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★ UU Suspect Process Round 15 - Goofy Goober ROCK

vivalospride

vivalospride

WHAT MANEUVER COULD POSSIBLY BE SMOOVER
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UU Leader

Come one come all.

After receiving a 3.4 in the recent esteemed UU Survey, we will be suspecting our SV UU hometown hero.

Ogerpon-Cornerstone has been a controversial topic in UU on and off for months at this point. With pro-banners saying this pokemon simply does not have defensive answers, period. While the opposing side of the argument is that the pokémon’s ceiling is exclusively accessible via hyper offense playstyles, and while it has an extremely strong spammable attack in a rock type Ivy Cudgel, that doesn’t make it impossible to defeat with hazards, pressure, speed tiers/prio, etc.

This mon has seen many heated debates in UU cord, forums, and even… believe it or not, I have seen discussion on the alleged brokenness of rockpon in the UU room, OF ALL PLACES. Without question this has been a long time coming, but there is a thick line between the sides of this argument as mentioned before, people who disagree with the idea that rockpon is broken, disagree passionately. While the individuals who wish to see rockpon in UUBL would probably sell a limb for it at this point.

This pokemon has been a part of the metagame for a very long time and has seen high highs and decently low lows over that time frame. Its offensive prowess is pretty much undebatable, that it at the bare minimum, exists, as it holds a pretty much “given” place on most hyper offense builds. But it does indeed find itself rarely splashed onto teams otherwise.

A suspect test is in order to say the least. How do you feel? Especially post and non HO teams and replays that you have seen success with rockpon imo, would add decent layers to the otherwise exhausted perspectives.

—-

NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING THE 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 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 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, Lyssa , or a member of staff.
  • If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me/Lyssa or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2900. The deadline for getting requirements will be Sunday, November 2nd at 11:59pm GMT-4. GLHF chaps
 
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this mon just explodes stuff when it gets an SD and without torn to chip it out with u turn to break sturdy or heatran to potentially fuck it up with flame body we got weavile who is farmed by tera rock.

A short description of it is just... what do you do with an average team? if we look at our samples they need to play extremely aggresively or they get folded in half. Rhyp volt turn has scarf g zapdos but if they call a switch from rhyp / thundy-t / lokix -> skarm right they will just fold it in half and u lose a mon pretty much, tera or not skarm explodes and they can always switch out while allowing something like revavroom come in late game and just clean, Weav + AV conk has a somewhat workable MU but still isnt fun esp since mach punch doesnt even KO after rocks, a lot of times u can deny setup is u just risk losing on the spot to an attack. And vs the Weav Oger spike stack it just clicks cudgel and shit drops either skeledirge is forced to tera and you lose to revavroom or you try to take it on with maybe ogerpon, skarmory, and weavile and get folded in half by something else

Trailblaze sets are fishy and potentially very lethal but they suck if you roll into a player that predicts this or just doesnt give a shit
 
Just finished my suspect run. One thing I've noticed in some of these suspect tests, is that sometimes I finish the test without having interacted much with the mon that's being suspected. That's not very helpful if one wants to form an opinion on said mon, if they haven't laddered the current meta prior to the suspect test. For this reason I decided to use two teams, one with weavile+rockpon and another with weavile+zarude. That way I had plenty of exposure with all 3 of the mons that were on the survey that lead to this suspect. I'm saying this because it's a good way for the people who aren't set on what to vote, to finally decide.
My feelings on rockpon are pretty much the same as before. It's a mon you're never very safe against defensively, unless you slot a chesnaught on your team. I didn't use one, so I had to position well against it and try to revenge it after appropriately sacking, which is very doable. I didn't have issues playing against zarude or weavile either, but I understand the sentiment that you can't cover for every threat in the tier very well.
I'll vote ban on ogerpon, not because it's "broken", but because ivy cudgel is too free of a click, and even if you account for it on paper in the builder, it crits with higher frequency and often robs games by just doing that.
 
I may be able to write a longer, more structured post later, but there are a few things that make Ogerpon-Cornerstone overwhelming to me that I want to point out, perhaps as a discussion topic.

