Metagame np: SS DOU Stage 8: Paper Planes | Kartana Banned

[Yoda2798]

I fly like paper, get high like planes
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name
If you come around here, I make 'em all day
I get one done in a second if you wait​

A new Doubles OU suspect test is underway, and this time we're taking a look at Kartana! Kartana has been on the radar since the Urshifu-R suspect, with some feeling that problems seen with the latter actually stemmed from the former.

Kartana is a premier attacker, boasting a gargantuan base 181 Attack and excellent neutral coverage with the combination of Leaf Blade and Sacred Sword. Grassy Terrain support from Rillaboom boosts Leaf Blade's strength even higher, with Scope Lens also increasing its critical hit chance to 50%. This gives Kartana the ability to overpower a wide range of Pokemon, sometimes even those which resist Grass; snowball potential from Beast Boost increases that range ever further. Combined with a nifty base 109 Speed, Kartana can knock out many Pokemon before they get the chance to act. Kartana's Speed also helps with its ability to set Tailwind, as the dynamic move order of Generation 8 means teammates like Urshifu-R, Heatran, and Zygarde can immediately benefit. Due to Leaf Blade's critical hit chance and being commonly partnered with the likes of Urshifu-R, which deals with Intimidate users, Intimidate is not a reliable form of counterplay to Kartana, removing a typical check to physical attackers.

Kartana's biggest vulnerabilities are its 4x weakness to Fire and low Special Defence, with even defensively invested Kartana falling to powerful special attacks such as Shadow Ball from Choice Specs Dragapult. Kartana's offensive power makes it difficult to check defensively, so faster Pokemon like Dragapult, Zeraora, and Choice Scarf Genesect are important to stop it. Speed control also helps nullify Kartana's Speed advantage, such as Tailwind from Zapdos or Naganadel, but Kartana's own Tailwind can counteract this. Some Pokemon do also beat Kartana regardless of Speed, such as Kommo-o. Kartana's recent prominence has played a large part in the rise of relatively niche Pokemon such as Naganadel, Togekiss, Ribombee, and Latias which check it, although some would argue this merely demonstrates the strain Kartana puts on teambuilding. While 50% crit chance is potent, it's also inconsistent, meaning Kartana can be left in the dirt if it needs a crit to KO but misses out and is knocked out in return.

As usual, 60% of the vote must be in favour for Kartana to be banned.

Important: The laddering period will last for a total of nine days.

Laddering Period
Start: Friday, August 13th at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
End: Sunday, August 22nd at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)

All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! Doubles OU ladder on a fresh alt with a name of the form "DOUVM [name]." For example, I might use the account "DOUVM Yoda2798" to ladder.

To qualify to vote, you must achieve a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may subtract 1 game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. As always, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE is fine.

Minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84	30

Kartana will be legal during this suspect.

 

[Human]

While I’m not sure if Kartana is ban worthy or not, I’m not going to shed any tears personally if it’s kicked out of the tier. Tailwind off of anything that’s faster than 100 base speed makes speed tiers and investment feel irrelevant. This is one of my biggest complaints about .25x speed Thunder Wave in old generations which made me relieved to see that ‘fixed’. The other dumb mechanic of 50% critical hits that ignore intimidate with that damage while it partially allows skill expression to make the most out of those odds, it creates very oppressive pins that are nearly impossible to get out of without relying on RNG to not get crit.

I remember in my Smogon Doubles Tour set that there was a case where if I wanted to switch and go for a value play to advance my position I had to risk two Leaf Blades and that meant it was 75/25 in their favor and in those cases RNG took skill expression out of our control as players as it was probably optimal for both of us to let the mechanics of the game determine the results. This is different than paralysis and Rock Slide because those involve clicking worse moves to continue getting value, and often the damage threshold of their influence requires a lot of other things to be done whereas Kartana threatens this earlier and can immediately KO the Pokémon itself even from close to full. Also Rock Slide also requires one to outspeed the Pokémon and Leaf Blade does not which means even fewer conditions for RNG to be relevant.

Personally these RNG position aren’t what I’d like to let control game outcomes, but I was also just losing those games because my opponent was better. So I’m going into the suspect open minded but will actively be noting situations and games where 1) speed being irrelevant and 2) RNG game mechanics feel like they override game decisions.

EDIT:

As I’ve been talking in the DOU Discord- I’m mostly looking at these things.

1. Influence/impact on spreads (speed especially) still come up

2. How opting into leaf blade mid-end games goes

3. How similar/different is it to other RNG

 

[HeatEdgeSword]

History of Kartana in Generation 7 DOU (I guess)



Surprisingly enough, Kartana wasn't ranked during the early days of SM and was placed Tier 5 by the end of it. Come USUM, Kartana received Tailwind for speed control and that's where players began to experiment with Kartana more. While Kartana initially used a Z-Tailwind set, people began to realize two problems with it, the critical rate gained from Z-Tailwind disappeared as soon as Kartana switches out, and Smart Strike was quickly ditched as it makes Kartana unable to dent Incineroar and is already covered by either Leaf Blade or Sacred Sword. So Leaf Blade eventually becomes Kartana's main use for Z-move and Kartana can opt for Sacred Sword as its Z-move to plow through Incineroar and there aren't that many relevant Fighting-type aside from Kommo-o and Scrafty. Later on, Kartana rose to fame with a bulkier variant holding a 50% pinch berry after players realized how many important resistances Kartana has and enables it to have a better opportunity to set up Tailwind or Substitute.

However, a majority of Mega Evolutions were able to check Kartana relatively well. Mega Charizard, Salamence, and Venusaur resisted all its relevant attacks, Mega Metagross has a strong defense that it doesn't fear Sacred Sword as long as it's not in the range of being KO. Kartana is also checked by Intimidate, which was at its peak in Generation 7 thanks to the dominance of Incineroar. Still, Kartana has proven itself to be a force to reckoned with.

What changed for Kartana in Generation 8?

In addition to Urshifu-R that beats up the main intimidators, Incineroar and Landorus, Kartana benefited from the lack of Mega Evolution and the introduction of Rillaboom that gives it crucial Fake Out support and Grassy Surge further boosting the power of Leaf Blade. While Tapu Bulu could do the latter before, it just doesn't have the flexibility that Rillaboom does. White Herb was initially used, but Intimidate being less dominating meant that Kartana quickly ditched it. On the other hand, Scope Lens has become the go-to held item for Kartana in Generation 8 as it grants Leaf Blade a whooping 50% critical rate. For those reasons, many players have deemed Kartana to be too restrictive for teambuilding. On a related note, its partner in crime, Urshifu-R was suspect tested, but it failed to reach a supermajority and thus remained in DOU.

