ORAS UU Conkeldurr

[Pak]

I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the majority of the active playerbase wants the ability to make some changes, but that there’s still a strong sentiment from many that changes should only occur in exceptional circumstances. That’s a difficult needle to thread, but as I said upthread I have no issue with removing the old gen lower tier lock if we have a reasonable way to address issues.

Here’s my main issue, though: I really really do not want to start creating official individual tiering councils for every single old gen lower tier. I’ve expressed my issue with small handpicked groups having outsized power over the tiering process here and elsewhere, and while I think in some cases councils are a necessity to direct the tiering process, we’re going to see a TON of overlap in membership across the various tiering councils, which will mean that a few people will have a huge influence on tiering across the board. I know that there are good groups of folks who generate resources like VRs for old gen lower tiers, and I am not in any way trying to minimize their contributions, but I think adding a dozen or more new “official” tiering councils is not the way forward.

My proposal, then, would be that currently locked tiers can hold suspect tests on a case-by-case basis using tournament results from circuit tournaments and subforum PLs to generate their set of voters. People can create PR threads as needed to discuss and address issues in old gen lower tiers. If there appears to be a decent amount of support (read: more than just one or two people responding and then the thread goes dead), we can move forward with a suspect test.

As for how voting lists should be generated, this is also something that I’d prefer to keep on a case-by-case basis, simply because every old gen lower tier has differing amounts of activity, different circuits, etc. Incorporating semi-finalists or quarter-finalists (depending on the size of the tour) of the two most recent iterations of any circuit tournament involving the tier in question is a good place to start. I also think that subforum premier leagues are a fine metric to include, since most of those have “quasi-official” status - again, I don’t want to put a hard number on it because different PLs have different numbers of weeks, but a decent benchmark would be that anyone who played the tier in >50% of the regular season weeks and has at least one win is probably an OK place to start.

Does this sound like a reasonable place to start? Hopefully it allows for some changes but minimizes the risk of a couple of influential people having the ability to make major changes in an old gen lower tier.

Alright, first of all I just wanted to say thanks to hogg for being open minded about all this. It's definitely easier to lock old gen lower tiers entirely than it is to constantly try to monitor them without some sort of overseeing body like you find in current gen tiers or even old gen OUs. I do agree that old gen lower tiers shouldn't have their own councils. There simply isn't any somewhat objective way of deciphering who should and shouldn't be on it for a lot of tiers which realistically only like 10-12 people actively contributing to them in some way, if that. With that said, I do strongly believe ORAS UU Conkeldurr to be one of these exceptional circumstances and it should be looked at in the near future if the support is there. I've really just had enough of this thing after years and years of beating my head into a wall, finding new ways to have teams invalidated by its presence, and planned to make some sort of post in this section after UUPL concluded, regardless of the very recent discussion that happened to be perfectly timed.

I have quite literally waited years to make this post, and never thought it could actually be fruitful with the rules in place, freezing old gen lower tiers. For the reasons above, I always understood why this was the case the last few years, but it was frustrating for such apparent problems in whatever metagame to go completely ignored on the basis of some blanket rule. Old gen OUs naturally have much larger player bases, but they and their recent changes are proof enough that 'old' metagames don't roll over and die once their time is up as the current gen. Essentially every single lower tier still presents them with representation in their corresponding subforum premier leagues, and as far as I know, most have also developed their own spin on the more prominent 'Smogon Classic' as part of their circuits. I can only speak for my experiences in UU, but it was genuinely enjoyable to see so many 'new gen players' in the community try their hand in the old gens last year and genuinely take them seriously and have fun in the process. They aren't huge by any means, due in large part to there naturally not being some trophy tour including them, but they are active and should have the right like any tier would to address problematic elements. There will always be subjectivity to deciding what to vote on, who should vote, etc., but the overarching point here is that if the players of a given metagame come to a strong consensus on whatever, then why can't they decide to deal with it accordingly in the metagame that they play and enjoy?