Wallbreaking capabilities
This one is kinda obvious, but the tier obviously has trouble switching into Rockpon. Ivy Cudgel switchins are already limited, but with added Grass-coverage and your pick of Superpower or Stomping Tantrum, your Donphans, Excadrills or Tinkatons are not lasting for very long. The best defensive answers end up being Conkeldurr, Metagross and Chesnaught. The first two can kinda tank its coverage and have super effective priority, but lack longevity while the latter generally struggles handling other threats which can make it hard to use or slot on teams. Physical walls like Skarmory or Toxapex aren't exactly bad, but it just sets up Swords Dance and breaks through regardless. Point is, Ogerpon-Cornerstone will probably make some serious progress if it hits the field.

Revenge-killing options
This one became more obvious to me back when Tornadus-T was in the tier, and I believe it to be less of an issue now, but I still want to highlight it. Ogerpon-C isn't all that hard to revenge-kill usually, but I believe Tera can make things go south very quickly for certain teams. With the switch to pure Rock typing and, most importantly, the Defense boost it gets, it can shrug off hits from Lokix or Weavile which tend to be the most flexible Speed-control options available. Other priority like Mach Punch or Bullet Punch from Conkeldurr or Metagross can still hit it super effectively, but securing a KO with the defense boost isn't always obvious. As such, the main reliable ways to revenge-kill Rockpon are Scarfers, the main ones being Zapdos-Galar and Latios. Granted, those two aren't bad by any means and, if you can chip Oger significantly, those other Pokemon named earlier can still manage to land a KO on it. However, if you can't revenge-kill it, the game is most likely over as Ogerpon-Cornerstone is capable of killing basically the entire tier. With Tera being able to pull it out of a dangerous situation, this can become a lot of pressure.

Synergy with other physical attackers
As I said earlier, Ogerpon-Cornerstone is extremely capable of making progress and, most of the time, this will involve trading with Walls. Thanks to Sturdy, it's very easy for Rockpon to force a trade even with something like Cobalion or Skarmory and deal significant damage or outright kill them. This opens a ton of room for other physical attackers, often ones with more sweeping potential such as Excadrill, Zarude or Weavile, to get going. I've played a number of games where I've managed to sweep with one of those three after Rockpon took out a Skarmory or something. It's a nasty one-two punch that I think justifies it on many BOs.

Healing Wish
Okay this one is probably more of a me thing, but remember how I said Rockpon is really good at trading? Yeah, with Healing Wish, you can often times just take out the one pokemon preventing it from making progress and just heal Oger back up, leaving your opponent with next to no way to take its hits. This isn't exactly a hard combo to build around either, Gardevoir has seen bits of success for a while now and Jirachi is currently rising. I will admit though, it's something that has seen minimal experimentation so far and that requires some specific and weaker mons than you might like. Still, I do believe it's worth discussing or experimenting with.

Anyway, it's clear that, with those last two aspects specifically, I think Ogerpon-Cornerstone can absolutely work on teamstyles besides HO. I also want to share a team that, while maybe not the most viable out there, has been fun and demonstrates some of the concepts I wanted to highlight.
:cresselia::ogerpon-cornerstone::excadrill::cobalion::slowking::weavile:
In general, I believe Rockpon can pair very well with Excadrill which both serves as hazard removal and can take advantage of the progress Oger can make. Anyway, that's all from me, later.
 
Just got reqs and i feel about it the same way some of the others here have expressed. Its really hard to preserve options to beat it over the course of a game. Pretty much any team has a way of winning a 1v1 against ogerpon, but to keep those ways of surviving against it viable is really difficult especially when you keep in mind the other offensive checks it will be paired with. Being forced to tera or sacrifice health on walls like skarms leaves you open to just lose to one of the other set up sweepers your opponent has (for example weavile,rev or exca). Cudgel is a safe click but the threat of SD is particularly annoying.SD makes it very costly to predict wrong against it as that sort of mistake is likely to cost you 2 mons if not the game. At times you just need to willingly sacc a mon to ogerpon to make sure it cant sd and sweep from there. The issue is not per se that there is nothing that an stop it, but there is nothing that stops it reliably/is sturdy enough not to leave you incredibly vulnerable to predicts whilst also ensuring you didnt just trade your way of beating the other threats on your opponents team.


