Metagame RU Stage 13 - Poison

[feen]

​

Hi everyone,

Following the recent tiering shifts, with Moltres and Cobalion leaving the tier, the RU council has decided to suspect test Okidogi.

Okidogi can run a variety of different sets, most notably Choice Scarf, Choice Band, Bulk Up, and Assault Vest, several of which require different counterplay, hence you would ideally want to scout out its set. However, we only have two mons that can somewhat reliably switch into Okidogi: Slowbro and Hippowdon, and they both risk losing their item and getting poisoned in the process. Add to this the fact that Okidogi’s solid bulk, great defensive typing, and decent speed tier makes it easy to get it in a position to make progress, and you’re looking at a mon that is extremely rewarding to use with practically no drawbacks.

Prior to the shifts, Moltres and Cobalion could punish Okidogi for spamming Toxic Chain Knock Off, either by burning it with Flame Body or by getting an attack boost. With the departure of these two mons, however, Okidogi is free to spam Choice Band/Scarf Knock Off/Close Combat and reap the rewards at no risk. While Hyper Offense can generally play around Okidogi by overpowering it offensively, slower-paced teams struggle immensely to keep up with it. Their best option is usually to slap on a Slowbro and/or Hippowdon, let them take the Knock and get poisoned, and hope that they can win with their other mons before Okidogi manages to break through them by spamming Close Combat or Gunk Shot after the initial Knock. In sum, this puts a significant strain on bulkier teams, bulky offense included, both in the builder and in practice. For this reason, we believe that a suspect is in order.

Okidogi is, of course, not without its flaws. A base 80 Speed stat means it is quite slow, allowing faster Pokemon such as Krookodile, Noivern, and Salamence threaten it offensively. Moreover, its typing of Poison and Fighting means it can easily be knocked out by Psychic-type attacks from Slowbro, Reuniclus, Necrozma, and Gardevoir. While Okidogi can terastallize to remove its 4x Psychic weakness, it makes Okidogi prone to Poison and Toxic status ailments, which can hinder its progress making capabilities. Finally, Gligar and Weezing-Galar are deecent checks to Okidogi and can hinder it with Earthquake or Will-O-Wisp, respectively, although Gligar hates losing its Eviolite and Weezing-Galar needs to watch out for Choice Band Gunk Shot .

Tagging dhelmise and Marty to announce the suspect. Thank you!

minimum games needed

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

Suspect information:

• All games must be played on the Pokémon Showdown! RU ladder on a new alt with the following format: "RUOK (nickname)”. For example, RUOK BRO or RUOK XD.
• Do NOT impersonate other people in your ladder alt, do NOT use any usernames which are offensive, flame-baiting, or targeting specific users, and do NOT use usernames which could be interpreted as breaking any of the username rules on Pokémon Showdown! Failure to abide to this will result in you being barred from voting in this suspect, and potential infractions.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• The suspect test will last for 14 days, ending on Tuesday, July 23. 23:59 GMT -4

/!\ NOTICE /!\ RU will not be tolerating any form of voting manipulation. Any attempt to manipulate votes can result in an infraction, loss of eligibility to vote in the current test, and loss of the Tiering Contributor badge. While we won't necessarily enforce super strict punishment, this won't be tolerated and will be handled accordingly. Voting manipulation can simply be described as attempting to get people to vote a way on the test in inappropriate manners. Bribing with teams to vote a certain way, directly messaging people to vote a certain way, publicly announcing "vote this way" all fall under voting manipulation. For more query, feel free to PM me or TheFranklin.

 

[feen]

We will be hosting 4 suspect live tours in the RU room at the following times:

Saturday the 13th: 1300 GMT -4 - Hosted by Ampha
Friday the 19th: 2300 GMT -4 - Hosted by Ming549
Saturday the 20th: 1300 GMT -4 - Hosted by Tsuki
Sunday the 21st: 1100 GMT -4 - Hosted by Rarelyme

The winner of these tours will receive reqs for the suspect test. If the winner already has reqs, the runner up will receive reqs!

 

[Miyami~~~]

forget big stall it turns out big HO is the one with the lobbying power

 

[C0nfiden1 0yster]

hello,

I usually prefer to space out my postings, but following the ru council's decision to suspect Okidogi, I've decided to make the post you are reading now. I don't like making these posts in succession though, so I have decided to change up my typical format, and instead analyze the council's reasoning above in the original post, of which I find to be unconvincing. The purpose of this post is not to argue one side or the other, rather, it is highlight what I believe to be faulty reasoning in the council's initial statement.

In the first sentence, there is already a clause that is incorrect.
"Okidogi can run a variety of different sets, most notably Choice Scarf, Choice Band, Bulk Up, and Assault Vest, several of which require different counterplay, hence you would ideally want to scout out its set."
I disagree with the notion that several of okidogi's sets require different counterplay. Slowbro and Hippowdon are the two mentioned 'counters/checks' that are referenced throughout the post and they are generally solid into Choice Scarf, Bulk Up, and Assault Vest. Choice Band Okidogi is the only set that can threaten a 2HKO with Close Combat to Hippowdon and Gunk Shot to Slowbro, to which the slowbro can use regenerator to recover the damage lost.

For the last part, it says "you would ideally want to scout out its set", which I think is a statement that can be applicable to most if not all pokemon... Knowing that only one set threatens a 2HKO, which is dependent on a choice item, it is completely possible to scout out its set. Sets can also be inferred from team preview. If the opposing team lacks speed, you can infer choice scarf, or if a team is built with multiple pivots, a choice band set can be inferred. Main point being, this doesn't particularly advance the argument in any meaningful way.

