np SV UU Stage 3.1 - 212 (Scizor Suspect & Iron Leaves Quickban)

[Lily]

​

Hey all, we held a council vote this week. Following on that, we're going to be suspect testing Scizor, which received a unanimous council vote. Before that though, a quick note on Iron Leaves.

council votes

We voted to quickban Iron Leaves. This may come as a surprise, but don't worry, it'll be getting retested in the near future - we just have more pressing matters. The short end of this is that Swords Dance with Booster Energy, when backed up by Tera, is just absurdly difficult to find consistent stops to; Salamence can't reliably check it, it blasts through Unaware, and it outspeeds basically everything save for Scarf Pawmot and Booster Jugulis. It's really difficult to revenge kill with priority when using Tera Fire since only Lycanroc-Dusk hits it hard, and its amazing bulk alongside ridiculous power and Speed just sets it over the edge; we do think Iron Leaves has the potential to be fine, but in the interest of tier stability, we're going to put it on the backburner for now. So, Marty or Kris, if you could implement this ban at your nearest convenience, that would be super appreciated. Thank you!

Now, onto Scizor.


Scizor had a quiet introduction to this generation. When it dropped to UU, lots of us thought it'd kinda suck because it lost both Roost and Knock Off, integral pieces of the SDBPBPBPBP endgame. Fortunately, Scizor was not left out to dry. It gained Close Combat - a nice upgrade over Superpower - which is a great midground move for it, and it also gained Trailblaze, a fantastic Grass-type 50 BP coverage move that boosts its Speed; it's also boosted by Technician, so it actually does pretty great damage to stuff like Quagsire, Quaquaval and Paldean Aqua Tauros. But the real buff for Scizor was Tera.

Scizor is absurdly good at abusing Tera. When you think about it, it makes sense; Scizor is pretty bulky and also extremely lethal if given a free turn, so you pretty much have to deal with it hard and fast, and this usually results in either a) a super strong neutral move or, more likely, b) a Fire-type coverage move. Tera usually doesn't help all that much with the first one there, but when you can turn into a type that takes Fire moves easily, you end up with a really skewed matchup spread. Stuff like Talonflame can switch into Scizor expecting to win the 1v1 and end up becoming setup fodder! It helps that the most common Tera Type, Fire, also makes Scizor immune to burn. Scizor is not just beholden to Tera Fire, though; we've seen Tera Steel on Choice Band sets to really send Bullet Punch to astronomical levels of power, performing crazy feats like OHKOing Slither Wing and Iron Jugulis after only Stealth Rock chip. Tera Normal is also seen on some Swords Dance sets, which lets Scizor completely flip the script on a lot of Bullet Punch resists by blasting them with a STAB Quick Attack that sends Sandy Shocks back to the Jurassic period.

Scizor isn't without flaw; it's not particularly durable since it lost Roost, and some hard stops do exist. Notably it struggles really hard with Paldean Blaze Tauros and can have trouble with Tera Steel Salamence, but there is definitely a lack of splashable counterplay. It's not even enough to be a faster Bullet Punch resist anymore, since Trailblaze means that Pokemon like Pawmot, Quaquaval and Lucario can't just tank a hit and KO it back the way they would be able to otherwise. Scizor can also struggle to fit all the moves it wants; the standard set of Swords Dance, Bullet Punch, Close Combat and Trailblaze does occasionally find itself wanting U-turn or Quick Attack, but in general it hits pretty much everything with that coverage.

Scizor has mostly been a fixture of tournament play, where it has performed some silly endgames that we think are unhealthy for the tier. We'd like to put it up for public vote, so here's your chance to have your say! Post your thoughts below! However, keep in mind that - as is standard for the forum - one-liners and posts lacking substance are subject to deletion and, in extreme cases, may lead to infractions.

Oh, we also voted on Quaquaval and Pelipper. Neither reached the voting threshold required for a ban, as you can see above.

---

The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 78 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 78 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 82. As always, needing more than 50 games to 78 GXE is fine.

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
78	50
78.2	49
78.4	48
78.6	47
78.8	46
79	45
79.2	44
79.4	43
79.6	42
79.8	41
80	40
80.2	39
80.4	38
80.6	37
80.8	36
81	35
81.2	34
81.4	33
81.6	32
81.8	31
82	30

The test will operate as always. There will be no suspect ladder. Instead, the standard UU ladder will remain open. Those who wish to participate in this suspect test will instead use a fresh, suspect-specific alt. All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! UU ladder on a fresh alt with the following format: "UU2VK (Nick)." For example, I might register the alt UU2VK Lily to ladder with. You must meet the listed format in order to qualify.

Participants will have until Sunday, April 23rd at 7:00 PM GMT -4 to meet voting requirements and post in the Alt Identification Thread. PLEASE DO NOT POST YOUR CONFIRMED SUSPECT RESULTS HERE - there is a dedicated thread for identifying your suspect results. Happy laddering!

 

[justdrew]

Introducing: The Duality of Man

Meme's aside. When we do suspect Iron Leaves, the thing has to go. It's highly uncompetitive being able to just switch into the game +1 speed, Swords Dance, Tera, and win. I personally think it's also busted without Tera, but maybe not.

