Announcement SV National Dex Suspect #20 - Señorita

[omar]

Following the most recent tiering survey, which was only the latest in a long string of high scores for Ogerpon-Wellspring, the council has decided to suspect test it.

During its initial introduction Ogerpon-W took advantage of the additional advantage of a +1 SpDef boost and arguably better defensive typing to be nigh unkillable on the special side, allowing it to comfortably eat hits from Pokemon such as Iron Moth and Galarian Slowking that would otherwise threaten to OHKO it. In addition to this, Swords Dance boosted Ivy Cudgels further boosted by terastalization allowed it to effortlessly rip through almost all defensive counterplay, making dealing with it a game of out-offensing it and limiting its setup. There were somewhat consistent answers such as Dragonite and various tera Dragon Pokemon, though the latter would be afraid of the occasional Play Rough and the latter could crumple to the sheer strength of boosted Ivy Cudgel.

Despite all of this it avoided a second suspect test, as terastalization was banned and without the +1 SpDef boost on command and the advent of returning answers such as Dragapult and Melmetal made it seem like a much more manageable threat. This was true for a while, with Ogerpon-W being limited to mostly pivot sets, but after Dragapult and Roaring Moon were banned it was free to run wild with Swords Dance once more, now without having to fear tera Dragon at every corner. Additionally, there was new experimentation with Ogerpon-W's sets, with many Swords Dance variants dropping the old standard of Superpower for Play Rough or Trailblaze, allowing it to either deal with Mega Latios immediately or lean more heavily into the cleaner playstyle. Pivot variants of Ogerpon-W still find their place on various balance teams, also featuring new options such as Synthesis. Having to account for all of these sets has put serious strain on teambuilding, with next to no Pokemon being able to reliably deal with its wide range of options, which has made many teams default back to offensively answering it with Pokemon such as Zamazenta, Tornadus-T, or Electrium Z Tapu Koko.

Having said this, Ogerpon-W has numerous flaws that can be exploited to deal with it easier. Most evidently is its lackluster bulk, particularly noticeable without a +1 SpDef boost patching up its Special Defense, meaning it is a challenge to properly position Ogerpon-W in order to freely click Swords Dance, as even purely defensive Pokemon such as Alomomola, Toxapex, Gliscor and Ting-Lu can live any hit once and hinder it with Toxic or halve its health with Ruination. As with most setup sweepers, Terapagos is also a major hinderance to Ogerpon-W, being able to live almost any hit thanks to its Tera Shell and threatening massive damage in return with Tera Starstorm. Ogerpon-W even has to tread carefully around Fire-type Pokemon, as Heatran threatens major damage with Magma Storm, Moltres' U-Turn can put Ogerpon-W in range of Zamazenta and Urshifu-Rapid's Close combat while Volcarona's Bug Buzz threatens a OHKO. Even past these difficulties, common Pokemon such as Ferrothorn, Pecharunt, Gholdengo and Melmetal can survive boosted attacks and either KO it back or otherwise hinder it significantly.

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:

• Create a new account OR use an existing one with no SV National Dex OU games played (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played National Dex OU before the test, full stop.) You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in National Dex OU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements.
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• If you want to double check your account eligibility after following these instructions; play at least 1 game on the account, then run the /rank command on that account. You should see a field on the far right that reads "Suspect Test Eligible?"
• Example

  
• If this field says "No" then you have either not set up the account correctly or need to use a different/new account. You do not need to complete your entire reqs for this field to say "Yes"
• The above does not mean that you have completed reqs! It is only to see if your account is valid for your run.
• After you believe that you have achieved reqs, double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact sealoo, omar, or a member of forum staff.
• If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM sealoo, omar, or post here!
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted.
• We will be using the regular National Dex ladder for this suspect test.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2950. The suspect test will go on for roughly two weeks, lasting until July 27th at 11:00pm GMT -4, and then voting will become available on Smogon, where you will be tagged with a link to cast your vote.

This thread will open after 24 hours to allow all users to share and discuss their thoughts on this suspect test. We expect all posters to follow the following rules:

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the National Dex Council and the National Dex Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the hypotheticals and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokémon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokémon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result of this suspect, then so be it. "I told you so" arguments on their own also contribute little to the discussion without supporting evidence and are rather unwelcomed.
  • This is not the place to complain about the suspect process. Please PM sealoo or omar if you have any questions regarding this, and any broader questions about this test.

Keep in mind that the outcome of our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote and voice their opinion.

 

[Solaros & Lunaris]

Thread is now free. A reminder to read and follow the rules.

 

[Sami]

Ok I guess I'll post first then. I haven't actually completed suspect yet BUT I do play this metagame quite a lot so I don't think that would make a difference anyways (also it's only been like 2 days give me a rest).

Ogerpon-W, while it is an absolute beast in the builder, feels less powerful than you would expect it to be in practice. Not only does it have lackluster bulk, like how the OP says it does, making revenge-killing by any faster foe relatively easy, but it struggles quite a bit with hazards, status conditions, and simply finding the correct time to sweep. Most Pokemon that are threatened by it, such as Gliscor, Alomomola, and Moltres, all carry Toxic, which massively holds back Ogerpon-W's sweeping potential, because it ends up just getting switched around by any standard defensive core if it does get poisoned, and it eventually gets revenge killed if something does end up dying to it. It's need for coverage holds it back too, preventing it from viably using other moves such as Subsitute, Taunt, Encore, Synthesis, and Trailblaze, since it needs Superpower to hit Ferrothorn and Archaludon (mostly the former ofc), or Play Rough to hit Dragon-types not named Garchomp. Although Ogerpon-W is excellent at trading with balance/BO cores, and excellent at punishing fat balance and stall, it doesn't have a nice matchup against offense teams barring Rain, which even then its not perfect that, since it is prone to being 2HKOed on the switch by coverage moves, or being soft-checked by Raging Bolt anyways. Is it completely bad that the main way of beating it is through offense? Not necessarily... after all, Mega Diancie and Garchomp are just as hard to stop without dedicated checks like Celesteela or Corviknight, yet they aren't worth suspecting. Of course, Ogerpon-W is slighty different cuz of how much more common it is, but without Tera Water to boost its SpD, its more-or-less the same situation as them two.

But thats pretty much all I have to say, ngl there wasnt much to begin with this mon is kinda basic, DNB (for now, i might be convinced otherwise)

 

[ecxdee]

I agree, woger seems overpowering in the builder but in practice, it rarely gets a sweep. SD seems to be the most problematic set, but it just isnt outstanding in any way. Zapdos lives +2 barring a crit and ohkos back, corv lives +2 and uturns to a revenge killer, pex lives +2 and gets off a tox, scor lives +0 and gets off a tox, KGB forces it out after it takes any chip, etc. Yes, woger can wear down and eventually break its checks over time... just like anything else? Almost every time in practice both using and fighting, it gets a kill and then dies to a revenge killer and/or the combination of status and hazards. In my opinion, this is a healthy role for an offensive pokemon to have in a balance-centered metagame. Unless there's something big I'm missing or a new broken tech pops up, I will be voting DNB.

 

[R8]

Might expand a bit later but i am currently planning to vote ban on woger for reasons i stated on this post - i don't think it is broken, but i do believe it is unhealthy as its sturdiest answers have often very little overlap with the rest of the tier. NatDex is a tier where you have to account for a lot of threats, so compression is naturally important, and since the best defensive answers to woger aren't things you'd want to often run that much anyway (dragons, fat grasses - they can check the rest of the tier in some capacity but not as much as you'd want a slot on your team to imo) lot of teams end up using the soft check + revenge killer combo.

In a vacuum, i wouldn't even disagree that it is reasonable to prepare for this mon, but i think it is one of the reasons why teambuilding feels a lot worse here than compared to gen8nd for anything bulkier than offense. You often don't have to actually counter it, sure, but you still have to respect it a lot on the builder and that limits a lot what you can wield in the builder imo, especially consider how different its offensive/defensive profile is compared to the other mons in the tier which contributes to a feeling of "too much threats" in the builder.


A much more minor reason but still worth to be mentioned is that banning woger removes an element of variance in the tier being cudgel crits + the scenarios with zapdos/tornt trying to check it with the inaccurate move lol. That's not a reason to ban something on its own of course - esp since this is part of the game we play -, but i always found Pokemon mandating you to run an inaccurate move to check them a bit stupid at times. In the case of woger it's ofc not always the case but you know, it does happen that sometimes u need to hit that hurricane/bleakwind vs woger and the tier would be better without that scenario


TLDR: i think woger is not broken, but it's unhealthy and i believe the tier would be a lot better to build in if it didn't exist. That is why i'm currently planning to vote ban.

 

[Vlarcheops]

Well, I'd imagine that Ogerpon Wellspring would've being suspect tested again. Therefore I'd bring my arguments on why I would let Ogerpon Wellspring stay in the tier

Restrained Item Slot: ​

Now first things first, we have to account that Wellspring will ALWAYS have the weelspring mask, no matter what. Therefore meaning it can't have a Choice Band or a Choice Scarf as an Item, given that if you want Wellspring you HAVE to have the wellspring mask. Though the mask gives Ogerpon-W a strong multiplier of 1.2 on all her attacks. While great, it's not broken by any means. Sure it can be annoying, but there are factors in National Dex OU that can keep Wellspring in check: Pokemón hat outspeed Wellspring or walls having a great time annoying Wellspring.

