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Following Terrakion's quick retest into ban confirmation vote, the NU council has decided to suspect test Chandelure next!
Chandelure has been on the radar of the council and community for quite some time now, but it is only being acted on now for a few reasons. For starters, Chandelure has a very noted entry hazard weakness in a tier where hazard removal isn't so good. Thus, the frequently cited Choice Specs set isn't so simple to claim KOs with because you have very limited chances to hit the field. Furthermore, when you mispredict when using this set, you're often giving away a lot of momentum to your opponent even if you get great damage on a foe. Additionally, the tier is very clearly favoring offensive builds currently. This isn't so good for Chandelure because it's mainly looking to find slow balance teams. Such builds cannot reliably offensively pressure it, and Chandelure's ridiculous strength typically gives it easy 2HKOes with hazards support there. Lastly, our faster offensive threats en masse do a fantastic job of beating it down, such as Flygon, Paldean Tauros-W, Barraskewda, and Cinccino, as well as NU's common priority users being very effective against it.
On the other hand, Chandelure is arguably the reason offense is king. While our offensive structures would be perfectly fine and still great without it, it's hard to justify slower builds of any sort right now because Chandelure as a wallbreaker puts a chokehold on how varied you can be with them. We have great pieces for such teams--such as Meloetta, Scrafty, Incineroar, and Goodra--that can come in on Chandelure's STAB attacks and force it out, but inevitably you have a checklist to fill out when building these teams. Chandelure being as strong as it is and being rather low drawback as a Choice item wallbreaker makes it quite tough to do so successfully. Compare it to Choice Specs Toxtricity, for example: Toxtricity is always locking into a move with an immunity to it, whereas Chandelure doesn't face that same issue and has Trick as a midground play. Lastly, despite Chandelure having next to no SCL success, it's been very solid in tournaments overall as shown by its winrate being the highest amongst top-20 used Pokemon.
NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING THE NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!
The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:
Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in NU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played NU before the test, full stop.
At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
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If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me.
The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2800. The deadline for getting requirements will be Sunday, November 2nd at 11:59pm GMT+11.
ooh Chandelure! ye I remember when Muk and gastrodon left people started realizing that Incineroar, Altaria, Goodra, and P2 were the only true resists to this guy. P2 has become quite niche as a special wall and doesn't have a whole lot other than Thunder Wave and attacking to do once its in and Altaria doesn't fit on every style of team. I do agree with what a lot of people say that Specs is the true threat with Shadow Ball midgrounding basically everything and Overheat straight up nuking neutral targets and doing a solid 30-40% to SpDef Incineroar meaning in the long run, you can wear it down until it can't switch into you no more. With Cincinno and other removal being more common, it's easier than ever to keep rocks off so that Specs has as many chances to come in and do this as it can get as well. Of course, we also have Scarf to always respect lest it grab surprise KOs that your other team mates can abuse or boots calm mind that can take advantage of forced switches to break.
Chandelure is a fun reference point for brokenness because I think it draws a line between broken and strong but fair very well. I believe its weaknesses are both profound enough to limit its effectiveness with proper play but capable of being supported to preserve Chandelure's strength through a battle. With that said, I'm firmly DNB on Chandelure.
Most people reference Choice Specs Chandelure when labeling it OP because you can post plenty of damage calcs showing OHKOes or 2HKOes that seem unreasonable. I will always push back against this line of thinking because it 1) lacks context beyond "haha funny wallbreaker go brrr" and 2) assumes the Pokemon will always get the ideal scenarios to achieve such feats. Chandelure has some very noted weaknesses that contain it as a wallbreaker despite its absurd strength, the foremost of which being its entry hazard weakness. Chandelure has limited switch-ins to actually capitalize on its power if Stealth Rock ever gets set, and it's on the Chandelure user to either remove Stealth Rock or simply make the most of these turns and predict properly each time. If you fail at the latter, then you're going to give up a lot of momentum to the opponent in a metagame where doing so is pretty crippling.
"rabia, it doesn't matter if I mispredict. Chandelure is so strong that I still am doing stupid damage to whatever comes in." This is a pretty fair assessment of Chandelure at its optimal performance; it always uses the correct move based on the switch-in, and frankly I will cede that Overheat is often a fine move to lob off at a moment's notice. Yet, this still comes with opportunity cost: Chandelure is not lacking switch-ins it cannot 2HKO, even on the bulkier builds that struggle in this metagame. Incineroar, Rhyperior, Cramorant, Altaria, Vaporeon, and Goodra are some options that make simply spamming your Fire-type move pretty unreliable. The vast majority of them also have recovery moves to prevent Chandelure from simply getting that 2HKO the next time it comes in too.
