M&M Mix and Mega Suspect #10: Shuckle

Personally I believe that part of the blame goes to the Mix and Mega meta focused mainly on hyper offense teams with little room for change...

Another part goes to current Mega Evolution mechanics which when paired with the mechanics of Mix and Mega leads to a fairly unpredictable gamemode

In standard gameplay you know exactly what pokemon can use a mega stone and exactly which one (barring Mega Charizard/Mewtwo), in mix and mega all the pokemon can use a mega stone but you have no idea which ones. This leads to the ability to pair up mega stones with pokemon that have great base abilities and the ability to pick and choose which mega stone you wish to use.

Therefore your Shuckle can end up with (in the common meta) Sturdy (base), Magic Bounce, or Mold Breaker.... even Banettite....

The problem with this is the unpredictability..... Do you use Taunt? Do you try to KO it before it can use Webs? Do you lead with a Magic Bounce pokemon?

Taunt it? It's holding Sableyenite and gets up webs and rocks
KO it? It's Sturdy and gets up webs.... then uses Banettite and gets up rocks
Magic Bounce? It's Mold breaker and gets up webs

And this problem doesn't just lay entirely on Shuckle.... every Sticky web user is at fault


So... what are the Counters?

Well.... with 100% effectiveness you can lead with Magic Coat, Mold Breaker/Taunt, Mold Breaker and KO
(Aerilate/Refrigerate/Pixilate Rapid Spin are also an option along with Defog)

Team building to account for this or take advantage is useful too....abilities like Defiant, Contrary, and Competitive.... moves like Trick Room, Gyro ball, Payback, Revenge, or just slow bulky mons in general that don't care about speed


There are work arounds.... but I also agree that this can be very centralizing to the metagame.... having to prepare to deal with this or needing to have one of your own for every single team doesn't help....


If possible I think it would be best not to ban Shuckle, but to prevent Pokemon from having a Mega stone and Stick webs on the same set....
193121


https://pokemonshowdown.com/users/fractalis

I agree this needs to be addressed but I vote NO to the current solution: "Ban Shuckle"
 
After attempting suicide 2 times and losing 35% of my iq I finally made it.
In any i would just appoint the fact that shuckle webs restrain a lot or ur builder into having multiple revenge killers or ways to prevent the webs up cause once up defogging is a big waste of momentum and giving ur opp free settup isn’t the best thing vs ho. Other than this shuckle is even more annoying cause it can consistently set it without being a waste of turns cause of encore more than this his really good def stats and sturdy pre mega make him impossible to ohko, and being able to compress both hazards means u have space for 5 sweepers or offensive mons in general limiting even less the chance to outplay cause of the check stacks. Cause of this reasons all I have to say is #banshuckle
 

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193454


Managed to get these done in just over an hour and a half which was nice, because the ladder is painful to be on right now. Spammed my way to reqs with this team, same team Andy used but with Lando-I > Mamoswine.

Andy responded to a lot of the commonly seen counter-arguments for webs' effectiveness in his post, but I would still like to elaborate on that a bit to explain how it's relevant to Shuckle in particular, as opposed to the other abusers he mentioned in the post. By now i'm sure it's well-known that the differences between Shuckle and Araquanid (next best webs setter) are mostly Shuckle's access to Stealth Rock and Encore. This is actually very important, as these tools are what enable webs to be such a consistently powerful style in the metagame, and without them webs has to change quite a bit in an attempt to cover bases. The main thing to note is that Shuckle plays an important role in balance matchups, with its ability to get up rocks against teams that can normally deter hazards very well. This forces balance into a lot of awkward situations, since it has to deal with the juiced breakers that are enabled on webs teams as well as the constant threat of free rocks. Similarly, Shuckle's access to Encore makes it more difficult to punish as a lead and allows webs to avoid awkward early game situations, which often comes into play later in the game where webs still has enough firepower remaining to break down teams.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7mixandmega-955166723 - This replay gives an idea of how Shuckle's rocks are able to pressure fatter balance builds, which creates extra problematic situations particularly around Lunala here.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7mixandmega-951459194 - This is an example of the difference in early game situations caused by Shuckle being able to set both hazards. The main point of interest here is turn 2, where I switch from Defog Lunala to Victini instead of clicking Roost. This is because clicking Roost on turn 2 would likely allow Shuckle to get both hazards up, breaking Lunala's Shadow Shield for later in the game regardless. The result is that attempting to position in a way that forces kills vs webs early game backfires, as Lunala fails to get back into the game without its Shadow Shield intact.


I would also like to point out the effect webs has on building. Terracotta brought up the fact that it forces multiple revenge killers onto teams, and this has been frustrating for me as well because it's very hard to efficiently revenge kill these threats in your speed control slot. Alt Zyg, Zeraora, etc all fall to different massive threats on webs, and even if you did manage to fit two revenge killers on a team you're still not necessarily safe, as threats like Lucarionite Tapu Lele can take on all of Alt Zyg, Zera and Dia Terrak 1v1 if it stays at full. Beating webs is generally a team effort, with important roles spread out across multiple mons, but there's a lot of requirements that the team has to fulfil in order to shore up the webs matchup, generally revolving around a higher standard of defensive counterplay for the breakers involved as well as appropriate revenge killers. Again it's important to remember that most of the difficulties I'm describing here are relevant due to the efficiency of Shuckle webs and the issues I brought up earlier regarding early game positioning.

