creates other balance issues.
Okay, so let's take a look at how Scizor has a positive impact on the tier by promoting skillful play and metagame knowledge. Just as an aside, if I use any of your replays here or comment on your play, please don't take it personally. I'm not saying I would've played the situation any differently and hindsight is 20/20 so don't take anything to heart.
So looking at preview, Rob's Scizor is likely an SD Roost variant, although it could potentially be band, depending on the Altaria set. Bugz has two decent counters to this in Moltres and Steelix, and checks in Tenta and Hydrei, but needs to play a smart hazard game in the long term in order to avoid Molt, Tenta and Lix being put in Sciz range. Turn 1 Altaria reveals EQ, pretty much confirming that it's an SD Roost Sciz, and over the next 50 turns Rob attempts to double around to give himself a hazard advantage, eventually nuking Florg with Moltres. This meant that his initial patient play with Moltres vs Florges was rewarded, as was his doubling around with Nihilego to keep rocks up. So as of turn 67, Rob has rocks up and Moltres is no longer an answer to +2 Sciz, if it's LO. Bugz then sacks Steelix to Molt, losing his one remaining counter to Scizor, which was a missplay imho as he had to click edge anyway for fear of burn. This puts Rob in a position where he wins around 58% of the time, meaning that the presence of multiple Scizor sets and thus their differing counterplays rewarded rob's aggression in the hazard game and punished bugzi's slightly lax lategame. Flame body invalidated this, however :cwl:
This replay does a pretty great job of showing how Sciz is both pretty easy to tech for on builds that, at a glance, appear weak to it, as well as showing how it encourages shrewd resource management and metagame knowledge. TDK's Sciz counterplay revolves around offensively pressuring Scizor and not letting it set up rather than having one hard stop to all of it's potential sets. Assuming a Celebi set that can touch it, nothing lets it set up and Shark/LO Bisharp can both take boosted hits and do heavy damage back. This is shown on turn 10, when Latias reveals HP Fire effectively taking out what looks like a Bug Z Sciz. So, looking at TDK's team, the offensive nature of the build and the presence of a couple of decent Lati checks suggests that Scizor is an SD LO set, and Quick Attack is definitely a possibility/likelihood given how the team appreciates it's ability to get past Infernape, as it seems to be a nuisance to TDK. So, viv has got to prioritise keeping either Amoongus or Rotom healthy enough to take it on. On turn 16, viv chooses to sack Amoongus in order to revenge kill with Daunt, meaning his option for killing Sciz boils down to a 25% Rotom. While this would've been fine if Sciz was a bulkier spread, or just non-Quick Attack, in this scenario a better play would've been to save Amoongus and sack the Altaria, which wasn't doing anything anyway. Viv was likely expecting a Bug Bite LO Sciz, which could've taken out Amoongus at +2 but on this team I feel Quick Attack was more likely, so if viv had correctly worked out the Sciz set or prepared for the possibility of QA he would've won the game. So, this game showed how easy it is to tech/offensively pressure Scizor and also how Scizor rewards players for playing well, and punished a viv's misjudgment of TDK's team/the Sciz set
So that'll about do me for now. I'll be voting NO BAN as it stands and would urge others to do the same. I genuinely believe Scizor has a positive effect on the tier and encourages skill in the builder, in battle and at preview, and I think that's been pretty effectively demonstrated throughout UUPL and SPL. This is before even considering the obvious domino effect that it's ban would have, as that's been pretty extensively discussed already.
Criticizing someone for speculation in a suspect test is the definition of counterintuitive. The reason this suspect test is so important is that we’re not just determining if Scizor is unhealthy, were also determining if the meta it leaves behind is unhealthy. So people are going to have to speculate, that’s a fact, not an opinion <3 CBU.
Now I don’t mess with OU so I know nothing but I don’t like comparing Pokémon of separate tiers. Scizor has no consistent check because it has a set that works its way around every check. If Zygarde was the same it’s comparable in some light but I would avoid it.
I will be voting no ban mostly because of where the tier will head post Scizor ban. Scizor may be the strongest meta-game influencer but Scizor is by no means broken. Any good player will have a number of outs for Scizor which forces you to play intelligently with it. I agree with Silvio on most of his points. Scizor may or may not have a positive effect on this tier but it sure is better than its effect on the tier in UUBL.
The "since 2016" argument rubs me the wrong way a lot too. I fucking hated Scizor back then and made that very well known, but it's hard to argue that there wasn't even worse stuff in the tier at that time. I don't think a single person involved in SSD I UU actually enjoyed the tier, we were using complete nonsense in a meta that changed vastly from week to week - take a look at my team vs Pearl in the first round where I thought I was a genius for inventing Poliwrath Hazard Balance and ran hard into a Jellicent.
I'm not entirely pro-ban because Hogg and co. made some good points to me, but Scizor does indeed warp the tier a ton. Again, I'm no acolyte of the Smogon Tiering Philosophy like a lot of folks are - for me, a "broken" mon can stay in the tier, and a "non-broken" one can be forced to leave, and it still is okay to move forward that way. Some mons just make a tier less fun, some make it more. Scizor does fall into "broken" for me, though. Even just fucking around you can get such absurd viability from him and it's really simple to set up a team that takes incredible advantage of any number of his sets.
