Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)

[658Greninja]

On the topic of Quick Claw/Quick Draw, it is obviously not broken, but it is clear that it is uncompetitive. It took a while (up to Gen 8) for people to realize some of these items/abilities are actually uncompetitive. Bright Powder wasn’t considered uncompetitive til people started using Veil Chomp with it in tours. King’s Rock Cloyster wasn’t on the radar til it started winning games in tours. A reoccuring theme here is tour wins/usage. Anytime something like Bright Powder is banned for being RNG bs it’s mostly to avoid any occurrences of strats that are reliant on hax. Basically what I am saying is that until someone decides to bring Gbro or Quick Claw Melm to a big tour with success, the council will most likely not suspect/quickban it. Though I can’t speak on behalf of the council for obvious reasons, but it is just a guess as to why these bans start to occur.

Outside of that, I still see Weavile as being suspect worthy. It has a limited pool of reliable checks and counters while also outspeeding most of the unboosted metagame (which can be killed by Ice Shard after enough chip). The culprit is mainly the Band set which does have a nasty rock weakness but pretty much 2HKOs everything, including Buzzwole. Beat Up patches its initial counterplay in crippling it with RH and/or Flame Body Tran.

Band Beat Up is also just stupid. P much anything not a dark resist is 2HKOd, which would be fine if T-Axel didn’t 2HKO everything else. Yes, RH Buzz, but then it gets Knock’d and now you can’t punish it.

Speaking of which, Knock p much makes Fini a liability of a Weav check. While not as broken, Weav forces you into an Urshifu-type situation where you need both a pivot that can take any hit decently well enough like Pex/Ferro and pair it with a dark resist like Buzz/Clef. Then you consider the possibility of it being SD Boots (or worse LO) and this happens.

+2 252+ Atk Weavile Triple Axel (40 BP) (3 hits) vs. 152 HP / 0 Def Buzzwole: 306-363 (77.8 - 92.3%) -- approx. 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252+ Atk Weavile Triple Axel (40 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 354-423 (89.8 - 107.3%) -- approx. 37.5% chance to OHKO

These are low rolls but it isn’t hard to chip them into range. Ferro can take a +2 hit but its also not likely going to be healthy enough once Weav comes in. There are pro-Weavile arguments like the Band set being vulnerable to hazards, HDB variants being vulnerable to RH, needing a boost to be threatening, its fraility, and its checks/counters being great/good mons outside of dealing with Weav.

I do believe a suspect test would help with coming up with a conclusion. Other than Weav and maybe Quick Claw, the meta is in a balanced spot atm, and encourages more offensive plays since attempting to cover every breaker would result in teams that get overwhelmed quickly without much offensive output.

 

[Nolanb246]

Hi all, i was told about a movement to ban Quick draw/Quick claw in general, and i see most have already said most of my thoughts on the item and ability but ill reiterate what has come to me purely from experience playing against it.
My main gripes with it being allowed are

1. The fact that there is zero reasonable counterplay

- Quick draw/claw activating means they will go first pretty much no matter what you do

- If some sweeper with quick claw is on the field and would normally get revenge killed, it can just proc the claw and kill something it should never win against normally, especially apparent on slow things what invest into bulk to increase the chances of this happening

2. Its just uncompetitive in general

- even stuff like say jirachi flinch spam, while being kinda dumb sometimes, can be played around and punished, like bringing something with rocky helmet or something to force a switch such as heatran.

- we've seen stuff very similar to this in kings rock cloyster which while being far more immediately threatening than quick claw, also was just ridiculous to play against and took zero skill or strategy to ruin the opposing team.

Personally im 100% on board with a quick claw/quick draw ban and am just confused it took this long to happen with how brightpowder has been banned for ages

 

[Snapteryx]

Hi all, i was told about a movement to ban Quick draw/Quick claw in general, and i see most have already said most of my thoughts on the item and ability but ill reiterate what has come to me purely from experience playing against it.
My main gripes with it being allowed are

1. The fact that there is zero reasonable counterplay

- Quick draw/claw activating means they will go first pretty much no matter what you do

- If some sweeper with quick claw is on the field and would normally get revenge killed, it can just proc the claw and kill something it should never win against normally, especially apparent on slow things what invest into bulk to increase the chances of this happening

2. Its just uncompetitive in general

- even stuff like say jirachi flinch spam, while being kinda dumb sometimes, can be played around and punished, like bringing something with rocky helmet or something to force a switch such as heatran.

