-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Metagame np: Stage 1: New Rules (Vivillon quickban post #173)
- Thread starter Chloe
- Start date
I wonder how the meta will adapt now that Magneton has been banned. Also in my opinion there are things much more threatening than the QDers, and they might finally revealing themselves now that Magneton has been given the boot.
So I'm sure that there's plenty of things that are going to change with Magneton being removed as it was among the best at every role it attempted (bulky pivot with Eviolite, powerful breaker with Specs, powerful revenge killer with Scarf) but there's one Pokemon in particular that I'll be very interested in seeing the potential of going forward:
Magneton's departure from the tier is absolutely massive for Gabite imo. For the more offensively inclined Stealth Rock sets, it no longer HAS to run bulk to more reliably handle one of the key threats its meant to beat. While, yes, bulk is still nice for the likes of Raichu, Pyroar, and Houndoom, it can now look at much higher Attack and Speed investment with perhaps minimal bulk to avoid certain OHKOs or 2HKOs.
While the offensive set doesn't need as much bulk with Magneton leaving, the RestTalk set now needs next to no Speed investment as previously, it would need to run 76 Speed EVs with a Jolly nature just to more securely handle Magneton. With Basculin still in the tier and the likes of Lycanroc-Midnight, Pyroar, and Vivillon being as potent as ever, Gabite can fully invest in bulk now in an attempt to handle these threats, It still probably wants SpDef so the Fires, Electrics, and Vivillon are better handled, but the fact it can run Careful now may allow it to reach for some benchmarks on the physical side that it simply couldn't afford to go for in the past due to the presence of Magneton and its powerful STAB Analytic Flash Cannons.
So yeah, even though it seems on the surface that Gabite should get worse with the departure of a Pokemon it was among the best at checking, I think it actually benefits overall from Magneton leaving.
While the offensive set doesn't need as much bulk with Magneton leaving, the RestTalk set now needs next to no Speed investment as previously, it would need to run 76 Speed EVs with a Jolly nature just to more securely handle Magneton. With Basculin still in the tier and the likes of Lycanroc-Midnight, Pyroar, and Vivillon being as potent as ever, Gabite can fully invest in bulk now in an attempt to handle these threats, It still probably wants SpDef so the Fires, Electrics, and Vivillon are better handled, but the fact it can run Careful now may allow it to reach for some benchmarks on the physical side that it simply couldn't afford to go for in the past due to the presence of Magneton and its powerful STAB Analytic Flash Cannons.
So yeah, even though it seems on the surface that Gabite should get worse with the departure of a Pokemon it was among the best at checking, I think it actually benefits overall from Magneton leaving.
Also for those who were wondering what set I was using on Glaceon when I found out just about how efficient it is at checking Vivillon, here it is:
Glaceon (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Ice Body
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Calm Mind
- Tera Blast
- Freeze-Dry
- Shadow Ball
Lum Berry exists for the sole reason of denying Sleep Powder shenanigans. Vivillon basically can't do anything against this set, and the fact it usually runs Tera Ground just doesn't help it at all. You get hard-countered by Crabominable though, so if you have aanother mon to handle Crab it shouldn't be much of an issue fior Glaceon to get on the field and start to set up.
Glaceon (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Ice Body
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Calm Mind
- Tera Blast
- Freeze-Dry
- Shadow Ball
Lum Berry exists for the sole reason of denying Sleep Powder shenanigans. Vivillon basically can't do anything against this set, and the fact it usually runs Tera Ground just doesn't help it at all. You get hard-countered by Crabominable though, so if you have aanother mon to handle Crab it shouldn't be much of an issue fior Glaceon to get on the field and start to set up.
Oh boi this is gonna be a long one, Im very disappointed at the results of the last voting slate and I'm going to make my points clear taking on what the voters themselves said and their reasonings behind their votes. Hopefully someone regarding them reads through this thoroughly.
I'm going in order from the ones I need to talk less to the ones I'll address more:
- Part of me is glad this thing is gone. It was my #1 priority but this leads to a bunch of unhealthy situations where broken checked broken. And in reality Magneton was the healthiest mon in the slate among them. So if I knew the outcome woulda been only Magneton ban. I would have prefered none being banned period. Magneton punished Missy coming in, it could tank at least one Basculin hit and kill it, or tank it better with tera and gave actual reasons for Vivillon to commit its own tera. Now they're all kinda roam free.
- My opinion on Vivillon remains the same as in paper its absurd but in practice it needs more positioning that just a click win button. Well constructed teams should have outs against Vivillon rather offensive or defensively. And its not the brokeness of the pokemon that is banworthy but rather the unhealthiness and teambuilding restriction. Nevertheless, I wanna quote some thoughts I wanna argue anyway.
sensei axew said: Vivillon completely relies on Tera to be any kind of useful making it almost a dead slot if you are forced to tera a different Pokemon earlier in the game. Even after tera it's still easily checked defensively by a multitude of viable pokemon such as Rotom-Fan, Sliggoo, and Vigoroth while also being checked by Gogoat, Crabominable, and Ampharos after a tera themselves.
I cannot disagree with this more, Vivillon often doesn't have to commit to tera if the opponent's Steel-type has been weakened. This statement is more than a downgrade for what Vivillon's capabilities are its so obnoxious to me to think someone would say Vivillon its a "dead slot" even if Viv doesn't end up sweeping, opponent has to consider how to handle Vivillon in the endgame carefully so they aint in a snowballing position. The pure pressure of vivillon in team preview is enough to make your playstyle through the game differently. Gogoat, Crab and Ampharos all have to tera in front of it to beat it or phaze it out in Amphy's case. Gogoat specifically runs Rock slide only for Viv matches, cuz otherwise it would run EQ. Sliggoo is unmon, Vigoroth is also mainly run cuz Vivillon exists and fantom can lose in 1v1s if Vivillon has set up already.
Which leads me to another quote. gum said: it can also lose to random tera mons as well; [...] with mons like pyroar, houndoom, dugtrio, and raichu all being able to pressure it well pre-setup, while it usually dies to priority users like sneasel and basculin after minor chip, and most of these (+ haunter) can run choice scarf
I highlight the "random tera mons" cuz this is an argument gum repeats through his reasonings. How tf is that a plausible argument for something being ok? I think this reasoning in the whole scheme of things is generally flawed and shouldn't be taken into consideration as a pokemon's counterplay period. Unless is a common trend, like a pokemon with a certain tera type which is much more benefitial and common than others.
All the pokemon mentioned don't beat Vivillon 1v1 cuz just as gum said, they pressure it before setting up, and the first move Viv user should click is QD, not sleep powder. All of them lose in a 1v1 sceneario after a single QD with no tera for vivillon's part involved. And to end this, all this Vivillon's argument is excluding the Substitute set, which allows Vivillon to beat Steel types without resorting to Tera Blast at all. Including priority users.
Vulpix03 and rien said: "alternative quiver dancers like masquerain has hurt vivillion just enough for me to vote do not ban" and "it simply doesn't have the means to snowball games [...] lilli's sheer power or masq's expansive coverage allow them to."
I disagree with these statements as well. I don't understand how alternative QD users shake the Vivillon dominance in this regard. And the comparison with the competence is not even remotely close. Lilligant is far from being broken as Grass as its main stab is what hurts it the most. Vivillon's initial flying is much much better, and:
252 SpA Vivillon Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 141-166 (41.3 - 48.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Lilligant Giga Drain vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 142-169 (41.6 - 49.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Hurricane BP makes Vivillon as strong as Life orb Lilligant which won't always run. Secondly, unlike Vivillon, Lilligant does rely on tera to beat its counter most of the time, having to choose between rock, ground or fire. Leaving it with a lack of needed coverage that Vivillon doesn't need.
Masquerain on the other hand simply lacks the opportunities that Vivillon has and its coverage its pretty much pointless cuz Vivillon's access to Compound eyes Sleep powder + Hurricane. Its a lot more reliable, and Masquerain doesn't offer coverage against Steel-types. Sure you can beat Rotom-Fan and kinda Sliggoo with Ice Beam, Ok. Not like Vivillon does it already on its own.
Overall I disagree with these statements and sure like I said at the beginning of my reasoning on Vivillon, I stand by my position as this not being quite as stupidly broken as the community makes it to be. As in practice it needs skill and positioning. But that doesn't take out the uncompetitiveness and unhealthiness that it provides to the state of the tier.
Thank god Im done with this part. Im so over with Vivillon talk at this point.
- I'm going straight to the point here. Which I see most council point incorrectly at the target of the problem. Misdreavus ban will not stop spike stacking, in fact I don't think it will hinder it substantially to be remotely meaningful. Let's start:
Chloe said: "i hate this thing's effect on our tier and i really hope it goes. absolutely destroys the potency of our singular removal option. it's responsible for teams being monotonous, and it restricts building an insane degree. the arguments for resulting to drakloak and sandygast once missy goes are silly to me. they're substantially worse, harder to fit mons."