That said, I won't be planning to do any suspect laddering, so it's up to you to decide whether or not to ban Kartana or not.

 

[variationonatheme]

Here's a relevant data point, which as best I can tell is recent high ladder stats for gen 8 DOU (https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-07/gen8doublesou-1825.txt)

| Rank | Pokemon | Usage % | Raw | % | Real | % |
+ ---- + ------------------ + --------- + ------ + ------- + ------ + ------- +
| 1 | Rillaboom | 47.98438% | 45287 | 12.405% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 2 | Kyurem-Black | 26.92678% | 14469 | 3.963% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 3 | Zygarde | 23.71120% | 14642 | 4.011% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 4 | Heatran | 20.61892% | 24917 | 6.825% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 5 | Incineroar | 19.77279% | 57055 | 15.629% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 6 | Urshifu-Rapid-Strike | 19.13055% | 25529 | 6.993% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 7 | Kartana | 17.53664% | 25309 | 6.933% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 8 | Regieleki | 17.25863% | 27217 | 7.455% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 9 | Tapu Lele | 15.62385% | 17251 | 4.725% | 0 | 0.000% |
| 10 | Mew | 15.39051% | 23586 | 6.461% | 0 | 0.000% |

AAAAND HERE'S SOME RECENT TOUR STATS FOR THE TOUR BROS WHO KNOW HOW TRASHITY TRASHY THE LADDER IS ( Resource - Official Smogon Doubles Tournament I Teams, Replays and Usage Stats | Smogon Forums ):

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1 | Rillaboom | 40 | 68.97% | 47.50% |
| 2 | Urshifu-* | 23 | 39.66% | 56.52% |
| 3 | Heatran | 20 | 34.48% | 75.00% |
| 3 | Zygarde | 20 | 34.48% | 60.00% |
| 5 | Zeraora | 18 | 31.03% | 50.00% |
| 6 | Kartana | 16 | 27.59% | 56.25% |
| 7 | Kyurem-Black | 15 | 25.86% | 46.67% |
| 8 | Incineroar | 14 | 24.14% | 42.86% |
| 8 | Dragapult | 14 | 24.14% | 21.43% |
| 10 | Togekiss | 12 | 20.69% | 25.00% |


What do these numbers tell us? Kart usage isn't really flashing an "I'm busted" signal. You guys are missing the gorilla, er elephant, in the room here. I'd be happy enough with Kart gone, honestly, but he's not the biggest part of the current problem, and if he were kicked out, it would only increase usage of Rilla to even more insane levels. Honestly, when Urshifu had a solid majority wanting to ban him, but survived the supermajority requirement by a few votes, it really took the wind out of the sails of any serious efforts at change in this gen. This feels like make work at this point. I just don't see Kart, which no one thought was broken last gen, and which hasn't fundamentally changed since then, getting the boot when Ursh didn't (and for anyone who feels strongly that Kart should be banned, but didn't vote to bag Ursh, I don't think you properly thought through the consequences of your previous vote). I don't think I'll be laddering this time around, but if there are enough people who feel strongly about it to try knock yourselves out.

 

[Human]

I just don't see Kart, which no one thought was broken last gen, and which hasn't fundamentally changed since then, getting the boot when Ursh didn't (and for anyone who feels strongly that Kart should be banned, but didn't vote to bag Ursh, I don't think you properly thought through the consequences of your previous vote).

In response to this there were some pretty major changes that influence my thoughts on Kartana compared to the previous gen. First of all Tailwind goes into effect immediately, which makes that move even more potent. And second of all the lack of z-moves removed some of the more instant ways of handling it, the terrain nerf also hurt Tapu Koko enough there too. And lastly Rillaboom (and Scope Lens) boosted Kartana’s overall damage and made it more consistent.
Pretending that things had not changed is being disingenuous.

As to why I voted DNB on Urshifu water bear and not Kartana - I felt that Urshifu reaching broken tier was in part the codependence on other Pokémon/Tailwind, that on its own it was able to go for reasonable value that was not inherently broken and I stand by that. Kartana’s largely played as an enabler.

The main thing that could sway me to vote DNB for Kartana to me is other fast Tailwind Pokémon such as Tornadus and Naganadel. How different or similar is it to these other two enablers in the format?

 

[LBN]

Ok normally I don't even post on suspects and i just grind till i get each suspect but frankly this is something that bothers me because frankly, I've never felt like a suspect for any given mon was genuinely just a terrible decision like this before. Frankly this entire suspect choice feels like it's purposefully dodging the actual problem, because this is like the 2nd time a suspect decision for this tier dodged what is fairly clearly the enabler for both these mons. Now i don't claim to play doubles, frankly it's not my cup of tea, but I don't see why Rillaboom wasn't chosen here, and i'd argue it warps the tier and how you handle both Urshifu and Kart. Quoting the usage stats above its first in usage by actual leagues, and while i know that doesnt mean broken because look at lando-t in OU, but I want to ask when the last time you saw a Kartana on a good team without Rillaboom on it.

Kartana clearly has answers, and while I understand scope lens is nutty i think the difference in damage it'd do with or without grassy is very noticeable, especially without fake out support holding its hand, and i think it says VOLUMES that this is the first time i've looked at a suspect comment section and not seen a single pro ban post, like if i went to Mienshao's recent test, or Silvally-Grounds, there's a good amount of people if not most ppl saying why they think its broken. Here that's the opposite, and all I see from an outsiders view is ya'll just didn't think this one through. Normally I never vote Do not ban off the fact that i disagree with the suspect test choice, but here not only do i think Kartana is not broken, especially with all these replies, that the actual issue was not tackled the past 2 suspects. Rillaboom bounces off alot of Pokemon insanely well while providing so much support for a team. This is more a rant post than anything else but i don't know what else to say besides these suspects from this tier are having a pretty shit track record after trying to free fcking shadow tag of all things, urshifu not getting the boot and then whatever this is, and i think something has gotta give to chance that, im voting DNB btw.

 

[Z Strats]

Ok normally I don't even post on suspects and i just grind till i get each suspect but frankly this is something that bothers me because frankly, I've never felt like a suspect for any given mon was genuinely just a terrible decision like this before. Frankly this entire suspect choice feels like it's purposefully dodging the actual problem, because this is like the 2nd time a suspect decision for this tier dodged what is fairly clearly the enabler for both these mons. Now i don't claim to play doubles, frankly it's not my cup of tea, but I don't see why Rillaboom wasn't chosen here, and i'd argue it warps the tier and how you handle both Urshifu and Kart. Quoting the usage stats above its first in usage by actual leagues, and while i know that doesnt mean broken because look at lando-t in OU, but I want to ask when the last time you saw a Kartana on a good team without Rillaboom on it.