"However, we only have two mons that can somewhat reliably switch into Okidogi: Slowbro and Hippowdon, and they both risk losing their item and getting poisoned in the process."
Slowbro and Hippowdon are not the only two pokemon that can reliably switch into Okidogi. Firstly, at the top of each of our teambuilders resides Amoonguss. While Amoongus struggles into Gunk Shot and Psychic Fangs, it is very reliable into Okidogi's two most spammable attacks, in Knock Off and Close Combat and it is in no risk of getting poisoned. It is also not dependent on its item for this function and other applications of the pokemon. Amoongus may struggle into certain Bulk Up sets, but it often runs Stun Spore, which is often enough to force Okidogi out. It can also use Clear Smog to temporarly prevent boosting before performing its role as a defensive pivot and switching into a pokemon that can more optimally force Okidogi out.

Slowbro-Galar is another pokemon that can reliably switch into Okidogi, especially when combined with the Colbur Berry. Weezing-Galar is another pokemon which is actually addressed in the final sentence, but it is no different to Hippowdown in terms of counterplay (choiced stab 2hko), but it actually deals with Okidogi better as it avoids a potential poison. Fezandipiti is another pokemon, while not being ideal, can definety pivot into some of Okidogi's attacks. Reuniclus, especially with a colbur berry, is also serviceable into Okidogi, only fearing CB Gunk Shot for the 2HKO.

This is all to say there are definitely more than 2 viable pokemon which can "somewhat reliably" switch into Okidogi.

"Add to this the fact that Okidogi’s solid bulk, great defensive typing, and decent speed tier makes it easy to get it in a position to make progress, and you’re looking at a mon that is extremely rewarding to use with practically no drawbacks."
I generally agree with most of this sentence, but I don't understand how it has "practically no drawbacks." I find this rather vague, especially when the post later describes some of these drawbacks. One drawback that I can think of regarding Okidogi is that it lacks priority and hence struggles into HO match ups, which some of its competition does have like Conkeldurr and Slither Wing. I would love a council person to explain their point of view on this as I admittedly may be misunderstanding the context in which this was stated.

"Prior to the shifts, Moltres and Cobalion could punish Okidogi for spamming Toxic Chain Knock Off, either by burning it with Flame Body or by getting an attack boost."
You will never catch me switching Moltres into Knock Off willingly in the early game. This is pertinent because the very first sentence of the post explains how the removal of Moltres and Cobalion is the catalyst for this tiering action.

"With the departure of these two mons, however, Okidogi is free to spam Choice Band/Scarf Knock Off/Close Combat and reap the rewards at no risk."
I dont believe choiced Close Combat is as spammable as lead on, even with the departure of Moltres. There are still very potent Ghost types that can take advantage of this, and also poison types generally are fine into this move.

"While Hyper Offense can generally play around Okidogi by overpowering it offensively, slower-paced teams struggle immensely to keep up with it. Their best option is usually to slap on a Slowbro and/or Hippowdon, let them take the Knock and get poisoned, and hope that they can win with their other mons before Okidogi manages to break through them by spamming Close Combat or Gunk Shot after the initial Knock. In sum, this puts a significant strain on bulkier teams, bulky offense included, both in the builder and in practice. For this reason, we believe that a suspect is in order."
This is the most important part of the post as it explicitly explains the council's reasoning and main argument. Now, in isolation, this just seems like it is discussing the function of a wall-breaker and claiming it is unbalanced, but obviously with the context of Okidogi's other attributes that were discussed prior, that is how council arrived at this conclusion.

I don't see an issue with using specific pokemon as checks and then "hoping" the player can win with their other pokemon. This seems actually rather healthy as encouraging proactive counterplay is inherently positive. Now, of course passive/bulkier counterplay should be existent within the tier and Okidogi is no exception.

Council also argued that Slowbro and Hippowdon are the only pokemon that can be considered as pokemon that "somewhat reliably" switch into Okidogi, which is not true as I described above. You can argue that none of the pokemon mentioned anywhere are perfect counters to Okidogi, but there are other pokemon that can be described in a similar vain, especially factoring Tera into the picture.

I don't believe it places a "significant strain" on teambuilding. BOs can use Slowbro, Gligar, Amoongus and others and balances can use Slowbro-G, Weezing-G, Reuniclus, and even Slowbro-Kanto and Gligar can fit on these, with Okidogi still being managable. Throughout RUPL and RUGL, I never felt like Okidogi was restricting our team's building and any time we did find it an issue, it usually was a signal of other issues with the team. I don't believe my teammates felt this way either.

The other aspect of this argument I dont care for is the fact that being poisoned is almost implied. 30% is rather high than what one might expect but it is nowhere near guaranteed. Over the course of the game it is likely these threats get poisoned increases as the turn count increases, but that should be put within the context in which the Okidogi user's team facilitates this with either lots of pivots or lots of longevity to give it the most chances to trigger this effect.

"Okidogi is, of course, not without its flaws. A base 80 Speed stat means it is quite slow, allowing faster Pokemon such as Krookodile, Noivern, and Salamence threaten it offensively. Moreover, its typing of Poison and Fighting means it can easily be knocked out by Psychic-type attacks from Slowbro, Reuniclus, Necrozma, and Gardevoir. While Okidogi can terastallize to remove its 4x Psychic weakness, it makes Okidogi prone to Poison and Toxic status ailments, which can hinder its progress making capabilities. Finally, Gligar and Weezing-Galar are deecent checks to Okidogi and can hinder it with Earthquake or Will-O-Wisp, respectively, although Gligar hates losing its Eviolite and Weezing-Galar needs to watch out for Choice Band Gunk Shot."
There isn't anything wrong with any of this really, but I think it should be added that the existence of tera poison is a huge detriment to Okidogi, which is one of the most common teras. It could be argued that Okidogi forces many pokemon to use Tera Poison, which could be labeled as restrictive, but this was not an argument made.

I also think the mention of Okidogi being able to terastilize away from its poison typing, leaving it exposed to poison-status is interesting when probably the bigger drawback of terastillizing is it changing its defensive match-ups, leading to new answers to overcome okidogi, which is especially relevant when factoring in its 80 base speed tier.

