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Metagame STABmons
- Thread starter Funbot28
- Start date
Sorta but not quite (Geomancy is banned).
The council believes that the combination of Psychic Terrain's anti-meta side-effects, powerful dual STABs, and good stats that work very well with Choice items make Tapu Lele too difficult for the metagame to adapt to. Right now, teams require multiple answers to Lele (not to mention Kartana but we'll tackle that later), as traditional revenge attempts don't work with Psychic Terrain up and Scarfed Pokemon need to be at least higher than 95 base speed. It's incredibly difficult to switch into, leaving Steel-types not weak to Focus Blast as the best answer (aka Celesteela), or Alola-Muk (shout outs me), but even they can be 2HKO'd by a Specs set. Lately, the combination of Webs + Specs Lele have shown their dominance over normal team archetypes, as the grounded Scarf Pokemon a player relies on to check Lele no longer outspeeds.
Basically, Lele is a very low risk, very very high reward Pokemon to use that requires a lot of counterplay to determine what set your opponent is running, and by then you're ded xd.
Edit: Oh and Agility LO.
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Well, now that the Suspect Tour has, shall we say, ended-never-to-be-thought-of-again, we're pleased to announce that Tapu Lele is now Banned. Tagging urkerab I guess, since that's where STABmons is currently hosted.
The council unanimously voted ban, and there were no dissenting opinions voiced when I asked people from the tour if they wanted it banned (bar a few who voted no as a means of abstention). There wasn't a super formal process here, since we voted and then decided to have a tour and then just talked about it in chat a lot, but I'm very confident that the vast majority of people agree with this decision. We will work on formalizing the suspect tour process a bit if people want that.
From what I saw in the suspect tour, there was much less of a focus on Celesteela and Magnezone/Tapu Koko, Lele's premier check and partners. I also saw less Kartana. The teams tended to be a bit less threat-spam HO, and closer to the balance end of the offense spectrum than they were on ladder. Overall the metagame looked similar to mid-XY with fast paced games and lots of strong and fast threats but also kinda solid defensive cores (all of which got broken). Hopefully other people who saw/played more games than I did can chime in more on this. I would say the current metagame is far from balanced and we'll look into other problematic pokemon, like Kartana, in the future. More games need to be played with Lele gone before anything else gets suspected though.
As an addendum, "Comaphasing" is completely stupid and something that should and will be banned soon. We haven't talked about what to do with it, but feel free to chime in on the ban komala vs ban [something complex] debate.
The council unanimously voted ban, and there were no dissenting opinions voiced when I asked people from the tour if they wanted it banned (bar a few who voted no as a means of abstention). There wasn't a super formal process here, since we voted and then decided to have a tour and then just talked about it in chat a lot, but I'm very confident that the vast majority of people agree with this decision. We will work on formalizing the suspect tour process a bit if people want that.
From what I saw in the suspect tour, there was much less of a focus on Celesteela and Magnezone/Tapu Koko, Lele's premier check and partners. I also saw less Kartana. The teams tended to be a bit less threat-spam HO, and closer to the balance end of the offense spectrum than they were on ladder. Overall the metagame looked similar to mid-XY with fast paced games and lots of strong and fast threats but also kinda solid defensive cores (all of which got broken). Hopefully other people who saw/played more games than I did can chime in more on this. I would say the current metagame is far from balanced and we'll look into other problematic pokemon, like Kartana, in the future. More games need to be played with Lele gone before anything else gets suspected though.
As an addendum, "Comaphasing" is completely stupid and something that should and will be banned soon. We haven't talked about what to do with it, but feel free to chime in on the ban komala vs ban [something complex] debate.
I'm not thrilled about Lele being banned but I won't complain too loudly. In battles I fought with and against it it was one of those mons that extraordinarily difficult to get in, put has high destructive potential once in. I found that the choice between Specs and Scarf (or Life Orb or w/e) was a difficult one to make as Lele really wanted that over the top power but also the speed.
Kartana is ridiculous, pseudomoxie on something with 181 attack and decent speed is ridiculous, Spore is ridiculous. Get this out of here.
I haven't faced a single Komala, and honestly am kind of puzzled that people are having difficulty with it. Almost any scarfer, anything with priority, and
all hit it before getting phazed. And without Lele around priority will once again be very common. Magic Bounce mons can also help, and Espeon gets that nice normal type movepool from Eevee along with moves like Psystrike.