Scizor is perhaps broken with it being able to Tera into Steel, Normal, or Fire. That being said, it's kinda funny were suspecting it when it doesn't have Roost or Knock Off. But that's just a testament to how amazing Tera is as a mechanic. I personally think that it's kinda lame we're looking at Pokemon that are broken because of Tera as opposed to Tera itself. I'm still on the Tera ban train but I don't think that's happening.

I personally wouldn't ban Scizor. I think it's manageable. I think one thing that makes it really difficult to check it is a lack of Intimidate mons and it's access to Trailblaze which allows it to hit Quagsire without having to dedicate itself to Tera Grass. This might be a pretty close suspect. Good choice by the council.

Also another controversial opinion, I don't think Quaquaval is super good. The council voted 5 to quick ban and 6 do not ban. That's a really close vote for a Pokemon I haven't seen do anything. There was a UUFPL game between Hurtadoo and KM where both used rain and neither used Quaqeval. Not that Quaqeval should be on rain, but I imagined it would be something people would try. Quaquaval appeared in 3 UUPL replays and did nothing. So there's certainly not enough evidence to say it's bad and pretty much the same amount of evidence saying it's broken. Now this could be because Iron Leaves basically took the tier by storm being used by a bunch of people to great measures of success. But really, I don't see how Quaq came one vote away from being quick banned. It has the same attack stat as Weavile, the same speed stat as Heracross, the same hp stat as Tinkaton, and pretty basic defensive stats. It's ability is Moxie which historically is an ability no one wants to use. Like Moxie Heracross, Krookodile, and Salamence are things that get such rare usage because their other abilities are better. Quaq has no better ability to its forced to use it. It kinda just seems like it'll be as good or slightly better than Water Tauros and get used more defensively with Roost and Spin.

I know a lot of people disagree on Quaq so let me know why you think it should be banned. I think it belongs in A- or B+ tier once the meta settles. For sure a cool Pokemon but absolutely no where near bannable.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Monky25]

Also another controversial opinion, I don't think Quaquaval is super good. The council voted 5 to quick ban and 6 do not ban. That's a really close vote for a Pokemon I haven't seen do anything. There was a UUFPL game between Hurtadoo and KM where both used rain and neither used Quaqeval. Not that Quaqeval should be on rain, but I imagined it would be something people would try. Quaquaval appeared in 3 UUPL replays and did nothing. So there's certainly not enough evidence to say it's bad and pretty much the same amount of evidence saying it's broken. Now this could be because Iron Leaves basically took the tier by storm being used by a bunch of people to great measures of success. But really, I don't see how Quaq came one vote away from being quick banned. It has the same attack stat as Weavile, the same speed stat as Heracross, the same hp stat as Tinkaton, and pretty basic defensive stats. It's ability is Moxie which historically is an ability no one wants to use. Like Moxie Heracross, Krookodile, and Salamence are things that get such rare usage because their other abilities are better. Quaq has no better ability to its forced to use it. It kinda just seems like it'll be as good or slightly better than Water Tauros and get used more defensively with Roost and Spin.

I know a lot of people disagree on Quaq so let me know why you think it should be banned. I think it belongs in A- or B+ tier once the meta settles. For sure a cool Pokemon but absolutely no where near bannable.

Thanks for reading!

This part about Quaquaval being one vote away from being quick banned isn't correct. I'm not trying to single anyone out since this is a question I'm sure others have so I figured I would make a formal post about it. New guidelines for council votes were established here in this post of what majority is needed for a quick ban. Here, an 8/11 majority was needed, which is quite far from the 5 votes Quaquaval got. From my perspective Quaquaval generally is a strange instance; there's a fair amount of possibility it could be broken especially since it seems strong on paper, which is why I believe (not entirely sure) a few of the ban voters voted to ban it into a retest so a Pokemon that could be possibly broken wouldn't be running around during UUPL playoffs, but it hasn't really made itself a clear-cut case like Iron Leaves did from what I've seen generally. My vote reasoning was that I think it could be broken with more time and development, but right now it is not broken and Scizor is a more pressing presence, causing me to vote DNB. Anyway, I hope this clears up a few things about Quaquaval and how a near majority isn't close to a quick ban.

 

[KM]

Introducing: The Duality of Man

View attachment 506149

Also another controversial opinion, I don't think Quaquaval is super good. The council voted 5 to quick ban and 6 do not ban. That's a really close vote for a Pokemon I haven't seen do anything. There was a UUFPL game between Hurtadoo and KM where both used rain and neither used

rest of your post is good but i didn't run quaquaval because i'm an edgy loser who would rather run nu mons not because it isn't good. also i ran toxicroak specifically because of how good quacker is. :thumbsup:

 

[sleestacks]

After a lot of thought, I think that I've finally determined that Rain is a bannable strategy. Not necessarily quickban worthy, but I believe that a suspect test is in order, at the minimum.

To figure this out, I took a step back and looked at Smogon's core philosophy, as stated on the official website:

"The "OU metagame" is the result of a search for a balanced game, where player skill, teambuilding skill, and a certain amount of luck combine to execute victory." (para. 3)

This quote refers specifically to the OU metagame, but of course that's not all that it applies to - it can be applied to any metagame for a basis on tiering decisions, and Gen 9 UU is no exception.

To be frank, Rain does not provide an extra element to teambuilding, or even have a neutral effect. Rain actively limits the amount of skill in teambulding, while simultaneously placing the fate of the game in the matchup instead of the quality of play. This directly contradicts Smogon's philosphy.