I wanna address a revelation to yall which some may agree or not, I know rien is aware of this. Quaxwell is mid, and its not because of Misdreavus. Quaxwell performs terribly against pretty much any spinblocker that isn't Non-Evio Haunter which gets 2 shoted. And yes, I 100% agree Missy is the best at its role, that being said. That doesn't make the others bad in it. You can simply swap misdreavus after it gets banned for another pokemon that fit that role and it will perform properly. So, Misdreavus doesn't restrict teambuilding imo. I think chloe here is biased on taking other ghosts viability as she herself said that they destroy Quaxwell, so the only role said ghost has to perform is to come repeatedly on Quaxwell. Which Drakloak and Sandygast does, also Eviolite Haunter can do too, which I think it needs more exploration.
sensei axew said: With the recent addition of Vespiquen, the PU tier now has a total of 5 viable spikers that, if paired with Misdreavus, cannot be removed unless you are using a complete shitmon of a defogger like Fletchinder or Drifloon..?
Im surprised that he completely missed out the point when mentioning Vespiquen that, Vespiquen is one of the best ghosts right now. So if you wanna ban Misdreavus, you ought to ban Vespiquen as well imo. Vespiquen literally laughs at Quaxwell and spits on it worst than any other ghost in the tier, and im being serious because if Vespiquen is in a match vs Quaxwell it will literally most certainly tera ghost, and its not a liability at all turning into a better defensive typing with its massive bulk. Quaxwell is such in a weak spot now even if Misdreavus is gone I dont think its a reliable removal.
So, summarizing my take is that Misdreavus is not the problem and won't be the problem of spike stacking, it is just the most solid mon at its job. This narrowed building its certainly a problem that would probably shift to the use of defoggers of HBD spam to see less Quaxwell and therefore less need of spinblockers.
- The 'hottest take' as only one voter vote ban on this, and this is the guy I have the most to talk of. Thankfully, reasonings said pretty much rely on the same arguments and points so I can address them all at once it seems. And hopefully time gives me the right on this one.
Chloe , Shaneghoul and pretty much everyone said: very common and good Pokemon like Gogoat and Quaxwell do a solid job at keeping it in check [...] has to choose between adapt boosting damage to an acceptable level or rock head preventing it from dying two turns in. feels like it either does no damage or dies way too easily.
252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Basculin Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Gogoat: 226-267 (50.2 - 59.3%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Tera Fighting Basculin Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Quaxwell: 190-224 (55.2 - 65.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Nothing much to say about this, but the standard Gogoat and Quaxwell don't check Basculin period. The first is without tera and gogoat has no tera that can save it from that situation because it already resists. Quaxwell calc is with a neutral Adapt Tera Blast, not even a super effective one, which is already ridiculous.
I feel like its "choosing" its more on the special/physical rather than its ability. Cuz that just add onto the versatility that Basuclin has at time of breaking, I see the potential of all 3 abilities viable a plus for its brokeness rather than a minus. Basculin has an stellar speed tier where it outspeeds base 95 so its a monstrous wallbreaker than can punish fat or destroy offense with little positioning and clicking buttons. It will force kills no matter what. Again gum addressing the random teras as an argument its ridiculous to me, as stated before.
gum said: special sets dont hit as hard and also have a weaker aqua jet.
sensei axew said: its frailty+lack of coverage makes it very prediction reliant. It also heavily struggles with choosing its ability
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculin Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ampharos: 202-238 (52.6 - 61.9%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculin Surf vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Assault Vest Crabominable: 196-232 (49.2 - 58.2%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculin Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vespiquen: 184-218 (53.4 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Tera Water Basculin Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Tinkatuff: 160-189 (47.9 - 56.5%) -- 84.8% chance to 2HKO
I don't really know how is special not strong. Besides Gogoat literally nothing comes into Special Basc, and Gogoat gets 2hkod by Phys Wave Crash.
Regarding sensei axew, again I feel he's playing another meta lol. What coverage does Basculin lacks to you that would make it better? We barely have water resist, it doesn't need any coverage to perform. And its not prediction reliant at all unless you have a Cacturne, which still on Basculin's favor cuz it needs to get it right once.
I already addressed how the ability choosing its an addition to its versatility and power rather than a downside.
Shaneghoul said: Additionally, it can have trouble coming in multiple times due to its low bulk and the meta being dominated by spikes, meaning it usually has a hard time putting significant pressure on in a game.
This argument doesn't go with me cuz Basculin is literally one of the best abusers of spikes, putting everything in range of Wave Crash to get less recoil, or in Surf range rather than Hydro miss, which isn't a factor for it to be less broken either. Vespiquen and Gabite are amazing partners for Basculin as they come in what could potentially threaten Basc, the former providing slow pivot, spikes and switch into grass while the latter providing rocks, phazing and volt absorbtion.
Conclusion:
I am shocked and dissappointed at the outcome that the meta is with this voting rn. I think council focused too much in "spike stacking" being the main and seemingly only issue, which led to this voting results. I am afraid that after survey we'll eventually get a suspect on either Vivillon or Basculin, but not both. Meaning the other will roam free making an unenjoyable tier which is the direction is going right now.
I would pray for another slate before a potential suspect goes on but that seems very unlikely. The suspect alone won't solve the meta problems rn.
And I anticipate a Basculin meta post Viv ban after suspect, which I very much dislike.
tl;dr. Magneton good riddance but only if you ban the others, QB Basculin, Suspect Vivillon, DNB Missy.
I am done with my thoughts for now, if I sounded rude at some point I apologize in advance since I wasn't trying to attack anybody, but pointing out my thoughts on the meta with the reasonings given by the voters. Hopefully this drives more discussion, a healthy one. That'd be all ^^
I'm going in order from the ones I need to talk less to the ones I'll address more:
sensei axew said: Vivillon completely relies on Tera to be any kind of useful making it almost a dead slot if you are forced to tera a different Pokemon earlier in the game. Even after tera it's still easily checked defensively by a multitude of viable pokemon such as Rotom-Fan, Sliggoo, and Vigoroth while also being checked by Gogoat, Crabominable, and Ampharos after a tera themselves.
I cannot disagree with this more, Vivillon often doesn't have to commit to tera if the opponent's Steel-type has been weakened. This statement is more than a downgrade for what Vivillon's capabilities are its so obnoxious to me to think someone would say Vivillon its a "dead slot" even if Viv doesn't end up sweeping, opponent has to consider how to handle Vivillon in the endgame carefully so they aint in a snowballing position. The pure pressure of vivillon in team preview is enough to make your playstyle through the game differently. Gogoat, Crab and Ampharos all have to tera in front of it to beat it or phaze it out in Amphy's case. Gogoat specifically runs Rock slide only for Viv matches, cuz otherwise it would run EQ. Sliggoo is unmon, Vigoroth is also mainly run cuz Vivillon exists and fantom can lose in 1v1s if Vivillon has set up already.
Which leads me to another quote. gum said: it can also lose to random tera mons as well; [...] with mons like pyroar, houndoom, dugtrio, and raichu all being able to pressure it well pre-setup, while it usually dies to priority users like sneasel and basculin after minor chip, and most of these (+ haunter) can run choice scarf
I highlight the "random tera mons" cuz this is an argument gum repeats through his reasonings. How tf is that a plausible argument for something being ok? I think this reasoning in the whole scheme of things is generally flawed and shouldn't be taken into consideration as a pokemon's counterplay period. Unless is a common trend, like a pokemon with a certain tera type which is much more benefitial and common than others.
All the pokemon mentioned don't beat Vivillon 1v1 cuz just as gum said, they pressure it before setting up, and the first move Viv user should click is QD, not sleep powder. All of them lose in a 1v1 sceneario after a single QD with no tera for vivillon's part involved. And to end this, all this Vivillon's argument is excluding the Substitute set, which allows Vivillon to beat Steel types without resorting to Tera Blast at all. Including priority users.
Vulpix03 and rien said: "alternative quiver dancers like masquerain has hurt vivillion just enough for me to vote do not ban" and "it simply doesn't have the means to snowball games [...] lilli's sheer power or masq's expansive coverage allow them to."
I disagree with these statements as well. I don't understand how alternative QD users shake the Vivillon dominance in this regard. And the comparison with the competence is not even remotely close. Lilligant is far from being broken as Grass as its main stab is what hurts it the most. Vivillon's initial flying is much much better, and:
252 SpA Vivillon Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 141-166 (41.3 - 48.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Lilligant Giga Drain vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 142-169 (41.6 - 49.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Hurricane BP makes Vivillon as strong as Life orb Lilligant which won't always run. Secondly, unlike Vivillon, Lilligant does rely on tera to beat its counter most of the time, having to choose between rock, ground or fire. Leaving it with a lack of needed coverage that Vivillon doesn't need.
Masquerain on the other hand simply lacks the opportunities that Vivillon has and its coverage its pretty much pointless cuz Vivillon's access to Compound eyes Sleep powder + Hurricane. Its a lot more reliable, and Masquerain doesn't offer coverage against Steel-types. Sure you can beat Rotom-Fan and kinda Sliggoo with Ice Beam, Ok. Not like Vivillon does it already on its own.