Kartana clearly has answers, and while I understand scope lens is nutty i think the difference in damage it'd do with or without grassy is very noticeable, especially without fake out support holding its hand, and i think it says VOLUMES that this is the first time i've looked at a suspect comment section and not seen a single pro ban post, like if i went to Mienshao's recent test, or Silvally-Grounds, there's a good amount of people if not most ppl saying why they think its broken. Here that's the opposite, and all I see from an outsiders view is ya'll just didn't think this one through. Normally I never vote Do not ban off the fact that i disagree with the suspect test choice, but here not only do i think Kartana is not broken, especially with all these replies, that the actual issue was not tackled the past 2 suspects. Rillaboom bounces off alot of Pokemon insanely well while providing so much support for a team. This is more a rant post than anything else but i don't know what else to say besides these suspects from this tier are having a pretty shit track record after trying to free fcking shadow tag of all things, urshifu not getting the boot and then whatever this is, and i think something has gotta give to chance that, im voting DNB btw.

I wasn't going to post anything until next week and will still probably post a detailed explanation and reasons I think Kart should be banned later but I feel like I have to reply to this post from someone who is being way to aggressive when they clearly don't know much. Rillaboom is just a really good glue mon and would've been a horrible suspect considering I've only seen one doubles player say they think Rilla is broken and should be suspected and they don't even play in any tours. I don't see how banning Rillaboom would handle both Urshifu and Kartana at once either. Rillaboom was quite often a mon brought up by people who were anti Urshifu ban as one of the checks and reasons Urshifu wasn't broken banning Rilla only makes Urshifu even more of a problem. While I definitely think fake out + Urshifu is pretty busted, there are other fake out mons and a lot of teams went with Urshifu + Lele to help deal with Rilla/opposing fake out and priority more. Banning Rilla would not handle Urshifu at all and only make Urshifu arguably more broken. I actually can see why someone would think why Kart wouldn't be broken without Rilla, grassy terrain obviously makes a great partner for Kartana making it's attacks even stronger but you certainly don't need Rillaboom for Kartana to do broken Kartana things as shown by this replay from osdt where Kart without grassy terrain support still pushes through two of it's checks while staying on the field and snowballing to just sweep.

Kartana does have answers but it can still push through these answers and snowball (unlike Rilla) so you usually have to end up running way to many Kart answers making your team almost always weak to other things. I think it's almost impossible to not have at least one almost auto-lose matchup in this tier and Kartana being super oppressive and forcing over prep is one of the reasons. The amount of pressure it puts on as a tailwind setter with the new dynamic speed changes is also really insane and something no other tailwind setter can do as well as Kart as well.

Your venting about not seeing a single pro ban argument is really dumb when the suspect laddering just started and the only anti ban arguments are from people who don't even play in tours, maybe wait a bit lol. I know for a fact that there are quite a few prominent DOU players including me who are planning to make posts that have just been busy or haven't gotten around to it yet. I also don't see how you can say Urshifu was a bad suspect at all when it had over 50% of people vote ban, it just didn't get the 60% needed. If the results are that close I feel like it clearly was a good idea to suspect it.

 

[variationonatheme]

I've only seen one doubles player say they think Rilla is broken and should be suspected and they don't even play in any tours.

the only anti ban arguments are from people who don't even play in tours...

..quite a few prominent DOU players including me...

Really, Z Strats? How many times in the same post do you need to be a Tour Bro snob? As if people who play on the ladder every day don't have to live with the bans decided here...

I'm not even anti-Kart ban, as you could have figured out from carefully reading my post, but there are Tour Bros on discord who clearly are, so that argument doesn't even make sense. Most of your post is well-reasoned, but the constant posturing really doesn't add anything.

The responses to your and Luna's respective posts tell me what I already knew, that believing Rilla is banworthy is currently a minority position. I'm aware that it doesn't feel "broken" per se, but the usage is insane. It's much higher than Incin got in gen 7. It's also much worse in recent tours than even on the high ladder (as the stats I provided back up).

Look at this for terrain setters (from the recent tour stats):
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1 | Rillaboom | 40 | 68.97% | 47.50% |
| 11 | Tapu Fini | 11 | 18.97% | 45.45% |
| 22 | Tapu Lele | 4 | 6.90% | 75.00% |
| 22 | Indeedee-F | 4 | 6.90% | 50.00% |
| 45 | Tapu Koko | 1 | 1.72% | 0.00% |

Rilla is used literally twice as much as everything else combined. That's just not a balanced Meta at all.

Now I think Ursh is a big part of the problem, and amplifies Rilla's usage, because you need something to stop him (protect won't), and you correctly pointed that out.

As I've said before, and I know others have noticed as well, Gen 8 DOU has a lot more Fake Out use, which gives it a grinding feeling and makes it less fun. With Fake Out and U-turn, Rilla is enabler number #1 and Grassy Glide, a 91 point priority move (with terrain boost), is unlike any other priority move and really changes the dynamics of the game (in what I believe is a very negative way). You don't have to agree with me about all that, and you can argue about what is "broken"--I don't think Goth was necessarily "broken" like Melmetal was (she ain't sweeping), but people agreed she made the game a lot less fun and kicked her to the curb. Maybe you love the Fake Out fest and perpetual Grassy Terrain of the current Gen 8 DOU Meta, but at least engage with the specific arguments, rather than trying to sidestep them with ad hominems.

If you can get the votes (and judging by your last post, maybe you can) to toss Kart that would be fine by me, but as I said before it's likely to only increase Rilla usage.

 

[LBN]

Kartana does have answers but it can still push through these answers and snowball (unlike Rilla) so you usually have to end up running way to many Kart answers making your team almost always weak to other things. I think it's almost impossible to not have at least one almost auto-lose matchup in this tier and Kartana being super oppressive and forcing over prep is one of the reasons. The amount of pressure it puts on as a tailwind setter with the new dynamic speed changes is also really insane and something no other tailwind setter can do as well as Kart as well.

Really, Z Strats? How many times in the same post do you need to be a Tour Bro snob? As if people who play on the ladder every day don't have to live with the bans decided here... post, maybe you can) to toss Kart that would be fine by me, but as I said before it's likely to only increase Rilla usage.