- we've seen stuff very similar to this in kings rock cloyster which while being far more immediately threatening than quick claw, also was just ridiculous to play against and took zero skill or strategy to ruin the opposing team.

Personally im 100% on board with a quick claw/quick draw ban and am just confused it took this long to happen with how brightpowder has been banned for ages

Even though I'm perfectly fine with the ban, I hate people saying there's no counterplay. There's a ton of counterplay options against it that don't involve rng. I understand people seeing it's rng elements as uncompetitive, but saying it has no counterplay is NOT a valid argument. Again, I have no problem with quick claw + quick draw being banned, just don't use something that's completely false as evidence.

As someone who has built around Galarian Slowbro before and still occasionally use it for fun, I am completely indifferent towards the idea of it being banned.
It's not broken in the slightest (It's a pretty bad pokemon tbh), but it is extremely luck based. The strategic game of predictions and teambuilding you'd normally play suddenly becomes a russian roulette.
But then again, it's not broken in the slightest. Sure, it's a monster when it sets up, but that applies to every pokemon. It's biggest weakness is that it's way too hard to even get on the field in the first place. Now idk about the belly drum set since I only really built around the nasty plot set. But I can tell you that it's hard to set up with both of them. First of all, a safe switch is basically required. Galarian Slowbro hates chip damage. More so for the belly drum set because you can't have the luxury of running sitrus berry to heal some of the belly drum hp. But the nasty plot set also needs to be at full health to survive most super effective hits. So you can't bring it out unless you see a sweep. Not only that, but there's not much pokemon it can set up on. Look at the ou viability ranking right now and try to think of what pokemon you could set up on. Knock off is an incredibly common move and it removes your quick claw, making your priority chances even lower. The only pokemon I could see you reliably setting up on (That are OU and at least B tier in the VR) are Clefable, Corviknight, Slowbro and Slowking for nasty plot sets with shadow ball and Blissey sets without t wave for belly drum sets. Literally every other pokemon has a way of either 2hkoing it or using knock off to almost entirely shut down it's sweep
Aside from that, it also has major 4 move slot syndrome (Again, the belly drum set might not. I'm going by my experience with the nasty plot set). It needs either ice beam or surf for Landorus. It needs either surf or focus miss for Heatran. It needs shadow ball for Slowbro and Slowking. It needs flamethrower for Ferrothorn and other bulky steels, psychic for Toxapex and sludge bomb for Tapu Fini. It's just a really flawed pokemon that happens to have an extremely gimmicky ability.

TLDR

Galarian Slowbro is extremely hard to set up with, the belly drum set can't heal back it's hp with sitrus berry like Azumarill can, knock off shuts it down completely and it has arguably one of the worst cases of 4 move slot syndrome I've ever seen.
Wanting to ban Galarian Slowbro for being uncompetitive is understandable, but there's a reason why it's nowhere near OU and playing around it is a lot easier than it seems. Overall, I could not care less about whether it gets banned or not.

My previous reply details almost everything wrong with Galarian Slowbro. I'm not defending it's case, but if you genuinely think there is 0 counterplay to this RUBL mon, you should probably try getting good.

 

[Lord Xen III]

Even though I'm perfectly fine with the ban, I hate people saying there's no counterplay. There's a ton of counterplay options against it that don't involve rng. I understand people seeing it's rng elements as uncompetitive, but saying it has no counterplay is NOT a valid argument. Again, I have no problem with quick claw + quick draw being banned, just don't use something that's completely false as evidence.

My previous reply details almost everything wrong with Galarian Slowbro. I'm not defending it's case, but if you genuinely think there is 0 counterplay to this RUBL mon, you should probably try getting good.

I think the discussion has broadened beyond just slowbro though. There has been evidence of Quick claw alone being powerful on HO teams on other mons besides bro

 

[Steel With It]

My previous reply details almost everything wrong with Galarian Slowbro. I'm not defending it's case, but if you genuinely think there is 0 counterplay to this RUBL mon, you should probably try getting good.

1. We're talking about Quick Claw in general, not just Slowbro-G. Honestly, the one that worries me is that bloody Quick Claw Melmetal set. Jesus Christ.

2. What counterplay? Name it. So far, all you've mentioned is Slowbro's difficulty in finding a setup turn, which isn't really counterplay and doesn't mean shit for Mr Double Iron Bash.

