Monotype Suspect: Sablenite (again)

[Eien]

Because it exists in the metagame. The onus is on people who want it banned to prove why we're better off without it. It's not on people to prove that the status quo should remain. I've just been following the discussion while being too lazy to go for reqs but there's a ton of questions like how does it compare to scizor and why do we need it and they just aren't really relevant compared to the subject at hand. Whether or not it has a negative affect similar to scizor's doesn't actually matter if you want to prove that it has a negative effect which is so great that it should be banned. Personally I didn't think so last time and don't think so now since there's always certain threats that are dumb for certain types and sure it's worse for more matchups than just a sharpedo vs psychic HO but it's also one of those things where your one type has to get it together and try to blanket cover threats and beating sableye has a lot in common with beating general bulky shit like it's mostly worse for poison and other shitty or CT'ey types and otherwise just a generally good mon. At this point though it feels more like a tossup based on how much you hate it rather than people really throwing anything conclusive out there so who knows.

Sorry, but did you actually read my post or did you assume the content? I am aware the onus is on my side, and that's why I put forth my argument and put forth counterarguments. I was asking for the other side to put forth an argument with substance and relevance.

Overcentralizing? What? Just because several types need to run counters to it makes it bad for the meta? Of course strong mons need to be prepared for. That's part of the game.

You know what else everything in the game save a few types has to prepare for? Heatran (basically the steel core). Every type needs to ensure that it can break that core. If you cannot you may as well throw your team in the garbage. Its so centralizing that HP Ground Volcarona is a standard mon on bug. (Your only other option is Hera who gets walled by Skarm and Mega Hera is too slow for the rest of the meta). Its an incredibly stupid set that everyone uses because flash fire Heatran is that centralizing. Wheras that slot could better be used with Giga Drain and roost. Or just some power via bug buzz. Why aren't we looking at Heatran? Because that would be crazy, insane, and pointless. So why are we looking a Mega Sab just because it restricts team building in arguably positive ways. *Points at Arken*.

Why make poison a fraction of a fraction better when that isn't part of the philosophy. If you were worried about that then think of how much ghost usage will drop. You can argue that poison will gain more than ghost will lose. But poison is not the only type that will benefit from this ban. As many users have said flying and other top types were much better before mega sab came along. And they will gain a boost in strength as well. All this seems to point to is just solidifying the positions each type is already in. The top types stay top. The Low types stay low. And the mid types are well... mid. There is no evidence that any shift will happen in the meta, only that it will be "more interesting". More interesting being a very poor argument since what is interesting to one user is not the same for the rest.

There seems to be a lot of favortism towards poison in this discussion and bettering it as a type. I find it very unhealthy to try and ban just to make X type better. Something many users and Council members have said before me. Which is why I cannot fathom why this suspect exists.

There's a difference between having a few types prepare for a threat and having 12/18 types prepare for a threat. When a supermajority of types, even those including the best types, are required to bend their team to beat Mega Sableye, that's a problem. When 4 of those 12 are required to use suboptimal, legitimately bad sets, that's a problem.

Your example of Heatran is invalid for that reason. Heatran does not restrict building for many teams as you claim, and certainly even for the teams that it does restrict, it doesn't do so on the level of Mega Sableye. Consider the likes of Ice, weak to both of Heatran's STAB types, weak to Stealth Rock, which Heatran can set up, and Ice's STAB is 4x weak to Heatran's defensive typing. Does Ice actually prepare for Heatran? The obvious answer to anyone with metagame knowledge is simply no. Heatran is answered by using Ice's traditional Steel checks. Not having Heatran does not allow Ice to remove Pokemon such as Mamoswine or moves such as Earth Power from Kyurem-B. Consider Bug, you claim Volcarona is forced to run HP Ground. Not very many Volcarona run HP Ground, I wonder if you are aware. Further, Volcarona enjoys HP Ground for more than just Heatran, as HP Ground is a reliable way to hit Fire-types in general, which resist Volcarona's STAB moves and Giga Drain, the common coverage move. The likes of Torkoal, Volcanion, and Infernape are all more reliably hit with HP Ground than any of Volcarona's other moves. This is why your example is completely invalid. Mega Sableye needs to be checked by Toxic Mega Ampharos, which does nothing else for Electric. It needs to be checked by Rivalry + Poison Fang + Dragon Tail Nidoqueen, which does nothing else for Poison. These are not anything like HP Ground Volcarona. I hope this is clear to you.

We are not looking at Mega Sableye just because it restricts team building, it's wholly uncompetitive. Many teams also rely on luck to beat Mega Sableye. Since when is luck a competitive part of Pokemon? Pokemon seeks to remove luck as much as possible while keeping the spirit of the game. When your only chance to beat Mega Sableye is a 30%, you have an unreliable answer. When Mega Sableye vs Mega Sableye happens and it's a race to see who gets the first critical hit, that's not competitive.

It's not about Poison. Poison is an example of why Mega Sableye is overcentralizing. It happens to be an exceptional example, being a great type that is held back by Mega Sableye. It also carries what might be the most blatantly excessively specific check as well. That's why there has been a focus on Poison. Most people here probably don't have a bias for or against Poison, but we are using it to explain and show why Mega Sableye is a problem for the metagame. For the same reason, there has been a lot of discussion about Electric.

I read that you said, that the top types did better before Mega Sableye. Flying does not care about Mega Sableye. It carries Mega Gyarados and Mega Charizard Y anyway, both of which will defeat Mega Sableye with little effort. Further, Landorus is a common feature on Flying, which also defeats Mega Sableye. Mega Sableye also makes Mega Medicham a far worse Mega Evolution for Psychic, as Mega Sableye hard walls it. Mega Houndoom, Mega Tyranitar, and Mega Sharpedo are far more threatening against Fairy. Instead, the types that lose to Mega Sableye are the lower types. Electric, Grass, Rock, etc. In fact, you have it completely backwards. The weaker types have much to benefit from seeing Mega Sableye banned, while the best types would rather not see it go at all, as it is benefiting almost all of them.

Feel free to read the post I wrote above, which says pretty much all of this and more.

I absolutely agree that it's unhealthy to try and ban just to make X type better. It's a good thing we aren't doing that, isn't it? We're trying to ban an unhealthy, overcentralizing threat for the sake of the tier, not for any specific type.

 

[Zane0144]

I'll respect your opinion. But I can guarantee you that you'd never see another HP Ground volc again without Heatran. You may as well run HP rock if you are that worried about fire. That actually covers flying and Zard as well. HP Ground volc is the pure product of overcentralizing based on a single mon. The same as toxic Ampharos and other examples. I don't think you know as much about the bug type as you think i you cannot see that plain as day fact. I also fail to see how every type does not have to plan for heatran. Balloon heatran is not threatened by mamoswine and kyurem black while its balloon is up. Both of these mons get worn down by both steel and fire's constant use of stealth rocks. I struggle to think of a type other than water, ground, and fighting that do not need to plan for heatran.

I also fail to see how types like Electric, grass and rock can do even slightly better in a meta where they have to compete against types like ground, bug, flying, fighting, dark (yes dark still wrecks these types without Sableye) and fairy.

 

[Paleo]

I'll respect your opinion. But I can guarantee you that you'd never see another HP Ground volc again without Heatran. You may as well run HP rock if you are that worried about fire. That actually covers flying and Zard as well. HP Ground volc is the pure product of overcentralizing based on a single mon. The same as toxic Ampharos and other examples. I don't think you know as much about the bug type as you think i you cannot see that plain as day fact. I also fail to see how every type does not have to plan for heatran. Balloon heatran is not threatened by mamoswine and kyurem black while its balloon is up. Both of these mons get worn down by both steel and fire's constant use of stealth rocks. I struggle to think of a type other than water, ground, and fighting that do not need to plan for heatran.

I also fail to see how types like Electric, grass and rock can do even slightly better in a meta where they have to compete against types like ground, bug, flying, fighting, dark (yes dark still wrecks these types without Sableye) and fairy.

I also fail to see how you can compare HP ground volcarona to Rivalry Poison Fang Nidoqueen. Hidden power ground volcarona is better than Hp rock because heatran is one of the biggest threats to the bug type in general, because of its typing, and the ability to hit heatran + other fire pokemon(a type bug is naturally weak to, hint hint) puts hp ground in another ballpark. A pokemon like heatran, with OK defenses, ability to set SR, and wall the biggest threat to steel, volcarona, is a rational problem to bug monotypes, and the ability to lure it in gives bug a chance to defeat a bad matchup in steel. The bug vs skarm/heatran matchup and the poison/elec/grass or whatever vs dark matchup are completely different because the combination of SR and a spinblocker in doublade PLUS a heatran wall in volcarona is a sum of an entire team, unlike the matchups sableye creates, where a single pokemon makes a bad matchup, resulting in an unviable set, like toxic ampharos poison fang nidoqueen, which only cripple these lower tier types. Hidden power ground in no way shape or form cripples volcarona, and even if it did, wouldnt come close to the unviable sets mega sableye forces.

I also fail to see how every type does not have to plan for heatran. Balloon heatran is not threatened by mamoswine and kyurem black while its balloon is up. Both of these mons get worn down by both steel and fire's constant use of stealth rocks. I struggle to think of a type other than water, ground, and fighting that do not need to plan for heatran.

And OH MY GOD can you PLEASE give 12 meta changing examples of heatran overcentralizing the metagame, it's never good to make such bold proclamations and then give no evidence to back it up, which unfortunately im seeing much of in this thread. What great lengths do other types go to to try and beat heatran? Examples like sharpedo vs psychic and scizor vs dragon keep coming up but they dont come close to sableyes ability, because sableye forces over half of the metagame to prepare for it, like the previous examples of nidoqueen,tentacruel, and ampharos, but also lum bisharp, guts heracross.. you get the picture. I'm sorry if this seemed like a harsh post or w/e but after a couple days of reading these post i may have gotten a bit riled up.