To be honest... i don't blame him for being a "tour snob" since frankly tour players generally have the better opinions in this type of thing, i mean look at ubers shadow tag this gen, seeing all the ppl who were terrible saying goth aint that bad definitely got me angry so i know that feeling LOL. Now that i got a good sleep and all that imma respond to some things even though i mostly agree/understand what z strats said. Also tbh i probably did more ad homonem towards the council than he did to me so i aint even mad LOL

First off the main reason I said Rillaboom makes urshifu better is because of just how well it bounces off Urshifu as a partner. I'll do it in bullet points since i dont wanna make an essay which i have a habbit of doing

• Fake out from Rillaboom is far more annoying to handle since protecting on it is an inherent risk right next to a mon as strong as Urshifu which can take advantage of that.
• Rillaboom pairs extremely well with Urshifu, which together eliminates alot of the defensive counterplay you would have to it. While i know Pokemon like Amoongus, Zapdos, amd Pult exist, it's still annoying to the people who have Pokemon like Tapu Fini, which is probably one of the best to respond to Urshifu around, and even things like Zapdos n Pult don't exactly appreciate coming in hard on both, even if Zap has static.
• This is more an Urshifu thing, but Rillaboom is much harder to handle when it just spanks the 2 Intimidaters we have so well.

That's generally my thought process when i said that one. As for kartana itself... personally I feel like this coulda been instead done as an opportunity to yoink the RNG items instead. While i'm not as knowledgeable on how RNG items are here, I've seen Togekiss use scope lens awhile ago and it wasn't ok then it isn't ok now LMAO. Quick claw and bright powder still used to cheese etc, and personally I do think that couldve been what was done instead, since really other tiers like Natdex, Monotype n OU has done their fair share of removing them, so the precedent is definitely there to do it here.

As for suicune pfp that i wont try n retype your name since that'll end badly, but the usage stats argument honestly isn't really a strong one like it said before look at OU lando, or USUM Pdon. Unlike those though I do think rillaboom does change the way this tier is played in its entirety and while it could just be the sample I stole is just an odd one out in terms of Rillaboom matchup since I could definitely see that, frankly mon is annoying regardless but if I'm in the minority opinion on that one hey that's fine by me (If the haha reacts told me anything), I also called RU Toxtricity busted for awhile and that didn't pan out either. I'll still say tryna free stag was insane.

One final thing though aside from the suspect itself I do wanna ask is, why does the suspect get announced before it starts? I frankly cant come up with a reason why when it could use those 3 sitting days for a longer test, or just announce it earlier.

 

[HeatEdgeSword]

As for suicune pfp that i wont try n retype your name since that'll end badly, but the usage stats argument honestly isn't really a strong one like it said before look at OU lando, or USUM Pdon. Unlike those though I do think rillaboom does change the way this tier is played in its entirety and while it could just be the sample I stole is just an odd one out in terms of Rillaboom matchup since I could definitely see that, frankly mon is annoying regardless but if I'm in the minority opinion on that one hey that's fine by me (If the haha reacts told me anything), I also called RU Toxtricity busted for awhile and that didn't pan out either. I'll still say tryna free stag was insane.

One final thing though aside from the suspect itself I do wanna ask is, why does the suspect get announced before it starts? I frankly cant come up with a reason why when it could use those 3 sitting days for a longer test, or just announce it earlier.

Apologize if I come across as more hostile than I ended up being, but I don't feel like repeating why Shadow Tag was freed, it's to allow the community to give their input on Shadow Tag as while many agreed that it's banworthy, Shadow Tag was quickly banned in DLC 2 before the community could do so. Here's one of the lines from the Shadow Tag Suspect Test thread.

Since Shadow Tag has existed in DOU since its inception, it might seem excessive to quickban it at a somewhat arbitrary time. For this reason, the Council believes that Shadow Tag deserves a full suspect test to fully evaluate whether it is or was an unhealthy element of the metagame.

While I would be satisfied with just the quick ban alone as facing against Gothitelle isn't something I want to deal with again, the suspect test has taught me that Gothitelle with Hypnosis is ridiculous, and I'm glad that I get to vote on it at the very least. Also, this isn't to diss OU or anything, but OU did the same with Cinderace in DLC 1. While Cinderace is nowhere near the same level as Gothitelle, it's clear the majority doesn't want Cinderace to be unbanned after it got the quickban treatment.

First off the main reason I said Rillaboom makes urshifu better is because of just how well it bounces off Urshifu as a partner. I'll do it in bullet points since i dont wanna make an essay which i have a habbit of doing

• Fake out from Rillaboom is far more annoying to handle since protecting on it is an inherent risk right next to a mon as strong as Urshifu which can take advantage of that.
• Rillaboom pairs extremely well with Urshifu, which together eliminates alot of the defensive counterplay you would have to it. While i know Pokemon like Amoongus, Zapdos, amd Pult exist, it's still annoying to the people who have Pokemon like Tapu Fini, which is probably one of the best to respond to Urshifu around, and even things like Zapdos n Pult don't exactly appreciate coming in hard on both, even if Zap has static.
• This is more an Urshifu thing, but Rillaboom is much harder to handle when it just spanks the 2 Intimidaters we have so well.

That's generally my thought process when i said that one. As for kartana itself... personally I feel like this coulda been instead done as an opportunity to yoink the RNG items instead. While i'm not as knowledgeable on how RNG items are here, I've seen Togekiss use scope lens awhile ago and it wasn't ok then it isn't ok now LMAO. Quick claw and bright powder still used to cheese etc, and personally I do think that couldve been what was done instead, since really other tiers like Natdex, Monotype n OU has done their fair share of removing them, so the precedent is definitely there to do it here.

I don't agree with Rillaboom being banworthy at all. While it's true that it's a good glue mon, it still has several noticeable downsides such as having common type weaknesses (which isn't as important as it sounds but still worth pointing out) as well as Pokemon such as Dragapult, Zapdos, and Heatran resisting its main attacks, which is something that you've pointed out.

Zeraora or Incineroar could fulfill the same role for Fake Out support to Urshifu-Rapid, Kartana could fulfill the same role for beating Water-types for Urshifu-Rapid. You could say that neither of them compresses the role as Rillaboom could, but most Urshifu has paired with Kartana anyway since they formed an infamous core alongside Zygarde. Also, saying that Rillaboom spanking Incineroar and Landorus Therian isn't accurate as it fails to OHKO them.

124+ Atk Rillaboom Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 184 Def Landorus-Therian in Grassy Terrain: 223-264 (58.3 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
124+ Atk Rillaboom Superpower vs. 248 HP / 32 Def Incineroar: 268-316 (68.1 - 80.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

I suppose you meant to say Rillaboom checks them, but while Incineroar has the slower Fake Out it does threaten Rillaboom with Flare Blitz. I also would like to point out that Rillaboom doesn't always carry Superpower as well, so it might click U-turn instead.