Overall I disagree with these statements and sure like I said at the beginning of my reasoning on Vivillon, I stand by my position as this not being quite as stupidly broken as the community makes it to be. As in practice it needs skill and positioning. But that doesn't take out the uncompetitiveness and unhealthiness that it provides to the state of the tier.
Thank god Im done with this part. Im so over with Vivillon talk at this point.
Chloe said: "i hate this thing's effect on our tier and i really hope it goes. absolutely destroys the potency of our singular removal option. it's responsible for teams being monotonous, and it restricts building an insane degree. the arguments for resulting to drakloak and sandygast once missy goes are silly to me. they're substantially worse, harder to fit mons."
I wanna address a revelation to yall which some may agree or not, I know rien is aware of this. Quaxwell is mid, and its not because of Misdreavus. Quaxwell performs terribly against pretty much any spinblocker that isn't Non-Evio Haunter which gets 2 shoted. And yes, I 100% agree Missy is the best at its role, that being said. That doesn't make the others bad in it. You can simply swap misdreavus after it gets banned for another pokemon that fit that role and it will perform properly. So, Misdreavus doesn't restrict teambuilding imo. I think chloe here is biased on taking other ghosts viability as she herself said that they destroy Quaxwell, so the only role said ghost has to perform is to come repeatedly on Quaxwell. Which Drakloak and Sandygast does, also Eviolite Haunter can do too, which I think it needs more exploration.
sensei axew said: With the recent addition of Vespiquen, the PU tier now has a total of 5 viable spikers that, if paired with Misdreavus, cannot be removed unless you are using a complete shitmon of a defogger like Fletchinder or Drifloon..?
Im surprised that he completely missed out the point when mentioning Vespiquen that, Vespiquen is one of the best ghosts right now. So if you wanna ban Misdreavus, you ought to ban Vespiquen as well imo. Vespiquen literally laughs at Quaxwell and spits on it worst than any other ghost in the tier, and im being serious because if Vespiquen is in a match vs Quaxwell it will literally most certainly tera ghost, and its not a liability at all turning into a better defensive typing with its massive bulk. Quaxwell is such in a weak spot now even if Misdreavus is gone I dont think its a reliable removal.
So, summarizing my take is that Misdreavus is not the problem and won't be the problem of spike stacking, it is just the most solid mon at its job. This narrowed building its certainly a problem that would probably shift to the use of defoggers of HBD spam to see less Quaxwell and therefore less need of spinblockers.
Chloe , Shaneghoul and pretty much everyone said: very common and good Pokemon like Gogoat and Quaxwell do a solid job at keeping it in check [...] has to choose between adapt boosting damage to an acceptable level or rock head preventing it from dying two turns in. feels like it either does no damage or dies way too easily.
252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Basculin Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Gogoat: 226-267 (50.2 - 59.3%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Tera Fighting Basculin Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Quaxwell: 190-224 (55.2 - 65.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Nothing much to say about this, but the standard Gogoat and Quaxwell don't check Basculin period. The first is without tera and gogoat has no tera that can save it from that situation because it already resists. Quaxwell calc is with a neutral Adapt Tera Blast, not even a super effective one, which is already ridiculous.
I feel like its "choosing" its more on the special/physical rather than its ability. Cuz that just add onto the versatility that Basuclin has at time of breaking, I see the potential of all 3 abilities viable a plus for its brokeness rather than a minus. Basculin has an stellar speed tier where it outspeeds base 95 so its a monstrous wallbreaker than can punish fat or destroy offense with little positioning and clicking buttons. It will force kills no matter what. Again gum addressing the random teras as an argument its ridiculous to me, as stated before.
gum said: special sets dont hit as hard and also have a weaker aqua jet.
sensei axew said: its frailty+lack of coverage makes it very prediction reliant. It also heavily struggles with choosing its ability
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculin Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ampharos: 202-238 (52.6 - 61.9%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculin Surf vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Assault Vest Crabominable: 196-232 (49.2 - 58.2%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculin Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vespiquen: 184-218 (53.4 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Tera Water Basculin Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Tinkatuff: 160-189 (47.9 - 56.5%) -- 84.8% chance to 2HKO
I don't really know how is special not strong. Besides Gogoat literally nothing comes into Special Basc, and Gogoat gets 2hkod by Phys Wave Crash.
Regarding sensei axew, again I feel he's playing another meta lol. What coverage does Basculin lacks to you that would make it better? We barely have water resist, it doesn't need any coverage to perform. And its not prediction reliant at all unless you have a Cacturne, which still on Basculin's favor cuz it needs to get it right once.
I already addressed how the ability choosing its an addition to its versatility and power rather than a downside.
Shaneghoul said: Additionally, it can have trouble coming in multiple times due to its low bulk and the meta being dominated by spikes, meaning it usually has a hard time putting significant pressure on in a game.
This argument doesn't go with me cuz Basculin is literally one of the best abusers of spikes, putting everything in range of Wave Crash to get less recoil, or in Surf range rather than Hydro miss, which isn't a factor for it to be less broken either. Vespiquen and Gabite are amazing partners for Basculin as they come in what could potentially threaten Basc, the former providing slow pivot, spikes and switch into grass while the latter providing rocks, phazing and volt absorbtion.
Conclusion:
I am shocked and dissappointed at the outcome that the meta is with this voting rn. I think council focused too much in "spike stacking" being the main and seemingly only issue, which led to this voting results. I am afraid that after survey we'll eventually get a suspect on either Vivillon or Basculin, but not both. Meaning the other will roam free making an unenjoyable tier which is the direction is going right now.
I would pray for another slate before a potential suspect goes on but that seems very unlikely. The suspect alone won't solve the meta problems rn.
And I anticipate a Basculin meta post Viv ban after suspect, which I very much dislike.
tl;dr. Magneton good riddance but only if you ban the others, QB Basculin, Suspect Vivillon, DNB Missy.
I am done with my thoughts for now, if I sounded rude at some point I apologize in advance since I wasn't trying to attack anybody, but pointing out my thoughts on the meta with the reasonings given by the voters. Hopefully this drives more discussion, a healthy one. That'd be all ^^
Last edited:
Just want to give a quick response to the above. Some members of the council did focus on spike stack, I however did not.
The reason I voted dnb for vivillion is because basculins addition to the tier and it's access to strong priority coupled with masquerain giving it some competition makes it not quick ban worthy in my eyes, yet.
As for basculin, I just don't believe it to be broken. SV pu at the moment is just "hazards the tier" and basculin is worn down very quickly by them. Yes, it is stupid strong, but I don't believe it to be unhealthy. Just a strong breaker that breaks.
And to address magneton. Yes, it was a "broken that checks brokens". I think it's unfair to some mons to assume that magneton leaving will make them overbearing. If in a week or two's time we decide that stuff is too much with magneton gone, then we can take appropriate action.
The reason I voted dnb for vivillion is because basculins addition to the tier and it's access to strong priority coupled with masquerain giving it some competition makes it not quick ban worthy in my eyes, yet.
As for basculin, I just don't believe it to be broken. SV pu at the moment is just "hazards the tier" and basculin is worn down very quickly by them. Yes, it is stupid strong, but I don't believe it to be unhealthy. Just a strong breaker that breaks.
And to address magneton. Yes, it was a "broken that checks brokens". I think it's unfair to some mons to assume that magneton leaving will make them overbearing. If in a week or two's time we decide that stuff is too much with magneton gone, then we can take appropriate action.
i may respond to this post a bit more later when i have time but just wanted to get this point in real quick
I do understand what you are saying but please remember vespiquen is not a ghost type. Vespiquen is good but it’s not that great by any means and generally, unless it’s late game and will cause a 100% win, tera ghosting vespiquen to spinblock quaxwell will result in biting the user in the ass later on in the game wishing they didn’t use their tera. A good, well built team will not have their mons so weak to hazards that a tera ghosted B rank mon at best will cause them to lose. Instead, they now have the advantage of not having used their tera and having the opponent used theirs. Oh and also encore quax doesn’t really get spinblocked efficiently by Vespiquen anyway. Misdreavus, on the other hand, permawalls Quaxwell thanks to being faster and access to Will-O-Wisp, while not having to use a tera. Furthermore, you ignored the fact that Misdreavus has a dominating offensive presence as well which was also a huge factor in my decision.
All being said, I also do hope this post and my response sparks some metagame discussion!
I do understand what you are saying but please remember vespiquen is not a ghost type. Vespiquen is good but it’s not that great by any means and generally, unless it’s late game and will cause a 100% win, tera ghosting vespiquen to spinblock quaxwell will result in biting the user in the ass later on in the game wishing they didn’t use their tera. A good, well built team will not have their mons so weak to hazards that a tera ghosted B rank mon at best will cause them to lose. Instead, they now have the advantage of not having used their tera and having the opponent used theirs. Oh and also encore quax doesn’t really get spinblocked efficiently by Vespiquen anyway. Misdreavus, on the other hand, permawalls Quaxwell thanks to being faster and access to Will-O-Wisp, while not having to use a tera. Furthermore, you ignored the fact that Misdreavus has a dominating offensive presence as well which was also a huge factor in my decision.
