I figured I would pick apart my post from earlier in the thread since admittedly my opinions have changed over the course of the suspect.
Musharna is an extremely unhealthy aspect of the meta. Before the tier shifts we already had plans to suspect it and losing two of our best breakers in Stoutland and Ursaring gave us a lot more incentive to suspect it.
The pre-shift metagame held a largely different dynamic for playing around Musharna simply because of the Pokemon that were present. Most notably, Stoutland and Ursaring were the primary ways that one could use to muscle past Musharna. Initially I had thought that the loss of these two breakers would leave the tier with little to break through Musharna. As stated heavily in this thread, the CM+Barrier+Rest with Psychium Z is able to wall physical attackers all day, or so you'd think. Honestly I love and hate Rest on Musharna. Some games you win outright because you can't be Toxic stalled and nothing can KO you after x amount of boosts. Other times you're giving your opponent two free turns to play around Musharna. In a metagame with SD Lycanroc, SD Pinsir, NP Liepard, and more, it can be very troublesome to give free turns to your opponent.
I agree the timing of the suspect is somewhat awkward with a large tier shift. However, waiting on the tier to develop from these shifts and not suspecting it would be counterproductive in this case because the community strongly feels that Musharna is broken and these drops don’t make it any less broken. Liepard faces the same issues as all our other Dark-types in that it loses to coverage (Dazzling Gleam or Signal Beam) and Crustle drops to Z-Stored Power sets/has a tough time breaking through Barrier sets. Ultimately, there is no foreseeable way that the tier could develop to deal with Musharna based on losing our two best breakers in Stoutland and Ursaring, as well as these drops not dealing with Musharna well enough. Furthermore, an argument can be made that losing these two Pokemon increases the usage of Ghost types, which is basically Misdreavus and Dusknoir. The former gives Musharna trouble and the latter loses to it outright.
Others in the thread and discord have stated how the metagame hasn't had enough time to develop around Musharna after tier-shifts and I would agree. Very early on I believed that the drops could not stop Musharna. Liepard loses to coverage, Crustle, Dugtrio, and Lycanroc are walled by Barrier, and Lurantis and Shuckle are more nuisances to it than anything. I still stand by my belief that they do not stop Musharna. However, through this suspect test I've come to realize that Musharna cannot be stopped through its sheer versatility, but that doesn't make it broken imo. Megazard summed it up pretty well in the ZU discord, "and like i get there's a very fine line between can beat all its checks and will beat all its checks, but ive rly never felt that it was unfairly stronger than some of the other dumb stuff in the meta. mush is always gonna be pressured and has a lot of checks that yes, work conditionally but there isn't really that removal of skill factor imo." From my testing and matched I've seen, Musharna has some notable flaws it suffers from. For one, non-Barrier or Rest sets are very easy to chip down and Moonlight is fairy easy to stall out. Secondly, mono-STAB Musharna is completely walled by Dark-types. While it is true that if they cannot boost their Attack or Special attack they can be stalled out, Musharna is also continually stalled down. Thirdly, while Z-moves allows Musharna to play around its checks they are a one time use. This becomes an issue against Encore and Taunt users to an extent because after the Z-move is burnt Musharna is still affected by those moves. The fourth flaw is Musharna is not a standalone sweeper a lot of the time. Musharna has its checks and needs support to play around them. This goes back to the argument of versatility and how Mushy's sets have varying things it can/cannot beat.
I believe these flaws are exploitable in this meta due to Musharna's effect on the tier. Xayah and I were talking about Musharna and for me what it boils down to is "Musharna is an extremely effective Pokemon that has centralized the meta to the point where its flaws are accounted for, but is it so centralizing and uncompetitive that it needs the boot?" Taunt Grumpig, SD Pawniard, and Taunt Probopass are all achieving their high usage/effectiveness simply because of Musharna. This lead me to ask the question "has the meta naturally accommodated for it through these tier shifts or is it completely Musharna forcing the use of Pokemon like Liepard, boosters, etc (it obv forces the use of Taunt Pig)?" No ban arguments in this thread, on discord, and on PS have become fairly central around whether or not the meta organically prepares for Musharna. In my opinion the metagame does naturally prepare for Musharna because of the drops but not the extent where Musharna isn't broken. Musharna has centralized the metagame around it like no other mon does rn.
Ultimately, I don't feel Musharna is a healthy component in the tier. Is it manageable? Yeah I think it is but it prevents metagame growth as seen with how the current metagame is like. On a personal note, I admit the first time around I was very definitive with Mushy and my insight on post-shifts meta wasn't strong. I'll be voting ban on the basis on Musharna being an unhealthy and centralizing force on the metagame.
With that the Musharna suspect test is over. Megazard has won the fifth and final suspect tour today. Congrats!
(low tier stadium)