I'm trying to stay open-minded during this suspect test and hearing out all of the no ban arguments, but with exclusion to a couple, the no ban side hasnt been too convincing.

 

[Wanka]

Why is Mega sab's sweeping capabilities being compared to Mega scizors sweeping capabilities zzz.

In situations where Mega Sab can plow through teams are situations where you literally need no support or very little support from any other mon on dark or ghost. Its more of a thing where sab is just finding its way in one time and its getting two calm minds up and ur opp is hitting X. Scizor needs good team support to break through every type arken mentioned. You kinda helped me out in saying "scizor can sweep when the stars align." You are 100% right when saying that, you just have to realize that mega sab doesn't necessarily need the stars to align when it's sweeping, it can do that shit at 6-6. That makes their sweeping capabilities completely different and uncomparable. You dont just click SD with scizor and sweep all the types arken mentioned at 6-6. Obviously sable doesnt REALLY do that either, but if the main argument is that Sab just brooms lower tier types, then what I say holds true because sab needs no support to sweep those teams. Ill go through the matchups arken talked about to help make my statement clearer.

Dark: Scizor needs help to be able down the dark core. It can't inherently just click SD and plow through it. Foul play + rocky helmet on mandibuzz stops it clean in its tracks everytime. Using things like bisharp and heatran to wear down mandi are what can leave dark teams open to a game winning sweep for sciz. something like a hydreigon can take an emergency BP if needed as well and threaten with a fire move. Chipping that down would be necessary as well when encountered.

Dragon: Again, support from other mons is needed to be able to open up a scizor sweep here. chainchomp is a clean stop and it isnt too difficult to manage a defog against Offensive steel builds as bisharp isnt too feared while hydreigon stays very common on dragon builds. Its a bit harder to defog against bulkier steel builds however, they are becoming more and more uncommon as the meta rolls along. Without rocks sciz cannot break through dagonite or hydreigon. Using bisharp to break down a garchomp and hydreigon can open up a sweep along with maintaining pebbles.

Fighting: Your going to have a tough time completely taking out a keldeo while scizor is still alive. Generally, anyone competent using fighting will preserve their keldeo as long as they can while letting it stay relatively untouched so that scizor can be checked in a pinch. Sash loom can also emegency sleep it but loom isnt too hard to play around. Scizor doesnt even need to be the wincon all the time here either. doublade is a fantastic wincon vs fighting as between it and scizor, keldeo can be worn down enough to open up a game winning sweep.

Grass: With offensive steel teams not really focusing on hazard control a lot of the time, hazards + defensive mega venusaur can stop scizor in its tracks. if you try to sweep too quickly with scizor, venusaur + breloom will be able to stop you. stacking hazards yourself, and using doublade and bisharp to break down the grass core can open things up for scizor. Encore whims is an emergency check if you click SD too hastily as well.

Ground: Again, going in too early with it is a bad idea. you wont be able to take out mega chomp and band drill does a shitton to offensive zor sets and seismetoad (how tf do you spell that) can also do loads of damage to it as well. using bisharp to break down hippo or garchomp can open things up for sciz, however its kinda hard to SD with bisharp against mono ground so the matchup is still difficult and the stars really gotta align in it to let sciz do damage.

Normal: Porygon is a safe switchin to scizor everytime with a bunch of them carrying foul play nowadays. +2 superpower cant ohko and with the defense drop, you just get thrown out a window even harder by foul play. Stacking hazards really helps in taking down the evio core along with bisharp. Those two things can help sciz out. Lopunny builds are a lot harder to deal with as loppung + p2 just eat steel teams alive but any other builds requires the mentioned support.

Poison: pretty similar to grass. Hazards and bisharp help you out a lot here. Things that stop sciz like venu and weezing need to be dealt with before you can start plowing. Hazards are extra important as some sash mons like nidoking/queen and gengar can take it out or in gengars case force it out with d bond.

Psychic: bisharp is probably a better wincon as psychic teams can have some emergency checks to either take out zor or severely cipple it (tini and rachi). Using heatran to kinda knock everything around is a good idea along with susatining hazards to pressure victini. Defogging is kinda hard to do for psy teams because bisharp says hello so that really helps out in the matchup and can open things up for zor and bisharp late game.

Now, the idea behind all of the obvious shit I just typed out isnt too explain which types scizor beats and how it beats them. Its to make sure that it is clear that scizor needs good amounts of support in every scenario where it sweeps. While on the flip side, mega sableye needs almost no support or very little when it sweeps. Even against lower tier types, you need to have some sort of brain to be able to sweep them with scizor as pretty much all of those types have at least one blanket answer for scizor and 1 soft answer for it while in most scenarios with sableye, you could train a goddamn monkey to just fucking bring it in and start clicking cm, willo and recover to win in the scenarios it sweeps. The checks types have to scizor look centralized on paper but they aren't bad sets otherwise and they don't unbalance the tier and make those types shit. Theyd be the same with or without sciz. Mega sab and mega scizor have completely different sweeping capabilities. Different sweeping capabilites = different effect on the tier which makes them....UNCOMPARABLE.

Also one thing arken, specs keldeo will be one of the tiers premier wallbreakers with or without sab, that statement made no sense.

Good stuff. Soz for any shit grammar, dont feel like editing on mobile.

Edit: nvm i couldnt even read my own stuff, fixed it all up. In the second to last paragraph I meant say scizor not bisharp as well lol. I fixed that

 

[Arash]

To counter the argument that poison somehow turns into a mid tier or better type w/o megasab, this will very likely not happen. Sure, you would be free from running memes like rest-talk tenta and poison fang queen, but poison's biggest problem has always been and will continue to be set up sweepers in general.

Though poison has a good selection of bulky mons, all a good player needs is one free turn, or to sac the right Pokemon vs the right member of the poison team. If mega pinsir or mega scizor or mega gyara get a free boosting move anywhere, it's usually good game for poison as its Pokemon are either not bulky enough to sustain repeated hits (drapion, nidoqueen), or have pitiful offensive presence and can't prevent the sweeper from setting up more (weezing, skuntank). Mega venusaur can't stop them all, and if it comes in after mega scizor has a SD, it cannot stop it. Mega pinsir is way more dangerous to most poison teams as mega venu, the most common physical wall, is weak to flying and weezing can't reliably OHKO or take more than one hit. Also problematic is that no poison mons resist flying...

I can't speak for all other types mentioned as I'm most proficient w/ poison, but their main issues with mega sab also appear to be general flaws with the type itself. Let's also not forget that by banning this thing and making poison mildly better, you are condemning ghost to be one of the worst types in the metagame (not an ideal trade off, and overall a poor argument for banning it)

 

[ArkenCiel]

Why is Mega sab's sweeping capabilities being compared to Mega scizors sweeping capabilities zzz.

In situations where Mega Sab can plow through teams are situations where you literally need no support or very little support from any other mon on dark or ghost. Its more of a thing where sab is just finding its way in one time and its getting two calm minds up and ur opp is hitting X. Scizor needs good team support to break through every type arken mentioned. You kinda helped me out in saying "scizor can sweep when the stars align." You are 100% right when saying that, you just have to realize that mega sab doesn't necessarily need the stars to align when it's sweeping, it can do that shit at 6-6. That makes their sweeping capabilities completely different and uncomparable. You dont just click SD with scizor and sweep all the types arken mentioned at 6-6. Obviously sable doesnt REALLY do that either, but if the main argument is that Sab just brooms lower tier types, then what I say holds true because sab needs no support to sweep those teams. Ill go through the matchups arken talked about to help make my statement clearer.

Dark: Scizor needs help to be able down the dark core. It can't inherently just click SD and plow through it. Foul play + rocky helmet on mandibuzz stops it clean in its tracks everytime. Using things like bisharp and heatran to wear down mandi are what can leave dark teams open to a game winning sweep for sciz. something like a hydreigon can take an emergency BP if needed as well and threaten with a fire move. Chipping that down would be necessary as well when encountered.

Dragon: Again, support from other mons is needed to be able to open up a scizor sweep here. chainchomp is a clean stop and it isnt too difficult to manage a defog against Offensive steel builds as bisharp isnt too feared while hydreigon stays very common on dragon builds. Its a bit harder to defog against bulkier steel builds however, they are becoming more and more uncommon as the meta rolls along. Without rocks sciz cannot break through dagonite or hydreigon. Using bisharp to break down a garchomp and hydreigon can open up a sweep along with maintaining pebbles.

Fighting: Your going to have a tough time completely taking out a keldeo while scizor is still alive. Generally, anyone competent using fighting will preserve their keldeo as long as they can while letting it stay relatively untouched so that scizor can be checked in a pinch. Sash loom can also emegency sleep it but loom isnt too hard to play around. Scizor doesnt even need to be the wincon all the time here either. doublade is a fantastic wincon vs fighting as between it and scizor, keldeo can be worn down enough to open up a game winning sweep.

Grass: With offensive steel teams not really focusing on hazard control a lot of the time, hazards + defensive mega venusaur can stop scizor in its tracks. if you try to sweep too quickly with scizor, venusaur + breloom will be able to stop you. stacking hazards yourself, and using doublade and bisharp to break down the grass core can open things up for scizor. Encore whims is an emergency check if you click SD too hastily as well.

Ground: Again, going in too early with it is a bad idea. you wont be able to take out mega chomp and band drill does a shitton to offensive zor sets and seismetoad (how tf do you spell that) can also do loads of damage to it as well. using bisharp to break down hippo or garchomp can open things up for sciz, however its kinda hard to SD with bisharp against mono ground so the matchup is still difficult and the stars really gotta align in it to let sciz do damage.

Normal: Porygon is a safe switchin to scizor everytime with a bunch of them carrying foul play nowadays. +2 superpower cant ohko and with the defense drop, you just get thrown out a window even harder by foul play. Stacking hazards really helps in taking down the evio core along with bisharp. Those two things can help sciz out. Lopunny builds are a lot harder to deal with as loppung + p2 just eat steel teams alive but any other builds requires the mentioned support.