All being said, I also do hope this post and my response sparks some metagame discussion!
Last edited:
I meant any pokemon that commonly runs a tera-type that beats vivillon. counterplay with tera around isn't as simple as "I have a typing advantage over x, so I should win". my entire point was that, as a pokemon as frail as the butterfly is, your matchups are especially not as straightforward as they look; pokemon like gogoat and misdreavus use tera types that can beat vivillon and make it potentially kind of useless in certain matchups. tera, and so the interactions it causes, should absolutely be taken into consideration when it comes to tiering. your other point does very little to refute what I said anyway, which is that it's possible to offensively pressure vivillon so it can't get setup opportunities, and, if it does, we have plenty of choice scarf & priority users that can take it on. the substitute set does not beat any steel-types; tinkatuff very commonly runs encore and breaks your substitute, while u need good sleep rolls vs perrserker. plus, that same set ends up struggling way more vs our electric- and rock-types if anything has been put to sleep already. it's a very matchup fishy set that's not even particularly rewarding when comparing it to the qd sleep powder 2 attacks set
you cannot compare misdreavus and the other ghosts. I think your statement is true if we're only looking at spin blocking abilities, but the entire point is that misdreavus is simply a much better pokemon; the other options you listed either lack recovery (haunter), or are passive, momentum-sinking pokemon that offer little outside of making sure hazards stay up (drakloak, sandygast). punishing them is way easier, and they're nowhere as splashable as misdreavus currently is right now. misdreavus leaving would make spikes stack significantly easier to punish, as the play style would have to turn to worse pokemon. ideally, a misdreavus ban would free up building, as, currently, its spin blocking abilities when combined with its offensive presence and amazing utility restrict what u can do in the builder a lot
I never said that it doesn't hit hard, I said it's weaker than physical sets. but I do think its versatility is a downside in a way; it's a pokemon that'll have to give up important matchups to beat certain of its answers. for example, the specs set has a much weaker priority, which means it requires more support tackling certain things - the same can be said about physical sets; choice band dies very quickly between wave crash, priority, faster pokemon (although aqua jet helps with this a bit), rough skin, and hazards being everywhere, while boots sets are considerably weaker (etc with scarf and whatever other item u want to use on it). there's no catch-all set, and it'll struggle with something no matter what. from my experience using, facing, and seeing this pokemon in action, I simply do not believe it's a bad or broken addition to the tier and I see it rather as a healthy addition that helps us keep certain pokemon in check and well, is good at breaking. also, @ the tera point again, I mean pokemon that can very feasibly run tera dragon / water, like vespiquen and crabominable, as well as faster offensive pokemon like pyroar and houndoom that can tera grass to punish a basculin trying to revenge kill them. these interactions are all very important to how the meta gets played out and I think we'd be doing a disservice to tiering by simply ignoring tera
---
as a general reply to your post, please tone the hostility down. it's not necessary, and, if anything, just hurts what you're arguing for. and also, cherrypicking bits and pieces of what others say to deconstruct their arguments and strip them of any nuance / context to prove your own point is not an effective way of having a constructive discussion. I've tried to reply to all the parts I thought were relevant to what I said. council will be voting on what to do after the survey concludes, and I'm personally more than willing to vote to quickban vivillon/basculin if that's what the vast majority wants, but there's a way to have meaningful conversations even when you're unhappy with the results
As someone that's been around since late BW1 / early BW2, I feel I'm among the more qualified to say this:
Not everyone is going to share your opinion on things. It can be frustrating at times, and as a former council member myself (in XY and ORAS RU) it's important to understand that others aren't going to see things the same way you do at times. It can be frustrating at times, sure, but it's also important to listen to their reasons and understand their point of view. Take this vote for example: I personally believe that Vivillon should have been removed because of the strain it causes on teambuilding due to access to Sleep Powder and incredible coverage through Tera. That said, I can also understand and respect the argument of its reliance on Tera being enough of an issue to consider at the present moment even if I don't necessarily agree with it. It's important to remember that if a council member is voting on a Pokemon, it means that they've used it and / or faced it enough to form a decisive opinion on the Pokemon in question. Otherwise, they will abstain from voting on that particular Pokemon. Just remember that you don't have to agree with an opinion to respect it. We can agree to disagree on certain things and if it turns out that Vivillon is indeed too much of an issue in a meta w/o Magneton, I have full confidence the council will revisit it, because that's part of what being in a tiering council is for; to revisit Pokemon if the need arises whether it be to retest or revote for a ban. In fact, Magneton itself is a perfect example of this. It was voted on before and kept in the tier, but the meta kept developing and the council revisited it because it had shown itself to be a bit too unhealthy for the meta and it got removed.
Now, on to some other Pokemon I can see benefitting from Mag being removed:
: With a great defensive typing and pretty good Speed, I think this deserves a lot more exploration now. Being kind of restricted to boots bc of hazard removal options being, uh, lackluster is a little lame as Scarf would be quite nice, but having an offensive pivot that can boost up and sweep late-game is really neat. Or you could lean more into its solid typing to make Rotom-Fan a great support pivot that can spread burns or paralysis for its team.
: Can this thing finally check Electrics reliably? Eh, that's a bit debatable, but it certainly appreciates the strongest Electric being gone. It already got a little better with Rotom-Frost leaving (sure, it's weak to Fire, but STAB Blizzard on the switch is not fun) and Magneton leaving too makes it a little better too. It still has severe longevity issues, as do most grounded mons right now, but a Volt Switch block when the likes of Raichu, Rotom-Fan, and Electrode are running around is not a bad thing. It can set up Rocks, spread burns with Lava Plume, hinder setup with Yawn, and smack opposing Fires with Earth Power. Gabite is still better for sure, but Camerupt's tools are solid and less offensive pressure on a Pokemon with longevity problems is never a bad thing.
: This thing's good. Like, really good. It dumpsters the Spikers in the tier to make them hard to feel safe with, and the Grounds aren't too much better off. It unfortunately is going to suffer from 4MSS because it wants all of TBolt Surf Tera Blast Ice Sub (for Sucker Punch) Volt Switch and Nasty Plot but if you just give it TBolt to start with and fill out the rest of its moveset after you finish out the rest of your team, it can kind of just have the moveset your team needs. Need a wallbreaker? Slap a pair of Specs on and go to town. Need your speed Pokemon to have play against Sucker Punch users? Substitute works fine. Need a powerful sweeper? Nasty Plot up and win. Want to feign a Choice item? Expert Belt or Magnet with 4 attacking moves works well enough.
: You might want to enjoy using this while you can as I suspect NU will take it next month with Copperajah's rise to RU. While Magneton was an Electric type breaker for the most part, it did use its Steel typing to take some hits in the process and Perrserker is the closest we'll get to that. Similar to how Magneton could run Eviolite or Choice Specs, Perrserker can utilize Assault Vest or Choice Band depending on what the team needs from it more. If bulk is more necessary, Assault Vest is the choice while Choice Band cranks up the power to 11. Tough Claws U-turn is a pretty potent tool in the current meta thanks to the prevalence of entry hazards and there's plenty of good momentum partners to put it with; Rotom-Fan, Electrode, Raboot and Raichu being the main ones. Like with many grounded mons, you could run HDB over Assault Vest (or other defensive-based item) to combat entry hazards. I think Stealth Rock on it is a complete waste of its talents when Tinkatuff and Gabite are around to reliably set it up.
Not everyone is going to share your opinion on things. It can be frustrating at times, and as a former council member myself (in XY and ORAS RU) it's important to understand that others aren't going to see things the same way you do at times. It can be frustrating at times, sure, but it's also important to listen to their reasons and understand their point of view. Take this vote for example: I personally believe that Vivillon should have been removed because of the strain it causes on teambuilding due to access to Sleep Powder and incredible coverage through Tera. That said, I can also understand and respect the argument of its reliance on Tera being enough of an issue to consider at the present moment even if I don't necessarily agree with it. It's important to remember that if a council member is voting on a Pokemon, it means that they've used it and / or faced it enough to form a decisive opinion on the Pokemon in question. Otherwise, they will abstain from voting on that particular Pokemon. Just remember that you don't have to agree with an opinion to respect it. We can agree to disagree on certain things and if it turns out that Vivillon is indeed too much of an issue in a meta w/o Magneton, I have full confidence the council will revisit it, because that's part of what being in a tiering council is for; to revisit Pokemon if the need arises whether it be to retest or revote for a ban. In fact, Magneton itself is a perfect example of this. It was voted on before and kept in the tier, but the meta kept developing and the council revisited it because it had shown itself to be a bit too unhealthy for the meta and it got removed.