Coming from another angle, I've also found that Shuckle's existence can also impact the viability of some teams by effectively outclassing them. For example, this team was originally supposed to be a Deo-D HO, but it ended up becoming webs shortly after Tapu Lele was added to the team, since Shuckle is still a very efficient Stealth Rock setter and has the opportunity to support Lele with webs if they're more appropriate for the matchup. A similar effect can be seen in the general lack of offense builds in the metagame, as most of the efficient SR setters sacrifice enough momentum that it's often better to rebuild the team as a Shuckle HO.

https://pokepast.es/d92ad3433195db91 - This team has a lot of positive matchup factors vs webs, such as the fact that Kartana can put pressure on webs early game, and that Metagross can force trades with Explosion and soft check some threats. Tailwind Lunala and Tapu Koko make it hard for Shuckle to pick a hazard and Giratina-O should be able to Defog in theory. However, the overall matchup isn't that simple due to the lack of an atespeeder to deal with Xurkitree and the general inability of most of the team to get damage off against Shuckle early game. While I definitely did misplay slightly in the game that I brought the team, it's still clear how the lacking aspects of the matchup became important in the way the game played out, despite all of the positive aspects of the matchup accounting for most of the team.

https://pokepast.es/1e8afe01ae31681a - This team is a mess, but it does show how tough it is to make a well-adapted defensive build that can take on Shuckle webs, as there isn't really space for more than one speed control option, which leaves Scarf Solgaleo and Ditto as the options that don't get bopped by some big threat under webs.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7mixandmega-947024074 - I don't have the actual team but I can still attempt to talk about it. Chazm's team here carries a Zeraora, but that doesn't change the fact that the team is in a tough position vs Xurkitree due to the lack of atespeed. Later on SD Lando proves to be a big problem despite Xurk not winning the game for some reason, as Groundceus wastes a turn Defogging (not entirely without reason though) and Lunala is chipped out of Shadow Shield, both things that are caused by the general offensive pressure that webs piles on. This is an example of how even successfully defogging doesn't necessarily mean you're in the clear vs webs, despite the fact that defogging is often also part of the win condition, as the loss of momentum can cost you especially if you're still unable to revenge kill a big threat when webs aren't up. In this particular case since there's nothing like Kartana, Terrakion or Alt Zyg as a secondary revenge killer, Zeraora ends up being heavily pressured until it dies.



This post may have taken longer than it took to get the reqs lmao. I've tried my best to illustrate the thoughts i've picked up from my experience with webs with replays, and whilst these games aren't perfect, they are all from ompl, and you don't really see many higher level mnm games than that. I think that at the point where top players are struggling heavily to play and build against webs despite it being a very meta threat, something should probably be done about it, so I'll likely be voting to ban Shuckle when the time comes.
 

Heika

I may very well be the worst player on this site
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disapointed about the end of my "run", but somehow still made it despite choking a lot.

I only lost once to shuckle, but I was playing teams that had a fair match up against it. Honnestly in the first place (after my loss against it basically), I thought the main issue was the breakers alongside shuckle. Now I'm convinced shuckle is the real issue, this thing can do so much and is such a pain to deal with, I feel like in every game I faced it, it could have done so much more but that people on the ladder tend to let him go a bit too easily.
 

a loser

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So I decided to try to get these reqs and it went pretty horribly until I started using that team xavgb posted. That thing is seriously good though cause I haven't touched this meta in many months and went 37-3 with it after my rough start. In my time getting these I really only saw Shuckle once and an alternate web setter once. Plus this team was Extreme Speed spam so who needs webs right? But webs + Psychic Surge does seem like a dangerous combo from my limited time playing along with what I saw in OMPL.

That being said, idk which way I'm leaning right now, but it was fun to play a different meta for a minute (even if it was one seemingly drowned by HO).
193813
 
193933

got reqs, hoped I could do it with less losses but besides one game where I got haxed and there was nothing I could do, the other 4 were won games where I hard choked and lost, but I guess that means I'm pretty rusty, didn't feel like making a new alt because I'm lazy and ladder is cancer.
About webs, I wasn't really pro ban as after lando-t ban they didn't feel too oppressive, then I came to know xurk became a thing and it 6-0ed all my teams under webs, finding bulky poke which can actually take hits by manec xurk isn't easy, also I'm looking forward to the meta without webs.
ignore the activate windows in the screenshot it's been over 2 years since I have it and I'm too lazy to actual find out how to activate it
 
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Getting high GXE fairly easy as my first games were against midladder players.

