Smogon bans and suspect tests discussion

[Alexey]

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.

Okay, never mind what I said XD
(I still believe that Staraptor is viable, though, just outclassed)

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

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.

Okay, never mind what I said XD
(I still believe that Staraptor is viable, though, just outclassed)

Staraptor isn't really outclassed now that Aegislash is gone - he's a wallbreaker, Pinsir is a sweeper , Talon is a cleaner/rker. He just dies hella fast compared to the other two and using all 3 wouldn't be a good idea because SR.

 

[Alexey]

Ah, the joys of Choice-locking oneself into a non-priority Brave Bird (although, weirdly, whenever I use Staraptor, I usually end up spamming Double-Edge )

Anyway, we're completely off the point of the thread

 

[TerraTF]

Really? How often does Mawile even run Focus Punch?

M-Mawile's form of SubPunch is Substitute and Sucker Punch.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

Really? How often does Mawile even run Focus Punch?

M-Mawile's form of SubPunch is Substitute and Sucker Punch.

No, it's Substitute and Focus Punch. Because, you know, SubPunch = Substitute + Focus Punch.

 

[TerraTF]

Really? How often does Mawile even run Focus Punch?

M-Mawile's form of SubPunch is Substitute and Sucker Punch.

No, it's Substitute and Focus Punch. Because, you know, SubPunch = Substitute + Focus Punch.

I used SubPunch to refer to Substitute and Sucker Punch. Because, you know, SubPunch = Substitute + Sucker Punch. M-Mawile isn't the best to run SubPunch on. SubPunch as a whole is not nearly as dominant as it once was.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

Really? How often does Mawile even run Focus Punch?

M-Mawile's form of SubPunch is Substitute and Sucker Punch.

No, it's Substitute and Focus Punch. Because, you know, SubPunch = Substitute + Focus Punch.

I used SubPunch to refer to Substitute and Sucker Punch. Because, you know, SubPunch = Substitute + Sucker Punch. M-Mawile isn't the best to run SubPunch on. SubPunch as a whole is not nearly as dominant as it once was.

This is blatantly wrong. SubPunch is a widely used term, for one, you can't just change its meaning and expect others to understand. Second, MMawile is fantastic to run SubPunch on, as it annihilates Heatran (and stall in general) - if it weren't for SubPunch Mawile, then Mawile would not be being suspected tested right now because Heatran would shut it down and everybody and their mother runs Heatran. There's a reason that on the Mawile analysis (https://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/pokemon/mawile) there's not only an actual SubPunch set, but SubPunch is also slashed on the setup sweeper set.

 

[Integra]

I was pretty annoyed with the Aegislash ban, especially considering I didn't have time to make ladder reqs.

Basically, the banning of Aegislash makes it easier for other Pokemon to be thrown on the chopping block (looking at you, Thundurus-I, Landorus-I, and Charizard X). I'm almost certain MMaw and Thundurus will be banned. Once they're gone, banning Landorus-I and Charizard X will be much easier.

Next one to be suspected will be either Charizard X or Thundurus-I. Maybe the former since they're testing another Mega now.

 

[maneaterliongirafff1]

My 2c: Uber suspect should be VERY different from that of OU and although it goes against the whole principal of Uber tier(allowing broken things etc.) I can't stress enough how broken and overcentralizing this thing is. As far as I know this is the first time Smogon is trying to ban a Pokemon itself in Uber tier and as much as it pains me to say this, Mgar is ban-worthy. It's ban-worthy in the same way as it was back in OU. Different tier, same story.

People keep saying the problem is Stag itself and not Mgar, but never before have we had a trapper with such raw offensive capabilities and typing as Mgar. It just towers above its peers by a huge margin, and although Stag transforms otherwise lackluster mons such as Gothi into a threat, Gengar takes it to a whole new lvl imo. Every other threat has some sort of check or counter, and yet here is a mon that can trap and remove basically anything it wants. Nothing comes out on top against gengar in a match up except a couple pursuit trappers and faster mons such as deo and even then it's 50/50 using pusuit users with gengar now running hp fire and focus miss to get around them. So I'm in agreement with banning gengarite..

 

[TerraTF]

My 2c: Uber suspect should be VERY different from that of OU and although it goes against the whole principal of Uber tier(allowing broken things etc.) I can't stress enough how broken and overcentralizing this thing is. As far as I know this is the first time Smogon is trying to ban a Pokemon itself in Uber tier and as much as it pains me to say this, Mgar is ban-worthy. It's ban-worthy in the same way as it was back in OU. Different tier, same story.

People keep saying the problem is Stag itself and not Mgar, but never before have we had a trapper with such raw offensive capabilities and typing as Mgar. It just towers above its peers by a huge margin, and although Stag transforms otherwise lackluster mons such as Gothi into a threat, Gengar takes it to a whole new lvl imo. Every other threat has some sort of check or counter, and yet here is a mon that can trap and remove basically anything it wants. Nothing comes out on top against gengar in a match up except a couple pursuit trappers and faster mons such as deo and even then it's 50/50 using pusuit users with gengar now running hp fire and focus miss to get around them. So I'm in agreement with banning gengarite..

Its not Shadow Tag by itself and its also not M-Gengar by itself. Its the combination of M-Gengar's fantastic stats and movepool combined with Shadow Tag. If M-Bannette got Shadow Tag and M-Gengar didn't, then M-Bannette would likely only see a banning from UU.