That being said, I can agree that some of my points weren't very good lol, I just want to point out about the Shadow Tag suspect test.

 

[LBN]

That being said, I can agree that some of my points weren't very good lol, I just want to point out about the Shadow Tag suspect test.

yeah fair enough, i didnt know the stag thing was like what NU did with glastrier thats on me. Also i meant urshifu trashed the intimidaters rilla was annoyed by not rilla beat them but i worded it poorly so i cant fault the mistake

 

[Noelle]

Now i don't claim to play doubles, frankly it's not my cup of tea, but I don't see why Rillaboom wasn't chosen here

I thought i would just reply to this because i'm bored. Rillaboom isn't broken and never has been. rillaboom is a pokemon that fits on a lot of different team styles. it works on semiroom, balance, bulky offense, hyper offense, and so on. but that doesn't make it broken. why? well look at landorus in ou, or garchomp in earlier gens. both of these pokemon are extremely versatile and fit on a wide variety of teams, but are kept in check by other pokemon in the tier. same logic applies to rillaboom. it's not broken and never has been. it's not nearly as meta warping as kartana is and never has been. i'm sorry but this is just a bad take. also, how the fuck does rillaboom enable urshifu? that doesn't even make sense. rillaboom is one of the best shifu checks in the tier, banning it would just make shifu MORE busted. as for kart, yes, rillaboom does help enable kart, but that's not even the main issue most players have with kart. it's the fact that kart itself IS an enabler. it's fast tailwind lets it's teammates have an easier time picking up kos and the fact that kart also has an offensive presence while doing this because crit leaf blades hit like a truck even when you resist them. THAT'S what makes kart broken, not rillaboom, though rillaboom does enable it to a point. as far as kart having answers, i agree. So does rillaboom. So does kyurem. So does urshifu. Not having answers isnt what makes kart broken, its the strain it puts on teambuilding and how restricting it is to play around.
banning rillaboom will never happen. realistically that's just not gonna happen nor should it happen. i mean i get what your saying but i don't think it's broken. ik my original post was pro ban, but i honestly might just vote to ban at this point. i haven't heard a single anti ban argument i actually agree with (yours didn't help btw) and i think pro ban players brought up some valid points i didnt think about. I'm sorry, i want to agree with you, i really do. I'm itching for someone to prove me wrong and prove that kart isnt broken, but this was just a bad take, no other way to say it

 

[Noelle]

NEW POST!!!!!!

I am now pro ban. after having some time to think about it, my old post was kinda shit, so im redoing it:

Bad Anti-Ban Arguments: My first reason for switching sides is there are literally no good anti ban arguments. like, i have not heard a single good one in the past, like, week. i'm not saying that means that the pro-ban people are right, but it sure makes it look that way

META DEVELOPMENT!!! YAYY!!!!!: Kart's impact on teambuilding basically means this meta isnt going anywhere for a very long time. kart forces out offensive options like opposing tailwind or just overwhelming it on the switch, which is why hyper offense is so prevalent rn. I don't see this meta going anyhere anytime soon if this keeps up and i think banning kart would just be more healthy rn

Revisiting my Old Checklist: Is kart broken? Yes, yes it is. The problem with kart isnt any one aspect of it as i initially thought. It's because it has so many good aspects that add up. Fast tailwind while also having a massive offensive presence while ALSO having snowball potential AND basically being immune to intimidate adds up to make a really unfun pokemon to fight. No other pokemon does what kart does better than kart. It is invaluable on offense because of its ability to be a massive offensive threat while ALSO being an enabler to its teammates. it pretty much has everything you could want. Sounds pretty damn broken to me. Is it uncompetitive/unhealthy? I would say its strain on teambuilding and how it basically singlehandedly has stopped the meta in its tracks is pretty damn unhealthy, but thats just me.

How would the meta change if kart was banned: These are just my predictions, so take them with a grain, no, a mountain of salt because i'm not exactly the most qualified to speak on this, but fini gets a hell of a lot better because it has one less grass to worry about, semiroom actually becomes usable because diancie isnt tormented by kart critting through its boosts and offense gets a lot worse because it loses one of its key enablers. DVR semiroom is gonna see a lot more use in tours, people might actually start using my cm fini team outside of a few stray appearances on ladder and offense might turn to stuff like naganadel or other fast tw setters to fill in the gap kart leaves behind. tl;dr is basically sm without megas. Obviously its more complicated than that but hey, its called a tl;dr for a reason.

That's about all i wanted to say, i might edit because, again, i'm not very good at wording things correctly and sometimes opinions just change, so stuff i agree with now i might not in 3 days or so, but i feel like thats pretty much it.

 

[Qwello Lee]

Alright, this is mostly stuff I've already shared in council chat but I think it would be beneficial to post it here as well.
I believe kartana to be banworthy because of the way it warps teambuilding around checking a particular style of offense, leaving teams open to getting 6-0d by other stuff.
By this I mean that the amount of resources you have to allocate in teambuilding in order to check kart basically forces you to forego checks to less common mons/playstyles, which in turn makes games devolve into a matchup roulette where you just hope your opponent forgot to load up a check to your threats.
For an example of this just look at Nido-rus's OSDT top 16 and top 8 sets: the teams Nido is facing are well equipped to handle kartana, with pokemon like volcarona, flamethrower gyara, pult and togekiss, yet they get completely run over by weather HO.
This trend has also become apparent in my own experience prepping/playing for OSDT, where I've often found myself thinking "this team is good but it gets 6-0d by X, how likely are they to bring it?" and resorting to using stuff that should never see the light of day (like corviknight) in order to fish for a favourable matchup.
The argument could be made that this is not kart's fault, that there are many types of offense and that it's impossible to check them all due to the sheer variety of them, however I'd say most other offense styles don't mandate the same level of adaptation as kart does: most of them are kept in check by already top-tier mons like rillaboom or kyub, while in response to the rise of kartana as a prominent threat we have seen other mons (like togekiss) increase in popularity, ones whose niche wouldn't be nearly as valuable if kart weren't as good as it is.
While I recognize that matchup has always been an unavoidable part of pokemon I also believe that the presence of kartana in the metagame pushes it to an absolutely unhealthy degree, where you're forced to accept 100-0 matchups in the builder in order to check the most popular playstyle.