----

I think it is relevant to add that being a council-person is not an easy or really enjoyable task. If I were to ever be asked to be part of a voting council, I would immediately decline. The purpose of this post is not to be a comprehensive argument or a flaming of the council. It is to merely point out flaws in the presented argument of the OP. I do not know who wrote OP, as often times it is not the tier leader, but I do know that generally, at least a few people of the council give consent for the argument to be posted. I think the core argument is generally representative of the council, but this doesn't exclude the fact that other council people have different interpretations or arguments. To those council people that have different arguments, I strongly hope you share your point of view in a comprehensive way.

 

[LBN]

I'm actually going to step into the ring as well for this one. Usually I don't bother to post my opinions on suspect threads themselves unless I think the result actually matters ie: SV Ubers Miraidon or the like, but this time I want to share my thoughts and more, skepticisms on this suspect. Before I get into it though, I want to preface my thoughts on the fact that I'm voting ban on okidogi. I think the mon is obnoxious as all hell in the builder and the battle, but I think the suspect OP does a frankly, really bad job of conveying it like sneaky has mentioned. That said, I don't fully agree with everything sneaky had to say either, so I'll copy the format I originally used for my SV Mirai post, and go from there.

(the tera poison button)

This is basically your list of pokemon who can switch into okidogi. Now your first thoughts might be "hey this looks like alot, what gives". Well first off, most of these crumple to 1 of the aforementioned sets. Amoonguss is complete bait for BU/SubBU okidogi, as is Weezing-Galar. Reuni, Fezand, and to an extent hippowdon are completely mauled by CB, albeit hippo is needing minor hazard support or it's glorious toxic chain proc. Gligar risks losing it's eviolite for spike progress on BO teams, which i guess is fine for a tertiary measure. Palossand was a fixture on spikestack teams since it's ability to spinblock Cyclizar and have reliable recovery was a unique trait, but with Weezing-G providing new removal, it's on a downward trend rn. Slowbro is fairly reliable, but if you get the poison off your in great shape. Cress is here as an anchor for HWish memes on Offense, although I'll admit this doesn't see much actual play. Strictly personally, Slowbro-Galar is not a good pokemon at all, flails into a ton of stuff and alot of times I think it brings less to a team that just using Weezing. But I admit it is good at the job of checking okidogi.

The elephant in the room is just, Tera poison. This can let you somewhat build-a-bear a check to it on demand on pokemon that can use their innate stats to do it, mainly Salamence and Krookodile, though this isn't foolproof. One aspect that the OP gleams over is okidogi's other ability, Guard Dog. Usually toxic chain is better, but some sets forgo toxic chain for the intimidate immunity and ability to not be phased out. This primarily lets you completely dogwalk Hippowdon on subbu sets, and use it as setup fodder in conjuction with tera (presumably Dark). This, combined with how you can do the same thing to Slowbro, makes dealing with Okidogi extremely uncomfortable defensively.

So that leaves offensively and oh boy, it's not much better there I'll be honest. Sure, okidogi won't be 6-0ing teams. But it's natural bulk let's it basically facetank any 1 hit from neutral besides Specs Analytic Magnezone. Volcanion steam eruption tops out at 83% to bulkless okidogi, Max sp att noivern Draco peaks at 73%, Thundurus Tbolt does 60%, and shadow ball Gengar barely tickles past half. Hell, it's actually favored to live an Air slash from Yanmega at full health. 31% chance to die but that's pretty nuts for bulkless. So who does drop it from full? Salamence Hurricane is one, and Scarf Zapdos-G Brave Bird does aswell. ...Regidrago? Yeah he can do it. The Rats (Maushold) can also do it assuming you don't get RNGd. With tera in the equation, and the conundrum of not going negative into okidogi becomes painfully apparent. Because these offensive pokemon cant take CB Okidogi attacks, not in the least. Yanmega with it's admittedly decent physical bulk takes 99% min from gunk, Zapdos dies, Noivern Dies, Volcanion is slower and takes like 85%, you get the picture. Sure, it's not fast but it's not slow either, being faster than Basculegion-F, Necrozma, and Armarouge lets it naturally handle things that would otherwise be problems for a pokemon like it.

Okidogi's knack for trading, minor set variety, and RNG fueled things makes it extremely volatile, and a well played okidogi will often walk home with 1-2 bodies with a fair bit of consistency. Okidogi will always do something, and it's this stuff that lets it bring value into things like HO. It comfortably takes +1 tera ground HHP from revavroom, for instance. Less than 80% BULKLESS. For these reasons, it's a clear ban vote for me...


With that being said, I'm going to join in on sneaky's point discussing the OPs original arguments. Strictly speaking, they are not good arguments. Cobalion was never switching into an okidogi, and even less of the time would it be able to actually threaten okidogi in a meaningful way if it wasn't choiced. And Moltres does not like switch into okidogi, like at all. Gunk absolutely throttled it, and Knock is self-explanatory. I don't think these mons were really holding okidogi back, at most they were inconveniences. In a lot of cases, prey. While I'm aware of the rule to not discuss "why didn't we suspect x mon instead" in these threads, it should be said that from what I could see, nobody expected this. We all expected Blastoise, who had gotten sufficient requirements for a suspect from a previous survey, but wasn't suspected primarily because it was 2 weeks away from shifts, where H-Goodra might've (it didn't) made it more manageable. The justification of choosing okidogi first above Blastoise or even Revavroom was chosen to be shifts, but as Sneaky alluded I don't think it holds up. I'm not really complaining because I think okidogi is busted myself, but the arguments presented as to why this choice was actually made, are poor ones. As a final nod, I'll echo sneaky's hope that we get slightly further clarification for the reasonings / thought process here, because even if I agree, I'm puzzled for the actual reasoning. Being council is a thankless job because you only take notice when it's done poorly, and for the most part you guys have done mostly flawlessly thus far. But I still would prefer some degree of elaboration on this.

TLDR: Despite disagreeing with the poor reasonings given in the OP, I'm voting ban on okidogi.

 

[FlamPoke]

Another obvious attempt by the council to blame Okidogi for crimes clearly perpetrated by the masked bandit.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Okidogi was already arguably a tad too good before the shift, but now I think cobalion and moltres leaving just invalidated what defensive counterplay RU had left for Okidogi.