 

[Snapteryx]

Ok I didn't realize other slow pokemon were running quick claw too
In that case, sure go ahead lol

 

[blooclipse]

Ok I didn't realize other slow pokemon were running quick claw too
In that case, sure go ahead lol

Especially melmetal is so goddamn obnoxious
20% chance to hit you like a truck, and then another 51% chance to flinch you too
10% chance that you just take a ton of damage and cant do anything
and another 10% chance that you just take a ton of damage

Its not broken per se, but it's extremely uncompetitive. Glowbro just showed people what quick claw could do.

 

[FloopThePig]

After using Quick Claw a bit, I actually found out that there is a good reason to use it other than just simple RNG. Fast VoltTurn users with boots are almost impossible to punish. Quick Claw means that Tornadus or Dragapult can't just spam U-Turn on slow attackers since they would get punished heavily if the RNG doesn't go in their favor. This isn't just slapping hax for the sake of hax. It's using hax to counter the very viable playstyle of VoltTurn. Who knows fast VoltTurn users mignt now take into consideration Quick Claw hax the same way water resists take into account Scald burns hax.

And it's not just bulky attackers that make use of it though. I tried it on Pex and was able to get a Knock Off on both Tornadus and Dragapult.

If Melmetal or Slowking-G prove to be a problem, I hope they focus on the individual Pokémon first because Quick Claw may actually have some use in the metagame if people explore it.

 

[Lord Xen III]

After using Quick Claw a bit, I actually found out that there is a good reason to use it other than just simple RNG. Fast VoltTurn users with boots are almost impossible to punish. Quick Claw means that Tornadus or Dragapult can't just spam U-Turn on slow attackers since they would get punished heavily if the RNG doesn't go in their favor. This isn't just slapping hax for the sake of hax. It's using hax to counter the very viable playstyle of VoltTurn. Who knows fast VoltTurn users mignt now take into consideration Quick Claw hax the same way water resists take into account Scald burns hax.

And it's not just bulky attackers that make use of it though. I tried it on Pex and was able to get a Knock Off on both Tornadus and Dragapult.

If Melmetal or Slowking-G prove to be a problem, I hope they focus on the individual Pokémon first because Quick Claw may actually have some use in the metagame if people explore it.

but it's inherently inconsistent and uncompetitive.

 

[clementinabroccolina]

After using Quick Claw a bit, I actually found out that there is a good reason to use it other than just simple RNG. Fast VoltTurn users with boots are almost impossible to punish. Quick Claw means that Tornadus or Dragapult can't just spam U-Turn on slow attackers since they would get punished heavily if the RNG doesn't go in their favor. This isn't just slapping hax for the sake of hax. It's using hax to counter the very viable playstyle of VoltTurn. Who knows fast VoltTurn users mignt now take into consideration Quick Claw hax the same way water resists take into account Scald burns hax.

And it's not just bulky attackers that make use of it though. I tried it on Pex and was able to get a Knock Off on both Tornadus and Dragapult.

If Melmetal or Slowking-G prove to be a problem, I hope they focus on the individual Pokémon first because Quick Claw may actually have some use in the metagame if people explore it.

Ngl I don't think I'd ever opt for quick claw outside of silly HO and especially not to try and punish volt turn because ground immunities and contact effects are the actual best ways to pressure players who like to pivot around. With quick claw you might just get murked by a u-turn that you could've punished better with helmet while even if something like flame body or static doesn't proc it doesn't put you in as much of a bad situation as it would be if you were really hoping for that quick claw proc. I don't get this take

 

[Lord Xen III]

Ngl I don't think I'd ever opt for quick claw outside of silly HO and especially not to try and punish volt turn because ground immunities and contact effects are the actual best ways to pressure players who like to pivot around. With quick claw you might just get murked by a u-turn that you could've punished better with helmet while even if something like flame body or static doesn't proc it doesn't put you in as much of a bad situation as it would be if you were really hoping for that quick claw proc. I don't get this take

exactly, a key reasoning in the ban of the evasion items and King's rock earlier in the gen is that you actually don't want to pay the opportunity cost of running those items most of the time. quick claw on pex is very unreliable and you'd want a black sludge, eject button, or shed shell far before you'd want something like quick claw. but 20% of the time it allows you to cheese some progress against a Dragapult and get chip on it you otherwise wouldn't have gotten.

