Announcement SV Ubers UU Suspect Process Round 5: Dogs - Zacian Suspect

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The Ubers UU Council has decided to suspect test Zacian!

Ever since its inception as a tier, Zacian has been a staple of the Ubers UU metagame. For a significant portion of this time, Zacian flew under the radar as there were more problematic elements in the tier stealing the spotlight. Previously, Zacian was held back by the ubiquitous nature of Landorus-Therian; however, Landorus-Therian has since risen to Ubers proper and left Zacian without one of the main things keeping it in check. Other metagame developments have helped with the rise of Zacian including, a drop in Magearna, Alomomola, and Terapagos usage, and the increase in prominence of its Tera Blast sets. Since Lando-T's rise, Zacian has found itself constantly at forefront of discussion, alongside Terastallization, regarding potential tiering action. With the recent Tera Announcement, Ubers UU has elected to follow our parent tier in Ubers and no longer discuss potential Tera bans. As such, the discussion shifted towards whether or not Zacian was actually healthy for the Ubers UU metagame. Despite its recent survey results being lower than that of Terastallization, a Terastallization suspect was no longer on the table, so the council decided to gauge public support for a Zacian suspect.

Zacian is one of the most powerful offensive threats that Ubers UU has access to given the nature of usage based tiering. Zacian possesses one of the best speed tiers in Ubers UU, at 138 base Speed, as well as elite coverage options and a free +1 in Attack the first time it enters. Previously, this was mitigated somewhat by the prevalence of Landorus-Therian and its intimidate, especially limiting Zacian's coverage options. With Landorus-Therian's rise, Zacian found it much easier to adapt its coverage options to the current metagame. Alongside its signature Play Rough, we have seen the rise of Tera Blast Ground + Wild Charge sets to invalidate most of the previous forms of counterplay, such as Magearna, Moltres, Arceus-Poison, and Solagaleo. This isn't the only set we've seen increase in usage either, as many players have started using Tera Fairy + Psychic Fangs and Wild Charge to deal with opposing Poison types without burning Tera itself. Zacian has also found itself significantly more freedom in its item selection in the recent months. Previously, the only Zacian sets were Heavy Duty Boots or potentially Lum Berry on Hyper Offense teams. Now, we have seen more experimentation with Life Orb, Choice Band, Protective Pads, and Lum Berry outside of HO teams, while Boots remains a very strong item for Zacian. This newfound level of customization allows Zacian to essentially pick and choose what is going to counter it. Given its strong coverage options with Wild Charge, Psychic Fangs, Close Combat, and Trailblaze alongside Tera Blast, each match becomes a guessing game of if you have the right counterplay for the given Zacian set. While teams might have the right counterplay, this is not consistent on a game to game basis, often letting Zacian break large holes in opposing teams.

This isn't to say Zacian is without drawbacks though. Intrepid Sword only activating on the first switch in considerably hampers Zacian's power in longer games, especially with its rather lackluster 120 base Attack. While Zacian's speed tier is one of its best attributes, it also prevents Zacian from running Attack boosting natures outside of Choice Banded or potential Trailblaze sets, which does not help with its long term power issues. Defensive counterplay to Zacian does exist as well. Given that Zacian is a Physical attacker, it greatly fears any form of status, especially Burn, which can make it harder to find safe entry. Unaware Pokemon like Clefable, Dondozo, and Quagsire can also effectively nullify most Zacian sets by removing its stat boosts and taking neutral damage from Play Rough. Most Arceus forms that are not hit super effectively by Play Rough can also stave off Zacian in the short term, and other options like Tera Fairy Giratina can cripple Zacian with burns. Because of Zacian's aforementioned lackluster attack stat, it will often need to take a hit in order to set up a Swords Dance, which makes it much more vulnerable to revenge killing attempts. Pokemon like Deoyxs who naturally outspeed and threaten an OHKO with Psycho Boost or Scarfers like Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Chi-Yu, and Landorus-Incarnate can force out or kill a non full HP Zacian.