Crucial vulnerability to hazards ​

As I stated before, because you WANT the Operpon Wellspring form, it is mandatory that she helds the Wellspring Mask as her item, meaning she can't have Heavy-Duty Boots as her item. That lets her being weak/vulnerable to Hazards such as Stealth Rock, Sticky Web and (Toxic) Spikes. And it is crucial since these hazards are common in the tier: we have Samurott-Hisui with Ceaseless Edge, Landorus-Therian or any Pókemon that learns Stealth Rocks and Bug Pókemon such as Ribombee and Araquanid having few problem by setting up Sticky Web. If Hazards are in Wellspring's field, she would suffer a condition and passive damage respectively accounting of the ammount of hazards in her field

Speed Powercreep in National Dex ​

As my next argument I have her speed, Don't get me wrong, 110 Speed is great, though in Generation 9, that speed is easily overwhelmed. And here in National Dex is no different. We have great Pókemon that can outspeed Ogerpon Wellspring while dealingh significant damage to it. Unlinke Gen. 9 OU, we have tapu Koko with 130 Speed, being able to pivot in Wellspring's face by using either STAB Volt Switch or the super-effective U-Turn with its strong attack, Tornadus-Therian being able to faint Wellspring with STAB Hurricane/Bleakwind Storm or with Flyium Z, Weavile is also a good Pókemon with STAB Triple Axel or Knock off, mega Lopunny with STAB Priority Fake Out and strong STAB attacks such as Close Combat and Return/Frustration, Zamazenta with either an Iron Defense ser or a Choice Band set with STAB Close Combat (Heavy-Duty Boots could still threaten it) and Iron Valiant with Choice Specs sets or Swords Dance sets.

Notable Remark ​

Outside of natural speed, its not a hard task to outspeed Wellspring with a speed boost, let it be from Rapid Spin or Choice Scarf: Tapu Lele, Urshifu and Kartana outspeed Wellspring with Choice Scarf and threaten it with strong moves, being it a strong STAB attack or a pivoting move. Terapagos and Great Tusk could outspeeed Ogerpon after a Rapid Spin and threaten it with STAB Terastar Storm and Close Combat respectively.

Problematic Walls ​

Even though the power of Wellspring is NOT to be underestimated, it still has its porblems, as even strong Pókemon like Wellspring can be overwhelmed by defensive Pókemon. An example of that is Ferrothorn: being both Grass and Steel, Ferrothorn restist Wellspring's STAB attacks and noteable moves. All Wellspring can do is either use Knock Off as a way to get rid of Ferrothorn's item or use Superpower, which won't even KO it. Plus Superpower is inconsisten, as it weakens Wellspings attack and defense. Another wall giving Wellspring problems is Toxapex: now granted it can struggle with Wellsprimng but due to having an incredible defence alongside stuff like Baneful Bunker, Haze and Toxic, it can cause Wellspring to struggle and if Wellspring gets poisoned, she'son a timer, which Toxapex acn shorten with spanning Recover or Baneful Bunker. And even stuff like Gliscor and Alomomola, who seem Wellspring's fish food, COULD resist her STAB attacks and badly poison her with Toxic, abd just like Toxapex, playing games with Protect. Plus stuff like Terapagos could be a porblem, as it always resists the first attack and thrreatens Wellspring wuth STAB Terastar Storm and Corviknight, being able to even resist a Swords Dance boosted STAB Ivy Cudgel, can pivot in Wellspring's face with U-turn while hurting it.

So there you have it, my arguments on why Wellspring shouldn't be banned, as it while being strong, it's still an OK to a welcome presence in the tier. Therefore letting it stay wouldn't be a big deal at all. So therefore I'll be voting Do Not Ban!

Thanks for reading! Take Care! ​

 

[CappyThePulpy]

Did not finish reqs yet, but I will be voting ban on this. Why?

Let’s compare to , one of the best wallbreakers in the tier and a top tier mon overall.

Similarities:
Same speed tier, similar raw power and near unwallable offensive presence, good stab combo (diancie’s is probably better), access to spikes, locked item slot, hazard weakness, and enough set variety to surprise your opponent or make them consider multiple possibilities.

Differences:

Considering no defensive investment, waterpon has better bulk 80/84/96 vs 50/110/110, further amplified by diancie ususally running spdef lowering nature to get access to its best rock stab move. Waterpon has a much better defensive typing, 3 weaknesses vs 4, with its weaknesses being much more uncommon (flying and poison are pretty rare, bug is very rare except for uturn). Resisting ground with decent bulk is always going to be useful, compared to diancie which is weak to ground and water, probably the 2 most common types in ou. Their matchup vs priority is relevant, with diancie resisting sucker punch and espeed while droppind dead to bullet punch.

One of the most relevant differences is in their abilities. While magic bounce is amazing in a vacuum, diancie is mostly threatened by anything which wants to set hazards or throw status. Meanwhile waterpon gains an immunity to water, very relevant for scald, the no1 fear of any physical attacker, and flip turn, which is far more likely to come into play than magic bounce (only considering 4a or 3a hazard sets, full lead sets abuse magic bounce very well).

Diancie has stealth rock, mixed attacking capability, and better coverage if running 4a. Clicking hazards vs a diancie team (after mega) is risky, but clicking scald, flip turn, or even a lower power eq vs a waterpon team is much scarier.


Now the big differences:

1. Boosting. Waterpon has swords dance, which is much better than calm mind for the immediate threat style that both mons employ. Waterpon’s much better defensive profile enables more opportunities to set up. The defensive boost from diamond storm is nice, but not that relevant, as diancie is still held back by its typing and bad hp.
2. Offensive typing and coverage. While diancie probably hits more stuff for good damage with its great coverage options, it notably struggles to pick up kos on bulky waters and is immediately threatened by them. Waterpon threatens them (even pex hates eating a +2 power whip), while in exchange having a hard time vs grasses (even the non bulky ones like meowscarada or kartana), and some dragons if you dont run play rough. Considering the relevance of the bulky water in ou, this is very important. Diancie will eventually break the bulky water, but much slower and will give counterplay opportunities such as flip turn. Meanwhile waterpon almost fully negates the bulky water, only letting it toxic, which is good but you will still have a waterpon problem for a few turns until toxic kills it.
3. Physical vs special/mixed:
Diancie’s mixed attacking profile is amazing (dont run power gem its a grief), but it still has to deal with the massive spdef mons in the meta: av mola, clodsire, chansey, glowking. They tend to eat diamond storm to a certain extent, have reliable recovery and can threaten it in return.
Meanwhile the mons with massive physdef (ferro, melm, tusk, etc) are either weak to it, or lack reliable recovery. Waterpon also negates the biggest drawbacks of a physical attacker, contact and (scald) burn.

TLDR: and have comparable offensive output, one a full glass cannon and the other has at least a workable defensive profile. Water/grass + fairy coverage is not as good as fairy/rock + fire/ground coverage, but still has its upsides

 

[adocks3]

Did not finish reqs yet, but I will be voting ban on this. Why?

Let’s compare to , one of the best wallbreakers in the tier and a top tier mon overall.

Similarities:
Same speed tier, similar raw power and near unwallable offensive presence, good stab combo (diancie’s is probably better), access to spikes, locked item slot, hazard weakness, and enough set variety to surprise your opponent or make them consider multiple possibilities.

Differences:

Considering no defensive investment, waterpon has better bulk 80/84/96 vs 50/110/110, further amplified by diancie ususally running spdef lowering nature to get access to its best rock stab move. Waterpon has a much better defensive typing, 3 weaknesses vs 4, with its weaknesses being much more uncommon (flying and poison are pretty rare, bug is very rare except for uturn). Resisting ground with decent bulk is always going to be useful, compared to diancie which is weak to ground and water, probably the 2 most common types in ou. Their matchup vs priority is relevant, with diancie resisting sucker punch and espeed while droppind dead to bullet punch.

One of the most relevant differences is in their abilities. While magic bounce is amazing in a vacuum, diancie is mostly threatened by anything which wants to set hazards or throw status. Meanwhile waterpon gains an immunity to water, very relevant for scald, the no1 fear of any physical attacker, and flip turn, which is far more likely to come into play than magic bounce (only considering 4a or 3a hazard sets, full lead sets abuse magic bounce very well).

Diancie has stealth rock, mixed attacking capability, and better coverage if running 4a. Clicking hazards vs a diancie team (after mega) is risky, but clicking scald, flip turn, or even a lower power eq vs a waterpon team is much scarier.


Now the big differences:

1. Boosting. Waterpon has swords dance, which is much better than calm mind for the immediate threat style that both mons employ. Waterpon’s much better defensive profile enables more opportunities to set up. The defensive boost from diamond storm is nice, but not that relevant, as diancie is still held back by its typing and bad hp.
2. Offensive typing and coverage. While diancie probably hits more stuff for good damage with its great coverage options, it notably struggles to pick up kos on bulky waters and is immediately threatened by them. Waterpon threatens them (even pex hates eating a +2 power whip), while in exchange having a hard time vs grasses (even the non bulky ones like meowscarada or kartana), and some dragons if you dont run play rough. Considering the relevance of the bulky water in ou, this is very important. Diancie will eventually break the bulky water, but much slower and will give counterplay opportunities such as flip turn. Meanwhile waterpon almost fully negates the bulky water, only letting it toxic, which is good but you will still have a waterpon problem for a few turns until toxic kills it.
3. Physical vs special/mixed:
Diancie’s mixed attacking profile is amazing (dont run power gem its a grief), but it still has to deal with the massive spdef mons in the meta: av mola, clodsire, chansey, glowking. They tend to eat diamond storm to a certain extent, have reliable recovery and can threaten it in return.
Meanwhile the mons with massive physdef (ferro, melm, tusk, etc) are either weak to it, or lack reliable recovery. Waterpon also negates the biggest drawbacks of a physical attacker, contact and (scald) burn.

