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Smogon bans and suspect tests discussion

Alexey

Pronounced "alek-sEi"
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With all the recent things happening on Smogon with regard to bans, i.e. recent Aegislash ban to Ubers, ongoing Gengarite suspect test, potential Mawile suspect test etc. I have decided that we might as well have a dedicated thread for throwing crap at each other discussing recent bans and suspect tests/votings.

Aegislash banned to Ubers
Possible Mawile and ZardX suspect tests coming our way
Gengarite suspect test
Combusken suspect test (NU)

I would like to remind everyone to be respectful to others and not violate the forum rules in general.
 
I'm fine with the suspect tests and bans because it makes the meta balanced. There have been a few bans and suspect tests that I haven't agreed with in the past, most notably Excadrill in Gen 5, but I got over it. People seem to like to complain about the bans like Smogon is the only set of tiers and rules out there, but its not. Its only the biggest.
 
TBH, I feel like it's still a little bit too early to be banning stuff that isn't immediately broken (unlike stuff like Mega Gengar and MegaKhan which were obviously broken). The way I see it, we should hold off on permanent bans until we actually have all the new Megas, Move Tutors, and event Pokemon available, since those very frequently have a large impact on the metagame and may end up making something seemingly overpowered like Aegislash much easier to counter.
 
Smogon annoys me no end.

It has this air of legitimacy which is completely invalid. I might be talking about Pokemon with a friend and they will just be like, oh but (Pokemons name) is in Ubers.
Says who? A fan site like any others. They issue these decrees like some 3rd world dictator and people actually go along and follow them, because other people do.
Never mind Nintendo has its own set of rules for the VGC that are actually official.

Everyones like

Oh Mega Blaziken is too powerful.
Mega Gengar is too powerful.
Mega Kanghaskan is too powerful.
Mega Sunflora is too powerful.

Well clearly there not too OP as you've just listed 5 or 6 others which are equally powerful and could stop them.
I think Nintendo know their game a bit better than some kid in his Mums basement.
 
When I started the thread, what I had in mind was discussion of specific actual or potential bans, not of Smogon in general.
 
Aegislash is banned? Really? I have never had any trouble beating the crap out of it. It loves a good Earthquake to the face or a bit of Crunch here and there from my other Pokemon that love to murder Aegislash. I feel a lot of Pokemon get banned because people just don't have a actual good team set up, teams seem to be all the same which is why Aegislash is under fire. Banning it to Ubers is just unnecessary as it has many counters in its tier already.

Mawile I can understand, its typing is good enough and now it's just a beast. But I personally wouldn't want to see it banned as it really isn't that bad. It always likes a Earthquake to the face like Aegislash :D!

Gengarite, same as Mawile. I don't want to see either banned as they're really not that bad.

As for ZardX, I really can't see why that is to be banned. I have never ever has trouble against one and I don't see it used that much.
I'd personally vote no for all as the real beasts are already put in Ubers or banned.
 
TBH, I feel like it's still a little bit too early to be banning stuff that isn't immediately broken (unlike stuff like Mega Gengar and MegaKhan which were obviously broken). The way I see it, we should hold off on permanent bans until we actually have all the new Megas, Move Tutors, and event Pokemon available, since those very frequently have a large impact on the metagame and may end up making something seemingly overpowered like Aegislash much easier to counter.

There will undoubtedly be retests after ORAS come out - but why should we have an unbalanced meta in the meantime? There is no such thing as a "permanent ban", even box legends like KyuB have been un-Ubered in the past.

My thoughts:

I honestly dgaf about Combusken's test because I don't play NU.

I also dgaf about the "potential Mawile and ZardX tests" because IMO no such thing is likely to occur in the near future -
Charizard is checked by Stealth Rock on its own pretty much, and Mawile is slow af and goes down to any decent SpA or EQ if you dodge the Intimidate. They're both fantastic, but neither is even close to broke and even if the entire OU council gets drunk and starts a test, I would bet money the community won't ban them (barring meta changes, ofc, such as ORAS). In addition, Smogon has rules against gossiping about potential band and while we don't, the philosophy is the same - no need to incite an angry mob over something that probably won't happen.

