★ np: SS UU Stage 3: As the World Falls Down (Venusaur banned, see post 110)

[Hogg]

After three and a half months and the collapse of civilization, the UU Council has determined that UU is ready to exit its Beta period!

What does this mean? Well, now that we are out of Beta, we will no longer be holding council-based voting slates. Instead, we will move toward public suspects and re-tests of things previously banned. The council will still be looking at areas where immediate action is required, most notably following tier shifts or major changes such as DLC releases, but in general we are officially shifting to community-based tiering for the foreseeable future.

We have also made some changes to our council. First, after serving for most of SM UU and all of SS UU, aim decided to step down last month. We greatly appreciate all that he's contributed to UU tiering over the past couple of years. Second, we have officially moved Indigo Plateau, Pak and vivalospride from rotating council to full council. Finally, we have added Freeroamer to the rotating council.

And now that we are officially out of Beta, the council has also decided to move forward with our first community test of Sword and Shield. In particular, we will be looking at the progress pig itself, Mamoswine! Mamoswine was already a top threat pre-Home, but the addition of Knock Off has turned it into one of the most terrifying wallbreakers that the tier has to offer. Ground/Ice STABS with strong Dark coverage hits the entire tier for neutral damage, and its powerful STAB attacks off of that terrifying base Attack allow it to power through some of UU's bulkiest 'mons. Fully defensive Milotic is easily 2HKO'd by Earthquake, while defensive Galarian Weezing is 3HKO'd by Icicle Crash, putting it one flinch away from fainting. And with a decent Speed tier and strong priority, it becomes surprisingly difficult to consistently revenge kill. The only reliable checks right now are Golisopod, Araquanid and Avalugg, and all three of those rely on not getting their Boots knocked off to stay healthy throughout the game.

That said, many on the council expressed concern that Mamoswine seemed most threatening at the moment due to common metagame trends, such as the huge prevalence of Noivern/Bronzong/Incineroar cores, and felt that it was worth waiting to see if the metagame adjusted to its presence before banning it. Therefore, we've decided that this would be appropriate as our first official community suspect test!

And so, we are suspecting Mamoswine. This suspect test will operate similarly to our SM UU suspect tests. There will be no suspect ladder. Instead, the standard UU ladder will remain open. Those who wish to participate in this suspect test will instead use a fresh, suspect-specific alt. The requirements for the suspect will be as follows:

• All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! UU ladder on a fresh alt with the following format: "UUM3 (Nick)." For example, I might register the alt UUM3 Hogg to ladder with. You must meet the listed format in order to qualify.
• To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 45 games, and
• You must have a minimum GXE of 81.

You have until Sunday, April 5 at 8:59 PM GMT -4 to meet voting requirements. Feel free to post if you have any questions about the current suspect format. Happy laddering!

Current UU Council

Accelgor
Adaam
Amane Misa
Hogg
Indigo Plateau
Moutemoute
Pak
Sage
TDK
vivalospride
yeezyknows

Rotating Council for this round: Donphantastic and Freeroamer

 

[explodingdaisies]

Thank god. This thing has been a huge menace to UU this gen. Mamo has always been a menace in other gens, but in SS we lost a huge chunk of not only offensive counterplay but defensive counterplay. 4 attacks mamo has basically no switchins. EQ+Crash already covers 90% of the meta, and the rest is covered by knock off. Basically your only counterplay to it is Golis+Shuca Coba. The former is screwed once boots are knocked, and the latter has a one time switchin(if mamo isnt running superpower to bypass shuca). Another note, you cant intimidate it either with the buff to oblivious. Mamo can even forgo icicle crash and run heavy slam for g-weezing. I'm tired of seeing games decided by mamo speed ties.

TL;DR: BAN

 

[Donphantastic]

Hello Donny p here to give my thoughts on
I've been playing a bit more after the bans of gyara and prim and honestly I have yet to play or see a single game where I didnt think mamo was going to go in. While it didnt gain any direct buffs this generation it did lose a handful of mons that gave it trouble last gen (sdbpbpbp anyone?)
Our current top threats including noivern incin roserade gigalith etc all get shredded by the pig, thanks to it's more than decent for the gen speed tier and access to ice shard, which is the best prio a mon can have right now. Defensive counterpart is simply non existent as mons that in theory could take two stab moves like goli and zong get absolutely crushed by life orb knock off. Even phys def weezing which is the face of most balance builds is in danger of getting flinched by a single icicicle crash before it ceases being a check
Offensively checking mamo means you need to be able to either be faster and not get nuked by ice shard or be able to eat an eq before hitting mamo. Looking at the current meta that list is pretty much just goli and cobalion.
This combination of factors lead me to believe that mamo is in fact unhealthy for the meta and will more than likely be voting to ban.

 

[lydian]

I've been playing UU for a relatively short time so far but I feel like I should leave my 0.02$ on this "mamo" guy.