Let's start with the teambuilding aspect of Rain. When preparing for the Rain sweepers in the teambuilder, there's no such thing as a "soft check" really. Against the majority of Rain sweepers, you either laugh at their damage or get swept depending on what you have prepared. As for the actual checks that you can use, let's start with the defensive checks:

For the Physical Sweepers (Floatzel, Barraskewda, Quaquaval):
- Water Absorbers (gastrodon, quagsire, *maybe* vaporeon and toxicroak)
- Very Bulky Water Resists (water tauros, salamence, slowbro, Wo-Chien)
For the Special Sweepers (Golduck, Kilowattrel, Iron Jugulis, other hurricane spammers)
- Tyranitar
- Gastrodon (can't wall golduck due to Grass Knot, 2HKO'd if hurricane user is specs)
- Generally Bulky Special Walls (Blissey, Scream Tail, Florges (?), Tinkaton, all of which struggles against Specs/NP Boosts)

This isn't an insignificant amount of checks! The problem, however, is how these checks fit together. In practice, you're forced into a select few cores when teambuilding in order to fit a defensive check to both the physical and special rain sweepers (TTar + Gastro, Slowbro/Water Tauros + Salamence + TTar, etc.). This brings me back to Smogon's philosophy.

The goal here is to make a balanced metagame where skill in teambuilding is rewarded. By forcing these cores onto pretty much every bulky team, we are taking skill out of the equation. Less team slots to work with means less options, and therefore less room for expression of skill (especially when you need to make your final 3-4 synergize with with whatever anti-rain core you use!).

Now, let's see the offensive checks that you can use in the builder:

- Very Strong Priority Users (Banded First Impressions, Bisharp (kinda sucks rn ngl), Accelerock)
- Scarf Gardevoir (you trace Swift Swim)
- ???
- Asking your opponent to forfeit
- Curling into the fetal position and crying

Offensive teams really just can't deal with rain all that well. Priority and Gardevoir are pretty much all that you have to play against it, and the best priority option (First Impression) is very exploitable. This, once again, brings me back to Smogon's philosophy - the fact that the teams in-between Balance and Rain HO are pretty much unviable leaves you with less options for creativity, and, by extention, less options to express your skill as a builder. And that's not even mentioning how preparing for rain often makes your Offense fail against bulkier teams. Dedicating those resources to counterteaming extremely fast offense often leaves you without a lot of stallbreaking tools.

Now, let's take a look past the building - what does rain do when you're in the battle? It almost always defaults to one of a few things:
- Winning on matchup because you didn't use one of the aforementioned cores, breaking past Water resists with decent natural bulk like Decidueye and Tsareena
- Being completely trivialized because it can't break past Salamence, Slowbro, TTar, etc.
- Having an actually interesting Offense V. Rain Battle, with Rain dancing around First Impressions and the better positioned team winning (extremely rare)

These polarizing matchups aren't exactly allowing for expression of skill in battle. This is bringing me back to Smogon's philosophy once again - you don't get to express your skill in a lot of matches with Rain simply because of the nature of the playstyle. Winning on matchup against almost entire genres of teams isn't the sign of a healthy part of the meta.

On another note, I'm aware that Gastrodon + TTar or Slowbro + Salamence were good cores before Rain came out. That doesn't change the fact that there were a lot of other good cores too before rain came back, and the fact that most of them are now unviable leads to less room for skill expression, as previously stated.

In addition, I think that an apt comparison for rain is Dracovish in Gen 8 OU. It falls flat when you have one of its select counters on your team, but if you are unprepared, you are absolutely screwed. Of course, Rain debatably isn't broken to the same degree as Dracovish, but it's still an amount of restriction where action is necessary in my opinion.

And, as my last statement on Rain, I want to say that I know that other things have an influence on the builder too. Rain, however, is on a completely different level. Other threats don't force a very specific category of Pokemon (super physically bulky water resist) onto a team in order to deal with them. The most constraining is Gengar, and all you need for it is a not-paper-thin resist to each STAB and it's job gets a whole lot harder. Playing something bulkier? Just make sure that your resists have either a recovery move or Wish support and you're good to go.


As for Iron Leaves and Scizor, I have no clue lol. I played like 4 matches against Iron Leaves and they were on a 1200 ladder alt, so you know that the games showed absolutely nothing. As for Scizor, I spammed Talon everywhere before April shifts, and I only run banded myself because of the funny grey dopamine button, so I can't really comment on how broken either is.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

This part about Quaquaval being one vote away from being quick banned isn't correct. I'm not trying to single anyone out since this is a question I'm sure others have so I figured I would make a formal post about it. New guidelines for council votes were established here in this post of what majority is needed for a quick ban. Here, an 8/11 majority was needed, which is quite far from the 5 votes Quaquaval got. From my perspective Quaquaval generally is a strange instance; there's a fair amount of possibility it could be broken especially since it seems strong on paper, which is why I believe (not entirely sure) a few of the ban voters voted to ban it into a retest so a Pokemon that could be possibly broken wouldn't be running around during UUPL playoffs, but it hasn't really made itself a clear-cut case like Iron Leaves did from what I've seen generally. My vote reasoning was that I think it could be broken with more time and development, but right now it is not broken and Scizor is a more pressing presence, causing me to vote DNB. Anyway, I hope this clears up a few things about Quaquaval and how a near majority isn't close to a quick ban.