 

[Yellow Paint]

My reasoning for banning Kart seemed pretty straightforward, so I figured I'd post it here. Kart's uniquely powerful in that it's all three of a fast Tailwind setter, offensively threatening, and nontrivial to answer. Naga dies to everything, Zap can be ignored by anything it isn't SE against, and Pult doesn't get Tailwind. Even without the Scope Lens nonsense, I think we can agree that Kart is a cut above the rest. For the Buzz Gross replay, the "Kart could've been any other twind setter" argument doesn't really fly, because why were they running Buzz Gross in the first place? The problem is that even when you start running badmons to beat Kart defensively, it's still a twind setter for its partners.

People have compared Kart to Rilla, and while both are extremely good at their roles, I'd argue Rilla is healthy, while Kart isn't at all. Both Fake Out and fast Tailwind can enable a partner to attack out of order, but you play around them completely differently. Against Rilla Tran, you might switch in Incin or Zyg, or double Protect, or Protect + switch, or trade Fake Outs. On the next turn, if you made the right call and Rilla didn't U-Turn (healthy positioning gameplay!), then Rilla has burned its Fake Out and you're in a favorable position, though chipped. Try the same thing against Kart Tran, and the opponent's position will only have gotten stronger. The only way to cleanly beat it is faster Tailwind, something that outspeeds and kills Kart, kills Kart and tanks both, or Fake Out + Urshi. Other Fake Out options can be pretty safely blanked with double Protect, putting the onus on you to risk a switch.

Repeat this exercise with other common Kart HO members, and you'll find answers are few and far between. You're incentivized to have many mons that can threaten it immediately, not just after a switch. The decent (not Gyara or hard TR) mons that beat it are, you guessed it, other HO. And if you're running HO, why not add Kart yourself?

 

[fespy]

Not a lot of anti-ban arguments being made, despite there being a lot of anti-ban voters. I'll make a few points here, but keep them brief because the anti-ban arguments are simple, and more importantly, I'm lazy.

1. The ban arguments are not super convincing. They're quite nuanced and complicated, and usually arguments that can't be expressed simply are not as strong.
2. So many things beat Kartana, both offensively and defensively. Most DOU teams have several switchins.

Common rebuttal to point 2: Kart in grassy terrain 2hkos everything with leaf blade crit.
Counterargument: two crits is a 1/4 chance, and the odds of grassy terrain being up drop those odds even further. Not a great counterargument.

 

[Eisenherz]

I'll start by saying I don't have strong feelings about this suspect. I've been on the fence, and thinking more about it / reading this thread / Discord hasn't really swayed me.

On one hand, Critana is definitely an annoying element of the metagame and I won't shed a tear if it gets banned. Turns have to be planned as though it'll crit every time, even though it sometimes won't, and that's pretty taxing considering the heavy damage output. It's also true it feels pretty oppressive in the builder. Isolated from the rest, I also think critting all the time is unhealthy, as it invalidates what I generally consider a healthy part of the game, Intimidate.
While Kart has many attributes that make it an excellent Pokémon regardless of Scope Lens, to me that set is absolutely the only one that could possibly push it over the edge to get banned.

On the other hand, I feel like the metagame has found pretty good answers to it, to the point where it doesn't require anymore special preparation than Zygarde or Heatran do. It's one top threat among others and I really don't see it taking the crown of "the broken one".

I also don't buy into the argument of "having to use unmons" when the Pokémon that have been rising in usage in part to answer Kartana are Pokémon with good BST that are simply finding a niche in reason of the current metagame. Buzzwole, Naganadel and Latias are no Dunsparce. Seeing the rise of these as a bad thing means having a preconception of what Pokémon should and shouldn't be used from the get-go, which feels like a faulty bias.

Finally, I'm trying to make sure this doesn't sway my final decision in any way, but I've seen arguments on the topic be hyperbolic to the point where I find it difficult to take them seriously. I get some people are passionate about the outcome, but when every argument is tenfold exaggerated for the sake of hammering down a point, it ends up removing credibility to it. Some have also been pretty toxic about it, which as someone on the fence, I find offputting and makes me want to not align/associate with it.

That being said, Kart is definitely an annoyance, and I find it very reasonable to want it gone as well.

I'm still unsure of what I'll vote, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on the suspect!

 

[Darkmalice]

I think Kartana is the best mon on offence / HO teams. Its large damage output with strong Speed and Tailwind makes it the cornerstone of those teams, in which it not only contributes to the ongoing offensive pressure, but has Tailwind to ensure that momentum is maintained. This is honestly more important than Urshifu bypassing Protect. Though speed support can be provided in other means, Kartana stands as the best mon for providing speed support with that large offensive pressure, since other mons either have less power like Zapdos or require a one-time nuke to do so like Nangadel. The other Pokemon paired alongside Kartana also provide more offensive pressure that, when combined with Kartana's, make it harder to overcome. For example, Zygarde to cover its Fire-type weakness.

It does place pressure on the team builder and making teams. But not to the point that I think it's broken. I think there is reasonable enough counterplay whilst still making teams that can reasonably match-up well against others. Having good match-ups against all other teams archetypes was never possible anyways - some would argue that Z Strats team was, but that meant we needed to think harder in the team builder. There are always mons that pressure teams on the teambuilder, and Kartana is far from the only one. For example, I regularly find pressure for accounting for Kyurem-B, Ursifhu, Dragapult and yes even Rillaboom.

The decent (not Gyara or hard TR) mons that beat it are, you guessed it, other HO. And if you're running HO, why not add Kart yourself?

Here is an apparently bad full TR team beating a Z Strats team variant with Zapdos. Contrary to your statement, I thought the concensus was that HO faired well against full TR currently since TR struggled to maintain momentum against HO (with regularly cited examples of Urshifu wrecking Diancie and Porygon2). Not trying to say that full TR is good, but rather this statement seems somewhat dismissive of innovative and potentially good team building to beat HO without conforming to HO.

 

[pisxel]

Being newer to Doubles OU, I have some thoughts after qualifying. Will list them here ~

While Kartana isn't as common as some other threats like Rillaboom, Zygarde, etc., it's most certainly a huge threat. Kartana's ability to sweep teams even from early game, but especially mid to late game, is incredible. Having one check for it isn't enough as, like many other users have said in the thread, its partners are usually able to quickly get it out of the way and allow Kart to absolutely wreck the rest of your team.

It's very oppressive when teambuilding. Having to have at least two, even three+ checks for a single Pokemon is definitely an issue that can be overlooked easily when just going off of usage stats. Having to replace Pokemon (that without Kartana would have great synergy with the rest of your team) with counters and checks for something that's not even in the top 5 most used Pokemon in the tier is more than bannable.