So there's barely any defensive counterplay to Mamoswine. Your best option is probably running like Galarian Weezing + Physically Defensive Milotic from what I can tell and basically predicting right and forcing Mamoswine out. But obviously, if the Mamoswine player gets a single play right this core is pretty much out the window. Bronzong and Golisopod are Knock Off bait, although they do help pivot into its STABs quite a bit. But even then, all of these Pokémon, bar Golisopod, are quite passive and that makes it pretty hard to punish the Mamoswine player. This, in turn, makes it extremely difficult for bulky offense teams to properly check Mamoswine, and Golisopod's Emergency Exit doesn't quite allow it to be an adequate check to Mamoswine. I think a good indicator of this is the huge commonality of Shuca Berry Cobalion, which is mostly for it to act as a Mamoswine pivot. But that one can't take much more than a hit either.

And if the points above weren't enough of a problem, Ice Shard makes Mamoswine even more of a problem, it threatens a lot of the Pokémon faster than it that would otherwise revenge kill it, such as Noivern, Roserade, and Flygon straight up die in one hit, and Heliolisk, Celebi, and Haxorus all take a ton of damage, beyond half. So that makes it even more problematic for some teams to revenge kill Mamoswine. Granted, Cobalion, and Choice Scarf Gardevoir aren't much bothered by Ice Shard, but that still doesn't make up for the fact that a lot of the Pokémon faster than Mamoswine can straight up crumble to it after some chip damage.

With all of this in mind, I'll probably be voting ban if I get the chance. I'll try to get reqs for ou first, but I'll definitely see if I can make my way in the UU ladder as well!

 

[ShroomisHarold]

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-uu-viability-ranking-thread.3659427/post-8398660

Call ShroomisHarold the profit because I, Predicted this yesterday from the start that Mamoswine Was the best Pokemon in the tier!! Mamowine is a troubled, to many Teams people are using in this Tier. Offence dismantled. Balance must predict perfect. Stall? People use that? Either Way, a disgustingly overpower STAB combination and if you do not believe this then, I still have a Rhincerous to sell you! What does Mamoswine, not do? It can be put on Every team that is made in this tier. It is very head and shoulders (head and tusks??) above, the rest of the Viability A+ Pokemon. I am glad this is taking place, it is a very, strong Pokemon. Words cannot addequately describe this, it's enough to make a beggar believe!! When I achieve requirements in the Vote, I will be voting Ban most likely. Apologie Mamoswine, You have had your time in the sun and, now it is time to let some other kids play in the pool!

 

[Moutemoute]

Alright since I'm one of the council member who think that Mamoswine isn't an issue by itself, I'd like to explain my thought process and play the devil’s advocate or in that case the frozen pig's advocate.

While I can't deny that Mamoswine is one of the best and scariest breaker in the tier, I do believe that current trends is what make it even better. Thanks to Lilburr, I've been able to look in depth at SS usages of the first UUPL week and out of a total of 32 teams (16 matchs), we can definitively see that some core are hellah common. Noivern + Incineroar has been used 14 times while Noivern + Bronzong and Bronzong + Incineroar have both been used 11 times. If we look closely at the ladder it's almost the same. The current metagame isn't very diversified because people run some common cores which are able to handle the vast majority of the tier. As Hogg said, people have been spamming Noivern + Bronzong + Incineroar (and most of the time they add a Grass-type like Tsareena or Roserade) because it's almost a "brainless" thing when you're making a team in UU. In my opinion, we're facing the same kind of issue than SSOU where people run the same balanced / defensives cores because they can virtually handle the whole metagame. And in the middle of all of this we have Mamoswine (which has always been a fearsome breaker) which obviously benefits from this trends. I firmly believe most of the people who are complaining about Mamoswine being too good are the people who are running the same core I talked right above. However I don't criticize them for that but I trully think they should try differents builds and see if Mamoswine is as much threatening than when they're using "The Core". Once again, I agree that Mamoswine can be annoying to face but I believe it deserves its place in UU and that it actually brings a lot of utility by being a good offensive Ground-type which is able to outspeed Toxtricity or by being able to pressure some dominent threats such as Haxorus, Roserade, Noivern or Incineroar. I firmly believe players can find good ways to deal with Mamoswine without having to run some gimmick, ⅓ of the players this week who faced a Mamoswine without having a Mamoswine on their own managed to win which kinda shows that it's doable (3 out of 9 times for those who would wonder).

I’m not sure what I’m voting on yet if I managed to get reqs but at the moment, I'm leaning to a vote DNB.

I hope that I was able to explain my point of view on the situation well enough. Thanks for reading, be safe, stay at home.

 

[Adaam]

I firmly believe players can find good ways to deal with Mamoswine without having to run some gimmick, ⅓ of the players this week who faced a Mamoswine without having a Mamoswine on their own managed to win which kinda shows that it's doable (3 out of 9 times for those who would wonder).

Small sample sizes aside, I don't think a 33% winrate for teams without Mamoswine is evidence towards it being balanced.