 

[blooclipse]

After using Quick Claw a bit, I actually found out that there is a good reason to use it other than just simple RNG. Fast VoltTurn users with boots are almost impossible to punish. Quick Claw means that Tornadus or Dragapult can't just spam U-Turn on slow attackers since they would get punished heavily if the RNG doesn't go in their favor. This isn't just slapping hax for the sake of hax. It's using hax to counter the very viable playstyle of VoltTurn. Who knows fast VoltTurn users mignt now take into consideration Quick Claw hax the same way water resists take into account Scald burns hax.

And it's not just bulky attackers that make use of it though. I tried it on Pex and was able to get a Knock Off on both Tornadus and Dragapult.

If Melmetal or Slowking-G prove to be a problem, I hope they focus on the individual Pokémon first because Quick Claw may actually have some use in the metagame if people explore it.

the problem is, that qc is inherently uncompetitive. Its a 20% chance to do that, which honestly isn't even that good. But when it does happen, it can be gamebreaking. And also, complex bans aren't happening. We aren't banning melm because qc melm is super uncompetitive, we would ban qc as a whole.
Quick Claw is just not good for the metagame. Something that should check a mon 1 on 1, just won't because of a 20% chance. That's uncompetitive and just unfun.

 

[odt]

Especially melmetal is so goddamn obnoxious
20% chance to hit you like a truck, and then another 51% chance to flinch you too
10% chance that you just take a ton of damage and cant do anything
and another 10% chance that you just take a ton of damage

Its not broken per se, but it's extremely uncompetitive. Glowbro just showed people what quick claw could do.

Man, you weren't kidding.. I hopped on to try some QC Melmetal sets and that shits nauseating. Couldn't help but feel sorry for the other team at times.
And I've been on the receiving end of a QDQC Slowbro sweep despite having fantastic matchups against it on paper. I don't feel like these tactics promote careful teambuilding at all.

 

[blooclipse]

Man, you weren't kidding.. I hopped on to try some QC Melmetal sets and that shits nauseating. Couldn't help but feel sorry for the other team at times.
And I've been on the receiving end of a QDQC Slowbro sweep despite having fantastic matchups against it on paper. I don't feel like these tactics promote careful teambuilding at all.

Its plain luck. You could have a ton of mons that check melmetal, or glowbro, but no. Luck makes it just immediately win for absolutely no reason
The problem isn't that it restricts teambuilding, it just
wins off luck
which is really stupid

 

[KamenOH]

Its plain luck. You could have a ton of mons that check melmetal, or glowbro, but no. Luck makes it just immediately win for absolutely no reason
The problem isn't that it restricts teambuilding, it just
wins off luck
which is really stupid

How is this luck any worse than full para, or focus miss, or any other non-guaranteed action in this game? Sure, 20% chance to move first is bad, but a 25% chance to not attack at all is acceptable, or a 30% chance to miss that FB on a Heatran, or insert random chance here, and there aren't any calls to action on that. This isn't like evasion where it and it alone makes shit practically unplayable, but just a 1/5 chance, worse than OHKO moves, to move first. This one item, which if ran makes it so you can't have a LO or Band or whatever, simply makes you go first. Its a one-turn Trick Room against your fast sweeper, and Trick Room isn't broken, so why is a held item with a less than 1/4 chance to even proc in the talks for being broken?

 

[blooclipse]

How is this luck any worse than full para, or focus miss, or any other non-guaranteed action in this game? Sure, 20% chance to move first is bad, but a 25% chance to not attack at all is acceptable, or a 30% chance to miss that FB on a Heatran, or insert random chance here, and there aren't any calls to action on that. This isn't like evasion where it and it alone makes shit practically unplayable, but just a 1/5 chance, worse than OHKO moves, to move first. This one item, which if ran makes it so you can't have a LO or Band or whatever, simply makes you go first. Its a one-turn Trick Room against your fast sweeper, and Trick Room isn't broken, so why is a held item with a less than 1/4 chance to even proc in the talks for being broken?

The problem is it has no counterplay. They get the quick claw, too bad. Deal with it.
you can't do crap.
Attacks like focus blast are able to be played around by just not using it or whatever. Trick room can be played around by just having 1 mon that can do seomthing to prevent tr going up, be it fake out for hatterene, or taunt for other setters.
Quick draw is just a 20% chance to be extremely obnoxious. This is extremely uncompetitive, considering there is literally no counterplay except like knock off.
Para can be played around. Focus blast can be played around. Quick draw can't.

