Ladder ORAS 1v1 [3v3 Team Preview]

[Rumplestiltskin]

Ok, I feel I need to make a big post because there's been a lot of posts and ban proposals recently along the lines of "this meta's banlist differs from other metas, let's fix that" or "let's change this meta so that its balance is closer to that of standard tiers", which I honestly think is a big mistake. So rather than argue with every suggestion that inevitably pops up to replace the last, I'm going to take this opportunity to discuss 1v1 Tiering Philosophy instead.

The big thing about 1v1 is, well, you pick a pokemon and that's it. Being able to counter a set is the same as being able to check it. And while pokemon need to work well together to counter all the common sets you're likely to see, there isn't the same level of coherence between members of a team - from what I've found there's no such thing as running only stall pokes because it's more effective than running two stally mons and an offensive set. The reason all members of an OU team may follow the same playstyle is that otherwise momentum will be lost, different mons will need different amounts of support, and the team won't be greater than the sum of its parts. In 1v1, however, this is not the case.

So I'd argue that OU's reasons for banning or not banning a pokemon may well be different to those in 1v1, to the same extent as DOU having a different set of requirements. Because of this, I'd like to look at the very basic reasons for banning, and try to work out a coherent method to follow in 1v1 such that the right mons end up banned or not banned.

Let's start at the top: We don't want this to be AG 1v1. The idea of tiering is that we play with the common pokes, not the "hugely OP ones" such as m-ray or p-don that Game Freak seemingly designed to be OP, rather than the more standard mons. And if this isn't a good enough reason for you, my other two reasons are: a) having such powerful mons would likely decrease variety of viable pokemon and b) it simply wouldn't be as fun. The question, then, is where to draw the line in terms of what pokemon seem definitely broken, seem will definitely reduce the number and variety of viable pokemon and strategies, and will make the game less fun.

A good starting point might be OU's preliminary banlist or the Battle Spot bans, both of which are pretty similar. And to be honest, it's not that far from 1v1's current banlist. Aside from the blaziken ban and ignoring nintendo's bans (like mew or zygarde) that aren't based on competitive reasons, there aren't that many differences. Note I'm not necessarily saying this is a good place for the meta to be at - OU's certainly changed a lot and BSS starts with BS for a reason but from that point on, I'd argue there needs to be a clear and coherent reason in favour of a ban, rather than against.

So what's a good or bad reason for a pokemon to be banned? Bans exist such that a) the metagame is balanced and b) there are a wide variety of pokemon sets and strategies available while teambuilding. However, I've already explained that playstyles don't really happen as much in 1v1 - you might ban something in OU if it auto-bets any and all stall, but this isn't anywhere near as good a reason in 1v1 where running stall on two thirds of your team doesn't in any way restrict the other third. Just because a pokemon beats all stall mons doesn't mean you're limited in terms of available strategies, at least to a large extent. Moreover, there are a wide range of sets and strategies that are most certainly usable in the current metagame. Offensive sets such as choiced sets, setup sets, or simply powerful mons like Zard Y are definitely viable. Stally sets, such as Charm Chansey and even PP stall mons are certainly usable. Other kinds of sets such as subseed whimsicott or sub/encore/disable alakazam, while gimmicky, are still usable. Therefore, I'd argue that the only reason to ban a pokemon in the current metagame would be for balancing purposes.

So at what point is a pokemon broken? This is where definitions will always become a little fuzzy, however I honestly don't see that any of the current S-rank pokemon are broken. Every one of them has a wide range of available counters, whether it be Porygon-Z countered by Chansey or Mega Salamence losing to Iron Defense Deoxys-D.


So in summary, what I'm trying to say is that the meta is in a very good place right now. We simply don't need to shake it up in the way some of these changes would do, and in fact were we to design the metagame from scratch I'm pretty sure this is what we'd end up with in any case - after all, that's basically what I've just done.
There's just one change to the metagame that I'd recommend. Unban Blaziken.

You have once again ignored the point I was making. You say that no pokes are broken in 1v1 right now because "they have a wide range of available counters", my point was that a lot of these "available counters" are other banworthy pokes.
Secondly, you have brought up the playstyles argument again. I don't remember if I said this last time as well, but for 1v1 we need to consider individual pokes rather than compare with how OU incorporates playstyles and look at a 1v1 "team" and say "well you have the option of not using these pokes that are outclassed in one of your 3 slots, so there's no problem at all". Like I said, if something got banned from OU it's a strong indication of the poke being too strong for the rest. So going back to my point, we have pokes in 1v1 right now that are holding back a lot of pokes, and these problem pokes are being justified because they are kept in check by other problem pokes.
Like regarding "Mega Salamence losing to Iron Defense Deoxys-D", I think that Deoxys-D is another poke that should be banned from 1v1. It was banned from OU because of easy hazard stacking thanks to its massive bulk and ability to take hits.
In 1v1 it's much more of a problem than that. It has 90 base speed Taunt, 160 defenses, Pressure, and it has access to Counter and Mirror Coat. Here are some of the most common sets used:

1. CounterCoat
- Item: Leftovers / Kee Berry / Maranga Berry
- EV's: 252 HP, 252+ Speed, 4 whatever defense
- Counter, Mirror Coat, Recover, Taunt

2. PP stall with Taunt
- Item: Leftovers / Chesto berry / whatever
- EV's: 252 HP, 252+ Speed, 4 whatever defense
- Iron Defense, Amnesia, Recover / Rest, Taunt

3. PP stall with Mud-Slap / Flash
- Item: Leftovers / Kee Berry / Maranga Berry / Chesto Berry / Mental Herb / whatever
- EV's: 252 HP, 252 Def/SpD, 4 whatever defense
- Iron Defense / Amnesia / Taunt, Iron Defense / Amnesia / Taunt, Rest, Mud-Slap / Flash

Good luck breaking through those defenses using anything other than extreme offense. Wanna take another approach? Outsped and taunted on most relevant answers. And Pressure is just another slap to the face. And the Mud-Slap set is one of the most uncompetitive sets I've ever come across playing 1v1. Even if you bring Taunt, you're gonna be missing those Taunts soon enough and also your Taunt PP is 16 now. And if you do manage to get a Taunt off while facing a set without Taunt, the Deo-D can still (once brought down to struggle when Taunted) use struggle 3 times and then outspeed and use Rest, while having Pressure and PP stalling you at the same time.

I wasn't intending to delve that deeply into why Deoxys-D should be banned when making this post, but it seems like I had a lot to say right off the bat, obviously there's more to be said and discussed regarding this poke.

Right now I'm thinking a 3 in 1 suspect for Blaziken, Mega Blaziken and Mega Salamence. The reason is that Blaziken and Salamence affect each other. If Mega Salamence is banned, for example, and then we have a Blaziken suspect, it would be more dangerous as it has one less counter.

I think there should be more discussion about Blaziken before a potential suspect test. Are you convinced already that a suspect to unban is justified? I know I have more to say and some calcs to do for example. And regarding Mega Salamence, are you saying that Mega Salamence wouldn't be broken if Blaziken was allowed too?

 

[DEG]

I've been lurking in this thread for so long with no interest in posting, not because I don't care anymore but because I stopped playing for so long due to the reason that the metagame has been dull and boring in my opinion since we've been on the same slate for so long. We need to shake the meta, whether by banning or unbanning Pokemon. There's lot of Pokemon/Stuff discussed above but I'm going to elaborate about such reasoning. Rumplestiltskin has mentioned an ''uber state'' that this meta falls under which I don't completely agree with, yes we might have ubers Pokemon but they don't contribute to the broken factor. And I don't think banning them would render the metagame healthy as it will fall in another void where it will continue in a dull state. In each metagame we have the OU Pokemon and the UU Pokemmon and we don't ban OU Pokemon just for the sake to make UU Pokemon appreciated and used, there's such thing called 1v1 UU that could be played via Challenge if bored of facing the same threats over and over again. But even with the presence of powerful top tier Pokemon in 1v1, UU Pokemon can still outshine them, example being that Jellicent can beat Zard X, or Clefable can beat Gyarados. This is the magic of 1v1 that you have to create sets that has a great matchup against most of the metagame taking into consideration low tier and top tier Pokemon. Yes, I find 1v1 dull to the same Pokemon repeating themselves on ladder but No, I don't agree banning them would solve the problem and if people think such Pokemon are broken and destroy their teams with ease, well we need to think outside the box. There's plenty of Pokemon in 1v1 with niches that aren't discovered yet. Articuno I flashed Clefable which to be honest, have the capabilities on taking on high ranked Pokemon, let's not forget Heatran that can take on lot of threats, so we just need to find niches about every UU Pokemon and they will have the right to be counted as top tier checks. A team of Heatran, Landorus and Clefable can fare good in the ladder and thus without using top ranked Pokemon. And because we have the power to ban something we shouldn't go ban happy and restrict our wide metagame to mere Pokemon that are counted nowadays underused or in a different category useless.

Moving on to the Mega Salamence discussion, I still don't believe it's too broken, due to some of counters that haven't been mentioned. Mega Salamence usually runs Giga Impact, DD, Sub, Outrage, Flamethrower, Toxic, Roost. Whatever set it runs it has the same checks, some of them are mentioned and some others aren't because they are outside the box. Why did we forget rhyperior? Hyper Cutter Mawile Mega? Porygon2? Heatran? Mega Aggron? Mega Steelix? Diancie? CM Ice Beam Slowbro Mega? Ampharos? Aegislash? And those are only middle ranked Pokemon with the exception of some. If you complain about underused Pokemon being beat by top tier Pokemon you just have to find the right set to use. Let's not forget that these Pokemon also have the ability to take on other top ranked Pokemon, Diancie can go toe to toe with both Zards, Rhyperior also has the chance to defeat both Zard, Kyub... depending on it's set, it's not just a gimmick to defeat specifically Salamence. And to the rare Hydro Pump and/or EQ set they lose to more Pokemon just for the sake of checking UU Pokemon.

Talking about moves that reduce the accuracy of opposing Pokemon, they could be problematic when combined with bulky Pokemon such as Deoxys-D and Cresselia and moving the game to luck based as swagger did, but while using such moves it's not a 50/50, it's a higher level of percentage for the user of the accuracy drop move, the more he uses it, the more he has chance of winning. That leaves it's only checks being a hard hitting OHKO/2OHKO move by a faster threat and Sub which restrict team building choices.