Mamoswine's dominance is more than just people spamming Noivern and Incineroar. There's no alternatives to these staples that actually check Mamoswine. For checks you have Shuca/Balloon Cobalion, Golispod, and a Weezing. That's it. It's laughable how we both have next to no switch ins AND next to no revenge killers or faster Pokemon that resist Ice Shard. I don't know what other cores people are simply not seeing to check it, as these are Pokemon that are often paired with Noivern/Incineroar.

We had like 5 games of UUPL decided by Mamoswine speed ties. Even more decided by Mamoswine making 1 right prediction, usually clicking EQ instead of the Ice move as Cobalion switches in. We saw TWO Yache Roserades this week as sad, desperate attempts to not get blasted up the ass by the pig and people are already doing gentleman's agreements of no Mamoswine battles. It lasted throughout ORAS and SM, but it's time to make Mamo extinct

 

[Lily]

Think I'm the first one to do this!

Just gonna say, this sucked. 81 GXE with 45 games is pretty ridiculous on a ladder with such a low peak imo.

As for my thoughts on Mamoswine... I used four different teams for this suspect test run, and every team had a Mamo. The risk when using it is incredibly low, yet you get incredible value.

Mamo's offensive presence is something nobody can even attempt to deny. The viable Pokemon in this tier that can avoid a 2HKO are as follows:

Golisopod
Araquanid
Vaporeon, if hazards aren't up
Galarian Weezing
Avalugg
Umbreon (oops Hogg)

That's it. That's the entire list. So, defensive counterplay is out of the equation.

Next up are the offensive checks that don't get completely maimed by Ice Shard.

Cobalion
Inteleon
Lucario
Chandelure (scarf)
Arcanine..?

Aaaand that's that list.

So, as we can see, there's a pool of roughly 10 Pokemon that are viable in the tier that can actually constitute as "reliable" Mamo checks - maybe a little more, I ignored anything RU and below but I guess you could count like, Barraskewda. These Pokemon are not all easy to fit on teams. Inteleon needs massive support, Lucario is largely outclassed by Cobalion, and Chandelure and Arcanine both face massive competition from Incineroar and also get walled by it. Galarian Weezing and Vaporeon are only checks if hazards aren't up and they're at full health, and Avalugg and Araquanid aren't exactly easy to fit on teams. That leaves... Cobalion and Golisopod.

I'm a huge fan of Pod. I think it's incredibly valuable both offensively and defensively, and having a spiker that isn't Rose is cool, but let's take a look at the UUPL W1 stats for a sec-
| 2 | Mamoswine | 20 | 62.50% | 55.00% |

| 6 | Golisopod | 10 | 31.25% | 80.00% |


Golisopod was used almost exclusively so that teams wouldn't lose a Pokemon to Mamo every single time it came in, and surprise surprise, most of the pods that got used won. Teams are so reliant on Mamo to be their breaker because there's literally no reason not to. Having a mon with a good speed tier (in this meta), decent bulk with solid defensive utility thanks to its typing (electric immunity) and ridiculous offensive presence is too good to pass up on most teams; look no further than when Obstagoon was in the tier for that.

It's not healthy. It might be after DLC drops if some crazy shit happens and we get Corviknight and Articuno or whatever, but as of right now, it's really, really not okay. People will spout the whole "waa no breakers allowed stall will become too much" bs but there simply should not be a breaker that does this much on its own in the tier. It takes 0 skill to use, 0 prediction is required because nothing can switch into your Earthquake or Knock Off without dying to Ice Shard the next turn anyway and the value is just much too high. I'm going to vote to ban the progress pig.

 

[Xilefi]

Sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language.

I played a decent bunch of UU since the beginning of this generation and, despite i don't understand all the intricacies of pokemon as a competitive game yet (i started the competitive play with SS), some things outstand to me. First of, I would say the lack of good rapid spinner besides Tsareena but more relevantly in this current thread the lack of good physdef wall, or at least with reliable longevity move. That might be not an issue but i found myself being clancked between the hammer and the anvil with my defensive G-Weezing trying to wall Mamoswine many times. As many said, Shuca Cobalion is a one shot, Golisopod which is a beast until he lose its HDB into any of the plenty Knock off mons running around.

Where checking it might not be an issue, revenge kill it is somehow impossible to me in the meantime of Haxorus. Where I find myself Scarf Flygon decently checking Haxorus, it gets OHKO by an Ice Shard of a Jolly Mamoswine running any LO Set, which is totally fine. Other faster mons in the tier have all their own checks as Scarf Gardevoir/Scarf Chandelure being well checked by Gigalith, First Impression mons by both full hp Noivern but mostly G-Weezing, Heliolisk often lacks of power, or either are checked by our lovely Mamo.

What is outstanding to me is that I can't handle both Haxorus and Mamoswine in the same time. I've to choose between one or the other. I follow Moutemoute in his thought process (I myself thought about balancing other games with a competitive environment) where he's thinking about the "layer 2" of this possible ban. My analysis of a possible outcome, that might be too simple, is Haxorus becoming the threat. Correct me if i'm wrong, DD Haxorus, with the plenty of settup fodder in the tier, shall break the defensive core which Moutemoute talked about (which I've identified too after looking at the UUPL Week 1 replays aswell), as Mamoswine does.

