Suspect SM BH Suspect #11: Shell Smash

[cityscapes]

​

Shell Smash is one of the most explosive moves in Gen 7 BH, and it sees wide use on heavily offensive teams. Already threatening Pokemon such as Mega Mewtwo X, Mega Gengar, and Red Orb Groudon are catapulted to new heights by the move and can bypass nearly all defensive counterplay. Good Shell Smash users (not Stored Power/Power Trip reliant) can simply demolish Prankster Haze users; for example, Red Orb Groudon beats every Prankster user besides Giratina and Mega Slowbro. Considering how difficult Red Orb Groudon is to KO with only one turn to work with, this can make it almost unreasonable to deal with in a poor matchup.

https://pastebin.com/0t1fnLKb - This pastebin provides some pro- and anti-ban arguments as well as important links.

Suspect details: During a Suspect, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:

• Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown site and on a new account (creation date no earlier than today, September 21, 2021) with "SMASH [Nick]"--for example, I could create one called "SMASH city" to ladder with.
• To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 30 games, and you must have a minimum GXE of 80.
• Shell Smash will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.
• The suspect test will end on October 5th, 2021, 11:59 PM GMT -7.
• When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to civilly elucidate any topical opinions regarding whether or not Shell Smash should be banned.
• It is mandatory to provide proof of ownership of the alt account as well. (Post a picture of your reqs with your smogon name featured).

As usual, the actual voting will take place in the Blind Voting Forum, so posting anything other than proof of reqs and discussion isn't necessary.

Tagging Kris to set up the suspect alert and any other implementation that might need to happen.

 

[a loser]

a loser finally got its act together!

"Cool" reqs are overrated. Most games I lost involved smash while others involved stall that I didn't have time for. Smash is pretty dumb though. I do find it hard to use myself, at times, but once the move is clicked it forces immediate action and you better hope you have the right mon for their smasher.

 

[anaconja]

one-upped a loser. gottem

smash is cringe! get it out of here

the two teams i used:

ice judgment is massive you just ball on those dumb prank zygcs and fat giratinas n stuff. rockceus is a funny improof to it since 252 SpA Stone Plate Arceus-Rock Judgment vs. +1 252 HP / 0- SpD Charizard-Mega-Y: 556-660 (78.9 - 93.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. ph arceus is a p good check to mmy and diancie along with prank xern and ph girao improofs rockceus fully while pressuring shed. big scizorman blanket checks physical attackers like ph regi and mmx. it used to have wonder room dont ask why (theoretically allowed chary to beat regenvest ogre).


specs diancie?? what is this, 2019?? anyway specs diancie is pretty nice with sand support cause shed cant switch in and it uhhhh gets more special defense. hooh hard improofs (unlike cringe anchor pdon in volkner's team) while being a big special blanket check. ttar improofs hooh by just smashing it massively (252+ Atk Hard Stone Tyranitar-Mega Head Smash vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Ho-Oh: 868-1024 (123.2 - 145.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO) and also does some spike stuff and shift gearing stuff. zyg improofs ttar and also beats pdon which can otherwise be pretty annoying to diancie. arceus removes hazards for diancie and checks mixed mmys. xerneas does prankster stuff.

 

[in the hills]

View attachment 373893
a loser finally got its act together!
View attachment 373895
"Cool" reqs are overrated. Most games I lost involved smash while others involved stall that I didn't have time for. Smash is pretty dumb though. I do find it hard to use myself, at times, but once the move is clicked it forces immediate action and you better hope you have the right mon for their smasher.