What if you mispredict? Chandelure is a Pokemon that wants to make the most of its turns. Spamming the same move every time doesn't do that. And, we've seen Pokemon like Meloetta, Brute Bonnet, Cinccino, Incineroar, Wo-Chien, Goodra, and Scrafty all increase in usage at least in part because they can catch Chandelure on its mispredicts. Are these all hard counters designed to beat Chandelure in every instance? God no, but that's not the point. Rather, the point is Chandelure does actually have to get turns correct to do the silly things people claim it Always Does.
Entry hazards aren't even the only way to effectively neuter it. The metagame is naturally really offensive right now, and although some would attribute that to Chandelure itself, that's quite shortsighted. Terastallization pushes metagames to be more offensive in general, and we've seen two generations in a row now where because of the reduced Pokedex size, there simply are fewer great defensive tools in lower tiers like NU. Naturally, this too swings metagames towards offense. Putting the blame at Chandelure's "feet" is just not rooted in reality, and metagames where offense is the best archetype are, contrary to NU Discord's belief, accepted in the tiering framework. As a result of this offensive metagame, teams really naturally have Chandelure answers. NU's common fast Pokemon like Flygon, Flamigo, Munkidori, Cinccino, Barraskewda, Raikou, and many more beat down Chandelure pretty easily, although some need Stealth Rock to hit Chandelure once to do it. Additionally, our common priority users like Shadow Sneak Houndstone, Aqua Jet Basculegion, and Sucker Punch Brute Bonnet help contain it too.
I've seen people note that Chandelure can use Terastallization defensively to get rid of its Stealth Rock weakness. While this is true, that defensive use often is more offensive than anything and fails to help it against common revenge killers outside of Flygon really, which still favorably OHKOes Chandelure at +1 unless it's Tera Grass. These more defensive Tera types (think Ground / Fighting here mostly) also fail to give the comical calcs from doing nothing but spamming STAB attacks, meaning Chandelure, yet again, proves not so simple to wallbreak with.
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I won't fault anyone for thinking Chandelure is OP, and my post doesn't address Heavy-Duty Boots variants at all because I seldom see those even brought up by people wanting a ban. I've seen far more outrage about Choice Specs variants and believe many of the arguments to be a bit shortsighted.
I love balance centered metagames, but balance is clearly struggling in the current SV NU. While chandelure is certainly powerful and one of the most prominent factors to the decline of balance, I believe that there are many factors which contribute to this decline, and that banning chandelure alone would not restore this archetype back to what it was when a-muk was still around.
Building balance teams are incredibly challenging right now. The sheer amount of threats in the tier give balance a lot of boxes to fill, to the point where its impossible to account for all of them.
- For example, some of the main special breakers in the tier (chandelure, toxtricity, basculegion, meloetta) complement each other very well. While you only occasionally see these breakers together on the same team, it is basically impossible for balance to account for all of them without being seriously weak to a lot of the physical pivots/breakers paired alongside them, such as flamigo, physical basculegion, or tauros.
- Balance now also has to ensure a good terrain matchup due to its incredibly high usage rates currently. This further adds on to the number of checks balance has to consider, especially given how versatile terrain teams can be.
- The next reason is that certain types such as ground, steel, and dark are often mandatory on balance teams. There are zero viable pokemon which can cover two of these types in one, and every viable ground, steel, or dark type bar flygon is slow (and scarf flygon is mid). There are also zero pokemon within these types that have any reliable recovery bar rest talk strategies, which may not fit the pace of balance. This means that to have your immunities and ghost resist in place, you often have to use half your team slots full of slow pokemon which cannot reliably heal themselves. Then, you still have a lot of boxes that you would like to fill: Speed, a breaker, possibly removal, a check to waters and fighters, something with longevity...the point is you always have to sacrifice something to the point where you're likely better off building a bulky offense at the very least. There are some ways to try and compress these roles such as using cinccino, but I personally believe it to be a really poor fit on balance; its much better at clicking tidy up once and making some progress as a support on offense.