+1 252 Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 774-912 (206.9 - 243.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252 Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 108 Def Incineroar: 418-492 (106.3 - 125.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252 Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Bronzong: 314-370 (92.8 - 109.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

(I've based my calcs on UU showdown usage)

In my point of view, Haxorus fills the same spot as Mamoswine does but in its disadvantage has many more flaws that we all know : CB is prediction heavy, relying on First Impression to revenge kill, Outrage locking can be walled by fairy types, and it falls when burnt ; meanwhile DD needs to set up itself (which is easily doable) and kinda needs to run Lum Berry, and needs +2 to outspeed his most common revenge killer in name of Scarf Flygon.

If I try to think about the "layer 3" based on my "layer 2" analysis, it looks to me Haxorus has a lot more counterplays (which is kinda obvious) implying a more evolutive metagame than Mamoswine which provides, as well as its destroying stabs, a lot a support for his team in name of Knock off creepling mons for its mates, Ice Shard revenge killing mons, and Stealth Rock.

Outside the comparison with Haxorus, which might be not as relevant as I think it is, the combination of his speed tier and the many sets it can run, between LO 4 Attacks, LO 3 Attacks+SR, Sash max speed, Sash max hp, Choice Band or either Choice Scarf (which is very surprising), makes it very very difficult to handle and prediction heavy. It has happened to me many times being caught off guard by a Sash set or a Scarf one (less vulnerable to rock), or being torn apart by a CB set while switch in with my physically defensive G-Weezing or my mixed def Mantine on Icicle Crash predicting EQ.

Fighting and building against is oppressive to me, often relying of a landed Will-o-wisp or a 30% scald burn to deal with which i find in particular unhealthy. On the other hand, fighting with and building around is really easy. It takes care reliably two mons in a game. At first glance, i would lean towards a ban. Although, I understand Moutemoute point of view from my experience in other games : Mamoswine clearly surfs on the UU metagame since the beginning of Gen 8, though the meta has always been in his favor like Noivern. Sure, it never has been better than now but banning should be the last solution as we want more pokemons not less, and banning Mamoswine can potentially reveal a bigger problem. Mamoswine is maybe a necessary evil right now. Furthermore, Haxorus could be another problem with the banning of Mamoswine as one of its revenge killer.

 

[ausma]

I'll be honest with you, I have very mixed feelings about this thing, especially as I've been getting more and more into the tier. Overall though, I'm super super happy about this suspect, because I have a lot of feelings about this thing I'd like to get on the board.

I'm gonna start with it now; I really do not like Mamoswine. However, unlike with Primarina, Alolatales, and Gyarados, I was much more indecisive on what I feel about it in terms of its actual effect on the tier. With those stricken to BL, it was much more apparent as to what they did to the tier, and how they were inherently difficult to actually prepare for. This being said, I believe that Mamoswine, despite having been a centralizing force prior to Home, was fine, namely because of how easily it was able to be threatened offensively by a lot of the tier, and how it had strong defensive checks in the form of bulky Waters (Vap/Milo/Goliso/Araq) and Bronzong. You had to prepare for it, but what centralizing Pokemon didn't elicit that?

However, once it regained access to Knock Off, it gained the ability to cleave through the things that it once was more effectively walled by. Being able to punish its checks by either removing their item or straight up blowing them away (in Bronzong's case) I feel is the biggest issue at this point, and something that genuinely can be considered suspect worthy. Knocking Weezing's Black Sludge, Vaporeon's Leftovers, and the Bug Trio's Boots are utterly gamechanging since these Pokemon rely on their items to not be whittled down as easily, which Mamoswine greatly capitalizes on. This isn't even bearing in mind its Rocks set, which is usually able to get rocks for free without needing a sash due to its respectable bulk and insane inherent offensive potential; if you telegraph the set wrong, you'll either get smacked with a gamechanging Knock Off, or it'll guaranteed get Rocks on you.

Technically lacking a 100% safe switchin outside of maybe Flame Orb Milotic that's already been burnt is the sign of a Pokemon that goes from centralizing to overcentralizing, and is what I felt personally about Gyarados prior to its ban. My personal banning philosophy regarding centralization causes me to believe that if a team needs specific preparation in order to not be greatly punished in some way or another by a certain Pokemon, then it is overcentralizing and inherently restricting teambuilding and metagame development as a whole.

So, in my opinion, I believe a ban is warranted for the meantime.

 

[ShroomisHarold]

Alright since I'm one of the council member who think that Mamoswine isn't an issue by itself, I'd like to explain my thought process and play the devil’s advocate or in that case the frozen pig's advocate.