Now, on to some other Pokemon I can see benefitting from Mag being removed:
Okay so I theorymoned on Glaceon a bit overnight and umm... I think this thing needs to leave the tier. Because with Tera it can become way more unpredictable than other Tera abusers in the tier. Not only does it pack the highest SpA in the entire tier, despite it being held back by a horrible defensive typing and a low base Speed stat, and only Crabominable can somewhat consistently check most Tera variants, and the fact that you basically need a Pokemon in particular (2 if Rotom-Frost ever comes back to PU) should speak to how dangerous Glaceon can be. I'll quickly go over the Tera TYpes that I think Glaceon can take advantage of the most
Electric: Yes we have practically one too many Electric types, so it seems kinda unnecessary. But what about an Electric Type that, with Specs Tera Electric Tera Blast, can hit harder than Specs Raichu Thunderbolt? Because that's exactly what can Glaceon do with Tera Electric. However, unlike Raichu, who suffers from 4MSS, Glaceon has enough coverage to make both non-Tera Ground Types and Tera ones regret switching into it, as with Choice Specs it has Water Pulse to 2HKO Specially Defensive Camerupt (while also naturally outspeeding it) and the plethora of Ice Type moves to check the rest. It can be even more dangerous with Calm Mind, but it suffers from 4MSS itself should it try to fit CM itno it's moveset.
Ghost: If I had to resume it in a nutshell, I'd say it's basically Quaxwell's worst nightmare. Sure Tera Ghost Vespiquen is a solid spinblocker with Tera, but what if you want to dispatch Quaxwell almost immediately with a move that can also hit Defoggers such as Dartrix hard? Well look no further because Glaceon can do it pretty well with Tera Ghost. And unlike with Tera Electric, it doesn't really need Tera Blast due to already packing Shabow Ball and gaining STAB on it with Tera, and can therefore toy with other options, like the more unreliable Mud Shot to inflict a Speed Drop on anything that isn't a Flying Type and to hit Skuntank super effectively. You also completely blank Crabominable's Drain Punch too, which is very nice. Oh and it can still have Water Oulse in case Fletchinder starts to become popular as well.
Ground: I think this Tera Type already proved itself to be a good one since the start of PU, so I'll just resume it. Very good against Electric Types and can completely block Volt Switch, but it's one of the variants that is easier to check, and even without using Crabominable, with things like Basculin, Gogoat, Quaxwell or Raichu. Also, Tera Ground makes Mud Shotmuch better since it raises it's BP due to being a move below 60 BP.
Fighting: I talked about it before, as it's the only set that can more or less reliably handle Crabominable, however while theorymoning I discovered that it can no longer handle Vivillon once Glaceon goes Tera Fighting due to being OHKOed by even an unboosted Hurricane, but it can somewhat stilldispatch Vivillon before undergoing Tera for a Tera Blast that pretty much 2HKOes the vast majority of the tier apart from Eviolite Tinkatuff who gets 3HKOed by it instead. In fact, Crabominable needs to run Tera Fairy just so it can live Tera Fighting Tera Blast. Also, Tera Fighting, in addition of flipping it's SR weakness into a resistance, can let it not die to Perrserker's Steel STAB and completely flip the script on it, as well as naturally outspeeding it too.
Water: The most common Tera Type for some reason, and I can see why. It gets a much needed better defensive typing, and Tera Water Tera Blast hits harder than Water Pulse. It can somehow live hits from some of the scariest mons in the tier, such as non-banded Basculin's Wave Crash, and with Assault Vest, it can even survive unboosted Raichu's Thunderbolt. Mud Shot can act as coverage agaisnt the many Electric Types in the tier, and while it's got a lo BP, it won't really matter when you have a base SpA of 130, that is until Rotion-Frost comes back in the tier.
Ice: Four words to describe this: Specs Tera Ice Blizzard. A more niche variant due to the fact that it doesn't change it's typing at all, but the raw power of Specs Blizzard in conjunction with Tera Ice makes for a move that looks very scary to switch into for anything not named Crabominable orThick Fat Grumpig, the latter not being too fond of Shabow Ball.
So overall, it's got some pros and cons on a lot of Tera Types, all of which have for the most part somewhat different checks, and even then it can still surprise you with a Tera Type that wasn't discussed here, such as maybe Tera Fire. So yeah it might pack a horrible defensive typing and it's slower than moat of the breakers in the tier, but it's unpredictability with Tera can more or less make up for those drawbacks.
Electric: Yes we have practically one too many Electric types, so it seems kinda unnecessary. But what about an Electric Type that, with Specs Tera Electric Tera Blast, can hit harder than Specs Raichu Thunderbolt? Because that's exactly what can Glaceon do with Tera Electric. However, unlike Raichu, who suffers from 4MSS, Glaceon has enough coverage to make both non-Tera Ground Types and Tera ones regret switching into it, as with Choice Specs it has Water Pulse to 2HKO Specially Defensive Camerupt (while also naturally outspeeding it) and the plethora of Ice Type moves to check the rest. It can be even more dangerous with Calm Mind, but it suffers from 4MSS itself should it try to fit CM itno it's moveset.
Ghost: If I had to resume it in a nutshell, I'd say it's basically Quaxwell's worst nightmare. Sure Tera Ghost Vespiquen is a solid spinblocker with Tera, but what if you want to dispatch Quaxwell almost immediately with a move that can also hit Defoggers such as Dartrix hard? Well look no further because Glaceon can do it pretty well with Tera Ghost. And unlike with Tera Electric, it doesn't really need Tera Blast due to already packing Shabow Ball and gaining STAB on it with Tera, and can therefore toy with other options, like the more unreliable Mud Shot to inflict a Speed Drop on anything that isn't a Flying Type and to hit Skuntank super effectively. You also completely blank Crabominable's Drain Punch too, which is very nice. Oh and it can still have Water Oulse in case Fletchinder starts to become popular as well.
Ground: I think this Tera Type already proved itself to be a good one since the start of PU, so I'll just resume it. Very good against Electric Types and can completely block Volt Switch, but it's one of the variants that is easier to check, and even without using Crabominable, with things like Basculin, Gogoat, Quaxwell or Raichu. Also, Tera Ground makes Mud Shotmuch better since it raises it's BP due to being a move below 60 BP.
Fighting: I talked about it before, as it's the only set that can more or less reliably handle Crabominable, however while theorymoning I discovered that it can no longer handle Vivillon once Glaceon goes Tera Fighting due to being OHKOed by even an unboosted Hurricane, but it can somewhat stilldispatch Vivillon before undergoing Tera for a Tera Blast that pretty much 2HKOes the vast majority of the tier apart from Eviolite Tinkatuff who gets 3HKOed by it instead. In fact, Crabominable needs to run Tera Fairy just so it can live Tera Fighting Tera Blast. Also, Tera Fighting, in addition of flipping it's SR weakness into a resistance, can let it not die to Perrserker's Steel STAB and completely flip the script on it, as well as naturally outspeeding it too.
Water: The most common Tera Type for some reason, and I can see why. It gets a much needed better defensive typing, and Tera Water Tera Blast hits harder than Water Pulse. It can somehow live hits from some of the scariest mons in the tier, such as non-banded Basculin's Wave Crash, and with Assault Vest, it can even survive unboosted Raichu's Thunderbolt. Mud Shot can act as coverage agaisnt the many Electric Types in the tier, and while it's got a lo BP, it won't really matter when you have a base SpA of 130, that is until Rotion-Frost comes back in the tier.
Ice: Four words to describe this: Specs Tera Ice Blizzard. A more niche variant due to the fact that it doesn't change it's typing at all, but the raw power of Specs Blizzard in conjunction with Tera Ice makes for a move that looks very scary to switch into for anything not named Crabominable orThick Fat Grumpig, the latter not being too fond of Shabow Ball.
So overall, it's got some pros and cons on a lot of Tera Types, all of which have for the most part somewhat different checks, and even then it can still surprise you with a Tera Type that wasn't discussed here, such as maybe Tera Fire. So yeah it might pack a horrible defensive typing and it's slower than moat of the breakers in the tier, but it's unpredictability with Tera can more or less make up for those drawbacks.
sorry to be the one with the one-liner response, but it's been a month and a half into the metagame and at this point you need actual experience with a mon (and preferably some high quality replays too, which don't necessarily have to be yours) to claim that it's broken. glaceon is hardly even a top 30 mon in the tier right now and theorymoning is not what's gonna convince me otherwise
Been a busy long weekend but submitted in the tiering survey. I support looking at action on all 3 presented options (Basculin, Vivillon and Misdreavus).
I'm glad that Misdreavus coming up indicates a clear focus on handling the fairly overwhelming nature of spikes stacking in the tier. My ratings on enjoyment etc were relatively low because the tier is quite monotonous in how much it favours offense and particularly hazard stacking offense, so any moves to handle this are welcomed. It's clear Missy is the biggest untouchable part of the spikes offense package, how much that package actually loses by replacing with a worse ghost or Tera option is the next question that follows that.
Basculin and Vivillon may be easier to talk about taking action on as they don't need to be viewed as holistically, being simply individual mons that are either a problem or they aren't. I still feel that you have to overprepare to properly handle Vivillon, and Basculin needs a little more time to examine but honestly feels just too variable to be healthy in PU.
