So I've been hearing people stating quick pass scolipede is not broken, and I would like some elaboration on those arguments. As for the general lack of quick pass teams that have made reqs, I point to the fact that a grand total of one full BP user has made reqs so far, and yet we still generally agree that it is still broken. If we reject the above argument against the brokenness of full BP teams, then we cannot use that same argument for stating that quick pass teams are not broken. Many of the mons that work well against BP in general also work well against quick pass because they both rely on iron defense scolipede. To help, I will state exactly what iron defense scolipede is capable of doing, and you can decide whether or not it is still broken.
Scolipede @ Mental Herb
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Atk(8SPdef)
Impish Nature
- Baton Pass
- Protect
- subs/rock slide/earthquake/megahorn/whatever you want really
- Iron Defense
Iron defense scolipede is primarily a support mon who is capable of consistently getting speed and defense boosts to pass to another team member at little personal risk. The number of mons that scolipede is capable of setting up in front of is actually quite staggering, and the number of mons that scoli can successfully "escape" from (baton pass away) is even more so. Simply put, any physical mon that is slower then scolipede is little more then a free iron defense to it, as there is no physical mon slower then an uninvested scolipede capable of killing it through an iron defense boost, and that includes mons with a powerful SE STAB like TTar and Medicham. Faster phys mons fair only slightly better, if they lack a boosting move, scolipede wins every time by protecting first then setting up in their face. If they do have a boosting move, then it turns into a 50/50 coin flip at best, if scolipede predicts the boosting move and gets an iron defense up, you are screwed because no boosting move besides shell smash can keep up with scolipede in both speed and attack/defense. If scolipede predicts an attack, he protects first and then iron defense. This is all assuming that the faster mon in question is capable of OHKOing a +0 scolipede, further limiting this particular pool of pokemon. Pokemon in this catagory include rock polish Terrakion, Breloom(spore), and Salamence. There are a grand total of four physical mons (3 OU viable ones) that I have found to be capable of anti-leading scolipede, and those are speed invested DD megazad-X, speed invested M-Pinsir, CB Infiltrator Ninjask (look, I really like ninjask, k?), and pretty much any talonflame. There are no known physical scolipede counters as +2 scolipede is capable of taking a friggen CB Tflame brave bird. Once scolipede gets out with one or two iron defense boosts and one to 3 speed boosts, your team is in trouble. As I have shown in multiple replays, if you don't hit the swap in hard as it comes in or the turn immediately after, you are going to get swept no matter how many priority users and revenge killers you packed into your team, because all your priority users are physical and therefore borderline useless in the face of those defense boosts and your revenge killers are prolly gonna get outsped and ohko'd. The only other option is to have a stupidly bulky phazer capable of taking a hit from the sweeper and phasing it out, but espeon kinda laughs at that.
Obviously, that's not the entire story, there are still special mons to consider. Special mons have an easier time preventing scolipede from getting boosts. If you have a special attacker with respectable special attack and/or an SE attack plus a speed boosting move, scolipede will be forced to hard swap. Furthermore, there are a few mons capable of outspeeding a +1 scolipede, which include deo-s, megazam, and trace gard (only if led into scoli), these mons can force a hard swap even without a speed boosting move. If you lack a speed boosting move and are not one of those 3 mons, then scolipede will be able to get his speed and BP out, this includes taunt thundy (only once obv). If scoli has a mon capable of swapping into your special mon and ohko it the next turn, then you will likely be forced to hard swap or sac your scoli anti-lead. Hard swapping isn't bad, as you are really only looking at a mon who is likely at about half-ish hp with +1 speed, but there are a decent number of mons who can be threatening with nothing more then +1 speed (like bulky zard-x), so the swap in is likely going to get hit rather hard, possibly 2hkod. Scolipede anti-leads are pretty much any mon with a speed boosting move like volca, rock polish lando-I, and agility proygon-z, as well as pre M-Evo gard. The only known special scolipede counters are mega alakazam, speedy deo-s, and sometimes taunt thundy-I (gotta get rid of that mental herb first).
