Hey everyone, so I just got reqs, and since I already posted in this thread but didn't say much about Urshifu, I thought that I'd throw my two cents in. I'll be honest, I haven't fully made up my mind yet regarding how I'm going to vote, and I plan on thinking about it more until voting opens up, although I'm probably leaning towards voting
Ban right now. I feel like your views on a Pokemon are inevitably going to be influenced by the teams/playstyles that you use, but I didn't struggle at all with Urshifu during my laddering for reqs - I don't think that I needed to even sac against it once. The team that I used (which was built by
ABR - full credit to him) also didn't have a Fairy or Buzzwole, so I think that there is more counterplay to Urshifu than some people claim by saying that you pretty much need Clef or Buzzwole. To be fair though, the team did have an Urshifu of its own and I also had Rocky Helmet phys def Pex and a Ditto. How I played around Urshifu was scouting/chipping it with Pex, if it clicked Wicked Blow, I would go to my own Urshifu, and if it clicked CC, I would Scald or Knock with Pex. I only faced one Bulk Up Urshifu during my 34 games and it was trickier to deal with, but Ditto was insurance against it if it did get set up. I didn't face a Life Orb + 4 attacks set but that also would have been more difficult to handle than the Banded set. I imagine though that it would get chipped down heavily by Pex's Helmet and its LO chip, while it would still need to be prediction dependent to not Wicked Blow into my own Urshifu or Ditto.
So I know what you're probably thinking - you used a stall/semi-stall team that was prepared for Urshifu, so of course it wasn't a problem, and yeah, I'm cognizant of that. Fortunately, since the team I used also featured Urshifu (the banded set with Wicked Blow/CC/Poison Jab/Sucker Punch), I got more experience concerning how it threatens opposing teams. We all pretty much know what Urshifu does: mostly clicks Wicked Blow (or CC) and punches holes in the opposing team. I feel like Urshifu's speed tier isn't talked about enough, because to me that's one of the largest things that separates it from something like Obstagoon. Jolly Urshifu hits 322 Speed, which allows it to out-speed things like Tapu Lele, Kyurem, and Landorus-T (obviously assuming none of them are Scarfed), which is huge, because it allows Urshifu to come in and revenge kill or scare out these threatening Pokemon, while Wicked Blow/CC are so strong that any resist switching in usually needs to be fairly healthy in its own right. To me, in some ways Urshifu felt almost more like a cleaner in some games than a breaker, because you would need to chip their defensive answers to Urshifu down either through previous damage or Knocking the Boots off/statusing something like Mandibuzz. Magic Guard obviously makes it more difficult to put Clef in range of getting 2HKOed by Wicked Blow, but since Banded Poison Jab already 2HKOs Clef, you often need to just predict that switch once and then get Urshifu back in without giving Clef an opportunity to heal itself. This is probably attributable to the fact that much of the suspect laddering is done towards the lower end of the ladder, but I felt like a lot of the teams I faced had more traditional and "lazier" (I don't mean any disrespect to anyone by saying that) answers to Urshifu (i.e. just relying solely on a defensive Clef or Mandibuzz as their answers). I do agree with what
egalvanc was talking about earlier when he said that playing proactively against an Urshifu makes it much harder for the Urshifu user to wreck havoc. I also found Scarfed Fairies or Rocky Helmet Regenerator pivots to be more difficult to play against than just defensive Clef/Buzzwole/Mandibuzz/Fini, and overall, I feel like more can creativity can be used in both the team builder and during games to handle Urshifu, but obviously it's still fairly restricting (which I'll take about more in a little bit). As a random side note on Buzzwole, I like the Pokemon and I built one of my most successful teams with it before Zygarde/Kyurem-Black were banned, but I really don't think it's very good right now. Sure, it switches into Urshifu better than anything else, but after that, it really can't do much. Sadly, it's mainly just a momentum sink that doesn't really offer any utility. I think that more offensive sets like the one that
craing ;_; talked about
here are definitely better in the current meta than the more defensive Bulk Up set, but even then, it's still really easy for something like Moltres/Zapdos/Corviknight to switch into it for free.
So once Urshifu is in, it's highly threatening - we all know that. I feel like a large part of why Urshifu can feel so imposing is actually because of things like Teleport and slow U-turn users like Corviknight making it easier than ever before to bring in breakers. Every generation has Pokemon that are incredibly difficult to switch into (like Keldeo in the past), but this is exacerbated by things like Blissey or Slowbro/king being able to switch in freely against so many Pokemon (which is also made even easier by Boots) and getting to bring in Urshifu completely safely with Teleport. Now in order to prevent this, the opposing player needs to bring out something that threatens Urshifu when the Blissey or Slowbro/king goes for Teleport, but that requires you to risk switching something into a status move or Scald from the Blissey or Slowbro/king, which isn't ideal. It does still create some degree of guessing though and makes the player think more than just clicking Teleport without a care in the world. In a similar vein, I want to echo what
talah previously said
here about not thinking that Future Sight is as overbearing as some people make it seem. In order to get off a Future Sight and then Teleport into an Urshifu, the Slowbro/king user needs two turns, which gives you a free opportunity to bring out something that either threatens Slowbro/king (preventing it from sponging a hit and Teleporting) or something that threatens Urshifu and doesn't mind potentially taking a Future Sight (although there aren't a ton of Pokemon that fit that latter description, it does include things like Mandibuzz/Scarfed Fairies like Magearna, Clef, Lele, and Fini, and also something like Cinderace, which Urshifu can't come in on and Cinderace can U-turn out before the Future Sight hits). Again though, while I do think that it's a good idea to play aggressively against Future Sight-Teleport Slowbro/king, you still need to risk something eating a Scald switching in, so it's not a perfect way to deal with it. I've found that a lot of players can get complacent and just go through the motions with clicking Future Sight + Teleport, so it's good to try to steal the momentum away from them, and at the very worst, force them into a Scald or Future Sight guessing game.