I'd like to add an extra slightly unrelated comment, but I feel a little disheartened to see some of the response to AstilCodex 's post above. It's not that I feel their post wasn't taken seriously, but to call their post aggressive or hostile when they couched their post in quite a lot of caveats to try to make it less hostile - that feels like people are taking the fact they singled out some comments personally when really they just wanted to voice their disagreement on the reasoning. I'm concerned about seeing not awfully hostile disagreement being tone policed, we're a relatively small community here in PU with not a lot of forum activity and I'd hate to see what discussion we have stifled further by worrying too much about how we're coming across.
PS Glaceon is mid af and will stay mid forever
I'm glad that Misdreavus coming up indicates a clear focus on handling the fairly overwhelming nature of spikes stacking in the tier. My ratings on enjoyment etc were relatively low because the tier is quite monotonous in how much it favours offense and particularly hazard stacking offense, so any moves to handle this are welcomed. It's clear Missy is the biggest untouchable part of the spikes offense package, how much that package actually loses by replacing with a worse ghost or Tera option is the next question that follows that.
Basculin and Vivillon may be easier to talk about taking action on as they don't need to be viewed as holistically, being simply individual mons that are either a problem or they aren't. I still feel that you have to overprepare to properly handle Vivillon, and Basculin needs a little more time to examine but honestly feels just too variable to be healthy in PU.
I'd like to add an extra slightly unrelated comment, but I feel a little disheartened to see some of the response to AstilCodex 's post above. It's not that I feel their post wasn't taken seriously, but to call their post aggressive or hostile when they couched their post in quite a lot of caveats to try to make it less hostile - that feels like people are taking the fact they singled out some comments personally when really they just wanted to voice their disagreement on the reasoning. I'm concerned about seeing not awfully hostile disagreement being tone policed, we're a relatively small community here in PU with not a lot of forum activity and I'd hate to see what discussion we have stifled further by worrying too much about how we're coming across.
PS Glaceon is mid af and will stay mid forever
gum’s post did not say he was hostile because he disagreed with council. instead, they mentioned how he nitpicked certain parts of every councilman’s reasoning and pretty blatantly explained why they were wrong with back up evidence and calculation that were honestly not that relevant for the most part. there’s a huge difference between disagreeing with council, obviously allowed and encouraged, and tagging everyone to explain, in simple terms, why our votes sucked and how we should be changing our opinions and focus. i won’t speak for the rest of council but as for me, i felt hostility multiple times throughout well his entire post.
the reason i’m saying all of this is because us as council extremely appreciate metagame posts and discussion as it makes us happy that people are actively participating in a tier we both love and manage. however, we don’t appreciate being publicly ridiculed for our own opinions just because someone disagrees. coming from someone who has acted like this before, it is not the way to handle disappointment in tiering action. therefore, gum was not trying to “silence” anyone because they disagree. instead, they and I were just mentioning to make sure to not nitpick certain small parts of arguments without considering everything, as that could make us look inherently pretty bad and make sure if you’re going to do so, don’t throw in random insults here and there.
that being said, we are currently monitoring the tiering survey and we will take action on certain things if it garners enough support by the pu community so make sure to fill it out if you haven’t done so already. we’ve already got a record high amount of responses and we’re so happy to see this!
Last edited:
I'll come to AstilCodex's defence here because the response to their post has been "interesting" so to speak. Him and I are fellow BDSP PU council members and I've gotten to interact with them throughout BDSP's lifespan. They're a passionate player when it comes to PU as a whole.
Now going onto this hostility point that was brought up against them. Am I the only one who's not really seeing it? Other than making a comment that sensei axew is playing a different meta (which can be taken badly I won't deny that) or saying "How tf is that a plausible argument for something being ok? I think this reasoning in the whole scheme of things is generally flawed and shouldn't be taken into consideration as a pokemon's counterplay period." in terms of responding to gum's point regarding Viv's reliance on tera, I think the post stayed within the realm of just being a passionate yet well-constructed post since they clearly care a lot about this tier and there was no "public ridiculing" that I could see personally other than one comment coming a long post like that. He might've not needed to tag you guys either like sensei axew mentioned but yeah.
I also wouldn't count Codex "nitpicking" your arguments as nitpicking. Nitpicking would be if I went to respond to every sentence of your reasonings for the recent slate and said I disagreed with x and I disagreed with y. 8 points were quoted between the 7 voters and maybe you could argue they might've gotten pedantic on the Basculin points but calling their post nitpicking the council's points is honestly far from it in my personal opinion. Also, idk if EonX's disclaimer was aimed at the council or Codex but if it was at the latter, it is being implied that Codex was not being respectful to the opinions of the council which again, I personally cannot see how it viewed that way but if council did feel as if they weren't being respected (which is the case), like Aurist mentioned, Codex literally said this "if I sounded rude at some point I apologize in advance since I wasn't trying to attack anybody, but pointing out my thoughts on the meta with the reasonings given by the voters."
In other news, I'm going to have an "exclusive interview" with Codex where we're going to discuss the meta. Will I bring up the response that some had to their post? Yes. Will be on my Youtube
Now going onto this hostility point that was brought up against them. Am I the only one who's not really seeing it? Other than making a comment that sensei axew is playing a different meta (which can be taken badly I won't deny that) or saying "How tf is that a plausible argument for something being ok? I think this reasoning in the whole scheme of things is generally flawed and shouldn't be taken into consideration as a pokemon's counterplay period." in terms of responding to gum's point regarding Viv's reliance on tera, I think the post stayed within the realm of just being a passionate yet well-constructed post since they clearly care a lot about this tier and there was no "public ridiculing" that I could see personally other than one comment coming a long post like that. He might've not needed to tag you guys either like sensei axew mentioned but yeah.
I also wouldn't count Codex "nitpicking" your arguments as nitpicking. Nitpicking would be if I went to respond to every sentence of your reasonings for the recent slate and said I disagreed with x and I disagreed with y. 8 points were quoted between the 7 voters and maybe you could argue they might've gotten pedantic on the Basculin points but calling their post nitpicking the council's points is honestly far from it in my personal opinion. Also, idk if EonX's disclaimer was aimed at the council or Codex but if it was at the latter, it is being implied that Codex was not being respectful to the opinions of the council which again, I personally cannot see how it viewed that way but if council did feel as if they weren't being respected (which is the case), like Aurist mentioned, Codex literally said this "if I sounded rude at some point I apologize in advance since I wasn't trying to attack anybody, but pointing out my thoughts on the meta with the reasonings given by the voters."
In other news, I'm going to have an "exclusive interview" with Codex where we're going to discuss the meta. Will I bring up the response that some had to their post? Yes. Will be on my Youtube
Last edited:
Hello, I'd appreciate if we returned to discussing the metagame instead of being absolutely enthralled by one paragraph at the end of a gum post, that has somehow developed into this big thing. Whether Basculin, Misdreavus or Vivillon deserve to go is an important discussion to have! Instead of us arguing whether someone I asked not to be abrasive in advance, who acknowledged their posts can come off this way (in both the Discord and in their post), and is now vehemently refusing to budge on the fact that their post may be construed that way (correctly or incorrectly). That being said, this is not a discussion I would like to have, and would prefer we please get back to the metagame discussion this thread is intended for. If you absolutely want to have the time of your life discussing whether a post came off as hostile or not, please do that in the Discord or in DMs or something, just not in the thread.
-
I believe my personal opinions on certain threats have developed substantially over the last few days, and I'd like to talk about that. I've played a ton of post Magneton-ban PU by now, and I'd like to address this a little to beef up the post a little bit.
This Pokemon really should've gone. It's so much worse than anything else in the tier, and requires defensive terastallization to effectively deal with it in almost all instances. I cannot believe that we are still allowing this Pokemon in the metagame. It is in my opinion by far the biggest issue with the tier that we can control, yet we're allowing it to stay. That sucks to me, I really really wish it was gone. I've gone off ad nauseum about my issues with this Pokemon, so I won't dwell on it longer.
While I'm still of the opinion that Misdreavus's effect on the tier is not a positive one per se, I don't believe banning it is the solution anymore. Like many have pointed out, Quaxwell is just pretty mediocre. I've found myself able to build efficient teams again just by spamming HDB, relying less on grounded Eviolite defensive Pokemon, and just overall recognising my issues with a lot of Pokemon I'd been accustomed to using in the past. I do hope we get more removal in future, but I also don't think this lack of removal makes playing the metagame as much of a chore as I did in the past.
I think this Pokemon is actually pretty cool. It's definitely a top tier breaker, but one I still don't believe crosses the threshhold of broken. While its defensive counterplay to all of its sets in tandem is limited, most of its sets in my experience struggle to effectively show anything out of the norm. I have been running mixed defenses Gogoat since day 1 of the tier, and I'm yet to regret it. Even when I'm not running that, I'm of the opinion that I can definitely see some of the arguments some (a very vocal few) have with this Pokemon, but I'm yet to see it really stand out as a broken breaker. I understand that in a vacuum its calcs look outstanding, and that on paper its defensive counterplay is limited beyond what's acceptable; however, I really do want more time with it. It's yet to show itself as a broken breaker to me.