Poison: pretty similar to grass. Hazards and bisharp help you out a lot here. Things that stop sciz like venu and weezing need to be dealt with before you can start plowing. Hazards are extra important as some sash mons like nidoking/queen and gengar can take it out or in gengars case force it out with d bond.

Psychic: bisharp is probably a better wincon as psychic teams can have some emergency checks to either take out zor or severely cipple it (tini and rachi). Using heatran to kinda knock everything around is a good idea along with susatining hazards to pressure victini. Defogging is kinda hard to do for psy teams because bisharp says hello so that really helps out in the matchup and can open things up for zor and bisharp late game.

Now, the idea behind all of the obvious shit I just typed out isnt too explain which types scizor beats and how it beats them. Its to make sure that it is clear that scizor needs good amounts of support in every scenario where it sweeps. While on the flip side, mega sableye needs almost no support or very little when it sweeps. Even against lower tier types, you need to have some sort of brain to be able to sweep them with scizor as pretty much all of those types have at least one blanket answer for scizor and 1 soft answer for it while in most scenarios with sableye, you could train a goddamn monkey to just fucking bring it in and start clicking cm, willo and recover to win in the scenarios it sweeps. The checks types have to scizor look centralized on paper but they aren't bad sets otherwise and they don't unbalance the tier and make those types shit. Theyd be the same with or without sciz. Mega sab and mega scizor have completely different sweeping capabilities. Different sweeping capabilites = different effect on the tier which makes them....UNCOMPARABLE.

Also one thing arken, specs keldeo will be one of the tiers premier wallbreakers with or without sab, that statement made no sense.

Good stuff. Soz for any shit grammar, dont feel like editing on mobile.

Edit: nvm i couldnt even read my own stuff, fixed it all up. In the second to last paragraph I meant say scizor not bisharp as well lol. I fixed that

Yeah, Wanka, I know Specs Keldeo is an amazing wallbreaker. I was referencing this guy I was talking to on the other thread who says Fighting is forced to use CM Keldeo to beat M-Sableye. The point IS that Keldeo can't just freely run the specs set anymore without consequence IF this man's statement is true, which is something we should embrace because as you said, specs Keldeo is a PREMIER wallbreaker. We should be striving to have more answers to powerful no-risk wallbreakers.

I compared the two of them because they THREATEN a lot of the types. That's what Eien was doing when he named the "Dragon, Fighting, Dark, Electric, Ghost, Normal, Poison, Rock, Grass, Steel, Psychic, and Ice" types. I was saying it threatened a lot of types as well (because there's no way M-Sab beats all of those types by itself haha), and that's where they're similar. I'm not comparing them because the M-Sableye can sweep some types even though M-Scizor can do the same. With CM + SBall, I guess it can sweep Electric, Ghost, and Poison. You can argue that it sweeps a few more, but everything else can be played better to deal with M-Sableye in my opinion. M-Sab just threatens the other types in some way, which M-Scizor ALSO does. Sorry to make you waste time going through each of those types in a lot of detail.

In the same vein, can we define a set for M-Sableye? Every time a Pokemon's banned, there is this one particular set that sets it apart from its other sets which the community can agree on is the reason why it should be banned. I don't think we've defined one for M-Sableye yet.

Response to Arken

I legitimately do not know if you're joking when you say that Mega Sableye is healthy for the metagame by being an answer to "such powerful" sets, although I truly hope you are. That is just so...

Anyway, the top types are types that naturally already beat Mega Sableye. Water has Azumarill, Fairy has matchup, Psychic has Mega Gardevoir, Flying has Mega Charizard Y and Mega Gyarados. Are you seriously implying the top types are being "held back" from optimal sets? None of these Pokemon are using specific sets to beat Mega Sableye, and they're all perfectly viable in spite of Mega Sableye. No, the types that have the most to lose if we keep Mega Sableye are all the types that are not at the very top right now. In fact, Mega Sableye is the easiest Mega Evolution for most of these types to beat. Flying, Fairy, Water, and Psychic all prefer Mega Sableye to any other viable Dark-type Mega Evolution.

If you want to reduce the gap between the top types and the worse types, Mega Sableye is one of the reasons it's so big. Other types are forced to make sacrifices on their team to check Mega Sableye, while the top types do not. With only 6 Pokemon in the restricted environment of Monotype, every additional forced usage of a check hurts the type and makes it weaker. Poison is the best example, other examples include Fighting's lack of Moxie Heracross and Mega Heracross usage. Oh and by the way, Choice Specs Keldeo is far from being bad against Mega Sableye with the help of Hydro Pump and Scald, so I have no idea what you're trying to say. SubCM is a counter, Choice Specs is a check. You can certainly do with Choice Specs if you run Hydro Pump.

Oh, don't worry, I'm not actually worried about the top tier types. I was talking about this guy. I was just acknowledging that it "affects" them given what he said, haha.

Further, it's not as if it's only lower tier types like Electric that struggle against Mega Sableye. Look at middle to high tier types

My argument is more or less (if you've read it) "use top tier types if you want to beat Mega Sableye" which contradicts my worries/statement above. I was just playing along with what was said for the sake of the argument in the same way that I played along that Fighting is "forced" to run Guts Heracross or SubCM Keldeo (I put "forced" in quotes because I think they're good sets even without considering M-Sab) to beat M-Sableye. I was just using your words. Funny situation where you're referencing me reference you, huh? Haha

But yeah, what wasn't mentioned yet is the indirect way that M-Sab's presence affects the high tier types. M-Sab is an amazing defensive pivot, and with that, it gets paired with Pokemon to do real work. One of these Pokemon which happens to be broken is Hoopa. With HFury and Energy Ball, this gives Dark great weapons against Psychic and Water. Gunk Shot (along with some more offensive support) makes the game even between Fairy v Dark IMHO. HHole lets it really hurt Fighting, a type which should otherwise break Dark. Add more teammates and we have a type that stands well against the meta. Regular Sableye is still annoying, but it's not as good a defensive pivot as M-Sab to really make the type work, but that's just my take on it. Bet others would say otherwise.

I actually don't want to reduce the gap between the top types and the worse types. Would be nice, but it's not my top priority anymore. I believed the way to bridge that gap was type-bans. As long as it doesn't completely eff over the top tier types with ease, which as you've admitted this time around that it doesn't, then I don't see why we should ban M-Sableye. I think that's all we should really concern ourselves with. Poison, Ghost, and Electric won't noticeably go up in usage with M-Sab's banishment, but what we would lose with M-Sab's banishment is this really solid type's reliability that can stand up to the top tier types with its options.

I'm not saying Dark would be horrible without M-Sab, but why nerf a type that's not breaking the top tier types for some marginal increase in bad types?

Also Ghost would be irrelevant and therefore you'd be killing one type for this marginal increase.

 

[Zane0144]

I'd again like to mention my Heatran as a comparison for me because I didn't really explain why I thought the situations were similar. We seem to be banning Mega Sab for the sole reason of making lower types not named Ghost more viable. There was a similar short discussion for Heatran a while back. Banning it to make another type (again ghost) more viable. Yet that was quickly dismissed and deemed insane. Many stated that we do not ban mons that are NOT BROKEN, just to make a lower used type slightly better while destroying another type. So again, why is poison the exception to this rule? Now I can just sit here and wait for people to say that's a completely different situation because Steel "needs" heatran. (Which i don't believe it does, we are just so used to it being there we don't know what to do without it). Well guess what? Ghost "needs" Mega Sableye too. But no, let's overlook that this time.

This is the same situation, because all we are accomplishing is slightly boosting a few types while sending another type to the gutter. The only difference between now and then is that the names of the types have changed. ghost to buff -> poison to buff and steel to hit -> ghost to hit

 

[Crazy Horse]

Yeah this is way too long. Sorry. Read what you want, I don't blame you if you skip parts. (Especially the counterarguments)

How has no one brought up the ridiculously uncompetitive Mega Sableye vs Mega Sableye matchup? It's literally a race for who gets the first critical hit. So competitive!

Mega Sableye might not be broken. Who knows? But, I do know it's uncompetitive.

II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant

A.) This can be match up related; think the determination that BP took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team match up issue, where even with the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.

Does this not describe Mega Sableye against most types? A few notes: "overwhelmingly a team match up issue" "best moves made each time by a standard team" Take the best players of Electric and Poison and give them a standard team without Mega Sableye checks. Enjoy how often they win against non-Dark mains with Mega Sableye without significant RNG. Spoilers: not often.

D.) Note uncompetitive elements are almost always present in the battling skill aspect; they will, however, be present in the team building aspect should we allow them in the sense of having to rely on excessively specific counters (such as loading teams with Sturdy or Keen Eye Pokemon and the like).

Read: "excessively specific counters" so... Rivalry + Poison Fang + Dragon Tail Nidoqueen? Toxic Mega Ampharos? Electro Ball Mega Manectric? This is uncompetitive, as more skilled players must use bad sets to even hope to win.

For obvious reasons, I won't compare Mega Sableye to the horrors of OHKO, Moody, and Evasion, all of which are disgustingly uncompetitive. I will say it is at least somewhat uncompetitive to require RNG to beat Mega Sableye. Demanding a Scald burn within the first try, demanding a Lava Plume burn within the first try, and demanding an Iron Head flinch on the first try or consecutively is unreasonable. You can play as skillfully as you want, if you don't get your 30%, which, I will note for the uneducated, is in fact below 50%, you've simply lost to no fault of your own.

Uncompetitive does not mean it reduces competition in the sense that more Pokemon or types can be used. Uncompetitive means it's a reduction in focus on skill and increase in focus on a mechanic that can circumvent a more skilled player beating a less skilled player. It's reducing the competitive nature of the game.