Yeah, would have rather preferred a suspect for Quaq as while it is a restricting presence, its not impossible to deal with, and we should probably give it some time.

Also leaves definitely had to go, mon was stupidly good.

 

[Rasche]

He will never be ballin....

So it turns out the base 130 att + booster speed mon w/ tera access was actually a good sweeper..... (its probably never leaving UUBL tho lmao)


While Iron Leaves defined itself in this meta as an obnoxiously powerful sweeper/wallbreaker, its offensive presence was also helpful in keeping other metagame threats such as Rain (very partially), Quaquaval and Sandy Shocks somewhat in check.
Without Iron Leaves in the meta, team-building against these threats has become even more difficult. Obviously, this isn't much of a case to keep it unban it on retest however it does point to how limited options against these threats are.

Firstly, In the case of rain, I would like to start by echoing the opinion of sleeslacks.

Rain actively limits the amount of skill in teambulding, while simultaneously placing the fate of the game in the matchup instead of the quality of play.

Unlike in other metagames, SV UU rain serves no healthy role in the metagame with either balancing existing threats or alleviating teambuilder issues. Rain has been a big factor in forcing teams to run the same defensive/offensive cores as to not lose on matchup vs Rain. Rain is easily able to fit strong threats such as pawmot and quaquaval into the playstyle which only further complicates team-building against rain. The recent rain vs rain UUFPL game between KM and Hurtadoo further proves the flexibility of rain and the wide-range of viable pokemon which can fit on the style.
Personally, I would like to see action taken to nerf the rain playstyle (Damp rock ban, drizzle ban etc...) in the future, I don't see any future bans or DLC drops balancing out the playstyle and some drops/bans may even improve rain as a whole. As a final note, I would prefer Pelipper to stay legal in the tier as it has some healthy aspects it can provide to the metagame. Most notably, it is a decent defensive defogger which is able to check threats such as quaquaval and scizor.

On the topic of scizor, I am much more split. SD Scizor sets with access to tera have proven to be extremely potent lategame sweepers. I think the tipping point for most players on Scizor was the uprising of tera-fire scizor to setup on its most notable check/ "counter" talonflame. With that being said, talonflame being so common means that if scizor wants to sweep it kind of requires tera for itself, therefore making scizor somewhat tera reliant in that matchup. Furthermore, you could make the argument that teams should not be so reliant on talonflame to solely check scizor and have counterplay to tera fire scizor; however the counterplay options can be unviable or hard to fit into a team e.g. accelerock lycanrock & defensive toxicroak. Finally, sets which do not require tera as much such as Choice Band are still very viable, and SD scizor in games w/o talonflame do not have as much need to tera.
At the moment I don't know how I will vote on scizor, for now i don't think banning scizor makes the metagame any much more healthier as a new pokemon which can abuse tera and setup on talonflame will probably just take its place anyway.

Quaquaval is an interesting one, I think it still needs time to develop in the meta, the banning of leaves means it is not as forced into using ice spinner/u-turn and can instead focus on sets which can break salamence and slowbro. Overall, i think quavo has serious 4MSS but the right quavquaval set on MU can just sweep through a team.

Thats all from me, thanks for reading!

 

[Lily]

Again, Quaquaval and Pelipper (and rain as a whole) are still being considered and are on the radar, but they are not what's being tested rn. They are less of an immediate concern than Scizor is. Pllease focus on the current suspect test rather than what should be tested next - what comes up after this is a completely different story and is irrelevant to this test, and posts about Quaquaval, Rain etc. just derail the thread, so I'm going to have to delete them going forward... we already voted on those and won't be doing so again for a little while. Ty!

 

[Liz Angeles]

I was pretty firmly of the opinion that scizor isn't broken but then I lost to it while getting reqs which meant I had to waste another half hour so I'm less sure now. Jokes aside I don't really have strong feelings on scizor. I don't particularly think it's broken but one of the things I try to consider is whether banning it improves the metagame and I'm honestly not sure. The builder being less restricted sounds cool in theory but a lot of the fishier teams have really struggled dealing with scizor and are being used less which is positive imo. I think the meta with scizor feels way less match up dependent than it did before scizor dropped and overall I like it being in the tier

 

[udongirl]

my first post about sv uu:

First, we don't have to unban Iron Leaves from UU. Not only does its common set have the bulk to survive a Salamence's Hurricane in High odds, but it also has its high speed stat boosted by its ability Quark Drive, thus eligible for a ban.

As for Scizor, I don't think a ban is necessary (for now). Paldean Tauros forms are great by themselves and will obviously still be a versatile and strong option that isn't hard to fit on teams even if Scizor is banned. As for its Tera type, I think that Scizor struggles with its Tera Typing more than its moveset, failing to KO either Talonflame or Salamence depending on whether it has a Tera typing of Fire or Steel, respectively.
And Scizor depends heavily on bullet punch so most steel regists can do something to Scizor. Quaquaval, Gyarados, Sandy Shocks, and some Steel resist terad mons which can hit scizor hard prevent Scizor from sweeping.

