and we also have to factor in that syndrome killed an absurd number of superheroes while he was making and improving said technology, which in this scenario would equate to… banning a whole lot of broken mons
Doesn't Syndrome specifically say he would do this "when [he's] old and had [his] fun" during the monologue? I took that to be after he's done with it the point of selling his inventions was to further devalue the uniqueness of Supers when he doesn't care about being the big shot anymore. Not to say this would pan out (practically speaking) beyond rich people necessarily, but given Syndrome's already a Fiction 500 Villain, it did seem more like an action to make a point than to actually get anything out of it for him, and the movie obviously intends it that way since it echoes a point Bob/Mr. Incredible was lamenting early on about "celebrating mediocrity" when projecting how he wants to be a Superhero again.
To start off, this sounds really really cool and I wish my teachers allowed me to do that. I often joke with my friends about how if i were allowed to write about pokemon, they'd have to add a page limit! That being said, unfair and uncompetitive are two different criteria. If you wanted to focus on whether kingambit is uncompetitive, you'd focus on mainly sucker punch and tera mindgames, how often they come up, and how accessable guaranteed counterplay is (stuff like encore or sticky barb). If you wanted to get really technical about it, this thread could be useful to you. If you wanted to argue about how kingambit is 'unfair' or broken, you'd probably need to talk about its absurd power (did you know that +2 adamant tera dark blackglasses kingambit with 5 SO boosts kos opposing fast kingambit with Kowtow?), general unreliability of conventional checks due to tera, and overcentralization of more reliable yet unconventional counterplay like burn or encore, probably with a bit about smogon tiering philosophy too. If you wanted to get REALLY deep, you could talk about kingambit's negative effects on the metagame as a whole: as ctann said "It’s kinda got a chokehold on how viable Pokémon are. Pokémon are as viable as their ability to deal with mr. checkmate." You could explain how metagames where more is viable are generally regarded as better and how kingambit's overloading power forces you to be build more stringently. Idk just my thoughts though
Patience my friend. We'll do our part in the next survey and get the OU council to notice our movement. For now, it's best we lurk in the shadows & avoid unneeded attention.
Lugia is so overdue....not even sure what it would do in this meta aside from being a bad tera hog if you want to go offensive or screen support.
Uhh, be an annoying mon that will be unkillable even if you hit it for super effective damage and either phaze for hazard damage or be an unstoppable set-up sweeper with calm mind or curse? And it wouldn't matter if it had to tera if it stomped everything after that.
drop miraidon :3
I am not a fan of zamazenta being in the tier and while I wouldn’t advocate for any tiering action on him at the moment, I would certainly vote ban if the opportunity arose. Most of the checks you listed don’t actually threaten
with a knockout or are actually beaten by it. I’ll go over your examples and a couple other metagame answers to it as well.
While the wisp hex set is a fairly good counter it relies on zama not having a sub up and not clicking crunch on switch. Not unreasonable requests but it’s far from a guarantee
again loses to crunch, but the bold set can take hits fairy easily. Probably the second or third best answer to it if we don’t consider tera
What is this doing to zama? Hurricane? Encore? None of these are common attacks and I don’t particularly want to recognize them as legitimate counterplay. I will click iron defense 3 times and 2hko dragonite with body press.
252 Atk Zamazenta Heavy Slam (100 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Enamorus: 276-326 (95.5 - 112.8%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
another fairly good answer but nuzzle doesn’t work against sub variants. I don’t really want to invent sets like substitute heavy slam, but I’ve seen it. Hatterene necessitates specific team styles as well which means it’s not splashable on every team and in my experience struggles to do much of anything on bulkier teams. Also yeah, heavy slam is a 50% chance to KO but I find that a flimsy argument as it’s unlikely hatterene remains fully healthy or hazards remain off the field for the entire time. Zama isn’t winning turn 2 (unless it’s the life orb set, I should make a post about it I think it’s very good)
this is a great answer but I don’t like your argument. It’s fighting stab is close combat, if it tera steels Val is forced to hit into the physical side which may have multiple boosts. Encore usually does the trick though and like I said earlier, I don’t like bringing tera into 1v1 scenarios often.