- The next reason is hazard removal being in a really challenging spot right now. Of course houndstone is problematic for the tiers spinners, but I am mainly referring to duraludon. While something like a weakness policy houndstone can fit well on offense teams, I believe duraludon to be the quintessential steel type for offense due to its sheer damage output, steel overwhelm abilities, good matchup into opposing offense, and utility such as twave or dtail. Now, duraludon is a huge challenge for balance because it 1v1s every removal in the tier. Add on the fact that altaria and tsareena were already struggling due to hyper offense and houndstone respectively, it now becomes very challenging to keep rocks or webs off the field. While balance can resort to boots spam, without removal your options become considerably more selective, making it challenging to check the boxes I previously mentioned.
Therefore, while banning chandelure can remove a pretty big box, there are still so many boxes balance has to check without it. chandelure's box will not entirely disappear either, with underrated threats such as hoopa being able to at least partially take its place. Given this and that chandelure's matchup into offense is quite middling, it pains me to vote do not ban on this matter. Hopefully one day balance will restore itself to its rightful throne in NU (breloom 1v1s).
I'll start this by stating that I am very firmly in the Ban camp and was pushing for a Chandelure suspect for a while. I believe it's had a very warping impact on the metagame forcing it to be extremely offensive and has made building thoroughly unenjoyable. Without Chandelure I believe that more breathing room in the builder will lead to more viable defensive cores and thus slowing the metagame down somewhat. I won't claim that it will fix all our problems, but I do believe banning Chandelure is a sensible next step to take.
I'll talk about two main sets below:
Chandelure @ Choice Specs
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Grass / Fairy
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Fire Blast
- Trick
- Overheat / Energy Ball
Chandelure @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Fairy
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Shadow Ball / Tera Blast
- Fire Blast
- Pain Split
To start with the obvious, Chandelure murders balance / fat teams. Checking / countering it defensively is essentially impossible, with a combination of Specs and CM sets requiring very different counterplay and Specs itself being capable of muscling through would be checks. SpDef Incineroar is the classic mon slapped onto a team to handle Chandelure. If it runs into Specs sets the following happens:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Chandelure Fire Blast (110 BP) vs. 248 HP / 156+ SpD Incineroar: 135-159 (34.3 - 40.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
So Incineroar can switch in once, the second time around it's getting 2HKOed. If Chand is Timid, Overheat causes the same effect. Alternatively, Flash Fire + Tera Fairy or Fighting CM Chandelures simply use Incineroar as set up bait. This same effect repeats across its checks mentioned above. Rhyperior, Cramorant, Altaria, Vaporeon, Goodra all risk 2HKOs from Specs Shadow Ball, and also fail to properly deal with CM + Tera. Meloetta, Brute Bonnet, Cinccino, Wo-Chien, and Scrafty are all ruined if they get a single turn wrong, and again struggle to answer Chandelure if it turns out not to be specs and instead clicks CM + Tera. For a good example, see this replay.
So when you're building, your best bet to ensure you dont auto lose to Chandelure set is to either build a team with good immunities + resists (i.e. some combo of Normal + Dragon types, or Dark + Water) and then pray it's not CM or pray you click better than them, or to simply build something which has 4 or 5 mons faster than Chandelure which threaten it i.e. build offense. This choice to me is very undesirable because a) it hugely restricts building balance, which is already very restricted as Loocas nicely outlined above, and b) it hugely incentivizes the easier and simpler option - build offense.
Overall this means Chandelure's impact is one that massively speeds up the metagame. I think it's worth referencing the tiering framework here for why I feel this is a problem. I believe Chandelure's impact is one that reduces both team building and battling skill as defined in the framework under the "Unhealthy" definition:
Unhealthy - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken, yet are deemed undesirable for the metagame, such that they inhibit "skillful play" to a large extent.
These are elements that may not limit either team building or battling skill enough individually, but combine to cause an effect that is undesirable for the metagame.
This can also be a state of the metagame. If the metagame has too much diversity wherein team building ability is greatly hampered and battling skill is drastically reduced, we may seek to reduce the number of good-to-great threats. This can also work in reverse; if the metagame is too centralized around a particular set of Pokemon, none of which are broken on their own, we may seek to add Pokemon to increase diversity.
Primarily I feel that Chandelure hugely harms the "Creativity" part of Teambuilding skill, as it massively incentivises a single style (offense) over others. It also reduces the Battling skill, as often the correct line for the Chandelure player is to simply click Overheat / Fire Blast and watch something die. There is no prediction, picking the right move, or assessing risk going on here. So while yes, the tiering framework doesn't mandate that balance be a dominant archetype, I believe the effect we're seeing is still in opposition to how we aim to tier.
With the main crux of my argument out of the way, I think it's worth looking at some common counter arguments I've heard about Chandelure.