The problem with Mega Sableye is that it forces a supermajority of types to respond to it directly in some way, and a third of those types to do so in a suboptimal way. If that's not overcentralizing, I don't know what is. No other Pokemon requires 66% of types to specifically think "I need a Mega Sableye check." and 22% of types to say "I literally cannot viably check Mega Sableye"

Mega Sableye is not Mega Scizor

Read this and understand: Mega Scizor preys on teams that very noticeably already lose to Steel anyway. Mega Sableye compromises teams that would not necessarily otherwise lose to Dark.

For the notion of Mega Scizor, Ice, Rock, and Fairy lose to Steel anyway. Bug teams can easily just use Choice Band Scizor and continue to wreak havoc on Ice, Rock, and Fairy; Bug uses Mega Pinsir more anyway, so I won't go into that further. Mega Scizor is not the problem, the problem is the simple nature of the type matchup. Unfortunate that GameFreak has made their game in such a way that this exists, but it's not a problem we can address without fundamentally changing a huge part of the metagame. Banning Mega Scizor has huge implications for more than just Steel vs Ice / Rock / Fairy.

And here's the difference, Mega Scizor is what I would call a "win more" Pokemon in these one-sided matchups. It makes the matchup even more difficult, but the starting point was already very tilted in its team's favor. It is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. If it's gone, Clefable and Togekiss will still run Fire-type coverage to help them beat Steel-types. Ice teams will still run Fire-type coverage as well for the same reason. Similarly, Mega Aggron Rock still needs Fire Punch to hit Steel-types. These are examples of these types trying to check Mega Scizor, but they do it with methods that are not suboptimal and benefit their type regardless of Mega Scizor.

Let's look at Mega Sableye's effect on the metagame and contrast it with what we now know. You cannot even begin to compare Mega Scizor to the overcentralizing problem that is Mega Sableye.

Do you think you'll ever seen a Rivalry+Poison Fang+Dragon Tail Nidoqueen without Mega Sableye? How about Toxic Mega Ampharos, losing the ability to use RestTalk, a far superior set? How about Electro Ball Mega Manectric, a move that is so bad I'm not even sure I got the name right? What about Lum Berry Bisharp, which is quite literally worse than Life Orb? What about Mega Diancie on Rock, when Mega Aggron is a superior Mega Evolution for the type? What about double Ice-type STAB attack Lapras, which has the niche of Freeze-Dry already? What about Grass having to use Serperior or Whimsicott to even have a chance, which by the way, Whimsicott won't even win if Mega Sableye gets a Calm Mind on the switch in?

This is the main difference between Mega Sableye and all the other Pokemon that are commonly complained about. Mega Sableye tilts matchups that Dark would not necessarily have an overwhelming advantage in otherwise. Remove Mega Scizor? Steel and Bug still have good matchups against. Remove Mega Sableye? The matchups are a lot more fair and winnable for the opposing team. Mega Scizor is in fact a very potent and threatening SD sweeper. It does not however force auto-win conditions against many types on its own. In the few types that it almost wins on its own, it does so in matchups that its typing should beat anyway. This is not at all similar to Mega Sableye, which does force auto-win conditions against many types by itself to such an extent that these types are forced into using horrible sets to attempt to stop it.

Response to Arken

I legitimately do not know if you're joking when you say that Mega Sableye is healthy for the metagame by being an answer to "such powerful" sets, although I truly hope you are. That is just so...

Anyway, the top types are types that naturally already beat Mega Sableye. Water has Azumarill, Fairy has matchup, Psychic has Mega Gardevoir, Flying has Mega Charizard Y and Mega Gyarados. Are you seriously implying the top types are being "held back" from optimal sets? None of these Pokemon are using specific sets to beat Mega Sableye, and they're all perfectly viable in spite of Mega Sableye. No, the types that have the most to lose if we keep Mega Sableye are all the types that are not at the very top right now. In fact, Mega Sableye is the easiest Mega Evolution for most of these types to beat. Flying, Fairy, Water, and Psychic all prefer Mega Sableye to any other viable Dark-type Mega Evolution.

If you want to reduce the gap between the top types and the worse types, Mega Sableye is one of the reasons it's so big. Other types are forced to make sacrifices on their team to check Mega Sableye, while the top types do not. With only 6 Pokemon in the restricted environment of Monotype, every additional forced usage of a check hurts the type and makes it weaker. Poison is the best example, other examples include Fighting's lack of Moxie Heracross and Mega Heracross usage. Oh and by the way, Choice Specs Keldeo is far from being bad against Mega Sableye with the help of Hydro Pump and Scald, so I have no idea what you're trying to say. SubCM is a counter, Choice Specs is a check. You can certainly do with Choice Specs if you run Hydro Pump.

Counterarguments

Balance and Speed: Increase in Psychic usage is good for Poison. So is increase in Fighting usage. I have no idea what a Mega Sableye-less Flying team is. And "more bulky psychic teams that can handle megashark" what does this even mean? Psychic teams will want to beat Mega Sharpedo on Water regardless of whether Mega Sharpedo is on Dark. Further, a Mega Sharpedo answer usually comes hand in hand with a Mega Gyarados answer, meaning it's even more valuable regardless of Dark.

i'm sora: Lum Berry Bisharp is objectively worse than Life Orb Bisharp. You should not be using Lum Berry to avoid Scald burns because Bisharp should not be taking Scald in the first place with its awful Special Defense from offensive foes and defensive foes should not be given the opportunity to Scald successfully against Bisharp in the first place. Further, Prankster Thunder Wave is far from a threat to Bisharp. The only users are Pokemon that Bisharp will gladly take paralysis to knock out, such as Klefki, which can set up screens and Whimsicott, which can Encore a Mega Scizor into continuing to Swords Dance. Further, Swords Dance Gliscor isn't even an argument. Flying uses Mega Gyarados, Mega Charizard Y, and Landorus, while Ground uses Landorus and Mega Camerupt. This is just a false example that looks like it's valid, but actually isn't. Lava Plume Heatran relies on a 30% that you must get early on before Mega Sableye sets up too far, not even close to being a competitive answer. Anyway, Dark will not be a bad type without Mega Sableye, as we do know Mega Sableye is the worst viable Mega Evolution against types such as Psychic and Fairy.

Enoch: Warning. I got upset. I sincerely apologize for being rude. You didn't even have the right definition of uncompetitive, and no one said it's broken. Anyway, onto the unhealthy argument.

First, yes. Threats are responded to. However, Mega Slowbro was a threat too, but we banned it because it was too difficult to prepare for and it was unreasonable to expect people to do so. Mega Sableye, in my opinion, is similarly (not on that level though) unreasonable to expect people to prepare for. You can't just say those words and call it a day. What if I said, in an obviously joking fashion, "Mega Salamence is a threat, and as such, must be prepared for?" You'd laugh me out of the forums. It makes no sense to demand for people to prepare for threats that they simply do not have the resources to prepare for.

Azumarill and Mega Scizor have nothing to do with Mega Sableye. I have already addressed Mega Scizor. For Azumarill, ...I literally have no idea why you even brought this Pokemon up... No one prepares for specifically Azumarill because it's not a centralizing threat. I'm just so lost for words.

You can't just say "but I digress" when the point you were making was completely valid and pertinent to the subject! Mega Sableye directly affects many types, which Mega Scizor and Azumarill do not. This is why Mega Sableye is centralizing and those two are not! Why did you say you digress when you were on the right track to understanding why your point is wrong?! I'm so upset right now because this would have saved me so much effort.

Wallbreakers? Are you joking? Physical wallbreakers must do over 66% damage to beat Mega Sableye because Will-O-Wisp will halve their next hit. Special wallbreakers need to deal at least 60% because Mega Sableye will Calm Mind and reduce the damage of their next hit. Oh, and to make matters even worse for special wallbreakers, they must be in before Mega Sableye gets even one Calm Mind. If Mega Sableye gets a Calm Mind as they switch into it, enjoy! You must now be capable of dealing at least 87% damage prior to any Calm Mind boosts. Good luck with that. Only certain wallbreakers are powerful enough to do even the former, and you can't reasonably ask everyone to have one. Where is your wallbreaker on Dark, on Steel, on Electric, on Poison, on Ice, on Grass?

WoW Absorbers? What does this even mean? Conkeldurr is a Will-O-Wisp absorber, and does absolutely 0 to beat Mega Sableye. Chansey is a Will-O-Wisp absorber, does it do anything? How about Heatran? Lava Plume from 252 Special Attack boosted by Flash Fire does not 2HKO after one Calm Mind. You are required to get your burn on the first try to win. 30%? Have fun with your uncompetitive mechanic. Your Will-O-Wisp absorber must in addition to being a Will-O-Wisp absorber, must also be either a wallbreaker or a setup Pokemon. That is not a reasonable demand for most types.

Setup Pokemon? They must be able to absorb Will-O-Wisp if physical or must use a faster setup move if special, and this is not something you can just demand from every type.

You cannot simply say these things and think everyone can do it. Why do you think Dark's only answer is their own Mega Sableye to get a 50/50 or a suboptimal Lum Berry Bisharp? Why do you think Electric, Poison, Ice, and others don't even have answers? Asking for a wallbreaker that can break Mega Sableye or for a setup Pokemon that can absorb Will-O-Wisp and setup faster than Mega Sableye is unreasonable.

In regards to your closing paragraph, why does the proximity of Sun and Moon result in trying to make a more perfect metagame a bad decision? Did we not play BW Monotype in MPL? Do we not play DPP/BW/XY Monotype in room tours? If anything, I believe we need to work harder than ever while we still have time to focus on ORAS Monotype because after Sun and Moon we may not have this opportunity again.