Fighting Move/Knock Off/Poison Move has very few switchins, with even switchins getting crippled by toxic chain as I said before.

Geezing and gligar are kinda alright

I'm actually going to step into the ring as well for this one. Usually I don't bother to post my opinions on suspect threads themselves unless I think the result actually matters ie: SV Ubers Miraidon or the like, but this time I want to share my thoughts and more, skepticisms on this suspect. Before I get into it though, I want to preface my thoughts on the fact that I'm voting ban on okidogi. I think the mon is obnoxious as all hell in the builder and the battle, but I think the suspect OP does a frankly, really bad job of conveying it like sneaky has mentioned. That said, I don't fully agree with everything sneaky had to say either, so I'll copy the format I originally used for my SV Mirai post, and go from there.

(the tera poison button)

This is basically your list of pokemon who can switch into okidogi. Now your first thoughts might be "hey this looks like alot, what gives". Well first off, most of these crumple to 1 of the aforementioned sets. Amoonguss is complete bait for BU/SubBU okidogi, as is Weezing-Galar. Reuni, Fezand, and to an extent hippowdon are completely mauled by CB, albeit hippo is needing minor hazard support or it's glorious toxic chain proc. Gligar risks losing it's eviolite for spike progress on BO teams, which i guess is fine for a tertiary measure. Palossand was a fixture on spikestack teams since it's ability to spinblock Cyclizar and have reliable recovery was a unique trait, but with Weezing-G providing new removal, it's on a downward trend rn. Slowbro is fairly reliable, but if you get the poison off your in great shape. Cress is here as an anchor for HWish memes on Offense, although I'll admit this doesn't see much actual play. Strictly personally, Slowbro-Galar is not a good pokemon at all, flails into a ton of stuff and alot of times I think it brings less to a team that just using Weezing. But I admit it is good at the job of checking okidogi.

The elephant in the room is just, Tera poison. This can let you somewhat build-a-bear a check to it on demand on pokemon that can use their innate stats to do it, mainly Salamence and Krookodile, though this isn't foolproof. One aspect that the OP gleams over is okidogi's other ability, Guard Dog. Usually toxic chain is better, but some sets forgo toxic chain for the intimidate immunity and ability to not be phased out. This primarily lets you completely dogwalk Hippowdon on subbu sets, and use it as setup fodder in conjuction with tera (presumably Dark). This, combined with how you can do the same thing to Slowbro, makes dealing with Okidogi extremely uncomfortable defensively.

So that leaves offensively and oh boy, it's not much better there I'll be honest. Sure, okidogi won't be 6-0ing teams. But it's natural bulk let's it basically facetank any 1 hit from neutral besides Specs Analytic Magnezone. Volcanion steam eruption tops out at 83% to bulkless okidogi, Max sp att noivern Draco peaks at 73%, Thundurus Tbolt does 60%, and shadow ball Gengar barely tickles past half. Hell, it's actually favored to live an Air slash from Yanmega at full health. 31% chance to die but that's pretty nuts for bulkless. So who does drop it from full? Salamence Hurricane is one, and Scarf Zapdos-G Brave Bird does aswell. ...Regidrago? Yeah he can do it. The Rats (Maushold) can also do it assuming you don't get RNGd. With tera in the equation, and the conundrum of not going negative into okidogi becomes painfully apparent. Because these offensive pokemon cant take CB Okidogi attacks, not in the least. Yanmega with it's admittedly decent physical bulk takes 99% min from gunk, Zapdos dies, Noivern Dies, Volcanion is slower and takes like 85%, you get the picture. Sure, it's not fast but it's not slow either, being faster than Basculegion-F, Necrozma, and Armarouge lets it naturally handle things that would otherwise be problems for a pokemon like it.

Okidogi's knack for trading, minor set variety, and RNG fueled things makes it extremely volatile, and a well played okidogi will often walk home with 1-2 bodies with a fair bit of consistency. Okidogi will always do something, and it's this stuff that lets it bring value into things like HO. It comfortably takes +1 tera ground HHP from revavroom, for instance. Less than 80% BULKLESS. For these reasons, it's a clear ban vote for me...


With that being said, I'm going to join in on sneaky's point discussing the OPs original arguments. Strictly speaking, they are not good arguments. Cobalion was never switching into an okidogi, and even less of the time would it be able to actually threaten okidogi in a meaningful way if it wasn't choiced. And Moltres does not like switch into okidogi, like at all. Gunk absolutely throttled it, and Knock is self-explanatory. I don't think these mons were really holding okidogi back, at most they were inconveniences. In a lot of cases, prey. While I'm aware of the rule to not discuss "why didn't we suspect x mon instead" in these threads, it should be said that from what I could see, nobody expected this. We all expected Blastoise, who had gotten sufficient requirements for a suspect from a previous survey, but wasn't suspected primarily because it was 2 weeks away from shifts, where H-Goodra might've (it didn't) made it more manageable. The justification of choosing okidogi first above Blastoise or even Revavroom was chosen to be shifts, but as Sneaky alluded I don't think it holds up. I'm not really complaining because I think okidogi is busted myself, but the arguments presented as to why this choice was actually made, are poor ones. As a final nod, I'll echo sneaky's hope that we get slightly further clarification for the reasonings / thought process here, because even if I agree, I'm puzzled for the actual reasoning. Being council is a thankless job because you only take notice when it's done poorly, and for the most part you guys have done mostly flawlessly thus far. But I still would prefer some degree of elaboration on this.

TLDR: Despite disagreeing with the poor reasonings given in the OP, I'm voting ban on okidogi.

Yeah OP's reasons feel a bit not detailed enough. Even while moltres and cobalion were here neither could switch in well. My guess is them leaving accelerated the suspect since moltres being gone means semi consistently burning it isn't an option anymore.