 

[Lord Xen III]

How is this luck any worse than full para, or focus miss, or any other non-guaranteed action in this game? Sure, 20% chance to move first is bad, but a 25% chance to not attack at all is acceptable, or a 30% chance to miss that FB on a Heatran, or insert random chance here, and there aren't any calls to action on that. This isn't like evasion where it and it alone makes shit practically unplayable, but just a 1/5 chance, worse than OHKO moves, to move first. This one item, which if ran makes it so you can't have a LO or Band or whatever, simply makes you go first. Its a one-turn Trick Room against your fast sweeper, and Trick Room isn't broken, so why is a held item with a less than 1/4 chance to even proc in the talks for being broken?

in my ideal world, those other factors being eliminated would be ideal too, but that's neither here or there.

While quick claw is not as bad as the evasion moves and King's Rock, you can still run quick claw with boosting wallbreakers behind screens and make games come down to a coin flip. Yes LO or band or other items would be preferrable over quick claw, but the same was true for King's Rock or even the other evasion items, it's just that going for the cheese factor instead makes games extremely polarizing

 

[clementinabroccolina]

Competitive pokemon is basically duct tape on a burst pipe because of how deeply embedded RNG is into everything but at least RNG management is an interesting aspect of gameplay and well, chance effects just aren't something that's gonna go away because it is a JRPG we're playing. However, I'm gonna use my own judgement and just say that quick claw isn't needed and if it was banished I wouldn't miss it. Outside of stuff like G-Slowbro being really cheesy with it, it's just a bit too polarizing of an effect since while the opportunity cost to run it is pretty big for a lot of stuff, it's too often just not gonna reward the better player. Yes, sometimes hax are gonna let you beat something you probably didn't have any business beating cause you took a chance and stayed in against a check but I don't see the point in adding MORE things to consider. In simple terms I think quick claw is just kind of dumb and I don't see much value in adding MORE rng than already exists. Ladder is already frustrating enough with how you can't assume that your opponent is actually gonna play their best (like CTC in the 1600s playing against someone who literally fought like a gym leader AI) and I think quick claw just adds to the annoyance and enables playstyles that are just frankly unhealthy.

I don't want to sound like I'm taking a silly ladder gimmick item too seriously since it's a like 20% chance to win a game you lost but it's at least an interesting discussion and I think it should've just been lumped in with the others in the rng item exodus tbh

 

[blooclipse]

off topic from what we're talking about rn but whatever
Okay, so I've been experimenting with specs Eleki with terrain support.
https://pokepast.es/1a6803f265882081
I made a team yesterday (very unpolished) but it has potential. Aqua tail chomp lures lando and destroys other grounds, and lead triple axel mew can kill lando early. It turns the game into "get rid of electric immunities and win" because even SpD ferro gets easily 2HKOd
Obviously lele just beats this team and its not that good of a team, but i made it just to show off the potential of eleki.
Thoughts on specs eleki as a cleaner + breaker?
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1569982404-5a0rla6sbinnw7zoq4v259a7r0yd9ofpw here's a replay ik its low ladder but it shows off what eleki can do)

 

[clementinabroccolina]

off topic from what we're talking about rn but whatever
Okay, so I've been experimenting with specs Eleki with terrain support.
https://pokepast.es/1a6803f265882081
I made a team yesterday (very unpolished) but it has potential. Aqua tail chomp lures lando and destroys other grounds, and lead triple axel mew can kill lando early. It turns the game into "get rid of electric immunities and win" because even SpD ferro gets easily 2HKOd
Obviously lele just beats this team and its not that good of a team, but i made it just to show off the potential of eleki.
Thoughts on specs eleki as a cleaner + breaker?
(https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1569982404-5a0rla6sbinnw7zoq4v259a7r0yd9ofpw here's a replay ik its low ladder but it shows off what eleki can do)

Eleki can be a pretty threatening cleaner and it naturally pairs well with Koko since not many teams have more than 1 ground immunity which helps make it a pretty threatening wincon. I like that it's so good at bringing in Lando because blocking a volt switch is an offer hard to refuse but on the other side of that, it does get a little frustrating feeling like it can only rapid spin for a while (I also just don't really use screens). Overall I quite like Eleki and I'm glad people have come around to see the value it has for some teams.

