Metagame ZeroUsed Metagame Discussion

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asa

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hi. i play this tier. don't have much of an opinion on musharna, so i'll just do as i always do and post about drops.

Alolan Dugtrio seems pretty cool. I feel as if it can pull of Choice Scarf, Life Orb, and SubToxic sets a bit better due to its secondary typing, and though it is slower than its Kanto forme, it's not by that much. Still has the same support options that regular Dugtrio has, but the Speed tier is a bit too good pass up with a Memento user. I've also seen suicide lead sets before, but other Pokemon like Lycanroc do the job better.


Crustle brings another entry hazard lead that can set both Stealth Rock and Spikes to the tier, which makes offensive teams a bit better, since they don't have to rely entirely on Dwebble and Smeargle. Knock Off utility is always nice, and it isn't completely limited to a suicide lead either due to its access to Shell Smash, though I'm not entirely sure on how good such a set would be.


Broken.


Liepard will fare well, I feel. It's very versatile, capable of using a variety of sets ranging from Choice Band to Nasty Plot to an offensive pivot to a weather setter, and discerning which set it's using can difficult from Team Preview alone. The Speed tier is also pretty solid, and it also brings another Pursuit trapper to the tier. Prankster in tandem with moves like Encore, Copycat, and Thunder Wave can also be rather annoying for teams to deal with, and these options can prove useful for supporting teammates. Ban Jynx.


Lurantis brings a defensive Defogger to the tier that isn't entirely passive. Though its offenses and Speed are pretty mediocre, Contrary in combination with Leaf Storm and Superpower help to mitigate this, its bulk is pretty decent, and its access to valuable support options such as the aforementioned Defog, Synthesis, and Aromatherapy is important to note as well.


Lycanroc can pull off both a suicide lead set and a Swords Dance with Lycanium Z. The former is actually pretty solid courtesy of its high Speed tier, good offensive presence, and access to Taunt, Endeavor, and Accelerock to prevent Defog and potentially Pokemon from matches, respectively, and the latter is actually pretty threatening thanks to Splintered Stormshards (did i remember this name correctly..?) being pretty powerful, its decent coverage in Drill Run and Fire Fang, and priority in Accelerock improving its matchup versus super offensive teams.


Finally, Shuckle provides another Sticky Web user that actually has defensive presence on top of not needing to use Focus Sash and having access to solid support options in Encore, Stealth Rock, and Toxic. ... That's all there is to it, I guess. I suppose Contrary Shell Smash exists too.
overall, fun drops; looking forward to playing more zu.
 
I'm just a bit confused on how a tier can receive a ton of new drops and a few rises and decide to suspect something. The metagame hasn't adjusted to all the new things yet, I don't think its fair to test something in an unsettled meta. What's the philosophy on this? Seems kinda unprofessional to me. Musharna is really good, yes, but it doesn't even matter on the state of the tier at that point - we just had a huge tier shift and you're asking people to make an "informed" decision based on a metagame that is undeveloped and can't really see how things are affected.
 
I'm just a bit confused on how a tier can receive a ton of new drops and a few rises and decide to suspect something. The metagame hasn't adjusted to all the new things yet, I don't think its fair to test something in an unsettled meta. What's the philosophy on this? Seems kinda unprofessional to me. Musharna is really good, yes, but it doesn't even matter on the state of the tier at that point - we just had a huge tier shift and you're asking people to make an "informed" decision based on a metagame that is undeveloped and can't really see how things are affected.
If there are allowed to suspect test something that has just dropped, and they are, then why wouldn’t they be able to test something after a drop? The latter has had significantly more metagame development around the potentially broken Mon than the former.
 
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Xayah

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I'm just a bit confused on how a tier can receive a ton of new drops and a few rises and decide to suspect something. The metagame hasn't adjusted to all the new things yet, I don't think its fair to test something in an unsettled meta. What's the philosophy on this? Seems kinda unprofessional to me. Musharna is really good, yes, but it doesn't even matter on the state of the tier at that point - we just had a huge tier shift and you're asking people to make an "informed" decision based on a metagame that is undeveloped and can't really see how things are affected.
I get exactly where you're coming from and honestly, you're right. Suspect timing seems bad and forced and, as you called it, unprofessional. I would not have gone through with this for any other Pokemon, but Musharna in an exceptional case.

