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.

 

[loocas13]

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).