View attachment 373928
one-upped a loser. gottem

smash is cringe! get it out of here

the two teams i used:

ice judgment is massive you just ball on those dumb prank zygcs and fat giratinas n stuff. rockceus is a funny improof to it since 252 SpA Stone Plate Arceus-Rock Judgment vs. +1 252 HP / 0- SpD Charizard-Mega-Y: 556-660 (78.9 - 93.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. ph arceus is a p good check to mmy and diancie along with prank xern and ph girao improofs rockceus fully while pressuring shed. big scizorman blanket checks physical attackers like ph regi and mmx. it used to have wonder room dont ask why (theoretically allowed chary to beat regenvest ogre).


specs diancie?? what is this, 2019?? anyway specs diancie is pretty nice with sand support cause shed cant switch in and it uhhhh gets more special defense. hooh hard improofs (unlike cringe anchor pdon in volkner's team) while being a big special blanket check. ttar improofs hooh by just smashing it massively (252+ Atk Hard Stone Tyranitar-Mega Head Smash vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Ho-Oh: 868-1024 (123.2 - 145.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO) and also does some spike stuff and shift gearing stuff. zyg improofs ttar and also beats pdon which can otherwise be pretty annoying to diancie. arceus removes hazards for diancie and checks mixed mmys. xerneas does prankster stuff.

Unfortunately, neither of these reqs are valid. The OP states that the alt must contain "SMASH [Nick]", therefore SMASH must be at the beginning of the alt to be valid. Official suspects universally require that the suspect tag be the prefix of the alt for easy identification and we have to abide by this rule as well. I understand this is different than how BH suspects used to function and apologize if this change wasn't communicated more clearly to BH specifically at the time, but this rule has been in place for OM suspects for quite some time now and is a given at this point. The OP also did state that you should use SMASH at the beginning of your alt, it's important to read the main post extremely carefully when choosing your alt and follow the format exactly.

 

[quojova]

definitely voting ban

 

[Ren]

wow who could that be

e: currently dnb but i'm open to having my mind changed. replays + analyses of said replays would be great

 

[cityscapes]

the reqs have been lowered from 82% gxe to 80% gxe required

 

[anaconja]

back, now with much better w/l

edit so i dont get owned

 

[Hatman.exe theoneandonly]

I feel like I need to advocate for smash.
i think I might do this just because of how many people say the smash has a “low skill ceiling“ Hello? Have you seen stall?
If smash gets banned, the format will be filled with only defensive passive presence. Bh will become gen 8 OU. all the offensive Pokémon banned and all the defensive Pokémon still there.
smash is something most teams are prepared for anyway, and can be abused be both sides. With imposter not being banned.
i mean, geomancy and tail glow haven’t been banned and they have next to no drawback (sure one needs an item, but a small price to pay if this is your endgame and your stats aren’t lowered).
i can’t believe all these people who are willing to say I’d rather deal with stall before shell smash.

 

[Ren]

The no ban side (literally just me I think) doesn't claim the above person.

 

[Hatman.exe theoneandonly]

The no ban side (literally just me I think) doesn't claim the above person.

You know I don’t want it banned
thats why I wrote that shit for nothing probably

 

[cityscapes]

I feel like I need to advocate for smash.
i think I might do this just because of how many people say the smash has a “low skill ceiling“ Hello? Have you seen stall?
If smash gets banned, the format will be filled with only defensive passive presence. Bh will become gen 8 OU. all the offensive Pokémon banned and all the defensive Pokémon still there.
smash is something most teams are prepared for anyway, and can be abused be both sides. With imposter not being banned.
i mean, geomancy and tail glow haven’t been banned and they have next to no drawback (sure one needs an item, but a small price to pay if this is your endgame and your stats aren’t lowered).
i can’t believe all these people who are willing to say I’d rather deal with stall before shell smash.

smash is much more of an issue for balance and offense than for stall. stall can easily fit hard walls such as slowbro, non imposter chansey, gira, and others. additionally every stall mon can typically fit anti-setup moves including spectral, topsy, wisp, and glare. and mostly you will see eviolite or even scarf imposter on stall. good luck getting through that. balance/offense are typically stretched much more thin and must run unreliable pranks, plus they can be saddled with outright terrible mons like band and specs wallbreakers (kart, diancie, chomp, zard y) that contribute absolutely nothing against sash spam.