I dont want to make it sound like you cant beat ogerpon, you still have to position it correctly and the lack of a real item means that the things that beat it dont really change, you can rely on the fact that scarf zarude can reveneg ogerpon. In my experience its not the kind of mon that can just come in on a whim, but when it does it leaves you with very little options to answer it in a statisfying way. To revenge it with zarude sturdy must be broken and tera destroys plans of revenging it with somethign liek weavile. To be fair though, essentially every offensive mon can use tera in pretty much the same way ogerpon does, though it should be noted that tera rock cudgel 2hkos so much of the tier and the things that it doesnt (liek cobalion or donphan) cant deal with its over attacking moves like superpower or horn leech. The last thing i want to mention is that ogerpon gets a lot of opportunities to try and break/sweep. You can always just switch out of an unfavourable encounter and keep up momentum with teammates likes thundurus. Also ivy cudgel having the increased crit rate is just so stupid.

The summary of this is that Ogerpon is just too difficult to answer reliably throughout a game, especially without compromising your ability to beat the rest of its team.
 
Screenshot 2025-10-22 at 7.11.35 AM.png

team used: https://pokepast.es/e01f28a75cca78db

hadn't played in a few months so don't know for sure how corner play / usage has changed since the shifts other than from what i've seen on tour games. didn't see it more than a few times (sand teams were by far the most common), and this is true for tour games as well so i think that speaks to it not being terribly easy to just dump on most teams. it's obviously very good on offences / volt turn type teams but it feels like it doesn't have the usage to match its suggested level of brokenness. i think largely speaking due to it not fulfilling the defensive duties you want out of a grass or rock type. i'd probably lean a little more to the no ban side, because i think there are good checks you can fit on a team and it doesn't have a ton of opportunities to come in usually without being enabled by a slowking or smth. that said i don't think there's a real wrong answer here w.r.t ban/no ban
 
This mon has been in the tier for 2 years at this point and never once has it felt "positive" towards the metagame. It's mostly just been a shoe in on HO teams that make them more obnoxious to fight than they already are. I feel the only reason its lasted so long is because it took a while to optimize it once all the moveslot issues it had were no longer there (No dogi means it doesnt need Zen Headbutt, no Kommo means it doesnt need Play Rough). Nowawadays the only moves it needs are Ivy Cudgel and Superpower/Stomping Tantrum, leaving its remaining two options to cause a whole bunch of shenanigans. Usually the standard picks are a Grass STAB and Swords Dance, but even in this theres the issue of which grass stab it is. Do i sack my weak mon to get a revenge killer in, or do i not risk a Trailblaze? Do i stay in and chip it, or is it just gonna horn leech the health back? And then theres Power Whip just bashing the snot out of things that resist rock and arent fighting weak like conk or w/e. Swords Dance can also be dropped for smth like Taunt to mess with things trying to heal to stay out of range.

Another thing to go over is how Rockpon has seen usage on non HO structures recently, I mostly point to Mossy Sandwich showing me the possibilities of it, but i recall seeing a U-Turn one recently which lets it mess with checks further. Point is, the idea that it is "limited to HO" is rather outdated. Even if it wasnt, I struggle to see how thats relevant considering how its rather consistent on the style. People cite its typing as a major hinderance when, in a post torn meta, its kinda... not the biggest deal? The main methods of revenge killing it are Scarfers (which require a choice lock that an HO team can easily capitalize on) or Weavile (who gets packed up if rockpon teras). Speaking of tera, as others have mentioned, its bulk post tera means that it can kinda munch most of the tiers priority, further hindering offensive counterplay.

Meanwhile, defensive counterplay is near non-existent. The only options I'd consider remotely passable as defensive checks (as in, not piss easy to get into +2 tantrum/cudgel range with Rockpon's Teammates) are Chesnaught and Metagross, the former of which is awkward to slot and the ladder is solid but not exactly splashable.

Not too much else to say that hasnt been said already, this mon's counterplay is incredibly flimsy and as others have said its teammates can ensure that flimsiness is well taken advantage of. As a whole, Rockpon is dumb and the tier can only benefit from its removal. Ban.
 
Just got reqs. I feel like Ogerpon-Cornerstone is banworthy, and is a large part of what makes HO so good in UU. Even physical walls such as Skarmory struggle with it if it happens to get Crit with Ivy Cudgel, which has a 1/8 chance of happening. It has really good coverage with the combination of Ivy Cudgel, Powerwhip/Trailblaze, SD, and Superpower. When you have to rely on Metagross, which loses to Stomping Tantrum, and Chestnaught, which doesn't fit on every team. You know something is banworthy. Ogerpon also has the coverage to deal with those two as well as Metagross loses to the aforementioned Stomping Tantrum, and Chestnaught loses to Play Rough, so your one answer could be blown away with a coverage move. Trailblaze sets, once they get going are extremely difficult to stop. I feel like Ogerpon's ban will make things easier on the phyiscal walls of the tier such as Cobalion and Skarmory to better check the likes of Weavile and Zarude, the latter of which is just as if not even more broken than Ogerpon. Ban this mon.
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Ogerpon-C after it gets banned from UU (Ik this is teal mask)
 
