Smogon bans and suspect tests discussion

[UB-01 Kenobi]

No offence dude, but after your post in Smogon's Mega Salamence thread saying it wasn't broken and calling Aerilate a useless ability on it, I'm inclined to take whatever you say about competitive battling with a massive grain of salt. Also don't start throwing around petty accusations about the staff rigging anything, because this isn't even remotely rigged and the majority of their community (users) have wanted this for a while now. If you don't understand how Smogon works (they don't ban an ability on a mon unless the ability is broken on everything that gets it) then it'd be better if you went and did some research on how they tier before commenting on it in this negative manner because it's clear you don't have all the facts. If they start neutering broken things down to fit OU, then let's have Mega Mawile back but it can only use Fairy Wind as STAB, Mega Salamence without Dragon Dance and Substitute and bring back Mega Lucario but it can only use special sets.

They did that with Sand Veil Garchomp.

No, they did that with Sand Veil (and also Snow Veil) everything because things like Gliscor were haxing with Sand Veil. Unless you want to make a case that Protean is broken on Kecleon then Protean isn't getting banned on Greninja.

To add to this, the reason it has to be an across-the-board ban rather than nitpicking on sets is because then anything uber can be brought down if you apply enough bans, creating a slippery slope of precedence. Think Mega Salamence is ban-worthy? Not if it has no normal moves, making Aerialate useless! Kyogre wouldn't be that bad if we limit it to moves that only have 40 base power as well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMKnlY97g1c

Voila

 

[Lunacy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMKnlY97g1c

Voila

I remember this... that was just terrible.



All in all, the Smogon community is made up of people like you and me who have had much more experience in higher level play. It honestly doesn't surprise me this thing is finally on the chopping block considering how outstanding its offensive stats are in the combination of its speed+Protean+Life Orb, always requiring a check when building a team or some way to cripple it early on to deal with it later (i.e. Thunder Wave). Off the top of my head, the only counters I can think of are bulky Fairies, who now tremble in fear of its presence as of ORAS. If that wasn't enough, it has a great movepool and arguably broken ability, allowing it to run multiple sets and turning any situation against it into a guessing game. It really just needed some decent coverage moves (Gunk Shot and Low Kick) to cross the line.

 

[Duosion]

Greninja is one of those pokemon you can slap on literally any team and it will do well, and barely nothing bar alomomomola and pory2 can reliably switch in.

I love greninja, and while he is indeed the best pokemon currently in OU, I dont find him anywhere near broken enough to get banned.

It has such a deep movepool that its set is almost unpredictable. The only moves you can count Greninja running are Ice Beam and Gunk Shot. Every move after that is nothing but slashes. Dark Pulse/Hydro Pump/Scald/Low Kick/Extrasensory/Hidden Power This/Hidden Power That. Greninja has one of the deepest movepools in the game. It has an unpredictable typing and very little in the current meta reliably counters it. Like you said, the only Pokemon that can counter it are Porygon2 and Alomomola. When a Pokemon has to be placed on a team to specifically counter a single Pokemon it needs to be banned.

OMG, That's what Protean does, I thought it was just a worse version of Big pecks O_O

yeah, I know what it does, and as anyone can tell you, greninja doesnt have access to every type in the game, but how often do you run into a HP dragon or HP electric greninja? never.

There are lots of pokemon that ca counter greninja as long as it doesnt have the exact move it needs, like tentacruel if not running the rare extrasensory, if we are gonna ban every pokemon who can run a shit move to beat it's counters, dragonite would be ubers in a second.

Using priorty/scarfers honestly massively screws it over, and it gets worn down hella fast with LO/entry hazards.

 

[TerraTF]

Greninja is one of those pokemon you can slap on literally any team and it will do well, and barely nothing bar alomomomola and pory2 can reliably switch in.

I love greninja, and while he is indeed the best pokemon currently in OU, I dont find him anywhere near broken enough to get banned.

It has such a deep movepool that its set is almost unpredictable. The only moves you can count Greninja running are Ice Beam and Gunk Shot. Every move after that is nothing but slashes. Dark Pulse/Hydro Pump/Scald/Low Kick/Extrasensory/Hidden Power This/Hidden Power That. Greninja has one of the deepest movepools in the game. It has an unpredictable typing and very little in the current meta reliably counters it. Like you said, the only Pokemon that can counter it are Porygon2 and Alomomola. When a Pokemon has to be placed on a team to specifically counter a single Pokemon it needs to be banned.

OMG, That's what Protean does, I thought it was just a worse version of Big pecks O_O

yeah, I know what it does, and as anyone can tell you, greninja doesnt have access to every type in the game, but how often do you run into a HP dragon or HP electric greninja? never.