Navigating the balance between offensively and defensively checking Zacian can be difficult at times, however Zacian does provide some incredibly valuable attributes to the tier. As the tier ecosystem developed around Zacian, it has helped keep other Pokemon, mainly Arceus-Dark, in check due to its good bulk and solid defensive typing. Zacian's speed tier has become one of the best in the tier, only being outran by Deoyxs, Regieleki, and Choice Scarfers, making it one of the most reliable forms of speed control in a tier otherwise starved for it. On the other side of the spectrum, Zacian does force Pokemon onto teams that might not otherwise be viable in order to reign it in defensively. The metagame has adapted to Zacian and its current sets; but as mentioned earlier, Zacian is able to pick and choose its counterplay meaning it is possible for Zacian to adapt right back. Given all of this, the council elected to vote on Zacian which can be seen below:
NameBigFatMantisDorronFcFinchelyFishyRoadsFritoImperialLeo JusticeRasche
ZacianSuspectSuspectSuspectSuspectSuspectSuspectAbstainSuspectSuspect

NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING A NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:
  • Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in Ubers UU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played Ubers UU before the test, full stop.)
  • 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.
  • Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, KineSquared, or a member of staff.
  • If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2770. For reference, the B-value for this suspect will be 3. The suspect test will go on for about 14 days, lasting until Wednesday, March 12th at 11:59 pm GMT-5.

There will be 2 suspect tours in the Unofficial Metagames room on Pokemon showdown! on the 1st and 2nd of March at 2pm GMT -5 and 8pm GMT-5 respectively, and the winner & runner up will qualify for requirements.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message me or anyone else on the Ubers UU council.
 
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Well I already made a pretty long tangent post but I'll try and keep this one "short"

Zacian has without a doubt proven itself to be the most powerful yet unpredictable offensive tools in this metagame, being able to eliminate a lot of defensive and offensive counterplay alike. I think the versatility of its sets is by far the most problematic aspect of it. Quagsire? Get traiblaze/tera fairy PRed. Magearna/Arc poison? Tera ground. Trying to status it? Lum berry. Hell the traiblaze sets also mess up a lot of offensive counterplay, even if they have to drop a coverage move to do it, as it still has an excellent matchup into opposing offense teams. Idk, I think this pokemon just has too many good sets to reliably account for in any given game, and the positives of it managing a lot of other strong threats doesn't come close to outweighing that. It has no consistent checks on a game to game basis (my least favourite was a Lum berry trailblaze TB ground zacian that beat all 4 of a scarf chi yu, quagsire, tera fairy giratina, and iron treads, lol). I think the tier would have a lot more consistency and room for the better player to consistently win if this was gone.
 
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So I’ve gotten reqs with some very skilled HO, and what do I think about zacian? I think that it needs to go ASAP. I would say why, but professional yapper Celeste already did plus I have a video on my channel
 
To be completely honest, this image perfectly describes my run
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My opinion on Zacian still stands, it has way too much variance and there isn't a consistent way of stopping it, i've been getting by with CB fire Zacian + CB Palafin and i'm dreading the day i run into sub Tera Water Zacian, this mon is super forcing both on builder and in game.
 
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Done w reqs, now time to post my opinion.

Overall, I feel very mixed about Zacian. I'm not going to lie, I can see the argument for it being overcentralizing and too powerful for the metagame at large. The usage stats prove as much. Just based on numbers alone, I feel like its banworthy. The set variety makes teams a bit linear as they have to consider running between a few different pokemon to revenge it after tera, being deoxys, scarf Watershifu, Palafin, Chi-yu, maybe a tera blast ice Regieleki if you can cheap it a little bit, and niche options like scarf Palkia or scarf Kyurem.

However, I played a lot of Zacians during this run, and a lot of them had different sets with different coverage and items. I've run into:

Choice band
Tera Fire Wild charge
Tera ground wild charge
Tera ground trailblaze
Wild charge Trailblaze ???
Wild charge psychic fangs
Close combat + an unknown move

And I didn't feel like they are a problem? To be fair, the team I used to get reqs with is very favorable into Zacian due to the virtue of having Mag + Corviknight alongside scarf Watershifu. This basically allowed me to check every possible Zacian variant, Tera or not. And once they were forced out, they just too weak to actually pose a threat. Usually, my opponent would spend the tera on Zacian for one kill and nothing else, essentially making it a 1 for one trade. Afterwards, the Zacian was forced out and would need to find another opportunity to swords dance, which became increasingly harder due to it making its defensive typing weaker. And if they didn't tera, they'd never break through Magearna without dying to fleur cannon. It did not feel oppressive in the same way Necrozma Dawn wings, or Arceus-Fire were oppressive. In fact, it was the choice band set which felt the most oppressive against my team specifically

Overall, I feel like this is a question of how aligned we are to the ubers philosophy. Zacian isn't banworthy by Ubers Standards by any means (in fact I'd argue NDW wasn't banworthy by Uber standards either). However, if we were any other tier (from OU to ZU), it would probably be banworthy. I'm unsure of which side of the line it falls on for now, so I'll be waiting to hear from both sides to make my decision.