Magneton being slower than one of the premier megas of the tier with a scarf is also a real big pain in the ass, it's simply not a truly viable mon. I think if Magneton was more useful I'd probably care about Scizor less - Zone in OU provides a lot more than just "trap Celesteela", but Magneton, at least as far as I've been able to ascertain, traps Sciz and does a mediocre job at pretty much everything else.
All in all, I haven't actually done the reqs yet because Hogg keeps making them 2 million games long and I don't want to play that many. But I'm sitting pretty 50/50 as things stand, but CBU, I think your post is a bit silly for a "no ban" reason.
So people comparing Scizor to Landorus-T is not available for discussion in your book, but then you make some shit tier meme comparing it to the Zygarde suspect test?...
At first glance, it sounds like bad faith, I agree. But what I said was not an argument, it was just a reasoning by contradiction.
Zygarde was OU since the beginning of the generation and players of OU decide to ban him. And CBU said that Scizor doesn't deserve a ban because he's UU since the beginning of the generation. The comparison stops there.
I’d hope that you’d make some actual points instead of making a Zygarde comparison that doesn’t even make that much sense because it’s a completely different Pokemon in a completely different tier. If Scizor isn’t broken, why are we testing it? You can’t just say oh let me replace every Scizor with Zygarde and say “Do you see the reasoning error?” and then not explain it.
Scizor is not broken, it's a fact. And Zygarde was not broken, it's a fact. People of OU (and me) believed that Zygarde was unhealthy for OU, so Zygarde was banned. In this suspect, we are debating whether he's healthy or not. I do not have my answer yet (And my vote will depend on the arguments pro/cons seen on this site). The post 29 of SilvioGuacamole is an example, he says why Scizor is healthy for the tier with arguments.
I don’t understand where this mentality that you cannot possibly consider a metagame without the suspect comes from when deciding your vote. The OP literally states word for word that Scizor is a Pokemon that keeps some of the most threatening pokemon in the tier in check, and that this suspect is taking place to determine whether keeping Scizor is in the tier’s best interest. Yet instead of actually discussing this topic there seems to be some recurring rhetoric from some of the people who conveniently want to ban Scizor that you absolutely can’t discuss this at all!
When we think about a postban metagame, there is two different sides, either you think that 0 or 1 pokemons will be banned, either you think that 4 or 5 pokemons will be banned. You can debate around a metagame without Scizor yes, but you can't debate around a metagame without 2 majors pokemons, there's too much unknowns.
How is this misinformation? I think it’s pretty clear that when a Pokemon with around 40% usage that is a fantastic offensive check to Terrakion, Latias, and Mega-Altaria leaves the tier, those Pokemon will much better than they were before. How is it that he can’t know the tier post Scizor ban? The only reason the tier leaders went through with this suspect is because they knew we had enough time for multiple suspects after this one.
Nature hates vacuums. We don't know who will fill these 40%. Some people believe that the Zygarde ban will make Heatran too strong because Zygarde is a fantastic offensive check to Heatran, and it was wrong ...(I speak so much about Zygarde suspect only because it was the last major suspect that's it)
Criticizing someone for speculation in a suspect test is the definition of counterintuitive. The reason this suspect test is so important is that we’re not just determining if Scizor is unhealthy, were also determining if the meta it leaves behind is unhealthy. So people are going to have to speculate, that’s a fact, not an opinion <3 CBU.
I do not criticize people because they speculate, it's because they argue that there speculations are a fact and not an opinion.
Moreover, when we argue that "if scizor goes, half the tier becomes broken ", it is not an argument, it is famous sophism: Appeal to fear.
And you can't argument against a sophism, this is the problem. That's why I call this a misinformation.
The "since 2016" argument rubs me the wrong way a lot too. I fucking hated Scizor back then and made that very well known, but it's hard to argue that there wasn't even worse stuff in the tier at that time. I don't think a single person involved in SSD I UU actually enjoyed the tier, we were using complete nonsense in a meta that changed vastly from week to week - take a look at my team vs Pearl in the first round where I thought I was a genius for inventing Poliwrath Hazard Balance and ran hard into a Jellicent.
I'm not entirely pro-ban because Hogg and co. made some good points to me, but Scizor does indeed warp the tier a ton. Again, I'm no acolyte of the Smogon Tiering Philosophy like a lot of folks are - for me, a "broken" mon can stay in the tier, and a "non-broken" one can be forced to leave, and it still is okay to move forward that way. Some mons just make a tier less fun, some make it more. Scizor does fall into "broken" for me, though. Even just fucking around you can get such absurd viability from him and it's really simple to set up a team that takes incredible advantage of any number of his sets.
Magneton being slower than one of the premier megas of the tier with a scarf is also a real big pain in the ass, it's simply not a truly viable mon. I think if Magneton was more useful I'd probably care about Scizor less - Zone in OU provides a lot more than just "trap Celesteela", but Magneton, at least as far as I've been able to ascertain, traps Sciz and does a mediocre job at pretty much everything else.
All in all, I haven't actually done the reqs yet because Hogg keeps making them 2 million games long and I don't want to play that many. But I'm sitting pretty 50/50 as things stand, but CBU, I think your post is a bit silly for a "no ban" reason.
