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Metagame np: Stage 13: Praying Mantis (Scyther banned)

I completely agree with tom holland, Excal and MZ's posts, and I am pro ban on Scyther too. It's easy to look at every team packing Bellibolt and a secondary defensive rocky helmet user and think that Scyther is handled, but to me it points more to a poor meta state where you need to overprep for some of the strongest mons in the tier, opening yourself up to a pretty large amount of mindless counterplay from a dozen offensive threats. This applies to both Balance and Offensive structures, with Scyther always threatening to take over games vs both depending on tera and in the case of Offense having trailblaze. It's an overly simplistic view to look at Scyther as simply its 1v1s which yes, it loses some of them enough to not always break the game you're in.

I would describe Scyther's kind of centralising, which isnt always a bad thing, as warping the tier around it, which is. Scyther is centralising in a similar way to how Inteleon was in previous metas - above the curve in speed and limited on switch ins to the point you can just pair it with any other strong threat and watch things fold. In this case it's Meloetta more often than not (who as an aside feels like it's having a negative impact on the tier), because Scyther-Meloetta is probably the single most potent offensive core right now.

I've ended up paraphrasing a lot of what's already been said but I do think it bears repeating. PU is a very matchup fishy tier right now and most people will agree that's the case. Banning Scyther is needed for the tier to move forward, and improve at being more consistent and competitive.
 
I will be voting Do Not Ban. Scyther is certainly very strong, and while I agree PU in its current state is unbalanced, I don't think banning Scyther is the answer or will result in much progress towards a healthier meta.

:sv/meloetta:​
I think the Pokémon we should to be looking at is Meloetta. It has incredible stats and is very versatile (Specs/Scarf/CM and even AV are all really good); I suspect the tier would be better off without it.
 
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:scyther: I'm going to vote DNB for these reasons.
Status: Scyther is too weak to status. that's why in my team I have :toxtricity: and :Tauros-Paldea-Blaze:. His place is best in a HO because he can sweep if he is well placed (Trailblaze+ SD).
Item: So already, the story of item is very very tricky because there will be a problem with its placement: if it has :Eviolite: it will be bulky but hard to place if there are rocks, and with the :Heavy-Duty Boots:, it will be the opposite. We would play them (I would say) in preference :Heavy-Duty Boots: in BO and HO, and :Eviolite: in Balanced and HO.
 
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So I've been playing some more PU recently, and while I didn't finish getting reqs, I wanted to share my thoughts on the current meta. This is coming from experiences on ladder, so take this with a grain of salt considering how the ladder can be. I think part of the issue with the current PU is the overall power level of offense is greater than the overall power level of defense. Also a lot of our walls are very passive and can give some really potent breakers a fairly easy switch. I don't think this is a "ban 1 mon fix the problem" type situation which might be effecting some people's judgement. Granted there are a lot of tiers like that in gen9, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something about it! In order to regain that balance and get the meta to a healthier place, I think we might be looking at a couple bans in the near future. I don't think banning scyther would fix the problem entirely, but that being said I would have been on the ban side with scyther as I think it is a step in the right direction. I think the problematic set is sd eviolite on hyper offense specifically. Defog/pivots sets are cool on some builds (works as emergency removal for teams that aren't ultra hazards weak and throwing off dual wingbeats/u-turns is always great.) Boots sd is cool/more splashable than eviolite, but sets up much less reliably. With eviolite on HO that aims to keep hazards off (I was using lead lycanroc + tatsugiri + offensive pressure and it felt like I could reliably keep rocks off until I wanted to be in with scyther anyways), I think it is too easy to support. Offensive counterplay is mostly just not giving it turns to set up (which is difficult with the eviolite bulk especially when tera is available) and/or revenging with a couple scarfers... which it also tends to live at least 1 hit from. Not to mention the fact that with scarfers you have to get the turns right and not let it trailblaze first since it is faster than anything that wants to run a scarf (unless you count scarf salazzle.)

:bellibolt: Bellibolt
Beli is probably the most reliable answer but I feel like it is easy to pressure and can let in breakers like toxtricity which is also really strong right now. If scyther is tera electric beli is kind of a shaky answer as well. If scyther SDs on the switch, teras and SDs again, then gets the 80% chance to 2 shot belibolt has 2 turns to attack for a whopping ~40% on scyther. If they don't get the rolls you do ~60% which isn't a whole lot better
+4 252 Atk Technician Tera Electric Scyther Dual Wingbeat (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Bellibolt: 200-236 (47.3 - 55.9%) -- approx. 80.9% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Bellibolt Muddy Water vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Tera Electric Scyther: 54-64 (19.2 - 22.7%) -- possible 5HKO

:mudsdale: Mudsdale
Pretty reliable stop here but I haven't seen this get used much recently. Doesn't love how common gastro is I suppose but on paper anyways it seems like a good check.

:coalossal: Coalossal
Coal has to be healthy and/or get the burn here. Evio scyther actually lives power gem from full which is kinda funny
+2 252 Atk Scyther Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Coalossal: 294-348 (69.3 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Coalossal Power Gem vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Scyther: 232-276 (82.5 - 98.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

:gastrodon: Gastrodon
This dies to +2 trailblaze but can get helmet chip on dual wingbeat I guess.

:houndstone: Houndstone
Third reliable check here, but it is really just clicking wisp and night shade. I think houndstone is also a fairly exploitable mon right now.

I mentioned the matchup into what I see are the 3 reliable defensive options here in the hide tag (I'm sure I missed something but still) and I think all 3 of these are pretty exploitable. I don't think scyther gets a free win vs every team here, but I personally think it is a bit too much for the tier. We have few answers to it, the ones we do have are fairly passive/exploitable, and it runs away with games far too easily. Stacking some other breakers with similar checks like BU tornadus and toxtricity can be very overwhelming. It has too big an effect on the builder and it is too easy to support, and I think the tier would be better off with it banned.
 
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I'm voting ban on the bug. I think the meta has evolved a lot around Scyther, Meloetta, Gastrodon, and Arcanine which is cool. Interesting fat/stall cores got cooked during scl and HO is still viable though its usage dropped to a pretty healthy level I'd say. All that being said I am tired of making a team and then having to replace fun and interesting ideas with Bellibolt or a soft Scyther check like Rotom-Heat. It is so difficult to consistently check this thing without bringing Belli, intimidate gets nullified by SD, a lot of would be checks (including Belli) can get caught by tera ground tera blast, and a lot of offensive checks like Salazzle/Lycan/Zoroark etc. can get stuffed by defensive teras. Overall it is certainly less centralizing than things like Raikou and Flamigo. It doesn't have the luxury of running a bunch of different items like Duraludon essentially only carrying boots and eviolite. But what it does do is push a lot of would be balance cores out of the meta because they literally just can't deal with this thing. I also think the rest of puwc and swiss will be more fun without having to worry about scyther but that's just me.
 
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In an incredibly close vote, Scyther has been banned from SV PU with a 51.61% majority. Thank you to everyone for voting, tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement this change. Thanks in advance to you, too!

You can view the results here: https://www.smogon.com/tools/suspects/view/54
 
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