 

[Moyashi]

How is this luck any worse than full para, or focus miss, or any other non-guaranteed action in this game? Sure, 20% chance to move first is bad, but a 25% chance to not attack at all is acceptable, or a 30% chance to miss that FB on a Heatran, or insert random chance here, and there aren't any calls to action on that.

There is a distinct difference between RNG hax items and things like accuracy and paralysis. One is an element of the game that entirely exists to cheese wins (KR, QC, Sand Veil), while elements like paralysis have legitimate competitive strategic value. Slowing down a key threat to let slower powerful wallbreakers run train for example. Even cheesy strats like paraflinch (Togekiss/Jirachi) have counterplay and thus can be dealt with by an experienced player. And as for accuracy, that's an element that equally impacts both sides positively and negatively. It's balanced out like this.

This isn't like evasion where it and it alone makes shit practically unplayable, but just a 1/5 chance, worse than OHKO moves, to move first. This one item, which if ran makes it so you can't have a LO or Band or whatever, simply makes you go first.

It has the same fundamental impact of removing player interaction and agency. How often the effect procs is irrelevant because it's still removing agency from the opponent. There is no skill minded thought process involved in using QC. And on the kind of mons QC is used on, going first is often all they need to be able to turn a losing match up on its head and win it. When by all rights they shouldn't.

Its a one-turn Trick Room against your fast sweeper, and Trick Room isn't broken, so why is a held item with a less than 1/4 chance to even proc in the talks for being broken?

Calling QC a "one turn TR" and thus comparing it to TR as a playstyle is questionable. Since one is an RNG hax item and the other is a whole playstyle which has no such RNG based strategies. TR itself has a million problems, the biggest being match up problems which make it inconsistent as well as dedicating so much teamspace to facilitating the strategy. QC is just there to let slow mons beat faster mons that should check them because the game decides they get to go first. Removing skill and player autonamy from the equation.

I can't count the number of times I've encountered Galarbro/QC teams that have turned losing match ups into wins because the game decided "okay screw speed tiers, your opponent goes first" and robbed wins despite playing just fine up to that point. It's frustrating and adds nothing to the game. And for the record, Quick Claw/Quick Draw isn't broken, it's uncompetitive.

Thoughts on specs eleki as a cleaner + breaker?

Specs Leki with RV is fundamentally not that consistent like some sets are but on paper is arguably the scariest cleaner in the tier as it OHKOs basically every neutral target and 2HKOs resists. Leki as a whole has made me reexamine just how key it is to preserve elec immunities on a team, and how hard it can be sometimes to do so.

 

[blooclipse]

Specs Leki with RV is fundamentally not that consistent like some sets are but on paper is arguably the scariest cleaner in the tier as it OHKOs basically every neutral target and 2HKOs resists. Leki as a whole has made me reexamine just how key it is to preserve elec immunities on a team, and how hard it can be sometimes to do so.

The mew set on this team makes it so that I can destroy a lando turn 1, and since that's most teams elec immunity, its basically a win with good playing. Hydreigon also lives a CC from zeraora and can OHKO after the spdef drop.
This means that once electric immunities are gone, eleki can juststraight up win. It might be a bit matchup fishy though, because sand kinda just beats it and in rain barraskewda can beat it, but nothing wants to switch in to RV. Max HP ferro takes 70%.
(252 SpA Choice Specs Transistor Regieleki Rising Voltage (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn in Electric Terrain: 245-288 (69.6 - 81.8%))

What makes regieleki even scarier is the fact that it can outspeed any scarfer at 116 base speed or below, which is insane. Its extremely hard to revenge kill Eleki because of its speed, and it has really good power making it extremely strong even with just volt switch.

Eleki can be a pretty threatening cleaner and it naturally pairs well with Koko since not many teams have more than 1 ground immunity which helps make it a pretty threatening wincon. I like that it's so good at bringing in Lando because blocking a volt switch is an offer hard to refuse but on the other side of that, it does get a little frustrating feeling like it can only rapid spin for a while (I also just don't really use screens). Overall I quite like Eleki and I'm glad people have come around to see the value it has for some teams.

The speed and power of eleki makes it a really good endgame wincon. Yeah, only being able to press spin or espeed is annoying, but if you can kill electric immunities..
game over.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1570006085-kuauxyc3ityoo2lwcyfjh045wrpi6b2pw
replay that shows what mew can do, turn 2 the game is basically already won.
and in the replay i showed in the first post, hydreigon killing their zeraora turn 1 basically means I already won at turn 1.

