Suspect SV Camomons Suspect Test: Stronger (Annihilape)

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Viable typings:
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Following the Camomons survey results (will be fully discussed on the Camomons thread soon), 42.1% of respondents think Annihilape should be banned and almost all of you, 94.7%, are open to a tiering action about the monkey. The Camomons council therefore decided to take advantage of the ladder to suspect it!

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Last weeks, the Camomons council banned many mons (10 to be exact) through 2 ban slates involving quick bans. We chose this approach in order to get rid of the most problematic elements as soon as possible to achieve a preliminary balanced state and let you try the ladder in the best conditons. However, while we're thinking the biggest part of our job in the balancing process of this new generation has been done, our work isn't over. Nevertheless, we now decided to work with the community thanks to this opportunity to get a ladder for the whole month of February.


Annihilape was a well known figure in OU terrorizing the metagame thanks to both Rage Fist and terastallization that led it to be banned. In Camomons, Annihilape is theoretically even scarier with more typings. However, Camomons has banned terastallization (or implemented terastal clause) removing this crucial element that made it banned from OU. You can therefore build solid gameplans depending on the typing and don't be scared to see it gone by a sudden typing change making your revenge killing impossible for instance. Annihilape also becomes somehow more predictable considering it will be (almost) all the time Ghost to get the STAB on Rage Fist which is an element inseparable from its power.

Rage Fist is indeed the main element, paired with Annihilape's amazing bulk of 110/80/90, potentially pushing it over the edge. Any hit Annihilape takes increases Rage Fist's power by 50 (up to 350). Given how powerful Ghost is offensively, I let you imagine how devastating it can be.

252 SpA Choice Specs
Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD
Annihilape: 254-300 (59.9 - 70.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs
Dragapult Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD
Annihilape: 174-205 (41 - 48.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs
Iron Valiant Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD
Annihilape: 338-402 (79.7 - 94.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

To support Rage Fist, Annihilape uses most of the time Drain Punch (base typing) to get a near perfect coverage really hard to switch into. Moreover, Drain Punch provides to Annihilape some recovery which is great to stay on the field and boost Rage Fist or be sufficiently high in HP to prevent revenge killing. However, if we should avoid hitting Annihilape directly, what's about using status or any kind of passive damages?
Well, Annihilape gets Substitute to prevent that but it doesn't help boosting Rage Fist damages. In fact, it has a better option with Taunt. Taunt prevents any non-offensive moves protecting Annihilape from being burned by Will-O-Wisp or poisoned by Toxic It also prevents pivoting through Chilly Reception or phazing with Whirlwind for instance. Annihilape can therefore easily take advantage of passive walls to boost Rage Fist and put you in a difficult situation because staying will only make Rage Fist stronger (defensive mon hit like a fly for Annhilape) and switching on an offensive mon can be dangerous depending on Rage Fist current power.
Finally, Bulk Up is the last tool on its arsenal making it hard to break on the physical side while getting stronger and this even while you avoid hitting it to not boost Rage Fist.

It's possible to get rid of Drain Punch for something like Earthquake preserving a good offensive and defensive combination with more immediate power. Facade can be used to counter other Annihilape (but not only) on some Rest-talk sets. We've also seen some Grass, Dark and Poison variant.


On another side, Annihilape feels somehow inconsistent because the most common variant,
, can be hard walled by any
that exist in Camomons! It's also possible to answer Annihilape without relying on such hard counter, simply with mons like Fairy Great Tusk/Iron Hands/Meowscarada being able to beat it 1v1 as long as you don't let it setup too much. Psychic type Lycanroc-Dusk is basically able to trade with Annihilape at +1 defense. With enough chip, you can revenge kill it with Dragapult. It also hates a lot being deprived from its Leftovers so Knock Off is usually a good way to deal with it. This is particularly the case for the
one. And when it tries another type, it opens itself to larger offensive counterplay with Water and Grass weaknesses (Ground case), Fire and Dark (Grass variant) or Ground (Poison variant) which are all more common offensive types.
Annihilape also tends to work versus quite passive teams but can be a burden against really offensive playstyle such as rain, sun or screens HO because it requires passiviy and some turns to really start breaking.

Overall, if Camomons offers new possibilities for Annihilape, none are really better than its base typing and are absolutely not comparable to what terastallization provided to it in SV OU. Camomons also creates new counterplay with the possibility to use typing such as
defensively or broader offensive counterplay. However, despite this, Annihilape stays a huge threat for balanced that you need to be aware of and that can just autowin depending on the MU.

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How (Suspect Details):
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, February 14th) with "CMRF" [Nick]"--for example, I could create one called "CMRF Torkoal TR hater" to ladder with. Having the prefix at the beginning of your alt name is mandatory, AKA not in the middle (e.g. Ponch CMRF lake) and not at the end (e.g. Euphonos CMRF#). Please do not attempt to impersonate other users, as this may lead to an infraction.
  • To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 25 games, and you must have a minimum GXE of 75.
  • Annihilape will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.
  • The suspect test will go for two weeks and end on Monday, February 27th (10:59 pm GMT +1).
  • When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to disseminate topical opinions regarding whether or not Annihilape should be banned (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).
Good luck and have fun! Tagging Kris for implementation, thanks!
 