I will say the likely reason Okidogi was chosen first is that Okidogi was probably the most opressive in tournament play. Last month it was used a ton in tournaments and if I recall it was doing stupidly well. I don't recall vroom or stoise having as good results in tournament play

I will say ban because kinda like iron hands when it was allowed in UU, down here okidogi always claims a kill or two or cripples something hard as you said and feels nigh impossible to switch around. Okidogi just has no real answers so I'm taking the ban stance.

RUGL last week has okidogi at a 75% win rate which is frankly absurd.
(Hoodra's winrate is absurd too at 80% but it just dropped so counterplay is still developing,)

 

[fluff!!]

I will say the likely reason Okidogi was chosen first is that Okidogi was probably the most opressive in tournament play. Last month it was used a ton in tournaments and if I recall it was doing stupidly well. I don't recall vroom or stoise having as good results in tournament play
RUGL last week has okidogi at a 75% win rate which is frankly absurd.

just wanted to address this part quickly:
Okidogi had a 9.83% usage with a 43.48% win rate in all of RUPL.
In comparison, Blastoise had a 53% win rate and Revavroom had a 63% win rate (again, for the whole tournament)
Keep in mind that now banned Pokemon were present in early weeks, and Cobalion and Moltres were still RU (although Moltres and Cobalion were never Okidogi answers in the first place, Moltres gets OHKOed by Knock Off and Cobalion is borderline setup bait)

 

[BolTingBlazie]

just wanted to address this part quickly:
Okidogi had a 9.83% usage with a 43.48% win rate in all of RUPL.
In comparison, Blastoise had a 53% win rate and Revavroom had a 63% win rate (again, for the whole tournament)
Keep in mind that now banned Pokemon were present in early weeks, and Cobalion and Moltres were still RU (although Moltres and Cobalion were never Okidogi answers in the first place, Moltres gets OHKOed by Knock Off and Cobalion is borderline setup bait)

Point being after stuff like iron leaves and enamorus-t got banned it was no longer overshadowed by other brokens and its winrate and pickrate both picked up immensely over the past month, which is probably what caused the suspect to be prioritized.

 

[fluff!!]

Point being after stuff like iron leaves and enamorus-t got banned it was no longer overshadowed by other brokens and its winrate and pickrate both picked up immensely over the past month, which is probably what caused the suspect to be prioritized.

I'm really not a fan of using pickrate and winrate in tournament due to low sample size, nor do I like using ladder stats, nor using 2 months old stats is relevant, but I like the exercise and would rather keep misinformation to the lowest.

So, let's go over its tournament usage both in RUGL and the most recent RUPL as well as ladder usage in the past 3 months

Disclaimer: These stats are mostly irrelevant due to low sample size, do not base your arguments or your vote on them

RUPL XI
Week 1 (April 22nd ; Iron Leaves, Thundurus-Therian, Enamorus-Therian legal): 9% win rate (3 uses), won 1/3
Week 2 (April 29th ; Iron Leaves, Thundurus-Therian, Enamorus-Therian legal): 25% pick rate (8 uses), won 3/8
Week 3 (May 6th ; Iron Leaves, Thundurus-Therian, Enamorus-Therian legal): 3% pick rate (1 use), won 0/1
Week 4 (May 13th ; Iron Leaves, Thundurus-Therian, Enamorus-Therian legal): 18% pick rate (6 uses), won 3/6
Week 5 (May 20th ; Iron Leaves, Enamorus-Therian legal): 6% pick rate (2 uses), won 1/2
Week 6 (May 27th ; Enamorus-Therian legal): 6% pick rate (2 uses), won 0/2
Week 7 (June 3rd): 4% pick rate (1 use), won 1/1
Okidogi was not used at all in the semi finals and the finals

RUGL I
Week 1 (May 20th ; Enamorus-Therian legal): 20% pick rate (5 uses), won 2/5
Week 2 (May 27th ; Enamorus-Therian legal): 9% pick rate (2 uses), won 1/2
Week 3 (June 3rd): 12% pick rate (3 uses), won 2/3
Week 4 (June 10th): 4% pick rate (1 use), won 1/1
Week 5 (June 17th): 12% pick rate (3 uses), won 2/3
Week 6 (June 24th): 12% pick rate (3 uses), won 2/3
Week 7 (June 30th): 15% pick rate (3 uses), won 1/3
Semi-finals (July 7th): 40% pick rate (4 uses), won 3/4


As far as tournament usage goes, it has been actually very stable, seeing an average to lower than average usage, with what looks like healthy win rates.
The highest usage it has seen is actually when all of Iron Leaves, Enamorus-Therian and Thundurus-Therian were legal.


Ladder (1630 stats)
April: 10% usage (#20)
May: 10.1% usage (#17)
June: 9.5% usage (#22)

Again, very stable ladder usage for the past 3 months, despite all of Iron Leaves, Thundurus-Therian and Enamorus-Therian being legal during April, and Iron Leaves and Enamorus-Therian being legal during May.


To conclude, the stats do not reveal anything unhealthy about Okidogi, and bans do not seem to have changed much for Okidogi's place in the metagame.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

To conclude, the stats do not reveal anything unhealthy about Okidogi, and bans do not seem to have changed much for Okidogi's place in the metagame

okay that is fair. I do want a bit of a better reasoning from the council on suspecting dogi over stoise and vroom but I do agree Okidogi is definitely an issue down here. I think the council could better explain why they chose a dogi suspect even if it is completely warranted in my opinion

 

[Moltracer]

Hi, I don't play this tier often but I figured I would mention this since I seem to be one of the only players that consistently uses stall on the ladder (in 432 games I've seen two stall teams).

Okidogi is one of the largest team-building constraints that I have found in the tier for stall. It is incredibly imposing and practically requires the inclusion of slowbro-galar as well as tera poison quagsire to have a chance against it. This isn't to say it's broken, this is how stall should function; forced inclusions are always necessary to adapt to the meta-game. What I would like to warn about is that if Okidogi is banned, I genuinely believe that stall will be opened up enough that it will become significantly stronger than the already great state it is currently in.