Aight, i'm not gonna pretend i appreciate you calling my perception of scizor's presence in a tier i never stopped playing for 3 years silly, because i didn't. However, that is not the point. Because that is an opinion and when it comes to tiering, opinions do not matter. Facts do. You say that in your opinion a broken pokemon can stay in a tier. No, by default no too.You also say that is ok to ban a non broken pokemon from a tier. Bans do not occur because they are ok, but because they are necessary.Furthermore, you stated that a mon can make a tier more fun and you use that as an argument against what i'm saying as if fun holds any objective validity. Tiering is not made for u, me or anybody to enjoy a tier. Its purpose is to make a tier playable, not fun. It is your responsibility to find fun in a balanced tier or not play it at all. The tier is wrapped around scizor not because is a broken pokemon but because it is our best choice against class a offensive threats. Maybe if you do end up playing the 45 games hogg is asking you to, you'll better understand where me and 3000 other UU mains are coming from.
Just got my reqs and I have to say I've enjoyed the discussion so far as I've seen good points from both sides. Personally I'm thinking I will vote no ban since I think that scizor is quite suitable for the tier as a top tier mon of uu. Yes, It can customize what it wants to beat but so can other top tier mons ( M-Alt, Lati,Terrak, Hydreigon can all do the same to some degree) which is what makes them so good. However, If scizor designs its set to break something that it usually can't beat, in doing so it leaves itself open to being walled/checked by other meta things due to having to choose its coverage and all in all I believe that is a net positive trait for the tier as it promotes diversity in the meta. I feel that if we ban scizor, the rippling effect that follows will cause a ban of most of the A+/S tier mons following it when I don't see whyit would be necessary to do so since the tier is very balanced as is. To sum up my thoughts I believe Scizor is insanely good, but I don't think to me that classifies it as broken.
( S/o UU Community you guys are awesome would love to get to know you all better down the road!! )
There is no rule that you cannot also play OU matches. You can play in as many tiers as you want. Just make sure that your alt name fits the rules, that you play the minimum amount of games in UU and acquire the required GXE on that particular alt.
Hi this is my first time posting so hopefully I got it all right.
So from my experience yes, scizor is somewhat centralizing. It is quite possibly the best pokemon in the tier. However I don't think its worthy of ban. Scizor does not have an incredible amount of move variability with its most common coverage moves being bug dark or fighting outside of the given steel in bullet punch. This makes playing around scizor very possible as assuming its set is not as devestating as assuming other mons sets (like magearna in ou). Lastly scizor doesn't run through teams with complete ease, it requires chipping a lot of threats and removing its counters, which there are quite a few of. Scizor is a threat in uu but not broken, without it the tier loses its glue and becomes a lot a more stale.
I don't know if this post is within the rules of this discussion. If it isn't, please tell me and I will remove it out of respect to the moderators and this community
I don't have much to say on Scizor or the state of the current metagame. Nor do I have a long persuasive argument to make about either. If this is what you're looking for, please disregard this post. All I want to do is give my view on this suspect test and suspect test in general.
Let me state this first: In case it wasn't obvious or clear to anyone, there is no wrong way to vote. Pokemon is a game and the purpose of a game is enjoyment. Suspect test give our community a way to shape the game in a way that maximizes the amount of enjoyment it gets from metagame. I can bring up past suspect test, tournament results, usage stats, etc etc etc, but none of this will change how YOU enjoy the game. It's not about how balanced or unbalanced or centralizing or whatever word you want to use the pokemon in question is. It's about how much joy said pokemon's presence brings to the meta game for YOU. For US. The community. That being said, there is no objective way to do this. This is why there is no wrong way to vote and why there isn't a "right" or "wrong" reason to vote a certain way. There is no objective way to measure enjoyment.
On Scizor: I don't have much to say about it other than that is has been in the tier for years. It's always been a catch all answer to whatever teambuilding problems I've had for as long as it's been in the tier and from what I can tell, a lynch pin of sorts for the tier. That being said, it IS a constricting force on teambuilding.
The way I see it: This entire suspect test (and all suspect tests imo) will be defined by a single question: What's more enjoyable for you? What do you value more: The equilibrium scizor brings to the meta or the teambuilding freedom it's absents nets you? Both these points are equally valid in my eyes. There isn't a right or wrong answer here. These are both things I personally value as a pokemon player and I don't know which one I value more. So I leave it to you guys to decide. So, choose.
I don't know if this post is within the rules of this discussion. If it isn't, please tell me and I will remove it out of respect to the moderators and this community
I don't have much to say on Scizor or the state of the current metagame. Nor do I have a long persuasive argument to make about either. If this is what you're looking for, please disregard this post. All I want to do is give my view on this suspect test and suspect test in general.
Let me state this first: In case it wasn't obvious or clear to anyone, there is no wrong way to vote. Pokemon is a game and the purpose of a game is enjoyment. Suspect test give our community a way to shape the game in a way that maximizes the amount of enjoyment it gets from metagame. I can bring up past suspect test, tournament results, usage stats, etc etc etc, but none of this will change how YOU enjoy the game. It's not about how balanced or unbalanced or centralizing or whatever word you want to use the pokemon in question is. It's about how much joy said pokemon's presence brings to the meta game for YOU. For US. The community. That being said, there is no objective way to do this. This is why there is no wrong way to vote and why there isn't a "right" or "wrong" reason to vote a certain way. There is no objective way to measure enjoyment.