--

Issues with the end of ORAS UU - Something I've talked about again and again was the idea of perception when it comes to ORAS UU. For basically the remaining 6 months or whatever of it being the current gen UU, it was all but unanimously disliked among the player base. The turning point was the drops mid-way through UUPL 2016, featuring Sylveon, Celebi, and Conkeldurr. Bog standard defensive Sylveon balances plagued the meta. People refused to branch out at all, believing the tier to be dead, boring, or that using anything else simply put them at a disadvantage. I covered this much more in-depth in my RMT here, but the jist is that everyone agreed the tier was bad, but everyone seemed to have their own take on what the reason was. Some thought it was Sylveon, some Celebi, or Sacred Fire, Gyarados, Hydreigon, etc. To keep this somewhat brief, none of these have shown to be long-term issues in recent years. Defensive Sylveon, its previously universal set, has all but died off because of recent trends, largely revolving around Bulk Up Conkeldurr. The metagame has adjusted well to Celebi, especially after the Baton Pass ban which was largely aimed at it, and as was covered in this post, I believe it to be a healthy presence. Sacred Fire and its abuser, Entei, have seen an insane drop off in tournament usage, expanded on here. Same with Gyarados for the most part. It has its moments, but its issues are highlighted in this post as well. Hydreigon is a unique case. There is a valid argument it deserves to be banned, and that is the reason it saw a suspect when ORAS was the main gen. It was obviously voted to stay, and THAT is the key difference between it and Conkeldurr in this situation. For much of its early run, Conkeldurr was relegated to weird Assault Vest or Choice Band Guts sets, which were probably fine, but did not scratch the surface of its potential. For whatever reason, whether it was the indecisiveness with the root of the tier's issues, the generally poor building activity/experimentation, the omnipresence of a 'hard counter' in defensive Sylveon, etc., this thing seemed to completely fly under the radar. It was never even given a look in its direction as a potential problem.

Playing the tier consistently since it came to a close as the main gen, I've only come to realize exceedingly more and more just how restricting Conkeldurr is. No other Pokemon comes remotely close in that regard. Because of this, I essentially made it my 'mission' to try to shift the public opinion to what was really going on here. As I mentioned above, the metagame has seen massive shifts since 2016. Turns out when people experiment and don't fall into the same building patterns over and over, things can actually progress, but that's a rant for another day. Point is, Conkeldurr has proven to be the cream that's risen to the top over time as these other previously perceived 'broken mons' have all had their straight drop offs or healthy metagame adjustments. It took years and years of bitching, but I'm glad the public opinion has finally shifted in the right direction.

Teambuilding stranglehold - The number one reason Conkeldurr needs to be banned is the absolute tier-warping presence of its Bulk Up set. For those unaware, it traditionally features the set up move in combination with Drain Punch, Knock Off, Mach Punch, and near-max HP and Special Defense investment. It may not look like it at a glance, but it is absolutely ridiculous how fast this thing can snowball considering its bulk, longevity, and lack of Pokemon that can truly answer it long-term. Let's take a quick look at the supposed Fighting checks of the tier, eloquently presented here. The underlines imply the Pokemon is a soft check. Tornadus and Specs Sylevon can literally only revenge kill it. Whimsicott has the worst stats of all time, failing to even 2HKO the brute with an uninvested Moonblast, barely doing more with the investment it can usually afford, and lacks any actual recovery. Slowking and Celebi can act as checks using sets specifically designed to help versus it with Colbur Berries, Psychic, and their respective recovery moves. Slowking is still super super shaky without some other revenge killer to pick it off afterward and Celebi is stuck clicking Recover over and over. The circled mons are the only 'counters' that can truly handle Bulk Up Conkeldurr long-term. Please note that only applies to Haze itemless Crobat, since basically every other set is hilariously shaky at handling it barring perfect conditions. Still, maintaining rocks is not hard in ORAS UU, and Crobat must continually click Roost to remain a good check, making it easily abusable with its lack of offensive presence as well. Defensive Sylveon used to be considered as part of this list, but then people realized you tack on a Roar Steel and suddenly they have no actual method of recovery, and that's literally the reason it dropped off planet earth after dominating the entire year of 2016 before Bulk Up Conk came to prominence. That's where Florges came into the fold with its one-turn recovery, but it does possess worse bulk than Sylveon and again is forced into continually recovering to maintain its strong one-on-one matchup, giving up momentum. I shit on Cresselia a bunch here for its passiveness and ease to take advantage of. So yeah...without using one of these incredibly abusable and passive-in-their-own-ways mons, chances are your Bulk Up Conkeldurr matchup will be shaky at best. I made a post about this a while back that addressed the aspect of revenge killers / soft checks, here, which so loosely apply to dealing with Conk on a consistent basis that it's hilarious. By the nature of ORAS UU, it is a very balance-based and slow-ish tier, meaning a weakness to a mon like this can't simply be handled by way of offensive pressure like they could in faster-paced tiers, especially when you consider how much this thing beats in pure one-on-ones.