I have no opinions on whether that is good or bad for the tier, that is up to everyones individual determinations as to what makes a good tier. I don't personally find it enjoyable when tiers are absurdly hyper-offense oriented, and I know many don't enjoy when a tier is absurdly stall/semi-stall oriented. However I think this is an important note to keep in mind if you are voting, as from my understanding of stall currently, this can have significant impacts on its viability.

 

[Miyami~~~]

got reqs using a team by Flabeauf thank you for passing it

This is kind of a weird one, honestly. I'm gonna try not to talk about the cannon turtle in the room too much since that's not the point of this suspect, but I do find it hard to separate my thoughts about Okidogi from my thoughts about HO and the tier as a whole, and I get the feeling I'm not alone in that. I like to ask other suspect alts I run into what their stance is and the most common response I got was some variant of "I don't know, I thought we would be testing Blastoise".

Okidogi seems fine. Over ~80 games on two alts I lost to it once, and that was entirely my fault for straight-up forgetting what type it was since I'd never fought it before. It does have a fair few sets but I beat pretty much all of them on balance just by throwing in check > calculating damage and figuring out it set > go from there since most everything you wanna send in is kinda fine taking a poison by nature or immune to it. It especially helps that a significant number of bulky wincons or even just bulky mons in general already run tera poison and would anyways even if dogi wasn't here - status is incredibly strong this gen since you can't remove it, so avoiding getting poisoned while gaining an above average defensive typing anyways is super helpful even in a dogiless world. it even lets you kinda boost parallel to subbu since double stabs are the most common two attacks on it are double stabs. I don't think it's too overbearing at all. Most teams I found kinda naturally had both a primary non-tera check and at least one mon that could beat it with tera poison if it got out of hand. That seems fine to me.

I'm gonna spoiler the next part of this post since it's gonna be long and also is only tangentially related to dogi but its relevant enough to the state of the tier that i wanted to include it

Spoiler

I think overall if you read through the previous thread and had played the tier for a while, the biggest issue in the tier is the strength of hyper offense. In particular, Toise/Yanmega/Car as a trio are regularly touted as an extremely difficult force to beat, usually with something like mimikkyu and bisharp in the back. In particular, while the other two can go on or off on occasion, Blastoise anchors basically every serious HO team thanks to its combination of bulk, power, and basically infinite tera types backed with its randomly great coverage movepool (did you know this gets focus blast? and that it ohkos hoodra and has a shot at ohkoing umbreon at +2 with tera fighting focus blast?) make it basically impossible to scout, even compared to something like dogi or rachi since its first three moves are always the same and you can't guess off of damage rolls like you can to figure out if dogi's gonna boost on you or not. As mentioned above, Hoodra isn't really a check either since Toise was already running Earthquake even before it hit the tier and has other option to hit it. While you can attempt to tera to beat it, it's not as easy as it is with dogi since you're aiming to tera for a coverage move it might have instead of teraing to beat its stab moves. Blastoise was broken before the shifts and is still broken now, and has by far the most support for a suspect of any mon in the tier, including Okidogi, and I genuinely think given its ability to beat every check of its with the right movepool and tera banning it would put HO down to a more manageable level, as most every other setup sweeper you could put on it doesn't have that sort of ability and their checks are a lot more linear.

+more
I'm just gonna call this the "30% problem" for simplicity's sake. While I think blastoise is the only actual broken in the tier there's a ton of mons that are just flat-out frustrating to fight against due to their ability to completely swing games thanks to a secondary % chance (usually flinch) that's essentially random but basically game determinative every time it happens. It makes a lot of games incredibly stressful because if you don't have a covert mon/it gets knocked or you don't have a thing that absorbs that status/flinch immunity (Use Umbreon!!). This kinda feels like a generational problem since mons just hit hard enough now to where this matters a lot more since one turn is enough to swing entire games, but at the same time to my knowledge we're the only tier with this exact problem. I think this is probably the angle I'd go with for a dogi ban even if I find the flinchers significantly more troublesome (I've been on the banmega train for a while now), but overall something clearly has to give and I think we're all just not sure what it is. Am I the only one who feels this way?

 

[shooting star]

Survey results should not be used to dictate the sequence of tiering decisions

Though they provide a good gauge of community sentiment, unless the scores are well above 4 out of 5 (i.e. Hoopa-Unbound and Iron Leaves, which justifies their quick-bans), the final decisions should still be made by the council. Metagame development happens quickly especially during tier shifts or when mons got banned, and as a result survey results from the previous meta may no longer be applicable.

Let's use OU as an example

• Jan 24: out of a score of 5, Archaludon only got 2.6 and scored way lower than Roaring Moon, and yet it got suspected first and subsequently banned.
• Mar 24: Ogerpon-W got 3.6 and Volcarona got 3.3, yet the latter got suspected instead and banned.
• Jun 24: Darkrai scored the highest at 3.5, yet the council adopted a wait-and-see approach.

Using survey results as a be-all and end-all makes the tiering sequence incredibly rigid and linear. That is something we should try to avoid since the metagame is constantly evolving. Therefore, we shouldn’t be too quick to criticise the decision to act on Okidogi instead of Blastoise first, and focus primarily on whether Okidogi is broken.

Stop adding Hyper Offense teams as samples

Sample teams exert a surprisingly high influence on the ladder, and this is further exacerbated by the addition of 2 HO samples that I have been seeing everywhere for the past week. No wonder everyone likes to complain how the RU ladder is unplayable! Do not worry about the lack of HO representation since it is easy to just slap 6 mons in 2 minutes. Instead please add more BO or balance teams, such as the teams (here and here) being shared on Smogon RU Youtube.

My personal thoughts on Okidogi

I think the ban arguments made by LBN are comprehensive and worth a read. It trades consistently well, and having higher speed make Okidogi a cut above the other wallbreakers like Conkeldurr and Crawadaunt, while its much better defensive typing and good bulk allows it to set up more easily. Toxic Chain renders Quagsire unreliable, while Guard Dog invalidates phazers and Intimidate Krookodile as checks.