While I can't deny that Mamoswine is one of the best and scariest breaker in the tier, I do believe that current trends is what make it even better. Thanks to Lilburr, I've been able to look in depth at SS usages of the first UUPL week and out of a total of 32 teams (16 matchs), we can definitively see that some core are hellah common. Noivern + Incineroar has been used 14 times while Noivern + Bronzong and Bronzong + Incineroar have both been used 11 times. If we look closely at the ladder it's almost the same. The current metagame isn't very diversified because people run some common cores which are able to handle the vast majority of the tier. As Hogg said, people have been spamming Noivern + Bronzong + Incineroar (and most of the time they add a Grass-type like Tsareena or Roserade) because it's almost a "brainless" thing when you're making a team in UU. In my opinion, we're facing the same kind of issue than SSOU where people run the same balanced / defensives cores because they can virtually handle the whole metagame. And in the middle of all of this we have Mamoswine (which has always been a fearsome breaker) which obviously benefits from this trends. I firmly believe most of the people who are complaining about Mamoswine being too good are the people who are running the same core I talked right above. However I don't criticize them for that but I trully think they should try differents builds and see if Mamoswine is as much threatening than when they're using "The Core". Once again, I agree that Mamoswine can be annoying to face but I believe it deserves its place in UU and that it actually brings a lot of utility by being a good offensive Ground-type which is able to outspeed Toxtricity or by being able to pressure some dominent threats such as Haxorus, Roserade, Noivern or Incineroar. I firmly believe players can find good ways to deal with Mamoswine without having to run some gimmick, ⅓ of the players this week who faced a Mamoswine without having a Mamoswine on their own managed to win which kinda shows that it's doable (3 out of 9 times for those who would wonder).

I’m not sure what I’m voting on yet if I managed to get reqs but at the moment, I'm leaning to a vote DNB.

I hope that I was able to explain my point of view on the situation well enough. Thanks for reading, be safe, stay at home.

Hello it is, me ShroomisHarold and MooMoo raises a good point and facility, of discussioning. We must, pontificate to the extent to which this tier will be, Affected by the taking of Mamoswine to Borderline and what Pokemon, would, become, overpowered, as, a, result of the banning. I WARN YOU ALL this must not be analysised in a vacuum, no no, but rather It must be looked in the context of the tier in addition to the above save for this. Who are we to say that Toxitricity, Noivern and the Others become too much, to handle in the tier without the rhincerous? Are we going to spiral into a depression? Of other Pokemon become, too much for this tier also as we do not have Mamoswine to check them? I believe, we need to explore this point please in this thread. This Will, be a hard suspect testing I am sure to pontificate, adn we MUST be careful of all dangers. A fool fails to prepare, and we have to prepare to failure...

 

[Twilight]

I tilted at the end but honestly please lower it to 40 or some shit ;-;

Going to refer to Moute's post because I agree it is apparent that a LOT of builds are becoming extremely formulaic, but I don't think Mamoswine has as much effect on this. Most teams have diverged into revolving around VoltTurn and I don't think the banning of Mamo will shift that other than it being a bit harder to compress the Ground-type. There are so many breakers in this tier that can likewise do the same and that is essentially what I did when laddering. I used Pangoro (With Parting Shot) alongside 3 pivots and I could achieve a similar effect. My point being is that the concept of these VoltTurn teams that most people have gravitated to are just really strong in this meta because our tier lacks a lot of defensive counterplay to things. That's why a lot of them look as they do because Pokemon like Bronzong, Cobalion, Incineroar, and Noivern just compress so much, the latter three can inherently run a pivoting move at their will so running X breaker in the last slot is pretty easy to do.

From my experience, I still don't feel like the Pokemon itself has been too problematic for me but I have come around slightly since last discussing it in the UU discord. The main issue when it comes to Mamoswine is the lack of Ground immunities/resists that can switch in safely and aren't dependant on their item. As many have already pointed out, we are pretty much limited to Golisopod, Galarian Weezing, and unmon Avalugg. Knock Off just has too little drawback, which is what allows Mamoswine to do its job so effectively, especially when every check to it is reliant on their item to do so. For this reason, most games end up coming down to multiple mind games of predicting what a Mamo user is going to click, which is what I deem to be the unhealthiest aspect of the Pokemon. Ice Shard also makes the prediction games a lot more heinous when very few things resist it that can RK Mamoswine with the Speed tier it has.

There will most likely be a lot of repercussions to banning Mamoswine with it being the only offensive Ground-type we have unless you want to count Flygon + being the most effective means for offense to really take on Noivern. I'm still not fully sure whether Mamoswine has a bigger impact on what it provides to teams compared to how much it restricts it. The ability to compress Speed control, Ground-typing, check to Noivern, and breaker into one slot is unparalleled but as it stands I still have mixed feelings on the Pokemon, and I'm not leaning towards any particular direction right now. I'll probably be reading a few of these posts to come to a concise conclusion about it.

