Announcement Chien-Pao Suspect Test

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Imperial

Imperial

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(sorry isaiah)
:Chien-pao: Chien-Pao Suspect :Chien-Pao:
Following a vote, the Ubers UU council has voted to suspect Chien-Pao

WHY:

Chien-Pao has been an overwhelming offensive force in the Metagame for the last fortnight. With an astounding 135 Speed Stat, combined with a solid 120 Attack, topped off with an incredible STAB combination in Ice and Dark, Chien-Pao has been rampaging through the tier with little-to-nothing stopping it. It crucially outspeeds fast threats like Spectrier, Zamazenta-C and Mewtwo, all of which are fodder to its Dark STAB or to Sacred Sword, which crucially ignores the boosts that Zamazenta-C accrues with Iron defense or Dauntless Shield. Chien-Pao also crucially has access to Ice shard, hitting and KOing pokemon like Scarf Landorus, Scarf Landorus-T and Deoxys-N, all of which could outrun it and KO it. It also has Sucker Punch, which can grab crucial KOs on Regieleki, scarf Spectrier and even Landorus after Tera. All of these traits, combined with inbuilt Life Orb boost thanks to Sword of Ruin, make this Pokemon a nightmare to switch into.

What Chien-Pao lacks in set versatility, only running a Heavy-Duty Boots Swords Dance set and a Choice Band set, it makes up with sheer power and speed. With its choice of priority moves, Sacred Sword to beat boosting threats like Skarmory and Zamazenta, Icicle Crash and Ice Spinner to cruch the Dragons and Rillaboom that infest the metagame, Crunch to hit huge damage on everything, notably smacking the Psychics like Mewtwo, Deoxys and Lugia hard, and Sucker Punch and Ice shard to hit the faster Regieleki, Scarf Landorus, and Deoxys.

However, all is not lost versus this Pokemon. Despite its sheer power, Giratina can live a hit at high HP and status it back, crippling it. More importantly, Magearna can safely handle almost any move it wants to throw off, and status it or get HP back with Draining Kiss, while Zacian can outrun it and KO it with Play Rough or Close Combat. However, all of these are potentially at the mercy of a Tera Type that can obliterate them. Chien Pao also struggles with an item slot, wanting Choice Band for immediate power, but also Heavy-Duty Boots to alleviate its significant hazard weakness, notably to Stealth Rocks. Overall, we feel that Chien-Pao is too powerful of a force on the metagame, and with support from both categories on the survey, with qualified at 3.31 and general playerbase at 3.17, and thus should be suspect tested.


The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 75 with at least 25 games played. Any Ladder Tour account with the tags UUBELG1 (or later) which qualify for the requirements can be used to vote and they must provide ownership the same way a standard suspect account would.


HOW:
During a Suspect test, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:

Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown! server and on a new alt (created on or after today, March 15th 2024) beginning with "UUBPAO". Having the prefix at the start is mandatory; for example, "UUBPAO goat" would be allowed, but "The UUBPAO Account" would not.

To qualify for voting, the alt must achieve at least 75 GXE with 25 Games Played.

Chien-Pao will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect period.
The suspect will end on March 30th 2024 at 11:59 PM GMT+0.
It is mandatory to prove ownership of the alt account.
When posting your reqs, feel free to discuss whether you think Chien-Pao is banworthy or not (optional).

With all that being said, it's suspect time! The actual voting will take place in the Blind Voting Forum and will count towards the Tiering Contributor badge, so posting anything other than proof of reqs and discussion isn't necessary. Chien-Pao needs a 60% suspect majority to be banned.

We will be running 4 suspect tours, held at https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/unofficialmetas , where the winner and runner-up will qualify for reqs. These tours will be at 4 PM GMT-5 on The 16th, 17th, 23rd, and 24th of March. There will be role pings for these tours in the UM Events/Ubers UU Discords when these tours are started. Good luck everyone!