Kartana's sheer power is undeniable. Paired with common mons like UrshifuRS, Rillaboom, etc., it can annihilate teams without a reliable check for it or its partner. Leaf Blade with a boosted critical hit ratio paired with Sacred Sword seems to be really good coverage when it comes to the current top mons in the meta, with Leaf Blade doing even more damage under Grassy Terrain to add onto its already brutal attack stat.

The only counter arguments I see are that it's not high enough in usage to warrant a suspect in the first place which is an anti-ban argument I've seen a lot across different formats like 1v1 (Togekiss pre-DLC is a good example), OU, etc. that never succeeds because it's baseless and has no substance outside of mostly irrelevant statistics.

Those are my thoughts, time to never participate in a suspect test again <3

 

[Spurrific]

I think the most frustrating thing about Kartana, as people have pointed out earlier, is that it warps teambuilding around itself in a very unhealthy way. While OSDT was progressing over the summer, a big "development" was the rise of Togekiss and Dragapult due to their favorable matchups against Kartana. These Pokemon were touted as proper metagame innovation and were prime examples used from players for why Kartana didn't need a suspect. In fact, the OP of this thread even suggests that Dragapult is a solid choice to use against Kartana. However, the usage and win rate stats from OSDT tell us a different story (Thanks to variationonatheme for already bringing the usage stats up in this thread):

( Resource - Official Smogon Doubles Tournament I Teams, Replays and Usage Stats | Smogon Forums ):
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1 | Rillaboom | 40 | 68.97% | 47.50% |
| 2 | Urshifu-* | 23 | 39.66% | 56.52% |
| 3 | Heatran | 20 | 34.48% | 75.00% |
| 3 | Zygarde | 20 | 34.48% | 60.00% |
| 5 | Zeraora | 18 | 31.03% | 50.00% |
| 6 | Kartana | 16 | 27.59% | 56.25% |
| 7 | Kyurem-Black | 15 | 25.86% | 46.67% |
| 8 | Incineroar | 14 | 24.14% | 42.86% |
| 8 | Dragapult | 14 | 24.14% | 21.43% |
| 10 | Togekiss | 12 | 20.69% | 25.00% |

As you can see, Dragapult and Togekiss have abysmal winrates, the likes of which I've rarely seen for two Pokemon with a top 10 usage rate. The most baffling thing to me however, is that despite after weeks of public replays from OSDT indicating that these two mons are pretty terrible, Pult and Kiss combined for 5 uses in finals. Unsurprisingly, the Dragapult team lost games 1 and 2, and when game 3 was a Dragapult mirror, the Togekiss team ended up losing:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-574114
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-574123
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-574134

Even though Kartana didn't come to finals, it's pretty clear that Mishiimono and Nido-Rus were willing to opt into subpar Pokemon just to make sure they don't have a losing matchup against Kartana. It's not a matter of "every team natually has 2 or 3 Kartana checks"; you have to consciously make the decision that you don't want to lose vs Kart to pick checks that proved to have a losing track record already.

Furthermore, despite being 6th in usage, Kartana has one of the higher winrates in these usage stats. It's not really fair to say that lower usage = not broken, especially when Kartana mirrors tend to be really toxic and dependent on speed ties, which makes it understandable if people don't want to build a team with Kartana. Plus, it's the only Pokemon in the top 10 that both hits ridiculously hard and enables other Pokemon on this list (most notably the Pokemon with winrates higher than Kart: Heatran and Zygarde, which have strong matchups against Fire types and can immediately use oppressive spread moves in Tailwind alongside Kart, and Urshifu, which also has a strong matchup against Fire types and is very difficult to be stall out Tailwind against).

To me, this indicates that something needs to change, and I feel like Kartana is easily the most common denominator between the most unhealthy interactions that the current metagame has. If we ban Kartana, other fast Tailwind users can somewhat take its place, but none of them have a 181 base Attack on top of a 50% crit rate move + Beast Boost to offset defensive plays that severely limits what teams can do against aggro Tailwind teams.

Btw, this is unrelated but it is really frustrating to see the same Z Strats 6 showing up in the top 6 of OSDT usage despite claims, especially in the DOUcord, that the meta has actually changed since the spring. Even if using all of them on the same team isn't good anymore, there hasn't actually been any realistic challenges to their dominance as mons individually. If we don't ban Kart then we still urgently need to do something about the tier because it's already becoming very stagnant and interest in the tier is dwindling for many players, and very few people in the anti-ban camp for both Urshifu and Kartana have offered up any alternative solutions.

 

[Nido-Rus]

Very late to the discussion, but voting started and I figured I really should get a post in about the issue. I'll comment on a few points that have been mentioned regarding kartana and my thoughts about them:

First of all, I genuinely do not think scope lens on kartana is inherently a problem. We've seen in recent matches that kartana itself often struggles to make headway with pokemon like togekiss, dragapult, chople kyub, nagandel, ribombee, latias etc seeing increased usage, all of which can take hits and beat it or set tailwind before it. The problem from my perspective lies in this trend of increased usage- all of these meta shifts primarily trend towards a more hyper offensive metagame, where teams are overprepared for kartana and tailwind wars, but end up with some autoloss matchups against hyper offense compositions. Two examples from my own teams that I used in OSDT are my shift gear genesect/coaching zeraora/DD zygarde team, and my specs dragapult/DD chople kyurem-B team. Shift gear genesect itself is another pokemon that performs insanely well in this hyper offensive metagame, because it beats kart and also beats basically all of the pokemon that see higher usage because of kart (beats all of the ones I mentioned before), but that's just another result of the very imbalanced metagame we have right now. The problem with that shift gear genesect team in particular is its awful rain HO matchup. You can see as much in this game I had against frisoeva, where I ended up facing my own team:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-572201

Here, frisoeva tries to set up with volcarona supporting DD zygarde, but the team simply crumbles under the pressure of banded urshifu in rain supported by prankster tailwind tornadus, which also fires off very strong hurricanes. Now, I don't think my shift gear gensect + DD zygarde team is a bad team at all, I think it's actually very reliably good against what most people have been using so far. But this is just an example of how it still utterly loses to some specific HO archetype because it can't reasonably prep for it in this overly hyperoffensive meta. The same applies for my other team, the specs dragapult + DD kyub team. This is another team that I think is particularly good into kartana offense and balance, but folds against specific pokemon and specific types of hyper offense. Take my OSDT finals set against mishiimono as an example:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-574123

Here, mishi uses scarf zapdos-g very well to break through most of my team. In this team, I had to run scarf Urshifu as my team didn't run tailwind and didn't have enough space to fit it, but needed both a water type and something that could kill kartana before it set TW. This, in turn, made my scarf zapdos matchup pretty awful. It outspeeds my entire team and OHKOs 3 of them while dealing enormous chunks of damage to the rest of them. The team also suffers heavily against tailwind HO compositions, such as the sun or rain HO I've been using, since I couldn't safely fit in TW myself.