 

[Jade]

Will get reqs soon, but I just wanted to make a quick post on this mon. My dear Lilburr has pretty much said my thoughts exactly, so I'll keep it brief. Mamoswine has very little defensive counterplay that isn't screwed over by its STABs + Knock Off. Ice Shard is also amazing priority, despite only being 60 BP when factoring in STAB. The sheer amount of mons that are easily revenge killed are ridiculous. Off the top of my head, the only (viable) Scarfers I can name that don't die to Ice Shard are:

- Scarf's arguably niche and only needs about 40% chip to kill on a max roll from Ice Shard: 252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Heliolisk: 142-169 (53.5 - 63.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.

- Also niche, but takes Ice Shard decently enough: 252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Inteleon: 60-71 (21.3 - 25.2%) -- 0.2% chance to 4HKO.

- This thing actually has potential but I haven't seen it used a lot. Being a scarfer that doesn't revenge Haxorus sucks but if you pair it with a few priority mons then it's not as bad. It also takes Ice Shard well: 252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Passimian: 94-110 (27.5 - 32.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO.

There are probably other mons I'm missing but I can't be bothered to find them. The main reason why I made this post, however, is that I've seen several arguments on here, Discord, and on the PS room about the meta potentially changing for the worse after Mamoswine is gone. I 100% disagree with this. I have several teams without Mamoswine that do perfectly fine vs "problematic" mons such as Noivern and Haxorus. Sure, Mamoswine is a great offensive check to these mons, but it's not the only one. I also don't think that the loss of an offensive Ground-type is that bad, considering you could argue they aren't mandatory at all due to Heliolisk and Toxtricity screwing them anyway. (except Rhyperior in Toxtricity's case)

This reminds me of the SM UU Scizor suspects, where some of the DNB arguments were because things like Mega Altaria and Terrakion would be unbearable. Of course, this is not SM UU. However, I feel like some of these arguments are overstating Mamoswine's effect on the tier. Let's hypothetically think about if Mamoswine was banned:

• Noivern + Incineroar + Bronzong cores get better.
• Things that Mamoswine revenges, such as Haxorus, get better.
• Less Golisopod usage.

These are about the only things I can think about that would change if Mamoswine is banned. For sure there are more things that I am forgetting, but those are the main 3 I can think of right now.

Tl;dr Mamoswine's effect on the meta afterwards if it's banned should not be an argument for banning or not banning it. Instead, the current tier should be our top priority.

 

[Moutemoute]

Just a quick post to clarify something because I've got the bad feeling that some people didn't understand what I was trying to say in my post above.
I don't ask people to think about what will happened if Mamoswine gets banned.

This is not the topic to talk about "what if X mon becomes broken after Mamoswine is banned".
The only thing which I stands for is that Mamoswine may seem too good because of the current trends and the "lazyness" of the teambuilding.

 

[GXE]

Down with progress pig

Edit: Lower reqs to 40 games or somethin that took like 3 hrs playing 2 games at once lol

 

[Freeroamer]

Just finished getting my own reqs (gl for those of you planning to do so over the next few days, this was a tough one) and as of rn my intentions are to vote Ban on Mamoswine.

We've had pokemon in UU before that have had virtually no switchins and that's fine because usually there's some other crippling flaw associated with using them such as they're slow as balls or they serve no notable role when building outside of being a breaker, making them difficult to build functional and consistent teams with. Mamoswine ignores all of that thanks to the general speed de-creep of this generation plus Ice Shard's excellent coverage against our faster offensive pokemon (which includes the best pokemon in the tier) making it hugely beneficial when building as it allows for you to put the pressure back on to the opposing team even if a threat such as Toxtricity does claim one vs you. It's pretty easy to see Mamoswine's influence on the tier in practice as Adaam said, with so many UUPL games becoming dependent on the tie between Mamoswines which players ultimately end up with little choice but to have to go for due to it's presence and lack of available counterplay, as well as it's speed advantage over pretty much every other breaker in the tier.

Some metagame thoughts in general, I think SS UU is in a pretty weird place rn because we have so many offensive threats compared to defensive mons, but even more than that a lot of these offensive pokemon are perfectly capable of making progress even if they do come up against something that on paper should hold them back. The abundance of pivot moves and Knock Off really punishes any attempt at more passive pokemon trying to function and that can be seen in the current metagame with it's constant offense vs offense matchups that UUPL week 1 featured. It's hard to say if there's anything that can really be done about this or whether it's even that bad a thing but it's something that I don't see changing any time soon even if Mamoswine were to get banned, as he's simply the most powerful of a lot of offensive goons that are rocking around. I guess what I'd be hoping for if Mamoswine does get banned would be that it would give people more freedom to explore other breakers and that introduces more variety to the teams we see within the tier, even if they do remain offensive in nature for the most part.

 

[ShroomisHarold]

Just a quick post to clarity something because I've got the bad feeling that some people didn't understand what I was trying to say in my post above.
I don't ask people to think about what will happened if Mamoswine gets banned.

This is not the topic to talk about "what if X mon becomes broken after Mamoswine is banned".
The only thing which I stands for is that Mamoswine may seem too good because of the current trends and the "lazyness" of the teambuilding.

....