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Something I haven't seen stated yet is the difficulty of actually revenge killing Cornerstone. I don't mean lokix/weavile being tera rock victims, I'm talking about pokemon that should have cornerstone dead to rights such as scarf gapdos/latios. Offensive counterplay involving sacks to bring in scarfers generally implies a trade war firing ohkos back and forth...except our scarfers are really bad at clicking moves. Its not easy to lock into moves like scarf draco or cc, so these pokemon that on paper easily ohko Cornerstone usually have to click pivoting and pray the cornerstone respects it. If the Cornerstone chooses not to respect this you're immediately down 2 sacks, and Cornerstone gets a lot of chances to condition you into pivoting over the course of a game.

I've been a day 1 Cornerstone spammer, so I wanted to play a team without it for these reps. It's just as terrifying as ever, and even with a revenge killer that didn't have to play those pivoting mindgames (grasspon) cornerstone effortlessly tore through my team. While it did immediately put me on the backfoot, I never immediately lost because of it. I'm still undecided on whether to vote ban or dnb but it encourages a really aggresive crit fishing/hard read mentalilty I don't think is healthy for the tier
 
Most of the stuff i wanted to say about cornerpon were either already spoken in uucord or written more properly in the posts above (mostly by mossy and gryphon)

Is ogerpon uncheckable? definitely not, but i do feel like having an insanely strong spammable STAB + having access to coverage to muscle through pretty much every check without giving up too much on its moveset + still being able to solidly deviate from just sd breaker sets by being able to include trailblaze/taunt/spikyshield and even nicher options like encore/u-turn as shown by crying in scl while still having fine enough bulk (specially considering the +1 def boost from tera) to also make revenge killing it not a straightforward task (as exemplified in mossy and gryphons posts) can be too much when trying to be solid throughout a game vs it.

While it's true that most of the time you'll find cornerstone in very offensive structures, it is totally usable outside of those as well as mossy exemplified, but going ever further i think you can even use cornerpon on BOs/Vanilla Offenses that doesn't exactly rely on Healing Wish just because even if you can't keep sturdy intact, it's still a fantastic and one of the most consistent breakers we have available in the tier with just SD Cudgel Whip Spower/Stomping.

We do have other pokemon that can't be walled as easily, sure, but people forget that even without factoring sturdy it still is a pokemon with 110 base speed which is the top tier for UU right now as far as breakers go, 120 base attack with an item that'll just boost its attacks without any real drawback (sure, it can't use boots, but having that sheer power over taking hazard damages feels like a fine trade for a breaker) with a strong STAB with no immunities, high crit ratio without drawbacks as well (not even contact) and also don't need to lock itself into a move, differentiating itself from most of the other slower hardly checkable breakers.

While i'm mostly pro-ban regarding cornerstone, i do agree with what cynde said in the end of his post @ not having wrong answers on how you approach this suspect, i do recognize cornerpon has its limitations because while i do think it doesn't exactly need to have sturdy intact at all costs, it is still huge to have it if you can, and even with the coverage available, it still has to be careful about reactive teras and needs to have a team that do allow good positioning for it. I'm all for people having different opinions and that's what is expected in a healthy discussion, but when it comes from bandwagonning then i'd suggest to at least try to play a bit and form your own opinions, whether or not it'll be considered ''wrong'' by other people.
 
super quick post on my end just wanna show some representation in the thread

got reqs on a plane bc i got lucky and it had free wifi, wanna say veil is super good as it has been for like a few months, not super relevant to the thread tho lol

ultimately i find myself pretty on the fence here, I think the mon is super high floor offensively, generally, you cant reasonably expect a chesnaught and other hard defensive stops aren’t super difficult to work around for rockpon or at least for rockpon to get rly meaningful chip for the mons surrounding it to capitalize on.

with that said I have a hard time saying the mon is banworthy or broken, I feel like it’s just not free enough to get clicks with, especially on most archetypes, and yes i’m considering stuff like hwish in this equation. I do believe you can completely own with this mon in manners that doesn’t feel competitive, but honestly I find myself using it as a tool to create openings for the actual brooms i have in the back moreso than fucking everything insight by itself. In a short game, while cudgel does a shit ton of damage it doesn’t OHKO much except for SE frail targets, and even with chip from stuff like hazards it doesn’t always capitalize on plentiful opportunities due to its shitty defensive typing and “OK” (in 2025) speed tier/prio existing.

