Metagame NP: Stage 4 - Bye Bye (August Tier Shifts)

[Stories]

Pokemon	Danny	etern	GXE	Luck	Meri	Pokeslice	Rabia	Togkey	zS
Mesprit	BAN	DNB	DNB	DNB	DNB	BAN	DNB	BAN	DNB

We voted on Mesprit as well. The reasons are: 1) Mesprit got enough consideration in the survey for tiering action, and 2) there is not much time left this metagame cycle to run a suspect test, so it'd be a waste of time. Mesprit only received 3 ban votes to 6 do not ban votes, so it remains NU.

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From here, I want to segue into discussing whatever Pokemon you've had fun using this last month. What's better with the bans NU has done? What's worse? Anything you find swinging really hard into the metagame? I personally want to try using more Coil Eelektross again; the AV set has kind of been picking up use again, but I think Coil should be a lot better with Dudunsparce gone ^^

I voted BAN on Mesprit and wanted to explain why, along with why I'm a bit disappointed that most others didn't join me.

I think while some Mesprit sets aren't exactly broken, it's the combination of the sheer multitude of options the Pokemon has that all mandate completely unique answers that is broken. Sure you can probably check Calm Mind or Nasty Plot with a bulky Haze user like Cryogonal or Articuno, and Choice Scarf is often dissuaded from using it's Psychic STAB attacks due to the admittedly poor offensive typing, but all of these sets completely dunk on their different checks if the opponent guesses wrong.

Pretty much the only argument brought up in the council that I remember was that most specially bulky Pokemon can simply Tera Steel against Mesprit, namely Haze Articuno and Cryogonal, along with others like Bombirdier and Appletun. My issues with this solution are:

• Being forced to Terastallize defensively every single game when the opposing suspect (Mesprit in this case) isn't even forced to Terastallize in response is extremely toxic and warping. Tera is obviously the most valuable resource one can have at their disposal and forcing it to be burned immediately on a defensive Pokemon without even needing to exhaust your own resource is insane and not a justifiable reason to keep the Pokemon around at all imo.
• Beyond the notion that being forced to Tera Steel is acceptable (it's not), this is also assuming that exhausting your Tera will even guarantee that you beat the opposing Mesprit, which is very far from the truth. The fast Ice-types with recovery, Articuno and Cryogonal, can both consistently Haze and avoid a 3HKO from Mesprit's unboosted Psychic-type attacks, but are quite easily forced to burn through -and eventually run out of- recovery PP against Mesprits that either A) have coverage beyond Psychic x Fairy, such as Tera Thunderbolt or Ground Tera Blast which also hits Qwilfish-Hisui, or B) opt for the bulky Tera Steel + Substitute sets, which while it will struggle to immediately break Articuno and Cryogonal, it can easily set up against them and throw out Psychocks at their lower Defense stat, inevitably winning the PP war, especially against Cryogonal, without being threatened by any damage at all itself. Other Tera Steel users like Appletun and Bombirdier struggle to even do meaningful damage to Tera Fairy Mesprit, one of the most common sets, unable to even fade its Substitute and will simply get muscled past despite the type advantage.
• Bulky Haze users do give Mesprit an ounce of trouble, if that Mesprit is Calm Mind or Nasty Plot. All of these "checks" are virtually OHKO'd by being Tricked a Choice item and attempting to scout against a Mesprit (bulky, fast, strong Pokemon with tons of variance in setup options, item choice, tera type, and move coverage) is more unwise than scouting that of an Oricorio, which we could all agree was a Pokemon that too easily took advantage of its high versatility to take over games.

Looking at actual tournament results is obviously one of the best indicators of whether or not a Pokemon is actually unhealthy or it just seems broken on paper. Admittedly there haven't been too many high quality* games featuring the Pokemon, but there are still a few that I think help paint a picture.

[USN] GW vs Tuthur [FRA]
In this game we see GW have 2 Haze users; a Tera Steel Cryogonal and a Haze Qwilfish-Hisui. Mesprit still manages to force 5 Recovers to be used on Cryogonal with no expense to its own HP, Cryogonal then switched out because it would lose 1v1 if it continued to stay in. Qwilfish-Hisui got paralyzed earlier in the game, and because it lacks recovery, also lost long-term against Mesprit. Tuthur then easily cleaned up with Dudunsparce because Mesprit completely neutered and weakened the shared checks between them; running the Cryogonal out of most of its Recovers and weakening the Qwilfish-H into range of a +1 attack. You could argue that this is more of a Dudunsparce problem, but this game still showed a Mesprit getting past its best checks without using any funky set or using Tera at all.

[USW] freezai vs Axrtix [EUR]
Here we see two Mesprit against each other, with Axrtix's beating a Haze Articuno 1v1 because this Mesprit had Encore which is a cool tech that works especially well with Tera. Freezai's Mesprit was the only way to force Axrtix's out, bluffing a Trick Scarf, but at this point, Mesprit has weakened Articuno to a point where Scyther can sweep. Freezai admittedly made some questionable plays, his own Specs Mesprit had an absurdly good MU here but he just did not have enough room to work with because of his lines earlier in the game.