Blaziken has been a controversial discussion due to it increasing 50/50 probabilities but it doesn't restrict that much of team building, bulker builds has a chance of beating it, it being frail lets it fall to various attacks even from defensive Pokemon, taking in account Slowbro Mega, Jellicent. Let's not forget that it restricts the top ranked Pokemon usage such as Zard, Kyub, PZ. Isn't that what you wanted? :p It loses to faster trace Pokemon, Salamence Mega, Victini, Scarf Hoopa-U, Bulky Kyub, Bulky Zard X, Rhyperior, Slowbro-Mega, Jellicent, Mandibuzz, Gyarados, Latios. I'm going to stop here and we ever get a suspect test going I'm going to analysis each Pokemon suspected by itself with fancy images and stuff.

TL;DR: I wrote all of that for a reason so read it.

 

[DoW]

You have once again ignored the point I was making. You say that no pokes are broken in 1v1 right now because "they have a wide range of available counters", my point was that a lot of these "available counters" are other banworthy pokes.
Secondly, you have brought up the playstyles argument again. I don't remember if I said this last time as well, but for 1v1 we need to consider individual pokes rather than compare with how OU incorporates playstyles and look at a 1v1 "team" and say "well you have the option of not using these pokes that are outclassed in one of your 3 slots, so there's no problem at all". Like I said, if something got banned from OU it's a strong indication of the poke being too strong for the rest. So going back to my point, we have pokes in 1v1 right now that are holding back a lot of pokes, and these problem pokes are being justified because they are kept in check by other problem pokes.
Like regarding "Mega Salamence losing to Iron Defense Deoxys-D", I think that Deoxys-D is another poke that should be banned from 1v1. It was banned from OU because of easy hazard stacking thanks to its massive bulk and ability to take hits.
In 1v1 it's much more of a problem than that. It has 90 base speed Taunt, 160 defenses, Pressure, and it has access to Counter and Mirror Coat. Here are some of the most common sets used:

1. CounterCoat
- Item: Leftovers / Kee Berry / Maranga Berry
- EV's: 252 HP, 252+ Speed, 4 whatever defense
- Counter, Mirror Coat, Recover, Taunt

2. PP stall with Taunt
- Item: Leftovers / Chesto berry / whatever
- EV's: 252 HP, 252+ Speed, 4 whatever defense
- Iron Defense, Amnesia, Recover / Rest, Taunt

3. PP stall with Mud-Slap / Flash
- Item: Leftovers / Kee Berry / Maranga Berry / Chesto Berry / Mental Herb / whatever
- EV's: 252 HP, 252 Def/SpD, 4 whatever defense
- Iron Defense / Amnesia / Taunt, Iron Defense / Amnesia / Taunt, Rest, Mud-Slap / Flash

Good luck breaking through those defenses using anything other than extreme offense. Wanna take another approach? Outsped and taunted on most relevant answers. And Pressure is just another slap to the face. And the Mud-Slap set is one of the most uncompetitive sets I've ever come across playing 1v1. Even if you bring Taunt, you're gonna be missing those Taunts soon enough and also your Taunt PP is 16 now. And if you do manage to get a Taunt off while facing a set without Taunt, the Deo-D can still (once brought down to struggle when Taunted) use struggle 3 times and then outspeed and use Rest, while having Pressure and PP stalling you at the same time.

I wasn't intending to delve that deeply into why Deoxys-D should be banned when making this post, but it seems like I had a lot to say right off the bat, obviously there's more to be said and discussed regarding this poke.


I think there should be more discussion about Blaziken before a potential suspect test. Are you convinced already that a suspect to unban is justified? I know I have more to say and some calcs to do for example. And regarding Mega Salamence, are you saying that Mega Salamence wouldn't be broken if Blaziken was allowed too?

Au contraire, I rather think that you've missed my point. I understand entirely that you want, effectively, the Uber 1v1 pokemon banned. That's exactly the point my post was addressing. However, my point is this: the fact that they're considered OP in standard tiers is meaningless when we consider just how different 1v1 is from OU. You wouldn't argue that Deoxys-D should be banned in DOU just because it's OP in OU, and I think the same applies in 1v1. Deo-D has plenty of checks and counters, whether it be a trick/choice mon, specs Kyu-B, a faster or prankster taunt mon... I could list more.

My point is this: If all the mons in the current metagame are countered by other mons in the metagame, clearly the metagame is, at least to some extent, balanced. Saying you'd like those other mons banned as well simply shows that you want mons banned for a reason other than balancing the metagame, because more bans won't actually make the metagame more balanced if it's already balanced. So why should we ban mons like M-Salamence or Deo-D? As far as I can see, you've yet to provide an actual reason.

 

[Uselesscrab]

I'm not sold on some of these so-called Mega Salamence "counters." Mega Salamence has such an obnoxiously wide movepool that various gimmicky sets, especially mixed ones, can bypass them with varying degrees of effectiveness. For instance:

Iron Defense Deoxys-D

This was held up by Articuno I as the prime example of a Mega Salamence counter. But upon further review, it actually loses to a simple Double-Edge / Hyper Beam combination.

If physically defensive:

252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Deoxys-D: 142-168 (46.7 - 55.2%) -- 69.1% chance to 2HKO
then, as they Iron Defense
4 SpA Aerilate Mega Salamence Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Deoxys-D: 163-193 (53.6 - 63.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

If specially defensive:

252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Deoxys-D: 184-217 (60.5 - 71.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
4 SpA Aerilate Mega Salamence Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Deoxys-D: 127-150 (41.7 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

In both cases, the combination is enough to net a guaranteed OHKO at the bare minimum amount of damage.

Mega Mawile

This can lose to a Fire Blast or Flamethrower/Iron Defense/Roost set that I've seen before used by people like potatopickle and BattleDragon (I think). If the Mega Mawile attempts to Swords Dance, it risks the Mega Salamence simply beginning to attack.

Rhyperior

Loses to the same set as Mega Mawile. With just a tiny bit of Defense investment, Mega Salamence can live an Adamant Choice Banded Rock Wrecker and, using similar tactics as Charm Togekiss, eventually make its way back to full health before whittling Rhyperior down with some sort of attack and hoping it doesn't get any crits. Swords Dance Rhyperior is a bit more problematic.

I can post more of these later, but I have to go for now.

 

[Laxpras]

I've been lurking in this thread for so long with no interest in posting, not because I don't care anymore but because I stopped playing for so long due to the reason that the metagame has been dull and boring in my opinion since we've been on the same slate for so long. We need to shake the meta, whether by banning or unbanning Pokemon. There's lot of Pokemon/Stuff discussed above but I'm going to elaborate about such reasoning. Rumplestiltskin has mentioned an ''uber state'' that this meta falls under which I don't completely agree with, yes we might have ubers Pokemon but they don't contribute to the broken factor. And I don't think banning them would render the metagame healthy as it will fall in another void where it will continue in a dull state. In each metagame we have the OU Pokemon and the UU Pokemmon and we don't ban OU Pokemon just for the sake to make UU Pokemon appreciated and used, there's such thing called 1v1 UU that could be played via Challenge if bored of facing the same threats over and over again. But even with the presence of powerful top tier Pokemon in 1v1, UU Pokemon can still outshine them, example being that Jellicent can beat Zard X, or Clefable can beat Gyarados. This is the magic of 1v1 that you have to create sets that has a great matchup against most of the metagame taking into consideration low tier and top tier Pokemon. Yes, I find 1v1 dull to the same Pokemon repeating themselves on ladder but No, I don't agree banning them would solve the problem and if people think such Pokemon are broken and destroy their teams with ease, well we need to think outside the box. There's plenty of Pokemon in 1v1 with niches that aren't discovered yet. Articuno I flashed Clefable which to be honest, have the capabilities on taking on high ranked Pokemon, let's not forget Heatran that can take on lot of threats, so we just need to find niches about every UU Pokemon and they will have the right to be counted as top tier checks. A team of Heatran, Landorus and Clefable can fare good in the ladder and thus without using top ranked Pokemon. And because we have the power to ban something we shouldn't go ban happy and restrict our wide metagame to mere Pokemon that are counted nowadays underused or in a different category useless.

Moving on to the Mega Salamence discussion, I still don't believe it's too broken, due to some of counters that haven't been mentioned. Mega Salamence usually runs Giga Impact, DD, Sub, Outrage, Flamethrower, Toxic, Roost. Whatever set it runs it has the same checks, some of them are mentioned and some others aren't because they are outside the box. Why did we forget rhyperior? Hyper Cutter Mawile Mega? Porygon2? Heatran? Mega Aggron? Mega Steelix? Diancie? CM Ice Beam Slowbro Mega? Ampharos? Aegislash? And those are only middle ranked Pokemon with the exception of some. If you complain about underused Pokemon being beat by top tier Pokemon you just have to find the right set to use. Let's not forget that these Pokemon also have the ability to take on other top ranked Pokemon, Diancie can go toe to toe with both Zards, Rhyperior also has the chance to defeat both Zard, Kyub... depending on it's set, it's not just a gimmick to defeat specifically Salamence. And to the rare Hydro Pump and/or EQ set they lose to more Pokemon just for the sake of checking UU Pokemon.

Talking about moves that reduce the accuracy of opposing Pokemon, they could be problematic when combined with bulky Pokemon such as Deoxys-D and Cresselia and moving the game to luck based as swagger did, but while using such moves it's not a 50/50, it's a higher level of percentage for the user of the accuracy drop move, the more he uses it, the more he has chance of winning. That leaves it's only checks being a hard hitting OHKO/2OHKO move by a faster threat and Sub which restrict team building choices.

Blaziken has been a controversial discussion due to it increasing 50/50 probabilities but it doesn't restrict that much of team building, bulker builds has a chance of beating it, it being frail lets it fall to various attacks even from defensive Pokemon, taking in account Slowbro Mega, Jellicent. Let's not forget that it restricts the top ranked Pokemon usage such as Zard, Kyub, PZ. Isn't that what you wanted? :p It loses to faster trace Pokemon, Salamence Mega, Victini, Scarf Hoopa-U, Bulky Kyub, Bulky Zard X, Rhyperior, Slowbro-Mega, Jellicent, Mandibuzz, Gyarados, Latios. I'm going to stop here and we ever get a suspect test going I'm going to analysis each Pokemon suspected by itself with fancy images and stuff.