Gengarite: I don't play Ubers frequently so I won't vote, but honestly that thing is a broken POS so I don't care if it gets banned even if that compromises the anything goes mentality of Ubers.

Aegislash: Y'all know my stance (see what I did there) on this one. I voted no ban. But I'm honestly not unhappy with the results, and here's why: ever since it happened some of you (no names) have been all "Oh, Aegis wasn't broke, wtf Smogon". The vote was 62/38 with the needed supermajority being 60. If every one of you who is now upset after the fact had voted, Aegislash wouldn't have been banned. So in my eyes this is a valuable lesson - instead of sitting around complaining about Smogon, get up and become a part of it. Shape the metagame into something you enjoy and want to play, don't let anybody else do it for you. And especially, please don't complain about Smogon the Nazi Dictator when the only reason that the outcome you don't like happened is because you didn't do anything about it. Also I can run Close Combat on my Pinsir and wreck Skarmory and Rotom now woohoo :)
 
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My thoughts on Gengarite:
Gengarite is not the problem, Shadow Tag is. Just as MGengar has no true counter in Ubers, so do Gothitelle and Dugtrio in their tiers. This is simply because it is trapper who chooses what to trap, not its opponent. It can't be reasonably outplayed, as these things cause pure (i.e., completely boiling down to a game of guessing, rather than to risk/reward evaluations) 50/50 situations.
Imagine a situation: your opponent has a Charizard Y and a Gothitelle, you have a non-Mega Scizor and a Chansey. Scizor dies to YZard, but checks Goth, while Chansey can be easily taken down by Goth, but hardcounters Zard. The result: you have to guess whether to switch Chansey into Charizard and risk getting it trapped and taken out throughout the next 70 turns by a Gothitelle, or use Scizor and risk being taken down by Zard. One wrong guess and you're screwed, while opponent risks nothing unless both trapper and threat are at near-death. One wrong guess (and you will have to make succesfull guesses several times in a row to widdle the trapper down enough for you to take it out), and you're screwed.

There are things that will always beat trappers, including MGengar, one on one, but they are not counters because they can't switch in, simply because nothing can switch the hell out in the first place. Therefore I will be voting ban, because I want to see Shadow Tag gone.
 
All I'm gonna say is, if most of my team can take MGengar 1 on 1 and win, it isn't broken, Shadow Tag or not.

I'm voting for no ban.

Also I heard that Scald was gonna get tested in UU. Is that true? Cuz its not really doing much :/
 
Aegislash is interesting because I'm usually pretty good at predicting the ones used by random players on wifi. It does pack a rather nasty punch if you switch in on it's attacks but more often then not it just becomes a way for my charizard x to get a swords dance up and then get rid of it with flare blitz.

Perhaps some of the more competitive players have found ways to make it more of a threat but as long as you can outpredict your foe you should be fine, but that's just my experience.
 
All I'm gonna say is, if most of my team can take MGengar 1 on 1 and win, it isn't broken, Shadow Tag or not.

I'm voting for no ban.

Also I heard that Scald was gonna get tested in UU. Is that true? Cuz its not really doing much :/

UU is NOT suspecting Scald (yet :p). I don't think it deserves a ban, and it can be countered easily with water absorb/hydration/heal bell/etc.
 
If I don't make the reqs for this one and thus don't vote no ban, I will punch myself in the face. Twice.

Apparently, the reasoning for Mawile ban is the same as for Aegislash: different sets have different counters. Only Aegi had like 4 or 5, so that was at least understandable (although I still disagree), MMawile has 2 sets: SD/Sucker/Play Rough/Coverage and SubPunch. That's it.
 