Mystletainn: Yeah, other threats being similar to Mega Sableye is all wrong. Read the Mega Scizor explanation, and nothing even comes close. There's a difference between Flying needing to check Ice and Electric needing to check Mega Sableye. Flying is checking a type that has a great offensive type advantage, and in doing so well help it against other types using Ice-type coverage moves. Electric is checking one specific Pokemon on a team that otherwise it has a chance at beating. By the way, Mega Sableye is not just affecting types that use absurd answers. See things such as needing multiple Choice Band wallbreakers on Dragon, needing Guts Heracross / SubCM Keldeo, needing Lum Berry Bisharp. You said you need a Pokemon to create problems for a large majority of types. You want a majority? Here you go: Dragon, Fighting, Dark, Electric, Ghost, Normal, Poison, Rock, Grass, Steel, Psychic, and Ice. 12 out of 18 types that are restricted in some shape or form due to Mega Sableye alone. That's 66%, a supermajority.

Arash: Poison is a legitimate, good type that cannot be used because of one Pokemon. How is this not a problem? It's not a low tier type at all if you don't consider Mega Sableye.

Dece1t: Point #1: First, things do not need to be broken to be uncompetitive. Okay, moving on. Rest Talk Tentacruel... Haze... How on earth is Haze a legitimate answer to Mega Sableye? Haze temporarily removes boosts that Mega Sableye can regain. How is Rest Talk Tentacruel a legitimate set when it cannot run all three of Rapid Spin, Scald, Toxic Spikes? How is Acid Spray Tentacruel going to stop Mega Sableye when Tentacruel has no real recovery and will be chipped down throughout a match preventing it from doing its 4 turns of set up "check"?

Point #2: You are aware Mega Sableye is a stallbreaker, right? If anything, Mega Sableye is preventing team archetypes because of how centralizing it is. It improves diversity.

And, if a community votes incorrectly because of poor reasoning, should they not revisit such a vote? I seriously don't understand why that is so incomprehensible.

On your second post, I won't explain again why your proposed checks are bad. Crazy Horse gave an incredible answer to you, and I truly hope you read it. You asked for specific obscure sets that check only Mega Sableye. Read the thread, we've been talking about them. Centralization is not necessarily revolving around usage, it's revolving around a Pokemon. Monotype is forced to build almost every team with Mega Sableye in mind. That's centralization. Mega Sableye does not perform extraordinarily well because we've been forced to prepare so ridiculously much for it. Further, Umbreon is a key member of Dark stall teams. Show me the viable Mega Sableye check on Ice that does not require an out of place, suboptimal move please?

I'll reverberate scp's question: Why is Mega Sableye a competitive, valuable part of Monotype that is more beneficial to the metagame if not removed from it?

I think this is the best and well most well constructed post on this forum regarding monotype. Good Job

 

[Wanka]

Yeah, Wanka, I know Specs Keldeo is an amazing wallbreaker. I was referencing this guy I was talking to on the other thread who says Fighting is forced to use CM Keldeo to beat M-Sableye. The point IS that Keldeo can't just freely run the specs set anymore without consequence IF this man's statement is true, which is something we should embrace because as you said, specs Keldeo is a PREMIER wallbreaker. We should be striving to have more answers to powerful no-risk wallbreakers.

I compared the two of them because they THREATEN a lot of the types. That's what Eien was doing when he named the "Dragon, Fighting, Dark, Electric, Ghost, Normal, Poison, Rock, Grass, Steel, Psychic, and Ice" types. I was saying it threatened a lot of types as well (because there's no way M-Sab beats all of those types by itself haha), and that's where they're similar. I'm not comparing them because the M-Sableye can sweep some types even though M-Scizor can do the same. With CM + SBall, I guess it can sweep Electric, Ghost, and Poison. You can argue that it sweeps a few more, but everything else can be played better to deal with M-Sableye in my opinion. M-Sab just threatens the other types in some way, which M-Scizor ALSO does. Sorry to make you waste time going through each of those types in a lot of detail.

In the same vein, can we define a set for M-Sableye? Every time a Pokemon's banned, there is this one particular set that sets it apart from its other sets which the community can agree on is the reason why it should be banned. I don't think we've defined one for M-Sableye yet.


Oh, don't worry, I'm not actually worried about the top tier types. I was talking about this guy. I was just acknowledging that it "affects" them given what he said, haha.

My argument is more or less (if you've read it) "use top tier types if you want to beat Mega Sableye" which contradicts my worries/statement above. I was just playing along with what was said for the sake of the argument in the same way that I played along that Fighting is "forced" to run Guts Heracross or SubCM Keldeo (I put "forced" in quotes because I think they're good sets even without considering M-Sab) to beat M-Sableye. I was just using your words. Funny situation where you're referencing me reference you, huh? Haha

But yeah, what wasn't mentioned yet is the indirect way that M-Sab's presence affects the high tier types. M-Sab is an amazing defensive pivot, and with that, it gets paired with Pokemon to do real work. One of these Pokemon which happens to be broken is Hoopa. With HFury and Energy Ball, this gives Dark great weapons against Psychic and Water. Gunk Shot (along with some more offensive support) makes the game even between Fairy v Dark IMHO. HHole lets it really hurt Fighting, a type which should otherwise break Dark. Add more teammates and we have a type that stands well against the meta. Regular Sableye is still annoying, but it's not as good a defensive pivot as M-Sab to really make the type work, but that's just my take on it. Bet others would say otherwise.

I actually don't want to reduce the gap between the top types and the worse types. Would be nice, but it's not my top priority anymore. I believed the way to bridge that gap was type-bans. As long as it doesn't completely eff over the top tier types with ease, which as you've admitted this time around that it doesn't, then I don't see why we should ban M-Sableye. I think that's all we should really concern ourselves with. Poison, Ghost, and Electric won't noticeably go up in usage with M-Sab's banishment, but what we would lose with M-Sab's banishment is this really solid type's reliability that can stand up to the top tier types with its options.

I'm not saying Dark would be horrible without M-Sab, but why nerf a type that's not breaking the top tier types for some marginal increase in bad types?
Also Ghost would be irrelevant and therefore you'd be killing one type for this marginal increase.

You are comparing them tho. When you go out and blatantly say, "if sableye gets banned then scizor should get banned" that means you are comparing their sweeping capabilities so unless you didn't realize that was the message you were relaying, then don't say you aren't comparing them that way because you are when you say something like that. I literally agreed with you as well with the whole "scizor threatens the same types sableye threatens" yes, I agree, but they do it in different ways that make sableye potentially broken, and scizor far from it. Idk if you actually read the moral of my argument because you just gave me the same bullshit you did the first time, so ill say it again.

Scizor needs good support from its teammates in order to be as big of a threat that it is in monotype, sableye does not. In the scenarios where sableye sweeps teams, it is simply just finding its way in one time, clicking a few moves and its GG. Scizor does not, and will never do that without the support from its teammates on steel teams. That is the reason scizor isn't broken and will never be broken, while sableye might be.

That is the main thing im stressing and don't worry, I didn't waste my time typing out all of the matchups, its a very complex idea to wrap your head around because I understand that on paper, those two can be compared in how they affect the tier. So instead of throwing a blind claim out there like the majority of the claims on this thread are, I took the time to go through those matchups in hopes to make what im saying clear

And if you are wondering about a main set that is generally the one that makes sab the most uncompetatitive and potentially broken, its the CM + Snarl set with willo and recover. That imo is the best move combo for a sweeper set and the most broken one.


Edit: I forgot to adress the keldeo thing. I can tell you right now that whoever told you cant run specs keld freely anymore is completely and utterly wrong and ignorant for saying that. sub cm doesnt even beat CM + Snarl sets so you are actually better off running specs to pressure it harder with specs pump to either force it to mega in which something like a hawlucha can come in and beat it, or use specs anyway to break the other types it breaks and then just pair it with guts cross. I don't really like sub cm as much with the current state of the meta in general so yeah that guy was lying to you when he said whatever he said lol.

 

[Star Sky]

It's just a personal opinion of mine that a short banlist is a good one because that allows us to fully utilize more content existing in the original games.
It is necessary to ban certain Pokemon if they are causing disruption of balance within the metagame, but I feel like it is a mere matter of pros and cons; and to mine eyes, leaving M-Sab just for the sake of keeping the banlist nice and short and not too biased is enough of a pro to sacrifice a bit of centralizing.
I understand that perhaps some people feel otherwise about the pros and cons, or possibly even completely disagree with my view on how the metagame and banlist should be, but I just felt it would be worth putting down a few words on my opinion.
Totally personal and subjective.

 

[Crazy Horse]

"A bit of centralizing."
I understand you just want to make a quick personal statement but how could you overlook all of that explanation explaining how Mega Sab is very overcentralizing. So far pro-ban arguments have been solid and I've been interested in seeing well composed counter arguments, but instead it is very short posts making assertions without any foundation whatsoever. I'd ask for us to be more constructive when giving our statements to why or why not sableye should be banned. If you take the time to post, why not actually contribute? That is all

 

[Star Sky]

"A bit of centralizing."
I understand you just want to make a quick personal statement but how could you overlook all of that explanation explaining how Mega Sab is very overcentralizing. So far pro-ban arguments have been solid and I've been interested in seeing well composed counter arguments, but instead it is very short posts making assertions without any foundation whatsoever. I'd ask for us to be more constructive when giving our statements to why or why not sableye should be banned. If you take the time to post, why not actually contribute? That is all

lol I just didn't consider any of my own words necessary when the arguments have been solid and they have stated just about everything I could come up with and way more.
I don't quite find a place for me to fit my specific reasoning into a discussion between all those high ladder players who have played this game for so much longer and are so much better than me that they understand the metagame at a level I can't even conceive.
I mean, I didn't do that bad of a thing that you gotta get fired up about how ignorant and unproductive of a comment I made, did I?

 

[Eien]

Yeah, Wanka, I know Specs Keldeo is an amazing wallbreaker. I was referencing this guy I was talking to on the other thread who says Fighting is forced to use CM Keldeo to beat M-Sableye. The point IS that Keldeo can't just freely run the specs set anymore without consequence IF this man's statement is true, which is something we should embrace because as you said, specs Keldeo is a PREMIER wallbreaker. We should be striving to have more answers to powerful no-risk wallbreakers.