Tldr
this image summs up my current feelings about zacian.
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I won't yap too hard cause I'd be repeating a lot of the same points. Any singular Zacian set is not difficult to beat, but altogether they are rather burdensome to prepare for. I think that Leo's post kind of proves my point a little bit. I ran into it once and did come to the realization that yeah my Zacian wasn't going to be doing much vs mag + corv + alo + ursh-rapid. The full team structure is :magearna: :corviknight: :alomomola: :urshifu: :kyurem-white: and I think arceus last although I forget which one. While the team is great into Zacian, it was rather liable to getting bowled over by too much offense from other Pokemon. 31-9 record is kind of crazy, and goes to show how overprepping for zacian leaves you vulnurable to the rest of the metagame.

I personally feel like Zacian warps the tier to an undesirable degree, which is why I will be voting ban, unless otherwise convinced between now and the deadline.
 
Well, Im clueless how to vote, Im ready to be fed propoganda from either side on how to vote. Zacian can adapt and become a problem but I also built my team around checking zacian and I didn't face a problem cuz I used Dozo, so unsure how to vote here and will need to test some more.
 
got reqs and it was god awful to push, I'm currently leaning towards ban due to what has been discussed before (extreme amount of set variance, needing multiple checks for it, etc) but I'm open to hearing out a dnb argument, but all I've read/seen for a dnb argument is that zacian holds the tier together (from imp) and to me that's to the best reasoning. I've also heard that banning zacian will cause many more mons to be very strong (arc dark, palk o, roaring moon, dragons in general) but we can't know that for sure. Me personally id prefer a tera blast ban because I believe that is the main problem that makes zacian extremely strong, but since there is currently only one abuser being zacian itself, atm I believe it should go
also f u kine for ruining my perfect record
 

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Before anyone else tries to seriously make the argument that Zacian holding the tier together is a reason to keep it unbanned, I want to just establish that this is a complete non-argument, and that any attempt to make it appear as one is either ignorant or outright disingenuous.

Pokemon are tiered solely on the basis of whether or not they are actually fit for the metagame they reside in. It does not matter how much a pokemon holds together the rest of a metagame. If a pokemon is broken, we ban it. If other pokemon are then found to be broken, it's cause they were broken anyways and we'll just ban them too.

My point is to say that anyone arguing for the DNB side should be answering this question: why isn't Zacian broken/uncompetitive? Anything arguments that do not relate to that question are irrelevant to this thread, and should not be mentioned.

I am by all means open to hearing genuine arguments in opposition of my position, but I am tired of people pretending like Zacian keeping x pokemon in check is a real argument against it.
 
Finchely said:
Pokemon are tiered solely on the basis of whether or not they are actually fit for the metagame they reside in. It does not matter how much a pokemon holds together the rest of a metagame.
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I do think the first sentence is related to the second sentence tbf - how a pokemon holds the rest of the metagame together directly ties into how they actually fit for the metagame they reside in. I wouldn't call it a total non-argument. Maybe not the most convincing but it is somewhat relevant if the reasoning for banning is "unhealthy" rather than "broken/uncompetitive".
 
BigFatMantis said:
I do think the first sentence is related to the second sentence tbf - how a pokemon holds the rest of the metagame together directly ties into how they actually fit for the metagame they reside in. I wouldn't call it a total non-argument. Maybe not the most convincing but it is somewhat relevant if the reasoning for banning is "unhealthy" rather than "broken/uncompetitive".
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i do think whether you find zacian holding the tier together (.. by handling a lot of potentially overwhelming threatds on its own) unhealthy or broken is also a very subjective thing, i think there is some merit to arguing that zacian handling so many potentially gamebreaking threats makes it a healthy part of the meta but i also think there is equal merit for saying zacian being so dominating to so many pokemon and teamstructures is broken, I feel like the big thing im getting out of this suspect is that zacian tows the line on so many different aspects, and its really interesting to see how people fall on different sides of things, because I think i havent seen many arguments that dont have genuine valid logic behind them.