Kartana is ridiculous, pseudomoxie on something with 181 attack and decent speed is ridiculous, Spore is ridiculous. Get this out of here.
I haven't faced a single Komala, and honestly am kind of puzzled that people are having difficulty with it. Almost any scarfer, anything with priority, and
Accelgor, Aerodactyl, Alakazam-Mega, Crobat, Electrode, Greninja-Ash, Jolteon, Ninjask, Noivern, Pheromosa, Ribombee, Swellow, Talonflame, Tapu Koko, Weavile
I haven't even been running Kartana with Spore and it's still absurd. Autotomize with Protective Pads is actually really good, since you avoid the Mega Kangaskhan problem. We're gonna need to see a LOT more Vacuum Wave and Mach Punch to actually keep it from shredding basically every team. Shift Gear helped it by giving it its first boost, but Sunsteel Strike and Power Whip from a Pokemon with base 181 Attack and an Ability that cranks it up with every KO is insane and it should have been gone a long time ago.
The Ruins of Alpha said:
Komala's not a huge pain if you're playing offense, but I don't want to play in a metagame where bulky builds get death-touched by this thing. Even if they only take a total of 200% from rocks and no spikes over 16 turns, it still randomly puts walls down to KO range and is a guaranteed positive trade with little to no counterplay.
That list is pretty unimpressive to me when more than half the things are Accelgor, Mega Aero, Crobat, Electrode, Ninjask, Noivern, Ribombee, Swellow, and Talonflame, none of which are relevant and almost all of which are weak to rock. Additionally there's literally 2 Magic Bouncers worth considering, Espeon and M-Sableye, and they're both pretty meh in STABmons because they're not as bulky as they wish they were in a metagame with increased power.
You also have to remember that phasing is random, so unless all of your pokemon are fast as hell you're still susceptible.
Overall this falls in the uncompetitive category in my eyes, since it randomly damages stuff while the opponent potentially can't even move. The question in my eyes is whether to ban Komala outright, or to ban WW/Roar/Circle Throw/DTail + Sleep Talk + Comatose.
Does Komala have an otherwise valued and important niche in STABmons? Does it have a niche in STABmons UU? Or does it just Comaphaze in every tier in which it is legal?
I was about to say that its a Fakespeeder immune to burn drops, but then I remembered Guts and Angry Bear (Ursaring). Then I was all like "but it gets U-turn!" but so does Swellow and hell even Raticate is probably better. So it's niche is... the slowest U-Turning Normal type that's immune to burn drops! That's something right?! (No it isn't)
But seriously avery abbreviated list (because I have to go) of some mons that outclass it at what it can do BESIDES COMAPHAZING:
Diggersby
Ursaring
Zangoose (this isn't even good)
EDIT: BTW I've been convinced Comaphazing is banworthy... Didn't take much.
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Yeh I am pretty familiar with the ComaPhazing strat in STABmons using a pretty stupid stall team with it. Here is a replay to demonstrate:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7stabmons-232369
Yes Comala does have not have the fastest speed Stat in 376 even with a Choice Scarf, but when paired with Sticky Webs support it can be a nightmare for your opponent to face. It really adds nothing competitive wise to the meta and honestly should be banned imo.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7stabmons-232369
Yes Comala does have not have the fastest speed Stat in 376 even with a Choice Scarf, but when paired with Sticky Webs support it can be a nightmare for your opponent to face. It really adds nothing competitive wise to the meta and honestly should be banned imo.
I'd forgotten that tours could have custom bans, so I'd already pre-banned Tapu Lele for the tour anyway...
Yeah, well, mistakes were made:
- I didn't bother to check the tournament settings. (It's not as if they apply to me on my own server anyway.)
- Nobody else tried to create a tour until it was too late.
- The wrong person created a group chat to host the tour.