Okay, but here's the best part. Imagine if there was a Conkeldurr set that took nearly all of these theoretical answers, and invalidated them. Yeah that's the jist of Iron Fist Choice Band Conkeldurr. If you look at the replays of the most recent UUPL, you may find that Choice Band Conk has been at the forefront in usage. Bulk Up Conk is the one that constricts building to an outrageous extent, forcing this passive fighting counterplay onto teams, and CB takes full advantage. There literally could not be a better complement to the looming threat of Bulk Up. As mentioned above, there are hilariously few Pokemon that can beat Bulk Up one-on-one, meaning the answer to it is usually all but on an island in dealing with it, implying that there are next to no available midgrounds. A good example is a game like this from UUPL. Both are using a very strong archetype, best-known for abusing the broken Fighting, and it can reasonably use either set in this setting. Chait loses his bat turn 2 in large part because he can't just assume against the possibility of Bulk Up, which would handily deal with literally any other member or heavily chunk Celebi on the switch with Knock Off. And yeah, CB Iron Fist Ice Punch (or Thunder Punch) makes a bulky Haze Acro Crobat fly off the screen, a very cool interaction versus perhaps Bulk Up's hardest counter. A downfall of Florges over Sylveon due to the presence of Bulk Up Conkeldurr + Roar is its that of its worse physical bulk. Meaning even if it doesn't carry Poison Jab to nuke it, it's still essentially 100% forced to Synthesis after it takes half from a resisted Hammer Arm so that they don't have to pick a mon to sack the next time it comes in. Something something there's a very good chance 0 other Pokemon on the team want to eat a fucking CB Iron Fist Hammer Arm, again leaving no midgrounds and passive, streamlined play. Very healthy. Cresselia theoretically handles both, but is terrible, as touched on above. Below are some fun CB calcs, illustrating its ability to nuke Bulk Up's 'checks' or trade versus basically anything with its still-respectable natural bulk. Fuck it I'll even reveal my usual HP investment.

bruh

252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Conkeldurr Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Celebi: 340-402 (99.7 - 117.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Conkeldurr Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowking: 284-336 (72 - 85.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

132 SpA Whimsicott Moonblast vs. 124 HP / 0 SpD Conkeldurr: 276-326 (72.2 - 85.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Conkeldurr Hammer Arm vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Whimsicott: 195-230 (60.3 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Conkeldurr Ice Punch vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Whimsicott: 392-462 (121.3 - 143%) -- guaranteed OHKO

0 SpA Florges Moonblast vs. 124 HP / 0 SpD Conkeldurr: 320-378 (83.7 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Conkeldurr Hammer Arm vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Florges: 156-183 (43.3 - 50.8%) -- 57% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Conkeldurr Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Florges: 278-328 (77.2 - 91.1%) -- 25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Tough Claws Aerodactyl-Mega Wing Attack vs. 124 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 272-324 (71.2 - 84.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoqueen Sludge Wave vs. 124 HP / 0 SpD Conkeldurr: 286-337 (74.8 - 88.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Conkeldurr Ice Punch vs. 128 HP / 0 Def Nidoqueen: 384-452 (108.7 - 128%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Roserade Leaf Storm vs. 124 HP / 0 SpD Conkeldurr: 294-346 (76.9 - 90.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

So you may notice why this thing is so fucking stupid in-game. You can never just assume that it isn't the more long-term-punishing Bulk Up set, and the presence of the Choice Band set can essentially turn matches into guessing games. Please don't give me the bs about it only being able to run one of these extra coverage moves. They're all good in their own right and all this shitter really needs is to click Hammer Arm or Knock Off + some half decent support in any matchup. The coverage is icing on the cake.

As you may have noticed, I've quite literally gotten madder and madder writing this, purely because of how stupid this mon is. I could go on and on how many different approaches I've tried that are completely invalidated by Conkeldurr. Soft checks don't exist. Actual checks barely exist. All Conkeldurr provides is streamlined, extremely exploitable play that is all but unavoidable. I even had a recent post here gassing up Heracross, as it can somewhat deal with both Conks in early-games, but another big part of the post highlights how it actually DOES promote interactive gameplay while fulfilling a similar role. I strongly believe that it can carry the void potentially left my Conkeldurr's absence offensively in a genuinely healthy way. Sure its set up sets are more immediately threatening, its faster, etc., but the biggest difference is it doesn't have god given bulk and longevity that let it flip the entire tier on its head. As mentioned in that post too, the one key loss with Conkeldurr leaving would be another Hydreigon check leaving, but I mean, it only fills that role in combination with a much superior check to it in Empoleon, only serving the role as a solid Dark Pulse switch. Even if Hydreigon's counterplay is pretty limited itself, it can't 1v1 the entire fucking tier and sweep like this stupid thing.

Please please for the love of god get this thing out of ORAS UU. I've genuinely done everything I can for this tier ever since it was my original home when I started playing. At this point it feels like Conk invalidates too much for there to be any truly meaningful and interactive growth. It's the only way ORAS UU can truly become the good metagame I know it's always been capable of being, similar to how it was perceived in the glory days of 2015.