Toxtricity / insert other special breaker here does the same thing
Tox definitely is a huge threat, and Specs sets have similarly few counters. However, the key difference for me is that Tox takes a risk everytime it clicks a STAB move, as immunities to Normal and Electric are abundant. Chandelure doesn't carry this same risk as we don't have any viable Fire immunes. A real Flash Fire mon would certainly tip the balance of risk that Chandelure currently carries. Chand also has a better speed tier (admittedly Basc is probably the only real threat sitting between the two). Toxtricity can't run bulky sets and doesn't have the Tera diversity to flip matchups like Chand has. It's more predictable and easier to play around.
It's not getting used at all in SCL, our highest level of play
That's true! It's only been used 3 times across 6 entire weeks. Let's consider what's happening here, and I'm familiar with this having prepped for the whole tournament. Given the effect we see above of Chandelure having an insane matchup into balance and offense being king, when prepping you're likely to prep for the opponent bringing offense. When doing so, you don't often reach for Chandelure because it's matchup into opposing offense is middling at best. It can do pretty well into Grassy Terrain or Sun, but it does leave a lot of holes open for those teams to grab momentum back as well. So, when prepping in this tournament, you're very unlikely to build with Chandelure as the matchups it performs best in simply do not happen very often. Let's look at some stats to back this up. Across SCL the Steel type usage / winrate is probably the best indicator of what is being used:
So, the clear trend here is for anything but Bronzong, the typical Steel on balance who just so happens to let Chandelure in for free. Duraldon and Klefki fit very well on offensive builds, and we see those picking up great winrates. Copperajah meanwhile is a bit of a band-aid Steel for balances and that archetypes struggle is reflected in the winrate. The rise of Duraldon in particular I think is telling as it's the only Steel which outspeeds and threatens Chandelure, and I don't think it's a coincidence that this mon is used so much while still having an awful Munkidori matchup. These stats alone I think tell a big story about just how fast the metagame has become, and Chandelure is a key contributor to that.
It's probably worth touching on the Bronzong winrate, which looks amazing at first glance. Here are the Bronzong replays and what actually happened in them:
So, while the winrate is good, Zong has either been in recycled mirror matchups or landed a very favourable matchup. A cautionary tale of how stats don't tell the full story, and the use for them is better when talking about trends and outliers. The trend to see here is just how far Zong has fallen as a defensive Steel.
Meanwhile, comparing these trends to the ongoing Seasonal tournament is really interesting:
Here Zong is used a huge amount, and Chandelure is brought much more as well. I think what's happening here is people are prepping less intensely than they are in SCL, and in a Bo3 setting balance is being brought more as a midground (which is lazy imo). Regardless of the reason, the result we see is Chandelure gets nearly a 60% winrate in a metagame like this, the highest of anything in the top 20. It's no surprise when looking at this that SCL players then gravitate towards offense. Duraldon doesn't even touch the top 20 here which is crazy.
Sorry for the essay. In summary, Chandelure has a warping (and undesirable according to the tiering framework) effect on the metagame, and we can see that reflected in the stats and trends for SCL and Seasonal. I do agree that Tera and the nature of the SV dex is always going to lead to offense being on top, but right now it feels like we are too far in that direction. Removing Chandelure won't entirely fix this problem, but it does give us more breathing room and open up more options (think mons like Bronzong and Wo-Chien being much more viable). We saw a similar effect when Porygon-Z being banned and the freedom that opened up in the builder. Banning Chandelure would do the same thing now.
Ctrl-F Protect and Ctrl-F Snorlax don't return any results so that's what I'm dedicating my post to
Chandy can't really touch Snorlax so if you want fat balance run Lax. If you hate it when your Lax gets tricked run fling.
If you haven't tried Lax recently give chestoresto curselax a go, it's surprisingly decent(on fat stack).
Protect is the bane of any choiced mon trimming the amount of fat mons chandy actually enjoys switching into.
I've seen exactly 0 non hdb/choiced chandies (chandelure in general doesn't seem that popular atm because it might be too fast for it to get an in)
Also want to point out that a Typh-H exists and is basically a temu Chandy that lacks e-ball and trick and some base damage but makes up for it by being faster (specs modest typh is faster then timid chandy and if you go modest chandy you end up getting outsped by Breloom/Toxt and Legion) hitting harder with eruptions and having an (unreliable) way to hit Incin with focus Blast. Going tera grass tera blast or power herb with solar beam is also an option. A lot of arguments I'm seeing would also apply to this beast.