TLDR: and have comparable offensive output, one a full glass cannon and the other has at least a workable defensive profile. Water/grass + fairy coverage is not as good as fairy/rock + fire/ground coverage, but still has its upsides

You compared them really well but in the team builder the are a very good breaking core will their typing cover each other's weakness as you said that mega diance struggles with bulky water will ogerpon could care less about them and oger has problem with hazards which diance discourages from due to its ability same with you not wanting to flip turn on diance for fear of oger coming in and I believe that oger should not be banned as oger while it is a good mon in vacuum in is not unstoppable such as needing a breaker like fiance or something else to break stall and it being destroyed by many I not all ho teams will bulky balance semi stall and hazard stack team can either take a hit from it or just wear it down passively and will balance and offense might struggle they least should have on or two thing that take ogers hit like corv or zapdos in the case balance and offense most of the time will not being able to take its hit it has something that can out speed such as scarf mons or just naturally fast mons such a tapu koko or mega lopunny

 

[CappyThePulpy]

You compared them really well but in the team builder the are a very good breaking core will their typing cover each other's weakness as you said that mega diance struggles with bulky water will ogerpon could care less about them and oger has problem with hazards which diance discourages from due to its ability same with you not wanting to flip turn on diance for fear of oger coming in and I believe that oger should not be banned as oger while it is a good mon in vacuum in is not unstoppable such as needing a breaker like fiance or something else to break stall and it being destroyed by many I not all ho teams will bulky balance semi stall and hazard stack team can either take a hit from it or just wear it down passively and will balance and offense might struggle they least should have on or two thing that take ogers hit like corv or zapdos in the case balance and offense most of the time will not being able to take its hit it has something that can out speed such as scarf mons or just naturally fast mons such a tapu koko or mega lopunny

First of all please use some periods (“.”), my brain ran out of breath reading that.

Now getting to the point, I dont think that their offensive combo is a reason for or against a waterpon ban. I would argue that its combos with mons like mttar, tornT, flyZ lando, and zama are more relevant than its combo with diancie.

To address some other misconceptions in this thread:

Zapdos is not an answer or a favorable matchup in any way. Yes, waterpon wont ohko a zapdos but the zapdos is forced into an unfavourable prediction: click roost expecting a switch out, or click hurricane/twave expecting it to stay in. If you get it wrong your zapdos will die in the next interaction.

Gliscor, pex, mola can get a toxic off. Yes and you still have this thing clicking you for like 4 turns and probably ohko ing anything you bring in. If you are aiming to trade, then why run a wall in the first place? Why not play ho so waterpon never gets an opportunity to hit you? And thats the centralising aspect.

Also for all of you stall haters, guess which playstyle actually enjoys waterpon’s existence? Stall. Stall will answer waterpon, even if their answer is something cringe like amoonguss or corv + ditto. The absolute best undisputed way to play against waterpon is HO. Lead with hazards and smash 5 sweepers into your opponent. Your “skill” will have about the same impact as that waterpon (none). And now guess what absolutely farms HO? Stall. A good stall team will wipe the floor with any HO you throw at it excluding a VERY lucky sequence of crits. Stall mostly doesnt need its 6th slot to beat HO, that can be a slot dedicated for waterpon. So the idea that stall will pick up after its ban, therefore lets not ban it, is as shortsighted as I would expect from an HO player. Oh wait……..

Hazard weakness. This probably comes from the people using the no1 teambuilding crutch, corv. “Hmm i need hazard removal…. A pivot could be good…. A physical wall could be good….” And you add the mon which does none of those well. Of course “hazard weakness” is something you consider (on a mon neutral to rocks) when all your teams have corv and you forfeit against any hstack which doesnt blunder their ghold 5 turns in. If zardy can thrive in this tier, “hazard weakness” is bs. Also please note that waterpon beats pretty much all of the hazard setters (unlike yard).

For everyone thinking waterpon is fine, go get your reqs by playing balance.

 

[ecxdee]

Zapdos is not an answer or a favorable matchup in any way. Yes, waterpon wont ohko a zapdos but the zapdos is forced into an unfavourable prediction: click roost expecting a switch out, or click hurricane/twave expecting it to stay in. If you get it wrong your zapdos will die in the next interaction.

zapdos can always click volt switch, guaranteeing that either woger is forced out (meaning it needs to find another entry point later, and take hazards again) or getting a free entry to a rk and also putting it in range (puts it in range of lele psychic, shifu cc, zama cc, specs koko tbolt, etc). The issue isn't mind games; it's the cudgel crits that make this dicey.

Gliscor, pex, mola can get a toxic off. Yes and you still have this thing clicking you for like 4 turns and probably ohko ing anything you bring in. If you are aiming to trade, then why run a wall in the first place? Why not play ho so waterpon never gets an opportunity to hit you? And thats the centralising aspect.

the whole point of a wallbreaker is to trade into walls. The ability to force a trade is not unhealthy; it's what progresses the game.

Also for all of you stall haters, guess which playstyle actually enjoys waterpon’s existence? Stall. Stall will answer waterpon, even if their answer is something cringe like amoonguss or corv + ditto.

This is just not true. Woger is a premier stallbreaker, being able 1v1 dozo and kill a chipped corv with +2 cudgel. Also, even if what you were saying was true, whether or not a pokemon is stopped by stall does not have anything to do with how broken it is.

The absolute best undisputed way to play against waterpon is HO. Lead with hazards and smash 5 sweepers into your opponent. Your “skill” will have about the same impact as that waterpon (none). And now guess what absolutely farms HO? Stall. A good stall team will wipe the floor with any HO you throw at it excluding a VERY lucky sequence of crits. Stall mostly doesnt need its 6th slot to beat HO, that can be a slot dedicated for waterpon. So the idea that stall will pick up after its ban, therefore lets not ban it, is as shortsighted as I would expect from an HO player. Oh wait……..

Stall vs HO is not the easy win you're talking about. With tools such as z-moves, cm hat, and dengo, a good HO in nd has all the tools it needs to break stall with good playing. Even if you were right and stall vs ho was a free win, I dont see how that supports banning woger.

If zardy can thrive in this tier, “hazard weakness” is bs.

This argument doesn't make sense because the fact that yard exists does not prove that hazard weakness is irrelevant. Yard is used despite its major weakness to sr because its insane power justifies having extensive hazard removal. Yard suffers from rocks, and so does woger.

 

[sinnabyss]

Got reqs, and am definitely voting ban. Yes, i understand the argument of offensively outplaying ogerpon, but thats a thing that balance and fatter teams can't really do well. Checking oger alongside every other sweeper (volc, ghold, gambit, ival, etc) is incredibly hard to do for non-offense teams. To prove a point, im listing out all of ogerpon's defensive "answers" and why they arent great.

Common mons:
Ferrothorn


Ferrothorn is the most splashable check to Waterpon, and is a great mon in its own right. Stopping it from clicking stabs is undeniably helpful. However, most oger carry superpower, which at +2 OHKOs with minor chip. Helpful, but not a proper wall.

Zapdos

Zapdos can take a hit from oger even at +2. That is assuming, however, that it's at absolute full health and isn't crit by ivy cudgel. Even past cudgel crits, zap is basicly forced to roost every time it comes in, something very exploitable by oger teams.

 Corviknight

Corv is a solid check, but just like zapdos, it has to roost every time it comes in to avoid being 2HKOd the next time. Its also been suffering in general with ghold everywhere.

Pecharunt

Underrated mon honestly, but isnt the easiest to fit on teams. Pecha is also tasked with checking so many other mons like dnite, urshi, ival etc. it also gets 3Hit by cudgel, forcing a recover every time it comes in. Pecha also is setup fodder for common oger teammates like gambit and ghold.

Latios

Mlat is a super good glue mon for balance teams rn, one of the reasons being checking pon. It is rather sketchy at times tho. having to speed tie isnt fun, especially if oger sds on mlat switching in. mlat cant ohko oger even with draco meteor, and easily gets chipped by oger with cudgels and rocks. Rarer options like play rough and uturn also invalidate latios as a check.

Raging Bolt

Raging fraud... ignoring how bad this mon feels to use atm, it still isnt the greatest wellpon check. no recovery means that oger can just click stabs, leave, and come back later. Not to mention how any coverage screws it over pretty badly, esp play rough.

Dragonite

Dnite is a good check for offensive teams, barring play rough pon. Fitting it on balance, however, is rather awkward. DD roost sets are great as a wellpon check, but struggles to really make progress into other teams with just 2 attacks, while roostless dnite faces the same problem of being chipped into range.

Tornadus


Bulky torn can take anything ogerpon throws at it from full and force it out. However, the keyword is at full, because torn has to be in basicly perfect condition to even have a chance of taking cudgel, especially if it crits.

Niche Checks:

Venusaur

Probably the best oger check around. Mvenu can take nearly anything ogerpon throws at it. The problem with mvenu lies with fitting it on teams. Losing acess to more versatile megas like Mlop, mlat and mdia is quite a blow. It also struggles to make progress against other bulky teams, which for a mega, is not great. Hazard weakness is also very awkward to manage on a defensive mon.

Tangrowth

This mon takes oger well, but not much else. Tangrowth is evn harder to fit on teams, and really struggles to do much in the current meta. It can't handle other physical attackers like dnite, gambit, cinder, or zam, and is pretty free entry for other threats like volcarona, yard and ghold.

Sinistcha

Really dipping into niche territory here. Sinistcha does have a place in the meta as a spinblocker for very defensive spikes teams. It can take ogerpon on well(spring). The problem again lies with actually fitting it on teams, as non hazard stack teams don't have as much reason to use it, while even on hazard stack it has to compete with ghold and pecha, two far more flexible and less passive mons. Giving free entry to volc and yard is also not a good trait to have.

Im not gonna list out every other bulky grass, as they kinda suck and are basically impossible to fit on teams. Pokemon like Amoongus and Hydrapple don't really do much besides checking pon.

TLDR, the problem with oger is just how incredibly difficult it is to check for balance teams. It basicly mandates either 2 half-checks like Ferro + Torn, or very specific, hard to fit mons like mvenu. Even then, it can still just brute force its way through supposes answers like pecha and corv. While it is true that most offensive teams dgaf about oger, that isn't its job. Handling oger alongside every other absurd threat in natdex is frankly near impossible. Oger is both broken and unhealthy, and brings no value to the metagame outside of being an absurd breaker, something natdex has no shortage of. All in all, i think banning oger will be beneficial to the long-term health of the meta.​

 

[Runo]

Most Pokemon that are threatened by it, such as Gliscor, Alomomola, and Moltres, all carry Toxic, which massively holds back Ogerpon-W's sweeping potential, because it ends up just getting switched around by any standard defensive core if it does get poisoned, and it eventually gets revenge killed if something does end up dying to it.