The last few things I want to mention about Urshifu are Urshifu's ability ignoring Protect, Wicked Blow and Close Combat's limited PP, and Sucker Punch. I wish that Urshifu had a different ability than Unseen Fist, since being able to scout against it with Protect would go a long way to handling it. Clef being able to run Wish + Protect + Teleport against it would also be nice. I also wish that there was a viable Urshifu switch-in that had Pressure, since I never personally ran out of PP on Wicked Blow or CC, but it's conceivable that both of those could happen, and it would be a real countermeasure if something with Pressure could handle it. Again, if you could scout with Protect against it, you could waste its PP better as well. Finally, Urshifu having access to Sucker Punch goes a long way in cleaning up games and saved me on a few occasions. Clicking Sucker Punch with a Choice Band is usually a scary commitment, but your opponent not attacking Urshifu with a potential revenge killer is also scary. Obviously non-Banded Urshifu don't have to worry about this and can click Sucker Punch much more impudently. So I get that this paragraph may not have been the most useful, since it's pointless to theorize or yearn for Urshifu to be different, but I wanted to include it as a way of illustrating how some traditional strategies against Choice-locked Pokemon (like scouting with Protect or PP stalling) don't really apply to Urshifu.
Alright so this was kind of a long and rambling post about Urshifu and the current metagame (I randomly woke up at 5:00 this morning and decided to try to get reqs, so please bear with me), but I'll try to sum up my thoughts here. Urshifu doesn't really feel broken to me, but it also doesn't feel very healthy for the meta either. This was probably me getting impatient, but I had a fair number of games where I just clicked Wicked Blow twice on incoming Moltres/Zapdos and hoped that I didn't get burned or paralyzed (which is 51% likely to occur over the course of two hits), and that scenario felt pretty silly to me (although that's also largely due to the nature of Flame Body and Static). I also usually tried to weaken/status/Knock the Moltres and Zapdos before just clicking away with Urshifu, and that interaction isn't particularly unhealthy or anything, but it still felt kind of stupid to me that 49% of the time, I blew through one of the opposing team's sturdiest defensive Pokemon and freed up more clicking in the future. I get that any team relying on Moltres or Zapdos to be their only check to Urshifu is kind of asking for it, but still, it didn't really sit right with me how the birds are really good answers to so many physical attackers, but it comes down to RNG (and usually a sac anyway) as to whether or not they can do anything to Urshifu. It's difficult as well for me to think about Urshifu in a vacuum, because things like Magearna, Spectrier, and even a Cinderace that hits its moves usually felt more "broken" to me than Urshifu (again though, I acknowledge that the team you use greatly influences your views on things like that). I also know that you're not supposed to think about other Pokemon potentially being banned and instead should only focus on the one being suspected (Urshifu in this case), but that feels a little hard for me to do when you still run into a bunch of Magearna and Spectrier while laddering. Back to Urshifu though, I feel like a well-prepared team that is positioned well throughout a game should be able to handle Urshifu the vast majority of the time, but I suppose you could say that about any Pokemon. Urshifu does constrict teambuilding in the sense that you need a check specifically for it and it does distort gameplay at times into uncomfortable guessing games, where you don't want Urshifu to come in freely but you don't want to get crippled instead switching into something like Blissey or Slowbro/king (although I think that's more because of Teleport, and to a lesser extent, Boots).
In conclusion, and as I stated in the beginning, I'm leaning on using my vote to
Ban Urshifu, but not because I personally find it to be "broken" in the way that something like Kyurem-Black or Landorus-I felt to me. Instead, I think that an Urshifu ban based on how it can warp building and playing feels more warranted. Urshifu can constrict teambuilding, since it usually forces you to account for it in several ways or run more niche sets, and it can be awkward to play against, because at times I feel like you need to put yourself more at risk to prevent Urshifu from coming in unimpeded (and this feels especially true if Urshifu is being used in conjunction with Future Sight + Teleport, or at times just a Teleport user like Blissey alone). So yeah, those are my thoughts, and like I said, I'm going to keep thinking about where I stand on this before it comes time to vote. I apologize for this probably overly long post and I don't think that I said anything too groundbreaking anyway; I just felt obligated to give my thoughts in greater detail, since I did qualify to vote. Thanks to anyone who read or skimmed this over!
