Suspect Piloswine in SV NFE

[sleid]

​

Piloswine has been mentioned various times throughout this phase of this NFE metagame and was even speculated to be broken by some after the departure of Misdreavus and Vigoroth. UMPL and NFE Seasonal saw Piloswine emerge as a dominant presence on teams, demanding various avenues to check it, thus warping the builder entirely. Choice Band and even the less common Trailblaze sets have been seen stomping their way through the metagame. After the recent tiering survey results, the Council has decided to hold a suspect vote on Piloswine!

Piloswine is a terror to switch into. Its recently more common Choice Band sets can 2HKO would be checks like Hattrem and Quaxwell after Stealth Rock, and Dusclops and Dunsparce after little chip with Earthquake. Fletchinder and Eelektrik avoid Earthquake, but don't like switching into Icicle Crash at all. Pivot spam teams using Thwackey, Raboot, and Quaxwell (or anything akin) help Piloswine gain free entry to click these moves and make easy progress against more passive teams. Offensive threats like Fraxure and Gabite are kept in check by Piloswine since they greatly fear a Choice Band Ice Shard. It's fast enough to outpace most defensive walls, has unresisted dual STABs (with priority), and boasts a powerful 100 Base Attack stat.

However, Piloswine does have counterplay and weaknesses. It has trouble entering the field by itself, relying on pivots to bring it in safely. Pokemon that it can come in on such as Tinkatuff, Krokorok, Glimmet and Koffing can either remove its item as it hits the field with Knock Off or cripple it with status effects. As said above, it usually needs the help of entry hazard setters or item removal to be effective since it can't break entirely on its own. Piloswine does struggle against fast paced offensive teams that carry Pokemon like Monferno, Frogadier, and Servine since it can be susceptible to being OHKOed without an Eviolite. Overall, the meta has adapted in a way to thwart some of Piloswine's shenanigans. Although, it might be going too far just to stop one Pokemon from tearing down teams.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message me or anyone else on the NFE Council. Please keep all posts specific to Piloswine and not another area of the metagame. This thread will be up for roughly 2 weeks with the suspect test being posted shortly after.

Voters

Ivar57
Horii
Terracotta
Zcarlett
Shing
Nakoruru_XD
sleid
PandaDoux
The Strap
5Dots
Kingler
Zpice
TTK
neomon
Nashrock
Mirbro
Dragonillis
Kabilapok

Qualifications

NFE Seasonal: Semifinals
UMPL VI: 3 games played with at least 1 win

 

[SMHorizon]

For someone like myself who has only played competitive through UMFL (to which i thoroughly enjoyed and will continue playing NFE after the fact) Pilo was very restrictive when it comes to my team building (and as it so happened my opps detriment too) since you always have to have it in the back of your mind regardless of how you want your team to be, even though i eventually went even in the tour the experience came too late

whilst I admit my lack of experience within this tier does alter my view, I must ask this. Do i need to use a mon exclusively to counter or check pilo or just ignore it as my opp has also forgone pilo, or because they have a check for it on their team already? and it's it's at that point, it's no longer centralising but a detriment to the tier as a whole in terms of enjoyment, potential re-engagement and creativity

again this is from an inexperienced nell dweller so don't shoot me down too hard if you do

 

[neomon]

I think banning Pilo isn‘t going to be what fixes this tier into its „final“ version if you will, but i think its impact on the builder and the dynamic it creates when you‘re using it (on a good team especially) in game certainly make it a threat i consider too much for the metagame

You can stretch the reasoning as far as you want really, but if you just watch some replays where the pilo user doesnt randomly sack it turn 3, it will be pretty apparent to anyone

As for the teambuilding aspect, theres maybe 3 viable ground immunes (dont fact check me im writing this on a whim) and 2 other mons that switch in, in dusclops and quax
These 2 are meant to check half the metagame on most teams anyway which just means getting a knock or two right and from where you can start doing whatever you want

 

[Nakoruru_XD]

Hmmmmm
Finally Pilo's suspect came. I like this Pokemon very much. The best Pokemon capable of defeating anyone. I mostly use Band, and the damage is good on Quaxwell/Seadra/Dusclop/Eelektrik, etc. It has some good moves like Trailblaze, Rock Tomb, and Ice Shard(one of its best moves).

Sometimes I think of using Scarf Pilo (but I never used it), but Band and Eviolite are the best. Pilo almost dominates all low-speed Pokemon.We don't get to see some good Pokemon like Hakamo-o/Pikachu/Carkol/Gabite/Crocalor (Unaware).

Pilo is little bit broken, I would vote 50/50

Warning
This is the first time I've written an essay instead of a game link in a post.If there is any mistake in the post, please ignore it.

 

[AM]

What Neomon said basically. The ground resists that doesnt completely fold to ice coverage is extremely limited. Quax is bad but people cope thinking it can come into it when it needs to run speed to even fight back and then proceeds to get bullied by other teammates.

The suspect is Pilo so I would say it should go and wont elaborate too far into it. There is probably a greater discussion of bringing some of the banned mons like Buzz, Miss, or maybe Stareals old suggestion of bringing Conk back if Pilo stays but thats probably more for general discussion. All those bans made Pilo stronger (band was harder to justify in Buzz/Missy meta) in the long run.