Hi, this is my first time doing a NU suspect test hence just a fair warning some of the information may not be fully accurate but here is my brief take on why I will be voting for Do Not Ban:
Specs Chandelure: This seems to be one of the main concerns that people have been raising towards the ban of Chandelure and how it seems to just destroy balance and this is quite true actually is a hard breaker and posses a lot of threat to balance teams but I think removing it would not solve the problem as various other attackers such as Specs Tox, CB Basc, and others which do nearly the same amounts of damage. It is true the damage that Chandelure does is not ideal for a Pokemon but considering the state of balance I would not say it is the only reason balance is in such bad shape right now and just in general that the metagame is more offensive currently with many hard hitting mons. Another thing is that if you are running a choice specs set this means that hazards can be a major problem, with the limited amount of chances Chandelure even gets to switch in it must now take damage from stuff such as rocks which being a fire type takes 25% of Chandelure's health which is already 1/4th of its total for switching in a single time.
Counters: I would also on this note say that chandelure is also quite vulnerable to possible strong priority attacks, I am not really sure on this but during my time in the suspect I could use stuff such as Tera Dark, Brutte Bonnet which could 1 shot chandelure with sucker punch before while also being able to tera and just go raw for crunch if predicting a switch, this is not the only super effective priority tho moves such as shadow sneak from hound stone can do good damage to non terad Chandelure. Just in general Chandlure is not even that fast and other pokemon like Flygon can KO it considering it does not tera. However on this topic there are quite a few bulky pokemon who can take Chandelure's hits quite well for example pokemon such as Vapo, Goodra, Altaria and more specially bulky pokemon or resists, looking at Altaria and Vapo these mons have healing too which can make it more difficult for Chandelure to KO these pokemon easily. On the other hand pokemon which does not have recovery like Goodra has insane specially defensive stats in this case (150 SPDF).
Just gonna keep it brief because I am still grasping NU and just started to play recently however I think I will just talk about specs as I do not see that HDB is used a lot, at least in my experience while doing the suspect I would only see very rare cases where I see this actually being viable. So this is the end of my take on voting DNB.
So I just finished my reqs run! Honestly I spammed terrain and saw chandy maybe a couple times, so it wasn't super relevant to the actual laddering process this time for me. Honestly I'm still a bit on the fence with chandy. On one hand what Rabia says is true. Specs is broken on paper, but those crazy calcs don't often pan out like they should in an actual game. Position, clicking the right move, avoiding the revenge kill, and keeping hazards off are all very import for chandy to function at a high level. It can be done, but to me when this works it feels earned. Calm mind does do well into fat but not as well into more offensive teams. Great set but it functions a bit more slowly than specs of course. Scarf is a non issue and barely real in my opinion -- its mainly there for surprise value and trick.
On the other side of things, what Django has been saying is also very true. Chandy does have a prominent effect on the builder and the pressure it puts on balance is part of why offense is good. Chandy of course doesn't help very much in the offense matchup, so offensive teams are safer overall. It's hard to quantify how much of this is because of chandy and not just because of meta trends. Balance has been struggling also because it is passive and we lack some pieces to really make things work in the current meta.
I came into this leaning DNB, but I may very well change my mind on this before the actual vote goes through. Chandy is definitely flirting with the line of being balanced and broken. On one hand it may be somewhat invalidating balance (which has previously been good in sv nu, if just for seasons), on the other it isn't the easiest mon to use and get to perform so its not "free." What question I plan to continue thinking on is "would the tier be better off without it? Or would sv nu still look largely the same if it were banned?" Overall I am really impressed with the discussion here (moreso than just about any other suspect in recent memory), and I think this will be one of the more defining moments for the tier.
Free Team
(don't expect this to be optimized. Last on torterra should probably be wood hammer but crunch comes in handy sometimes as well. I played around alot with the bee EVs and the bulkier hp spread just did 0 damage but this one also doesn't have any longevity... can be great in certain situations ofc. Did have a respectable but 36-10 ladder run, but its ladder)
Actually bothered getting reqs for this one, fuck triple axel btw this move is straight garbage and handed me over half of my losses from pure betrayal. Back to the proper discussion, I don't like Chandelure and its defensive counterplay is frankly a meme. Sure, going faster is the wave in practice and thats the only reason its not obscene on a glance at performance. You're either using offense, stuff like AV Meloetta, Goodra or Incineroar or legit just pretending it doesn't exist and hoping it doesn't show up. P2 sucks and has sucked for a minute now, I love snorlax but this is some cope, and forcing random protects on your walls for scouting what mon is about to get sent into the six paths of pain is not in fact, fun teambuilding procedure, nor is it healthy.