As my suspect run is almost coming to a close, I do still lean to ban, as I think while in any given game zacian can be checkable I dont think that the counterplay is consistent enough across between matchups to make it truly consistent, as I think Zacian kind of has this "bullshit" factor where you can throw whatever moves on it you want and while it may flounder into a lot of things, sometimes it will just shred a team that will have no possible counterplay for that set. There have been games in my run where either I or my opponent have simply had no way out due to the Zacian set being something that team did not have consistent answers to- even if it was able to safely answer another zacian set.

I think by an OU standard the mon is without a doubt broken, and by Ubers it definitely tows the line, but falls broken for me, mostly because of the unpredictability and variance in the sets allowing zacian to be a huge contributing factor to what i believe is a incredibly unhealthy state of a meta where the better player is less likely to win simply due to that variance. Interested to see how this suspect turns out.
 
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this took way longer than it had to... kept forgetting I was queued up and timing out lmao.

Anyways, I will be voting DNB on zacian. Ive already outlined my thoughts in the metagame discussion thread so go read that if u are interested in my full thoughts, but, TL:DR is that I don't believe that zacian is an ubers level worthy ban. Simply put, there have been many ubers formats which are hyper-centralised around a certain pokemon in the metagame. As others have already mentioned, if this was OU, I would vote ban on zacian as it does put a lot of pressure on the builder and is pretty versatile. However, I disagree that zacian is uncompetitive or allows the "worse" player to win in the majority of cases and because of this I won't be voting ban.

Team I mostly used is here: https://pokepast.es/9298acb525e24393
 
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It took all day to find 24 games, but I did manage to get reqs in a relatively short period of time.

I've discussed my thoughts about Zacian and tiering policy at length in the UUbers discord, but it's definitely worth it to restate them here. I'm very on the fence about what to vote on Zacian. At first I was one of the strongest supporters of a ban, but as always the metagame has adapted around Zacian. The sheer amount of pressure Zacian exerts on the teambuilder can't really be overlooked. At best a team will have a viable check to maybe 3-4 Zac sets, which I find extremely concerning. The mons we've seen pop up to check Zacian aren't exact the most viable things ever either. The Unawares tend to not do very much outside of offense MUs, and Moltres, Skarm, Corv etc are getting sniped by the most common coverage move in Wild Charge. This is something that is extremely unreasonable to deal with in my eyes, but I'm not sure this is enough on its own to warrant a ban.

Zacian is such a crucial piece to our metagame as a speed control, a revenge killer, and even as a defensive check to a few mons. On top of all of that, with the way the meta has adapted to the new Zacian sets, it's not too unreasonable to deal with Zacian within the battle. The Unawares completely shut it down, the Birds force recoil, and even most Teras can threaten Zacian at least once. Offense often can just trade with the Zacian to find a more advantageous position for the numerous good Darks on HO. However, this doesn't mean Zacian isn't banworthy as Miraidon found itself banned for its builder pressure rather than its in game performances.

To me, Zacian finds itself toeing the same line as SS Caly-S and SV Koraidon, where they are extremely strong and banworthy depending on who you ask. Each of these mons undoubtably hold their respective metas together despite putting an immense strain on the teambuilder. While I was firmly DNB on the other two, I think Zacian pushes stuff just a bit too far over the edge. The freedom for Zacian to adapt its coverage, items, and teras to punish any potential check while opening up many other strong pokemon like Roaring Moon, Gouging Fire, DD Arceus, to name a few puts it just slightly to the other side of the line. Overall, I'm still not convinced that either Ban or Do Not Ban is the right option for Zacian, but for now, I am leaning towards Ban.

Team Used (use at your own risk): :samurott-hisui: :raging-bolt: :arceus-dark: :spectrier: :kyurem-white: :zacian:
 
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Finally got reqs earlier, suspect ladder was suffering as per usual

Not going to make a long post about it but I will be voting DNB

Shoutouts to Rasche for the team posted above, made a few preference modifications and loaded it for almost the whole reqs run
 
Unfortunately I don't have time to ladder for reqs (because the times that I'm free to ladder I can only get one game every 45 minutes), but I just wanted to give my brief thoughts on Zacian, since Jusfordlolz pseudo asked me kind of.