My stance on the playability of the metagame has improved drastically over the last week. I still really want Vivillon gone, and I hope we can make that happen in the near future. Otherwise, I'm a big fan of the current metagame actually. I've been having a blast.
-
I believe my personal opinions on certain threats have developed substantially over the last few days, and I'd like to talk about that. I've played a ton of post Magneton-ban PU by now, and I'd like to address this a little to beef up the post a little bit.
My stance on the playability of the metagame has improved drastically over the last week. I still really want Vivillon gone, and I hope we can make that happen in the near future. Otherwise, I'm a big fan of the current metagame actually. I've been having a blast.
Piggybacking off of Chloe's post, I've been having a lot of fun playing PU after Magneton's ban, and my opinion on some of the other Pokemon on the slate has either softened or changed completely (this second part mainly refers to Basculin, I don't think it's nearly as unhealthy as I made it out to be before).
However, what I actually want to talk about is some of the other winners and losers of the Magneton ban, since I really liked EonX's post on the topic.Enjoy the unorganized rambling.
I like that you're allowed to be more flexible with Gabite's EV spread now that it doesn't need to either outspeed or dodge the 2HKO from Magneton specifically. The other Electric-types need to be Tera Ice to pose anywhere near as big a threat to Gabite as Magneton did, which means you can often check them without giving up the ability to deal with something like Lycanroc-N or (in a pinch) Houndoom. I don't think Magneton made Gabite worse necessarily (it was a top ten mon before, imo, and still is now), but it feels easier to use now, I guess.
I've seen people vouch for Sliggoo before, but I really didn't like how Magneton walled it (unless you ran Mud Shot) and that Crabominable always forced it out, even if you used Curse once or twice. With Magneton gone and Crabominable seemingly less common, though, Sliggoo feels much less like a momentum sink than before. Sap Sipper + its immense special bulk are nice versus pretty much every relevant special attacker in the tier, including the dishonest butterfly. Sliggoo is unfortunately vulnerable to all entry hazards, but a lot of what wants to exploit that doesn't want to risk switching into Dragon Breath, which is much harder to play around without Magneton around.
Between its lackluster damage output and Magneton, it actually felt like you were playing 5v6 using Mareanie sometimes. Other Electric-types are definitely going to rise in usage with their main competition gone, but none of them are quite as bulky or immune to poison, which gives Mareanie something to do against them. Mareanie has some genuinely useful things going for it, too: helping teams pivot around Basculin, Crabominable, and Pyroar is huge, Haze is rare and slows down stuff like Gogoat and Dragonair, it absorbs T-Spikes, and Regenerator somewhat makes up for Recover's low PP and being grounded in a hazard-centric meta. There's also the potential for trapping sets (people in the chatroom were talking about this, can't take credit), which can be nice for forcing further chip onto annoying walls like Tinkatuff.
This one is interesting. Magneton was a really good partner for Squawkabilly, forming a VoltTurn core with it and blowing up a lot of its switch-ins; however, it could also turn Squawkabilly's offense into its own due to resisting its STAB combination. Magneton wasn't a permanent or even perfect response to Squawkabilly, but you could always take one or two hits from full (and you even 4x resisted Brave Bird) before blowing it up, which was sort of annoying. Squawkabilly has to get a bit more creative to have its way when facing Normal checks now, but I don't doubt that it will rise to the challenge, and being a Normal-type that Misdreavus doesn't blank is certainly useful.
On the other hand, Basculin lost one of its best partners and didn't really gain much from it. Defensive Water-types (as well as other random stuff like Sliggoo) got better with Magneton's ban and Gogoat is slowly getting better in general, both of which also sting for Basculin. This isn't to say it's bad or anything, but reliably answering it feels easier now. This also isn't to say that other Electric-types can't support it in the same way Magneton did, they just don't feel nearly as punishing as it. Looking forward to seeing if Mixed Adaptability sets help it overcome some of what tends to stand in its way, though.
Magneton leaving and Vespiquen dropping suck for Pincurchin, imo, since that's one less Pokemon to exploit and one more defensive Spiker that gives it competition. Pincurchin still offers useful role compression with Spikes and its Electric immunity, but it feels less useful than it did before. Gogoat rising in popularity is also bad for Pincurchin, since all it can really do to the goat is paralyze it. Tera Water with the right EV spread might be a nice backup Basculin check for some teams, but it feels like you'd be spreading yourself too thin at that point.
However, what I actually want to talk about is some of the other winners and losers of the Magneton ban, since I really liked EonX's post on the topic.
I like that you're allowed to be more flexible with Gabite's EV spread now that it doesn't need to either outspeed or dodge the 2HKO from Magneton specifically. The other Electric-types need to be Tera Ice to pose anywhere near as big a threat to Gabite as Magneton did, which means you can often check them without giving up the ability to deal with something like Lycanroc-N or (in a pinch) Houndoom. I don't think Magneton made Gabite worse necessarily (it was a top ten mon before, imo, and still is now), but it feels easier to use now, I guess.
I've seen people vouch for Sliggoo before, but I really didn't like how Magneton walled it (unless you ran Mud Shot) and that Crabominable always forced it out, even if you used Curse once or twice. With Magneton gone and Crabominable seemingly less common, though, Sliggoo feels much less like a momentum sink than before. Sap Sipper + its immense special bulk are nice versus pretty much every relevant special attacker in the tier, including the dishonest butterfly. Sliggoo is unfortunately vulnerable to all entry hazards, but a lot of what wants to exploit that doesn't want to risk switching into Dragon Breath, which is much harder to play around without Magneton around.
Between its lackluster damage output and Magneton, it actually felt like you were playing 5v6 using Mareanie sometimes. Other Electric-types are definitely going to rise in usage with their main competition gone, but none of them are quite as bulky or immune to poison, which gives Mareanie something to do against them. Mareanie has some genuinely useful things going for it, too: helping teams pivot around Basculin, Crabominable, and Pyroar is huge, Haze is rare and slows down stuff like Gogoat and Dragonair, it absorbs T-Spikes, and Regenerator somewhat makes up for Recover's low PP and being grounded in a hazard-centric meta. There's also the potential for trapping sets (people in the chatroom were talking about this, can't take credit), which can be nice for forcing further chip onto annoying walls like Tinkatuff.
This one is interesting. Magneton was a really good partner for Squawkabilly, forming a VoltTurn core with it and blowing up a lot of its switch-ins; however, it could also turn Squawkabilly's offense into its own due to resisting its STAB combination. Magneton wasn't a permanent or even perfect response to Squawkabilly, but you could always take one or two hits from full (and you even 4x resisted Brave Bird) before blowing it up, which was sort of annoying. Squawkabilly has to get a bit more creative to have its way when facing Normal checks now, but I don't doubt that it will rise to the challenge, and being a Normal-type that Misdreavus doesn't blank is certainly useful.
On the other hand, Basculin lost one of its best partners and didn't really gain much from it. Defensive Water-types (as well as other random stuff like Sliggoo) got better with Magneton's ban and Gogoat is slowly getting better in general, both of which also sting for Basculin. This isn't to say it's bad or anything, but reliably answering it feels easier now. This also isn't to say that other Electric-types can't support it in the same way Magneton did, they just don't feel nearly as punishing as it. Looking forward to seeing if Mixed Adaptability sets help it overcome some of what tends to stand in its way, though.
Magneton leaving and Vespiquen dropping suck for Pincurchin, imo, since that's one less Pokemon to exploit and one more defensive Spiker that gives it competition. Pincurchin still offers useful role compression with Spikes and its Electric immunity, but it feels less useful than it did before. Gogoat rising in popularity is also bad for Pincurchin, since all it can really do to the goat is paralyze it. Tera Water with the right EV spread might be a nice backup Basculin check for some teams, but it feels like you'd be spreading yourself too thin at that point.
Kind of echoing Chloe's post about enjoying the tier a lot more since Magneton's ban. Rather than just focus on winners, losers, potentially broken mons, I'm just gonna ramble a bit about some things I've found to be really good (you'll notice ones I've used; I'll talk more about them)
: Is this quietly the best Pokemon in the tier? Idk about best, but it definitely feels to be the most consistent. Skunk feels like the classic low-risk, high reward Pokemon that pretty much every tier has where you don't really have to have a specific reason to use. They're just really good. OU has Great Tusk, RU has Slowbro, NU has Eelektross, and we have Skunk. Support sets with some combination of Taunt, Toxic, Toxic Spikes, Sucker Punch, Poison Jab, and Crunch are able to reliably handle the likes of Haunter throughout a game while giving great support to any team. Physically offensive sets typically still make room for Taunt or TSpikes, but will usually make an effort to run dual STABs and Tera Blast to use switch in opportunities to create offensive progress. Scarf has a sneaky good Speed tier and Nasty Plot might be its best set right now as its reliance on special moves turns it into quite a solid Misdreavus switch in, which every team can definitely use right now. Taunt or TSpikes + 3 Atks and NP I feel should always run HDB to maintain Skunk's defensive utility as much as possible while generating offensive progress.