Another wall giving Wellspring problems is Toxapex: now granted it can struggle with Wellsprimng but due to having an incredible defence alongside stuff like Baneful Bunker, Haze and Toxic, it can cause Wellspring to struggle and if Wellspring gets poisoned, she'son a timer, which Toxapex acn shorten with spanning Recover or Baneful Bunker. And even stuff like Gliscor and Alomomola, who seem Wellspring's fish food, COULD resist her STAB attacks and badly poison her with Toxic, abd just like Toxapex, playing games with Protect.

As soon as Ogerpon-W is boosted, outrunning the clock via status only works if you are willing to sack something to bring in your revenge killer or could already wall it by standard means. It for sure works towards limiting the extent of the damage but it is so insignificant long term that one could've just missed toxic for all intents and purposes and the outcome would be very similar. It's not even close to an even trade. Relying on Protect games instead of switching to a revenge killer might be even worse than just getting the toxic off and then accepting that Toxapex or whoever will lose the interaction. Baneful Pex is not a good mon, what vital move are they dropping to add that in? Surely not Haze or Toxic because that that's just an additional chance to click Swords Dance and turn stuff like Zapdos and Gholdengo from "iffy" checks at pristine health to just always losing. Damage mitigation by virtue of switching back and forth around the coverage CAN be a method but spreading out those heavy hits to conserve a vital defensive piece is both extremely risky (ignoring the fact that Ogerpon-W can just win the predict games and maul stuff nonetheless) as Ferrothorn, Zapdos, Toxapex still get chunked very very heavily. I'm not saying the only way to beat SD Ogerpon after the boost is to sack a mon but I personally find the concept of not pretending your defensive core is always going to be strong into Ogerpon-W more freeing than stretching all of your resources thin to tackle it.

We have great Pókemon that can outspeed Ogerpon Wellspring while dealingh significant damage to it.

Similar to running out the clock, bringing in bulky but fast offensive checks such as Zamazenta and Tornadus-T requires some form of sacrifice to occur. As Cappy alluded to, a lot of mons that can safely bring in Zamazenta and Tornadus-T do not have substantial longevity or have to be forced into a tricky interactions because of the relative variance of Ogerpon-W. Landorus-T deciding to eat the Ivy Cudgel in order to bring in Tornadus-T, sure that's "fine" albeit this is a short term mentality. Most of Ogerpon's switch-ins are actually pretty short term in fact as evidenced by the explanation above regarding Zapdos, Gholdengo, etc. And then of course coverage variation makes that an additional challenge (Sorry Mega Latios player unfortunately you queued into Play Rough so your team actually sucks ass, maybe run Ferrothorn next time.) What's the alternative though, hard switching your main revenge killers in? Tornadus-T has Regenerator sure but it loathes switching into Ivy Cudgel multiple times and god forbid it loses the 1/8 chance to crit odds or a 20%/30% chance to just miss with its OHKO move. Zamazenta I don't know just hope it's partnered with Alomomola and that doesn't get turned into setup fodder by Sub Swords Dance?

All Wellspring can do is either use Knock Off as a way to get rid of Ferrothorn's item or use Superpower, which won't even KO it.

+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 352-416 (100 - 118.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

?

I'd also like to add that Swords Dance was mentioned a grand total of one time in that post. Did we also think that Boots Pivot Roaring Moon Spikes Magearna was the reason they were problematic? Like you can't call Ferrothorn and Toxapex a check when Swords Dance is going blow their heads off smooth.

Now first things first, we have to account that Wellspring will ALWAYS have the weelspring mask, no matter what. Therefore meaning it can't have a Choice Band or a Choice Scarf as an Item, given that if you want Wellspring you HAVE to have the wellspring mask. Though the mask gives Ogerpon-W a strong multiplier of 1.2 on all her attacks. While great, it's not broken by any means. Sure it can be annoying, but there are factors in National Dex OU that can keep Wellspring in check: Pokemón hat outspeed Wellspring or walls having a great time annoying Wellspring.

As I stated before, because you WANT the Operpon Wellspring form, it is mandatory that she helds the Wellspring Mask as her item, meaning she can't have Heavy-Duty Boots as her item. That lets her being weak/vulnerable to Hazards such as Stealth Rock, Sticky Web and (Toxic) Spikes. And it is crucial since these hazards are common in the tier: we have Samurott-Hisui with Ceaseless Edge, Landorus-Therian or any Pókemon that learns Stealth Rocks and Bug Pókemon such as Ribombee and Araquanid having few problem by setting up Sticky Web. If Hazards are in Wellspring's field, she would suffer a condition and passive damage respectively accounting of the ammount of hazards in her field

I know of a pokemon that also was weak to hazards and couldn't have a different item, yet was still really stupid to deal with. As a matter of fact it had the same exact speed tier too.

Spoiler

Obviously this is a far more extreme example than Ogerpon-W but a lot of these arguments are making the assumption that if an opponent gets hazards off then suddenly its not going to be problematic into Balance teams. Ogerpon-W has very few consistent defensive checks, it has the tools or the odds so to speak to overpower its checks so yes when the team is slower it will be far more problematic than a faster paced team. This is also why I think mentioning Sticky Webs is rather pointless. The teams that are struggling to handle Ogerpon are not the Mega Diancie HOs and Sticky Web HOs or Screens HOs. In fact its more likely that HO will use Ogerpon-W to its maximum offensive potential compared to Balance or Bulky Offense.

This is just not true. Woger is a premier stallbreaker, being able 1v1 dozo and kill a chipped corv with +2 cudgel. Also, even if what you were saying was true, whether or not a pokemon is stopped by stall does not have anything to do with how broken it is.

The point they are making is that Stall has an easier time adapting to the presence of Ogerpon-W than a standard balance team would. This is the case for many other supposed stallbreakers such as Tapu Lele, Hoopa-Unbound, or Psyshock Gholdengo, Calm Mind Hatterene. HO Players expecting a free win because they think that these stallbreakers are going to overwhelm a stall are in for a rude awaking because, shocker, you have to actually work for your win instead of clicking buttons. This is doubly so when dealing with Ditto stalls as setting up presents a unique issue whereby you have to setup to break, but doing so means you will more than likely lose the breaker in question to Ditto or lose on the spot if your sweeper is fast and insanely hard to revenge kill (think +2 Offensive Gholdengo but now it outpaces everything on HO too).

Does Stall benefit from Ogerpon-W's removal, fucking hell yeah it does. Would it nessarily care if it remained? Not really. It doesn't matter the tier, there is more often than not a place for stall once a specific build is optimized because once it gets that boost to its consistency it is a VERY dangerous matchup to play against especially in these more offensive metagames.

Now compare this to balance. What is the ideal balance team check list? Lets say for a simple guideline, you cannot struggle against anything in ranks S to A- on the VR. Is there a balance team that fulfills this objective? How about just losing to one mon? How many poor matchups should one be comfortable with to call it consistent?

Rest of this post's arguments I more or less touched on with the other responses.

Not necessarily... after all, Mega Diancie and Garchomp are just as hard to stop without dedicated checks like Celesteela or Corviknight, yet they aren't worth suspecting

This is a little disingenuous to claim. Mega Diancie does not have access to a move that can boost its power to an obscene metric, while Garchomp's does not have an easy way of getting the desired setup turns without risking status, even against mons such as Toxapex. Yes they are threatening but they do not perform dangerous lopsided trades to the same consistency as Ogerpon-W can. I can fully expect a core of Gliscor and Toxapex to hold their own against a Mega Diancie. I can fully expect my Landorus-T and Alomomola to have enough raw bulk to shrug a hit or two from Garchomp or at the very least get a fairly free status punish against it. If I attempt to apply the same logic for Ogerpon-W using a core like Ferrothorn + Mega Latios, I have a high chance to lose one of them in the process. Again super frustrating interaction when you need these to deal with other offensive HO threats such as Great Tusk or Raging Bolt.

Now does your team NEED a hard check to Ogerpon-W? I would say if you are running a Balance team, you are forced to have Zamazenta, Tornadus-T, Ferro + Dragon, both or something like Pecharunt or Mega Venusaur. Now as I said above already, Zamazenta and Tornadus-T do not enjoy being the resident Ogerpon-W check, while Ferro + Dragon has a tendency to get shattered if Ogerpon-W's coverage is guessed incorrectly. Additionally Mega Venusaur and Pecharunt, they aren't exactly easy mons to fit on a team as already mentioned by the post above. Infact there is some debate on whether if Mega Venusaur is as strong as people make it out to be regarding more general matchups like Mega Latios or Sun.

Allow me to pose a closing question, to what extent is Hyper Offense considered a balanced playstyle?

A core of Volcarona + Ogerpon-W is extremely threatening, and if the main check to that is a Toxapex...good luck! Similar to Roaring Moon, Ogerpon-W presents a cancerous aspect that compounds on additional cancers (why is it that most of the problems we have with mons in NatDex are because of HO btw). If the community doesn't want to percive Ogerpon-W as a major contributor to HO being very strong because it has more benefits than positives, that's all super neat just make sure to give something else the boot after the vote ends, possibly Volcarona perhaps. Don't agree with that either? Is HO even a problematic playstyle to the community? How often do you see yourself running HO instead of Balance for reference? We should not be surprised that NatDex having issues where there is a lot to account for in the builder results in interactions where users feel encouraged to run these "check overload" HOs. I sure as hell do not want my Toxapex or Zamazenta to be put in positions where they have to bend over backwards to avoid getting overwhelmed to a playstyle with insane variance.

 

[Bey is Back]

Also for all of you stall haters, guess which playstyle actually enjoys waterpon’s existence? Stall. Stall will answer waterpon, even if their answer is something cringe like amoonguss or corv + ditto.

Coming from a stall pro, this is wrong. The three biggest threats to stall are Hatterene, Tapu Lele, and Waterpon. Waterpon counters on stall are all trash and suboptimal for every other matchup except Waterpon, that includes amoongus and ditto(?). Stall teams have to pick between having a response to waterpon, or the other two big threats. Stall would be way easier to build for if this ban goes through, and could become problematic IMO.