 

[Celeste]

Even when Vigoroth was around Piloswine was at the forefront of my personal radar despite being newer to the metagame, but as I've engaged more here and gotten more experienced If I was voting I think I'd absolutely be voting to ban it, as I think a lot of the meta issues right now come back to the central issue of how powerful Piloswine is.

While Quaxwell and Dusclops especially have proven to be somewhat consistent answers in a vacuum as well as less common picks like Fletchinder, I think that Piloswine's defensive counterplay has forced the metagame to warp towards managing these defensive threats with tools like hazard stacking (a large contributor to the rise of Dusclops itself) or T-Spikes as a more dominant metagame force. When Piloswine is so strong it dictates running sometimes multiple defensive answers, it allows for tools like T-Spikes to feel so oppresive because of how it can punish teams for relying on these defensive checks. 1 tick of poison damage suddenly puts Quaxwell into a CB Earthquake range, and we have consistently seen teams entirely built around getting this slight amount of chip to allow Piloswine (or some of the other offensive threats) to run away with the game.

Piloswine isn't the only offensive threat in the meta right now, but again I think its sheer strength has caused the meta to warp around defensively checking it, and then managing those defensive threats. I agree with Neomon in saying that this will not fix the tier, but Piloswine seems to me to be the most clearly problematic part of this format right now and I don't see any strong need to have it in this metagame.

 

[MethMaster4546]

I dont have much to add that people havent already said, our ground resists struggle with ice stab and vice versa, you need more than one defensive check at least. The tier is extremely centralized rn imo and pilo is a huge reason because of that.

While Quaxwell and Dusclops especially have proven to be somewhat consistent answers in a vacuum as well as less common picks like Fletchinder, I think that Piloswine's defensive counterplay has forced the metagame to warp towards managing these defensive threats with tools like hazard stacking (a large contributor to the rise of Dusclops itself) or T-Spikes as a more dominant metagame force. When Piloswine is so strong it dictates running sometimes multiple defensive answers, it allows for tools like T-Spikes to feel so oppresive because of how it can punish teams for relying on these defensive checks. 1 tick of poison damage suddenly puts Quaxwell into a CB Earthquake range, and we have consistently seen teams entirely built around getting this slight amount of chip to allow Piloswine (or some of the other offensive threats) to run away with the game.

This bit from celeste says it better than i ever could. But i think piloswines "weaknesses" are really not as big of a deal as some people make them out to be. The issue of needing a pivot to come in consistently is not that big of a deal on most teams you want a pilo on.

Viable Flip Turn users:

Seadra has proven itself to be a very solid physically defensive piece just really hard to fit with quax being pretty much the only spinner which also gets flip turn. (Wartortle sucks ass) but you probably want one of these as a pilo check on balance or bo anyways and they dont struggle to fit pivoting

Viable U-turn users:

The lowest ranked mon on the vr is only B tier and non of them particularly stuggle to fit uturn (maybe fletch?) Eel is a good pilo check which you want anyways fletch is our desperate attempt at removal so you want that on non quax teams thwackeys amazing draks amazing like you can fit 2-3 of these mons on a team easy while still getting what you need for it to function

And pikachus there too ig our best pika switch ins are grass types which hate pilo obviously but its also rather niche and hard to fit

Piloswine does struggle against fast paced offensive teams that carry Pokemon like Monferno, Frogadier, and Servine since it can be susceptible to being OHKOed without an Eviolite.

PIlo does do worse into offensive teams sure but its not like its not doing anything ice shard still helps it pick off weakened faster threats or just kill most of the grasses not named thwackey. The dragons dont stand a chance against it either which are very common on offense.

Tldr i think pilos dumb every team that isnt ho has to overcompensate for pilo or get ran over. This tier has alot of tools for pilo to take advantage with the pivots and it loving hazards more than most mons

 

[Finchely]

Is it broken? Kind of.

Re:Broken

III.) Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

Well yes and no. Smart doubles on the part of both the CBpilo player and their opponent are very skill intensive, and CBpilo really does require skillful play in order to achieve the heights it does. Where it becomes a problem is when pivots are brought into the equation. Thwackey uturning off Ivysaur, Drakloak uturning off Tink. This is where "more skillful play" becoming irrelevant is brought into focus. Still though, I'd argue that calling out uturns, or playing aggressively in the first play to mitigate the amount of situations where pivots can easily bring in CBpilo is still skill-intensive. I realize that I'm stretching it here, but further parts of my post will detail why I believe that Piloswine is worth keeping even despite its strenuous nature.

Is it unhealthy? Kind of.

Re:Unhealthy

IV.) Unhealthy - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken, yet are deemed undesirable for the metagame, such that they inhibit "skillful play" to a large extent.