- That person then demoted a global mod to room voice.
few things for the vr:
toxapex needs to be here. i suggest a. incredible bulk on both sides, haze, and recover make it a premier defensive threat. i don't think i need to really explain this one since it's just insanely good but a little prone to like not being able to do anything sometimes due to weak atk stats.
marowak-a needs to be a+. incredible power, v-create nukes everything and sacred fire cripples a lot of switch-ins and makes it even more threatening. immensely powerful shadow sneak, lightningrod, and srock are other things it brings to the table. belly drum is insanely dumb but it's very risky, but it's not even unviable. it walls kartana, celesteela, magearna, tapu koko, and all fakespeeders bar the occasional scrappy or eq which most don't ohko anyways. definitely a top tier threat.
toxapex needs to be here. i suggest a. incredible bulk on both sides, haze, and recover make it a premier defensive threat. i don't think i need to really explain this one since it's just insanely good but a little prone to like not being able to do anything sometimes due to weak atk stats.
marowak-a needs to be a+. incredible power, v-create nukes everything and sacred fire cripples a lot of switch-ins and makes it even more threatening. immensely powerful shadow sneak, lightningrod, and srock are other things it brings to the table. belly drum is insanely dumb but it's very risky, but it's not even unviable. it walls kartana, celesteela, magearna, tapu koko, and all fakespeeders bar the occasional scrappy or eq which most don't ohko anyways. definitely a top tier threat.
The addition of Spore, a strong Steel STAB, and a stronger Grass STAB + SD or Sacred Sword slashed in there somewhere is what it usually runs. Tends to hold a Sash or LO. Grassium Forest's Curse is rare but also quite good.
Basically, most of its checks to one set lose to the other. I've been throwing Safety Goggles on random Steel types just to try and handle it and even then it's no guarantee.
Dear god yes. I've been meaning to make a post on this, but it has genuinely no reliable answers bar goggles flamethrower celesteela, and maybe goggles zapdos but that doesn't take LO power whip very well. There is pretty much no counterplay bar faster mons, and if there are webs up not even that. It's bulky enough to eat espeeds for breakfast, and every counter bar celesteela can be bypassed by the right move. It's just "set up kartana and win" rn.
It runs sunsteel strike, swords dance,power whip, and either sacred sword or spore. It's so much stronger than in standard it isn't even funny.
Yeh echoing the sentiments for the pro-ban on Kartana. It truly is a menace even without the access to Shift Gear due to Swords Dance + Beast Boost creating a pseudo Shift Gear boost when KOing a mon (if u EVed properly). Really it's only Safety Goggles Celesteela that can somewhat handle it but even then, some are starting to run Sacred Sword now to bypass Steels. It truly is insane and can go alongside ComaPhazing.
Kartana was broken before the Tapu Lele ban, and it's still broken. Josh, when was the last time you played with or against Kartana? Any Spore set beats priority, no priority (zero) OHKO Kartana anyways, and it OHKOes all in return anyways. Swords Dance blasts through everything and it has enough Speed to completely shit on every team that doesn't carry a Scarved Fire-type. Kartana has nothing holding it back bar King's Shield 252/252+ Celesteela with Safety Goggles. Having to use that one thing or risk getting completely run over by Kartana is 100% not healthy. Find me a good list of things that counter it and I'll listen to it not being broken. Things can check it, sure, but Spore neuters its checks and after a Swords Dance, it runs through teams and you can't just sack something to wear it down due to Beast Boost. Ban it.
Nominating Zygarde for A+ rank. This thing is showing up everywhere now and even though it's super predictable, it's just amazing at what it does. From what I've seen it runs either Coil or Dragon Dance sets with Substitute / Shore Up / Thousand Arrows. Unless you're a Tapu Bulu or HP Ice Tangrowth (or smthn else I guess) you're gonna have to do a lot of careful maneuvering around this guy. Icicle Spear Kyurem-B can work, too, but will struggle versus a DD set and is just sorta inferior to its other options imo.
Also, council, do you think it's time to open up the B ranks? Betathunder ihhca Funbot28 Official Fissure
Also, let's get some more Frontier challenges going!
Also, council, do you think it's time to open up the B ranks? Betathunder ihhca Funbot28 Official Fissure
Also, let's get some more Frontier challenges going!
Yes, Zygarde possesses the right amount of bulk to effectively pull of Substitute + Dragon Dance sets really well. Its typing is also very good, as it allows it to resist many common offensive attacks from Fire and Rock types as well. Faces a bit of competition with Garchomp, but the use of Thousand Arrows makes up for that. Please rise.
Also yeh we can start going onto B-Rank (although I still feel work can be done on A-ranks, mainly with adding Yanmega, lowering Aquaranid, and maybe bumping Keldeo).
Also yeh we can start going onto B-Rank (although I still feel work can be done on A-ranks, mainly with adding Yanmega, lowering Aquaranid, and maybe bumping Keldeo).
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