The point I'm making here is that even though the metagame has developed so that kartana itself is easily switched into and overpowered, it's the manner of development- where it's primarily offensive counterplay rather than defensive- which is problematic, and leads to these matchup issues. Bulky offense and semiTR would normally be great metagame trends to deal with hyper offense, but have been suppressed by the presence of kartana, which can easily snowball and overpower these compositions. In this way, I attribute these metagame problems primarily to kartana and will be voting to ban it.

 

[Bless]

The metagame for SS Dou is weird. The gen 8 speed mechanics completely changed how doubles should be played. I really dislike the rng from scope lens leaf blade Kartana under grassy terrain but is that really the cause of the problems for dou? im glad Melmetal was banned because that mon was hella broken and keeping Shadowtag banned was a good decision because it was unhealthy, but I'm starting to think Tailwind is the culprit. Singles doesn't have to worry about tailwind because only 1 mon is on the field. Instead of suspecting kartana, lets suspect tailwind! Smogon has always banned Pokemon in both singles and doubles that are broken and recently singles started banning items that are unhealthy for the metagame(kings rock). There are a couple of moves in doubles that have been banned such as minimize and double team(evasion clause) but I'm starting to believe that tailwind(in gen 8) should be added to that list. I'm a supporter of Scope Lens Kartana being stupid AF and have recently started experimenting with it in SM because of how well it does in SS. It actually does a good job in Gen7 as well even though Grassium Z and Pinch Berries are the preferred items for it in that metagame. Its kinda odd to say this because tailwind has always been another form of speed control in BW, XY, and SM, but its completely different in SS. Once you set up twind, your partner gets to attack right away. Your opponents mons speed evs don't even matter! you are screwed!(unless youre using a trickroom team) Let me know what you guys think, I'm open for discussion.

Arctic edit: Sunrose please learn to use your enter key I'm begging you

 

[variationonatheme]

The metagame for SS Dou is weird...

Sunrose, bro, you are a great player and well liked, so I guess you won't get too many "Haha" faces the way I would if I posted what you just did. I admire your courage and willingness to think outside the box re: Tailwind, and I do agree that Gen 8/SS DOU Meta currently feels really weird and is not nearly as fun as it could be. That said, I think the speed controls are one of the primary things that make mons, and especially doubles, interesting. Without Tailwind, we'd really only have Trick Room (and Icy Wind) as speed control, and I can imagine people then wanting to ban Trick Room. Next thing you know, you wind up with a Meta favoring only fast mons and Scarves. Doesn't sound very interesting to me. Put me in the camp of preferring to ban individual mons (even if it takes a number of them) to deal with the playability issues. I will say that Kartana seems like the most potentially broken TW user/abuser.

What I think would really help with this gen would be getting rid of both Rillaboom and Urshifu. I suppose if I were voting now, I'd vote to ban Kartana as well, as I believe that would be an improvement too, and maybe Kart is more powerful than last gen because of the new TW mechanics. Let's imagine a Meta where all 3 mons are gone. There would be much less grass spam, but grass would still be more powerful than in Gen 7, because of Grassy Glide. You'd have a more useful Tapu Bulu (facilitating Grassy Glide in others, while noticeably lacking Fake Out and U-Turn), but other grass mon like Amoonguss would be used more as well. Then, to offset potential Sporing, and because Rilla wouldn't overpower other terrain setters, you would get more use of Fini and Koko. It would make the game seem more balanced and fun terrain wise. I'm pretty sure of that.

With Ursh gone, there also wouldn't be as much need for Fake Out and counter HO to stop him. You'd get more variety in playing style and more balance. There would be more potential for set up. Incin and Lando would come back somewhat, though not as much as in Gen 7 (Meteor Beam is one thing to heavily discourage incin for instance). Weather teams would have more of a fighting chance, without Rilla and Ursh to mess them up. In short, the Meta would feel more balanced and "normal".

That doesn't seem to be the direction we're heading with this Meta, but a guy can dream at least...

 

[Yoda2798]

There are still votes remaining, but the result is decided. The ban vote has reached the 60% supermajority required regardless of the remaining 3 votes, meaning Kartana will be banned from SS DOU. The current voting breakdown is as follows:

Ban: 45 (60%)
Do Not Ban: 27 (36%)
Votes Remaining: 3 (4%)

 

[emma]

Hi, quick post to highlight the two biggest winners of the Kartana ban in my opinion.

Tapu Fini

Return of the King. Tapu Fini has struggled mightily ever since Kartana and Grass Spam took over the metagame. The Calm Mind set went out of business since you never got any room to set-up, and the support set's niche of constantly switching in to reset terrain became less important with the fall of Necrozma and Amoonguss (also due to Kartana and Grass Spam). While Rillaboom will still be as popular as ever, it hits a lot less hard and you can actually reduce its damage through Intimidate. I expect Calm Mind Tapu Fini to return as a dangerous win condition as one of the best ways to take it down as been boosted.

Semiroom

Yes!!! Yes!!!!!!! Kartana's ban should result in Semiroom finally become usable again!!!!!!!!!!!! Kartana, along with Urshifu and Zygarde, put on so much intense pressure that it became very difficult to set Trick Room multiple times per game. While Urshifu-R still OHKOs the two best Trick Room setters, I expect to see my favorite core of Diancie / Porygon2 / Volcanion (although we do have to look out since Urshifu-R is a lot better now than when this core was first popular) to once again return following Kartana's ban and Offense's subsequent nerf. Diancie and Volcanion coming back from the depths of Tier 3 should also impact the usage of Kyurem-B and Heatran. The former sees one of its best checks return, and the latter now has more competition. With Semiroom looking better and Offense potentially getting worse, we might see Volcanion overtake Heatran in usage and viability again.

Overall, my initial impressions of the new metagame are that we get a lot more pivot heavy and a lot less haha broken Pokemon go brrr which really appeals to be as someone who wants to switch + Protect every other turn. This situation we're in reminds me a lot of the start of DLC2: the metagame just completely flipped on its head and now we have a huge tour for everyone to experiment in. Alongside the quality of signups, I'm very excited for SCL this year and haven't been this motivated to do anything Pokemon related in a long time