Please, accept, my apologies MooMoo. I did not mean to misunderstand you, I wholeassuredly beliefed that the Point being raised in the initial post was to which upon I based, my original post also on the subject... I suppose the saying is, true, better to look the Fool than for ShroomisHarold to speak, and remove, all doubt...

This being said I, like a lot of the Points above. Some good discussions I am, reading.

 

[Chandell]

One aspect of Mamoswine no one has talked about is its ability to run rock coverage. With EdgeQuake coverage although you give up on Ice Shard Mamoswine becomes absolutely impossible to counter. Previous checks commonly said in Golisopod and Araquanid becomes absolutely useless. Even with just knock getting rid of their heavy-duty boots they become shaky, but with Stone Edge they're irrelevant against Mamoswine. Other pokemon which could potentially check Mamoswine, such as Rotom Frost or Rotom Heat (if it drops), get eliminated by stone edge. The only possible counters for Mamoswine are: Rotom Wash, if it drops which is very unlikely, and Slowbro and Alomomola if they return in the dlc. All of these counters do not exist in this tier therefore Mamoswine should be banned. People who rely on their "counter" to Mamoswine not having Stone Edge, if this thing stays there will be people who abuse the tendency for other players not to expect Stone Edge.
252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Stone Edge vs. 236 HP / 0 Def Golisopod: 234-276 (66.8 - 78.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Araquanid: 237-281 (69.9 - 82.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[Skip The Drip]

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

Just so y'all know, this is not where you post your reqs to vote. A thread will be up for that later. You can post your reqs here if you want, but please a) also post it in the other thread later and b) make an informed post on the status of mamoswine in the UnderUsed tier.

 

[Wild Bump]

Just want to say that there are more checks to Mamoswine than mentioned. For instance, Tsareena has the ability Queen Magesty, making all priority moves (including Mamoswine's Ice Shard) not able to be used. If it doesn't have Icicle Crash, then it is countered pretty well by Tsareena (252+ Atk Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tsareena: 66-78 (18.9 - 22.4%) -- possible 5HKO). Another notable check to Mamoswine may be Sawk. It not only takes neutral damage from both of its STAB's, but it also has the ability Sturdy in case Mamo is banded. I've seen a number of Showdown players running around with Sturdy + Counter Sawk and theoretically check it very well. Bronzong can also check it very well with its Levitate ability, and resists Mamoswine's ice attacks. And even if Mamoswine has Knock Off, which most do, Bronzong can use its decent bulk to soak the hit up and hit back with a very powerful Gyro Ball. Last thing I wanted to mention, Rotom-Ice. It has the Levitate ability, and with its ice typing, it resists Mamoswine's ice attacks while having quite similar bulk to Bronzong. After soaking a hit, it can use the move Foul Play to dish out an astounding amount of damage.


Edit: Spelling

 

[Corthius]

Just want to say that there are more checks to Mamoswine than mentioned. For instance, Tsareena has the ability Queen Magesty, making all priority moves (including Mamoswine's Ice Shard) not able to be used. If it doesn't have Icicle Crash, then it is countered pretty well by Tsareena (252+ Atk Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tsareena: 66-78 (18.9 - 22.4%) -- possible 5HKO). Another notable check to Mamoswine may be Sawk. It not only resists both of its STAB's, but it also has the ability Sturdy in case Mamo is banded. I've seen a number of Showdown players running around with Sturdy + Counter Sawk and theoretically check it very well. Bronzong can also check it very well with its Levitate ability, and resists Mamoswine's ice attacks. And even if Mamoswine has Knock Off, which most do, Bronzong can use its decent bulk to soak the hit up and hit back with a very powerful Gyro Ball. Last thing I wanted to mention, Rotom-Ice. It has the Levitate ability, and with its ice typing, it resists Mamoswine's ice attacks while having quite similar bulk to Bronzong. After soaking a hit, it can use the move Foul Play to dish out an astounding amount of damage.


Edit: Spelling

Not sure if Im the victim of the biggest troll in history, but since when does Sawk resist Ice and Ground and why would Mamo not run ICrash?
Also, Frosttom is pretty bad, so I dont see the reson to mention it.

 

[dawnbuster]

Just got done getting my reqs and I’m gonna say that I think Mamoswine should not be banned

Mamoswine while being easily one of the top three best UU Pokémon atm is not overwhelming in my opinion.It has quite a few good checks.Milotic for example is able to not be 2HKOd by even Band variants and deals 72-85.3% with Scald and can Suprise Mamoswine with a Hydro Pump always taking it out after Stealth Rock.Another good Mamoswine counter I’ve used is Cobalion,While it can’t swap in on EQ it can take any other attack.