This Pokemon was not considered broken until quite recently. Specifically, around half of March, the Barrier + Rest set gained a lot of popularity (pretty sure this was largely led by Diagnostic and Froasty). This set on its own isn't broken, but after letting it sit for about two weeks, pretty much the entire council agreed that this set in combination with its other sets (Buginium Z/Fairium Z/Colbur Berry/the less common TR) was near impossible to counterplay and incredibly overcentralizing, as can be seen in the significantly increased popularity of Taunt Grumpig (where SubRecycle or Toxic sets would likely be better without it).

But after those two weeks, we were at the start of April, which meant drops were happening very soon. We had no idea exactly when, but we were aware that they were gonna be here soon. Most importantly, Sableye had a chance of dropping. While this mon still loses to Fairium Z, it hard counters Musharna's other sets, giving many teams another option against it and forcing it to run that specific set more often. The council agreed that suspecting Musharna when we could potentially get something like that would not be wise. But Sableye didn't drop; instead, our only remotely significant new counterplay against it was Liepard, which can potentially lose to every one of Mushy's sets (Band loses to Barrier + Psychium Z sets or Colbur sets, Encore loses to Buginium/Fairium). Thus, the council decided that waiting on this test would be a mistake and we pushed it through.

I get it, it's messy. Especially with Jynx in the tier, which is also possibly busted and undergoing a council vote, our tier is unstable. But throughout all this, Musharna is still a near unstoppable force with such wildly differing counterplay among sets that it's not viable to let this sit in our tier for much longer. I apologize if it seems unprofessional, but this was the way to go.
 

5gen

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I'm just a bit confused on how a tier can receive a ton of new drops and a few rises and decide to suspect something. The metagame hasn't adjusted to all the new things yet, I don't think its fair to test something in an unsettled meta. What's the philosophy on this? Seems kinda unprofessional to me. Musharna is really good, yes, but it doesn't even matter on the state of the tier at that point - we just had a huge tier shift and you're asking people to make an "informed" decision based on a metagame that is undeveloped and can't really see how things are affected.
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. 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.

Sorry if some of this rehashes the above post, was writing it out before Xayah posted.
 
Now the based doge is gone I hoped at first stantler might finally get a bit of play time, but then i remembered theres still rapidash
 
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. 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.

Sorry if some of this rehashes the above post, was writing it out before Xayah posted.
You think that Musharna is extremely broken that you suspect it at a bad time, why wasn't it just quickbanned then? You clearly have a set notion of a right or wrong answer for if Musharna is broken or not, and it seems like you're suspecting something purely for the idea of suspecting something. You're not making sense here.

Xayah, thanks for your helpful response. I'm not trying to argue if Musharna is broken or unhealthy or not, but rather the point of suspecting in the first place given the bad timing. Unfortunately my "suspicions" were confirmed by 5gen in the fact that the council believes that Musharna is objectively broken, so rather than taking the option of a logical quickban, a suspect test was held in a bad place. I understand that suspect tests are somewhat self-validating to the tier itself but its a bit of a mess. Oh well, not much to do about it now.
A tier receives

If there are allowed to suspect test something that has just dropped, and they are, then why wouldn’t they be able to test something after a drop? The latter has had significantly more metagame development around the potentially broken Mon than the former.
The metagame hasn't developed yet, i think it's a pretty simple concept to understand.
 

Xayah

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You think that Musharna is extremely broken that you suspect it at a bad time, why wasn't it just quickbanned then? You clearly have a set notion of a right or wrong answer for if Musharna is broken or not, and it seems like you're suspecting something purely for the idea of suspecting something. You're not making sense here.
Specifically responding to this point, the council argues about quickbanning Musharna for a considerable amount of time. However, after we couldn't come to a decision ourselves, we decided to request help from a TL from an official tier, since this is about policy regarding quickbanning Pokemon that have been in the meta for a while.

The response was

You only QB something if it received a new thing recently
and barrier isn't new
suspect through normal means
however you dudes do that

To us, this seemed pretty clear. I'm not going to publicize who said this exactly since I was given this response to private messaging, but it is a TL of an official tier so we decided to trust their advice.
 