Thank you for reading my bad English. This team is for all who read my post.
Udongirl team

 

[KM]

short post on my scizor thoughts:

in my eyes, there are two types of viable scizor sets. on one hand, you have the consistent, good sets like tera fire sd bp, sd uturn, or band. while they're not likely to win games against well built teams on their own, they can very easily trade up or get a few kills and they make counterplay like talonflame turn from solid checks into guessing games and set-up fodder. on the other hand, you have highroll scizor sets, like SD tera steel/normal LO, tera blast scizor, trailblaze + uncommon coverage move, etc. these sets purposely sacrifice consistency for the chance at a highroll -- whether it's simply not getting burnt by flame body or having the right 4 moves to sweep in a specific bo1 tour scenario.

it's the simultaneity of both of these types of sets being viable and used that pushes scizor over the edge. not only is it deeply constraining in the builder, but it often forces mindgames that never feel good to play against. do you click will-o-wisp against the scizor and tera ghost and risk dying to bullet punch or wisping on a tera fire? do you click brave bird and end up bouncing off of tera steel? do you scout after switching in mence to try and bait out tera and risk scizor boosting further?. ultimately, the problem with these mindgames is that the risk and reward is very often skewed heavily in the favor of the scizor user. most of the time, you always have the safe click of "dealing a lot of damage with bp" even if you don't have the exact right set to win the specific interaction you're facing, and you're always operating from the position having more information than your opponent. usually the "winning" scenario for the scizor user looks like picking up three kills or winning on the spot, whereas the losing scenario looks like "only did 50% to their mon and forced tera"

please don't let the bug ruin another tier x

 

[Skarpherim]

vote do not ban

Scizor is:

- one of the few important steels that brings more variety to teambuilding

- a useful revenge killer and offense deterrent

- way less threatening without tera

- most effective in endgames except tera may already be used up by this point

- actually healthy for the metagame (helps check giga threats like polteageist, gallade, gengar, iron jugulis, maushold, mimikyu, tyranitar)

imo the "problem scizor" is sd tera fire and the setup turns it gets when changing types. losing all 6 to a +4 scizor is not fun. reminder: you probably shouldn't always switch talonflame in without scouting. talonflame is for eternally walling scizor after you know their set or they waste tera. worst case is they play well, save their tera, and you might have to use your own tera defensively to stop scizor

i don't think it's that unreasonable to revenge scizor considering the electrics and waters out there rn. my mindset is that most scizor sets are pretty bad when loading into the common talonflame = just worry about tera fire and have some sort of defensive tera type counterplay or bullet punch/quick attack resist. i can acknowledge that scizor has moments where it just has the best 4th move or tera in the right matchup but i don't see them as broken

 

[TyCarter]

I do not think is the issue plaguing this tier (because rain makes building in this tier genuinely awful and does more harm to the tier but that's a topic for another time), however, I can understand why it is getting suspected. Skarph's post highlights a lot of similar sentiments to my own views. It is not constraining on the builder given we do not have many good steel types in this tier or they are much more specific. (Tinkaton is good but a fucking fake ass steel type get fucking real and Lucario is basically just for HO) It is an important check to many offensive threats in the tier. I am mainly gonna talk about SD Tera Fire Zor because CB, while decent has a lot holding it back. Defog/defensive Zor is simply awful. (This replay where it misses a kill on Tera Flying TTar is fucking hilarious but not really related to what I'm gonna ramble abt)

SD Zor has some 4MSS and yes needing to guess what its 4th move is can be a pain but covering these options is not beyond unreasonable. SD Zor is never beating una even if it did have Trailblaze because you don't need to have a fucking PhD in rocket science to scout it out and also lol tera. QA is generally preferred but you aren't breaking through , , and . Even Graf can come in on an SD and encore loop it since Graf should be faster than Scizor anyways and also parting shot but I will admit that is a bit more risky. Even in the Talonflame vs Scizor dynamic, Talonflame could easily just wear down Scizor with Brave Bird on the turn Zor uses Tera Fire, I think ppl need to stop liberally clicking wisp against Scizor if anything which is something I have noticed at times when watching games although with that said, over time ppl have also gotten better at being more disciplined with not doing that senselessly.

It's also worth noting that Mence can punish tera fire with Hydro given that has actually seen some usage here and there thanks to Hippo and also a half decent option on rain so the Scizor player also has to do their due diligence to scout that possibility out as well. Intimidation stacking with stuff like Tauros and Salamence is fine given although personally, I've found myself mostly doing that thanks to Quaquaval. This doesn't even include the fact that something like Tera Foul Play Wo-Chien is a pretty good punish for it and that's a set that's been on the rise.

Dealing with Scizor offensively, you can't really go wrong with pokes like Sandy Shocks (assuming it hasn't tera ice'd yet), both Tauros forms although is a much better fit for offensive teams which can wear it down and also opposing priority can help handle sciz. Even Lucario can pose a threat to it. This doesn't even include the fact that rain is honestly a terrible matchup for Scizor since it can't exactly eat Hurricanes and the swift swimmers basically does numbers on Scizor and you aren't exactly getting free opportunities to set up in the first place. (I did play with rain a lot in my suspect run and Scizor honestly is not a problem for rain at all)

The other important thing to highlight is the fact that SD Zor really needs Life Orb to truly break through and racking up decent damage on Scizor isn't asking for too much given it has no real longevity and gets worn down by a lot more easily since it lost roost alongside everyone seemingly having access to Spikes. HDB SD Zor probably could be ok but I personally find it lacking in damage output, if anyone has tried that set I'd love to hear how good it actually is. When it comes in, realistically it only really has 1 or MAYBE 2 chances at most in the game to go for the win or force lots of progress. There are a lot of solid offensive and defensive options in the tier that can keep Scizor at bay. Also, I wanna highlight specs given Specs TBolt with Timid Nature more or less just shreds offensive Scizor, sure you have to respect Close Combat but it's not like Zone didn't have to respect Superpower in past gens anyways and it didn't stop it from doing its job then and even CC on a trailblaze set is not a free kill when Zone can also tera to snuff out the attempt if it comes in on trailblaze.