On Scizor: I don't have much to say about it other than that is has been in the tier for years. It's always been a catch all answer to whatever teambuilding problems I've had for as long as it's been in the tier and from what I can tell, a lynch pin of sorts for the tier. That being said, it IS a constricting force on teambuilding.
The way I see it: This entire suspect test (and all suspect tests imo) will be defined by a single question: What's more enjoyable for you? What do you value more: The equilibrium scizor brings to the meta or the teambuilding freedom it's absents nets you? Both these points are equally valid in my eyes. There isn't a right or wrong answer here. These are both things I personally value as a pokemon player and I don't know which one I value more. So I leave it to you guys to decide. So, choose.
It's 100% within the rules of the discussion but I think it's a very misleading post.
No one is going to argue with you that the point of Pokemon, as a concept in general, is to have a good time. PS! gives us an avenue to have a good time with our buddies. We pick the tiers we enjoy because we're looking to have a good time and enjoy ourselves. None of this is stuff I disagree with. However, what I disagree with is that Suspect tests are about maximizing enjoyment out of a metagame. This is totally incorrect. While no one is going to disagree that if our tiering decisions end up making the metagame more enjoyable then that's an excellent byproduct, enjoyment is a very subjective thing and, in my view, is an overtly-biased and irresponsible way of making a tiering decision, for very clear reasons.
The purpose of Suspect Tests is the following:
I) To create a metagame that is conducive to the more "skilled" player winning over the less "skilled" player a majority of the time.
II) To ensure that both our ladder and tournament crowds are catered to regarding I.)
III) To ensure that actions are taken with appropriate and complete justification.
This is why, in my opinion, there is a "wrong" way to vote, although it has nothing to do with banning or not banning Scizor. Instead, it has to do with the conceptual steps a person takes in making their decision. If a person is banning or not banning Scizor because they think it'll purely be "more fun", whilst disregarding our Tiering Framework (for example, avoiding the main points of our Tiering Policy solely because they want Scizor gone because they "like" Sylveon), then I'm going to hard-disagree with that person and do whatever I can to let people know that I disagree with their argument.
Taking a look at III, it says, "To ensure that actions are taken with appropriate and complete justification." This justification rests on the following framework:
Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.
Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.
Unhealthy - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken yet are deemed undesirable for the metagame such that they inhibit "skillful play" to a large extent.
These are the objective standards by which people should, responsibly, be measuring Scizor's overall effect on the UU tier. In my opinion, decisions should carefully reflect these elements (which can be found in more detail here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tiering-policy-framework.3628026/ ).
TL;DR Moving forward, this suspect discussion should centre around the defined versions of uncompetitive, broken, and unhealthy and how a particular suspect element lowers some component of player skill within those three constructs. Not saying we have to drop these buzzwords in every post, but any argumentation with respect to Scizor should incorporate our tiering policy in one way or another.
Moreover, when we argue that "if scizor goes, half the tier becomes broken ", it is not an argument, it is famous sophism: Appeal to fear.
And you can't argument against a sophism, this is the problem. That's why I call this a misinformation.
bruh this is a uu suspect test not a political science thesis
Anyways, thoughts on the suspect so far. This is probably one of the first suspects where I've actually taken a crack at getting voting reqs. Right now I'm still hanging out at the lower end of the ladder with a couple of Scizor-oriented squads. And maybe it's just a consequence of me being a bad player, but I feel like I've had a non-neglible number of games where Scizor just kind of hung out in the back while the rest of the party did the heavy lifting. I'm not saying it's bad, that's obviously absurd, it's a great mon, but I feel like its counterplay is defined enough and that I haven't had to bend over backwards and use shitmons to keep opposing Scizors in check.
Now this could change as I ladder a bit more and start fighting actually competent players and teams, but right now, if I do get reqs, Imma probably give that boy the No Ban.
I got reqs on Wednesday and I'll be voting NO BAN on Scizor, as I believe this mon has a net positive effect on the tier and encourages skill and pragmatism in terms of metagame knowledge, building and actual battling skill. I'd like to start by going over a couple of the arguments/points made in the OP and the rest of this thread:
While it is true that Scizor has tools to bust past some of it's answers, the same can be said of pretty much any offensive threat past C rank: ignoring A+/S ranks, which should be self-evident, Celebi runs Gleam, HP Fire, Grass Z or Psych Z to break steels/Blissey/Sciz, Cobalion can run CM Sets to circumvent traditional SD answers, Bro can use CM Beam/3 Attacks Flame depending on what it wants to beat, Toge can use Twave to cripple/cheese Aero or Fight Z to break steel types, Bisharp can use Dark Z or Low Kick for steels/Coba/Rak, Mamo can use Knock or Edge, Gengar can use Ghost/Fight Z, Hypno, WispHex to beat different answers, need I go on? While this is usually advantageous for the Scizor user, it also leaves SD Scizor with a pretty tough case of 4MSS. Ideally, every SD Scizor set wants to run SD, Roost, Bug Bite/U-Turn, Knock Off, Quick Attack, Superpower and Bullet Punch. So while sets like Knock/QA LO have obvious benefits they also carry a significant opportunity cost, preventing the Sciz from being able to get past bulky steels and sacrificing the defensive utility provided by Roost sets, while Roost sets don't have the coverage/power to consistently sweep. Even if the Sciz user does manage to overcome this, being able to break past the most spammed checks and counters is a hallmark of any good offensive pokemon/sweeper in any tier, particularly UU. Consider the most influential pokemon in this tier: Sciz, Lati, Alt, Drei and Rak. All of them are defined by their ability to break past their go-to checks and counters, which creates a tier where checking the top threats is slightly more nuanced than slapping an Aggron on a build and thinking you're prepped for Alt, Sciz and Lati. This strikes me as healthy as it encourages an innovative, dynamic metagame where new sets rise to prominence and fall out of favour independent of actual tier shifts. We've seen this in action over the last few weeks and months with the rise of BoltBeam Lati a few months back, Scarf Sciz gaining a lot of traction over SPL and the fall of 3 attacks Altaria, which has seen hardly any tournament usage over UUPL.