 

[BigFatMantis]

The tier lock dilemma is so easy to fix but it seems not enough people want to fix it. I think this Conk situation is a good starting point. Super duper locking the tiers with no chance for change is obviously very stupid and I think 94% of all users would agree. On the other hand, you can't go about monitoring the tiers as if they are alive like current gens, fixing any little thing you think may be broken even though the tier mostly plays fine. If something is identified to be so extremely out of this world, then we should be able to do something about it. And there's so many ways to do it cleanly without disturbing the sanctity of the tiers. Hogg already laid out the framework on how to get it done with voters. What did he didn't touch on was the vote requirement though. But if you require an above 66% ban vote from the voters to ban the thing, that should be more than fair.

Obviously, if people that qualified for votes for this type of thing vote to ban Conkeldurr by an over 66% margin, there is no need to keep it in the tier whatsoever. Or make it 60% or 70% doesn't matter specifically (I imagine most of these things that get tested will end up getting a super high ban % vote anyways). You cannot tell me that something that over 2/3 of a competitive playerbase wants banned should stay in the tier. And that's just one example to do it. You could also just hold a quick suspect tour generally to get voters if you don't want to dig through 1 years worth of PLs results. Regardless, as long as you require a supermajority to ban whatever it is you are suspecting, that thing should be banned because it is obvious the tier does not want it.

But how to even decide WHAT gets suspected, and who would make those decisions? Hogg mentions that a PR thread should be made, and then action can be taken if it garners enough support. This is a bit vague and I think should be clarified, as when things are left vague, usually action is not taken. Who, exactly, decides to pull the trigger on the suspect? Someone has to be the one to assess the PR thread and deem it acceptable. After all, we can't have people posting PR threads left and right hoping to mold these tiers continuously. But if you have just one more body of people to make these decisions and assess the PR thread to determine if enough support exists, then I think you are fine.

I know Hogg said he didn't want 100000000000 councils, but all you need is one more body of people to assess the support of the threads. To be clear, they are NOT assessing the metagame or the suspectworthiness/banworthiness of the thing in question. It's impossible to make a body of people to do that for ever lower tier metagame. They are simply assessing if they think enough support exists in the PR thread for that to happen, and then the suspect can begin, however you want to do it.

None of this is even how you need to do things. I just wrote it up at midnight to show that it is, in fact, possible to come up with logical ways to deal with this, however everyone wants to do it.

 

[Moutemoute]

Hello there. I'm definitively not the most active player within the UU ORAS playerbase neither a great one to be honest but I'm still looking sometimes to the state of the metagame, playing games for team tours etc.. and I'm not surprised by this thread. Conkeldurr has always been a hot topic in UU ORAS even back in the day at the "end" of ORAS. It has always been a troublesome Pokemon because of its sheer force but also its versatility. Bulk Up Conkeldurr forces people to run specific checks in order to not autolose vs it. On the other hand, as Pak mentionned it, Iron Fist CB Conkeldurr is nearly impossible to handle defensively. I personally like Florges as a check to it even tho Poison Jab fucks it and Hammer Arm forces it to use Synthesis which means you lose a shit ton of momentum every time. That means that any Pokémon which can abuse of Florges like Nidoqueen is able fuck up most teams with it since it's tough for the Florges users to make a double vs Conkeldurr when Florges ate a Hammer Arm since it means that it will not be able to handle another one if Stealth Rocks are up.

Overall, I think Conkeldurr's case is kinda iffy because I don't really understand why there wasn't any action made back in the day before the end of ORAS to deal with this issue. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't remember that we had a Suspect test on it neither a council vote. So yeah great thread and I hope that something will be done.

 

[Tony]

I completely support Pak's proposal as outlined in his post. I build and/or play ORAS UU every year still for UUPL and I simply couldn't agree more with everything he wrote. I come from the Omfuga school of ORAS UU, so naturally clicking the right coverage move with CB Conkeldurr has been ingrained in me since my first time getting to know the metagame in 2016. Omfuga didn't allow for 'p*ssy set up moves' on the team, so it wasn't until 2017 that I realized how ridiculous Bulk Up was, too. Especially when you consider how easily one set can abuse the other's checks to them.

Pak outlined answers like itemless Crobat, Slowking and Florges to withstand the Bulk Up set, yet all of those get sent to the moon by Ice/Thunder Punch and Poison Jab from Choice Band Conkeldurr, respectively. It happens every year in UUPL. We've even seen the same team of 6 Pokemon used multiple times this UUPL, but one version had Bulk Up and the other had Choice Band Conkeldurr. Now what do we do? The answer is, finally, banning Conkeldurr from ORAS UU. Thank you for writing up this thread, Pak.