So there are a grand total of three mons capable of swapping into scolipede and preventing it from swapping, 3. This is the primary basis I have for scolipede being broken, it is far too reliable at what it does, and the support it provides can frequently lead to significant holes being made in the enemy team. Furthermore, scolipede doesn't have to lead. It frequently does because it's a pretty good scout capable of passing at least speed at little personal risk, but it does not need to. Every team I have faced on the ladder has had at least one mon who is total setup bait for scolipede, and that mon is usually a physical revenge killer (usually Bisharp, ttar or Mamoswine). It is darn easy to lure out a revenge killer to, well, revenge kill, all it really takes is a fast threat like LO deo-s. When they take the bait and kill said threat, scolipede gets in and sets up for absolutely free, and unless scolipede is significantly weakened or the opponent is carrying one of scoli's 3 hard counters, scolipede gets 1 or more iron defense boosts and passes them out and there is nothing the opponent can do to stop this from happening. This lack of counterplay available to the opponent is a large portion of the reason why I believe scolipede is broken. The opponents best hope is that he can hit the swap in hard, if he fails to do so, he will probably be swept. Given that BP gives swap initiative, this is a rather difficult task because if the scoli user has even one pokemon that hard counters the mon you have out, it's gg from there.
That is not all though. Look again at the set, the third move specifically. That third move can be darn near anything. During this entire analysis, I have assumed scolipede only has three moves. But scolipede normally has four moves, and that fourth move can allow it to bypass a lot of his checks. For example, I personally like running rock slide on my scoli to pick off weakened genies and megazard-Y, both of whom are normally solid scoli checks and one of them is one of scoli's "counters". Earthquake allows it to hit heatran and aegis very hard, 2 other very solid scoli checks as the former is a bulky phaser and the latter hits darn near anything stupid hard, and megahorn allows it to catch psychics like megazam and deo-s on the swap in and is it's strongest neutral option. So not only is scoli difficult to stop, he has options for getting around mons that would normally be a hard stop or at least a very solid check to him. I personally dislike subs, as I think it's a waste of valuable health and free turns, but it does stop para, which scoli hates with a passion.
So what this analysis shows is that scolipede can "do his job" very reliably. It is very rare for me to go a game without pulling off at least one defense pass, and it's usually either against dumb stuff like haze blastoise and perish song whatever or against a very special attack heavy team. However, while I discussed some likely outcomes of scolipede providing this support, I did provide a few very clear methods of counter play, namely packing a very bulky phazer, having something that can stall out the swap in, even with boosts and hitting the swap in very hard on the special side. Of those three, only two of them can really be circumvented VIA magic bounce, which is the phasing and outstalling. There is only one mon that can outstall espeon and that is specially defensive CM clefable. There are several special mons which are difficult to find swap ins for, and those include Thundy, Lando-I, Aeigi, specs darn near anything, and NP anything. These are a lot of options on the offensive end, and it probably why offensive teams are able to handle scolipede so well (and probably a large part of the reason why I never got reqs).
So to close out, I ask three questions. 1. Is this analysis accurate? 2. If so, does this analysis describe a pokemon that is balanced in the OU meta? 3. If not, what did I miss?
I have used quick pass scolipede extensively on the suspect ladder, I peaked at 2.5K COIL and about 1.4K ELO. I have written this analysis based on my experiences on said ladder to the best of my ability. If you do believe that scolipede is unhealthy for the meta like I do, then option 2 will not solve that problem and only option 3 can address it. If you feel otherwise, then by all means vote option 2, especially if you want to preserve iron defense scolipede. I do not have any meaningful replays that I have not already posted on this thread, but if you want to see them again and don't feel like going back, feel free to PM me, I certainly have plenty of replays illustrating the points I have made in this analysis.