tl,dr: Sciz can break it's checks but so can everything else, which helps encourages innovative teambuilding and feeds into healthy cyclical changes in meta trends.
At risk of repeating myself, this is not a trait that is unique to Scizor. A lot of the issues that arise from the need to have multiple checks are in the builder, and in the need to account for all potential sets in battle. While Sciz does have a obvious effect on teambuilding (imagine having to account for S rank threats when building a team, oh the horror!) it's go-to checks and counter provide a ton of utlilty outside of checking Scizor. Common countermeasures to various sets in Hippowdon, Cobalion, Empoleon, Gligar, Aggron, Steelix, Nidoqueen, Z Krook, Swampert, Blastoise, Mantine, Rotom Heat, Tentacruel, Moltres and Volcanion all provide hazard utility and are generally pretty splashable. Other measures like Doublade, Manectric, Amoongus, Crawdaunt, Lucario, Suicune, Zeraora Jellicent and Infernape provide much, much more than just checking Scizor and none of these mons would see huge drops in usage with just a Scizor ban. While it may be true that there is no 'one size fits all' check to Scizor, or many other pokemon, the difficulty of maneuvering around Scizor in the builder is often overstated due to the utility and splashability of it's checks and counters.
If no-one thought Scizor was broken we wouldn't be here. The Zygarde comparison isn't a particularly good one in my opinion, while there have been basically no 'new' Sciz sets over the last couple of years, Zygarde underwent a lot of experimentation in the months leading up to it's ban with the emergence of Ground Z for Clef and RestDD sets, as well as the omnipresence of Glare. This added another broken element as it made it able to cheese past any of it's counters with fortunate RNG, which (thank god) is not something Scizor is blessed with. On the other hand, even Quick Attack and Scarf Scizor have been around for a hell of a long time, and while I can't pin down an exact date for QA there was some notable Scarf usage during the Mega Latias suspect back in 2017. These tenuous comparisons are exactly what you said you wanted to avoid in a previous post, and I don't see a difference in comparing Lando and Sciz and comparing Zygarde and Sciz.
While Sciz-less meta discussion is mostly theoretical, it doesn't take a genius to realise that banning the most effective offensive countermeasure to 3 extremely influential and borderline broken pokemon is likely to push them over the edge. It's pretty damn obvious to everyone else that if Scizor is banned, this creates other balance issues.
Okay, so let's take a look at how Scizor has a positive impact on the tier by promoting skillful play and metagame knowledge. Just as an aside, if I use any of your replays here or comment on your play, please don't take it personally. I'm not saying I would've played the situation any differently and hindsight is 20/20 so don't take anything to heart.
So looking at preview, Rob's Scizor is likely an SD Roost variant, although it could potentially be band, depending on the Altaria set. Bugz has two decent counters to this in Moltres and Steelix, and checks in Tenta and Hydrei, but needs to play a smart hazard game in the long term in order to avoid Molt, Tenta and Lix being put in Sciz range. Turn 1 Altaria reveals EQ, pretty much confirming that it's an SD Roost Sciz, and over the next 50 turns Rob attempts to double around to give himself a hazard advantage, eventually nuking Florg with Moltres. This meant that his initial patient play with Moltres vs Florges was rewarded, as was his doubling around with Nihilego to keep rocks up. So as of turn 67, Rob has rocks up and Moltres is no longer an answer to +2 Sciz, if it's LO. Bugz then sacks Steelix to Molt, losing his one remaining counter to Scizor, which was a missplay imho as he had to click edge anyway for fear of burn. This puts Rob in a position where he wins around 58% of the time, meaning that the presence of multiple Scizor sets and thus their differing counterplays rewarded rob's aggression in the hazard game and punished bugzi's slightly lax lategame. Flame body invalidated this, however :cwl:
This replay does a pretty great job of showing how Sciz is both pretty easy to tech for on builds that, at a glance, appear weak to it, as well as showing how it encourages shrewd resource management and metagame knowledge. TDK's Sciz counterplay revolves around offensively pressuring Scizor and not letting it set up rather than having one hard stop to all of it's potential sets. Assuming a Celebi set that can touch it, nothing lets it set up and Shark/LO Bisharp can both take boosted hits and do heavy damage back. This is shown on turn 10, when Latias reveals HP Fire effectively taking out what looks like a Bug Z Sciz. So, looking at TDK's team, the offensive nature of the build and the presence of a couple of decent Lati checks suggests that Scizor is an SD LO set, and Quick Attack is definitely a possibility/likelihood given how the team appreciates it's ability to get past Infernape, as it seems to be a nuisance to TDK. So, viv has got to prioritise keeping either Amoongus or Rotom healthy enough to take it on. On turn 16, viv chooses to sack Amoongus in order to revenge kill with Daunt, meaning his option for killing Sciz boils down to a 25% Rotom. While this would've been fine if Sciz was a bulkier spread, or just non-Quick Attack, in this scenario a better play would've been to save Amoongus and sack the Altaria, which wasn't doing anything anyway. Viv was likely expecting a Bug Bite LO Sciz, which could've taken out Amoongus at +2 but on this team I feel Quick Attack was more likely, so if viv had correctly worked out the Sciz set or prepared for the possibility of QA he would've won the game. So, this game showed how easy it is to tech/offensively pressure Scizor and also how Scizor rewards players for playing well, and punished a viv's misjudgment of TDK's team/the Sciz set
So that'll about do me for now. I'll be voting NO BAN as it stands and would urge others to do the same. I genuinely believe Scizor has a positive effect on the tier and encourages skill in the builder, in battle and at preview, and I think that's been pretty effectively demonstrated throughout UUPL and SPL. This is before even considering the obvious domino effect that it's ban would have, as that's been pretty extensively discussed already.