TLDR: Scizor is fantastic; mainly SD Tera Fire while other sets are ok (except defog/defensive zor which is asscheeks). It's a healthy check against most offensive threats and great on offense itself, however, 4MSS really holds it back sometimes and honestly wears itself down fairly quickly. It has a fair share of reasonable defensive and offensive counterplay.

Edit: basically DNB lol

 

[umbry]

post-drops thoughts

[✿] Alyssa

— 05/04/2023 00:20
My thoughts are currently that scizor is worse than pre drops and i was dnb before but i did mention it that people were using really terrible scizor sets such as life orb so if that were to change now it might be/still be broken

it's a good thing this suspect is happening but my stance on scizor hasn't really changed, I don't believe we got to that stage where it really is broken yet, perhaps we did right before shifts but I can't justify it now that we got even more revenge killing options alongside the existing ones.

LO is pretty disappointing and easy to revenge kill, at best you trade one mon for it against a well built team and a good opponent, it lacks the sturdiness to actually remain a threat throughout games and find setup opportunities as recoil oftentimes gets in the way of your own sweep. It only really fits on hyper offense but now even these structures have started to opt for the leftovers approach which is a lot more consistent in my opinion. CB obviously exists but I wouldn't go as far as calling it broken, it's solid though.

Using your own defensive tera isn't the only way to stop a scizor sweep, I'm sure other users already went more in depth on that but since I mentioned it here's ways I think you can stop scizor: tauros forms, duck, sandy shocks, rain threats are able to offensively check scizor in most circumstances, talonflame/RH hippowdon deal good chunks with stab attacks and the former is going to burn you if you're not fire type terastalise but either way you get out of the exchange very weakened, salamence/magnezone can check most sets, if scizor used terastalisation to change its typing in order to sneak through one of its common checks (usually fire for talonflame/fire attacks, i feel other types are underexplored atm but fire definitely feels the most consistent at least for swords dance sets) then the list expands to include even more unconventional scizor checks such as donphan and RH alomomola and even if they may not directly check it in most cases, their presence certainly puts on a toll on the zor player's decision making especially when it comes to whether or not they want to burn that terastalisation. Of course there's checks that involve tera as well like quagsire and foul play wochien, which scizor can't really get past without some magic but they do require tera and are more team specific.

Leftovers/Boots as the item can only fix a few of the issues, it's pretty solid don't get me wrong, but as the "offensive variance" from life orb is removed as to make it easier for scizor to find setup opportunities, defensive/trading sequences become more linear. Imo the boots sd u turn set from pre shifts was the closest thing to me that could achieve broken interactions while also freeing some team requirements like "must be on ho" or "needs removal" but it does come with its own limitations, completely ignoring steel types (mirror mu, steel type teras...) being one of them.

I tried directing my focus on whether on not i think scizor is a broken element, which, in my subjective opinion, i believe it currently is not. It is probably still a top5 pokemon even post shifts and as other posts in this thread outlined (like skarph's) it does also have a positive influence on the metagame.

Will get reqs sometime but I'm DNB for now, thank you for reading if you got this far :D.

 

[pdt]

post-drops thoughts

[✿] Alyssa

— 05/04/2023 00:20
My thoughts are currently that scizor is worse than pre drops and i was dnb before but i did mention it that people were using really terrible scizor sets such as life orb so if that were to change now it might be/still be broken

it's a good thing this suspect is happening but my stance on scizor hasn't really changed, I don't believe we got to that stage where it really is broken yet, perhaps we did right before shifts but I can't justify it now that we got even more revenge killing options alongside the existing ones.

LO is pretty disappointing and easy to revenge kill, at best you trade one mon for it against a well built team and a good opponent, it lacks the sturdiness to actually remain a threat throughout games and find setup opportunities as recoil oftentimes gets in the way of your own sweep. It only really fits on hyper offense but now even these structures have started to opt for the leftovers approach which is a lot more consistent in my opinion. CB obviously exists but I wouldn't go as far as calling it broken, it's solid though.

Using your own defensive tera isn't the only way to stop a scizor sweep, I'm sure other users already went more in depth on that but since I mentioned it here's ways I think you can stop scizor: tauros forms, duck, sandy shocks, rain threats are able to offensively check scizor in most circumstances, talonflame/RH hippowdon deal good chunks with stab attacks and the former is going to burn you if you're not fire type terastalise but either way you get out of the exchange very weakened, salamence/magnezone can check most sets, if scizor used terastalisation to change its typing in order to sneak through one of its common checks (usually fire for talonflame/fire attacks, i feel other types are underexplored atm but fire definitely feels the most consistent at least for swords dance sets) then the list expands to include even more unconventional scizor checks such as donphan and RH alomomola and even if they may not directly check it in most cases, their presence certainly puts on a toll on the zor player's decision making especially when it comes to whether or not they want to burn that terastalisation. Of course there's checks that involve tera as well like quagsire and foul play wochien, which scizor can't really get past without some magic but they do require tera and are more team specific.