Really, this test is strikingly similar to the one RU had recently with Mamoswine, where your either using extremely select stuff, or just using offense. That dynamic sucked up there, and I've played enough games here to know it sucks down here too. Sure, much like Mamoswine, it's performances in tournaments are less than what you'd expect from a broken mon. But its the building pressure of forcing the few select checks it has; sometimes multiple at a time on one team that is way too restricting. Clean ban vote from me.
Hello, I got reqs too ^^
This seems to be a controversial take but, being one of the few balance builders left in the tier, I would like to preface this post by saying I...don't think balance is in a bad spot at all. I mean, I do need insane doses of copium with Diancie gone but that's a 'me' problem.
Balance and Chandy:
These are all points that have been raised before but I feel like it's worth re-listing them. These are some of the tools that balance has to deal with Chandelure:
Defensive checks: () Pokemon that resist every Chandelure option ever, bar tera blast. Partial checks: [...] These are pokemon that may be vulnerable to coverage, but can form a balance core that makes it riskier for Chandelure to click one of its STABs. Combine a few of these at will and you have a sturdy team with good chances to outlast the opposing Chandelure. Hazards: Frankly, Chandelure's stealth rock weakness is a dealbreaker for me. Having to take 25% for progress that may not even be significant is a large toll to pay. Like every wallbreaker, Chandelure is susceptible to chip from hazards in general, which limit the amount of times it can come in. Revenge killers: ( ) [...] There's a number of pokemon that outspeed Chandelure. Not for offense, mind you. Balance also needs its wallbreakers. Chandelure is slow enough to invite in even specs/band users that can make significant progress on their own. Balance is not starved for breakers that threaten Chandelure, provided it succeeds in claiming a kill. Protect: Protect greatly eases prediction for the partial checks above. Those wish passers that were falling out of favor naturally carry protect in their moveset. It's almost mandatory, even. Terastallization: Finally, defensive tera is always an option for balance teams in a pinch. It's always good practice for certain special walls in the tier, such as Copperajah, to carry tera types such as dragon, completely flipping the matchup against wallbreakers. This is a threat that the Chandelure player has to take in account as well, every time it considers attacking a vulnerable target.
In my book, these are more than enough tools to keep a Chandelure at bay. The most general Chandelure counterplay possible is outpacing it and breaking through the opposing core before they break through yours and I do not, for a second, believe the Chandelure player to have an unfair advantage in such scenarios.
It's worth remembering that Chandelure is a wallbreaker. Its whole point is being able to make progress by just clicking. The price to be paid is the difficulty to get it in the field and, make no mistake, between knock off distribution, stealth rock weakness and unimpressive bulk, it's difficult to get a Chandelure in the field. Unwallable choiced attackers are not necessarily a net negative for a tier and hell, Chandelure isn't even unwallable at the end of the day. If a Chandelure broke through your balance team, either your opponent played better or built better. Usually a combination of both.
CM Chandelure:
Calm Mind Chandelure is a somewhat less discussed topic and for good reason. Calm Mind sets share many of the same checks as specs variants, are often telegraphed by the boots they wear (unless your CM Chandy is also a weak-to-hazards variant, which I won't be complaining about either), need to set up before getting the same damage output as specs, cannot use trick to cripple its switch-ins, can be phased out and often demand tera to claim a ko, after which they will once again be susceptible to revenge killers.
Between the middling damage output, the lack of coverage (because you're dropping one move for CM and most likely pain split too) and all else, CM sets feel very much manageable, just like specs.
Mamoswine?:
Since LBN namedropped Mamoswine, I would like to take a moment to highlight the couple differences from Chandelure to Mamoswine that make one less banworthy over the other in my book. Do note that I don't main RU, so I'm mostly going off the Mamoswine suspect thread and my brief experience in ladder. I apologize if I get a point wrong.
For one, the list of Mamoswine checks was supposedly very restricted. It has access to strong priority, good bulk and enough set variety to stump even its would-be checks. While Chandelure's defensive resists are also somewhat limited, it is difficult for Chandelure to tech past them (Tera blast fighting go). It has no priority and invites the opponent's own wallbreaker, on top of being hazard-weak and not insanely hard to revenge kill. Also worth noting, Mamoswine was similarly a borderline pokemon and only got banned by one vote.