I'm not arguing that Waterpon should stay because it keeps stall in check, thats stupid logic. I am using this example to illustrate how the restrictions Waterpon places on teambuilding are not a bad thing. Teambuilding should be restricting to a certain extent, bulky teamstyles become way to broken when it is possible to answer every possible threat with one team. I also don't believe the restrictions that Waterpon places are actually all that restricting. Most of its checks are great in the meta, like Pex, Ferro, Zapdos, roost Dragonite, Torn-T, etc. you aren't losing that much by having to answer Waterpon in the builder.

Even on teams that have none of these checks, Waterpon is not the scariest guy ever. Check Vlarcheops post for a better explanation of the offensive checks, but basically its weak to hazards, it's not that fast for gen 9 standards, and its not bulky enough to withstand the myriad of faster, strong revenge killers in the tier.

Also, regarding Waterpon's decently big movepool, I don't think it's really a problem. You are required pretty much to run Cudgel and a grass move on every set. On SD, you are either running superpower or play rough as coverage, which covers almost no middle ground, leaving plenty of space for checks to still work. Also, on non SD sets, you are usually running U-turn, and then you have the option of knock, spikes, synthesis, or encore maybe. Realistically, all these sets will lack something crucial, and none of these options are that scary overall.

Honestly, I'm kinda gagged Waterpon is getting a suspect. On the post-NDLT survey, I did end up rating Waterpon as more likely to need tiering action than any other pokemon, but I really don't think it should be banned. I don't think it's overpowered on any level, and I think if teambuilding restrictions were enough to warrant suspecting, Waterpon shouldn't have even been first,

I'm voting Do Not Ban, Free my good sis Waterpon from these false accusations.

 

[Friedshrimp]

Alright, let's talk about Ogerpon-Wellspring.Well, she's got tons of good stuff going for her - solid Speed, strong STAB moves, that sweet non-contact signature move... but ban-worthy? I don't think so.

First off, her typing and bulk don't exactly make switching in a walk in the park. Being locked into an item means she hates Stealth Rock and Rocky Helmet with a passion. Plus, the meta's already packing plenty of checks - like people mentioned before, we've got type walls and faster mons that keep her in line.

Sure, Swords Dance Ogerpon-W can break through teams, but honestly? The meta needs breakers like her to keep things healthy. She's strong but not broken - let's keep her around.

So I'm voting Do Not Ban.(English isn't my first language, so I used AI to help translate this. If anything sounds weird or hard to understand, please let me know!)

 

[Moyashi]

zapdos can always click volt switch, guaranteeing that either woger is forced out (meaning it needs to find another entry point later, and take hazards again) or getting a free entry to a rk and also putting it in range (puts it in range of lele psychic, shifu cc, zama cc, specs koko tbolt, etc). The issue isn't mind games; it's the cudgel crits that make this dicey.

A Zapdos clicking Volt Switcy is forced to eat a boosted Cudgel and even if it isn’t crit, it’s functionally dead because it will be too weak to switch into anything later without extremely precise double switches to position it favorably and roost. This is especially bad because Zapdos is used to check more than just Wellspring and being that low on health enables Wellspring’a teammates.

the whole point of a wallbreaker is to trade into walls. The ability to force a trade is not unhealthy; it's what progresses the game.

Most wall breakers of its caliber in power are not gifted with a speed tier that is so high which complicates handling it. Something like Hoopa-U or Choice Band Dragonite are much stronger, but they’re also slow so you can rely on pivoting and drawing different moves to switch a resist into and then force the breaker out (ex: switching Lele into a Raging Bolt Draco or Thunderclap, forcing them to switch out). With Wellspring, it’s too powerful and there aren’t enough faster offensive pokemon which can pivot into it and threaten it out. You basically play a sac game vs it and you’re at a big disadvantage.

This argument doesn't make sense because the fact that yard exists does not prove that hazard weakness is irrelevant. Yard is used despite its major weakness to sr because its insane power justifies having extensive hazard removal. Yard suffers from rocks, and so does woger.

Wellspring is much faster and far less prone to those hazards, so even if rocks are up it’s not the end of the world like it can be for Zard. Their point is that if Zard can be so dangerous despite its massive rocks weakness and required support, Wellspring which is far less weak to them needs less support and is even more dangerous and limited in counterplay defensively.

Even on teams that have none of these checks, Waterpon is not the scariest guy ever. Check Vlarcheops post for a better explanation of the offensive checks, but basically its weak to hazards, it's not that fast for gen 9 standards, and its not bulky enough to withstand the myriad of faster, strong revenge killers in the tier.

Runo covered Vlar’s post so I won’t repeat what was said about the problems, but its hazard weakness is overstated given the strong removal we have for the teams it fits on, in particular HO teams can employ great anti hazard options to deny hazards and preserve its health. It’s fast in the context of the role it fills as a breaker, and just because it can be revenge killed doesn’t mean it’s balanced. Many banned pokemon were possible to revenge kill.

Stall would be way easier to build for if this ban goes through, and could become problematic IMO.

As an aside, please don’t fear monger about a playstyle that was never good even at its peak and would never come close to being remotely problematic with Wellspring gone.

I am using this example to illustrate how the restrictions Waterpon places on teambuilding are not a bad thing. Teambuilding should be restricting to a certain extent, bulky teamstyles become way to broken when it is possible to answer every possible threat with one team.

That extends to this too. Bulkier teams aren’t going to be broken without Wellspring around because there’s so many options to break them down even past it. No one wants bulkier teams to answer everything nor will they be able to if it goes. Matter of fact many breakers that could be useful are kept down due to Wellspring’s presence as they match up badly into its common teams and thus are very hard to fit.

I also don't believe the restrictions that Waterpon places are actually all that restricting. Most of its checks are great in the meta, like Pex, Ferro, Zapdos, roost Dragonite, Torn-T, etc. you aren't losing that much by having to answer Waterpon in the builder.

Half of these aren’t even good checks.

+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 248 HP / 136+ Def Toxapex: 255-301 (84.1 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Standard Pex which wants spdef to also check other threats like Valiant and ZardY comfortably, folds with minor easily accrued chip. Ferro can’t take +2 Low Kick or Superpower and Dragonite hates Play Rough (and has to maintain multiscale). Zapdos and TornT have to gamble with Hurricane leading to awful variance that makes the match up all the worse and unreliable and the latter isn’t a comfortable switch into unboosted Cudgel.

On SD, you are either running superpower or play rough as coverage, which covers almost no middle ground, leaving plenty of space for checks to still work.

You’re the player at the mercy of whatever coverage it runs alongside stab unless you double up on Ferro/Dragonite to consistently answer it (maybe). There isn’t nearly enough otherwise. Mega Venu and Tangrowth work but are very challenging to fit due to their flaws. Most checks beyond these two are flawed or just aren’t reliable.

I’ve replied a lot in this comment and I’ve got some strong feelings about this Mon and why it needs to go, but I’ll save my own organized thoughts for a separate post once I’ve gotten reqs (which hopefully can be soon after it stops being 95 degrees so often)

 

[sinnabyss]

I summarized the main dnb arguments ive seen tossed around, and im countering those arguments as an avid fat balance player

1. "Ogerpon is forced to use one item"

This is by definition true, but why we acting like the item is useless? Its a free expert belt boost at all times to all of woger's moves. It's not like oger desperately needs another item.

2. "Ogerpon is hazards weak"

Kind of an extension of the first argument, but since oger cant run boots, the argument is that hazards wear it down quickly. In a vacuum, this is indeed true. However;


Not only does woger have two incredibly good magic bounce teammates that it loves to pair up with, there are also plenty of other great hazard removal options in the tier. Tusk, lando, glisc, terapagos, treads, the list is quite large. Not only that, but woger really only needs to come in a few times to do its job. It isnt a pivot or a defensive pokemon, its a breaker that does its job well even when chipped. Also, z volcarona and zardy being prominent meta threats while being 4x weak to rocks goes to show how good hazard denial is just nulifiying that weakness.

3. "Ogerpon isnt that hard to check"

Ill refer you to my post above, but in short, all wogerpon "checks" are either incredbly shaky or difficult to fit on teams. Zapdos, Torn, Pecha, Corv are all forced to recover on switchinbor be at absolute max health to not just get 2hit. Ivy cudgel crit chances and woger's incredible speed considering its power mandates the use of atleast 2 checks for it a team. The argument of its coverage being limited isnt a good poin either, as you dont know what pger will have and are playing a guessing game anytime you use one of its "checks". Switchin your dragon? oops, all play rough. Try to use a steel? Nice argument, however, superpower. Not accounting for other niche moves like knock off, uturn and encore complicating things further. Bulky grasses check it nicely, sure, but running a grass type not named ferrothorn comes with immense opportunity cost, and you probably wont wanna stack grass types on a team.

4. "Ogerpon keeps stall in check"
While it is true that ogerpon forces stall to run very specific checks, this problem is even worse for semistall, balance and bulky offense teams. If stall can barely handle oger defensively, then balance is absolutely destroyed. Stall isnt even that good of a playstyle, and oger leaving wont automatically make it broken.

5. "Ogerpon can just be countered offensively".
This argument goes that since Ogerpon has mediocre bulk, is outsped by many offensive mons, and is weak to most priority, it isnt at all hard to counter offensively. This is indeed true. However, Oger isnt problematic because it destroys offense, its because it destroys slower teams. If the logic is that absurd breakers arent broken because they can be outsped and kod, then we may as well free hearthflame, ursa-bm, urshifu-d, dracovish etc.

Seriously tho, oger is just unhealthy and a nightmare in builder and battle. People in favor of dnb are prob offense users bc i dont see how you can run balance or slower teams and think this mon is ok

 

[wallchompftw]

I think wogerpon is very good for the meta, suppressing the amount of slow bulky builds and encouraging players to play proactive strategies. I really don't agree with the banning strategy of 'Let's ban all of the good HO mons until the ideal strategies are balance and
stall'. The metagame at the end of this path is far less enjoyable than the one we have now; please don't ruin it.
DO NOT BAN

 

[sinnabyss]

I think wogerpon is very good for the meta, suppressing the amount of slow bulky builds and encouraging players to play proactive strategies. I really don't agree with the banning strategy of 'Let's ban all of the good HO mons until the ideal strategies are balance and
stall'.