Leftovers/Boots as the item can only fix a few of the issues, it's pretty solid don't get me wrong, but as the "offensive variance" from life orb is removed as to make it easier for scizor to find setup opportunities, defensive/trading sequences become more linear. Imo the boots sd u turn set from pre shifts was the closest thing to me that could achieve broken interactions while also freeing some team requirements like "must be on ho" or "needs removal" but it does come with its own limitations, completely ignoring steel types (mirror mu, steel type teras...) being one of them.

I tried directing my focus on whether on not i think scizor is a broken element, which, in my subjective opinion, i believe it currently is not. It is probably still a top5 pokemon even post shifts and as other posts in this thread outlined (like skarph's) it does also have a positive influence on the metagame.

Will get reqs sometime but I'm DNB for now, thank you for reading if you got this far :D.

I do not have individual thoughts, and I thought Umbry did a good job explaining. I would like to cosign this post.

vote do not ban

Scizor is:

- one of the few important steels that brings more variety to teambuilding

- a useful revenge killer and offense deterrent

- way less threatening without tera

- most effective in endgames except tera may already be used up by this point

- actually healthy for the metagame (helps check giga threats like polteageist, gallade, gengar, iron jugulis, maushold, mimikyu, tyranitar)

imo the "problem scizor" is sd tera fire and the setup turns it gets when changing types. losing all 6 to a +4 scizor is not fun. reminder: you probably shouldn't always switch talonflame in without scouting. talonflame is for eternally walling scizor after you know their set or they waste tera. worst case is they play well, save their tera, and you might have to use your own tera defensively to stop scizor

i don't think it's that unreasonable to revenge scizor considering the electrics and waters out there rn. my mindset is that most scizor sets are pretty bad when loading into the common talonflame = just worry about tera fire and have some sort of defensive tera type counterplay or bullet punch/quick attack resist. i can acknowledge that scizor has moments where it just has the best 4th move or tera in the right matchup but i don't see them as broken

Yung Skarpac also has a quality take I agree with. Skarpac you are so smart and good at Pokemon.

 

[asukabee]

Unquestionable，Scizor is the great pokemon，it always exists as a foundation in uu format.
UU cannot lose Scizor，just as the West cannot lose Jerusalem！

My real reason is something like this:
Firstly，it lost roost and knock off.That means that he can only serve as an offensive Pokemon，unlike before with plenty of diversity.
secondly，in the face of the rain，Scizor can use quick attack after tera normal.Compared to lucario，because of the better durability，it has more opportunities to switch.Moreover，Scizor can use Trailblaze to beat down Quagsire and Gastrodon.

 

[Liquidocelot]

UU cannot lose Scizor，just as the West cannot lose Jerusalem！

Well that might be the most problematically loaded sentence I've ever seen in all my years on the smogon forums.

 

[Nish the Great]

Well that might be the most problematically loaded sentence I've ever seen in all my years on the smogon forums.

Not the guy who was going to donate to Autism Speaks if he won a battle?

 

[sleestacks]

Not the guy who was going to donate to Autism Speaks if he won a battle?

I beg your pardon?
I'm going to need a bit more context on this.

Anyway, I think that Scizor is a very interesting Pokemon - As pretty much everyone before me has said, it can have the right 4 moves and be a big threat to your team. TyCarter said pretty much everything that I have to say, but I have a couple more statements that are relevant.

First, you need to play and build well with Scizor for it to truly be broken. Due to the high-roll nature of its Life Orb sets, patching up those weaknesses in the builder isn't a cakewalk. And, when you get into the battle itself, you don't just Click SD, get chip, and sweep with whatever other sweeper you paired with Scizor - you need to position yourself well in order to get of an SD and make good progress considering how frail you are. And, even when you ARE in a good matchup with Scizor, you sometimes even need to make a prediction to nail X pokemon on the switchin with the appropriate coverage, adding more inconsistency.

In addition, I didn't really have trouble checking Scizor before the drops, but it's feeling harder to check it now. However, I'm not feeling more strained to check it because Scizor itself is the problem, but because of the new threats that dropped. Checking Scizor, Rain, and Quaquaval all in one team is a headache. Scizor can stay because of the unique traits and utility it provides (see TyCarter's post again), but Rain and maybe Quaquaval need to go. See my previous rant (post #5) for more info on why Rain needs to be gone.

So I will be voting DNB on Scizor, as long as I have the motivation to get the requirements.

 

[Liquidocelot]

Not the guy who was going to donate to Autism Speaks if he won a battle?

I need to see this post, because damn that might take the cake instead.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

I need to see this post, because damn that might take the cake instead.

The actual post itself was deleted. Here's a link to a post quoting it

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ge-105-post-2618.3674058/page-99#post-9264421

 

[Nubs]

After finishing reqs, I probably only faced about 6 or 7 scizors, and none have been a threat. Banded just doesn't work this gen, and it's lost multiple important moves from prior gens that made it so busted then. Additionally, rain and Quaquaval were pretty much all I saw in the mid to high ladder - all of which just laugh off sciz. Even against other archtypes, one trailblaze does not give it a competitive speed tier, and quite a few natively good mons in the tier resist BP or hit back hard with other priority moves on top of the fact that we have tera to check it even more now than hidden power or z-moves have in the past. This seems like a pretty open and shut decision for me.