 

[KamenOH]

it's still removing agency from the opponent

How is it removing agency? It isn't making it so the opponent cannot reasonably force you out, like evasion does unless you run one of a few niche and underpowered moves which if not for evasion wouldn't be run at all, and unless speed tiers are a literal, immutable godsend, it letting slower pokemon go first on average a fifth of the time in exchange for not being able to run an item isn't uncompetitive, not nearly to the degree youre stating.

Calling QC a "one turn TR" and thus comparing it to TR as a playstyle is questionable. Since one is an RNG hax item and the other is a whole playstyle which has no such RNG based strategies. TR itself has a million problems, the biggest being match up problems which make it inconsistent as well as dedicating so much teamspace to facilitating the strategy. QC is just there to let slow mons beat faster mons that should check them because the game decides they get to go first. Removing skill and player autonamy from the equation.

You go on about how QC is RNG and hax and totally unlike TR, yet right after say how TR is inconsistent and requires teamspace. Well, 1/5 is really inconsistent in terms of pokemon games, and you can't simply slot a Melmetal on your team without factoring in its checks and counters, and adapting your team to fit it, just like how TR requires changing your team to incorporate it and how its pretty unreliable.

There is a distinct difference between RNG hax items and things like accuracy and paralysis. One is an element of the game that entirely exists to cheese wins (KR, QC, Sand Veil), while elements like paralysis have legitimate competitive strategic value.

How is Kings Rock any different from Crunch, or fishing for Scald burns? Its trying over and over to get a low percent chance second effect that will hopefully change how the game will go, and these are regarded as competitive and strategic.

 

[Lord Xen III]

You go on about how QC is RNG and hax and totally unlike TR, yet right after say how TR is inconsistent and requires teamspace. Well, 1/5 is really inconsistent in terms of pokemon games, and you can't simply slot a Melmetal on your team without factoring in its checks and counters, and adapting your team to fit it, just like how TR requires changing your team to incorporate it and how its pretty unreliable.

the inconsistency is different in nature though. you''ll know at team preview whether or not your TR team has a good matchup or not, and TR works 100 % of the time, so both players will know that the slower mon goes first under trick room and thus you can devise a consistent plan of action with this information on both sides.

with quick claw you can be in a losing position then cheese a sweep with the 1/5th chance, which is something neither player can control or consistently predict but allows the less skilled player to cheese their way to victory.

How is Kings Rock any different from Crunch, or fishing for Scald burns? Its trying over and over to get a low percent chance second effect that will hopefully change how the game will go, and these are regarded as competitive and strategic.

they aren't though. it's just that scald burns or crunch defense drops have more reasonable counterplay and the moves themselves add something other than just rng.

 

[clementinabroccolina]

How is Kings Rock any different from Crunch, or fishing for Scald burns? Its trying over and over to get a low percent chance second effect that will hopefully change how the game will go, and these are regarded as competitive and strategic.

A scald burn will obviously cripple a physical attacker and wear down everything else, but it does not change what the actual checks and counters to a scald user are, since they are generally going to be the ones that will either force said mon out, not particularly mind a scald burn, or not have to get burned at all ( the latter being less common fwiw). Meanwhile, that quick claw proc can reward a bad play (let's use Melmetal as the main example cause DIB is silly) because you stayed in on a mon that would otherwise beat you because speed tiers are a big part of what defines a pokemon's checks and counters. This is understandably where a lot of the frustration with stuff like flinching and other hax occurs but if you outspeed a mon that uses a flinch move you outspeed it or you can pressure it into not being able to set up (like with G-moltres or something). While hax will always be present, I would assume that you at least appeal to the interest of not adding more than already exists or is necessary.

On a more personal level, so much of the discussion around the hax items feels like arguing for arguing's sake. I get that it can be fun to have a cheesy item for ladder sometimes but I'm not gonna tiptoe around how frustrating it can be to lose against hax even if the smogon stockholm syndrome in me would go "wow i should've played better to not let myself get haxed!" since that tends to be the kneejerk reaction anyone has when someone else talks about how truly annoying it is. I like tiers like AG having the silly fun stuff and think it's fine there but quick claw is not helping competitive pokemon's case for showcasing skill