TL;DR: I wrote all of that for a reason so read it.

Just saying hyper cutter mawile can still lose on roll to fire blast unless you're running it as a dedicated specially bulky counter, heatran can lose to anything + eq, and pretty much any special or even mixed set beats aggron and steelix. Slowbro is an easy ohko with hyper beam. That's why the ability to run several different sets that have different counters make it too powerful for the meta imo. I mean cmon its S rank in Ubers. I know the metas aren't comparable, but I'm just using that to show how unstoppable it is. And i would argue its even stronger in 1v1 than ubers due to how great intimidate is in a 1v1 setting.

252+ SpA Aerilate Mega Salamence Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Slowbro: 396-466 (100.5 - 118.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[DEG]

Let's not forget that there's a 4Ms that Salamence-Mega suffers and you can predict at Team Preview which set it might be running, for an instance a team weak to stall would run mixed Salamence and there's only a minimal number of Salamence that runs EQ/FB they prefer covering a wider number of threats with other moves then limit the Pokemon it checks.. Also, that's why I said to think outside the box. 1v1 is a metagame full of threats and EV-ing correctly by using custom EVs would give you a better shot at winning.

252+ SpA Aerilate Mega Salamence Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 152 SpD Mega Slowbro: 333-393 (84.5 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 104+ Def Mega Slowbro: 118-141 (29.9 - 35.7%) -- 35.1% chance to 3HKO
0 SpA Mega Slowbro Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 356-420 (107.5 - 126.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

If you EV that Mega Slowbro correctly it checks Mega Mence while keeping in checks other threats such as Kyub, Mawile-Mega... And if you don't want to run ice beam that's fine, you can slack-off the damage and use Iron Defense/Amnesia the turn after.

 

[DoW]

I'm not sold on some of these so-called Mega Salamence "counters." Mega Salamence has such an obnoxiously wide movepool that various gimmicky sets, especially mixed ones, can bypass them with varying degrees of effectiveness. For instance:

Iron Defense Deoxys-D

This was held up by Articuno I as the prime example of a Mega Salamence counter. But upon further review, it actually loses to a simple Double-Edge / Hyper Beam combination.

If physically defensive:

252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Deoxys-D: 142-168 (46.7 - 55.2%) -- 69.1% chance to 2HKO
then, as they Iron Defense
4 SpA Aerilate Mega Salamence Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Deoxys-D: 163-193 (53.6 - 63.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

If specially defensive:

252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Deoxys-D: 184-217 (60.5 - 71.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
4 SpA Aerilate Mega Salamence Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Deoxys-D: 127-150 (41.7 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

In both cases, the combination is enough to net a guaranteed OHKO at the bare minimum amount of damage.

Mega Mawile

This can lose to a Fire Blast or Flamethrower/Iron Defense/Roost set that I've seen before used by people like potatopickle and BattleDragon (I think). If the Mega Mawile attempts to Swords Dance, it risks the Mega Salamence simply beginning to attack.

Rhyperior

Loses to the same set as Mega Mawile. With just a tiny bit of Defense investment, Mega Salamence can live an Adamant Choice Banded Rock Wrecker and, using similar tactics as Charm Togekiss, eventually make its way back to full health before whittling Rhyperior down with some sort of attack and hoping it doesn't get any crits. Swords Dance Rhyperior is a bit more problematic.

I can post more of these later, but I have to go for now.

Ninja'd by DEG, but a few other points to add:
The great thing about 1v1 is that almost anything can run some weird, previously-unheard-of set to beat some other huge threat. In fact it's part of why this meta is balanced - it's so hard to be able to beat absolutely everything. I built a team today featuring toxic mega mence, it beats a few things like chansey and deo-d as well as the things more standard iron defense mence beats. However, the counters I was listing were the non-obvious ones to mega mence. You can stick ice beam on any scarf or fast mon and win, and many of them will be useful against a wide range of mons.

I'm also not saying, necessarily, that we shouldn't suspect M-Mence (although I don't personally see it as necessary). I'm saying that the reasons thus far given for suspecting Salamencite aren't good enough and often aren't consistent. If you can show that not enough things counter m-mence, I'll happily vote ban. I just don't see that being the case right now, and I'd rather simply see Blaziken unbanned and the meta remain otherwise unchanged.

 

[dusk raimon]

I've been lurking in this thread for so long with no interest in posting, not because I don't care anymore but because I stopped playing for so long due to the reason that the metagame has been dull and boring in my opinion since we've been on the same slate for so long. We need to shake the meta, whether by banning or unbanning Pokemon. There's lot of Pokemon/Stuff discussed above but I'm going to elaborate about such reasoning. Rumplestiltskin has mentioned an ''uber state'' that this meta falls under which I don't completely agree with, yes we might have ubers Pokemon but they don't contribute to the broken factor. And I don't think banning them would render the metagame healthy as it will fall in another void where it will continue in a dull state. In each metagame we have the OU Pokemon and the UU Pokemmon and we don't ban OU Pokemon just for the sake to make UU Pokemon appreciated and used, there's such thing called 1v1 UU that could be played via Challenge if bored of facing the same threats over and over again. But even with the presence of powerful top tier Pokemon in 1v1, UU Pokemon can still outshine them, example being that Jellicent can beat Zard X, or Clefable can beat Gyarados. This is the magic of 1v1 that you have to create sets that has a great matchup against most of the metagame taking into consideration low tier and top tier Pokemon. Yes, I find 1v1 dull to the same Pokemon repeating themselves on ladder but No, I don't agree banning them would solve the problem and if people think such Pokemon are broken and destroy their teams with ease, well we need to think outside the box. There's plenty of Pokemon in 1v1 with niches that aren't discovered yet. Articuno I flashed Clefable which to be honest, have the capabilities on taking on high ranked Pokemon, let's not forget Heatran that can take on lot of threats, so we just need to find niches about every UU Pokemon and they will have the right to be counted as top tier checks. A team of Heatran, Landorus and Clefable can fare good in the ladder and thus without using top ranked Pokemon. And because we have the power to ban something we shouldn't go ban happy and restrict our wide metagame to mere Pokemon that are counted nowadays underused or in a different category useless.

Moving on to the Mega Salamence discussion, I still don't believe it's too broken, due to some of counters that haven't been mentioned. Mega Salamence usually runs Giga Impact, DD, Sub, Outrage, Flamethrower, Toxic, Roost. Whatever set it runs it has the same checks, some of them are mentioned and some others aren't because they are outside the box. Why did we forget rhyperior? Hyper Cutter Mawile Mega? Porygon2? Heatran? Mega Aggron? Mega Steelix? Diancie? CM Ice Beam Slowbro Mega? Ampharos? Aegislash? And those are only middle ranked Pokemon with the exception of some. If you complain about underused Pokemon being beat by top tier Pokemon you just have to find the right set to use. Let's not forget that these Pokemon also have the ability to take on other top ranked Pokemon, Diancie can go toe to toe with both Zards, Rhyperior also has the chance to defeat both Zard, Kyub... depending on it's set, it's not just a gimmick to defeat specifically Salamence. And to the rare Hydro Pump and/or EQ set they lose to more Pokemon just for the sake of checking UU Pokemon.

Talking about moves that reduce the accuracy of opposing Pokemon, they could be problematic when combined with bulky Pokemon such as Deoxys-D and Cresselia and moving the game to luck based as swagger did, but while using such moves it's not a 50/50, it's a higher level of percentage for the user of the accuracy drop move, the more he uses it, the more he has chance of winning. That leaves it's only checks being a hard hitting OHKO/2OHKO move by a faster threat and Sub which restrict team building choices.

Blaziken has been a controversial discussion due to it increasing 50/50 probabilities but it doesn't restrict that much of team building, bulker builds has a chance of beating it, it being frail lets it fall to various attacks even from defensive Pokemon, taking in account Slowbro Mega, Jellicent. Let's not forget that it restricts the top ranked Pokemon usage such as Zard, Kyub, PZ. Isn't that what you wanted? :p It loses to faster trace Pokemon, Salamence Mega, Victini, Scarf Hoopa-U, Bulky Kyub, Bulky Zard X, Rhyperior, Slowbro-Mega, Jellicent, Mandibuzz, Gyarados, Latios. I'm going to stop here and we ever get a suspect test going I'm going to analysis each Pokemon suspected by itself with fancy images and stuff.

TL;DR: I wrote all of that for a reason so read it.

You basaically summed up at the bottom of your novel about why I thought blaziken was at least worth a test in 1v1, GONNA edit what I think about this onto here later.

 

[1vI]

I agree with all of this and think that Blaziken should be unbanned... the reason it became ubers instead of being a simple counterpart of Infernape is due to its ability set up speed and attack (in the past baton pass it) and sweep, but since you don't get as many chances to setup in 1v1 (especially if you dont have significant bulk) this primary reason is mostly useless. Due to this, I believe Blaziken would fit well around possibly around B rank for it's ability to check certain threats. (it does to loads of pokemon anyways)

 

[Rumplestiltskin]

edit: updated some of the Blaziken and MegaMence stuff, and added more to my reply to Dream Eater Gengar, edited and added parts in red.

I've been lurking in this thread for so long with no interest in posting, not because I don't care anymore but because I stopped playing for so long due to the reason that the metagame has been dull and boring in my opinion since we've been on the same slate for so long. We need to shake the meta, whether by banning or unbanning Pokemon.

So you want to ban or unban pokemon not to balance the meta, but rather to "shake it".
You talk about needing to change the meta by possibly banning pokemon, but according to you and Articuno I not even the most broken (Mega Salamence) is deserving of a ban.

There's lot of Pokemon/Stuff discussed above but I'm going to elaborate about such reasoning. Rumplestiltskin has mentioned an ''uber state'' that this meta falls under which I don't completely agree with, yes we might have ubers Pokemon but they don't contribute to the broken factor. And I don't think banning them would render the metagame healthy as it will fall in another void where it will continue in a dull state.