Honestly unsure what I will be voting atm as I mostly am cool with either situation happening, and I do understand the arguments in the broken direction. I am leaning no ban tho as of rn but not by a ton. Will read thru this thread for sure once some more posts come in and see what’s brackin.

Happy laddering fellow UUers

Usually I drop a team in these posts but like I said I used veil and my veil was pretty old, the Cynde veil is the shmoove for anyone tryna get free reqs for sure
 
Got reqs!

I'd be lying if I said Cornerpon hasn't gotten easier to deal with post-shifts. The rises have given checks like metagross and chesnaught a lot more viability and new revenge options like weavile and gapdos have definitely given rockpon a much needed nerf in terms of potency. I ran a chesnaught team throughout the suspect run and I had almost no trouble with the oger (also it did a ton of work otherwise, use ches more it's good.) So in terms of pure brokenness, I'd say it's manageable at the moment.

With that said, I'm still semi-uncomfortable with the mon's presence. Apple made the great point that mon has never felt like a "positive" inclusion in the tier. That's kinda the reason the mon has flip-flopped from broken to mid so often. It's not a key offensive or defensive mon, it just shows up when it feels broken to use and falls off otherwise. I don't feel super worried about it at the moment, but I can't really bring myself to actually want to keep it. I'm most likely voting Ban, though like others have said, I can't blame anyone for anything otherwise.
 
Screenshot 2025-10-26 at 11.05.11 PM.png


first ever UU suspect, oh my god that took too long im not good at sustests xD

i feel like Ogerpon-Cornerstone is a pokemon very deserving of a BAN. The pokemon has like one of the most clickable moves of all time, 120 power rock type damage, no contact, as well as a high crit chance, which is a crazy good move on its own. There are no pokemon capable that switch into it making it a good way of making progress. However, gamefreak has blessed the oni with an amazing speed stat of 110, making it the 4th fastest mon in the tier (barring speed boosts like greninja or choice scarf pokemon).

Furthermore, Ogerpon-cornerstone's tera is very busted as well. originally, stuff like a mach punch conkeldurr, ice shard weavile, or first impression lokix (which loses if ogerpon is spiky shield), revenge kill it. However, the defense boost from tera allows it to shrug off weak super effective priority (mach punch conkeldurr), strong but non effective priority (lokix first impression), or weak and non effective priority (weavile ice shard), making it a very hard mon to revenge.

I think this mon is already busted enough on its own, but it would be walled by defensively strong steel types, man imagine if it had strong fighting or ground coverage to hit...oh this guy gets superpower and stomping tantrum. These moves make Rockpon even harder to reliably switch into as stuff like cobalion and tinkaton lose a lot of HP in the process, making them either dead to the next hit or left at very low HP.

Oh and it gets sturdy. Sturdy's cool

For these reasons, ban Rockpon

Edit: I forgot two things
1. Ivy cudgel is 100% accurate which adds to the clickability
2. Horn leech helps to bring it back to full reactivating sturdy
 
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I've been strongly pro ban for a while and got reqs. A lot of my opinions have alr been expressed in the thread, but i'd like to add on. Firstly here are very, very few switch-ins to cornerpon. Tink, meta, rachi, skarm, chesnaught, and conk are generally mentioned, but it has fairly consistent ways around a lot of them, being able to 1v1 them if it sds on the switch or gets lucky crits.

Even the most physically bulky tink is unable to stand up to corner, and such spreads are rare anyways
+2 252 Atk Cornerstone Mask Tera Rock Ogerpon-Cornerstone-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tinkaton: 209-247 (55.8 - 66%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Tinkaton Gigaton Hammer vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Rock Ogerpon-Cornerstone-Tera: 210-248 (69.7 - 82.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

One of the bulkiest skarms you could feasibly run is destroyed by sd, especially w/ tera
+2 252 Atk Cornerstone Mask Tera Rock Ogerpon-Cornerstone-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 248 HP / 212+ Def Skarmory: 288-340 (86.4 - 102.1%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