5gen

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With a 62.5% majority, Jynx has been quick-banned by council from ZU!


Jynx has been quick-banned from ZU because the majority of council believed that Jynx put too great a strain on the metagame with its set variety, ability to induce sleep with Lovely Kiss, and ability to pick and choose counters based on coverage options. The metagame developments have been largely unhealthy with Jynx around as seen with Bullet Punch Metang being spammed, Grumpig usage being higher than ever, and the large decline of defensive styles. On the flip side, Jynx is very easily supported by teammates and its weaknesses easily circumvented (i.e slow pivots bringing it in, Probopass trapping Steel-types, and Liepard trapping Grumpig).

It is worth mentioning that the anti-ban arguments included Jynx's 4mss, how it can be pressured offensively, weakness to priority, Z-Lovely Kiss being a one time use, and how the meta hasn't fully developed to it.

Ultimately, Jynx was deemed too unhealthy for the tier and banned with a 62.5% majority. more here
 
Time for a standard.Musharna post:
Musharna is an absolute monster in the meta right now, with great bulk for setting up calm mind as well as great special attack to abuse its decent special movepool including moves like Stored Power, Signal Beam, and Dazzling Gleam which allow for both an agressive and passive playstyle. With other moves like Moonlight for recovery, Thunder Wave for speed control, and Heal Bell to act as a cleric, Musharna just does too much with what it has. Its counters are very limited and set dependent as well, dark types can swap into Stored Power Musharna but fear Z-Signal Beam, and both regular and Z-Dazzling Gleam. Psychics fear Z-Shadow Ball and Z-Signal beam, and wallbreakers get setup on thanks to recovery and Barrier/Calm Mind. While its not impossible to stop, it warps teambuilding around it a lot, causing stallbreakers to be almost required to not automatically lose to a Musharna. However, most every set Musharna has is based off of a Z-Crystal, so not having the right one or wasting your Z-Move can definitely make Musharna much easier to deal with, but predicting what set Musharna has can prove to be difficult, and misreading could lose you the game. Musharna definitely needs to go.
 
The metagame really appreciates the rise in Ursaring and Stoutland along with the ban of Jynx. Rotom-Frost is still the dominating face for an Ice-type threat while ghost types can finally come and play despite Musharna luring in dark types. Now if only people can prep accordingly against the rising playstyle that is stall.
:psycry:

While I'm at it, let's talk about our post-April drops. Lycanroc-Midday has added an addition physical offensive threat and pushes the usage of bulky grounds or levitate resists such as Bronzor out to check it while filling in Stoutland's role for sand teams. Acceleroc has the extra perk of threatening weakened offensive threats or Rock-weak common scarves such as Chatot, Rotom-Frost, Combusken, SS Crustle, and more.

Crustle as a suicide hazard setter faces competition with Smeargle and Shuckle but managed to pull through with access to Shell Smash, allowing it to apply pressure and weaken opponent team compositions early game.

Lurantis is one of the few grass types that can prevail against offensive Sap Sipper users due to Superpower which 2hkos Zebstrika, Bouffalant, and Sawsbuck regardless of a negative nature and non invested physical attack. It faces competition with Servine and Grass Silvally for the pure grass defogging role.

Liepard is our premier prankster user, being immune to psychic and opposing prankster utility and having a wonderful belt of options in Trick, U-turn, Copycat, Sunny Day / Rain Dance, Taunt, Thunder Wave, and more to support offensive teams.

The last but welcoming addition was Dugtrio's Alolan variant. Packing a useful Steel / Ground typing along with an acceptable 110 base speed provides immunity to poison and electric moves while also outpacing non-scarfed Manectric, +1 Combusken, and anything slower. Being able to deter checks using a substitute + toxic set is very useful for teammates needing to push through defensive teams and clean late game.