Okidigi is also arguably a top 10 mon in UU. It had the highest usage in Week 1 of UUBD tour, and saw increasing usage in the UU ladder (6.40% in June). Why delay its inevitable rise to UU when we can expedite the process by banning it in this suspect test? Let’s help to advance a post-Okidogi meta development asap instead of waiting for another 2 months before it gets stolen by UU anyway.

 

[FlamPoke]

Survey results should not be used to dictate the sequence of tiering decisions

Though they provide a good gauge of community sentiment, unless the scores are well above 4 out of 5 (i.e. Hoopa-Unbound and Iron Leaves, which justifies their quick-bans), the final decisions should still be made by the council. Metagame development happens quickly especially during tier shifts or when mons got banned, and as a result survey results from the previous meta may no longer be applicable.

Let's use OU as an example

• Jan 24: out of a score of 5, Archaludon only got 2.6 and scored way lower than Roaring Moon, and yet it got suspected first and subsequently banned.
• Mar 24: Ogerpon-W got 3.6 and Volcarona got 3.3, yet the latter got suspected instead and banned.
• Jun 24: Darkrai scored the highest at 3.5, yet the council adopted a wait-and-see approach.

Using survey results as a be-all and end-all makes the tiering sequence incredibly rigid and linear. That is something we should try to avoid since the metagame is constantly evolving. Therefore, we shouldn’t be too quick to criticise the decision to act on Okidogi instead of Blastoise first, and focus primarily on whether Okidogi is broken.

Stop adding Hyper Offense teams as samples

Sample teams exert a surprisingly high influence on the ladder, and this is further exacerbated by the addition of 2 HO samples that I have been seeing everywhere for the past week. No wonder everyone likes to complain how the RU ladder is unplayable! Do not worry about the lack of HO representation since it is easy to just slap 6 mons in 2 minutes. Instead please add more BO or balance teams, such as the teams (here and here) being shared on Smogon RU Youtube.

My personal thoughts on Okidogi

I think the ban arguments made by LBN are comprehensive and worth a read. It trades consistently well, and having higher speed make Okidogi a cut above the other wallbreakers like Conkeldurr and Crawadaunt, while its much better defensive typing and good bulk allows it to set up more easily. Toxic Chain renders Quagsire unreliable, while Guard Dog invalidates phazers and Intimidate Krookodile as checks.

Okidigi is also arguably a top 10 mon in UU. It had the highest usage in Week 1 of UUBD tour, and saw increasing usage in the UU ladder (6.40% in June). Why delay its inevitable rise to UU when we can expedite the process by banning it in this suspect test? Let’s help to advance a post-Okidogi meta development asap instead of waiting for another 2 months before it gets stolen by UU anyway.

I can appreciate a lot of this argument but the idea of banning it simply because it will probably rise next shift is... not an argument.

Okidogi is a great breaker and promotes healthier teambuilding in my experience. Yes, it can trade well with opponents walls. Yes, it can be a nuisance with a pretty great ability. Yes, it's a step above Conkeldurr and Crawdaunt because of it's STABs and Speed. No, it isn't some unbeatable mon that will poison everything on your team without fail and will somehow run all of Scarf for Speed control, Band for big damage, and BU Drain Punch for longevity.

I think Okidogi is an A+ mon in the tier and is, as said before, ultimately better to have than not. I think teams can get relatively passive at times as they try to hard-counter the litany (over-abundance) of HO teams around, so having something that punishes slow fat teams while still providing balance and bulky offense a viable breaker option is good.

If it goes, I would understand why. People don't want to account for Toxic Chain big hitters. However, my opinion is that it should stay and we should see how the meta develops with the recent shifts, rather than jump to conclusions. Thus far, Okidogi has been a strong choice for a lot of teams, but isn't some de facto presence on 40+% of teams needing a Fighting-type breaker or Speed control option.

I will be voting do not ban as I enjoy having it around, even if it makes my Umbreon/Wo-Chien's of the world slightly less splashable.

 

[Lily]

Hi I won the third suspect tour and just wanted to highlight a quick issue

I didn't run into Okidogi a single time in the 5 or so games I played and tbh that also isn't truly an adequate test of skill either, I wasn't prepared or anything and just happened to be online when the tour popped up so I joined in and happened to win. I don't rlly feel like my reqs are "legitimate" in that sense, they were very easy and I mean I get a free vote out of it but yea.

If not for the fact that I'm practicing RU for Slam anyway then I would definitely be a completely uninformed voter and I think that's a pretty bad thing. Two core issues here are:

-Small sample size: Not rlly much you can do here other than not run the tours, since it's impossible to just Make Them Bigger, but maybe making them double elimination would help here to make people prove themselves through a few more games.

-Samples: Not to say there's anything wrong with the current samples or anything but a whopping zero of them feature Okidogi. Given this likely also makes the ladder lack in Okidogi usage, I think it'd be worth keeping in mind when creating sample teams that the featured suspect mon should be on at least one, ideally a few.

I don't have much commentary on Okidogi itself right now other than thinking it's a little too much to account for without dedicating a Tera Poison mon to it but that opinion is subject to change so I don't intend to push an agenda one way or the other there. Just wanted to mention some flaws in the process that I felt while running through it.

 

[atomicllamas]

I got reqs for this so I'm going to post my thoughts on the Okidogi suspect. To be honest, I really don't get the suspect hype here, obviously Okidogi is a really strong Pokemon in the metagame, and I can see why people think it puts a strain on building for balance teams, however, I actually think Okidogi is relatively easy to cover when building balance given how physically oriented most HO teams are, and Okidogi is itself one of balances better tools in the metagame. While Okidogi has 4 sets called out in the OP, I don't actually think anyone believes assault vest or choice scarf are unbalanced, both serve a niche in the meta, but neither really does anything beyond what other comparable Pokemon do in those roles (speed control / specially bulky hard hitter).