Even metagross which generally considered the best switch-in outside of chesnaught, is susceptible to being chipped down and ko'd, which is not helped by the fact that it struggles to stay healthy due to its low speed, helmet chip, and spikes weakness. Meta is also awkward to fit on teams due to its dark weakness as well as the aforementioned qualities
252 Atk Cornerstone Mask Tera Rock Ogerpon-Cornerstone-Tera Superpower vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 119-140 (32.6 - 38.4%) -- 98.7% chance to 3HKO

conk just dies to pwhip
+2 252 Atk Cornerstone Mask Tera Rock Ogerpon-Cornerstone-Tera Power Whip vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 463-546 (112.1 - 132.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Chesnaught is the only mon that can switch into meta repeatedly thanks to synthesis, but it still needs to remain at very high health.

As other people have mentioned, corner works extremely well with other physical attackers in the tier. With weavile, zarude, revavroom, sd kix, slither wing etc to contend with, it's incredibly challenging for non-offense teams to be prepared for so many threats. The only way to solve this issue is by banning the problematic offensive mons like zarude and car until offense reaches a manageable level, and i believe banning cornerstone is a good first step.
 
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just got my reqs, had a ton of failed runs until i slapped scarf rachi of all things on my team and proceeded to have what i think is my best ever suspect run

a big part of the reason it did so well is that it beats rockpon, except when it doesn't. and that seems to be the motto of any supposed rockpon check, offensive or defensive. are you using the tried-and-true revenge killing strat of "when in doubt, lokix"? better hope sturdy is broken, and also that it isn't randomly running spiky shield. gonna try triple axeling it with weavile to get around sturdy? pray that it's not one of the 27.5% of timelines where one of those motherfuckers doesn't connect. you've built your team around multiple revenge killers that have good offensive matchups into rockpon? too bad, this one is running trailblaze and now outspeeds all of them. don't even bother trying to check it defensively, something's getting fed to a +2 ivy cudgel crit unless you're running chesnaught or... ok, basically just chesnaught. and of course for any and all of those options rockpon can choose to click the funny button, drop all of grass's weaknesses, and gain physical bulk on par with a lot of bulky offense mons while also getting an additional boost to the most clickable move in the tier. for free. who designed this

i don't think it should be too surprising to anybody that i'm voting ban. maybe the loyal three were the heroes of the story all along
 
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beautiful CC1V1 record

Got the reqs like 2 days ago but didnt feel like posting until now. Cornerpon in my point of view is not broken, it punishes slow bulky teams (by not allowing mons like :skarmory: , :mandibuzz: , :clodsire: or :fezandipiti: to switch freely) and it encourages good positioning by positioning your mons in a way that it cannot revenge kill you, in theory it sounds broken. How are we letting a mon that 2hkos the entire tier run around freely? The answer is simple, most of the time cornerpon wont be facing a wall head on, since it will get punished. If it tries to switch in on them it will get damaged by their tools (skarm's body press or clodsire's toxic) or get pivoted by the tier many pivot walls, Cornerpon is also a very frail mon with many weaknesses so it can only enter on pokemon that are offensive on a revenge-kill scenario, and this scenario is what causes many people to say "this mon is broken, how am I supposed to deal with this!" The answer is that you dont, this mon trades his own health and team to be able to get a kill, this is why I dont consider it broken, its a pokemon that trades against the other team, not one that sweeps it.

(tera ogerpon is also not sweeping anyone unless its trailblaze in which it will probably drop pwhip or superpower so just revenge kill it with priority or any steel on the tier)

Im voting DNB if we want to harm HO we should ban :revavroom: or :weavile:, this mon has more benefits staying than leaving.
 
Got reqs a while ago but didn't face oger too much, but did try playing the tier after that just to check whether my previos opinion of wanting this thing gone still feels valid, and it still does.

Ogerpon pressures defensive teams way too much(it's not the only mon that does thus, manaphy and thundurus do this too but not relevant to this discussion) and gains free SDs against most such teams. And along with 16pp fully accurate stone edge, it threatens pretty much evwrything for massive damage at +2., along with this, rwvenge killing options for offense is mostly scarfers which are a momentum sink against ogerpon teams(latios draco is a free switchin to azu/revavroom latios luster is a free switchin to jugulis, etc.)
It's either sweeping or trading reliably every game on HO, and on other teams , it's wallbreaking is too difficult to withstand due it's power and speed.