I don't think Zacian should be banned. It has been doing the same stuff it's always been doing, just now we notice it more. Zacian has been one of the faces of Ubers UU for a very very long time, and I don't think there has been enough changes to the metagame that support its removal now. Additionally, if we are going to ban it, it can only be per one of the three prongs of tiering policy which are:

1) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant. - this obviously does not apply at all, and if you think it does then you don't understand what it means. This is referring to mostly rng stuff or stuff like baton pass.
2) Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant. - This is what I see a lot of people arguing. However, what people generally are brushing aside, I think, is that this generally does not apply as stringently to an Ubers tier. There's obviously lots of brokens in Ubers. But to better understand it, it needs to be broken down into what it really means, using the examples within the tiering policy framework:
Per the framework:
  • "These aren't necessarily completely uncompetitive because they don't take the determining factor out of the player's hands; both can use these elements and both probably have a fair chance to win. They are broken because they almost dictate / require usage, and a standard team without one of them facing a standard team with one of them would be at a drastic disadvantage."
    • This is simply not true of Zacian. It does not dictate usage - you can make plenty of non-Zacian teams, and you would never be at a "drastic" disadvantage for not using Zacian because you are able to make solid squads without Zacian. I would argue that Arceus pretty much mandates usage way more than Zacian.
  • "These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere."
    • This is also not true of Zacian. Plenty of good pokemon can check it depending on the set. You aren't required to use something like Registeel for example. Mag generally forces it to tera, scarf mons like Lando can chunk it considerably, Deo KOs it after chip, many Arceus sets can set up on it even at +3 and KO it with ESpeed if it's chipped, and, most importantly, if you force it out then it's significantly less potent for the remainder of battle. You can "argue" that there's too many things that require you to know the set etc. etc. before being a good check, but that is not relevant to this prong at all. That's a different kind of argument re: the last prong, so you can't really bring that up if you're talking about it being "broken" when there are clearly things not niche that are checking it.
So, using this tiering policy framework, and especially applying a looser standard to being an Ubers tier (which imo isn't even needed to justify Zacian not being banworthy per these two prongs), Zacian is obviously not banworthy in the Ubers UU metagame. But, there is one more prong to look at!

3) "Unhealthy - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken yet are deemed undesirable for the metagame such that they inhibit "skillful play" to a large extent.... When trying to argue a particular element's suspect status, please avoid this category unless absolutely necessary. This is a last-ditch, subjective catch-all, and tiering arguments should focus on uncompetitive or broken first. We are coming to a point in the generations where the number of threats is close to overwhelming, so we may touch upon this more often, but please try to focus on uncompetitive and broken first." - This is what I think most of the arguments are really looking at when they say "broken", since they aren't really talking about brokenness and moreso unhealthiness. So here is where I will agree with some people:
  • If you think the metagame is garbage right now, then I understand why you want to remove Zacian. It will certainly shake things up, but if the meta is in a really bad state, you are probably hoping it shakes it up for the better and the risk of shaking it up for the worse it worth it. No problem, I understand, and good luck.
  • If you think the metagame is fine right now, then I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to use this prong, which is already a sus prong to begin with for an Ubers tier, to justify banning Zacian. It simply wouldn't make any sense, and you are removing a huge part of the Ubers UU ecosystem for no reason when the metagame works fine.
In case you hadn't guessed it - I think the meta is fine right now. And I don't think Zacian inhibits "skillful play" so badly that it has to be removed here, and even if it did somewhat I don't think we should be banning things in Ubers UU unless they are clearly broken. Zacian is not clearly broken, or even any kind of broken. At worst, it's an unhealthy presence driving the metagame in the gutter if you feel that's where the metagame is right now. If you don't feel that way, then there's no reason to vote ban.

Thanks for reading. If people ladder after 8 PM GMT-8 I might go for reqs.
 
Unfortunately, I do have time to ladder for reqs because I don't really have anything better to do with my life, but I just wanted to give my brief thoughts on Zacian, since FishyRoads wanted me to.

I think Zacian should be banned. It has been doing the same stuff it's always been doing, just now we're noticing just how stupid this mon is. Zacian has been one of the faces of Ubers UU for a very very long time, and I think there has been enough changes to the metagame that support its removal now. Additionally, if we are going to ban it, I might as well share my views on it.

1. I got reqs. I'm a serial shitposter, I don't even play this tier and I went 16-0 in 2 hours. If you hadn't gotten reqs, ladder right now and lock in. This is the most free suspect reqs you can get. I'm not sure why everyone else is complaining ladder suffering, it's easy to get reqs even if you're ass.
2. I went undefeated, which proves that my opinion is better than all of these other losers that got reqs. My opinion is objectively true. If you disagree, then get reqs undefeated. I did it, so it should be easy for any player that has at least 25% of their brain intact.
3. Zacian proves that even if you're dookie at the game, you'll still win 100% of the time. Zacian goes on that trailblaze joint with that swords dance and it just plays rough inappropriately.