winning in bh is done by making progress faster than your opponent. in hyper offense vs slower offense you can very easily accomplish this cause you can double your attacking stats and outspeed everyone in one turn and they can’t. against stall, the best way to win is to 1) have a good plan to make progress and 2) not die to chip damage, trapping, imposter, etc. hyper offense does poorly on both counts here; due to the ridiculous concessions it must make to avoid losing to shed, imposter, +1 xern, +1 regi, priority, and others, it’s rarely successful in its goal of running actually effective breakers/sweepers, and most hyper offense teams collapse past the 25 turn mark. “even the most offensive style in the game struggles against stall, so things will get even worse if we ban smash!” is a misplaced sentiment. more stability in the team will give you more success against stall than any additional power would.

i was looking for replays in bh cup but no one was brave enough to bring stall vs me unfortunately

1 thing you are right on though is that some of the slower band/specs wallbreaker reliant teams invalidated by smash are HELLA low skill ceiling lmao i see you little timmy with your specs gar 1 mon “””offensive core””” run a real team my guy

 

[Onyx Onix 7]

I feel like I need to advocate for smash.
i think I might do this just because of how many people say the smash has a “low skill ceiling“ Hello? Have you seen stall?
If smash gets banned, the format will be filled with only defensive passive presence. Bh will become gen 8 OU. all the offensive Pokémon banned and all the defensive Pokémon still there.
smash is something most teams are prepared for anyway, and can be abused be both sides. With imposter not being banned.
i mean, geomancy and tail glow haven’t been banned and they have next to no drawback (sure one needs an item, but a small price to pay if this is your endgame and your stats aren’t lowered).
i can’t believe all these people who are willing to say I’d rather deal with stall before shell smash.

For one, Stall doesn't really have a low skill ceiling. The longer a game drags on, the more perfectly you have to play as a single critical mistake can easily mean game over with stall. Additionally Stall doesn't grow weaker with the power of wallbreakers or set-up sweepers as it can often just cover for them. Back when Darminitan Zen and Calyrex were legal in generation 8 stall was actually at its strongest due to the lack of diversity and as such it could run specific checks fairly easily to dismantle these threats. Thus if you really want stall gone what you ought to be advocating for is meta diversity. Additionally if you want to dismantle Stall, not banning Shell Smash really isn't the way to do so. Tail Glow is a much bigger threat to Stall as it grants a bigger boost but also doesn't weaken defenses, allowing for your boosts to be stolen or removed several times without consequences. Shell Smash users on the other hand just fold to Spectral Thief due to their defenses being lowered. Shell Smash thus, doesn't tend to affect stall as much, as it affects balanced and offensive builds as it forces them to dedicate more resources to dealing with set-up sweepers. By keeping Shell Smash you are actually benefiting Stall significantly by restricting the diversity of the meta and lowering the usage of much more threatening moves, and wallbreakers like Garchomp and Tail Glow. That being stated, Shell Smash probably doesn't deserve a ban as there are a lot of counterplay options like Spectral Thief, Imposter, Unaware and Prankster that are very solid even outside of dealing with Shell Smash.

 

[cityscapes]

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Gen 7 Balanced Hackmons. The gameplay is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of individualism and game theory most of the plays will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also AV Mega Garchomp's immense viability, which is deftly woven into its playstyle- its power draws heavily from its nickname "BEST MON ON TEAM", for instance. The players understand this stuff, they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these teams, to realize they're not just good-- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence, people who dislike Gen 7 BH truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the viability in Snow Warning Mega Abomasnow, which is in itself a Shedinja check. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of these unplayers scratching their heads in confusion as ShedMiddleFinga's genius wit unfolds itself on their computer screen. What fools... how I pity them. And yes, by the way, I DO have a Gen 7 BH Canon Power Rankings tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the BH players' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5% GXE of me (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothing personnel kid

follow me on twitter (link in my signature)

i used like 5-6 different teams (mostly lele and waterceus). if u wanna win use this it cant really lose.