In addition to this, it provides very little of value, and everything that it can potentially provide(knockturn bot) is done better by base ogerpon and it does it without being anywhere near difficult to answer for both defensive and offensive teams.

Despitw this, I don't think banning it saves the tier because the tier still has issues with similar mons, banning it is just a good step
 
Another Video on the subject. I feel so creative!


TLDW:
1. Ogerpon-Cornerstone may be difficult to wall without running specific Pokémon, but its game plan requires a lot of effort, both in the builder and in gameplay, to make it work. When considering all the things that can go wrong--such as your opponent using Tera, Focus Sash, Scarfers, etc.--not having a hard wall does not equal a free win for the Cornerstone.

2. I agree with Cynde. It is hard to get Ogerpon-Cornerstone in without getting chipped, statused, or dying (still frail) unless you make plays to make it work. Even then, you still have to consider the same stuff that can go wrong.

3. Experimental stuff like healing wish with it may be showing lots of promise, but that doesn't make it broken. It puts more pressure on it and the player using it to be proactive with it.

4. We shouldn't be afraid of the Mon just because it rewards aggressive gameplay.

5. Still voting no ban (I love accurate and strong mons).
 
Here I am posting a second time because I usually do this for suspects (usually i do this later but i had thoughts i really wanted to get out). Before I continue, this is not be saying that its incorrect to think one way or another, just that I wanted to give some thoughts about what has been said.

Firstly, I really dont think Rockpon is that frail, it just doesnt have a lot of defensive utility beyond sturdy which is hard to make use of off of HO (not that its super needed off of it anyways). 80/84/96 defenses is not bulky by any stretch of the imagination, but its by no means easy to just throw in anything faster and OHKO it, especially when its tera boosts its defense and sheds a good few of the annoying weaknesses, making the potential revenge killer in Weavile significantly worse at doing it. The lack of defensive utility may seem like a hinderance, but when its slotted on Volt-Turn or HO it kind of becomes an afterthought, as Rockpon is not something thats meant to be hard switched into things in the first place.

I also really cant get behind the idea that it punishes slow, passive teams, considering those are the ones that are actually somewhat capable of slotting chesnaught, and even then its not even the end of the world if they get a bit better as there's still plenty of ways to punish those styles. Balance and BO teams end up being the ones to suffer as a lot of their pieces get clocked in the head unless they run Metagross (who Rockpon can reasonably tech for with knock off, or spikes on a volt turn). Additionally, the idea that it "rewards aggressive play" seems odd to me, unless you mean it rewards aggressive playstyles such as VoltTurn Offense or HO. To me, the term "aggressive play" requires you to strongly think about the opponents situation and what you can do to take advantage of it to either further a lead or claw back from a bad position. Rockpon doesnt really operate like this, as its mainly just clicking either the strongest button into whatevers in front of it, Swords Dance to nuke whatever switches in, or some new tech like spikes to wear steels down (as seen in a recent SCL game). This can require some level of thought, but the risk reward situation usually feels heavily favored for the Rockpon to me, as it means that its usually trading 1 for 1 at worst while ripping teams apart at best. Of course, this is a bit semanticy with terms and whatnot, but the point is that I dont feel Rockpon really makes its user put enough thought into plays for the reward it gets out of them, and moreso just pushes the meta more towards offensive playstyles.

Hwish Offense is another style thats popped up to get Rockpon more support, but I dont feel that means Rockpon is on its own in the game. The Hwish users in this tier (mainly gard, but enamorus-therian and to a lesser extent jirachi), are decent to good and can supplement Rockpon's offensive pressure or support the team in other ways. As for Rockpon itself on these styles, its arguably even more of a pain. Traded something to status it? Gone. Wore it down with hazards? Gone. As a whole, I feel the way you work around rockpon on different styles varies a good bit, which makes it even more painful to deal with.

Lastly, I understand the idea that needing to be able to defensively answer everything in a tier is ridiculous, and would make defensive styles actually ridiculous. However, when something outspeeds the majority of the tier and is super strong, I feel as though some sort of defensive retort would be nice to have. Otherwise, as I've said a good bit, it pushes the meta to be more offensive leaning.

Again, not trying to shame anyone, think what you wanna think, just that the discussion gave me some more thoughts on the matter and I figured I'd share them.
 