 

[Lily]

I'm certainly not a prolific ORAS player but I did help a fair bit with prep in the tier in this year's UUPL. Conkeldurr is absolutely ridiculous and building oftentimes comes down to just hoping you don't run into one of its two main sets. It's beyond unhealthy and I completely support the OP's desire to remove it from the tier.

That isn't why I'm posting here specifically though - instead I wanted to go through some data to figure out who would get the opportunity to vote if this is to go to one. Using Hogg's proposal as a baseline (which can be found below), here is the voter list using the last 3 years of tournaments (the past 3 years of UU Classic, the past 3 UUPLs, and the most recent UU Snake Draft / World Cup):

As for how voting lists should be generated, this is also something that I’d prefer to keep on a case-by-case basis, simply because every old gen lower tier has differing amounts of activity, different circuits, etc. Incorporating semi-finalists or quarter-finalists (depending on the size of the tour) of the two most recent iterations of any circuit tournament involving the tier in question is a good place to start. I also think that subforum premier leagues are a fine metric to include, since most of those have “quasi-official” status - again, I don’t want to put a hard number on it because different PLs have different numbers of weeks, but a decent benchmark would be that anyone who played the tier in >50% of the regular season weeks and has at least one win is probably an OK place to start.

ORAS UU Cup Semifinalists

ORAS UU Cup

ORAS UU Cup III:
solonor24
PinkDragonTamer
CoolStoryBrobat
esche
Lyss
Pohjis

ORAS UU Cup II:
Finchinator
Raichy
Accelgor
Wanka
Hamhamhamhamham
HSA

ORAS UU Cup I:
Pearl
SMB
Kushalos
zben

UUPL Players (4 weeks+ played, 1 win min.)

UUPL Players

UUPL IX:
Eternal Spirit
Chaitanya
Killintime
Garay oak
J0RIS
Kink

UUPL VIII:
Santu
dingbat
GunGunJ

UUPL VII:
Hogg
Teddeh
Eyan

If Bo3 players are included, the following players may also vote as a result of UUPLs (most recent result first):
UUPL IX:
bugzinator
Adaam
TDK
robjr
mncmt
Sacri'
CBU

UUPL VIII:
Pak (including both ORAS and Bo3 games there were more than 4 played, 2 in Bo3 and 3 in ORAS)
HT

UUPL VII:
lax
ict

UU Snake Draft Players (4 weeks+ played, 1 win min.)

UU Snake Draft Players

obii
Pak (in case UUPL VIII doesn't count)

UUWC Players (3/2+ games played, 1 win min.) (this one is admittedly hard to call but >50% of a regular season is 2 games I guess)

UUWC Players

3 games:
RaJ.Shoot
Pepeduce
Sjneider
Euphonos
Flamita

2 games:
Notily
Expulso
Bobby Dagen

I tagged you all instead of just listing without tagging because I'd like to ensure everyone sees this and gives their opinion on it if they wish. Feel free to ignore if you have no interest, of course.

That means there would be 48 potential voters on a Conkeldurr suspect test, assuming I didn't miss anyone and not counting those who likely played the tier in UU Classic playoffs - for reference, there were 33 qualified voters on the most recent SS UU suspect test for Aegislash. Just wanted to add that I think we have a large, varied, and perfectly qualified userbase to take part in this if it garners enough support. I think it's time action is taken and we certainly have the resources to do so.

 

[dingbat]

figured that i'd chime in as well since this is also the meta that's near and dear to me.

i'll admit that i've been largely indifferent on this subject over the past four years and change since i've been largely on-and-off when it came to mons after oras ended. i'll also admit that, aside from the time i spent testing and battling with friends, the majority of my time spent on mons this past uupl was building various teams that all had... cb conks on them. heck, i'll even say that my nickname in the vet's chat was "cockeldurr" because ngl i was spamming that shit a lot in that chat. but i also have to admit that you've hit the nail on the head on the fact that this issue didn't naturally go away on its own, and it's not going to at all if nothing is done about it.

as briefly touched on, late 2015/early 2016 was when oras uu was at its most stable (and perhaps the most fun) but somewhere down the line, that identity was lost, and i won't deny that it was a catalyst for my loss of interest in mons. as one of the earlier users of bu conk (and the one who ended up writing the analysis), it warped the meta in a huge way as it completely invalidated a large portion of balance/stall teams that existed then, and over time, the shackle it has put on teambuilding has arguably worsened due to the huge burden of the aforementioned bu and cb sets. (as a side note, if you're using fat defog acro bat as your primary conk answer, shame on you)

that being said, throw me in as a supporter for a conk ban.