I compared the two of them because they THREATEN a lot of the types. That's what Eien was doing when he named the "Dragon, Fighting, Dark, Electric, Ghost, Normal, Poison, Rock, Grass, Steel, Psychic, and Ice" types. I was saying it threatened a lot of types as well (because there's no way M-Sab beats all of those types by itself haha), and that's where they're similar. I'm not comparing them because the M-Sableye can sweep some types even though M-Scizor can do the same. With CM + SBall, I guess it can sweep Electric, Ghost, and Poison. You can argue that it sweeps a few more, but everything else can be played better to deal with M-Sableye in my opinion. M-Sab just threatens the other types in some way, which M-Scizor ALSO does. Sorry to make you waste time going through each of those types in a lot of detail.

In the same vein, can we define a set for M-Sableye? Every time a Pokemon's banned, there is this one particular set that sets it apart from its other sets which the community can agree on is the reason why it should be banned. I don't think we've defined one for M-Sableye yet.


Oh, don't worry, I'm not actually worried about the top tier types. I was talking about this guy. I was just acknowledging that it "affects" them given what he said, haha.

My argument is more or less (if you've read it) "use top tier types if you want to beat Mega Sableye" which contradicts my worries/statement above. I was just playing along with what was said for the sake of the argument in the same way that I played along that Fighting is "forced" to run Guts Heracross or SubCM Keldeo (I put "forced" in quotes because I think they're good sets even without considering M-Sab) to beat M-Sableye. I was just using your words. Funny situation where you're referencing me reference you, huh? Haha

But yeah, what wasn't mentioned yet is the indirect way that M-Sab's presence affects the high tier types. M-Sab is an amazing defensive pivot, and with that, it gets paired with Pokemon to do real work. One of these Pokemon which happens to be broken is Hoopa. With HFury and Energy Ball, this gives Dark great weapons against Psychic and Water. Gunk Shot (along with some more offensive support) makes the game even between Fairy v Dark IMHO. HHole lets it really hurt Fighting, a type which should otherwise break Dark. Add more teammates and we have a type that stands well against the meta. Regular Sableye is still annoying, but it's not as good a defensive pivot as M-Sab to really make the type work, but that's just my take on it. Bet others would say otherwise.

I actually don't want to reduce the gap between the top types and the worse types. Would be nice, but it's not my top priority anymore. I believed the way to bridge that gap was type-bans. As long as it doesn't completely eff over the top tier types with ease, which as you've admitted this time around that it doesn't, then I don't see why we should ban M-Sableye. I think that's all we should really concern ourselves with. Poison, Ghost, and Electric won't noticeably go up in usage with M-Sab's banishment, but what we would lose with M-Sab's banishment is this really solid type's reliability that can stand up to the top tier types with its options.

I'm not saying Dark would be horrible without M-Sab, but why nerf a type that's not breaking the top tier types for some marginal increase in bad types?
Also Ghost would be irrelevant and therefore you'd be killing one type for this marginal increase.

First, I want to clarify something because I realize the way I said it might have been ambiguous, which is my fault. My reference to the 12 types was that they are required to consider specifically Mega Sableye during teambuilding. Yes, this does imply that Mega Sableye threatens 12 types, but it is to very varying degrees, and I wanted to make a point on Mega Sableye's affect on teambuilding and not a point on its actual sweeping performance during battle. I don't blame you for misunderstanding that, since it was my own very poor phrasing and lack of explanation.

Anyway, the main difference, as Wanka said again, is that Mega Scizor cannot just win. Mega Scizor requires the correct situation to enable its sweep. Even against Ice or Rock, you cannot just bring Mega Scizor in without a thought and think everything will work out. Mega Scizor also requires significant team support and in matchups that it excels in, it's preying upon the weaknesses of the types. Some types such as Ice and Rock are inherently incapable of truly handling Steel-type Pokemon to begin with, which Mega Scizor exacerbates. Other types such as Poison and Dragon feel helpless before a setup Pokemon that has been played properly, which Mega Scizor takes advantage of. Regardless of this though, you cannot play Mega Scizor with wanton abandon because it is in fact checked by tools that these types use to check many other similar threats. The likes of Ice and Rock pack significant Fire-type coverage and use very bulky Pokemon with neutralities to Mega Scizor to defeat Steel-type Pokemon in general, of which Mega Scizor is one. The likes of Poison and Dragon use the same tools they use to beat other similar setup Pokemon to beat Mega Scizor.

And that brings me to the crux of the problem. Checks to Mega Scizor are often also checks to other threats that are generally good against a type. Mega Sableye checks do not have this same property. Some checks may be good regardless but that doesn't mean Mega Sableye isn't a problem because that is limiting teambuilding. Further, Mega Sableye is not something you require particular skill to use in certain matchups. You can literally lead Mega Sableye and, if your opponent doesn't have the specific Mega Sableye check needed, you can just win, barring blessed RNG. This is the difference. Not having a Mega Scizor check on Rock teams is a result of bad teambuilding, because Rock teams' checks to Mega Scizor are fundamentally good for checking Grass and Steel as a whole. On the other hand, not having a Mega Sableye check on Poison teams is not due to the Poison user's bad teambuilding, but simply because the nature of Mega Sableye forces a Poison user to choose between checking Mega Sableye and making a proper team to battle against other types.

I think that's the extent of my direct response. I want to make my own argument by jumping off of something you mentioned.

You said: My argument is more or less (if you've read it) "use top tier types if you want to beat Mega Sableye". This is of course a reiteration of this: If you want to earnestly compete, choosing a type that isn't screwed over by popular Pokemon like M-Scizor or M-Sableye should be the first step.

Do you not agree that this is a very centralizing notion? That is essentially saying "Only types that can beat Mega Sableye should be used." I think that is centralizing by definition. The problem lays in the fact that we are limiting the choices players can make by a large margin. First, you cannot use X types because they lose to Mega Sableye to an extent that is unrealistic for them to overcome. For Y types that do not lose to Mega Sableye to such an extent, which you may use, you must use Z Pokemon/mechanic to prevent it. I think this is a seriously problematic result.

My point is that Mega Sableye is causing significant problems in our metagame and it is clearly going against precedence if we leave it by claiming one should just not use types that lose to it. If I may, what if I compared this to not banning Talonflame with the reasoning of "Just don't use Grass, Bug, or Fighting"? I find this to be an unsatisfactory solution that can be easily fixed by simply banning the problematic part of the metagame. For all I know as I'm writing this, you may actually agree with that logic. But that's not the point. By saying that we should entirely avoid large parts of the metagame simply because they lose to one specific Pokemon, that's accepting that Mega Sableye is centralizing, uncompetitive, and unhealthy. If you accept that, by the tiering philosophy, you should be voting to ban Sablenite.

I'm going to not address the part about Hoopa-U because I don't really understand why you're saying it and what it has to do with the suspect. I got the feeling you were trying to show how good Mega Sableye is because it helps Hoopa-U, but I didn't understand why that would be a position someone that is against banning Mega Sableye would take. Then I considered whether you were trying to say that Mega Sableye is really good, so we shouldn't ban it, because of the rest of your argument, but I dismissed that because that started to confuse me a lot. If you could help me with this, then I could try to respond. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something and look like an idiot now.

The last part of your post I think I covered with my earlier words. Essentially, I don't want to ban Mega Sableye for the sake of the lower types. It's a part of the metagame that is seriously restricting teambuilding and general type usage. It takes skill out of the equation in some matchups, even with top tier types. It forces unorthodox and suboptimal checks, sometimes forcing checks that have little to no use outside of checking Mega Sableye. These are the reasons why I want it banned. Poison is noticeably not a reason, I don't care about Poison specifically. I don't care about Electric specifically. I'm looking at the overarching metagame and the way in which teambuilding is approached by many types, of which Poison and Electric happen to be a part of. Teambuilding is a fundamental part of skill in Pokemon and when Mega Sableye encroaches upon the ability for a more skilled player to win against a less skilled player, that's when we have a problem. This could be Mega Sableye against a type that is not equipped to defeat it. This could also be that type in a matchup against anything else in which, due to the restrictions of Mega Sableye, it is unable to optimally build and will lose.

To counter the argument that poison somehow turns into a mid tier or better type w/o megasab, this will very likely not happen. Sure, you would be free from running memes like rest-talk tenta and poison fang queen, but poison's biggest problem has always been and will continue to be set up sweepers in general.

Though poison has a good selection of bulky mons, all a good player needs is one free turn, or to sac the right Pokemon vs the right member of the poison team. If mega pinsir or mega scizor or mega gyara get a free boosting move anywhere, it's usually good game for poison as its Pokemon are either not bulky enough to sustain repeated hits (drapion, nidoqueen), or have pitiful offensive presence and can't prevent the sweeper from setting up more (weezing, skuntank). Mega venusaur can't stop them all, and if it comes in after mega scizor has a SD, it cannot stop it. Mega pinsir is way more dangerous to most poison teams as mega venu, the most common physical wall, is weak to flying and weezing can't reliably OHKO or take more than one hit. Also problematic is that no poison mons resist flying...

I can't speak for all other types mentioned as I'm most proficient w/ poison, but their main issues with mega sab also appear to be general flaws with the type itself. Let's also not forget that by banning this thing and making poison mildly better, you are condemning ghost to be one of the worst types in the metagame (not an ideal trade off, and overall a poor argument for banning it)

Running the risk of making it seem even more like the ban argument is to buff Poison, I'll explain why Poison specifically is at worst a decent type in a metagame without Mega Sableye. I would also like to mention that comparing Poison to the best types and saying that's why Poison cannot be a decent type is rather counterintuitive. You should compare Poison's performance to the performance of types that are good but not the best.

Let's look at what I personally consider to be the 5 best types: Water, Fairy, Flying, Psychic, Steel.