In case you hadn't guessed it - I don't think the meta is fine right now. And I think Zacian inhibits "skillful play" so badly that it has to be removed here, and even if it did somewhat, I think we should be banning things in Ubers UU unless they are clearly not broken. Zacian is clearly broken, no, it's purely broken. At best, it's an unhealthy presence driving the metagame in the gutter if you feel that's where the metagame is right now. I'm voting ban. If you don't feel that way, then there's all reasons to vote ban. Shout outs to Frito for actually trying to fix the tier's issues and suspecting the right things (unlike tera blast).

P.S. How come this thread is so active, yet you don't find any of these people on ladder?
 

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Zacian is funny so let's keep it

I originally thought Zacian was an obvious broken that required wack Pokemon and inconsistent lines, but eventually I properly processed that Zacian is a one time sweeper, phazing it out once is checking it because of the significant loss in power. Every game I felt I never felt like Zacian was overperforming or broken. Same when watching a few other games waiting to be paired up. Pokemon is very versatile and unpredictable but doesn't seem like it steals games with this variety. Offensive counterplay is very rich with Deoxys, Scarf Chi-Yu, and once it teras; Scarf Samurott-H, Scarf Urshifu-R, Palafin, and even Grasseus/Iceus/Scarf Kyurem if it's not the rarer Tera Fire. Trailblaze sets try and get around this but become both tera hogs and very inconsistent, since it doesn't beat its standard defensive counterplay, especially with opposing Tera involved.

Defensive counterplay is limited but you still have a handful of options. Quagsire, Clefable, Dondozo, Terad Giratina/Solgaleo/Moltres,
and Terapagos are some of the Pokemon you can use to handle it. Stall can happily use some of the more hard counters and offensive teams are content with keeping up momentem and using offensive counterplay for Zacian. So it's only really balance that's suffering, but even then they can use the temporary checks and trade teras with Zacian, not to mention that Zacian itself is one of the key pillars of balance and keeping it alive. I will be voting Do Not Ban.
 
LovelyLuna said:
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Zacian is funny so let's keep it

I originally thought Zacian was an obvious broken that required wack Pokemon and inconsistent lines, but eventually I properly processed that Zacian is a one time sweeper, phazing it out once is checking it because of the significant loss in power. Every game I felt I never felt like Zacian was overperforming or broken. Same when watching a few other games waiting to be paired up. Pokemon is very versatile and unpredictable but doesn't seem like it steals games with this variety. Offensive counterplay is very rich with Deoxys, Scarf Chi-Yu, and once it teras; Scarf Samurott-H, Scarf Urshifu-R, Palafin, and even Grasseus/Iceus/Scarf Kyurem if it's not the rarer Tera Fire. Trailblaze sets try and get around this but become both tera hogs and very inconsistent, since it doesn't beat its standard defensive counterplay, especially with opposing Tera involved.

Defensive counterplay is limited but you still have a handful of options. Quagsire, Clefable, Dondozo, Terad Giratina/Solgaleo/Moltres,
and Terapagos are some of the Pokemon you can use to handle it. Stall can happily use some of the more hard counters and offensive teams are content with keeping up momentem and using offensive counterplay for Zacian. So it's only really balance that's suffering, but even then they can use the temporary checks and trade teras with Zacian, not to mention that Zacian itself is one of the key pillars of balance and keeping it alive. I will be voting Do Not Ban.
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Okay, a few things
1. Trailblaze Zacian is not losing to the defensive counterplay you listed given the right item, coverage or Tera, since , Quagsire loses to any variant, Terapagos loses to standard Trailblaze and especially hard to Tera Ghost variants, Clefable and Dondozo lose to Tera Fairy boosting item, Moltres and Tina both lose to Lum Berry variants and are forced to Tera before Zacian is (Moltres is a guessing game of is it Wild Charge which by itself is quite losing).
2. Saying Zacian is a one time sweeper is just wrong, yeah, it's considerably easier to handle after inteprid but it can very much come in early, wallbreak for itself, come in later in the game and clean up, especially true for Substitute or Trailblaze variants.
3. All of this is without mentioning the entire ramifications of Choice Band variants, who are by themselves amazing and completely change how you handle Zacian
 
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