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Leaning DNB atm but unsure. Annihilape is strong but doesn't stand out that much to me. Terastallization has been removed from Camomons and was the element that made it really broken in OU. I tend to think team just losing to Annihilape are not good because yeah you must take the mon into account in the teambuilder otherwise what are you expecting? Also people tend to not play correctly vs Annihilape from my knowledge allowing to boost Rage Fist or offering setup turns. Counterplay is larger than just
to me. Here's a list of (viable) things dealing decently with Annihilape (2 most common and "hardest" ones to deal with, see suspect post above).

:great tusk::meowscarada:

:great tusk::glimmora:

:scream tail::arcanine:

:gholdengo:

:iron treads:

:skeledirge::noivern::garganacl:

:iron valiant::wo-chien::garchomp::amoonguss:

:dondozo:

:breloom:
(offensive counterplay working vs slow Annihilape only).
Fast WoW: :cinderace::dragapult::rotom-wash::gengar:

Will continue to watch and play games until I'm fully decided. Will also maybe make a post or edit there.
 
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Taking 20 mins to find a game is certainly not good to do req without forgetting you searched for one.
:breloom: :masquerain: :gholdengo: :heracross: :salamence: :garchomp: - Hazard stack Web offense
Web is criminally underrated (literally absent outside of my team), you can easily customize Ghost-types to prevent Great Tusk from spinning, though Court Change is still a problem. It's also helped by the fact Speed control isn't usually a focus here, and there are many Pokemon that take advantage of Web well. In fact, while it's not the best place, I'd like to nom Masquerain for Mid in Viability List, it's the best Web setter with a lot of flexibility in terms of typing and options. Water/Bug, Water/Ghost, Water/Grass, etc. Intimidate and Stun Spore give it respectable defensive presence, and its Speed is good enough to take advantage of Web itself. I'd like to propose Basculin-Blue-Stripe and Gallade for Low as well, Rock Head Wave Crash + Head Smash is pretty threatening so long that you hit. As for Gallade, it's usually a worse Lycandusk but it does have niches like ignoring Def boosts with Sacred Sword, options like Leaf Blade, or you stack them to overwhelm shared checks like I saw a team on ladder.

As for Annihilape itself, while I didn't face it that often, it was usually pretty underwhelming compared to what it seems like on paper against me and when I spectated as well. There are a lot of customizable tools that can handle it, and it can't run both offensive variant and max SpD at the same time. Low Spe means it gets revenge killed more comfortably and risks status from more mons, while offensive sets is still vulnerable to faster Pokemon and has a harder time setting up against special attackers. This is compounded by Rage Fist being so weak before getting hit at least once (which while not hard can still be played around like predicting it switching into U-turn). Echoing Siamato above, I believe there are enough counterplays outside of Normal/Ghost that I will likely vote DNB
 

Osake

Hasta Siempre
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confirming as CMRF Solgaliléo (s/o Siamato for being a goat Lyna for being awesome and Dragonillis for being a cutie)

I laddered with an Ape team and I thought it was broken before laddering but I founded in fact quite disappointing, you can't tera, you're slow af, you don't hit Normal/Ghost at all which are not so hard to use, and even without them there are a lot of midgrounds/stuff that can handle it, even if you're bulky you're super slow as longhiep mentionned but you still take a lot on specs/band attacks if you're not at +6 so you can be revenge killed, etc
I won like 2 or 3 games with Annihilape, most of the time I was just using it as a spin blocker and it doesn't feel overwhelming rn (unlike other threats like Garchomp or Hydreigon that I find WAY more hard to handle)

srry Euphonos, I haxxed you badly
 
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WE'RE IN, BUCKAROOS.
S/O to screens cheese and some wet birds for getting me this far.


I'm getting rid of this stupid monkey, its extremely versatile and can change around it's setup to fuck with common counters, but simultaneously it's most common set also pressures counterplay such as Ghost/Normal on teams. And its far from impossible to play around other checks that it can at least actually hit since it's so bulky (Especially after bulk up) and can carry taunt for hyperfat things that might try to outlast it. That said, I do think the Ghost/Fight bulk-up set is overrated even despite this and this ape really goes bananas when you try other things on it. Seriously, load this thing up in builder, it's got so many options.
 
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Vertigo

the inevitable masquerading as a coincidence
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played during dead ladder (bad timezone ig) and i didn't run into a lot of monkeys but the few i ran into weren't that much of a problem in a vacuum. that being said you kinda have to run normal/ghost or you're fucked sooo we'll see what other ppl have to say
 
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