[USW] shiloh vs zS [EUR]
No offense to Shiloh but wow this game is just really disappointing. Shiloh has a Tera Steel Mesprit with a Substitute up against a Mono-Boomburst Dudunsparce and Mono-EQ Sandaconda. Instead of setting up in their faces for completely free, Shiloh opts to KO the setup fodder with only one boost, meaning it's unable to OHKO the rest of zS's team when there was really no reason not to. KOing Sandaconda to prevent Rocks when your entire remaining team has Heavy-Duty Boots instead of just clicking the win button raised a lot of eyebrows in the tournament discussion channel. I really see this replay as what could have been the deciding game for Mesprit's fate but I guess we will just let this fester for another 2 weeks.

[USW] skierdude101 vs tlenit [EUR]
Not really much to say about this game; a paralyzed Tera Steel Appletun got a little unlucky against a Choice Specs Mesprit and lost because of it. The lead generated by Mesprit's damage output was too big and Ski ran away with the game at this point super comfortably.

This Pokemon seemed like a very clear quickban to me, and with no time for a suspect test, I truly do worry about the integrity of ladder tour and world cup. Hopefully I'm just being a doomer but this Pokemon really breaks the tier imo.

 

[Perla]

My 2 cents on some random stuff:
I was wrong.
I want to declare this:

NU : Cryogonal = PU : Quaxwell

I am really disappointed: it has its known utility stuff, but it always seems very passive, its haze doesn't seem very effective (I hate when it removes its own Rapid Spin boost) and I think people will get tired of this mon.
Appletun is always Tera-Steel, it has an awful matchup against Pyroar and the canonical set is walled by Avalugg or even H-Avalugg , so you might drop Haze for Flash Cannon, which might be useful sometimes,

Replay

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1924822169-zlk1m89zdfv3d4dlp56vcccd9y4rpdqpw

but I really don't want to experience other heart attacks like this because I don't have haze.

Replay

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1924815252-1o6cbimvn68u0gk7uuhszarcgxi47egpw

One last flaw, but this might open a new chapter on a different topic: imho the move Psyshock is TERRIFYING in this current meta and special walls like Cryo and Blissey can get obliterated by strong NP or Specs psychic mons like Mesprit , Indeedee-F or A-Raichu


Speaking of Mesprit : incredible mon. Really really strong: I used a Calm Mind set (instead of NP) in Togkey's team with some changes and it looked unfair sometimes.

Replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1924845825-7k3u1u9p7sa4bhahswozampauuk0zshpw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1924870185-law9s14n6w6afg95qbjjqktxjl83ezupw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1924920936-g37peld5tzku6210npsom1qv74ne26ipw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1924995782-n7nxcms4oksyc9q9li5rg5jrsz3tm86pw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1924996803-o8n94zhiwzrv6rqhn4lh7xfqiayyqr6pw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1925001383-dpd7s6fva3f06iuy2ohck210ci2vks5pw

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-1925005287-urm8yx7v8oebaqtutznbmfefajj46phpw

Final thoughts on some random mons
I already quoted these, but Appletun is still very solid to me and, I won't definitely overhype it, but I do think that Pyroar deserves the 4.52% usage: maybe just the apple is a safe switch-in, as the water types aren't actually meant to take hits and you can still cripple them with WoW (especially Samurott).

Speak of the devil: Samurott is good. I wouldn't say it's broken. It's a nice addition.

Heasel and Toxicroak are still amazing and choiced sets are the best ones right now: they were standard for Heasel, but even Croak has been incredibly annoying when it was scarfed.

 

[Finchinator]

To me, Mesprit is broken in this current metagame. I understand why it was not banned via council vote as the bar for quickbans is higher and it was in close proximity to other bans, meaning one can argue the best practice was to be lenient if in any doubt.

With this in mind, CM/NP sets alone are too much. This does not factor in other gimmicks like Future Sight prospects, random Choice Specs, and HWIsh support, which at least have more direct checks or do not do the dirty work alone. Counters are few and far between to set-up variants, frequently dependent upon their Tera or specific field conditions. From a teambuilder perspective, it has tools to pick its own counterplay and you oftentimes have to dedicate multiple Tera slots, a teamwide scheme of avoiding passivity, or accept the fact that at best you may be trading or making some educated guesses rather than having surefire counterplay.

Admittedly there is some skill in finding ways around something as threatening as Mesprit. Being able to determine its set without risking the wrong things in the game or being able to allocate the right resources for it in the builder without going too far out of the way can be a sign of someone who is doing the right things, but I feel this also applies to other top threat like Choice Specs Magneton, Sneasel-H, and Pyroar, who have a more respectable pool of answers that give you more choices without being stretched too thin.

Obviously there is potential for change with September coming soon, DLC around the corner, etc. -- the logistics of a suspect right now are murky to say the least. All I ask is for Mesprit to be monitored closely moving forward given this. I do not think it makes the tier unplayable by any stretch of the imagination, so if it remains for now, it is ok.