How could you possibly know with such accuracy how the meta will change after a bunch of bans? What is the "broken factor" in 1v1, and what does contribute to it? I'm trying to start a discussion of potentially broken pokes in 1v1 and you're deciding that they aren't, just because. Why would the meta be more dull if it had a wider diversity (which is what I'm arguing would happen in a non-Ubers setting) of available viable pokes?

In each metagame we have the OU Pokemon and the UU Pokemmon and we don't ban OU Pokemon just for the sake to make UU Pokemon appreciated and used, there's such thing called 1v1 UU that could be played via Challenge if bored of facing the same threats over and over again. But even with the presence of powerful top tier Pokemon in 1v1, UU Pokemon can still outshine them, example being that Jellicent can beat Zard X, or Clefable can beat Gyarados. This is the magic of 1v1 that you have to create sets that has a great matchup against most of the metagame taking into consideration low tier and top tier Pokemon. Yes, I find 1v1 dull to the same Pokemon repeating themselves on ladder but No, I don't agree banning them would solve the problem and if people think such Pokemon are broken and destroy their teams with ease, well we need to think outside the box. There's plenty of Pokemon in 1v1 with niches that aren't discovered yet. Articuno I flashed Clefable which to be honest, have the capabilities on taking on high ranked Pokemon, let's not forget Heatran that can take on lot of threats, so we just need to find niches about every UU Pokemon and they will have the right to be counted as top tier checks. A team of Heatran, Landorus and Clefable can fare good in the ladder and thus without using top ranked Pokemon. And because we have the power to ban something we shouldn't go ban happy and restrict our wide metagame to mere Pokemon that are counted nowadays underused or in a different category useless.

So you're saying the pokes other than the ~7 I suggested were banworthy are underused or useless? That speaks loads on them and why they should be banned.
Let's take a moment and apply what you said to the Ubers tier.

"In each metagame we have the OU Pokemon and the UU Pokemmon and we don't ban OU Pokemon just for the sake to make UU Pokemon appreciated and used, there's such thing called OU that could be played on the ladder if bored of facing the same threats over and over again. But even with the presence of powerful top tier Pokemon in Ubers, OU and lower tier Pokemon can still outshine them, example being that Amoonguss can beat Xerneas, or Skarmory can beat Arceus. This is the magic of Ubers that you have to create sets that has a great matchup against most of the metagame taking into consideration low tier and top tier Pokemon. Yes, I find Ubers dull to the same Pokemon repeating themselves on ladder but No, I don't agree banning them would solve the problem and if people think such Pokemon are broken and destroy their teams with ease, well we need to think outside the box. There's plenty of Pokemon in Ubers with niches that aren't discovered yet. ... let's not forget Ferrothorn that can take on lot of threats, so we just need to find niches about every OU and lower Pokemon and they will have the right to be counted as top tier checks. A team with Ferrothorn, Mega Sableye and Clefable can fare good in the ladder and thus without using a team of only top ranked Pokemon. And because we have the power to ban something we shouldn't go ban happy and restrict our wide metagame to mere Pokemon that are counted nowadays underused or in a different category useless."
​

The OU pokemon of Ubers would in this case be pokes such as Arceus, Xerneas, Kyogre, and Rayquaza for example. Are you seeing the point I'm trying to make now? Your logic would still apply to the Ubers tier and does nothing to refute what I've been saying at all. I've been saying that we have a few pokes in 1v1 right now that are much better than the rest of the pokes in the meta. Why should 1v1 be Ubers rather than OU?
The difference between OU and Ubers is that OU is a wider tier that allows much more pokes to be viable, and a huge deal of pokes from lower tiers are viable in OU compared to how much from lower tiers is viable in Ubers.

Moving on to the Mega Salamence discussion, I still don't believe it's too broken, due to some of counters that haven't been mentioned. Mega Salamence usually runs Giga Impact, DD, Sub, Outrage, Flamethrower, Toxic, Roost. Whatever set it runs it has the same checks, some of them are mentioned and some others aren't because they are outside the box. Why did we forget rhyperior? Hyper Cutter Mawile Mega? Porygon2? Heatran? Mega Aggron? Mega Steelix? Diancie? CM Ice Beam Slowbro Mega? Ampharos? Aegislash? And those are only middle ranked Pokemon with the exception of some. If you complain about underused Pokemon being beat by top tier Pokemon you just have to find the right set to use. Let's not forget that these Pokemon also have the ability to take on other top ranked Pokemon, Diancie can go toe to toe with both Zards, Rhyperior also has the chance to defeat both Zard, Kyub... depending on it's set, it's not just a gimmick to defeat specifically Salamence. And to the rare Hydro Pump and/or EQ set they lose to more Pokemon just for the sake of checking UU Pokemon.

The difference with Mega Salamence from other pokes is mainly its broken stats, and not to mention its amazing ability, Aerilate, that works well with its flying type. Pokemon with stats like Mega Salamence and Kyurem-Black (700 BST and the likes) get judged much more strictly, and get banned to Ubers unless there's something holding them back, if not, there would be no reason not to use them (which is the case in 1v1). There should be a compelling reason to keep them, rather looking for a compelling reason to ban, because that reason already exists, which is their base stats. And why is that? Because those stats are far above the rest of the pokes, which makes the game unfair. Why use pokes of lower stats when you can use broken stats? Kyurem-Black for example is not banned from OU because it lacks good ice type STAB, and Hoopa-U gets destroyed by the slightest physical attack. Kyurem-Black however is much stronger in 1v1, because it can run among other sets, choice item sets, which don't have nearly the same repercussions as they would have for it in OU.
There is nothing about 1v1 that makes Mega Salamence any less banworthy than from OU. It pulls off whatever role it has been assigned, and will in the process also beat a significant portion of pokes just because of its broken stats. Like I said last time, it's too bulky for the damage it's able to do. And the fact that it has checks and counters should not be a reason not to ban, because as i keep repeating, all pokes have checks and counters. Otherwise, why not unban Rayquaza, it would probably have the same checks and counters as Mega Salamence? But Rayquaza is banned because it, as Mega Salamence, takes out a significant portion of pokes, regardless of their roles, stats, or strats, just because of its broken stats, and the same goes for Kyurem-Black. The reason people don't complain about Kyurem-Black is that the meta has adjusted to it, and has access to other broken pokes such as Mega Mawile to deal with it.

Now as for some of the pokes you mentioned that should check Mega Salamence, Porygon-2 would need to run Ice Beam, which arguably would make it lose a bunch of other match-ups, and would still lose to a special HP invested MegaMence with Hyper Voice and Hyper Beam if physically defensive, Return and Giga Impact physical MegaMence if specially defensive, and to a mixed MegaMence set if mixed defenses. Anything (besides multi turn attacks) + Earthquake would beat Air Balloon Heatran, while Heatran wouldn't do enough damage: 252+ SpA Heatran Hidden Power Ice vs. 168 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 316-372 (84.7 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. Mega Steelix would lose to Earthquake or Fire Blast, while not being able to do enough damage. Diancie could lose to Iron Tail (which MegaMence sometimes runs just to spite fairy types): 252+ Atk Mega Salamence Iron Tail vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Diancie: 280-332 (92.1 - 109.2%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO. Ampharos would get outsped and 2HKO'd while not being able to OHKO MegaMence, and if Ampharos relies on the move Counter, it could lose to substitute MegaMence. MegaMence could use Dragon Dance on the 1st turn vs Aegislash, and could OHKO Aegislash-Blade at +2 atk. Aegislash-Blade needs to use King's Shield at turn 2 if it attacked turn 1, or it would get OHKO'd, meanwhile MegaMence could use Dragon Dance again, Aegislash simply does not have the damage output to reliably KO MegaMence. And if the Aegislash has Air-Balloon, then a Fire Blast MegaMence could 2HKO it without any Weakness Policy repercussions. Metal Burst Mega Aggron doesn't OHKO Fire Blast MegaMence for example, while Fire Blast 2HKO's Mega Aggron, and the same MegaMence set could very well be EV'd to have the bulk to not get KO'd even by Avalanche: -1 252+ Atk Mega Aggron Avalanche vs. 196 HP / 56 Def Mega Salamence: 312-368 (82.1 - 96.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. The point we've been trying to make is that to the contrary of what you're saying, MegaMence does not have reliable answers that don't care about its set. You're basically pulling at straws here trying to justify keeping a poke that destroys such a large portion of available pokes and restricts teambuilding by listing a few checks.

Blaziken has been a controversial discussion due to it increasing 50/50 probabilities but it doesn't restrict that much of team building, bulker builds has a chance of beating it, it being frail lets it fall to various attacks even from defensive Pokemon, taking in account Slowbro Mega, Jellicent. Let's not forget that it restricts the top ranked Pokemon usage such as Zard, Kyub, PZ. Isn't that what you wanted? :p It loses to faster trace Pokemon, Salamence Mega, Victini, Scarf Hoopa-U, Bulky Kyub, Bulky Zard X, Rhyperior, Slowbro-Mega, Jellicent, Mandibuzz, Gyarados, Latios. I'm going to stop here and we ever get a suspect test going I'm going to analysis each Pokemon suspected by itself with fancy images and stuff.

TL;DR: I wrote all of that for a reason so read it.

Well, here we go again with justifying the unban of another uber by listing arguably broken pokes that inhabit the meta right now. This is another pointer as to why 1v1 has become a mini ubers. We have all of these arguably broken pokes, so why not unban another, right? Mega Salamence, Kyurem-Black, and to a lesser extent, the mega Charizards are all pokes I've mentioned being contributors to this ubers state right now.
And regarding the pokes you mentioned that beat Blaziken, is that the standard we set for what pokes should be allowed? A list of a few pokes, some of which are on specific sets?
And what do most of these pokes have in common? They resist Blaziken's STAB(s) while their own STAB(s) are super effective against Blaziken.