If I don't make the reqs for this one and thus don't vote no ban, I will punch myself in the face. Twice.

Apparently, the reasoning for Mawile ban is the same as for Aegislash: different sets have different counters. Only Aegi had like 4 or 5, so that was at least understandable (although I still disagree), MMawile has 2 sets: SD/Sucker/Play Rough/Coverage and SubPunch. That's it.

The thing is Aegislash didn't have a single hard counter (he was like Gen V Hydreigon but harder hitting and bulkier), as even Mandibuzz went down to SubToxic. Mawile, on the other hand, is utterly walled by Arcanine of all things, as well as physically defensive WoW Char Y (becoming popular with stall players recently) so if you really hate it you can run one of those and be set.
 
Mawilite? Definite no ban. Don't know if I'll go for reqs since I have a bunch of work stuff coming up but if I do that's what I'll vote. Mawile is so easy to work around its crazy. Its main move, Sucker Punch, only has 8 PP, aka easy to work around. If its not running Substitute any Pokemon running Will-O-Wisp destroys it. At the moment the main reason to ban it is because of SubPunch, its high Base Atk stat (apparently 259 after Huge Power), and its average defenses. Gonna be sad seeing M-Mawile gone as it seems the majority wants a ban.
 
Really? How often does Mawile even run Focus Punch?

I thought the problem with Aegislash wasn't so much its sets, but the fact that it directly countered so much that it was overcentralizing and unhealthy for the metagame. Several Pokemon were running one specific move just to try to get around Aegislash. Baning it opened up the metagame enough to give us a chance for a healthy balance.

You can't say the same about Mega-Mawile and it's crazy to even think of another suspect test so soon. Give the metagame time to readjust and then see how much of a threat it is. Maybe with Mega-Gardevoir and Mega-Medicham free to run around, Mega-Mawile will be more manageable.
 
Really? How often does Mawile even run Focus Punch?

I thought the problem with Aegislash wasn't so much its sets, but the fact that it directly countered so much that it was overcentralizing and unhealthy for the metagame. Several Pokemon were running one specific move just to try to get around Aegislash. Baning it opened up the metagame enough to give us a chance for a healthy balance.

You can't say the same about Mega-Mawile and it's crazy to even think of another suspect test so soon. Give the metagame time to readjust and then see how much of a threat it is. Maybe with Mega-Gardevoir and Mega-Medicham free to run around, Mega-Mawile will be more manageable.

14% of the time, approximately.

Aegislash was banned because you were forced to run multiple checks because no single Pokémon could hard counter it. That is overcentralization - Pinsir, Heracross, etc getting to drop EQ is just a pleasant side effect.

It's not that crazy - the post Aegis metagame is very similar to the pre-Aegis metagame at high levels of play, as stuff like Staraptor and Bronzong isn't too popular despite their increased viability right now, and MHeracross and MGarde were already popular. It's only sensible to try to clean up the meta as much as possible before ORAS dumps a bunch of new shit in it. I just happen to disagree with this ban, not the speed at which the test was announced.
 
I can understand cleaning up before ORAS, just still, more than two or three days at least.
 
Actually, Aegislash never was the bane of Staraptor's existence, Talonflame is. Yeah, Aegislash completely walls Staraptor, but it's lack of priority that makes TFlame (and Pinsir, by extension) superior to Staraptor, even if Staraptor is more powerful
 
Actually, Aegislash never was the bane of Staraptor's existence, Talonflame is. Yeah, Aegislash completely walls Staraptor, but it's lack of priority that makes TFlame (and Pinsir, by extension) superior to Staraptor, even if Staraptor is more powerful

Nah Staraptor was the original wingman in the Double Bird core - Talonflame is the only reason Staraptor has any viability at all. The reason Pinsir swiped his spot on Birdspam was because Pinsir could beat Aegis with Earthquake, relegating Staraptor to mediocrity again.
 
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