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BigFatMantis

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(double post but will delete my other one)

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Just wanted to lay out a few reasons why I don't think we should be banning Chien Pao at all:

First, I think people need to understand that this is not OU. It is impossible to create a perfectly balanced Ubers UU metagame because it's built off of an inherently unbalanced premise. We have to accept that some things are going to be very strong, some things are going to seem like too much, but ultimately if it's playable we should probably just let it be. Personally, I think Chien Pao is significantly less overbearing than anything the tier has tried to ban so far - it is for sure less threatening than Necrozma-DW and I didn't even think that should have gotten banned. I think sometimes we get too caught up in wanting to find the perfect defensive switch in but that's not always going to be possible in a tier like this. And with Chien Pao it's very easy to trade with it because it's just so incredibly frail compared to everything else in the tier - every single top tier mon threatens it significantly and most things can just straight OHKO it. The thing with Necrozma-DW was that it was a bit bulky, could be even bulkier with certain spreads, could overcome common SpD checks by running Psyshock, could fit on both extremes of teams from Webs HO to Trick Room to even fatter builds, etc. Chien Pao is extremely one dimensional - it's either going to attack or SD. There's no real alternative. Not to mention there actually ARE defensive answers (Skarmory for one, Magearna is also very good).

Also, while it's fine to suspect a mon based on ladder alone, I think the Ubers UU ladder is a bit dead, and there haven't been any tour games on Smogon showing that Chien Pao is overbearing (actually there haven't been any tour games period with it yet). The only extent we have really seen it is in room tours, laddering, and the current Ubers UU Ladder tour. I think we really should have waited to get some good tour usage on this before jumping to conclusions that it even needed a test in the first place, especially since a 3.17 vote is a bit on the lower end.

So, I'll be voting no ban. It's not even one of the best mons in the tier, let alone too much for the tier. And the fact that the vote comes on the 30th, right before new shifts, is also kinda bad timing since we could get a shakeup anyways. I think we should revisit any bans/suspects after Ubers Ladder tour is over and see how it went, unless we get something ridiculous from shifts.
 
Leo Justice

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I find myself that it's harder to justify Pao being in the tier the more that I play

The main reason why I think Pao is unhealthy is that it forces a linearity in the metagame which I don't particularly enjoy. Games feel scripted and that some archeotypes just have unwinnable matchups into other teams just because of how they need to be structured to succeed.

From my experience, people are using 4 archeotypes. Hyper offense, Magearna balance, Stall, and weather.

Hyper offense is arguably the most dominant it has ever been in a while, and the main reason is that most of the walls that it struggles with are broken down by Pao. All walls not named magearna drop to a choice band attack after hazards. Some with tera, some without it. Pao is so good at luring Magearna that Dugtrio has been getting usage.

Magearna is the only thing keeping balance teams alive at the moment, making most balance teams the same 3-4 pokemon. Magearna, Zacian, Giratina are all the pokemon that balance uses 99% of the time since not using them means that you will lose. But the problem you have now is that all of these pokemon will end up making your matchups very linear in the sense that the way you play against balance teams is literally the same every time considering their structure is the same thing.

Stall is very prominent in the ladder, and that's even outside of the stall teams me and Imperial use. Considering the fact that you don't need to prepare for every threat nowadays because Pao has an amazing matchup into most stall breakers pushing them out of the metagame, making Pao the only real way to break stall. And when stall prepares for it, it's really hard to do it.

Weather teams are kind of a meme. They're really strong but it's hard to play around the fact that Torkoal is your best answer to Pao. A Pokemon who's rocks weak with no recovery and you need to keep alive for the weather. Not an amazing matchup. Rain is mediocre and Snow has struggled to justify since the only ice type that you'd use is Pao.

Pao pushes the metagame into a matchup of rock paper scissors because that his answers are really limited to just Magearna and maybe a defensive Arceus-Dark or Arceus-Fighting (but those two can be shaky at best with hazards and flinches).

I think Pao is more comparable to Zacian, except it's arguably better. Pao has less bulk, worse defensive typing, and it's slower, yes. But in exchange you get a better stab combination, less pokemon that wall you, actual set variety, priority, a better ability, and actual coverage. Zacian and Magearna are the only two pokemon that are really keeping Pao in check, but one can be trapped and the other is just an 'offensive check'.
 
Bella

Bella

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Well, reqs sucked, but i got them!
I'm leaning toward DNB Chien-Pao right now to be honest. I feel like its pretty easy to offensively and defensively counterplay, with Zacian / Regieleki / Bundle / Deos / Palafin / Sd arcs all offensively checking it and honestly outside of stall one of these 6 can easily be found on any team. I also feel like Defensive counterplay is fine as is, Mag is a sturdy check as is the metal birds and even dozo / tera tina / ho does not care about chiens cause itll always have Zacian or a Scarfer.