ur full of shit. the odds were in my favour to win that end game with the flame body + bullet punch roll's combined odds on moltres. also how is staying in with steelix a missplay when agility is a known 4th move on moltres, and could have easily cleaned if i switched out? in fact i'm pretty sure someone else used that set the very same week. steelix doesn't even reliably beat all scizor sets anyway. anyone can be an arm chair critic when they're not the one playing the game. if it was as easy as ur claiming then why weren't you out there doing it in spl? the rest of ur post i don't really care about so do w/e u want with scizor.
ur full of shit. the odds were in my favour to win that end game with the flame body + bullet punch roll's combined odds on moltres. also how is staying in with steelix a missplay when agility is a known 4th move on moltres, and could have easily cleaned if i switched out? in fact i'm pretty sure someone else used that set the very same week. steelix doesn't even reliably beat all scizor sets anyway. anyone can be an arm chair critic when they're not the one playing the game. if it was as easy as ur claiming then why weren't you out there doing it in spl? the rest of ur post i don't really care about so do w/e u want with scizor.
Idk if you're meming or whatever but I said this literally the sentence before analysing the game? "Just as an aside, if I use any of your replays here or comment on your play, please don't take it personally. I'm not saying I would've played the situation any differently and hindsight is 20/20 so don't take anything to heart." I'm not trying to be an armchair critic and I'm not trying to take potshots at anyone, the point of using those replays was to show Sciz's impact not try and shit on established players. I never said it was easy, so stop trying to spin my trying to analyse Sciz's impact on the meta into a personal attack.
As for your criticism with regards to the game itself, assuming you were just max/max Moltres the roll was as follows:
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Moltres: 152-179 (47.3 - 55.7%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock. So Rob wins as long as that kills and he doesn't get the 30% flame body, which (factoring in crits) is 0.7 x ((0.688) + ((1-0.688) x 1/24)), which works out at
a 0.4907 chance of winning for Rob. That may have been a little off the 58% I had initially but it's basically a coin toss. As for Moltres, it had already revealed Flame, Hurricane and U-Turn, so Agility over Roost was hardly a likely 4th move. Even if it was some whacky set, which was extremely unlikely considering how he played it vs Florges, it still had to hit Hurricane vs Hydreigon and your own Moltres. While Lix doesn't cover all Scizor sets, it covers the likely ones that had a chance to kill Moltres, and still gave you outs if he was LO Superpower. While it wasn't a 100% win it maximised your odds, and I was trying to outline how Scizor's versatility created that scenario.
Look I'm not trying to throw shade at anyone and I thought I covered it enough in my post for people not to get angry at me for trying to make a genuine point about Scizor's place in the metagame. I never said playing on that stage was easy and I never said I would've played the endgame any differently (which I acknowledged in my original post). Do we really want to create an environment where people are actively punished for actually engaging in discussion and using evidence from SPL, which is meant to be a showcase tour, to try and make actual points about the meta in favour of people adding nothing to the actual point of this thread? Bugz I'm not trying to criticise you, which I said in the original post, but I thought that game was a good example of Sciz's influence on how high level games unfold. Stop trying to make it personal.
Idk if you're meming or whatever but I said this literally the sentence before analysing the game? "Just as an aside, if I use any of your replays here or comment on your play, please don't take it personally. I'm not saying I would've played the situation any differently and hindsight is 20/20 so don't take anything to heart." I'm not trying to be an armchair critic and I'm not trying to take potshots at anyone, the point of using those replays was to show Sciz's impact not try and shit on established players. I never said it was easy, so stop trying to spin my trying to analyse Sciz's impact on the meta into a personal attack.
As for your criticism with regards to the game itself, assuming you were just max/max Moltres the roll was as follows:
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Moltres: 152-179 (47.3 - 55.7%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock. So Rob wins as long as that kills and he doesn't get the 30% flame body, which (factoring in crits) is 0.7 x ((0.688) + ((1-0.688) x 1/24)), which works out at
a 0.4907 chance of winning for Rob. That may have been a little off the 58% I had initially but it's basically a coin toss. As for Moltres, it had already revealed Flame, Hurricane and U-Turn, so Agility over Roost was hardly a likely 4th move. Even if it was some whacky set, which was extremely unlikely considering how he played it vs Florges, it still had to hit Hurricane vs Hydreigon and your own Moltres. While Lix doesn't cover all Scizor sets, it covers the likely ones that had a chance to kill Moltres, and still gave you outs if he was LO Superpower. While it wasn't a 100% win it maximised your odds, and I was trying to outline how Scizor's versatility created that scenario.