 

[ausma]

Just want to say that there are more checks to Mamoswine than mentioned. For instance, Tsareena has the ability Queen Magesty, making all priority moves (including Mamoswine's Ice Shard) not able to be used. If it doesn't have Icicle Crash, then it is countered pretty well by Tsareena (252+ Atk Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tsareena: 66-78 (18.9 - 22.4%) -- possible 5HKO). Another notable check to Mamoswine may be Sawk. It not only resists both of its STAB's, but it also has the ability Sturdy in case Mamo is banded. I've seen a number of Showdown players running around with Sturdy + Counter Sawk and theoretically check it very well. Bronzong can also check it very well with its Levitate ability, and resists Mamoswine's ice attacks. And even if Mamoswine has Knock Off, which most do, Bronzong can use its decent bulk to soak the hit up and hit back with a very powerful Gyro Ball. Last thing I wanted to mention, Rotom-Ice. It has the Levitate ability, and with its ice typing, it resists Mamoswine's ice attacks while having quite similar bulk to Bronzong. After soaking a hit, it can use the move Foul Play to dish out an astounding amount of damage.


Edit: Spelling

While your ideas are certainly interesting, I unfortunately have to bring to your attention that a lot of these options are very niche, and serve no purpose outside of checking Mamoswine.

Tsareena: While it's true that Ice Shard can be absorbed due to Queenly Majesty, and that Earthquake is resisted, most if not all Mamoswines outspeed and run Icicle Crash to thrash Tsareena regardless. With a Spin speed boost, it can win the 1v1, but otherwise, it's an extremely unreliable check, as you'd be banking on the Mamoswine to not be running a move that it should be running regardless, since its dual STABs are too threatening to not run.

Sawk: Sawk does not at all resist either one of Mamoswine's STABs, so this is outright wrong. However, while it may be hit to Sturdy and revenge it with Counter, you lose out on running an outright better Fighting type like Cobalion, and you lose out on a Mon as a whole. Plus, if you opt to run HDB to retain your Sash when rocks are up, then the Mamo player isn't going to stay in anyway unless they want to try and net a flinch with Icicle Crash. It's a fun idea, but in practice it's niche and ultimately ineffective since a Mamo player isn't going to stay in on a Sawk that will guaranteed live one hit.

Bronzong: Bronzong does not consistently win the 1v1 regardless of Gyro Ball, and isn't even a guaranteed 2HKO against uninvested Mamoswine. Knock Off is an extremely effective means of dishing damage, and even though it loses out on the 2HKO against Max Physdef, Bronzong loses its only means of recovery on the switch as well as soaking a giant hit. This essentially means that Bronzong can just be beaten down in the late game by a different cleaner regardless.

0 Atk Bronzong Gyro Ball (71 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mamoswine: 168-200 (46.5 - 55.4%) -- 67.6% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Bronzong: 179-213 (52.9 - 63%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

However, if Mamo isn't running Knock Off, this is the one check I do genuinely agree with. But, you can't guarantee that whatsoever, and it goes back to what I said in my original post about it.

Rotom-F: Another niche Pokemon; however, I do agree that it gets a bit of merit out of being run, but not through using Foul Play. Will-O-Wisp is a good way to punish Mamo, however, as mentioned earlier, Mamo's ability to run Stone Edge completely mitigates this role entirely if it is opting to run it. Regardless, though, Rotom-F is another Pokemon it can just punish on the switch with its very strong midground move in Knock Off, and it rails offensive sets that don't often run Will-O-Wisp since Thick Fat provides it a resistance to Blizzard. Foul Play is a move that just shouldn't be run on Rotom, since it's an extremely niche option that only beats Mamoswine (and maybe Doublade?) specifically, and refers back to the idea that Mamoswine promotes niche answers in order to actually be checked effectively.

While you raised fun ideas, unfortunately, I feel they only work against Mamoswine's favor. The whole idea that we need to run specific things in order to effectively check it only circulates back to the idea that its presence is so suffocating that certain things need to be ran to check it, some of which serve no use outside of checking Mamoswine. This concept of needing to come up with specific answers is ultimately what makes certain Pokemon overcentralizing instead of just centralizing. Such things as Runerigus / Steelix / Togedemaru could be argued to be niche picks, however, they serve very useful, beneficial roles that are effective for teams outside of just checking Toxtricity; stuff like Counter HDB Sturdy Sawk and Foul Play Rotom-F are very limited outside of this or are outright outclassed by other Pokemon, and even then aren't actually reliable. This is the fundamental problem surrounding Mamoswine, in my opinion.

 

[ramolost]

Just got done getting my reqs and I’m gonna say that I think Mamoswine should not be banned

Mamoswine while being easily one of the top three best UU Pokémon atm is not overwhelming in my opinion.It has quite a few good checks.Milotic for example is able to not be 2HKOd by even Band variants and deals 72-85.3% with Scald and can Suprise Mamoswine with a Hydro Pump always taking it out after Stealth Rock.Another good Mamoswine counter I’ve used is Cobalion,While it can’t swap in on EQ it can take any other attack.

u realize that u just said mamo was healthy and then named 2 counters : milo, which drops to 2 eq so its not a counter: 252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 196-231 (49.7 - 58.6%) -- 71.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and coba : a STEEL mon who get bopped by eq. im sure u see the error here bud