 

[Redflix]

reqs

i cant believe people used to play this ladder when it was current gen. S/o a loser for the team and toast for emotional support

 

[Pyroshi]

 

[Fragments]

I have a paper due tomorrow but instead I got reqs

 

[a loser]

 

[arn.av136]

confirming

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Fuck XxSevagxX for giving me a second L and ruining the quote.

 

[Ivar57]

 

[XxLazzerpenguinxX]

will be voting dnb. I personally really enjoy playing the gen7bh meta. Smash spam at high levels tens to be beat by balance often enough. I kind of like to think of these teams as a "gambit" in chess. Where the strategy might be objectively not optimal, but if forces your opponent to have to make the "best move" for a consecutive turns at a time. If they do this they should win. Albeit, gambits and "smash spam" are a bit different in nature where one you need skill and the other at times not so much, but building a smash spam team, that doesn't lose to imposter is quite difficult at times so yeah.

From what I've heard, smash is most broken on like balance or bulky offense teams, not revolving around smash spam. Here, simply the pressure of a pokemon in the back waiting to click smash can influence the game a lot and cause a ton of pressure. However, pokemon not named Mega-Gengar are often difficult to improof with Smash and end up forcing a specific team structure to improof, which I believe is a balancing drawback. Shell Smash is also a really commital move, so it does come with its own respective risks, which have to be more carefully managed in a balance game. However, such pressure is something which I don't deem as unhealthy enough to warrant a ban. Various counterplay by pivoting into a mon that won't get ohkoed on smash, predicting with spec thief, prankster, unaware, and priority can all combat smash adequately well enough on balance. Due to the big risk in clicking smash, it's of my opinion that a reward to the player for finding such an opportunity to click it.

Granted there are also situations, where on preview someone may lose to a smash pokemon, such as one with a super effective move on the opposing player's prankster pokemon, or smash pdon which can desimate pokemon like unaware Arceus or prankster Zygaurd. I do believe it would be a bit rash of me to say "the team was just bad if it lost to "x" shell smasher" or if it wasn't prepped for pdon, but generally good team structures should have counterplay to such pokemon. Many random smashers and smash pdon can often be checked by imposter or shedinja, and most good teams should at least have a game plan around these. This is why, feats where someone can ladder to 100 games unbeaten (hi yolk) are possible. In a volatile meta this wouldn't have been very possible.

TL:DR: Smash may seem broken because it forces the user to have to check a very wide variety of breakers that can all win instantly at random moments. This is most pronounced when playing balance teams with one or two shell smashers. However, a good team with a solid game plan should be able to create enough counter play to stop them from shell smashing, or taking advantage of them clicking shell smash in the form of imposter, shedinja, priority, and predicted spectral thiefs, and in the case of a free shell smash unaware, and prankster pokemon can be fallen back on. Such counter play is enough to sustain a dynamic and healthy metagame.

Bonus: A few teams I used while getting requirements

Mega-Garchomp Smash Spam
My Enemy When: Zygarde HO
Tinted Chicken VoltTurn Balance
A bunch of anaconja teams that he passed cuz i was bored of my own teams

 

[Ron]

S/o to a loser for getting haxed and keeping my run alive

 

[Lechen]

Finally done

 

[Artemis04]

Voting DNB. I don't see what's so bad about Shell Smash, considering there are a lot of counters for it, including but not limited to:

- Prankster
- Imposter
- Unaware
- Spectral Thief
- Whirlwind
- Priority (Encore, FakeSpeed)
- Shedinja

Even if you get a bad matchup where your Pokemon doesn't have a phazing move, you can at least pivot into your Impostor or Prankster and shut them down from there. This isn't rocket science for Christ's sake.

There's many checks to Shell Smash, no offense (or pun intended) but if you lose to it you deserved to lose.