 

[Eyan]

I skimmed briefly through Pak's post, and with how much he wrote, I doubt there's anything I can add that hasn't already somewhat been mentioned, but here goes. I mean ORAS UU is really the only meta I can say I know well enough about and have played in recent times, so yeah.

Conkeldurr is something that I've always thought of as being pretty ridiculous in both using and playing against despite not always being the most vocal about it. Just dealing with the Bulk Up set is enough of a hassle, considering how Crobat (one of its main checks) has to run a specific set to be an effective answer (fat Acrobatics + Haze). Even with that, it's often not sufficient as an answer with how common things like Pursuit Mega Aerodactyl are, and hence why they end up sticking Florges or whatever else with Crobat. On certain teams, you can afford to run a more offensive Crobat, but that's in the far minority. And when it comes to Fairy-types like Florges, they're really not that hard to pressure to the point when they aren't Conkeldurr checks. If you use Sylveon, you probably deserve to lose considering you're done for the moment you run into Roar Empoleon.

And like what Pak said, this year's UUPL really showed how the builders have learned to exploit the mindset that many people have at this point regarding Conkeldurr prep. I didn't even play and I could notice how much Choice Band was used, packing Poison Jab / Thunder Punch just to catch those Crobats and Florges that blindly switch in fearing the Bulk Up. One set completely removing the checks to the other sounds like a pretty free deal to me. With a Pokemon like this, you can take almost any team that features it, change the Conkeldurr set from Bulk Up to Choice Band or vice versa and still do fine with it. I mean the best "check" to Conkeldurr overall is like Cresselia, but that Pokemon just sucks...it switches in once, loses its Colbur and from then on, it's just a sitting duck that gets stalled out of Moonlight PP.

As Bouff put it:

I could add more, but I believe it'd be redundant. I would personally want to get this behemoth out of ORAS UU but at the very least would like a vote on it.

 

[CBU]

I will not pretend I know a lot about ORAS building, even tho I have played a lot of it because of BO3 UUPL and recently UUFPL. I do know tho that all the people that built for me over the years( LLH , Mandibuzz lover Killintime , dingbat , Kink , esche and probably someone else I forget rn) either said ''why would we not use Conkeldurr?'' or ''ok first order of business; how to not lose to Conk?''. Now superficially that wouldn't be enough for me because many mons have shaped the metagame like that before across multiple gens(Scizor in USM, Sharpedo in USM, Zeraora in SS etc) and they were not ''breaking the tier'' in my eyes. But Conkeldurr is more than that. It requires multiple switchins to it on the same build and even then playing the guessing game of switching the right pokemon in on the right set. That basically chokeholds building and forces cores like itemless haze Crobat+phys def Florges+toxic Gligar to have a chance at stopping conk from punching the entire team to death and then farming late game with mach punch. The moment a metagame-shaping pokemon requires a coin toss to decide the appropriate counterplay, it crosses the line from great to broken/unhealthy. For all those reasons, and also for the sake of people stop using Crobat, I'd want Conkeldurr to leave.

 

[Kink]

Pak is as convincing as he is handsome, so I'm only marginally convinced that conk should go.

On a more serious note, Pak touched the matter perfectly. If it's not BU, it's Banded, or Orb. This thing is like a worse Scizor in SM, and it creates an uncompetitive environment where people have to pack both Celebi and Sylveon/Florges just to deal with it. The reality is, if you're not preparing for conk you're losing to it, I think a suspect is more than warranted.

As of now, I would lean towards no ban because I need to be absolutely sure of my decision before changing a "locked" tier, but rest assured I will keep an open mind and I will always finalize my vote with whatever I perceive to be the best for the tier. Thanks to Pak and Lilburr for lighting the fire behind this.

 

[Indigo Plateau]

I don’t expect my post to add much, if at all, especially considering how extensive and well-written Pak’s post was. However, I did still want to publicly show my support for this notion because the more support, the better. I started playing “competitively” back in XY, where most of my time was spent in OU. Towards the end of the gen I made a couple RMTs and then wanted to move on to a new experience and stumbled upon UU. I never got to fully immerse myself in the tier at the time for a few reasons: high school graduation, college applications, etc.