• faster trace pokemon, AKA Alakazam: one of the fastest pokes there is, with Super Effective STAB against Blaziken
  
• Salamence-Mega: resists both STABs while having Super Effective Flying STAB, arguably the most broken poke in the meta right now, and yet could still lose to a special invested Blaziken, depending on if it attacks the Blaziken or not or if the Blaziken uses Protect or not on the 1st turn:
  136+ SpA Life Orb Blaziken Hidden Power Ice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 333-395 (100.6 - 119.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  
• Victini: resists both STABs while having Super Effective Psychic STAB, also has a small chance of being outsped and OHKO'd by Earthquake or Stone Edge if not using Choice Scarf
  
• Hoopa-U: has super effective Psychic STAB, also limited to a specific set of Choice Scarf, loses otherwise
  
• Bulky Kyurem-Black: arguably broken poke, and a bulky set loses to Blaziken anyway:
  252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Kyurem-B: 474-560 (104.4 - 123.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  252+ Atk Life Orb Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Kyurem-B: 413-486 (90.9 - 107%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
  
• Charizard-X: one of the pokes that contributes to this ubers state I'm trying to discuss, could still lose to Blaziken. Let's look at the most common set, offensive Jolly Dragon Dance (Jolly:0/252/0/0/4/252 22.159%):
  252+ Atk Life Orb Blaziken Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 268-317 (90.2 - 106.7%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
  The 2 scenarios is if the Charizard goes for Dragon Dance or not, it gets outsped vs Protect Speed Boost.
  Now let's take a look at the most common Bulky Char-X set (Impish:252/4/252/0/0/0 5.103%):
  Speed stats: Blaziken 259, Char-X 236
  4 Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Outrage vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Blaziken: 283-334 (93.7 - 110.5%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
  252+ Atk Life Orb Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Charizard X: 192-227 (53.3 - 63%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  This means that Char-X would lose if it goes for Dragon Dance on turn 1 over Outrage, and could still lose even if it went for Outrage turn 1.
  
• Rhyperior: has Super Effective Ground STAB, one of the few viable pokes that can live a STAB its weak to, and yet can still be OHKO'd by Blaziken:
  252+ Atk Choice Band Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Solid Rock Rhyperior: 393-465 (90.5 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
  
• Slowbro-Mega: resists both STABs while both its STAB's are Super Effective, one of the bulkiest possible pokes, especially in the Defense stat, which is more likely to be relevant vs Blaziken
• Jellicent: resists Blaziken's Fire STAB while immune to its Fighting STAB, while having Super Effective Water STAB, can lose to Thunder Punch or Knock Off coverage anyway if not fully HP/Def invested and running Acid Armor.
• Mandibuzz: OHKO'd by Life Orb Stone Edge or even High Jump Kick Blaziken after 1 Swords Dance, while not being able to OHKO Blaziken itself:
  +2 252+ Atk Life Orb Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mandibuzz: 398-469 (93.8 - 110.6%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
  
• Gyarados: resists both Blaziken's STAB's, while having Super Effective Water STAB, could still, depending on its EV's, lose to Thunder Punch if it used Dragon Dance, outsped and OHKO'd if it uses Waterfall vs Protect, OHKO'd by High Jump Kick if it goes Mega with the same scenario of using Dragon Dance or not vs using Protect or not:
  -1 252+ Atk Life Orb Blaziken Thunder Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Gyarados: 359-426 (108.4 - 128.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  -1 252+ Atk Life Orb Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Gyarados: 354-421 (106.9 - 127.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  
• Latios: resists both STABs while having Super Effective Psychic STAB, and yet still loses to Blaziken's insane coverage if not holding a Choice Scarf after a Speed Boost Protect:
  252+ Atk Life Orb Blaziken Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 343-406 (113.9 - 134.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Such pokes exist for pretty much any poke that could be brought up for discussion. And the ones you mentioned are restricted to very specific sets, while some of them don't even beat Blaziken at all. And this is not even exploring what bulky Blaziken sets, especially with its access to Will-O-Wisp could do.
Meanwhile it beats a significant enough portion of other common and less common pokes to be banworthy, thanks to its amazing coverage, offensive stats, ability to outspeed thanks to Speed Boost, while also being able to run Swords Dance.
You wanna talk about what it does to some of the less used pokes? I'll list some of the pokes I use, which are very viable against the current meta.

• Mega Venusaur: 2HKO'd by Life Orb or Choice Band Brave Bird
• Entei: outsped and OHKO'd by Earthquake or Stone Edge
• Dusclops: destroyed by any physical Blaziken set
  
• Porygon 2: destroyed by Fighting STAB
• Magnezone: destroyed by STAB or Earthquake, the Weakness Policy Magnezone set is played around by using a non-Super effective coverage 1st, while Magnezone can't OHKO Blaziken

You can fare well with these pokes even against this uber state meta (the magic of 1v1), are you telling me that these pokes should be rendered less relevant?
Even if that was OK, what about the rest of the common pokes that get rendered way less relevant? Just for the sake of bringing another poke that can go toe to toe with or even destroy the most used and overly powered pokes that we have right now in the meta?

Au contraire, I rather think that you've missed my point. I understand entirely that you want, effectively, the Uber 1v1 pokemon banned. That's exactly the point my post was addressing. However, my point is this: the fact that they're considered OP in standard tiers is meaningless when we consider just how different 1v1 is from OU. You wouldn't argue that Deoxys-D should be banned in DOU just because it's OP in OU, and I think the same applies in 1v1. Deo-D has plenty of checks and counters, whether it be a trick/choice mon, specs Kyu-B, a faster or prankster taunt mon... I could list more.

I'm not arguing that they should be banned without any proof, I'm suggesting discussing a ban for them as they very likely are broken in this meta, with the fact that some of them are in the uber tier taken as a strong hint and indicator that they are broken. And regarding the checks and counters you mentioned, they are arguably broken too, which only helps prove how broken Deo-D is. Also, the trick user would need to outspeed, and the faster Taunt user would need to be a relevant poke (there aren't many), which also would need some way of KO'ing the Deo without being KO'd istelf by Mirror Coat or Counter.

My point is this: If all the mons in the current metagame are countered by other mons in the metagame, clearly the metagame is, at least to some extent, balanced. Saying you'd like those other mons banned as well simply shows that you want mons banned for a reason other than balancing the metagame, because more bans won't actually make the metagame more balanced if it's already balanced.

As with Dream Eater Gengar , your logic could be applied to the Ubers tier.

"If all the mons in Ubers are countered by other mons in Ubers, clearly the metagame is, at least to some extent, balanced."
​

And you're right, it is to some extent balanced, but my point is that it would be much more diverse, and teambuilding would be much less restricted if the meta wasn't ubers. So contrary to what you said, I am suggesting the bans for no other reason than to balance the meta.

So why should we ban mons like M-Salamence or Deo-D? As far as I can see, you've yet to provide an actual reason.

You mean aside from the actual reasons LaxLapras and I provided?

Ninja'd by DEG, but a few other points to add:
The great thing about 1v1 is that almost anything can run some weird, previously-unheard-of set to beat some other huge threat. In fact it's part of why this meta is balanced - it's so hard to be able to beat absolutely everything. I built a team today featuring toxic mega mence, it beats a few things like chansey and deo-d as well as the things more standard iron defense mence beats. However, the counters I was listing were the non-obvious ones to mega mence. You can stick ice beam on any scarf or fast mon and win, and many of them will be useful against a wide range of mons.

I'm also not saying, necessarily, that we shouldn't suspect M-Mence (although I don't personally see it as necessary). I'm saying that the reasons thus far given for suspecting Salamencite aren't good enough and often aren't consistent. If you can show that not enough things counter m-mence, I'll happily vote ban. I just don't see that being the case right now, and I'd rather simply see Blaziken unbanned and the meta remain otherwise unchanged.

Obviously if you've accepted the meta as it is then it would be hard to accept any ban at all, just as how pretty much nothing gets banned from Ubers. So let me ask you this: Do you want Rayquaza to remain banned from 1v1, and if so, why?

 

[The Official Glyx]

I've been seeing a lot of debate over Salamence-Mega going around, so I decided to do a little research into it myself. The results I came up with were astounding! Since a lot of its potential sets and capabilities and whatnot were discussed in the varying posts above, I'll abbreviate the point on those; Salamence has the raw BST, fantastic ability Aerilate, and a not-so-surprisingly wide movepool all backing it up to the point in which hardly anything is guaranteed to completely counter any of the possible sets that this thing could have! There are literally no ranked Pokemon that act as strictly physical attackers that are guaranteed to beat every possible Salamence-Mega set without relying on luck such as Jirachi's Iron Head spamming. The few things that are guaranteed to beat it require being either A): Faster than it, B): Bulky enough to tank a Hyper Beam/Giga Impact, C): Any specially damaging Ice type attack, since it has the raw bulk + intimidate to make it capable of standing up to physical ice attacks (Note: It CAN stand up to HP Ice from Heatran with some Special Defense investment, and can even withstand a Choice Specs HP Ice from Magnezone, which means that there are NO ranked HP Ice users that are 100% guaranteed to beat it).

The few sets of ranked Pokemon that are guaranteed of being capable of stopping every possible set that this thing can run are: Scarfed/Bulky Kyurem-Black with Ice Beam, Specs Greninja with Ice Beam, a VERY specific EV combination of Specs Porygon2 (since Max Special Attack Eviolite Ice Beam isn't a guaranteed OHKO against Max Special Defense + HP Mence), Max Special Attack Scarf Cloyster has a 68.8% chance of OHKOing with Ice Beam, Max Special Attack Scarf Latios has a 50% chance of OHKOing max Special Defense + HP Salamence with Draco Meteor (does more damage than Ice Beam), Max Special Attack Specs Avalugg has a 93.8% chance of OHKOing with Ice beam vs Max Sp Def Mence (But can ultimately be stalled out for PP with Sub + Roost spam), and that's literally it, other than any Unranked sets that can do the same.
(Note: I'm not including Blizzard users in this list because these are supposed to be sets that are classifiably guaranteed to win; 70% accuracy is far from guaranteed)

If only 6 Pokemon out of the 104 ranked 1v1 Pokemon can stop every possible Salamence (only 3 of which are even classifiably viable), should it still be allowed?

 

[DoW]

I'm not arguing that they should be banned without any proof, I'm suggesting discussing a ban for them as they very likely are broken in this meta, with the fact that some of them are in the uber tier taken as a strong hint and indicator that they are broken. And regarding the checks and counters you mentioned, they are arguably broken too, which only helps prove how broken Deo-D is. Also, the trick user would need to outspeed, and the faster Taunt user would need to be a relevant poke (there aren't many), which also would need some way of KO'ing the Deo without being KO'd istelf by Mirror Coat or Counter.