I'm Probably gonna VOTE BAN as webs are very hard to counterplay once they are up and shuckle gets them up almost allways. I never lost to webs during getting the reqs because my opponent always missplayed badly when abusing them. Which don't make them any less broken imo.

Terrakion is scray, bois. so whatch out.
 

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Seriously? Rapid spin, defog, magic bounce, flying types. Sticky web has a lot of counters. If you don't build your team expecting a hazard to eventually appear then we should just ban all the hazards. On top of that shuckle is hard countered by taunt. If sticky web is your problem then point the ban topic at sticky web, and even then, if people are running teams with no defog/rapid spin users when there are tons of pokemon with hazard capacity, then does it really fall to that move to getting banned or is it that people want to run straight sweeper teams and get annoyed that hazards stop them. I dunno, if you are going to ban sticky web you might as well ban all other hazards.
 
Seriously? Rapid spin, defog, magic bounce, flying types. Sticky web has a lot of counters. If you don't build your team expecting a hazard to eventually appear then we should just ban all the hazards. On top of that shuckle is hard countered by taunt. If sticky web is your problem then point the ban topic at sticky web, and even then, if people are running teams with no defog/rapid spin users when there are tons of pokemon with hazard capacity, then does it really fall to that move to getting banned or is it that people want to run straight sweeper teams and get annoyed that hazards stop them. I dunno, if you are going to ban sticky web you might as well ban all other hazards.
Do you actually play the tier ?
Because if you do, you will know that SW teams are incredibly strong atm thanks to the really good abusers( Xurkitree and Magearna for example).
Rapid Spin users: Excadrill
Taunt users: Tapu Lele Terrakion Zeraora
Defog users: Mew Zapdos Lunala Noivern Mandibuzz Landorus Tapu Koko ArceusGround ArceusFairy Gliscor Skarmory Ho-oh
Magic bounce users: Shuckle always has mold breaker, so it is irrelevant.
Flying type: Ho-oh Mandibuzz Zapdos Noivern Giratina-Origin Rayquaza Skarmory Landorus Shaymin-Sky Gliscor

First Point:
Saying that people loses against SW because they are not prepared against it is a mistake.
There is not a lot of taunt users in the metagame, so when you confront one of them, your lead will be different to annoy your opponent. Moreover, thanks to his bulk, shuckle is able to come in the terrain and set SW. Thanks to toxik, it can annoy the defogger if he wants to defog and with encore, it can stop the setup of the opponent.
To conclude, thanks to his bulk and his movepool, it is able to setup SW(+SR sometimes) against the majority of the teams.

Once he made that, you can abuse of the sticky web with the abusers.
For example, how many pokemon can check Xurkitree with a +3 and SW ? Not a lot, and especially no defoggers.
As like as Magearna doesn't a lot of counters because his nuke at +1 kills a lot of stallers ...
The abusers of SW are too powerful for the tier. And it is not the fault of the abusers, it is the fault of Shuckle.
If we ban Xurkitree, then another pokemon will replace him, as like as Landorus replaces Landorus-Therian.

"Webs were majorly influential in the last 3 bans this meta had " like Mark said.

Now, you can say that we need to ban SW and not Shuckle. That is my second point.

Second Point:

If we ban SW, then we will remove a kind of team, as like as if we ban Blissey, we will remove a kind of team.

This kind of team are too strong in the metagame. That's why Council of MnM wants to nerf it. Not to ban it, just nerf it.
Moreover, if we ban SW, we will remove the entire viability of Shuckle because he's viable only because of SW. Then, the ban of SW "implies" the "ban of Shuckle".
So, SW ban is a greater restriction than the ban of Shuckle.

Otherwise, if we ban Shuckle, then Araquanid of Ribombee will "replace" Shuckle as setter of SW and this kind of team will be possible.
It will be worse because: -Ribombee doesn't have SR, is not so fast, doesn't have a good bulk and a good movepool.
- Araquanid doesn't have SR, is slow, doesn't have the same physical bulk and has an horrible movepool.

NOT FINISH MY POST AGAIN , I EDIT NOW, FINISH SOON, SMOGON IS BADLY DESIGNED

Edit: I really like the discussion around the metagame in the MnM community :blobthumbsup:
 
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What was the point of this suspect test? Its like the dragonite and marshadow suspect all over again where there is literally not a single good anti ban argument and we get over an 80% ban vote

Whats even the anti ban argument? That webs is broken and shuckle isnt? Everyone already knows no other setter has rocks, encore, excellent bulk and typing pre and post mega and are consistent as shuckle
 

Chloe

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What was the point of this suspect test? Its like the dragonite and marshadow suspect all over again where there is literally not a single good anti ban argument and we get over an 80% ban vote

Whats even the anti ban argument? That webs is broken and shuckle isnt? Everyone already knows no other setter has rocks, encore, excellent bulk and typing pre and post mega and are consistent as shuckle
I agree that Marshadow should have been quickbanned, but telling us to quickban something like Shuckle, this late into the metagame, which has been here since day 1, isn't really fair on the playerbase regardless of whether you believe the decision on this suspect test is clear cut or not.
 

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