another quite good answer but if you’re chipped you lose to ice fang. I don’t think I’ve fang is too common and I won’t invent sets to beat things in isolation, so this is a good counter
is 2hkod by 2 body presses at +3, good luck switching it in. You practically have to go in immediatly and if there’s full spikes up, it’s a wrap. Prim doesn’t run surf usually, it’s psychic noise which allows it to hit through sub. Good against the tera steel sub variants I guess, but a very situational choice at best
+1 bp 2hkos after rocks, I just don’t see this one. It’s an alright answer if you’ve done some chip just hope it doesn’t sub on you
this would be the best answer to zama if tera didn’t exist, and the only mon I’m going to break my “no tera in 1v1” rule for. Physically defensive slowking galar should beat every zama set. Future sight and sludge bomb combine to create a substitute killing and ohkoing machine and with max physdef crunch can’t even 3hko (unless it gets the def drop teehee). It should be the perfect answer……. Until zamazenta tera steels and subs. Now it can use you as free setup, you can’t break its sub, and the next mon that comes in has to deal with a boosted steel type behind a substitute. slowking has no real recourse either, what am I supposed to do, run focus blast? And that’s the problem with many of these checks, they don’t always work against every set, sub or attacking or tera fire or tera steel. Which brings me to my final point… ever going to run all of these sets? No. It can’t. It’s a 4mss 252 ev syndrome mon. It wants to run 7 moves and 3 tera types and 800 evs, it just can’t do that. But, there exist few universal checks to it. Many of the mons you mentioned as checks don’t even function as so without tera involved, much less with any of the 3 or 4 it can viably run. Zamazenta can’t always run all these moves or sets, and so something like enamorus might beat an iron defense zamazenta, but you can’t know on team preview and it really sucks to randomly lose a mon to a common set, not even a specific counterset. Do I think zamazenta belongs in the tier? Not really, but I recognize there exists counterplay and it brings valuable traits to the metagame such as checking gouging fire and a whole host of other physical attackers. I just think it’s a giant stat stick and does too much for the tier.I like this answer, and I will fully respond to it later, but one thing about glowking is that it has flamethrower to hit Zama. It's a decently common move on it to not get destroyed by steel types, so that is an option.I am not a fan of zamazenta being in the tier and while I wouldn’t advocate for any tiering action on him at the moment, I would certainly vote ban if the opportunity arose. Most of the checks you listed don’t actually threaten
As a note, I usually don’t like including terastalization when discussing counterplay, but in my experience zamazenta is often tera steel and it causes it to completely turn the tide against some of its counters. More on this later.
252+ Atk Dragonite Earthquake vs. +6 252 HP / 88 Def Zamazenta: 26-31 (6.7 - 7.9%) -- possibly the worst move ever
Ice fang not needed
:volcorona: almost always a check, stone edge is fake
Is
Lmao. This is such a fear mongering post. Lugia is faaaaaar away from unkillable, every single playstyle has ways to deal with Lugia, you're looking too much at its defensive stats and HA and ignoring everything else, like the recovery nerf, loss of key moves it liked like toxic and thunder wave, it's bad defensive type, susceptibility to every status, being rocks weak, being a huge tera-hog which is big since Tera cost nowadays is all time high with all the huge beatsticks in the tier and even even with Tera Lugia will always be stopped by a well made team since it invites soon much stuff if it doesn't have the right coverage/tera type: no ground coverage? Ghambit/Dhengo bait, no ice moves? Dragons and bulky grounds use you as set-up/hazards, no fighting/Fairy coverage? Hamurott, RM and Weavile uses you as bait And let's not get started on the Unaware mons which don't care about it unless it packs some bad coverage on it. I see a lot of people saying just because it's a bad Uber/UUber it shouldn't be given a chance but that's wrong in my opinion, the mons at its rank in UUbers or lower at there for one of these 4 reasons:
I can't believe I'm breaking my months of ghosting and currently being gone to nitpick for a mon I don't like against another mon I don't like, but apparently I'm that bored.I am not a fan of zamazenta being in the tier and while I wouldn’t advocate for any tiering action on him at the moment, I would certainly vote ban if the opportunity arose. Most of the checks you listed don’t actually threaten
As a note, I usually don’t like including terastalization when discussing counterplay, but in my experience zamazenta is often tera steel and it causes it to completely turn the tide against some of its counters. More on this later.
Whirlwind like a bulky Ting Lu, but with recovery, 65 more base speed, and immunity to spikes. If you are Boots, you can almost guarantee phasing out a sweeper at least once. Lord Emvee just came out with an Ubers vid for a Lugia team. It had Whirlwind and Future Sight. Lugia is my favorite pokemon, but I certainly don't want to see it phasing out the OU tier on hazard teams.
So even on double STAB Tera, crit, and choice Specs combined there is still a 62.5% chance to live a super effective hit? What was this supposed to prove exactly? Lugia would be the best phaser OU has ever seen.
Hmm, let's see, a mon with 106/130/154 defenses that also has 90 attacking stats and is as fast as waterpon at base 110. Nope, can't see how this will be broken.
You forget that the Calc also includes Electric Terrain. Again I say, translate it how you want. Does this make Lugia broken? Does it not? Only Ampharos knows.
AV Glowking is amazing, I've used a set with snarl, max defense ev's and a special defense raising nature. While it loses the ability to pivot, it can take on almost any attack that isn't super effective. Combine that with tera water/dragon to wall waterpon and other mons, and you have a disgusting creature that can tank hits, get a future sight off and maybe a snarl, and then switch out to something else. Genuinelly one of the best mons in the tier.
