The council has decided to suspect one of the new additions to our metagame, Stoutland! Even though we have had this doggo before, it was both S rank and suspect tested back then and remained controversial even afterwards. Now that it has returned, its Choice Band set has been running wild once more and in this new metagame, there are two main differences that have pushed the council to suspect it.
First, Stoutland's best switch-ins are considerably worse right now. Mawile and physically defensive Tangela always had a fairly easy time switching into Stoutland even with hazards up (though Spikes can mess them up). However, both of these Pokemon have been suffering recently, with Fire-types improving and them generally having a much harder time doing what they'd like to do. Of course, they aren't bad per se, but they're much harder to fit on a team than they used to be.
Second, ZU has been dealing with threat over-saturation in recent times, and Stoutland only exemplifies that issue. For those of you not sure what I mean by that term, it basically means that there are too many things to prepare for, which makes it incredibly difficult to teambuild and especially hits balance teams hard, as they don't have enough room for a defensive backbone to cover the whole meta. With a breaker of Stoutland's level joining the meta, balance teams are pressured even further and are having a tough time in the meta right now.
Now, Stoutland is not unbeatable and the council is aware of that. Golem is common and makes it somewhat difficult for the dog to lock into its STAB moves. It also generally does not like to lock into coverage moves like Superpower or Crunch, as they are simply considerably weaker and make it hard for it to consistently break teams. Regardless, we believe it is worth it to take a good look at this new dog.
This will be the first time ZU has a ladder for a suspect test and thus, we will be using it. In order to obtain reqs for this test, you will have to obtain the following two requirements on a fresh alt on the ladder:
- GXE of 79% or higher
- A minimum of 40 games played
In order for us to ensure that your alt is indeed fresh, its name must begin with
ZUST (ex: ZUST Xayah). There will be no council reqs for this suspect, everyone that wishes to vote is expected to fulfill the above requirements. An alt identification thread will go up later during the test.
The suspect test will end on September 29th 12:00 pm EST
A simple ban-majority (50% +1) will be needed for Stoutland to be moved to ZUBL.
Please discuss Stoutland in this thread and good luck laddering!