One of the arguments that Piloswine is unhealthy is that Piloswine enforces teambuilding linearity by forcing teams to have usually 2 checks to it, due to how capable Piloswine is at overwhelming just one. I'd like to push back at this however, by mentioning that Piloswine is not the first pokemon to do this however. Generally pokemon such as Monferno and far more so Pignite have long since popularized KoffQuax as a core, due to Knock + STAB CC often being able to easily overwhelm solo Quax as a physical check. It can be said that Monferno and Pignite are easier to check due to their needing to get the knock before immediately overwhelming the opponent, which I'd also like to push back against, because of how easy it is to loop pressure in SV due to the over-reliance on Tink as a special wall. There's not a terribly large connection between Monferno and Pignite needing to use Knock first, and not needing to run dual checks. Furthermore, CB Pignite in particular is a niche but existent option anyways, which forgoes the need to use Knock and can begin to kill everything immediately in a similar vein to CB Pilo.
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The other and more substantial argument is that Piloswine has pushed the metagame into a state where getting small amounts of chip on bulky waters often via tspikes or rocks + spinblocker (usually dusclops). However, I disagree that Piloswine is the primary driver of this situation. Even without Piloswine, there are still many viable pokemon (aformentioned fire/fightings, Raboot, and Krok who gets better in the absence of Pilo) who make a living off of 2hkoing waters with hazards chip. In fact here's all the replays where Dusclops is used in UMPL (may have missed one or two, but generally I think I did fine).
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-884886 <- piloclops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-884424 <- piloclops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-884782
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-886687
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-887404 <- piloclops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-888347
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-888059
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-882825 <- piloclops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-883547
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-881127 <- piloclops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-880730?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-880197
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-879060
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-876758 <- piloclops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-877242
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-876203
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nfe-2455215627-2y51m1n7nonyywwak6fl0xeg00xuvxbpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-875859
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-875574 <- piloclops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-874319 <- piloclops
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nfe-875325
In only 8 out of 21 replays was Piloswine used alongside Dusclops. Far more often you see Piloswine used alongside Drakloak, due to Drakloak's incredible flexibility and speed tier. Furthermore, Drakloak is less of a problematic spinblocker due to its tendency to its lack of longevity and higher tendency to get forced out by breakers including Piloswine. Some other statistics that may be tangentially relevant is that only 4/8 piloclops users won, and overall only 47.83% of Dusclops users won their games, although that latter statistic is slightly deflated due to a certain number of dusclops on dusclops violence. But I digress. Overall, this indicates to me not a problem specifically with Piloswine as the main perpetrator of the hazard stacking metagame, but rather with Dusclops for making sure that those hazards are almost never removed.

Here's my actual argument against banning Piloswine however.

I get that Piloswine is strenuous. I built just about every single team used by the Luso Phiones' NFE slot,

teamcord screenshots

etc.

and I had to reckon with that mon in both tests and builder. And yet, I want to keep Piloswine around, because I think that there is enough ambiguity in its broken-ness and unhealthiness, as well as enough real healthiness that it's worth preserving.

Piloswine is one of the main enforcers of balance/BO's dominance in the metagame. Ice Shard is the great equalizer that offense teams must live with, particularly the dragons that make a living off of setting up on the bulky waters that are the lifeblood of balance teams. It's not as though balance teams are unbeatable however, due to the way that offense teams have evolved into methods such as screens, webs, and scraggy that are able to dig at the kinks (stop laughing it's a real term) in balance's armor. Harking back to the dragons, I think they would perhaps be the first that need to be looked at should Piloswine be booted, since they really can be quite strenuous to deal with in the absence of Ice Shard there to revenge them. Clefairy has always existed, but also has always been rather inconsistent, even into the dragons themselves. It would be a shame if either Fraxure or Gabite were to get booted, due to the crucial roles they fill on offense, and how much diversity they bring to the metagame.

There's the argument that if Brokenmon A relies on Brokenmon B to check it, you ban them both - broken checks broken isn't a valid excuse. I'd like to push back against this however. I think there's a real argument to be made about the healthiness of a broken pokemon (although I don't even think that Piloswine is absolutely broken), if the alternative resulting metagame could be potentially be even more stale. While Piloswine is often thought of as an insane breaker, I think it's apt to think about Piloswine as a gluemon. It's a pokemon that can switch into Tinkatuff's Thunder Wave safely and threaten it out - preventing Tinkatuff from being overly obnoxious with yellow magic. It's a pokemon that can come in on physical dragons (especially if pilo has evio), and force them out with ice shard. It's a pokemon that can turn the tables on Drakloak, which while on the frailer side is still utterly obnoxious to check due to its near-uncontested speed tier - Piloswine can disrupt Drakloak pressure cycles by grabbing momentum for itself and turning the tables on the opponent. It's an incredibly splashable option that can immediately pressure poisons such as Koffing which lately I have been thinking is problematic anyways even in the presence of Piloswine. Piloswine is truly a pillar upon which much of the metagame's development has been based. To remove that pillar would cause many things to come crashing down, and I don't think that the metagame that would eventually rise given time is worth sacrificing our current metagame framework for.

There are better ways to tier the current metagame that I have alluded to previously in my post, but they shouldn't be the primary focus of this thread which should be about Piloswine. If I had the chance to vote in this suspect, I remain that I would vote DNB on it.