Unlike Leo, i actually like the metagame atm, i feel like theres much more pressing issues in the meta (I think Arc-Poison could be a big issue down the line for example), and i haven't really felt like the metagame is really centered around Chien atm, although some mons like Solgaleo and the Landos have seen massive drops post chien, although i feel like those 3 were slowly making it down anyways....

As BigFatMantis said in his post, i also have not seen Chien dominate a game in tour settings at all. I think its one of the mons the ladder hates but its honestly fine to me, and will be fine next month too.
 

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Leo Justice

Leo Justice

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Bella said:
I'm leaning toward DNB Chien-Pao right now to be honest. I feel like its pretty easy to offensively and defensively counterplay, with Zacian / Regieleki / Bundle / Deos / Palafin / Sd arcs all offensively checking it and honestly outside of stall one of these 6 can easily be found on any team. I also feel like Defensive counterplay is fine as is, Mag is a sturdy check as is the metal birds and even dozo / tera tina / ho does not care about chiens cause itll always have Zacian or a Scarfer.
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Both Skarmory and Corv die to crash or crunch after rocks damage, so they are not checks at all. Having to Tera your Giratina potentially opens yourself to get swept by a pokemon like Arceus-Poison in the back (who's not a bad partner to Pao at all), besides the fact that you can't swap into it. Dozo gets 2HKO'd by Tera Dark Crunch which means you have to use Tera fighting, opening yourself to getting swept by Zacian.

My problem with Chien Pao isn't offensive Counterplay, its defensive. You have no real consistent switch ins besides Magearna, as most of the others get snipped by Sacred Sword, 2hko'd with hazards, require Tera, or are just a flinch away from losing.
 
BigFatMantis

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Leo Justice said:
Both Skarmory and Corv die to crash or crunch after rocks damage, so they are not checks at all. Having to Tera your Giratina potentially opens yourself to get swept by a pokemon like Arceus-Poison in the back (who's not a bad partner to Pao at all), besides the fact that you can't swap into it. Dozo gets 2HKO'd by Tera Dark Crunch which means you have to use Tera fighting, opening yourself to getting swept by Zacian.

My problem with Chien Pao isn't offensive Counterplay, its defensive. You have no real consistent switch ins besides Magearna, as most of the others get snipped by Sacred Sword, 2hko'd with hazards, require Tera, or are just a flinch away from losing.
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I think this is a common misconception about Chien Pao - it only for sure 2HKOs Skarmory if it's Choice Band, and only with Crash, and only after rocks. It has to be Adamant Band to for sure 2HKO it with Crunch after rocks. And if it's band, then you are taking continuous hazard damage on top of Skarmory helmet damage, etc. People are kinda brushing it off as not a real check when it's a very real check - it's just not perfect. Not to mention this is only Band Pao - any other Pao is pretty well checked by the bird. And if it is band, then as long as you're not silly with hazards all you need to do is switch in Mag a couple times on it. Hazard removal is not really a spectacular thing in this tier.

Having sufficient offensive counterplay is also a very real thing to consider in weighing on how banworthy something is - and Pao has plenty of it as Bella mentioned. Also stating Tina opens itself up if it teras goes both ways, so stating that in connection with how it can 2HKO Dozo with Tera Dark Band Crunch (again only if it's Band) is kinda weird - not to mention you're going to know right away if it's band when it does this. Also it's not like Pao is the only thing with little defensive counterplay - Zacian is almost the same thing except a little less power in exchange for more Speed. Many Arceus forms have little defensive counterplay once they start Calm Minding depending on the form - especially since they can actually use more than 3 typings of moves (and usually Pao is going to use only STABS 90% of the time).

Overall, if this was an OU tier and all of these mons were OU, I still wouldn't think Pao was bannable because of the answers it has. It is most definitely not banworthy by Ubers standards (not even close). And so if we're gonna end up banning it, then we may as well put several more Arceus forms, Zacian, Chi Yu etc. all on the chopping block too and turn this tier into more of an OU than Ubers (not ideal imo bc I think the tier is very fun as it is right now)
 
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