: Glad to know my hypothesis on this turned out to be right. Offensive Rocks Gabite can finally just full invest in Speed and Attack to lean into its offensive presence, often times using Dragon Claw over Tail and this also means Tera Ground Earthquakes to rip open holes on teams. It still has a pretty unfortunate Misdreavus problem since Tera Fairy variants just blank you, but we can't have everything. For bulkier sets, it's way easier to just fully invest into physical or special bulk and the fact Mag isn't around anymore means it has the option to fully invest in physical bulk to exploit Rough Skin. RestTalk is an option since it can run Dragon Tail to mess with setup mons and it loves Skunk being super common since EQ drops it in one unless it Teras.
: Can I just say I love this mon? It's so solid and has an amazing Speed tier on top of an Electric immunity. It's obviously prone to priority and Scarfers, but a fast Volt Switch and good Ground coverage through Tera and / or Surf means most teams can't exactly keep it form freely Volt Switching early on when its threatening a revenge kill or heavy damage onto the likes of Quaxwell. Its access to Surf shouldn't go unnoticed as that lets it smack Camerupt and utilize Tera to handle Grass types; typically Flying since Lightning Rod nullifies the new Electric weakness. The Electric immunity is also really nice as a Volt Switch deterrent, which is never a bad thing to have.
: Another one I feel I might have gotten right when it was initially brought up for council vote. With the Magneton ban and general acceptance that hazard removal is just not worth putting effort into in most cases, (sorry Quaxwell, you're just not good enough to be consistent) teams have generally adapted by having most of their grounded mons run HDB where possible to circumvent the hazard control issue. That takes nothing away from how solid Misdreavus is on its own merits as it has great tools for both offense and defense, but barring re-adaptations from Missy's teams, the thoughts of it being utterly broken and unhealthy for the meta may be behind it. Still probably a top 5 or top 7 Pokemon because of how reliable it is at what it does.
: With the removal of Magneton and the tier slowly moving away from every team everywhere being spike stack, Gogoat is slowly improving. It can run a tanky HDB set of its own with Milk Drink + 3 Attacks and the typical SpDef Bulk Up set absolutely appreciates the meta slowing down a little bit over the past few days. CB may have merit, but I haven't messed with it yet nor have I seen any.
: Kind of the silent drop of this shift, but it feels well suited for the meta. It's not the centralizing force that Vivillon is or anything, but Intimidate and actually good coverage w/o Tera gives it plenty of use cases over Viv. Unfortunately, Hurricane is about as accurate as Focus Blast, so you're gonna miss Compound Eyes probably more than you'd like, but Tera Water Hydro Pump is a pretty solid nuke that you probably want to respect. It's good, but it's kind of also hoping that Vivillon goes because it's just outclassed as long as Viv is around.
Been playing this tier on and off for a bit now and it's honestly really fun. I think the Magneton ban helped a lot because I feel it was a breaker that removed a lot of skill from the game due to its absurd bulk and power. My only other gripe with the tier right now is Vivillon. I don't even really know what to say about it because it seems so obviously broken that I would just be stating common knowledge but having to sac one of your checks to Sleep and one of your sacs to Tera coupled with Hurricane Confusion just makes Vivillon a nightmare in the builder and in battle. Being reliant on Tera is not enough of a downside when it's broken with Tera. I do think the addition of Basculin helps mitigate Vivillon's presence but I think the fact that I'm running Choice Scarf Basculin with Wave Crash, Head Smash, and Sleep Talk as its only moves says a lot about Viv's effect on the metagame.
Yeah I don't think Quiver Dance is that much of an issue in this tier because of the large amount of physical attackers
okay sorry
hello!! i'm a pretty fresh gen 9 PU enjoyer, @good faith bones on discord. I think I started playing about 9 days ago and (despite it not being all that important) i wanted to talk about my experience with the tier.
I find it very enjoyable!! Almost every game is like a new adventure where you get to learn something new about a mon or two. Learning about generalists and specialists of the metagame in each role is fun, especially when you've got some of your favorite mons to play with (
). This is my first time exploring a tier without viability rankings set in place and it's a really cool time! I'm oscillating at 1-1.2k mmr mostly due to my varying moods when playing, experimenting and just not really knowing any better some time.
One thing I find especially fun is team building aspect. There's just so many different mons to choose from for the attacking roles! Pretty much every set-up sweeper has its own identity and requires different approach to make work, huge variation in choice users and a lot of diversity on the walls department! I loved playing with Specs (obviously), Rocks 
(i remember it from SS ZU, fun times!!), Life Orb SD 
, and 
! Some of my favorite niche choices were CM Trailblaze 
, AV 
and SR-less 
There are a couple of things that took some of my enjoyment away, but there's a lot more positive than negative. Still, it's worth mentioning what those are:
- I'm really struggling with
. It sucks that there's not many physical fire types in the tier and no users of aromatherapy/heal bell whatsoever. Admittedly I have yet to use 
which might be really good, but 
was susprisingly underwhelming (and also not really the best fire type to take on will-o-wisps). Missy is incredibly tanky, disruptive and versatile with sets ranging from specially defensive spinblocker to tera fairy calm mind draining kiss (saw it once and it still gives me nightmares)
- I personally don't mind
, but I can see that it requires a dedicated teambuilding slot to really deal with well. Its speed tier is solid, but not so much as to leave you without potential scarfers that can outspeed a +1 butterfly. I can definitely see a problem with 97.5% accurate Sleep Powder that more often than not lets you get a free Quiver Dance off and a smart player can probably get that every time with correct prediction of opponent's actions. Perhaps the tier will be better off without it. If yes, well... I'll enjoy it even more which is cool!!
- Hazard removal is really lackluster currently, and while i realize this isn't something the council could be blamed for (it's very reliant on higher tiers), it still does make teambuilding a tad bit restrictive. I mentioned Viv above because for me personally it's much easier to find a scarfer for the team to deal with Vivillon than it is to fit in a good hazard removal. Alternatively you can use HDB on a lot of your mons, but i feel like in PU having extra defenses or extra power is really, really valued. Unless your defensive mon takes a quarter of hp from them, i find it hard to justify putting HDB over Eviolite or sometimes even AV.
i think all of this will settle down given some time (and higher tiers decision making skills), but even in its current form I find this metagame really satisfying to play and learn!!
I find it very enjoyable!! Almost every game is like a new adventure where you get to learn something new about a mon or two. Learning about generalists and specialists of the metagame in each role is fun, especially when you've got some of your favorite mons to play with (
). This is my first time exploring a tier without viability rankings set in place and it's a really cool time! I'm oscillating at 1-1.2k mmr mostly due to my varying moods when playing, experimenting and just not really knowing any better some time.One thing I find especially fun is team building aspect. There's just so many different mons to choose from for the attacking roles! Pretty much every set-up sweeper has its own identity and requires different approach to make work, huge variation in choice users and a lot of diversity on the walls department! I loved playing with Specs
(obviously), Rocks (i remember it from SS ZU, fun times!!), Life Orb SD , and ! Some of my favorite niche choices were CM Trailblaze , AV and SR-less There are a couple of things that took some of my enjoyment away, but there's a lot more positive than negative. Still, it's worth mentioning what those are:
- I'm really struggling with
. It sucks that there's not many physical fire types in the tier and no users of aromatherapy/heal bell whatsoever. Admittedly I have yet to use which might be really good, but was susprisingly underwhelming (and also not really the best fire type to take on will-o-wisps). Missy is incredibly tanky, disruptive and versatile with sets ranging from specially defensive spinblocker to tera fairy calm mind draining kiss (saw it once and it still gives me nightmares)- I personally don't mind
, but I can see that it requires a dedicated teambuilding slot to really deal with well. Its speed tier is solid, but not so much as to leave you without potential scarfers that can outspeed a +1 butterfly. I can definitely see a problem with 97.5% accurate Sleep Powder that more often than not lets you get a free Quiver Dance off and a smart player can probably get that every time with correct prediction of opponent's actions. Perhaps the tier will be better off without it. If yes, well... I'll enjoy it even more which is cool!!- Hazard removal is really lackluster currently, and while i realize this isn't something the council could be blamed for (it's very reliant on higher tiers), it still does make teambuilding a tad bit restrictive. I mentioned Viv above because for me personally it's much easier to find a scarfer for the team to deal with Vivillon than it is to fit in a good hazard removal. Alternatively you can use HDB on a lot of your mons, but i feel like in PU having extra defenses or extra power is really, really valued. Unless your defensive mon takes a quarter of hp from them, i find it hard to justify putting HDB over Eviolite or sometimes even AV.
i think all of this will settle down given some time (and higher tiers decision making skills), but even in its current form I find this metagame really satisfying to play and learn!!