Choice Band is the set I suspect that put this on the block, because to be frank it is very difficult to switch into, and as the OP lays out, the best (splashable) options are really down to Hippo (which requires a decent ghost or poison paired with it) or Slowbro (which requires a Steel, this isn't too much of an ask though as most (all?) viable Balance / Bulky Offense require a steel type regardless). The downside of this set is that even if the opponent does not have a specific counter like the above, it is heavily reliant on prediction, and even if you get the first one right, it immediately cedes momentum back to the opponent. For example, if you knock out an opponent with CC, you've given the opportunity back to your opponent to set up with a threat like Gengar (or a free move if choiced), Necrozma, Salamence, or Slowbro. Same with Gunk Shot / Poison Jab, it allows the opponent to set up/fire off a free move with Gengar, Terrakion, Jirachi, Magnezone or Hoodra. The speed tier here is also interesting, it is good enough that it finds opportunities to fire off strong moves fairly frequently, however, it is very limited in actually dealing with opposing mons that provide any amount of offensive pressure. I will also say, another thing that actually makes this set worse (unlike BU and AV) is that this ends up being tera food a little bit, as even if you theoretically get it's counters down to the point where this should win the game, its one tera Steel / Ghost from doing nothing and dying instead (and these are 2 of the best tera types regardless). There are other more niche picks for balance / BO that do well against this as well (such as Palossand), but I don't think listing all of them is super relevant or helpful.

The other big set I assume prompts this suspect test is the BU set, which trades all of the immediate power for a much stronger win con, especially because you can attempt to spread status early game to your would-be counters just by clicking moves. In a lot of ways this set is kind of like Zarude-lite, it has a solid defensive-typing, it is strong and has decent bulk, and it can tera to a couple different options to make countering it harder (fairy and dark are what I've seen the most of). That's where the similarities end, it has a much worse recovery move than Zarude, drain punch requires the opponent to be neutral or weak to fight for any actual healing, and does nothing to deal with status (Burn / Para). Additionally, it is much slower than Zarude leaving it more vulnerable to revenge killing. It also struggles to get past the same game plan that balance / bulky offense teams have vs other Okidogi sets. There is nothing really stopping you from going in to Hippo or Slowbro off the bat, and revealing their set. If you don't manage to poison Slowbro on the switch (or they don't risk it) they can Tera Poison Slowbro and you're done. Once again you also allow threatening Psychic types to set up or force you to tera, the downside here is that there isn't a good type to tera too that doesn't leave you vulnerable to the same counters (just changes what revenge kills you). If you Tera Dark, you are still vulnerable to the best speed control on Balance / BO (Gardevoir), and open yourself up to things like Terrakion, Gapdos, and Mienshao. If you Tera Fairy, you're now vulnerable to Physical Jirachi, and this one doesn't actually help vs Slowbro or opposing poison types. This set also just got worse with the intro of Gweezing. Overall this set is a really solid wincon, but I don't think this is harder to account for on balance / BO than many other threats (for example, Armarouge). The most believable reason for me that Zarude was broken was that it had other strong sweeping sets that could flip match ups on their head (SD Trailblaze, different Teras, etc.), this doesn't apply to Okidogi and I don't think a worse Zarude BU is broken personally.

Tangentially related to Lily's post above, small sample size above aside, its a little hard for me to buy that Okidogi is ban worthy when the reality is it isn't even top 15 in usage on the ladder (think I saw about 3 in my 33 games), and it isn't like its blowing up in tours either. I don't think I've played a single Okidogi in my first 5 rounds of swiss. It has a solid usage and winrate in RUGL (though not out of the ordinary) and had a less stellar showing in RUPL (obviously not the exact same meta). Obviously usage isn't everything (especially on the ladder), but I don't think it's clear from tour stats or my experiences in tours that it is shaping the meta game in such a way that it deserves to be banned.

If the council's goal is to improve balance / BO, I think there are two different things happening that could be addressed, the first as has been pointed out in the metagame thread I believe (and by Lily above), stop making every sample team HO. BO and Balance from my experience also have no issues dealing with the physical threats common to HO in the tier, I would say the hard part in the builder is dealing with the special attacker that gets attached to the common HO structure. I've answered Blastoise as the most problematic pokemon in the tier on the last 2 or 3 surveys (since before iron leaves ban at least), I still think that is something that puts a lot of pressure on balance and BO in the builder and in game. I was less high on Yanmega, but I do see some merit there as well. Armarouge is probably not worth a suspect right now but could be worth keeping an eye on.

 

[Elec-ant1234]

Solely related to Lily's post, but I got the feeling that people just kinda joined the suspect tour like it was any other tour, and not something that, you know, is directly contributing to the very shape of the tier and could have massive metagame ramifications for the next 2 months. I don't have any informed or smart opinions on what should be done, but I think "a" way this issue could be alleviated would be to have some kind of sign up sheet before every suspect tour and only allow those players who willingly sign up to join in, so it's the people who are proactive and interested in metagame health who get to game and make reqs and not JoeSchmoe4269 who joins up last second and locks in their matches with the least skillful HO you've ever seen

Otherwise I kinda feel the same as above, I know I know I just made a long post detailing Okidogi's many strengths, but I think the best way of dealing with the dog is just to adapt in the builder. Okidogi I feel has a hard time switching in at times, gets absolutely crippled by burn/para, and really doesn't want to take big hits. I kept running into this one guy on my reqs grind who had a glowbro and despite having a CB Okidogi, couldn't kill it, and got OHKO'd by psychic / chunked by EQ (and this guy was in the 1500s, he meant business) I think that over time people'll just adapt to the dog and find ways to mess him up. Doesn't help that Geezing gets a pretty free burn into the dog as well.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Personally I see it as too much mostly because it has no switchins not that it is impossible to beat. Weezing galar can wisp it sure, but banded gunk shot obliterates it and the burn isn’t free at all if its banded.

Also personally I think banning a super good BO/Balance mon like dogi who is debatably too much could allow stall teams to keep the HO in line because dogi invalidates nearly the entire playstyle right now.

I think the tier would be better without it but I understand the other pov