Perhaps it's because I'm used to playing monotype, where deo-d is neither banned nor particularly good, but I don't really think of it as being in any way comparable to m-mence.

As with Dream Eater Gengar , your logic could be applied to the Ubers tier.

"If all the mons in Ubers are countered by other mons in Ubers, clearly the metagame is, at least to some extent, balanced."
​

And you're right, it is to some extent balanced, but my point is that it would be much more diverse, and teambuilding would be much less restricted if the meta wasn't ubers. So contrary to what you said, I am suggesting the bans for no other reason than to balance the meta.

Here we have it, at last! An actual reason that you think we should ban the uber mons in 1v1. The reasoning at the very core of this whole debate.
"it would be much more diverse, and teambuilding would be much less restricted if the meta wasn't ubers."
Wonderful though it is to finally have your argument spelled out in front of us, I still disagree. Between the S-rank, A-rank and B-rank pokemon there's 52 perfectly-viable mons to choose from, and C-rank adds another 30 to that number. What you're proposing is something on the order of - IDK, maybe 5, maybe 10 of the top threats in the metagame getting banned? To me, it seems like you need some pretty strong justification for such a change, and I'm unconvinced that banning these mons would lead to a metagame where vastly more than 50-80 mons are viable. As I've said in the past, I'm not necessarily opposed to banning mega mence, but I'd need to see some serious justification to support it. So that's my challenge to you, prove to me that banning these mons would increase the number of viable pokemon.

You mean aside from the actual reasons LaxLapras and I provided?


Obviously if you've accepted the meta as it is then it would be hard to accept any ban at all, just as how pretty much nothing gets banned from Ubers. So let me ask you this: Do you want Rayquaza to remain banned from 1v1, and if so, why?

I imagine when Kyurem-B was unbanned in the Gen V metagame it caused quite a big stir, with many people arguing that it couldn't be in OU because it was a legendary from the box art of one of the games, etc. Now, I'm unconvinced that ray isn't broken, however if you can prove it isn't broken I'd be willing to listen. I don't think, however, that this stance is a valid argument that Mega Mence is necessarily broken.

I've been seeing a lot of debate over Salamence-Mega going around, so I decided to do a little research into it myself. The results I came up with were astounding! Since a lot of its potential sets and capabilities and whatnot were discussed in the varying posts above, I'll abbreviate the point on those; Salamence has the raw BST, fantastic ability Aerilate, and a not-so-surprisingly wide movepool all backing it up to the point in which hardly anything is guaranteed to completely counter any of the possible sets that this thing could have! There are literally no ranked Pokemon that act as strictly physical attackers that are guaranteed to beat every possible Salamence-Mega set without relying on luck such as Jirachi's Iron Head spamming. The few things that are guaranteed to beat it require being either A): Faster than it, B): Bulky enough to tank a Hyper Beam/Giga Impact, C): Any specially damaging Ice type attack, since it has the raw bulk + intimidate to make it capable of standing up to physical ice attacks (Note: It CAN stand up to HP Ice from Heatran with some Special Defense investment, and can even withstand a Choice Specs HP Ice from Magnezone, which means that there are NO ranked HP Ice users that are 100% guaranteed to beat it).

The few sets of ranked Pokemon that are guaranteed of being capable of stopping every possible set that this thing can run are: Scarfed/Bulky Kyurem-Black with Ice Beam, Specs Greninja with Ice Beam, a VERY specific EV combination of Specs Porygon2 (since Max Special Attack Eviolite Ice Beam isn't a guaranteed OHKO against Max Special Defense + HP Mence), Max Special Attack Scarf Cloyster has a 68.8% chance of OHKOing with Ice Beam, Max Special Attack Scarf Latios has a 50% chance of OHKOing max Special Defense + HP Salamence with Draco Meteor (does more damage than Ice Beam), Max Special Attack Specs Avalugg has a 93.8% chance of OHKOing with Ice beam vs Max Sp Def Mence (But can ultimately be stalled out for PP with Sub + Roost spam), and that's literally it, other than any Unranked sets that can do the same.
(Note: I'm not including Blizzard users in this list because these are supposed to be sets that are classifiably guaranteed to win; 70% accuracy is far from guaranteed)

If only 6 Pokemon out of the 104 ranked 1v1 Pokemon can stop every possible Salamence (only 3 of which are even classifiably viable), should it still be allowed?

Ice punch jirachi. Correctly-EV'd Sylveon. Dnite. Porygon-Z. Special or mixed Ttar. M-Sableye. Bulky Manaphy. Frankly, if you're losing to this mon you're simply not trying hard enough. It took me three minutes to list these mons (including calcs). Some of these may lose to really random sets that you'll never see on the ladder. There's plenty of others that only beat certain common sets. I've honestly never had a problem with mega mence, if anything things like m-slowbro give me more trouble while teambuilding. It's easy to think "oh wow that's a big threat" when looking at its stats, but when you start playing against it it honestly just isn't that bad.

 

[The Official Glyx]

Ice punch jirachi. Correctly-EV'd Sylveon. Dnite. Porygon-Z. Special or mixed Ttar. M-Sableye. Bulky Manaphy. Frankly, if you're losing to this mon you're simply not trying hard enough. It took me three minutes to list these mons (including calcs). Some of these may lose to really random sets that you'll never see on the ladder. There's plenty of others that only beat certain common sets. I've honestly never had a problem with mega mence, if anything things like m-slowbro give me more trouble while teambuilding. It's easy to think "oh wow that's a big threat" when looking at its stats, but when you start playing against it it honestly just isn't that bad.

Ice punch Jirachi hardly even has a chance at 2hkoing Mence with no investment in Defense whatsoever, Sylveon has about a 1/3 chance at OHKOing with Hyper Voice vs 0 investment Mence if it's max Physical bulk (otherwise you risk using Hyper Beam on a sub), D-nite is walled off by Iron Defense Mence, Porygon-Z has next to no chance of OHKOing Max Sp Def Mence, T-Tar gets walled off by Iron Defense Mence and if you're as bold as to suggest special T-Tar you need to remember Mence can get Brick Break, Mega Sableye is a game of 50/50 when vs the two main Mence sets, Manaphy needs more EV's than are even possible to solidly stop Mence with Ice Beam while at the same time being able to survive a Giga Impact/Hyper Beam.

It doesn't matter what Salamence's investments are, it is so easily capable of tearing near anything apart due to its ridiculously powerful ability Aerilate, backed up by its ridiculous stats.

 

[DoW]

Ice punch Jirachi hardly even has a chance at 2hkoing Mence with no investment in Defense whatsoever, Sylveon has about a 1/3 chance at OHKOing with Hyper Voice vs 0 investment Mence if it's max Physical bulk (otherwise you risk using Hyper Beam on a sub), D-nite is walled off by Iron Defense Mence, Porygon-Z has next to no chance of OHKOing Max Sp Def Mence, T-Tar gets walled off by Iron Defense Mence and if you're as bold as to suggest special T-Tar you need to remember Mence can get Brick Break, Mega Sableye is a game of 50/50 when vs the two main Mence sets, Manaphy needs more EV's than are even possible to solidly stop Mence with Ice Beam while at the same time being able to survive a Giga Impact/Hyper Beam.

It doesn't matter what Salamence's investments are, it is so easily capable of tearing near anything apart due to its ridiculously powerful ability Aerilate, backed up by its ridiculous stats.

Firstly, like I stated

Some of these may lose to really random sets that you'll never see on the ladder.

Now let me ask you. Have you ever actually seen SpD MegaMence? For reference, here's the 1630 stats from december:

+----------------------------------------+
| Spreads |
| Adamant:0/252/0/0/4/252 18.950% |
| Jolly:0/252/0/0/4/252 16.773% |
| Modest:196/0/56/252/0/4 7.544% |
| Modest:252/0/0/252/0/4 6.410% |
| Adamant:4/252/0/0/0/252 4.719% |
| Timid:0/0/0/252/4/252 3.217% |
| Other 42.388% |
+----------------------------------------+

The formatting didn't quite work, but I'm sure you get the picture. You go on a lot about weird sets, and I'm about 98.7% sure none of them have ever actually been used, because you don't run a salamence that beats one specific pokemon but then loses to all the other pokemon it's supposed to beat. It just doesn't make sense to do that. If you're having that much trouble with that particular pokemon, you're doing something wrong.

Similarly, you're mentioning sets like Iron Defense, Hydro Pump, Brick Break... Again, here's the actual stats:

| Moves |
| Dragon Dance 51.517% |
| Outrage 50.311% |
| Giga Impact 47.160% |
| Earthquake 44.255% |
| Substitute 27.101% |
| Hyper Beam 24.071% |
| Fire Blast 19.409% |
| Draco Meteor 18.715% |
| Hyper Voice 17.323% |
| Roost 16.742% |
| Return 10.597% |
| Double-Edge 10.264% |
| Protect 10.182% |
| Toxic 7.842% |
| Thrash 7.578% |
| Flamethrower 7.313% |
| Iron Defense 6.968% |
| Frustration 3.602% |
| Other 19.051% |

Let me tell you, when M-Sab uses WoW t1, it's won 75% of the time. That's better odds than relying on Focus Blast. When P-Z uses Ice Beam, it wins. Nobody's gonna run SpD Mence, because it's an awful mon that beats like 3 relevant pokemon, compared to the standard set that beats like 30 relevant pokemon. When you send out Rhyperior, you don't lose to Hydro Pump, because less than 3.6% of mence run Hydro Pump. Why would they want to run hydro pump? They're busy running moves like Sub to beat Chansey. In 98% of games, Hydro Pump is a waste of a moveslot. It just doesn't happen.

tl;dr actually play on the ladder. It seems from what you're saying that you don't know the 1v1 metagame well enough to comment accurately on whether megamence should be banned.

 

[The Official Glyx]

Firstly, like I stated

Now let me ask you. Have you ever actually seen SpD MegaMence? For reference, here's the 1630 stats from december:

+----------------------------------------+
| Spreads |
| Adamant:0/252/0/0/4/252 18.950% |
| Jolly:0/252/0/0/4/252 16.773% |
| Modest:196/0/56/252/0/4 7.544% |
| Modest:252/0/0/252/0/4 6.410% |
| Adamant:4/252/0/0/0/252 4.719% |
| Timid:0/0/0/252/4/252 3.217% |
| Other 42.388% |
+----------------------------------------+

The formatting didn't quite work, but I'm sure you get the picture. You go on a lot about weird sets, and I'm about 98.7% sure none of them have ever actually been used, because you don't run a salamence that beats one specific pokemon but then loses to all the other pokemon it's supposed to beat. It just doesn't make sense to do that. If you're having that much trouble with that particular pokemon, you're doing something wrong.