Seriously tho, oger is just unhealthy and a nightmare in builder and battle. People in favor of dnb are prob offense users bc i dont see how you can run balance or slower teams and think this mon is ok

HO player HO player

Edit so this isnt a one liner, the less powerful HO is in a meta, the more balanced the metagame tends to be. OU in Gens like 3, 6 and 8 are probably considered among the most balanced metas, and those have HO as a niche or even unviable pick. Meanwhile, metagames like gen 5, 7 and 9 OU have HO running rampant, and i doubt anyone would call those balanced metas.

The metagame at the end of this path is far less enjoyable than the one we have now; please don't ruin it.

Also, this is so vauge and unspecific, like, how does oger getting banned make the meta any worse? Sure, balance has a easier time thriving, but there are still no shortage of powerful breakers in natdex. If they meant offensive mons getting banned as a whole, id like to say that pokemon only would ever get banned if they are unhealthy and/or broken in a meta. Stall would still be held back even if oger leaves. I really dont get this allergy to bulkier metas. Arguably, games lasting 50+ turns on average are a sign of a healthy metagame with actual player skill and thought, instead of mindlessly throwing sweepers at your opponent till they break. Nothing against offense and hyper offense players, but a slower meta is usualy a healthy meta.

 

[lyra__4]

I think wogerpon is very good for the meta, suppressing the amount of slow bulky builds and encouraging players to play proactive strategies. I really don't agree with the banning strategy of 'Let's ban all of the good HO mons until the ideal strategies are balance and
stall'. The metagame at the end of this path is far less enjoyable than the one we have now; please don't ruin it.
DO NOT BAN

I disagree with your point of view. Balance is a play style that should be a core part of the metagame, and if balance is unviable then there is something fundamentally wrong with the tier. Furthermore, as mentioned above, the idea that the ban of waterpon will make stall better is just not relevant. Stall itself is very much capable of sparing a team slot for tangrowth or amongus to hard counter waterpon whereas balance just cannot afford to do so.
Moreover, as mentioned above, stall is just not a good play style in the current national dex tier. From personal experience, I have not ran into a stall player that was above like 1850s on the ladder other than stallmaster. There are also other mons that can stallbreak quite well, such as hazard stack + ghold or future sight tapu lele/glowking, and kartana can take waterpons place in wallbreaking with its powerful grass type STAB and immunity to toxic.

I think the fundamental problem with waterpon that sets it aside from other wallbreakers is its dual grass + water stab. The 100 base power (effectively 120 BP with the wellspring-mask) water type STAB move with a higher crit chance allows it to hit many of the defensive mons in the tier for neutral damage. For comparison, great tusk's signature STAB headlong rush + close combat which gives it its strength comes with a -1 SpD and Def drawback, as well as not having an higher crit chance. Both ground and fighting type STAB are also walled by flying types resisting fighting and being immune to ground. On the other hand, waterpon's ivy cudgel is only walled by water, grass and dragon types. The problem with that is that all the good defensive water types just get blown up by power whip, and there are virtually no defensive dragon types used for their defensive utility other than like maybe mega latios, while defensive grass types are super niche.

252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 8 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 372-438 (78.6 - 92.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

With stealth rocks up, that becomes a chance to OHKO, with none of the other major wall breakers able to force mola out in such a way. If mega-diancie comes in on Mola, Mola can take a moonblast, then flip turn out, dealing like 40-47% damage to mega-diancie in the process.

252 SpA Diancie-Mega Moonblast vs. 8 HP / 248 SpD Alomomola: 228-268 (48.2 - 56.6%) -- 88.3% chance to 2HKO
0 Atk Alomomola Flip Turn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Diancie-Mega: 96-114 (39.8 - 47.3%) -- 32.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Mega zard Y can also force Alo out with the threat of solar beam, but is very weak to stealth rocks, requiring a level of support that waterpon does not, as well as just being out-sped by the very common base 110 speed tier.

 

[Moyashi]

Now that I'm done laddering (and had some time to relax, since it's been so bloody hot lately), I wanted to sit down and put out more organized thoughts on why I'm voting BAN on Ogerpon-Wellspring and why I think its removal will greatly benefit the tier going forwards. But before that, I'd like to shout out R8's great post from the metagame discussion thread as well as their post in this thread which goes into the deeper into this mon beyond the idea of it being potentially traditionally broken. But anyways...

Building Impact: I think anyone playing by now knows that ND is a tier with a lot of viable options, strong at that, and this results in a metagame where there's a lot to have to account for naturally. This isn't exactly rare for a metagame necessarily but in this case it really matters that you're squeezing as much value out of every slot as possible. Why is this relevant to Wellspring? Well it's the single biggest building checkmark in the tier due to its offensive profile which heavily pressures the defensive side of the metagame, to the point that hard answers are very limited. The ones that exist don't offer nearly enough to a team beyond checking Wellspring and end up being difficult to slot in and work with in practice. Hard answers which are basically fat grasses like Tangrowth and Mega Venusaur. The former only really answers a couple stuff outside Wellspring and is quite passive into other HO picks commonly seen with Wellspring, while Mega Venusaur has opportunity cost with much better Megas on balance that offer greater role compression and generally match up into the overall meta better. Not to mention both of these are overwhelmed by hazards and require support which can further restrict teambuilding.

Wellspring's raw offense commands more respect than anything, and since defensive play is so limited it's better to rely on soft checks and revenge killing but this too is not always reliable. Especially as most soft checks are incredibly flimsy in reality. Ferrothorn is Superpower food while Toxapex trades itself for a Toxic whose clock isn't going fast enough to limit it reasonably. Not to mention Pex wants more spdef investment in this meta due to it checking many prominent special attackers from Volcarona to ZardY to Valiant, and needs more physdef to comfortably survive to Toxic Wellspring. Without heavy investment, it drops to +2 Power Whip with SR up from full. The idea of Zapdos checking Wellspring is laughable considering it needs to land a Hurricane and risks death from a crit +2 Cudgel anyways, while Tornadus-T can't comfortably switch into even unboosted Cudgels, while also needing to land inaccurate move to KO.

Offensive counterplay exists but positioning them in vs Wellspring when using a defensive team is very hard, as none but Zama can comfortably switch into it safely and even Zama risks being crippled by even an unboosted Cudgel crit. So often bulkier teams have to just sac to position their revenge killer in which is highly exploitable. You may argue that it can't beat all its soft checks in one moveset, but in practice you're more at the mercy of whatever 4th move it has and there's little warning of what that move is until it comes out.

On the Topic of Balance Post-Wellspring: Alomomola and Gliscor
I've seen more than a bit of concern that mons like Gliscor and Alomomola will become too hard to break without Wellspring around, or that bulkier teams (and even stall) will become too powerful without it. Gliscor itself is a centralizing pokemon with a powerful impact on the builder that has drawn concerns even with Wellspring, so it's understandable. And Mola is kind of annoying at times. But Gliscor mainly. However this if anything ties into why Wellspring SHOULD be banned for the sake of improving the tier by opening up the builder. And I know some of you will find that weird, but this is where I'm at personally: so much would-be anti Gliscor and anti Mola answers and strategies are poor into common Offense and HO structures that Wellspring is best on. You can load up tech like Kyurem or Punching Glove Urshifu-R or many more niche mons that can pressure them like Sub+CM Keldeo or Volcanion, or even stuff like Hoopa-U or Ursaluna to deal with those balance structures, but these are much weaker into Wellspring teams that its really hard to use them.

So in essence Wellspring keeps down building beyond just hurting defensive teams, but it also limits other options in the tier naturally which makes building more strained and stale. By removing Wellspring and thus the strain on the builder, you have more freedom to prepare for Gliscor, Mola or generally strong Balance teams.

Ogerpon-Wellspring flaws: too much?
The main things I keep seeing around Wellspring are that it's limited by its item restriction and vulnerability to hazards. There are a few reasons why this isn't all that big in practice. Wellspring being limited to its mask is not exactly a problem when you consider the massive power boost it provides, a power boost that any HO or Offense mon would use gladly if they could. It's basically a perfect item for it already. As for hazards, good teams will bring counterplay for this and it isn't terribly hard to fit given how good both Hatterene and Mega Diance are on Wellspring structures, since the former denies most common hazard setters while the latter denies early rocks and compresses that with hazards of its own and immense early game strength itself to set the tempo for its team.

While it may be true that in practice Wellspring doesn't sweep as easily as it seems it should, this is also partly because people are so aware of it and prepared for it. But that doesn't minimize the building impact it has, which in my opinion is a major contributor to the stagnant feeling of this metagame. The tier naturally has a lot to prepare for and with Wellspring demanding such specificity in answers, it limits building and creates too heavy a strain for it to be healthy for this tier. So I am going to be voting BAN on Ogerpon-Wellspring.

 

[LMMS Legend]

I don't like this suspect. Woger is the most viable counterplay option for offensive teams to one of the most overpowered moves in the game in Flip Turn. To give an idea of how strong Flip Turn is, every single fully evolved Water-type that gets this move has it in their recommended movesets on Smogon. But it's most problematic on rain sweeepers like Mega Swampert - it creates a situation where if you are playing hyper offense, even if you have an offensive check to Swampert like let's say Serperior, it doesn't matter because all they have to do is click Flip Turn, and if you stay in you lose from the massive damage you take from this 50BP move and their incoming switch into Ferro/Arch/Torn, and if you switch into Serperior you obviously lose even harder because you get turned on. It's a win-win situation for the rain player that's devoid of any thinking or skill expression. And so, the inevitable situation here is that if Woger gets banned, playing hyper offense is going to become extremely unfun on ladder because rain will become more prevalent as it has lost its best offensive check and there simply isn't enough ways to counter Swift Swim spam while keeping a team that's actually good in general. You are likely going to need a weather resetter like ZardY or Ninetales-A and it still probably won't be enough since Flip Turn into Pelipper is always a thing.