There are lots of pokemon that ca counter greninja as long as it doesnt have the exact move it needs, like tentacruel if not running the rare extrasensory, if we are gonna ban every pokemon who can run a shit move to beat it's counters, dragonite would be ubers in a second.

Using priorty/scarfers honestly massively screws it over, and it gets worn down hella fast with LO/entry hazards.

Of course there are Pokemon that can counter Greninja as long as he doesn't have certain moves. Technically every Pokemon has a counter as long as they don't run a certain move or two.

Goodra is a counter for Greninja as long as it doesn't run Gunk Shot. Blissey is a counter for any special variant of Greninja. Azamarill counters Greninja if it doesn't run Gunk Shot. Garchomp, Dragonite, Noivern, and many other Dragon types counter Greninja if it doesn't run Ice Beam.

All of those situations are extremely unlikely as many Greninja run Ice Beam, Gunk Shot, Low Kick, and Hydro Pump/Dark Pulse/Extrasensory. You can build a team of 6 Pokemon to Counter every form of Greninja but will lose 100% of the time.

 

[Psycho Pacifist]

The suspect ladder is awful ugh. Half the people don't know what it's for low ladder and I've seen way too much BP.

 

[Simba]

I wish Smogon would keep ORAS and XY separate.

Then again I also wish they'd ban Talonflame and create a new Super Ubers tier (since Ubers has turned into a freaking banfest lately -- banning stuff from Ubers, how ridiculous), so I'm not hopeful.

Their OU bans have been...strangely ordered. Aegislash shoulda been the first suspect hands down, but it took almost a year.

 

[DCM]

As a general reminder, treat each other respectfully while posting about these potential bans. I understand things can get heated, but remember to address the argument, not the poster.

 

[Morningstar]

Then again I also wish they'd ban Talonflame and create a new Super Ubers tier (since Ubers has turned into a freaking banfest lately -- banning stuff from Ubers, how ridiculous), so I'm not hopeful.

Anything Goes kinda is Super-Ubers at this point. Also last I checked, only one thing was actually banned, Mega-Raquayza. unless you are referring to a likely deluge of people calling for bans from ubers....

As for the order, the meta game was still young and people were heavily into the Mega-Evolution hype, hence why Mega-Lucario and Mega-Kangaskahn were banned first (and I think Aegislash might have been a counter to the latter)

 

[TerraTF]

Then again I also wish they'd ban Talonflame and create a new Super Ubers tier (since Ubers has turned into a freaking banfest lately -- banning stuff from Ubers, how ridiculous), so I'm not hopeful.

Anything Goes kinda is Super-Ubers at this point. Also last I checked, only one thing was actually banned, Mega-Raquayza. unless you are referring to a likely deluge of people calling for bans from ubers....

As for the order, the meta game was still young and people were heavily into the Mega-Evolution hype, hence why Mega-Lucario and Mega-Kangaskahn were banned first (and I think Aegislash might have been a counter to the latter)

The next thing to likely be banned/Suspected from Ubers would be either Shadow Tag or M-Gengar.

 

[Morningstar]

Then again I also wish they'd ban Talonflame and create a new Super Ubers tier (since Ubers has turned into a freaking banfest lately -- banning stuff from Ubers, how ridiculous), so I'm not hopeful.

Anything Goes kinda is Super-Ubers at this point. Also last I checked, only one thing was actually banned, Mega-Raquayza. unless you are referring to a likely deluge of people calling for bans from ubers....

As for the order, the meta game was still young and people were heavily into the Mega-Evolution hype, hence why Mega-Lucario and Mega-Kangaskahn were banned first (and I think Aegislash might have been a counter to the latter)

The next thing to likely be banned/Suspected from Ubers would be either Shadow Tag or M-Gengar.

That is pretty likely, it preceded Mega-Rayquayza as the first uber to be suspected, but then again I doubt they would re-suspect Gengar/Shadow Tag so soon JUST because AG now exists. Maybe in a few months or when Gen VII comes, maybe.

 

[TerraTF]

Then again I also wish they'd ban Talonflame and create a new Super Ubers tier (since Ubers has turned into a freaking banfest lately -- banning stuff from Ubers, how ridiculous), so I'm not hopeful.

Anything Goes kinda is Super-Ubers at this point. Also last I checked, only one thing was actually banned, Mega-Raquayza. unless you are referring to a likely deluge of people calling for bans from ubers....

As for the order, the meta game was still young and people were heavily into the Mega-Evolution hype, hence why Mega-Lucario and Mega-Kangaskahn were banned first (and I think Aegislash might have been a counter to the latter)

The next thing to likely be banned/Suspected from Ubers would be either Shadow Tag or M-Gengar.

That is pretty likely, it preceded Mega-Rayquayza as the first uber to be suspected, but then again I doubt they would re-suspect Gengar/Shadow Tag so soon JUST because AG now exists. Maybe in a few months or when Gen VII comes, maybe.