Have a team:
+ (in spirit)
And this is the team I used to get reqs ^^
Team is a hazardless balance with 3 defensive pieces and 3 breakers. The defensive core is composed by three mixed walls, one leaning physical and one leaning special. The breaking core is slow, hard-hitting and somewhat bulky, ideal to punch holes through balance cores without the need for hazards. Hoopa is not running trick because if I need to trick these specs I probably already lost. The main idea is to weather down the storm with the defensive core until one of the wallbreakers has an opportunity to come in and wreck havoc.
I made this for NU Rising Stars so it's a bit lopsided to hit balance but I did go 27/4 with it in a supposed offense meta during peak reqs times (feat a perfect 4/4 score against terrain) so it can't be that bad. I might make a bazaar post later with this team and a couple others but I figured I'd at least post it here for now.
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In short, I disagree with the very thought that Chandelure is making teambuilding in NU overly restricted, and will thus be voting dnb.
i don’t know how to feel about chandelure. i’m literally down the middle as of now, but i’ll do my research and watch some tournament replays before voting
pro ban:
it frees up space in the builder. if we’re talking about p2 just bc of a mon (which is a decent mon regardless), then it may just be a problem
usage isn’t super high, but it’s cos the tier has warped around things like this and breaking flamigo and munki sets (and cheese…). poor usage may just further underline the above point
it’s not even useless against offense. not a great replay, but like here it can still force some advantageous positions and force trades
incin and some would be checks becomes set up fodder for cm tera. this fat set is still under-explored.
we’re not talking about the utility of trick. trick is super underrated in turning tides. all of a sudden your chandy has boots and their incin is taking rocks
against ban:
hazards exists for choiced sets, hazard removal isn’t exactly amazing in the tier. anti-fog is picking up a bit in usage (articuno, milotic).
weak to priority and most form of revenge killing
frees up builder, but to what extent? if fat picks up, it’ll quickly be put in place by things like np munki, cb flamigo, sd incin, etc. this is just an sv problem in general
mons has never been about perfect balance, it’s more about positioning and probability management. is chadelure really becoming so difficult to deal with to a point where trying to deal with it during the course of a game is impossible? i’ll have to explore this, because this is the most important discussion point for me
Im incredibly lost as to what I want to do with the light fixture, because on one hand it seems pretty useless into hyper offense because it isn't fast or bulky enough, but on the other hand it can rip balance apart if you don't have specific counterplay which heavily restricts creativity in the builder. As of right now I'm thinking no ban, because the Mon for some reason just isn't used much. I played 35 games to get reqs and faced chandy like 4 times, where it was not a problem at all because I was using webs. Even if chandy leaves, I don't see the meta slowing down at all because of how many lethal breakers are around to continue to make balance hard to use. Chandy isn't used super often on hyper offense, maybe terrain sometimes but terrain has unlimited abusers, so it leaving the meta does not hurt hyper offense, so people wont stop using hyper offense, which is balance's biggest opp right now. While writing this post I realized I will be voting DNB lol.
EDIT - yeah I actually still cant decide what I wanna do, and it has also been brought to my attention chandy is good on webs, which it is, and it being gone makes offense easier to prep for, so my mind is conflicted right now
I mostly wanted to make this post to show how stupid offense is right now, as I got my reqs going 30-5 with an 81 GXE with COMBUSKEN.
If anyone wants chicken replays hmu.
CHICKEN TEAM
The team is just Shengineer webs with a silly fire chicken instead of a flygon and some other set tweaks, so thanks man.
Ribombee could rise from NU to RU
Breloom could rise from NU to RU
Umbreon could drop from RU to NU
Chansey could drop from RU to NU
Dudunsparce could rise from PU to NU
Espeon could rise from PU to NU
Hitmonlee could rise from PU to NU
Brute Bonnet could rise from PU to NU
Thwackey could rise from ZU to NU
Grafaiai could rise from ZU to NU
Braviary could rise from ZU to NU
Slowbro-Galar could drop from NU to PU
Avalugg could drop from NU to PU
Galvantula could drop from NU to PU
Wo-Chien could drop from NU to PU
Toxicroak could drop from NU to PU
Aight chat, what's our thoughts on the November usage stats? I know it's WAY too early to make predictions on January drops but I do want to hear what people think about the current meta trends.
I for one notice how yeah, Thwackey and like 3 terrain abusers (Grafaiai, Hitmonlee, Espeon) are on rise watch which is not surprising since ladder caught the terrain wave for 2 suspects. Also Uberfiend back at it again with the Braviary. Galvantula on drop watch is the least surprising thing when October gave us Araquanid and Ribombee.