A bit more than a week's passed since my original post, and with that another weekend of new meta gaming for SCL. Frankly, oger's looked less potent when comparing it to our last, torn-centered meta. I've given it some more thought and I'm not certain that banning it will push the meta to a better direction necessarily. I don't have anything else to add to what's already been said, just that my stance has changed a bit, and that I'll be waiting to see what this week's SCL games will be looking like, before fully making up my mind on the matter. From what I've seen there so far, it's looking like a good mon, but one that different types of teams have tools to deal with.
 
Got last minute reqs because I was a bum but then decided to lock in and actually get reqs lol. But anyways I'm going to be voting Ban on Cornerstone.

IDT anybody needs to argue that countering cornerstone purely defensively is almost impossible outside of like, chesnaught. The more interesting question is whether or not offensively checking it/softchecking it is enough or reliable, and in this case IDT it is.

110 speed isn't the fastest thing in the tier, but its also pretty dang fast for the tier. Only greninja and weavile naturally outspeed it, with the rest being scarfers or priority. Scarfers not only are unreliable because cornerstone can easily fit trailblaze onto its moveset, but they also have to choice lock into something that most likely will allow its teammates to abuse it. Choice lock into draco meteor with scarf latios and now revavroom has gotten a shift gear and either 1. can get another or 2. has its air balloon intact. Choice lock into cc with gapdos and now the latios is clicking cm very easily, or the azumarill is clicking belly drum. Thus, you have to look to priority, but most of them are unreliable. Aside from gren water shuriken, all of them have some other issues with reliability (lokix fimp being beaten by spiky shield), but the primary issue is that they don't reliably beat it. This is due to tera rock, which due to the defense boost makes them bounce off it. Even flame punch conk mach punch does 69% max, and forget about BU variants, those do 39% max. Lokix fimp does 41% max, while weavile shard 19% and t-axel only does 57%. Sure, these will make sure its low, but you have lost an incredibly important piece for your HO mu, which is not something that is great.

Then theres soft checks, and those also feel unreliable. Theres conk, which is okay ig, but thats prob the only one and +2 attacks absolutely hurt it. You have metagross, but meta feels awkward to fit onto teams and still does not appreciate stomping tantrum, which is a perfectly fine coverage move options. Sure, tink is cool but its passive af against a lot of HO mons and it does have to answer other things such as zarude and jugulis. Skarm can take a +2 non tera cudgel, but combined with rocks chip its going to be incredibly chipped and otherwise unable to answer stuff.

Then theres "simply don't let it get a free turn", but thats easier said then done. You can get cornerstone in on stuff such as a free recover against walls like skeledirge, gastrodon, fezandipiti etc, which really pressures there team as even if they are high enough hp to take a hit, they will still be so low that they can't answer corners teammates. Theres also on a revenge kill, which is the easiest way. Oh, your thundy decided to kill my sweeper, yeah i got corner in and now you have to play the 50/50 of do I stay in to volt and break sturdy on the SD or do I hard switch for the potential cudgel kill. These sort of scenarios are common place, and they are incredibly infuriating to play against, because if you get it wrong it could lead to massive holes being open up. My literal second last reqs game was this, I sent in cornerstone after they ko'd my excadrill lead (i had switched it out from yanmega), and I simply clicked cudgel to try and read the predict. This lead to yanmega breaking holes in the opposing team quite well since thundy wasn't there to take its hits. This is something that feels incredibly uncompetitive since if you lose the coinflip, you might just lose the game.

I also don't see the arguement that it punishes passive teams. I play enough lower tiers to see this arguement come up constantly, and frankly put, its never really true. Those slow bulky teams are usually the ones that beat the mon, because they can somewhat afford to dedicate the specific checks to beat the mon i.e using stuff such as zong or cress for mamoswine in RU. Cornerstone is not punishing stall/bulky balance teams, because those are the ones that can afford to run chesnaught. Its punishing the BO/normal balance teams that can't afford to run these specific checks as often because they cannot cover everything else in the meta. This is never an arguement that holds up under inspection, but it continues to be brought up so I think its good to adress it.

Ultimately, ogerpon cornerstone is a pokemon that has very little answers in the tier and every answer has to have a decently sized asterisk put next to it, and thus I think banning it would be for the best. Will it make the tier immediately great? no. But it will help it. Just because something doesn't instantly fix a meta, doesn't mean we shouldn't ban it, sometimes multiple bans are needed to make a meta better.

Teams I used during suspect were the no removal stall sample but with chesnaught over reuniclus, and this HO team here which is broken as fuck. https://pokepast.es/16818008894e5561
 
 
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