Ubers will likely end up staying the same outside of a Shadow Tag suspect or ban. Shadow Tag is just a cancer where ever it goes. Thankfully its more manageable now than it was in Gen 4.

 

[Fairy Type Arceus]

Just had a thought assuming you can catch greninja on dark type couldn't you just bring accelgor in and kill greninja with a bug move, he is faster.

 

[FullMoon]

That's implying Accelgor is even viable in OU.

Honestly people, if you're going to side with Greninja and go against the ban, you're going to need better arguments than making players use a weak mon just to counter Greninja. By suggesting things like that you're just making Greninja's case look worse.

 

[JustJeff]

Just had a thought assuming you can catch greninja on dark type couldn't you just bring accelgor in and kill greninja with a bug move, he is faster.

Accelgor isn't viable in OU. And Focus Blast doesn't really hit the target so often.
Moreover, The smogon frog can always carry Shadow Sneak.

Edit: Greninja'ed (lol)

 

[Fairy Type Arceus]

Just had a thought assuming you can catch greninja on dark type couldn't you just bring accelgor in and kill greninja with a bug move, he is faster.

Accelgor isn't viable in OU. And Focus Blast doesn't really hit the target so often.
Moreover, The smogon frog can always carry Shadow Sneak.

Edit: Greninja'ed (lol)

still can't carry every move at once, it all depends on what greninja does run, however I guess that un predictability is why he's being suspect tested right now.

It was just a suggestion, I had no idea how good or bad acceglor was.

 

[TerraTF]

Just had a thought assuming you can catch greninja on dark type couldn't you just bring accelgor in and kill greninja with a bug move, he is faster.

Accelgor isn't viable in OU. And Focus Blast doesn't really hit the target so often.
Moreover, The smogon frog can always carry Shadow Sneak.

Edit: Greninja'ed (lol)

still can't carry every move at once, it all depends on what greninja does run, however I guess that un predictability is why he's being suspect tested right now.

It was just a suggestion, I had no idea how good or bad acceglor was.

Your standard Greninja carries Hydro Pump, Low Kick, Ice Beam, and Gunk Shot. Dark Pulse was a move that was way more common in XY OU. Since ORAS OU Greninja's moveset has become a lot more centralized.

EDIT: And for more proof as to how overcentralized the meta, or how easy it is to place him on a team, is around Greninja, he scored a 26.78787% usage in OU in November. Now I'll be the first to admit that these numbers a slightly skewed due to the new meta being released early in the month, hence Salamence sitting with an 11.60674% usage. We should be able to get more accurate numbers when the stats for December are released during the first week or two of January.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

Just had a thought assuming you can catch greninja on dark type couldn't you just bring accelgor in and kill greninja with a bug move, he is faster.

Accelgor isn't viable in OU. And Focus Blast doesn't really hit the target so often.
Moreover, The smogon frog can always carry Shadow Sneak.

Edit: Greninja'ed (lol)

still can't carry every move at once, it all depends on what greninja does run, however I guess that un predictability is why he's being suspect tested right now.

It was just a suggestion, I had no idea how good or bad acceglor was.

Your standard Greninja carries Hydro Pump, Low Kick, Ice Beam, and Gunk Shot. Dark Pulse was a move that was way more common in XY OU. Since ORAS OU Greninja's moveset has become a lot more centralized.

EDIT: And for more proof as to how overcentralized the meta, or how easy it is to place him on a team, is around Greninja, he scored a 26.78787% usage in OU in November. Now I'll be the first to admit that these numbers a slightly skewed due to the new meta being released early in the month, hence Salamence sitting with an 11.60674% usage. We should be able to get more accurate numbers when the stats for December are released during the first week or two of January.

Usage wise sure, but that counts the shitty bits of the ladder. For good players, Greninja pack Gunk Shot/Ice Beam/Low Kick/Dark Pulse as the standard, and nobody uses Water moves of any sort anymore. Slashes are things like Extrasensory, U-Turn, and Shadow Sneak, not Hydro Pump, Surf, or Scald.

 

[Alexey]

As I was playing on the suspect ladder, I noticed one thing
I CAN FINALLY RUN BALANCE HELL YEAH

 

[Zeb]

Was hoping to vote in this one (tho I don't think my opinion will change anything, as the majority seems to be ban which I agree with) but I had a few battles on showdown the other night and it was lagging + juttering like an absolute bitch, to the point where it was making me feel sick after the third battle. I might have to try later in the week, to see if it's working any better for me, but I'm not sure what's caused it as it usually works fine. There's still over a week to go, so plenty of time left.

 

[Alexey]

With the rate I'm going at so far I may end up meeting the reqs, even though I am playing casually and with a team that is horribly weak to Bisharp
Need I say that I will be voting ban, should that happen?