I'm hoping the next batch of drops will supply us with more toys for an enriching metagame!
:mehowth:
 

Aaronboyer

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The Musharna Suspect and Why I Am Voting DNB

1. The only suspect-worthy set is a mono-attacking one
And as such, Musharna is easier to check in practice than it is on paper. On paper it seems like some impossible to 2HKO fat tank, and I don't want to undermine it's great bulk, but it's not too difficult to 2HKO. Of all the matches played so far for the ZU Open, I don't believe I've seen a single one where Musharna straight up accumulate enough boosts to clean up end-game. From my experiences it's actually really difficult to do consistently. In contrast, Pinsir, Misdreavus, ToT-Gourgeist, and certain Bouffalant sets and many more all have a favorable matchup against Musharna. I should also note that Musharna is always flat out walled by something. In comparison, Stoutland was a dominating S Rank that needed to be prepped for, but wasn't banned because the tier would adapt to it. I don't think I've seen enough sufficient prepping yet to say that Musharna isn't adaptable. This leads me to point #2.

2. The metagame hasn't had time to develop/adapt
Yes, tier shifts happened less than 24 hours before the suspect was announced, and I think that wasn't the best decision, but what I'm mainly referring to is the fact that there are several methods of counterplay that the metagame hasn't adapted to yet. One of the best methods to counter Musharna is to phaze it, and I haven't really seen a phazer utilized with the exception of Dragon Tail Lickilicky since the Altaria metagame. And what about the abundance of effective sets that people aren't utilizing such as Megahorn Rapidash, Specially Defensive Pyukumuku, and Taunt Vigoroth? Over time I would predict the ZU metagame to begin to decentralize away from Musharna. This contrasts with warping the metagame because the sets the majority of sets that would start to become popular should have a positive effect on the metagame. Megahorn Rapidash hits all Psychic-types, especially Grumpig which resists Flare Blitz. Pyukumuku takes advantage of its key resistances to Fire, Ice, and Steel, all of which are predominantly special with a specially defensive spread. Taunt Vigoroth has already become a somewhat common set, but in my opinion, should be used more as it breaks down defensive cores such as TangBink effectively. And these are just 3 examples, and there are several more gems to find that will further the metagame. Yes, we've discovered a new set for Musharna and yes it increases its viability to A+ or S hands down. A problem I've been seeing with USUM ZU is that we want to suspect every S ranked mon. I firmly believe Musharna is the "meta-defining" example of what is S and not broken.

3. Trickle Down Effect? The Future of Musharna...
ZU should eventually receive Pokemon such Silvally-Ghost and Claydol, among other Pokemon, that perform abysmally in PU but will help make Musharna not so much of a "centralizing" threat. Again, this contrasts with warping the metagame because adding Pokemon to the tier list over time isn't centralizing.

For all of these reasons, I'm going to be voting Do Not Ban for Musharna, but if the metagame doesn't shape around Musharna like I think it will, I wouldn't object to having another suspect test. More or less, I think we should wait and let the metagame develop a bit more before trying to make such a quick decision.

Also...
Now if only people can prep accordingly against the rising playstyle that is stall. :psycry:
:psysly:
 
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3. Trickle Down Effect? The Future of Musharna...
ZU should eventually receive Pokemon such Silvally-Ghost and Claydol, among other Pokemon, that perform abysmally in PU but will help make Musharna not so much of a "centralizing" threat. Again, this contrasts with warping the metagame because adding Pokemon to the tier list over time isn't centralizing.
One thing I would like to comment on is that this should really never be a reasoning in a suspect test. We tier a metagame as it is, not how we guess it might be in a few months. Saying that Musharna is fine because ghostvally might someday enter the tier would be like ou deciding not to ban something just because its checked by Zeroara. Sure, you have other reasons, but this one really shouldn’t factor in the slightest.
 

Aaronboyer

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Tagging Megazard for my 1000th Like
Also just in time for my 500th post on Smogon

One thing I would like to comment on is that this should really never be a reasoning in a suspect test. We tier a metagame as it is, not how we guess it might be in a few months. Saying that Musharna is fine because ghostvally might someday enter the tier would be like ou deciding not to ban something just because its checked by Zeroara. Sure, you have other reasons, but this one really shouldn’t factor in the slightest.
That makes sense and with the kokoloko method, which ZU partakes in, that's fine. It's just the fact we haven't resuspected a single Pokemon so far this generation, so the likelihood of it being banned, checks dropping, and then it getting resuspected fairly low unfortunately.
 