Even on something passive like Alomomola, Flip Turn can be very annoying to deal with, I'm not saying Alomomola is OP because it isn't, but this is a pokemon that doesn't need a buff. It already dominates usage rate on ladder and has a solid win rate in tournaments, why throw that balance away by removing the one viable pokemon that causes it to need to play very cautiously? Same thing for Great Tusk, a common annoyance for Tusk players facing HO is they're trying to Headlong Rush the Gholdengo and then Oger comes in and starts tearing shit up. These are ALREADY the #2 and #3 most played pokemon in the tier and we're just going to take away their best offensive check? And no one sees any issue with this? Throw Gliscor in the mix too. Some people in this thread have created the imaginary argument that somehow when Woger is banned, everyone is just going to start magically counterplaying these mons in builder to the point that it perfectly balances out any power boost they receive. Not only is this debatable but it's also fallacious logic because if these pokemon are gonna get such special attention in builder, all you're doing is underscoring how overcentralizing they will become. And if they don't get that attention, they will just become overpowered (to an extent) because they lost their best offensive check. You can't just sweep that under the rug by alluding to attention given in teambuilder, you're just replacing one problem (overpowered) with another (overcentralizing).

Thus far my arguments have focused on how the meta around Woger will just get worse if it's banned, and that's something I'm pretty confident about, but what I'm less certain of is whether Woger itself is overpowered or overcentralizing. As far as the former goes, I'd like to see some actual win rate data that suggests this. Because all of the data I do see from tournaments that happened before the Roaring Moon ban suggest it's completely fine. We're talking about a mon that had a 32% win rate in NDWC V. I understand the RM ban changes things a bit but it wasn't even played on the playstyles people say Woger is most problematic against so I highly doubt the equation really changes much here. And put simply, where is the data? I ctrl+f words like "stats", "statistics", "data" on this page and get no results. If people are purely basing their opinions on conjecture and baseless claims then that's kinda concerning to me. Because if the paragraph you just typed up about how broken Ogerpon is happens to be true, then why aren't people picking it more, and why aren't the people who are picking it winning more? And if the data we have here is truly limited, why are we doing this suspect test so early? Did a Flip Turn player get mad or something? There's also no actual evidence that suggest Ogerpon is more overcentralizing than something like Kingambit (good luck with no bulky dark resist!) or Gholdengo (good luck with a hazard weak mon+something like Corv or defensive Zapdos as your defogger!), again it's all just conjecture and he said she said statements.

Woger doesn't deserve a ban until someone provides actual hard evidence that it does. Its presence in the tier provides offensive teams with extremely valuable counterplay to top threats like Great Tusk, Alomomola, and Gliscor, and most importantly, gives them a realistic chance in the rain matchup. Removing it would make building options for these teams boring and restrictive, worst of all it would totally upset the balance of the meta. If you can, vote Do Not Ban on Woger.

 

[Moyashi]

I'd like to see some actual win rate data that suggests this.

Win rate is not a be all end all statistic of anything, as there is a ton more depth and nuance to what goes into win rates for pokemon. win rates are capable of being skewed by circumstances such as being over prepared for. Look how much it’s better to load up offense right now which naturally handles Wellspring better and then consider its impact on bulkier teams.

I don't like this suspect. Woger is the most viable counterplay option for offensive teams to one of the most overpowered moves in the game in Flip Turn. To give an idea of how strong Flip Turn is, every single fully evolved Water-type that gets this move has it in their recommended movesets on Smogon. But it's most problematic on rain sweeepers like Mega Swampert - it creates a situation where if you are playing hyper offense, even if you have an offensive check to Swampert like let's say Serperior, it doesn't matter because all they have to do is click Flip Turn, and if you stay in you lose from the massive damage you take from this 50BP move and their incoming switch into Ferro/Arch/Torn, and if you switch into Serperior you obviously lose even harder because you get turned on. It's a win-win situation for the rain player that's devoid of any thinking or skill expression. And so, the inevitable situation here is that if Woger gets banned, playing hyper offense is going to become extremely unfun on ladder because rain will become more prevalent as it has lost its best offensive check and there simply isn't enough ways to counter Swift Swim spam while keeping a team that's actually good in general. You are likely going to need a weather resetter like ZardY or Ninetales-A and it still probably won't be enough since Flip Turn into Pelipper is always a thing.

Flip turn isn’t overpowered or even close to it. For that matter this whole bit acts like Rain is solely kept in line by Wellspring when the playstyle has issues that go far beyond it. But also this is just describing HO vs rain and not how other playstyles handle rain just fine…? There’s ways for HO to handle rain without Wellspring, hazards being a limiting factor that keeps them from spamming pivot all day (hello Spikes).

And put simply, where is the data? I ctrl+f words like "stats", "statistics", "data" on this page and get no results. If people are purely basing their opinions on conjecture and baseless claims then that's kinda concerning to me. Because if the paragraph you just typed up about how broken Ogerpon is happens to be true, then why aren't people picking it more, and why aren't the people who are picking it winning more?

It’s pretty disingenuous to dismiss pro ban posts as baseless claims and conjecture when they go into the things that make Wellspring a problem, just because it’s not the way you want it done. Again there’s more to a pokemon being problematic than just winning a lot, and there’s more ways it can be an issue beyond being traditionally broken. I talked about it already, but a Mon can not be super broken but have an unhealthy impact on the tier through its centralizing presence that decreases building options to a certain degree, and that’s one way. It’s even worse when you insinuate pro ban side to be “flip turn players got mad”

Some people in this thread have created the imaginary argument that somehow when Woger is banned, everyone is just going to start magically counterplaying these mons in builder to the point that it perfectly balances out any power boost they receive. Not only is this debatable but it's also fallacious logic because if these pokemon are gonna get such special attention in builder, all you're doing is underscoring how overcentralizing they will become.

What does “imaginary argument even mean.

The point is removing a highly centralizing and restrictive Pokémon will open up team building and thus make handling other pokemon easier as you’ll have more freedom to account for when not being expected to run such specific counterplay for such a Mon.

There's also no actual evidence that suggest Ogerpon is more overcentralizing than something like Kingambit (good luck with no bulky dark resist!) or Gholdengo (good luck with a hazard weak mon+something like Corv or defensive Zapdos as your defogger!), again it's all just conjecture and he said she said statements.

There is. Counterplay to Kingambit is widespread and accessible without even having to go anywhere out of your way to slot it in, you just do so by using naturally good Pokémon and they generally work more often than not. It’s so easy to account for and it struggles to sweep halfway competent teams. And Gholdengo is slow and vulnerable to many offensive Pokémon. And it’s very possible to remove hazards against it as it has problems into Defoggers like LandoT, Gliscor, Heat Wave TornT and spinners like Tusk and Terapagos. Beyond that you have Cinderace for more options if you’re interested. Meanwhile Wellspring has a short list of viable defensive answers (really short and I went into why many supposed answers aren’t actual good answers in my own ban post). These aren’t conjecture but things you learn from just playing the tier and building in it.

 

[Runo]

I don't like this suspect. Woger is the most viable counterplay option for offensive teams to one of the most overpowered moves in the game in Flip Turn. To give an idea of how strong Flip Turn is, every single fully evolved Water-type that gets this move has it in their recommended movesets on Smogon. But it's most problematic on rain sweeepers like Mega Swampert - it creates a situation where if you are playing hyper offense, even if you have an offensive check to Swampert like let's say Serperior, it doesn't matter because all they have to do is click Flip Turn, and if you stay in you lose from the massive damage you take from this 50BP move and their incoming switch into Ferro/Arch/Torn, and if you switch into Serperior you obviously lose even harder because you get turned on. It's a win-win situation for the rain player that's devoid of any thinking or skill expression. And so, the inevitable situation here is that if Woger gets banned, playing hyper offense is going to become extremely unfun on ladder because rain will become more prevalent as it has lost its best offensive check and there simply isn't enough ways to counter Swift Swim spam while keeping a team that's actually good in general. You are likely going to need a weather resetter like ZardY or Ninetales-A and it still probably won't be enough since Flip Turn into Pelipper is always a thing.

Even on something passive like Alomomola, Flip Turn can be very annoying to deal with, I'm not saying Alomomola is OP because it isn't, but this is a pokemon that doesn't need a buff. It already dominates usage rate on ladder and has a solid win rate in tournaments, why throw that balance away by removing the one viable pokemon that causes it to need to play very cautiously? Same thing for Great Tusk, a common annoyance for Tusk players facing HO is they're trying to Headlong Rush the Gholdengo and then Oger comes in and starts tearing shit up. These are ALREADY the #2 and #3 most played pokemon in the tier and we're just going to take away their best offensive check? And no one sees any issue with this? Throw Gliscor in the mix too. Some people in this thread have created the imaginary argument that somehow when Woger is banned, everyone is just going to start magically counterplaying these mons in builder to the point that it perfectly balances out any power boost they receive. Not only is this debatable but it's also fallacious logic because if these pokemon are gonna get such special attention in builder, all you're doing is underscoring how overcentralizing they will become. And if they don't get that attention, they will just become overpowered (to an extent) because they lost their best offensive check. You can't just sweep that under the rug by alluding to attention given in teambuilder, you're just replacing one problem (overpowered) with another (overcentralizing).