Chansey on drop watch finally! Umbreon was a real annoying mon back when it was in the tier in June last year, if it comes back that'll be another defensive piece ig, another wish passer that comes with toxic, roar, and twave to ensure nothing is truly safe to set up on it.
pretty sure terrain usage is mostly because of the suspect tests and it'll fizzle out by january. ppl just wanted quick games and terrain has had minimal success at any point in any major tournament for months now afaik. still a good archetype but pretty strongly feel no action is still the correct direction in any tiering talks.
lugg should've dropped eons ago, stop using that doodoo caca removal
webs hadnt been good in the eons leading up to bee/nid drops, stop with the galv nonsense
woch and glowbro have no business dropping to pu, pls use them more
Lugg was like good back when we had cetitan + alolan ninetales in the meta but ye nowadays, it just has way too hard of a time getting a spin off against the new hazard structures. It can't touch Houndstone at all (Avalanche is a contact move for some reason) which is REALLY bad when the dog is our best spin blocker. Hound just comes in for free and chases lugg out every single time, not to mention how it also matches up terribly against Dura and Bronzong. Tsar's just kinda the better spinner in every way.
Ribombee could rise from NU to RU
Breloom could rise from NU to RU
Umbreon could drop from RU to NU
Chansey could drop from RU to NU
Dudunsparce could rise from PU to NU
Espeon could rise from PU to NU
Hitmonlee could rise from PU to NU
Brute Bonnet could rise from PU to NU
Thwackey could rise from ZU to NU
Grafaiai could rise from ZU to NU
Braviary could rise from ZU to NU
Slowbro-Galar could drop from NU to PU
Avalugg could drop from NU to PU
Galvantula could drop from NU to PU
Wo-Chien could drop from NU to PU
Toxicroak could drop from NU to PU
Aight chat, what's our thoughts on the November usage stats? I know it's WAY too early to make predictions on January drops but I do want to hear what people think about the current meta trends.
I for one notice how yeah, Thwackey and like 3 terrain abusers (Grafaiai, Hitmonlee, Espeon) are on rise watch which is not surprising since ladder caught the terrain wave for 2 suspects. Also Uberfiend back at it again with the Braviary. Galvantula on drop watch is the least surprising thing when October gave us Araquanid and Ribombee.
Chansey on drop watch finally! Umbreon was a real annoying mon back when it was in the tier in June last year, if it comes back that'll be another defensive piece ig, another wish passer that comes with toxic, roar, and twave to ensure nothing is truly safe to set up on it.
Ribombee could rise from NU to RU
Breloom could rise from NU to RU
Umbreon could drop from RU to NU
Chansey could drop from RU to NU
Dudunsparce could rise from PU to NU
Espeon could rise from PU to NU
Hitmonlee could rise from PU to NU
Brute Bonnet could rise from PU to NU
Thwackey could rise from ZU to NU
Grafaiai could rise from ZU to NU
Braviary could rise from ZU to NU
Slowbro-Galar could drop from NU to PU
Avalugg could drop from NU to PU
Galvantula could drop from NU to PU
Wo-Chien could drop from NU to PU
Toxicroak could drop from NU to PU
(If hypothetically all of these changes were to stick which is highly unlikely)
Rip bee unironically good on non webs sets qd is just that busted.
Breloom leaving is sad but not the saddest since gliscloom is an annoying pos.
Chansey probably mid asf but ru are professionals at making sure chansey and forretress never drop so
Umbreon would be very annoying buy theres about 50 fighting types in this damn tier so probably might struggle at least a litte
espeon doesnt feel great even on terrain and ive never seen a bonnet everyone else is a terrain goon hate cheese
Slowbro and chien falling when theyre the most unkillable bastards in this tier
(
) Pokemon that resist every Chandelure option ever, bar tera blast.
[...] These are pokemon that may be vulnerable to coverage, but can form a balance core that makes it riskier for Chandelure to click one of its STABs. Combine a few of these at will and you have a sturdy team with good chances to outlast the opposing Chandelure.
) 
[...] There's a number of pokemon that outspeed Chandelure. Not for offense, mind you. Balance also needs its wallbreakers. Chandelure is slow enough to invite in even specs/band users that can make significant progress on their own. Balance is not starved for breakers that threaten Chandelure, provided it succeeds in claiming a kill.
+ 
(in spirit)