That said, a duck or rain suspect seems highly warranted.

 

[Amane Misa]

Ever since the tier shifts I have been only using rain teams because I have been lazy to build and because I haven't had an easier time laddering with something since the early-2020 ladder tournament (Linoone + Toxtricity + Celebi + Haxorus Screens).

I don't think that rain is broken but I think it's the best it has ever been (except for the times it was broken).

Here are the two Rain teams I've been using:

https://pokepast.es/da41949143914447

https://pokepast.es/8f5dd036d371f933

Rain is generally one-dimensional but there are so cool techs I've been using:

• AV Scizor is a great pivot to use in conjunction with Water-types which also brings them in safely.
• I prefer Salamence over Kilowattrel because while the bird's offenses are complemented better by Rain, Salamence's defensive capabilities, mainly its bulk and Intimidate, are much more needed in Rain from my experience.
• I used Barraskewda in my first team because of its Speed-tier. The team felt a bit more passive than the next one so I wanted a Pokemon that could comfortably beat Unburden-boosted Hawlucha and other Floatzel-rain teams. Furthermore, its Liquidation is stronger than Floatzel's, and sometimes I just don't want my Rain-abuser to kill itself by recoil.

As for Scizor, I'll be voting Do Not Ban. I pretty much agree with the great post umbry posted and I'd also like to talk about the opportunity cost in Teratallizing Scizor:

• Tera-Steel: good for CB and helps Scizor check a lot of Pokemon but every Bullet Punch click you are at a risk of getting burnt by Talonflame or chipped by a bulky Rocky Helmet user.
• Tera-Fire + Trailblazer: the best offensive SD set, probably, but most good players will scout for the set before throwing their Talonflame in on it, if there's a chance Scizor would win if it SDs on a Will-O-Wisp. It checked better by bulky Ground-types now and Sandy Shocks.
• Tera-Normal + Quick Attack: Generally used to lure and KO Talonflame, but while it does that, there's a 30% chance Scizor is burned and you don't have the extra force for your most spammable move, Bullet Punch, which Tera-Steel would provide.

What is common to all Tera-types, except for Tera-Fire, is that the presence of Flame Body users deters it from using its best move, Bullet Punch.

This argument is also valid for a not-Terastallized Scizor, which is generally deterred from using Bullet Punch, U-turn and all its other moves, but I generally only wanted to respond to the claim Scizor is one of the best, if not the best, Tera users. A burnt Scizor is generally a dead Scizor because it lost Roost.

As for the other duck in the room, Quaquaval, I kind of regret voting Ban because the metagame adapted to it very quickly. It's still a force to be reckoned with but it will never be able to bypass its counters and checks (it has a lot of them) with one set, meaning there is a big chance your Quaquaval will do nothing in a lot of games.

 

[Mossy Sandwich]

Scizor is definitely good and will win games, but I feel like it's pretty good for the metagame currently.

One of the more relevant things about Scizor is that it finds setup opportunities against passive stuff like Scream Tail, Tinkaton, Tsareena and some others. I'd say this is generally a good thing; it forces you to play more actively rather than sit there with mons that would otherwise go unpunished for making minimal progress. It's a lot harder for it to setup against more active gameplans with stuff like Mence, Donphan or even a Talonflame that refuses to take the bait of wisping. It encourages a more offensive tier, but not too offensive as Bullet Punch is a huge threat to HO which I do think is nice.

The meta has also adapted rather well to Scizor. Fire types such as Tauros-Fire and Rotom-Heat were very rare before it dropped, but have grown in popularity to combat it. Water types are also very common now with Tauros-Water, Quaquaval and even stuff like Pelipper checking it well. A lot of these are not hard-counters, but stacking checks on teams makes Scizor very manageable and it's not too difficult to do that.

I would also like to mention that Scizor committing to a tera type can be rather rough for it. Its only real defensive utility comes from its base typing, it really can't afford to take even medium damage due to how easy it is to wear down and due to so many priority options being faster than it, but Tera brings that to another level. Fire makes you weak to Accelerock and Aqua Jet, Normal makes you neutral to First Impression and Extreme Speed and that makes any amount of chip able to prevent your sweep since all users of these moves generally outspeed you before you can Bullet Punch. Even Steel gives you Ground and Fighting weaknesses meaning you can just drop. A lot of the time, I've found myself baiting out a certain Tera type and punishing it with Priority, a different counter or a Tera of my own, it's really not that difficult to do.

Back in March, I lost a good amount of games to Scizor, but I was able to adapt my teambuilding and playing to account for it. Yes, it's a strong threat, but it needs to be used very carefully and doesn't take over games easily as long as you respect it. I think the tier is currently overloaded with one too many threats and something might need to go, but I don't think Scizor is that threat. I'll be voting DNB and will look forward to discussing Rain, Quaquaval and Gengar some more as I feel those are some of the biggest issues at the moment. Most other points which I'd talk about have already been highlighted in this thread, so make sure you've read everything else. Anyway bye.

 

[Kippiez]

I personally dont think scizor should be banned yes its a great clean pokemon and it can be more just that their are alot of pokemon in uu that can take its attacks easily and withle it down