Water, Fairy, and Psychic are all clearly good for Poison. Flying is seriously team matchup dependent and Poison can simply just lose to Flying depending on the Pokemon being used. Steel is also very difficult for Poison to deal with, even with Nidoking being a threat. Considering that a type like Fighting can struggle with all 5, depending on the team, Poison does quite well. Bug can also find itself in very difficult matchups against these top 5. Dragon and Dark also suffer in multiple matchups. So if you consider a metagame where Poison does not need to deal with Mega Sableye, it is on the same footing at least with the likes of Fighting, Bug, Dragon, and Dark. This is what I would consider to be at least decent.

I think it's rather unfair to say that just because Poison may lose to certain specific threats that it wouldn't be a decent type. Every type has specific problems. Poison is a great example that we are using to show exactly the problems with Mega Sableye, but it is certainly not the focus for why Mega Sableye should be banned. Consider what it does to Poison and generalize it. That's the point of using examples. Generalizing it to certain other types may not apply, but again, that's how examples operate. I don't want to talk too much about Poison because I fear my point will be misconstrued again. Speaking of which...

Zane0144, You didn't address anything Paleo said, and you continue to push this supposed "buff Poison" agenda on the ban side. With all due respect, are you reading our posts? You essentially reiterated your words and didn't consider what we said.

 

[Arash]

First, I want to clarify something because I realize the way I said it might have been ambiguous, which is my fault. My reference to the 12 types was that they are required to consider specifically Mega Sableye during teambuilding. Yes, this does imply that Mega Sableye threatens 12 types, but it is to very varying degrees, and I wanted to make a point on Mega Sableye's affect on teambuilding and not a point on its actual sweeping performance during battle. I don't blame you for misunderstanding that, since it was my own very poor phrasing and lack of explanation.

Anyway, the main difference, as Wanka said again, is that Mega Scizor cannot just win. Mega Scizor requires the correct situation to enable its sweep. Even against Ice or Rock, you cannot just bring Mega Scizor in without a thought and think everything will work out. Mega Scizor also requires significant team support and in matchups that it excels in, it's preying upon the weaknesses of the types. Some types such as Ice and Rock are inherently incapable of truly handling Steel-type Pokemon to begin with, which Mega Scizor exacerbates. Other types such as Poison and Dragon feel helpless before a setup Pokemon that has been played properly, which Mega Scizor takes advantage of. Regardless of this though, you cannot play Mega Scizor with wanton abandon because it is in fact checked by tools that these types use to check many other similar threats. The likes of Ice and Rock pack significant Fire-type coverage and use very bulky Pokemon with neutralities to Mega Scizor to defeat Steel-type Pokemon in general, of which Mega Scizor is one. The likes of Poison and Dragon use the same tools they use to beat other similar setup Pokemon to beat Mega Scizor.

And that brings me to the crux of the problem. Checks to Mega Scizor are often also checks to other threats that are generally good against a type. Mega Sableye checks do not have this same property. Some checks may be good regardless but that doesn't mean Mega Sableye isn't a problem because that is limiting teambuilding. Further, Mega Sableye is not something you require particular skill to use in certain matchups. You can literally lead Mega Sableye and, if your opponent doesn't have the specific Mega Sableye check needed, you can just win, barring blessed RNG. This is the difference. Not having a Mega Scizor check on Rock teams is a result of bad teambuilding, because Rock teams' checks to Mega Scizor are fundamentally good for checking Grass and Steel as a whole. On the other hand, not having a Mega Sableye check on Poison teams is not due to the Poison user's bad teambuilding, but simply because the nature of Mega Sableye forces a Poison user to choose between checking Mega Sableye and making a proper team to battle against other types.

I think that's the extent of my direct response. I want to make my own argument by jumping off of something you mentioned.

You said: My argument is more or less (if you've read it) "use top tier types if you want to beat Mega Sableye". This is of course a reiteration of this: If you want to earnestly compete, choosing a type that isn't screwed over by popular Pokemon like M-Scizor or M-Sableye should be the first step.

Do you not agree that this is a very centralizing notion? That is essentially saying "Only types that can beat Mega Sableye should be used." I think that is centralizing by definition. The problem lays in the fact that we are limiting the choices players can make by a large margin. First, you cannot use X types because they lose to Mega Sableye to an extent that is unrealistic for them to overcome. For Y types that do not lose to Mega Sableye to such an extent, which you may use, you must use Z Pokemon/mechanic to prevent it. I think this is a seriously problematic result.

My point is that Mega Sableye is causing significant problems in our metagame and it is clearly going against precedence if we leave it by claiming one should just not use types that lose to it. If I may, what if I compared this to not banning Talonflame with the reasoning of "Just don't use Grass, Bug, or Fighting"? I find this to be an unsatisfactory solution that can be easily fixed by simply banning the problematic part of the metagame. For all I know as I'm writing this, you may actually agree with that logic. But that's not the point. By saying that we should entirely avoid large parts of the metagame simply because they lose to one specific Pokemon, that's accepting that Mega Sableye is centralizing, uncompetitive, and unhealthy. If you accept that, by the tiering philosophy, you should be voting to ban Sablenite.

I'm going to not address the part about Hoopa-U because I don't really understand why you're saying it and what it has to do with the suspect. I got the feeling you were trying to show how good Mega Sableye is because it helps Hoopa-U, but I didn't understand why that would be a position someone that is against banning Mega Sableye would take. Then I considered whether you were trying to say that Mega Sableye is really good, so we shouldn't ban it, because of the rest of your argument, but I dismissed that because that started to confuse me a lot. If you could help me with this, then I could try to respond. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something and look like an idiot now.

The last part of your post I think I covered with my earlier words. Essentially, I don't want to ban Mega Sableye for the sake of the lower types. It's a part of the metagame that is seriously restricting teambuilding and general type usage. It takes skill out of the equation in some matchups, even with top tier types. It forces unorthodox and suboptimal checks, sometimes forcing checks that have little to no use outside of checking Mega Sableye. These are the reasons why I want it banned. Poison is noticeably not a reason, I don't care about Poison specifically. I don't care about Electric specifically. I'm looking at the overarching metagame and the way in which teambuilding is approached by many types, of which Poison and Electric happen to be a part of. Teambuilding is a fundamental part of skill in Pokemon and when Mega Sableye encroaches upon the ability for a more skilled player to win against a less skilled player, that's when we have a problem. This could be Mega Sableye against a type that is not equipped to defeat it. This could also be that type in a matchup against anything else in which, due to the restrictions of Mega Sableye, it is unable to optimally build and will lose.


Running the risk of making it seem even more like the ban argument is to buff Poison, I'll explain why Poison specifically is at worst a decent type in a metagame without Mega Sableye. I would also like to mention that comparing Poison to the best types and saying that's why Poison cannot be a decent type is rather counterintuitive. You should compare Poison's performance to the performance of types that are good but not the best.

Let's look at what I personally consider to be the 5 best types: Water, Fairy, Flying, Psychic, Steel.

Water, Fairy, and Psychic are all clearly good for Poison. Flying is seriously team matchup dependent and Poison can simply just lose to Flying depending on the Pokemon being used. Steel is also very difficult for Poison to deal with, even with Nidoking being a threat. Considering that a type like Fighting can struggle with all 5, depending on the team, Poison does quite well. Bug can also find itself in very difficult matchups against these top 5. Dragon and Dark also suffer in multiple matchups. So if you consider a metagame where Poison does not need to deal with Mega Sableye, it is on the same footing at least with the likes of Fighting, Bug, Dragon, and Dark. This is what I would consider to be at least decent.

I think it's rather unfair to say that just because Poison may lose to certain specific threats that it wouldn't be a decent type. Every type has specific problems. Poison is a great example that we are using to show exactly the problems with Mega Sableye, but it is certainly not the focus for why Mega Sableye should be banned. Consider what it does to Poison and generalize it. That's the point of using examples. Generalizing it to certain other types may not apply, but again, that's how examples operate. I don't want to talk too much about Poison because I fear my point will be misconstrued again.

I think you make a great point, but consider the following:

1. Poison vs water/psychic/flying/steel/fairy is completely unaffected by this ban. Even if they struggle vs dark because of mega sableye + friends, poison is still a great anti-meta type currently and after the vote because of its match ups vs these types.

2. Against mega sableye, if the poison team isn't specifically running rest/talk tenta or poison fang queen or some other highly specialized nonsense, it is still possible to win against dark with good counter plays / prediction. Don't misconstrue what I'm saying here, of course mega sableye has the advantage, but the broken set in question is ultimately a set-up sweeper, which my post details how set-up sweepers are really the problem for poison. Mega sableye needs less help from its teammates to steamroll poison, but it isn't asking a lot to support your mega pinsir or mega gyara enough to where they can accomplish the same thing. A loss is a loss regardless of how many Pokemon were instrumental in it.

3. The nature of monotype is such that a more skilled player can and will lose to a less skilled player from time to time, just because of the type chart. The best fire player in the metagame is always going to struggle against a competent dragon player unless he/she runs crap that is subpar but highly specialized to beat dragons.
I know the examples of scizor and heatran aren't exactly the same scenario as sableye, but the point everyone is trying to make is that there are threats in the metagame that have to be taken account in the team building phase. If I don't pack a max hp/def weezing with fire blast and rocky helmet alongside SR support on my poison team, my team is going to struggle real hard with mega pinsir given the right support on the bug team. This weezing may not synergize with my team at all otherwise, but this is the price I pay to ease this matchup, similar to packing rest/talk tenta over a more useful support variant. Mega sableye on dark is no different in this regard.

 

[Wanka]

Huh? Pinsir and gyara for sure need tons more support than sableye does. It isn't particularly hard to pressure pinsir and bug teams in general with poison. Bug teams don't carry taunt which makes getting rocks up easy as hell and you have a spin blocker in gengar that can keep them up. Now, obviously that is easier said then done because I understand that if you play too agressively with gengar, its going to get ohkod by a cold breeze and then ur spin blocker is gone. Id say that combined with some form of rock coverage on poison teams make pinsir a lot more managable than sableye. And as for mega gyara. Venusaur can quick check it in a pinch. It will probably be crippled severely, but it will still be able to manage it.