Look I'm not trying to throw shade at anyone and I thought I covered it enough in my post for people not to get angry at me for trying to make a genuine point about Scizor's place in the metagame. I never said playing on that stage was easy and I never said I would've played the endgame any differently (which I acknowledged in my original post). Do we really want to create an environment where people are actively punished for actually engaging in discussion and using evidence from SPL, which is meant to be a showcase tour, to try and make actual points about the meta in favour of people adding nothing to the actual point of this thread? Bugz I'm not trying to criticise you, which I said in the original post, but I thought that game was a good example of Sciz's influence on how high level games unfold. Stop trying to make it personal.
all i've done is post facts. ur interpretation of my battle was one sided and contained misinformation, so i'd expect to be allowed to comment on it, even if it's not the point of this thread. if you wanna discuss scizor you should do so with facts. i have nothing more to say as i don't wanna derail this any further.
Yeah, I’m going for reqs but tbh I’m lazy so I probably won’t get them, but anyways
Scizor ain’t broken. It’s really good, but it’s not like Xurkitree or Dragonite. It really is a general glue mon, but you don’t really 100% need it on a team to not lose. It checks a lot, it does a lot, but we’d probably become less reliant if we just suspected the things it checks much more heavily.
very close to reqs and all i have to say is this screens lati altaria feraligator scizor krook team that literally everybody is running on ladder is a plague to uu
bruh this is a uu suspect test not a political science thesis
Anyways, thoughts on the suspect so far. This is probably one of the first suspects where I've actually taken a crack at getting voting reqs. Right now I'm still hanging out at the lower end of the ladder with a couple of Scizor-oriented squads. And maybe it's just a consequence of me being a bad player, but I feel like I've had a non-neglible number of games where Scizor just kind of hung out in the back while the rest of the party did the heavy lifting. I'm not saying it's bad, that's obviously absurd, it's a great mon, but I feel like its counterplay is defined enough and that I haven't had to bend over backwards and use shitmons to keep opposing Scizors in check.
Now this could change as I ladder a bit more and start fighting actually competent players and teams, but right now, if I do get reqs, Imma probably give that boy the No Ban.
While this isn’t a political science thesis by no means does that mean that the rules for evaluating arguments no longer apply for some reason, if anything they should be more valued as this is a thread on making ARGUMENTS as to whether or not said mon should be banned. Just reading through the thread I’ve seen so many posts basing most of their vote on a future meta that may or may not happen without Scizor, which isn’t only outside of tiering policy, but also logically fallacious reasoning.
Aight, i'm not gonna pretend i appreciate you calling my perception of scizor's presence in a tier i never stopped playing for 3 years silly, because i didn't. However, that is not the point. Because that is an opinion and when it comes to tiering, opinions do not matter. Facts do. You say that in your opinion a broken pokemon can stay in a tier. No, by default no too.You also say that is ok to ban a non broken pokemon from a tier. Bans do not occur because they are ok, but because they are necessary.Furthermore, you stated that a mon can make a tier more fun and you use that as an argument against what i'm saying as if fun holds any objective validity. Tiering is not made for u, me or anybody to enjoy a tier. Its purpose is to make a tier playable, not fun. It is your responsibility to find fun in a balanced tier or not play it at all. The tier is wrapped around scizor not because is a broken pokemon but because it is our best choice against class a offensive threats. Maybe if you do end up playing the 45 games hogg is asking you to, you'll better understand where me and 3000 other UU mains are coming from.
Don’t take this as an attack please I actually think u make good points and I respect the way you see tiering.
I don’t necessarily agree with teal either but I think I might be able to offer some perspective. to get it out of the way I myself believe scizor is fantastic for the current meta in terms of making it playable as you refer to. I haven’t really seen a mon do as good of a job at holding a tier together in a long ass time. I love scizor for that. But if there was a way to destabilize a tier and restabilize it again in a fashion that creates a competitive and more inherently enjoyable environment for the community, would you go for it? In this case it’s a stretch I understand because of how good of a job scizor does and banning it would open up some floodgates but I don’t think it’s that poor of a thought as it’s entirely reachable. Again mainly just food for thought I think your stance is fair.
Don’t take this as an attack please I actually think u make good points and I respect the way you see tiering.
I don’t necessarily agree with teal either but I think I might be able to offer some perspective. to get it out of the way I myself believe scizor is fantastic for the current meta in terms of making it playable as you refer to. I haven’t really seen a mon do as good of a job at holding a tier together in a long ass time. I love scizor for that. But if there was a way to destabilize a tier and restabilize it again in a fashion that creates a competitive and more inherently enjoyable environment for the community, would you go for it? In this case it’s a stretch I understand because of how good of a job scizor does and banning it would open up some floodgates but I don’t think it’s that poor of a thought as it’s entirely reachable. Again mainly just food for thought I think your stance is fair.