Similarly, you're mentioning sets like Iron Defense, Hydro Pump, Brick Break... Again, here's the actual stats:

| Moves |
| Dragon Dance 51.517% |
| Outrage 50.311% |
| Giga Impact 47.160% |
| Earthquake 44.255% |
| Substitute 27.101% |
| Hyper Beam 24.071% |
| Fire Blast 19.409% |
| Draco Meteor 18.715% |
| Hyper Voice 17.323% |
| Roost 16.742% |
| Return 10.597% |
| Double-Edge 10.264% |
| Protect 10.182% |
| Toxic 7.842% |
| Thrash 7.578% |
| Flamethrower 7.313% |
| Iron Defense 6.968% |
| Frustration 3.602% |
| Other 19.051% |

Let me tell you, when M-Sab uses WoW t1, it's won 75% of the time. That's better odds than relying on Focus Blast. When P-Z uses Ice Beam, it wins. Nobody's gonna run SpD Mence, because it's an awful mon that beats like 3 relevant pokemon, compared to the standard set that beats like 30 relevant pokemon. When you send out Rhyperior, you don't lose to Hydro Pump, because less than 3.6% of mence run Hydro Pump. Why would they want to run hydro pump? They're busy running moves like Sub to beat Chansey. In 98% of games, Hydro Pump is a waste of a moveslot. It just doesn't happen.

tl;dr actually play on the ladder. You clearly don't know the 1v1 metagame well enough to comment accurately on whether megamence should be banned.

Here's my problem with this argument, you're relying on what people use to determine quality, the same such people that are able to use bad sets on other mons and reach #1 easily, because that's how easy it is to ladder 1v1
A set doesn't have to be used commonly to actually be good.
When Sableye uses WoW on Mence, it gets defeated by hyper voice, easily.
tl;dr actually get seven accounts past 1600 on the ladder. You clearly don't know the 1v1 metagame well enough to comment accurately on whether megamence should be banned, Mr. 1336.

 

[Josh]

I think the point is that thanks to mence's ridiculous movepool and very good stats all around (not just offensive stats) it is able to be tailored to your teams needs. While every mon can be customized, mence's ridiculous movepool leaves it with nearly no actual counters, just hard checks. Yes, Hydro Pump is very uncommon, but if you're team is super weak to Rhyperior it can be worth the moveslot. Iron Defense is a perfectly fine option to beat lots of threats. I'll concede Brick Break is terrible, though, doesn't even kill ttar reliably.

 

[DoW]

Here's my problem with this argument, you're relying on what people use to determine quality, the same such people that are able to use bad sets on other mons and reach #1 easily, because that's how easy it is to ladder 1v1
A set doesn't have to be used commonly to actually be good.
When Sableye uses WoW on Mence, it gets defeated by hyper voice, easily.
tl;dr actually get seven accounts past 1600 on the ladder. You clearly don't know the 1v1 metagame well enough to comment accurately on whether megamence should be banned, Mr. 1336.

Sure, a set doesn't have to be common to be good, but if it's not common it's not exactly the first priority when it comes to teambuilding. You don't build your team around making sure you can beat shedinja for a reason.
Yes, I understand that hyper voice can beat sab if it doesn't metal burst. But that said, when you beat a mon 75% of the time, like I say that's better than relying on Focus Blast to beat a mon. I'd certainly consider it a good check.
Also, 1600 isn't exactly that hard, and my main account's that low because I've been using fun sets, like Toxic MegaMence. It beats Deo-D, which I'm sure you'll say means that deo-d isn't a counter. But if I wanted to be higher on the ladder I'd use Giga Impact instead, because it beats more things. That's how the ladder works.

Yes, MegaMence can beat a lot of things. But you can say with an extremely high level of confidence that Rhyperior will beat it, to the same extent that chansey beats scarf kyu-b - it relies on not getting critted. I honestly feel like such checks are perfectly good enough to rely on in the 1v1 meta, and if you rely on beating 100% of every pokemon with a single one of yours then you're never going to get anywhere in your teambuilding because so many mons have so many sets. Look at kyu-b, there aren't many mons that can beat Banded, Scarfed, Specs, WP, Haban... heck, someone's probably running sub hone claws just for chansey. But that doesn't mean nothing beats it.

 

[The Official Glyx]

Sure, a set doesn't have to be common to be good, but if it's not common it's not exactly the first priority when it comes to teambuilding. You don't build your team around making sure you can beat shedinja for a reason.
Yes, I understand that hyper voice can beat sab if it doesn't metal burst. But that said, when you beat a mon 75% of the time, like I say that's better than relying on Focus Blast to beat a mon. I'd certainly consider it a good check.
Also, 1600 isn't exactly that hard, and my main account's that low because I've been using fun sets, like Toxic MegaMence. It beats Deo-D, which I'm sure you'll say means that deo-d isn't a counter. But if I wanted to be higher on the ladder I'd use Giga Impact instead, because it beats more things. That's how the ladder works.

Yes, MegaMence can beat a lot of things. But you can say with an extremely high level of confidence that Rhyperior will beat it, to the same extent that chansey beats scarf kyu-b - it relies on not getting critted. I honestly feel like such checks are perfectly good enough to rely on in the 1v1 meta, and if you rely on beating 100% of every pokemon with a single one of yours then you're never going to get anywhere in your teambuilding because so many mons have so many sets. Look at kyu-b, there aren't many mons that can beat Banded, Scarfed, Specs, WP, Haban... heck, someone's probably running sub hone claws just for chansey. But that doesn't mean nothing beats it.

First off, priority in teambuilding for 1v1 doesn't really have a direction since it's classifiably impossible to make a perfect team, most of the time, people make or use different teams from their main one for the purpose of counter teaming other players.
Secondly, that's your personal experience of using Sableye vs. Salamence. I've used Sableye vs. Mence several times, and each of those times have been a 50/50 due to the fact that special/mixed Mence IS popular
Thirdly, I wasn't really using rating for the sake of reference, rather than for the sake of shutting you up since you started getting disrespectful
Fourthly, Rhyperior loses to Max Special Attack Hyper Voice + Hyper Beam without putting a ton of EV's into Sp Def.
Lastly, I'm aware Kyube has a lot of viable sets, that's why they made it so that you could only have 1 per team, Salamence is a completely different story.

 

[Uselesscrab]

Quick notes:

1) don't use ad hominem attacks and

2) Kyurem-B is limited to 1 because of an in game mechanic with the DNA Splicers.

Relevant thoughts from me later.

 

[Kingslayer2779]

As I've said in the past, I'm not necessarily opposed to banning mega mence, but I'd need to see some serious justification to support it. So that's my challenge to you, prove to me that banning these mons would increase the number of viable pokemon.

Pokemon don't always need to restrict the number of viable pokemon in the tier to be broken. If i was to say exactly why Mega Salamence is broken i would say that:

• Mega Salamence has extremely high stats with no "weak spots" compared to other comparable pokemon in the tier. 700 BST is extremely high even for megas. It has 140 attack, a high attack stat shared with pokemon such as Haxorous and Conkeldurr. However, Haxorous and Conkeldurr do not share Mega Salamence's bulk or Speed respectively. Speaking of Mega Salamence's speed and bulk both extremely high. 120 is a fantastic speed tier that outpaces pokemon generally considered "fast". 110 is considered a great speed tier in OU, so 120 is far above the average. Pokemon with a simliar speed tier, Weavile and Tornadus, are balanced with average bulk stats or attack stats. Defensively its bulkier then Ferrothorn! Essentially Mega Salamence doesn't have a single statistical weakness. This isn't enough to break a pokemon alone, but when combined with other traits it is.
• Rumplestiltskin and The Official Glyx already went over the amazing movepool and different sets it can run better then i ever could, but in a short summery, it can be tailored to beat most of its checks and counters in a highly viable and successful way. It has a very limited number of completely reliable counters, and they all need ice type attacks to be reliable.
• Aerliate basically just makes the rich richer, giving it a 200 BP STAB recharge move, a 160 bp flying Outrage, a 160 BP 1/2 STAB Recoil move, and lastly a 130 ish BP STAB move with no drawbacks. It doesn't need moves this good when it already has 140 Attack, but it has them anyway. Oh and before it megas it has intimidate, making it even harder to take down by dropping the opponent's attack
• Honestly the only negative thing you can say about Mega Salamence comes from its typing, it has 4x Ice weakness. It also has 3 other weakness, adding up to 4 which is pretty solid even if one is 4x. Flying is considered one of if not the best offensive typings of gen 6. Dragon is such a good typing Game Freak introduced a type just to nerf it. So i would say Mega Salamence's typing is pretty great, even if it does have a drawback.

So based on the evidence, I can only conclude that Mega Salamence is absolutely broken. Its positive traits overwhelmingly outweigh it's one negative trait. Balanced pokemon in the 1v1 tier have many more negative traits that make them less effective than Mega Salamence. If two randomly generated teams were given to two players of equal skill, i have no doubt that a the team with Mega Salamence would be better then the team without it, giving the player with Mega Salamence an advantage over his opponent of equal skill. Therefore i can conclude that Mega Salamence should be banned, as it would make the tier more balanced. Skill would become more of a factor in determining who wins a 1v1 battle, which would be a positive effect on the metagame.

 

[The Immortal]

Rumpelstiltskin no I'm not saying that. I'm saying Blaziken wouldn't be as broken with Mega Salamence around. There's support for a Blaziken unban and I'm convinced it should be suspected at least.

If some of you didn't realize from the OM room, I'm currently away. When I get back, possibly in a few days, I think I'll go through with the triple suspect.

 

[superGezy]

I’ve read the whole debate and noticed two things : First, people who want to ban mega salamence for the sake of banning it, because it is considered broken, and second, people who push this further by asking the ban of common threats, for the sake of diversifying the meta.