Then came UUPL ‘19 when Pak drafted me on the Rangers and I decided to shift my focus from OU to UU. I started learning & helping gens 4/5/6 bc SM wasn’t enjoyable for me at the time. From that point on, in the past 2 years of being as active as possible in UUPL, UUSD, Classic, fucking around in tests, or whatever else it may be, I don’t think I enjoyed anything less than dealing with Conk in ORAS. From building teams, suggesting changes to teams others would show me, testing vs teammates, playing in a few ORAS tours myself - this thing is not healthy for the tier. It invalidates all of its answers with just two sets and trying to guess which set you’re running into can result in one mon instantly lost and a huge momentum shift in the game. I don’t have the time to look for the games at work on my phone, but you can see several examples of this in the past UUPLs. Pretty sure early on in the most recent one someone went Slowking to scout and then instantly dropped to Thunder Punch lol. Hell I even saw it 1v1 a Florges using SpDef BU with PJab. Using this mon always benefits the user and there is literally zero drawback to having it on your team.

I consider myself lucky to be good friends with people like Donny P, Accelgor, & Pak, among others, who have undoubtedly made a huge impact on their respective tiers and made learning them much easier for me. I’m also friends with a lot of the other mainstays from these 3 generations which I wasn’t as involved with while they were active as I was in SM/SS; and I don’t think in all my time playing or talking with said friends or just a tier’s playerbase, I saw an issue as heavily agreed upon as ORAS Conk. I don’t see why we can’t do anything about it now when it’s gathering, and has gathered, so much support over the years. “Unlocking” old tiers and making changes to them can be tough, but I fully believe this is qualifies as an exceptional case and should be looked into.

 

[Kreme]

So at the request of my ORAS boomer peers I'll also chime in for support of this. 100% a vote should happen on this, regardless if we're going by the metrics shown in Lilburr's post above or otherwise. I've been a part of ORAS in UUPLs for quite a few years barring the latest iteration so I can echo a lot of the sentiments Pak and others are saying. I believe UUPL V was the first iteration with Conkeldurr in it and you can definitely see Pak's point about it being underexploited with it having less than 50% winrate despite being top 10 in usage. Just going through old replays you'd honestly be surprised to see what we were running at the time, blissfully unaware of how woefully unprepared we were for any modern Conkeldurr team composition. Sylveon being on 46% of teams with people slapping it on thinking it would hold the team together against Conk and would fail miserably nowadays. Even after the realization by players that Conk had a lot of potential and the measures taken by them to mitigate its presence, you still come to today with an extreme chokehold on teambuilding that others have mentioned where you're bending over backwards to properly cover for it. I think Crobat being purely defensive with Haze + Acrobatics is a perfect example of this, with every other variant being generally considered inferior due to its lack of reliability in dealing with Conk. Speaking of meta changes, just purely going through the stats from previous UUPLs / Classics / etc you'll definitely be pleased to see how much development ORAS has made, even in a purely catatonic state, as without any changes the tier's seen much movement from the likes of Bronzong / Escavalier being considered to the MandiKingQueen boom to now. While personally I'd love to see a Conk-less tier, regardless of how you'd vote on it a vote should be had and I'm excited at the prospect of seeing how the tier moves forward with the ability to actually change.

 

[obii]

i dont really have much to add as pak outlines the unhealthy presence conk poses to the tier and its restriction on team building really concisely.

preparing for bu conk is restrictive and almost always demands a fairy type unless youre willing to go for a flimsier check like colbur slowking (which is pretty obvious when its the only fight resist or possible conk check on a team) or itemless haze crobat which is weak as hell and one-dimensional and constantly needs to roost to even be considered a check. and of course, the opponent could just decide to bring cb conk instead and blow past the usual checks.

bu conk is broken and hard to beat itself but the fact that you have to prep for it and can just lose to other sets is very unhealthy.

im glad we're visiting old gen lower tiers. a vote (and hopefully a ban on conk) is definitely a move in the right direction.

 

[Killintime]

I don't normally post, but I feel like I should give my 2 cents here since this is one of the few things I actually play on smogon. When it comes to building I have always tried to win the fight in the builder with new ideas and approaches, but in recent ORAS UU I don't get any creative space to work with anymore since I always have to dedicate 2-3 slots just to check conkeldurr. If I do anything else as pak outlined, it becomes a game of me harding florges as they hammer arm me, using synthesis as they hard into their nidoqueen/roserade/steel etc you get the idea.

Conkeldurr is just one of those mons that don't ask me to run a fighting check on the team, it asks me to run a conkeldurr check because the general fighting answers just straight up lose 1v1. Heck if you got a colbur slowking in the back and they knock you the first time around, next time you lose as they bu and knock you twice. Sure, it adds an extra hydreigon answer to the tier...but thats probably because banded mach to neutral targets does almost as much as supereffective ice shard from mamoswine does... So really its more like an extra check to anything in the tier that tries to do anything progress wise. You could make the argument that lots of other mons can perform that role, but none of those pokemon actually carry the sheer bulk that conkeldurr has uninvested (which was already outlined by pak so I won't bother going any further).

its honestly so much of a joke that I have used and won with a team that involved just using machamp+conkeldurr because I could just sack my machamp into the fairy and conkeldurr will do its usual stuff. You can even run dumb sets like 128 hp on band conk and just give up your mirror match to do things like comfortably sit on florges and spam hammer arms in order to open doors for hydreigon or some other mon held back by faries. Its not fun, but we can do something about it as an active community that still plays and cares about the tier.