Thus far my arguments have focused on how the meta around Woger will just get worse if it's banned, and that's something I'm pretty confident about, but what I'm less certain of is whether Woger itself is overpowered or overcentralizing. As far as the former goes, I'd like to see some actual win rate data that suggests this. Because all of the data I do see from tournaments that happened before the Roaring Moon ban suggest it's completely fine. We're talking about a mon that had a 32% win rate in NDWC V. I understand the RM ban changes things a bit but it wasn't even played on the playstyles people say Woger is most problematic against so I highly doubt the equation really changes much here. And put simply, where is the data? I ctrl+f words like "stats", "statistics", "data" on this page and get no results. If people are purely basing their opinions on conjecture and baseless claims then that's kinda concerning to me. Because if the paragraph you just typed up about how broken Ogerpon is happens to be true, then why aren't people picking it more, and why aren't the people who are picking it winning more? And if the data we have here is truly limited, why are we doing this suspect test so early? Did a Flip Turn player get mad or something? There's also no actual evidence that suggest Ogerpon is more overcentralizing than something like Kingambit (good luck with no bulky dark resist!) or Gholdengo (good luck with a hazard weak mon+something like Corv or defensive Zapdos as your defogger!), again it's all just conjecture and he said she said statements.

Woger doesn't deserve a ban until someone provides actual hard evidence that it does. Its presence in the tier provides offensive teams with extremely valuable counterplay to top threats like Great Tusk, Alomomola, and Gliscor, and most importantly, gives them a realistic chance in the rain matchup. Removing it would make building options for these teams boring and restrictive, worst of all it would totally upset the balance of the meta. If you can, vote Do Not Ban on Woger.

The reason why you don't see people using hard statistics such as winrate is because they are misleading on their own is misses significant context as to why it got that result (often times overprep and mirrors play a major factor as to why winrates are lower than expected). What good is cherrypicking the winrate to that end outside of telling us something that is very surface level? This is why you don't really see people saying things like "Waterpon is balanced because it doesn't have a high winrate". Dragapult had a winrate of 49.35% in NatDex Blind Draft despite being an S rank threat at the time. Roaring Moon only had a 50% winrate. Even in WCoP cream of the crop pokemon rarely are cracking a 60% winrate. They can corellate but aren't an end all statement. The last time the statistics card was played it was the status quo that played it and it was used incorrectly and was misleading.

Now as for whether or not the tier would get worse if it was banned, I have to again ask of you if playing a metagame where HO is dominant is worthwhile. Again I have to say that I do not find HO a fun playstyle to face against, they have an obscene amount of offensive tools and it's difficult to prepare for naturally.

You equate here that HO getting worse because of Ogerpon-W's ban is a bad thing because HO teams no longer have an easy route to bowl over Balance staples such as Tusk, Mola, and Gliscor, but why is that a bad thing? An extreme playstyle being less reliable into these types of archetypes isn't something out of the ordinary and even then threats like Volcarona, Kartana, SubDragonite, Hatterene, Mega Gyarados, Manaphy, etc. can still have strong matchups into those defensive pieces.

For opposing balance and bulky offense, the amount of options that opens towards dealing with these mons also improve (Medicham-Mega, Kartana again, Mawile-Mega, Kyurem, Sub Bulk Up Corviknight, Fini, Pain Split Rotom-Wash, Garganacl. Hydrapple, Primarina, Volcanion, Ursaluna). Very few mons will actively get worse save for possible Mega Venusaur if Ogerpon-W were to be banned.

Rain having a significantly stronger matchup into Hyper Offense is...also a good thing to me. It should encourage significantly less emphasis on Yard compositions on the ladder or force them to be less flexible which makes prepping for those teams for less bothersome. Rain itself should still have fair matchups regardless of the playstyle. Yes on HO it is an annoying load because Rain is inherently anti-offense. That is why it's really good at punishing these reactive switch ins you make with Serperior or Kyurem or whatever. You shouldn't really be forcing your mons to take heavy hits like that to begin with. Nonetheless when mons such as Rillaboom, Kartana, and Serperior hit the field the fact they threaten reactive plays back is more than enough to keep the control the game and not render it a 0-100 loss as you seem to imply. If you are not an HO player, then again aspects such as Ferrothorn, Rotom-W, Tapu Fini, Alomomola, Slowbro, Kyurem, Kartana, Tyranitar, etc getting way more consistent are benefits to reduce the power rain has against those playstyles.

I do find it very concerning however that this post fails to list any form of Ogerpon-W counterplay and straight up admits that do not know if they think it is problematic or not. We should not really be making tiering desicions like this. The only time I see this "I'm voting for status quo because idk what to think argument" as valid is regarding unbans because its tiering an unknown and heavily theory based compared to a ban suspect test where we have had months to gain nessesary experience on the topic.

 

[Clas]

I think wogerpon is very good for the meta, suppressing the amount of slow bulky builds and encouraging players to play proactive strategies. I really don't agree with the banning strategy of 'Let's ban all of the good HO mons until the ideal strategies are balance and
stall'. The metagame at the end of this path is far less enjoyable than the one we have now; please don't ruin it.
DO NOT BAN

I don't want to chime in and pretend like I know what I'm talking about with ND, because I haven't actively played ND (or any other official format) since the end of Gen 8. However, the entire point of tiering is to try and make a format as balanced as possible, generally leaning to make balance the most consistent archetype in the meta. Note how I said consistent here, not best, as generally making every playstyle viable with varying degrees of consistency should always the be the main idea. In a healthy meta, 95% of the time balance structures will be the most consistent, with bulky offense and 4-wall structures being slightly behind since they lean one way or the other in the offense/defense spectrum.

Wellspring (from my few years absence from WCOP, OU, and ND excluding my 1 month return for ND Tera suspect) was always a balance killer, and it's the actual main reason I quit playing SVOU as it forces hyper-restrictive builds or guesswork to actively play against it, which is not healthy in the slightest. When I made my 29-1 ND Tera suspect team, I leaned a little more towards the defensive side as I knew making a consistent balance team with Wellspring in the meta was impossible. From what I've seen, this hasn't changed at all. Even this team I made would now autolose to most Wellspring teams because Tera Grass Pecharunt was the primary way I had to check it and Malignant Chain doesn't reliably OHKO; I would need a significant amount of SpA investment to do so now just to not lose to one Pokemon without any effort from my opponent.

I'll quickly compare Urshifu-RS to this, the Gen 8 OU/ND menace. Urshifu suffers from chip really easily, can only do so much per set, and has a limiting speed tier, and yet it's still very respectable. Choice Band still challenges Zamazenta as a wallbreaker thanks to U-turn and Surging Strikes, Choice Scarf is still good speed control, Swords Dance is terrifying but not broken despite its great coverage, and Taunt variants make progress astoundingly well into defensive teams. However, it's still very much limited by contact chip and contact effects alongside its incredible weakness to Dondozo if running Swords Dance, not to mention its reliance on team support to handle walls like Toxapex and Pecharunt. Wellspring doesn't really need this, as it's fast enough to pressure most things and bulky enough to get a Swords Dance off vs most offensive Pokemon, not to mention it can just set up on all but 3 viable walls (Zapdos, Torn-T, Pecharunt) - everything else will lose in some way or another. Even Toxapex, the one I have seen mentioned here more than a reasonable amount for some reason, does just lose to Grass move Wellspring, since Wellspring can just cycle Grass move + Swords Dance until +2 Grass move into +0 Grass move KOes, whether that be after 2 repeats or 0.

I want to end this off quickly with a statement regarding my stance on wallbreakers and Wellspring. I do not have a problem with wallbreakers doing their job of forcing progress to weaken walls to then KO them later on; this is why I really like Urshifu for example. I do have issues when said wallbreakers can do it from the get-go, which is what Wellspring can do to 95% of teams; offensively leaning teams just reduce how often it does this instead of answering the problem at hand. If I do actually do this suspect test, I will personally vote ban as I don't see a purpose in keeping this around since it causes way too many issues. Wellspring isn't even like Roaring Moon, where that has some cool defensive sets, as Wellspring is item-locked and has poor defenses for a wall.

 

[CappyThePulpy]

So I got my reqs, using balance not some autopilot HO. Here is my experience and my thoughts about waterpon:

I ran a mbeedrill team and had the following tools vs waterpon:

1. Zapdos, a check thrown around quite a lot in this thread
2. Specs kyurem, which can eat any unboosted hit and ohko, but doesnt come in
3. Mbeedrill, the perfect revenge killer for it. Clicking uturn for a ohko is as good as you are going to get, since you keep momentum even if the waterpon is preserved.
4. Nuzzle hatterene which can eat a hit, for the cheesy trailblaze sets

Did I go out of my way to answer waterpon? Yes, that zapdos wasnt in the original plans. Is this enough? No. But balance usually cannot afford to run a do nothing mon like amoonguss or tangrowth. Balance has an incredibly hard time answering waterpon properly in the builder while advancing its game plan. In this case, volt switch zapdos contributes to my gameplan, while tangrowth would be a big fat target with 0 threat.

I did get reqs despite the waterpon situation but I am 100% confident that any decent player who actually built for their waterpon instead of randomly throwing it on a team can break the zapdos just by pivoting around and clicking ivy cudgel. If the waterpon comes in more than twice, we begin a sacking game.


What can a balance team add to answer this thing reliably while not griefing its gameplan? Ferro with power whip or twave (or both). Superpower is not common enough on waterpon, but you need power whip as non power whip sets get bonked to death by +2 ivy cudgel (yeah, insane). Ferro can perhaps threaten it out and get hazards and is viable into a good portion of the meta. One problem it has is the sustainability, as you are most likely not clicking leech seed into the waterpon, so you are only relying on lefties while waterpon doesnt care about iron barbs. Also superpower and uturn/knock sets give you a pretty tough time.

Aside from ferro, pretty much no balance wall is favoured into this matchup.
Pex is the clear proof for why you HAVE TO resist both of waterpon’s stabs and be neutral at least to play rough. Your bulk and recovery are pretty much irrelevant if you dont resist the stabs. Toxapex, the premier wall everything unkillable mon WITH HAZE will probably lose the 1v1 to sd and neutral hitting power whips.

The stab combo and coverage, access to SD, wellspring mask boost, and ivy cudgel being an absurdly busted move is too much for a mon with those base stats.

Reminder, this is not hoopa-u. Your lando wont outspeed it and murder it with uturn, and it wont poop its pants to the idea of unboosted priority or pursuit. Also, unlike ivy cudgel, hyperspace fury has a drawback which amplifies hoopa’s weaknesses to the extreme.

I will be voting ban.