Concerning mega salamence, while I agree it is a prominent threat, I still don’t believe it is broken, therefore no ban. The reason for that is not too far-fetched : It has several counters, most notably greninja and kyurem, and a handful of checks, a lot of which have been mentioned by Dream eater gengar in his post, and A LOT which haven’t been mentioned at all. Today, while I was testing new sets, I discovered that a more defensive mega gardevoir can actually tank giga impact from an adamant salamence by tracing intimidate and killing back with hyper voice. And I wasn’t even searching for counters. That being said, I have seen many people discrediting these checks by arguing that running a specific move or a specific ev spread on mega salamence can make you win vs said check, however that logic is flawed. If it wasn’t, we could as well say that charizard has no counters, since there’s practically nothing that can successfully counter all of charizard’s sets. Because you can never know what set a pokemon will run, and because every pokemon can change their set to beat their counters (e.g. metal burst mawile, counter charizard, bulky kyurem, etc.), saying that as a justification that mega salamence has no counters is just irrelevant. So, mega salamence, while sure being a threat, is counterable in many different ways, and YES, that's enough to say that it is not ban-worthy.

Now, speaking of that uber state the meta has fallen in, and how it shuts the door to diversity, I do agree it somehow depicts the meta as it is right now. However, banning mega salamence won’t help solve this problem at all, since there will still be threats blocking the way. Even if we go as far as to ban all the pokemon in this circle of uberness, the thing is, the gap between these so-called uber pokemon and the rest is far less huge than some people say it is, and no matter how many times we ban the strongest pokemon, in the pokemon left there will still be a small group edging out the others. Now, I like Iv1’s idea of restraining every team to the use of one mega only. When you think of it, it only make sense that a small portion of pokemon outclasses the other (when you look closely you notice most of these pokemon are megas), since megas tend to be naturally better than regular pokemon(kind of the concept of a mega pokemon). Now, while this isn’t the absolute solution to this problem, it will help out sweeping away a bit of that present uberness. I also like the idea of creating a 1v1 UU, or a no mega(mega mawile, charizard, gyarados, salamence, etc.), no legendary(kyurem) 1v1.

In the end, I don’t think mega salamence is broken, because of how counterable it is, and I don’t think banning it will help diversify the meta. And I definitively don’t think it is the biggest threat of the meta right know, pokemon like charizard y, charizard x and mega mawile are in my eyes way harder to counter, and deserve much more a ban(but not enough to actually ban them).

 

[Kingslayer2779]

I’ve read the whole debate and noticed two things : First, people who want to ban mega salamence for the sake of banning it, because it is considered broken, and second, people who push this further by asking the ban of common threats, for the sake of diversifying the meta.

Concerning mega salamence, while I agree it is a prominent threat, I still don’t believe it is broken, therefore no ban. The reason for that is not too far-fetched : It has several counters, most notably greninja and kyurem, and a handful of checks, a lot of which have been mentioned by Dream eater gengar in his post, and A LOT which haven’t been mentioned at all. Today, while I was testing new sets, I discovered that a more defensive mega gardevoir can actually tank giga impact from an adamant salamence by tracing intimidate and killing back with hyper voice. And I wasn’t even searching for counters. That being said, I have seen many people discrediting these checks by arguing that running a specific move or a specific ev spread on mega salamence can make you win vs said check, however that logic is flawed. If it wasn’t, we could as well say that charizard has no counters, since there’s practically nothing that can successfully counter all of charizard’s sets. Because you can never know what set a pokemon will run, and because every pokemon can change their set to beat their counters (e.g. metal burst mawile, counter charizard, bulky kyurem, etc.), saying that as a justification that mega salamence has no counters is just irrelevant. So, mega salamence, while sure being a threat, is counterable in many different ways, and YES, that's enough to say that it is not ban-worthy.

Now, speaking of that uber state the meta has fallen in, and how it shuts the door to diversity, I do agree it somehow depicts the meta as it is right now. However, banning mega salamence won’t help solve this problem at all, since there will still be threats blocking the way. Even if we go as far as to ban all the pokemon in this circle of uberness, the thing is, the gap between these so-called uber pokemon and the rest is far less huge than some people say it is, and no matter how many times we ban the strongest pokemon, in the pokemon left there will still be a small group edging out the others. Now, I like Iv1’s idea of restraining every team to the use of one mega only. When you think of it, it only make sense that a small portion of pokemon outclasses the other (when you look closely you notice most of these pokemon are megas), since megas tend to be naturally better than regular pokemon(kind of the concept of a mega pokemon). Now, while this isn’t the absolute solution to this problem, it will help out sweeping away a bit of that present uberness. I also like the idea of creating a 1v1 UU, or a no mega(mega mawile, charizard, gyarados, salamence, etc.), no legendary(kyurem) 1v1.

In the end, I don’t think mega salamence is broken, because of how counterable it is, and I don’t think banning it will help diversify the meta. And I definitively don’t think it is the biggest threat of the meta right know, pokemon like charizard y, charizard x and mega mawile are in my eyes way harder to counter, and deserve much more a ban(but not enough to actually ban them).

Everything has checks and counters. Even Mega Rayquaza loses to Greninja in 1v1. That doesn't mean he still isn't broken. With all the various options and sets in 1v1 you could probably get alot of pokemon with the exact right moveset and evs to beat any number of uber pokemon. Instead of thinking about what beats Mega Salamence, think about what makes Mega Salamence better then other pokemon. What flaws and weaknesses does it have? What is the advantage of running it over any other pokemon? Mega Salamence is considered one of the best ubers and Megas ever made. If Mega Mence is okay in 1v1 what exactly isn't okay???

 

[dusk raimon]

Gonna go thru all the shit right now, time to get some wellies on, GONNA discuss the sprites you can see above this.

So first up mega Mence, this mon right now is being discussed and argued about whether it should be banned or not and I just wanted to say I think it should be banned. (Sorry gezy eek) It has a huge weakness to ice moves and... No other weaknesses. With the right spread and sets it can take on almost the whole meta apart from scarf KYUB and other things faster than it with special ice moves. The reason I bolded special is because if you use a physical move to hit salamence, even an ice one, after an intimidate drop and the incredible physical bulk of Mega Mence, it can likely take it easily, avoiding 2hkos from things like scarf sawks ice punch after an intimi drop. It's counters are also easy to counter usually, or if someone runs a non scarf kyub or something, Mence can just beat it itself with the right set. The diversity and movepool of mega mence as well as its bulk make it so hard to check, since on physical mons you can't just slap an ice move on and call it a day now. It even takes a Mawile play rough, or if special just straight up ohkoes with fire blast. Due to the diversity and hardness to kill of Mence I think it should be banned or at the least suspected. The fact it's main checks and counters are Scarfed ice coverage mons specifically for Mence should show how broken it is.

"Hey I got a free slot"
"mhm"
"i know, scarf ice coverage mon cause Mence is overcentralizing and dumb"
"good call!"


Things it beats: charizards, non scarf kyub, meloetta, mawile, chansey, gyarados, non scarf poryZ, Deoxys defense, Garchomp, gardevoir, dragonite, non ice punch metagross, porygon2, Whimsicott, altaria, crustle, hoopa, heracross, there are more but I have a life so I can't do them all .__.


Things it loses to: ice punch Metagross, bulky kyub, PorygonZ, greninja. Random special scarf stab ice coverage.

On the topic of blaziken i was the one who originally suggested to TI unbanning it, and my reasoning was as follows. (Personally I think non mega blaziken should be Unbanned, not mega.)

So blaziken is ubers because of a good movepool decent offensive stats, and Speed boost (a great ability). However in 1v1 a far more offensive metagame than OU was when blaziken was banned it finds it harder to abuse the speed boost and obtain more than one before it is ohkoed. It misses out on key ohkoes and is outspeedrd by common scarfers after 1 speed boost even if jolly (poryZ, Kyurem-black) it has amazing coverage and would sure be strong in 1v1, but not just too slow and just a bit too weak missing out on vital koes. It's optimal set would be mixed as withhout mixed it can't even beat mawile after an intimidate and it has a 4mss. Although very good I don't think it would be broken for these reasons. Also as a fire type wallbreaker, it is outclassed by both the zards and since there isn't a thing such as "taking up the mega slot"(yet) in 1v1 if you want a strong wallbreaker the zards are the way to go. So yeah UNBAN blaziken


Also I thought id just say quickly on the topic of ubers....

The reason ubers such as mega Gengar are unbanned in 1v1 are due to the fact that they have something which makes them "weak". For example mega Gengar has a useless ability in 1v1 due to it being shadow tag which traps the opponent, which is thus irrelevant in 1v1. An uber mon's flaw could be a crippling speed tier or weakness to new and more prominent threats in 1v1, which have for whatever reason led to said mon being unbanned, apart from mega mence, that's just stupid :P

So that's what I think on all the stuff right now, to summarise, BAN mega Mence, UNBAN non mega blaziken, and LEAVE mega blaziken BANNED.These three are getting suspected soon, so if I get reqs then er it's kinda obvious what im voting.

 

[DoW]

I decided not to wade any deeper into the shitposting that was being thrown around, which is why I'm not replying directly to anyone or attacking anyone's points here per se - In any case, I think superGezy did a perfectly good job of this.

What I would like to do is say that I think there are a huge number of viable, if not amazing, sets that haven't been experimented with yet. Recently I've been playing around with this set:
Sylveon @ Custap Berry
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 60 Def / 196 SpA
Bold Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Shadow Ball
- Endure

The EVs allow it to take Zard X's Flare Blitz or MMence's Double-Edge, while two Hyper Voices are easily capable of KOing Zard X and one will take out Mence. However I generally Endure vs. Mence anyway as Giga Impact will still KO and I don't fear the sub. HP Rock allows me to deal with Zard Y, obviously. Endure allows me to get into Custap range, which is necessary in quite a few of these matchups. Shadow Ball is there to fill a slot TBH, it gives me a chance against things like Aegi or ScarfTini though you can run Psyshock to beat Greninja after enduring a gunk shot as well.

I think there's still quite a lot of unexplored sets similar to this, and especially to the people saying that only a few things are viable I'd definitely recommend you try some things out. Obviously this isn't the best mon that ever existed, but it catches quite a few people off-guard when they expect Zard X to be able to beat it.