Announcement NP: Stage 19 - Ghost (Chandelure Suspect Test)

[Rabia]

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:
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• 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.​
• Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, etern, or a member of staff.​
• 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.​

 

[5MGMatthew5]

gdi you‘re trying to make me give into my bad habit of Building Teams where Cramorant is the Ghost resist

 

[Yech]

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.

 

[Rabia]

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.