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2. The metagame hasn't had time to develop/adapt
Yes, tier shifts happened less than 24 hours before the suspect was announced, and I think that wasn't the best decision, but what I'm mainly referring to is the fact that there are several methods of counterplay that the metagame hasn't adapted to yet. One of the best methods to counter Musharna is to phaze it, and I haven't really seen a phazer utilized with the exception of Dragon Tail Lickilicky since the Altaria metagame. And what about the abundance of effective sets that people aren't utilizing such as Megahorn Rapidash, Specially Defensive Pyukumuku, and Taunt Vigoroth? Over time I would predict the ZU metagame to begin to decentralize away from Musharna. This contrasts with warping the metagame because the sets the majority of sets that would start to become popular should have a positive effect on the metagame. Megahorn Rapidash hits all Psychic-types, especially Grumpig which resists Flare Blitz. Pyukumuku takes advantage of its key resistances to Fire, Ice, and Steel, all of which are predominantly special with a specially defensive spread. Taunt Vigoroth has already become a somewhat common set, but in my opinion, should be used more as it breaks down defensive cores such as TangBink effectively. And these are just 3 examples, and there are several more gems to find that will further the metagame. Yes, we've discovered a new set for Musharna and yes it increases its viability to A+ or S hands down. A problem I've been seeing with USUM ZU is that we want to suspect every S ranked mon. I firmly believe Musharna is the "meta-defining" example of what is S and not broken.
Another issue I see here is that the pokemon you listed that checks Musharna is easily handled by its teammates which handles Pursuit and Taunt users on both balanced and stall related teams.

Fighting or Fairy types like Monferno and Mr.Mime pressure Dark types that would capitalize on the Mono-Stored power set while Oblivious Lickilicky + Pyukumuku assist defensive cores that would typically lose to stallbreakers such as Vigoroth or Taunt Oricorio. An added mention is that the Psychic Z-Crystal allows Musharna to utilize both Z-Stored Power or Z-Rest to weaken or get rid of wallbreakers such as Pinsir or to recover against taunt or encore users respectively while being immune to trick.

If we are pushing for pokemon to run sets just to have a better handle on musharna, it should be deemed unhealthy for this tier since that limits their general effectiveness. (Example: Rapidash does not have the slots to afford running Megahorn which still loses to Musharna with a barrier up).

I'll be voting ban myself.
 

Xayah

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Okay, finally, here's my Musharna post


I'm gonna keep this short because honestly, most of this has been covered by Diagnostic already (and Froasty who posted while I was writing this so sorry if I rehash things). Musharna is broken. Really broken. It's one of the most broken elements we have had in our metagame in a long time.

First off, let me state something: none of Musharna's sets are broken on their own, though Barrier + Rest comes close. Each of them can be beaten by certain counters (Barrier + Rest is beaten by Encore Liepard, SD Pawniard/Shiftry, and Taunt Grumpig while Buginium/Fairium Z is beaten by strong physical wallbreakers and Toxic, other sets have their own weaknesses). The problem that arises is that the sets share almost no answers whatsoever. Taunt Grumpig almost always ends Barrier + Rest, but gets blown away by Buginium Z. Choice Band Liepard and SSS Lycanroc can take down the non-Barrier sets, but get walled when Musharna boosts its Defense. Basically, every team is required to have AT LEAST two answers to Musharna, which is already horribly overcentralizing.

Another problem that arises is during the game itself. Let's say this is the scenario: Musharna is in on your Roselia and you've got Taunt Grumpig and Choice Band Liepard in the back. Now, Grumpig is the safest switchin since it won't get outright nuked by anything, so you go into that. On your switch Musharna sets up a Calm Mind. Note that this does not tell you which set it is! So now what? Do you Taunt it, aiming for the Barrier set? Do you switch out to bait Savage Spin-Out? If you Taunt and get killed by Bug Z, Musharna can simply tank Liepard's hit too before knocking it out with Signal Beam. If you switch out and it sets up another CM or a Barrier, even Grumpig will start losing the 1v1 quickly. So even with two counters, you're in a 50/50 where the wrong decision can lose you the game.

I get it, this post is unorganized and messy, but honestly I just wanted to write things down. Go read the posts by Diagnostic and Froasty, they did a better job explaining. If it isn't clear yet, I'll be voting Ban.
 
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