Machamp+conk: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6uu-439905

 

[Euphonos]

ORAS UU has been holding dear to me for my entire lifetime and it's the metagame I wanted to get my hands dirty into because of the memories ingrained within that metagame (although I'm still not in good terms with the community with what has transpired recently).

I had this anti-metagame mindset that has ingrained in me for a long time through the most successful ORAS UU team I still use up until today through participating in Ruins of Alph's ORAS UU Spotlight Tours. That said, I've been extremely indifferent to Conkeldurr because I believed it added some offensive dimension to the metagame and it has some forms of counterplay that - while my Conkeldurr-less teams are cautious with that threat - makes it difficult for Conkeldurr to make its move. However, thanks to Pak's well-constructed thoughts about Conkeldurr, I never thought how it ended up being metagame-warping, and yes, it takes some specific sets to deal with Conkeldurr well, and it takes a lot of caution to guess which Conkeldurr set I'm facing before I react properly.

That said, despite my sour relationship towards the community I've held dear for so long a time, I'm definitely signing this petition to suspect Conkeldurr in ORAS UU.

 

[lax]

I will vote for a conkeldur ban.

 

[The Strap]

I usually stray away from making posts like this but after playing this tier in Roa Olympics and UUFPL (yes I said UUFPL, not UUPL), I've come to learn that Conkeldurr is just one of those mons that force you to run multiple checks to it dependent on the set that is running, its still well capable of getting past its checks through Choice Band Conk which practically has zero switchins. This mon almost reminds me of CB Urshifu where you would be restricted to run multiple checks such as Clefable, Mandibuzz and you would rely on residual damage such as rocky helmet as means of chipping it (maybe not the best example but you get the jist of it). Its bulk and longevity makes it difficult to get around. I'm sure if this threat was to be gone, we will see a bunch of new innovative teams that dont involve the restriction that Conk currently has in the metagame and for that, I support a Conkeldurr suspect test

 

[r0ady]

Outside of for fun tests and the three games I played at the end of UUPL this year I haven’t really touched ORAS much since the end of the generation. It’s also pretty well known I was one of the loudest and most obnoxious when it came to bitching about how bad the meta game was back at that time, although a lot of that was definitely me just being bitter at how the year went individually in tours for me and things I said weren’t always the most accurate.

That being said anyone who has even tried to build in ORAS UU knows how fucking hard it is to truly account for this mon, and anyone who has played the tier knows how helpless it feels to have 2 or even 3 hard checks/counters against a bulk up conk and STILL see yourself losing to it long term. I really can’t think of any other Pokémon in any other tier that you have to stack half of your team with supposed counters and it’s still gonna be a win condition just because of both it and the nature of those Pokémon that check it. The only 2 Pokémon I would call counters to conk in a vacuum we have are Haze bat and florges. However, crobat needs to run item less, is rocks weak in a tier where getting up and keeping rocks is extremely easy, and is hard countered and trapped by the best Pokémon in the tier, Mega Aero. As for florges, despite it being a mon you can more easily put on teams than crobat because it fills a very useful role of defensive fairy, it’s also very easy to account for when building with conk. Double fight has been touched on by both Pak and KT already, but just slapping a steel move or even taunt on the second best Pokémon in the tier, hydreigon, is outrageously effective at doing the same thing just because it itself is hell in the builder to try and account for.

Pokémon like Slowking, whims, insert colbur psychic here, these are the softest of soft checks and you’re basically just going for a trade late game so that you don’t lose to it and have to try you’re best not to let those mons get weakened in anyway so that they can actually do so.

Anyway I’m mostly just parroting things already said in this thread but I wanted to throw my 2 cents in just to show support. I’m very excited at the idea of old gens being unlocked and this is for sure the most deserving case to be looked at of any tier I can think of.

 

[Hogg]

I was planning on having this thread stay up for at least a week before making a final decision, but it seems unnecessary. Support seems pretty overwhelmingly in favor of addressing Conkeldurr in ORAS UU, and Lilburr has already gone through the work of identifying potential voters. I'll be leaving this thread open to serve as a place for discussion during the vote, but you are approved to move forward with holding a vote. Please reach out to me if you need any help creating the blind voting thread, etc.