Suspect SS Sketchmons Suspect: Transform

[Eggs]

Sketchmons is Suspect Testing Transform!

Transform has established itself a controversial niche in Sketchmons so far. Copying an opponent's Pokemon has some pretty nice advantages, especially with Sketchmon's expanded movepools. Transform lets passive and/or utility Pokemon like Chansey, Blissey, and Grimmsnarl gain momentum, scout movesets, and potentially even win games after copying a boosted setup sweeper. This makes these otherwise unthreatening Pokemon quite dangerous in certain situations, as a Transform at the right time can change the flow of a match significantly. However, Transform does come with some downsides. Unlike Imposter, Transform users cannot guarantee which of the opponent's Pokemon they transform into, letting your opponent play around a potential Transform. Transform also takes up the Sketch slot, coming at an opportunity cost for other, potentially more useful moves.


How to Participate:
During a Suspect test, 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, May 13) with "STRAN [Nick]"--for example, I could create one called "STRAN Eggs" to ladder with.
• To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 25 games, and you must have a minimum GXE of 75.
• Transform will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.
• The suspect test will go for ten days and end on Sunday, May 23rd (11:59 pm CST).
• When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to share your topical opinions regarding whether or not Transform should be restricted. (Optional)
• 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)

With that all of that being said, it's time to get started on this suspect! 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 for implementation just in case

 

[The Number Man]

first

I think Chansey and Blissey are by far the best transform users in the metagame because of their enormous HP pool. When other mons use transform you're facing a copy of the mon they transformed into, so counterplay for it is the same as counterplay for your mon. When blobs use transform you're facing a significantly beefed up version of your breaker, sometimes 2 or even 3 times bulkier than the original mon. Example calcs:

252 SpA Tornadus-Therian Oblivion Wing vs. 212 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Bulu: 242-288 (72.4 - 86.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
252 SpA Tornadus-Therian Oblivion Wing vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Blissey transformed into Tapu Bulu: 242-288 (33.8 - 40.3%) -- 100% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery

Torn is not reliably 1v1ing a Blissey transformed into Bulu, if the Bulu runs Edge or SD. Basically what I'm trying to say is that the blobs massive HP pools eliminate most offensive counterplay since they can just muscle past these offensive checks as long as they have a move that 2hkos. This brings me to my next point - if there is a breaker on your team that you can't handle defensively (read: stall out), then that breaker can never be switched into blissey because you risk it transforming and sweeping, since we've established that offensive counterplay doesn't suffice. This kinda flips Chansey/Blissey counterplay on its head. The best way to beat blobs is to either sit on them (example: reuniclus in standard play, but any mon that ignores status and has some form of recovery works) or nuke them with strong physical moves (cb rilla/bulu, cb crawdaunt, fighting types). Transform punishes both of these approaches to an extent. It's possible that reuniclus still beats a beefed up version of itself since it tends to run coverage that doesnt hit psychic types very hard, so you can stall out the 5pp transform grants, but mons that hit themselves neutrally can be in trouble vs Chansey - depending on investment. I did some calcing and hp invested Volcarona should beat transform blobs since it does 30-40 to itself when boosts are equal. Therefore assuming you QD to max and stall out the transform PP you should win. So sitting on a (Toxicless) Transform blob is still semi viable. However, that doesn't change the fact that Transform blobs absolutely demolish recoveryless setup mons and punish strong breakers for switching in on transform.

In practice, I think that the existence of transform means safe blob switchins are extremely limited as you're often forced to go into passive walls or pivots into them, in order to avoid giving your opponent offensive momentum off their transform. This is extremely punishing, as once you let a blob in with a special attacker (and thus lose momentum), regaining that momentum can be very hard.

This is my view on transform. After doing some calcs, I'm not as convinced it's broken as I used to be since it turns out sitting on blobs is still a decently viable strategy. But transform still makes gaining momentum off of and switching into blobs a very hard task. Is that sufficient to call it broken? I don't know. But it sure is annoying and warps the pace of the game and play patterns like nothing else imo.

E: team: https://pokepast.es/2bd92c1cc1fce625

 

[shnowshner]

I'm doing my best to ladder for this but in three games I've been crit literally every other turn by my opponent.

Stay tuned.

 

[ironwater]

Confirming as STRAN Stall

 

[in the hills]

Please do not clutter this thread with one liners and non-useful discussion.

This thread is for voters to post their reqs and share their thoughts, please take any other discussion to the main Sketchmons thread. Thanks!

 

[Tuthur]

Confirming as STRAN Sform. I used The Number Man's team which was excellent outside of some unfortunate matchups ; on the other side of the spectrum, ironwater's stall sucked.

 

[RaJ.Shoot]

Confirming. s/o The Number Man for the the god team. Transform broke, ban that shit. S/o the guy using accelrock rhypherior for ruining the 25-0 dream

 

[Vertigo]

Eye decided to choke at 20-0 or something like that because eye was tired.
I used an OU sample team and changed a few moves, didn't run Transform.
Honestly, Salamence Dragon Ascent is fun.

 

[idea]

Confirming as stran idea

I used tnm's team (it's really good) and didn't run into transform much.
From my few attempts at using it I feel like it's quite good, and annoying to play around, but probably not broken, though I could be convinced otherwise

 

[Daki]

Confirming as stran bleu.
It was too sweaty at the end tho.

 

[Neco0s]

Confirming as STRANeco0s.

 

[Kyo]

This tier sucks and I suck at this tier

 

[VoolPool]

1. I saw few chanseys and they were usually parting running parting shot(I like how they gave my bisharp 4 stages of attack) and 2. I think transform is easily played around by the likes of sub, taunt, straight up beating yourself, or running a mon to counter your own and I dont think they are too restrictive, however you must run a countermeasure which is like everything top teir. Prob voting unban.

S/o to TnM for team
https://pokepast.es/ce2aa628f0302e7a
I also used Trash Webs cause why not
https://pokepast.es/5e7de4069ce16b65

I made 7 accounts for this cause I missed focus blast.

I was seriously considering forfeiting my last game because 3 Is a weird number pls help.
Edit: actually put proof this time

 

[Animesh_]

Confirming as STRAN Force
I hope I made it in time...

 

[drampa's grandpa]

confirming as strange orange

i did a super awkward job but whatever
whoever porrompompom is they wrecked me over and over with cloyster

already wrote up what i think about transform in the main thread, and my opinion hasn't changed

 

[in the hills]

Transform was banned following the suspect vote!
Voting thread here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-sketchmons-transform-voting.3684887/