 

[Alexey]

Gaiz
If something is broken as in "overpowered as hell", it gets banned to Ubers, not from Ubers
Gengarite is suspected because it's allegedly uncompetitive, not because it's overpowered
Box legends (except Cube, Kyurem, and Suicune) and Mega Kangaskhan are broken as fuck, but they are nevertheless competitive, they don't reduce a battle to a sequence of coinflips with their mere presence (and Mkanga, MLuke, Genesect etc. didn't do that in OU either, even though they were amongst the most overcentralizing and overpowered pieces of shit OU had ever seen)
It's suspected on the grounds similar to those for Swagger and Moody bans, not to the grounds on which, say, Genesect was banned from OU

 

[TerraTF]

Mawilite vote to Ubers. Received about an 80% for ban. Any thoughts?

 

[maneaterliongirafff1]

My 2c: Uber suspect should be VERY different from that of OU and although it goes against the whole principal of Uber tier(allowing broken things etc.) I can't stress enough how broken and overcentralizing this thing is. As far as I know this is the first time Smogon is trying to ban a Pokemon itself in Uber tier and as much as it pains me to say this, Mgar is ban-worthy. It's ban-worthy in the same way as it was back in OU. Different tier, same story.

People keep saying the problem is Stag itself and not Mgar, but never before have we had a trapper with such raw offensive capabilities and typing as Mgar. It just towers above its peers by a huge margin, and although Stag transforms otherwise lackluster mons such as Gothi into a threat, Gengar takes it to a whole new lvl imo. Every other threat has some sort of check or counter, and yet here is a mon that can trap and remove basically anything it wants. Nothing comes out on top against gengar in a match up except a couple pursuit trappers and faster mons such as deo and even then it's 50/50 using pusuit users with gengar now running hp fire and focus miss to get around them. So I'm in agreement with banning gengarite..

Its not Shadow Tag by itself and its also not M-Gengar by itself. Its the combination of M-Gengar's fantastic stats and movepool combined with Shadow Tag. If M-Bannette got Shadow Tag and M-Gengar didn't, then M-Bannette would likely only see a banning from UU.

You're right, it's the combination of both, not just one. That's what I really meant in my OP, I should have worded it better.

As for the banning of Mawilite, I can't say I'm too thrilled about this one, but I can definitely see the reason why it got banned to Ubers. It can set up on things like Lati twins, Azu, Ferro with ease and sweep teams in a heartbeat all while requiring little to no support. Basically, Mawile can sweep a significant portion of any imaginable teams out there and forces people to run very specialized or multiple counters against it, which I think is the reason that led to its ban.

 

[Joshawott]

Mawile basically only has one workable moveset though - it's easy to counter.

 

[Alexey]

That's actually 2 movesets
1) SD + 3 attacks
2) SubPunch

But in any case, I disagree with the ban

 

[DasManiac]

Mawile basically only has one workable moveset though - it's easy to counter.

Not to mention it's horrible HP and speed. I just burn it and then proceed to set up on it. Same goes for Aegislash. If King's Shield were like Protect then it'd be broken.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

I voted no but I'll admit that I didn't feel as passionately about this one as others. I thought it was silly at first but there are a lot of good proban arguments and it does make the meta a little more stall-friendly so I guess that's nice after Aegis's ban tipped the balance so much the other way.

 

[Alola]

The meta was already stall-friendly, especially to people like me who don't use Mega Mawile in the first place. Cue Lati usage increase.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

The meta was already stall-friendly, especially to people like me who don't use Mega Mawile in the first place. Cue Lati usage increase.

Are you kidding me? Maybe the ladder is domiated by stall because a shitty player with a stall team will beat a shitty player with an offense team 90% of the time, but in high level play stall took a huge blow with the Aegis ban.

 

[Pokepal148]

An ode to Smogon, (to be sung to the tune of the Pokemon theme song)
----------------------
I wanna be, the very best /
That no one ever was /
So I made an OU team /
And put it on showdown /

So X and Y, have just come out /
And some of these mons are OP, /
So we'll send em, to ubers now /
And then be done with it /

Smo-gon (gotta ban them all) mega gengar /
get kangaskhan out as well /
Smo-gon, Oh Blaziken too, /
might as well were on a roll. /

Smo-gon (gotta ban em all), we could do complex bans, /
But, That requires thought and effort, /
so we'll ban this and we'll ban that, /
(It's Smogon) gotta ban em all /
Smogon ----- (yeah!!!!)

Every challenge along the way, /
I face with skill and class, /
Oh that noob had Mega Lucario /
Oh man, he whooped my team /

So we'll ban, that one too /
'Man I can't beat aegislash' /
Then we'll ban that one too /
For a 'healthy metagame'/

Smo-gon (gotta ban them all) aegislash banned /
'Wait, you got sweeped by a mawile?' /
(Smogon) 'hey Jim,' (what?) he got sweeped by mawile' /
'Heh heh, that's hilarious bill' /


Smo-gon (gotta ban em all), you could prolly counter this /
But, That requires thought and effort, /
so we'll ban this and we'll ban that, /
(Smo-gon) gotta ban em all, yep every single one /
Smogon /
------------