I am 100% about exchanging opinions on the topic man. Provided, i'm absolutely against ban for reasons i mentioned above, i do like the possibility of a re-stabilized UU meta with more building freedom. However, as you yourself pointed out banning scizor and only scizor won't result in that, but in chaos. And yeah sure technically, we could suspect/ban everything but is it worth it? The meta will always wrap around the best pokemon a tier has to offer. Today is scizor/malt/terrak/latias etc. If we kick them all, can u guarantee the same thing won't happen with the next best thing in line?In other words, are we really solving the issue, or just changing the cause? I cannot, personally, guarantee/predict anything and thusly kicking zor isn't a risk i'm willing to take in a tier that love it or hate it, we all admit it is stable. I feel you on the ''enjoyable'' part, but that is really something we have to live with. You cannot please everybody. I liked the dnite/xurkitree meta; i really did enjoy it, but i understand i cannot force people to do the same, that's why i never brought up what i enjoy as a point on this conversation. Egotistical as it may be, idc who enjoys the meta, as long as it is playable. But that's just me and i understand the controversy this statement entails
Scizor is a malleable threat that compresses a plethora of roles into one teamslot. I do not think Scizor is banworthy nor broken. It has a variety of sets and viable moves, but the counterplay required for Scizor really is not that different for its wide range of sets. When preparing for Scizor, I think you need a faster Bullet Punch resist that can immediately threaten Scizor and a pivot for U-Turns. This might seem like a lot, as that's 1/3rd of a full team. But, Steel is mediocre at best offensively, and Bug is even worse. It is not hard to find any one of a Fire/Water/Steel/Electric type to check Scizor offensively. The Quick Attack set can circumvent some of these frailer checks like Infernape, Mega Sharpedo, or Starmie, but this set must forego Roost since a 3rd coverage move is desperately needed so it runs the risk of killing itself. It also has awful coverage (no Bug Bite means walled by Slowbro, no Superpower means walled by every Steel-type), so it trades a better offensive matchup for a bad fat one.
Admittedly, Scizor has the ability to chip its checks with U-Turn, and this is exasperated if SR is up. However, U-Turn is not a risk-free move that players can click to gain easy momentum. Often the user has to pick between clicking Bullet Punch on something like Terrakion, or predict the switch and U-Turn. Picking wrong, especially in the latter case of U-Turning incorrectly, can be disastrous as you take a lot of damage from the incoming hit and are left at a health where you are no longer effective. Of course, there are situations in which U-Turn is 100% free (like at a -2 Latias), but such a situation should be rewarded if a player puts himself at that position. Scizor often finds itself in favorable positions, yes, but not so much that it needs to be banned.
Another point I want to make involves playing around an opponent's Scizor. SM UU is a tier with so many terrifying breakers and sweepers that, in my opinion, the best way to prep for them is to limit their switch-ins rather than seek to have sturdy defensive counterplay. Scizor is no different. Limiting its opportunities to generate free turns is key, and teching to do so is not herculean due to its 4x weakness to Fire and lack of immediate power. At the end of the day, 90 base power BP is nothing to write home about. HP Fire can be slapped on stuff like Latias and Celebi (or just a Z-move nuke), Babiri berry on Steel-weak Pokemon like Terrak/Toge, Foul Play Klefki, and Fire Blast Blissey.
Does Scizor still muscle past its checks? Yes. Can it change the course of the game off a single free turn? Absolutely. This is what S-ranks do. Others like CBU already touched on this but Latias does the same. Scouting it is next to impossible, and unless you have a Mega Steelix or Alolan Muk you're at the mercy of praying it isn't the set that screws you over if it finds a free turn. Latias also warps the tier around it like Scizor and is no doubt the biggest motivator for Pursuit and trash like Frustration Sylveon.
I now want to make a brief tangent about the future of the tier if Scizor goes. I have total faith in the council and TLs regardless of the test's outcome, but I want to emphasize how game changing a tier without Scizor is. Even if we assume nothing else gets banned, we have the following:
Celebi loses its biggest motivator to run Psych-Z. Grass-Z is now free and neuters non-Scarf Hydreigon as a check for the Recover sets.
Terrakion loses its most common revenge killer and one of the few offensive stops to the Rock Polish sets. I can't see this Pokemon being healthy without Bullet Punch to dissuade Rock Polish.
Manectric becomes more annoying with no reason to run Fire-type coverage (ig yo hit Steelix?). Expect Toxic for stuff like Hippo or Signal Beam.
Mega Aerodactyl becomes a massive pain for offensive teams, which lost their best check to it.
Mega Altaria as well, not much can stop it after a boost.
Stall teams get a huge buff since a Toxic-immune sweeper with recovery just got banned. More leeway in building will make them a lot tougher to break.
Latias never needs to run HP Fire, and the Drag-Z set gets a huge buff since it no longer needs to worry about being SD fodder after the Z-move, or just being trapped by it.
Then we consider what happens if Mega Altaria goes, since we are guaranteed a suspect. Then Latias will dominate the tier without two of its best offensive checks. Will it be so broken that Latias must go too? Then what about Terrakion? If these 4 go, will Togekiss and Celebi be overbearing? This is speculation, admittedly, but we are potentially messing with the tier when we don't have to. I again want to emphasize I do not believe Scizor is broken, so my argument is not rooted in keeping a threats checked with it. It isn't "broken checking broken," but rather killing the apex predator is going to fuck up its ecosystem.