A big thing with what I just explained though (more so with pinsir and not gyara) is that, that process of sustaining rocks and pressuring pinsir throughout a battle so it cant sweep you is good healthy battling. Theres nothing unhealthy about having to sustain rocks against a bug team so you can handle its sweepers. If you successfully sustain them, good job, you put yourself in a fabulous position to win that matchup. If you fail, and your opponent does a nice job at predicting aroud your spinblock and is able to keep pinsir healthy, props to you opponent for opening up that sweep. There is nothing unhealthy about that siuation whereas it becomes an issue when you are running a set that does absolutely nothing outside of checking mega sableye. Having stealth rocks and having to use gengar to spinblock isn't necesarily a bad thing to have on poison teams. God forbid you have to use the best move in the game along with one of the tiers premier wallbreakers to help you win games. Using resttalk tentacruel doesn't help you win games.

Theres a difference. And I think we should stress less on individual matchups. I thought we moved past just caring about poison :/

 

[Arash]

I wouldn't say they need tons more support... They obviously can't 6-0 a team by themselves but you can't just assume the opponent will play into your hands and go forward with your plan, not taking into account the opponents play style. Even if the bug team sacs its other 5 teammates to get pinsir set up to win, a 1-0 is a win just like 6-0, and it doesn't make pinsir any less instrumental in getting that win.

In this specific case, mega pinsir hates rocks, but if it gets in vs something like support nidoqueen, eats 25% from rocks and gets its SD, poison is usually screwed. The rest of the bug team can recognize this as a win condition for this match, and play carefully to make sure all the variables align to get pinsir its sweep.

And my examples have to do with poison specifically mainly because that is where I have the most experience. I understand that this suspect is not solely to make the poison vs dark matchup better, however my main point was that mega sableye needs to be accounted for the same as other threats. Granted it is a very dangerous one that can 6-0 your team with ease if you don't prepare for it, but the same can be said of stuff like lando-I, mega gallade, etc..

The main difference is that mega sableye can't just be handled by tweaking a coverage move on one or two commonly used Pokemon like most other threats (though on some types even this is possible). Is this enough to ban it?

And what happens in the hypothetical event that a new Pokemon comes along that isn't broken but completely demolishes 3-4 types by itself in monotype (but is handled adequately / loses to the other types); do we ban it for the sake of helping out the lower tiers?

 

[Wanka]

Maybe not tons, but jesus fuck look at the moral of the argument instead of analyzing a few words to cover it up. IT NEEDS MORE SUPPORT THAN SABLEYE. Fyi as well, support queens carry dragon tail or emergency rock coverage. And if its offensive queen then you'll get ohkod.

You might not have said it in the best words possible but you did yourself a diservice by proving my point when you said "Even if the bug team sacks its 5 other mons to get pinsir a set up opportunity, the 1-0 is the same as a 6-0." Not so much the "1-0 is the same as a 6-0" but yes, that is how healthy set up sweepers work. You use your teammates to open sweeping opportunities for them and that is what you just told me. That isn't how sableye works because sableye doesn't need any of its teammates to set up a sweep for it.

Im not even going to go deeper into how sableye differs from the mons you mentioned in ur post. Myself and eien have explained why mons like those are different like 5 times in the past day so id advise you to go read some of our recent thoughts in this thread.

I would strongly encourage you not to talk about hypothetical events as well. Thats just as bad as, if not worse than theorymoning. It just creates unecessary conflict that contributes nothing to the present. These threads are for the present, not the future. If you have personal questions like that one, analyzing mono's tiering philosophy might help answer it.

 

[Arash]

Maybe not tons, but jesus fuck look at the moral of the argument instead of analyzing a few words to cover it up. IT NEEDS MORE SUPPORT THAN SABLEYE. Fyi as well, support queens carry dragon tail or emergency rock coverage. And if its offensive queen then you'll get ohkod.

You might not have said it in the best words possible but you did yourself a diservice by proving my point when you said "Even if the bug team sacks its 5 other mons to get pinsir a set up opportunity, the 1-0 is the same as a 6-0." Not so much the "1-0 is the same as a 6-0" but yes, that is how healthy set up sweepers work. You use your teammates to open sweeping opportunities for them and that is what you just told me. That isn't how sableye works because sableye doesn't need any of its teammates to set up a sweep for it.

Im not even going to go deeper into how sableye differs from the mons you mentioned in ur post. Myself and eien have explained why mons like those are different like 5 times in the past day so id advise you to go read some of our recent thoughts in this thread.

I would strongly encourage you not to talk about hypothetical events as well. Thats just as bad as, if not worse than theorymoning. It just creates unecessary conflict that contributes nothing to the present. These threads are for the present, not the future. If you have personal questions like that one, analyzing mono's tiering philosophy might help answer it.

Noted on the future-monning, the idea is to try and avoid a slippery slope of possible as this case, should sab get banned, would set a precedent on banning things in the future.

And the pinsir argument may not be exact, but i feel like you're missing the big picture. If there was a type of team that could reliably beat a type every single time, even if it is only by 1-0 every time, then is that not as unhealthy?

For instance, a steel team running mega-scizor, excadrill and heatran played by someone who knows what they're doing will probably never lose to ice. Should we nerf steel so that ice has more of a chance, or should we accept that ice just doesn't have the right tools at its disposal?

In the same vein, should we ban mega sableye in order to ease team building overall (by having one less threat to prepare for) and give the lower tier types a better matchup vs dark? Does dark currently have lopsided match ups solely because of mega sableye? These are the questions that need to be answered.

FYI, if you actually read my posts, I acknowledge that mega sab is a different case due to less of a need for support, and i also acknowledge that scizor / pinsir / heatran and pals aren't in the same boat as sableye. Please stop cherry picking specific items and look at the bigger picture, which is what I'm trying to get at by way of examples

EDIT: to the below, go reread my post, the key phrase is "if you don't prepare for it". As in, if I build a team that cannot stop or KO something like mega gallade, it will 6-0 me. Also, two things don't have to be the same in order to compare them; comparing mega pinsir to mega sableye is done as these are both set up mons that can put pressure on the team given a free turn. I realize that they are not the same case, the comparison was done to illustrate a point.

 

[Wanka]

Steel vs Ice is completely different than bug vs poison. You proved nothing in what you just said.

And yes I did read your post. And if you dont want me to talk about how sab is different than said mons, dont give me the bullshit of "sableye can 6-0 your team, but so can all of these mons." When you say something like that, ur implying those mons are comparable, in which case they actually aren't so I wasn't cherrypicking at specific items. If you acknowledge that they are different than dont say something like that. Get your own thoughts straight before you question anyone else's.

Edit to the above: re-read eiens latest post about how preparing for mons like gallade, pinsir, landorus etc. are completely different than preparing for mons like sableye. Inherent preparation for certain key threats in the meta isn't unhealthy centralization. When the preparation for a mon like sableye has no other benefit in the current metagame, it becomes an issue. That's a short version of it but I'd go read eiens post, he adressed it more in depth than I did. Thanks.

 

[Argus2Spooky]

Greetings comrades, it is I, Professional Spooklord Argus!

Alright so, I pretty much stopped taking this metagame and its philosophy seriously after Aegislash was banned and Hoopa-U wasn't, and it looks like we're back here again. Tough luck. Anywho, I love how the basic consensus is that we shouldn't even bring up how ghost is affected since it's already supremely shafted, and that people get pretty butthurt when they even bring it up in discussion:

"(please don't say 'it keeps ghost relevant'...)" ~scp
^ The "..." at the end makes it edgy as fuck

Come on guys! Pleeeeaase don't say it. Have some common decency! It's interesting, to be honest, having to hear all this about how Mega-Sab fucks over 12 types when Ghost has only two win rates over 50% as of March 2016 (vs. Fighting: 51.3%; vs. Grass: 53.3%). That being said, the discussion is actually about how Sablenite is OP on Dark, Ghost is just a necessary loss or some shit and it looks like we'll be taking one for the team and sinking even lower. Tough luck. As a ghost user, I can honestly say that this metagame has never been particularly friendly to us, and if you want to have relevant opinions you should rebuild your team by 1). Taking off all your ghost pokemon and 2). Making them all Psychic/Steel/Flying/Water. Don't want to? Tough luck.

Anyway, as the natural predator of ghost is dark, I'm all for banning Mega-Sab since ghost has nothing to lose apparently /s. I personally don't run Mega-Sableye, it just doesn't work with my playstyle. I know that the vast majority of ghost users rely on Mega-Sab to scrape out whatever victories they can have in the post-Aegiban metagame, and to them I'm going to say: tough fucking luck. Not used to having no check whatsoever against hazards? Better get used to hoping the other guy defogs for you, because that is actually fucking how you're going to have to deal with hazards. (Shoutout to the guy who will play devil's advocate and tell me we should run Drifblim).

The philosophy is No single type should be overly powerful, not Keep all types usable, and sadly it looks like we're forced to be bundled with the centralizing Dark Type core in this nerfing, since Type Bans are akin to losing Daddy Smogon's attention, and god knows we can't have that. And don't forget guys, please don't say "it keeps ghost relevant"... since you were never really relevant anyway!

 

[scpinion]

I wanted to take a moment to respond to Argus' post, as well as a couple others in this thread. I apologize if this offends any of you, but I think these are things that needed to be addressed.

Some of you hate the direction we've gone with adopting the philosophy that "no type should be overpowered".
That is fine. You're allowed to hate it, but please respect it.

This community is a part of Smogon, thus we have adopted many of Smogon's philosophies. If you don't like that, then go play Monotype in a different competitive Pokemon community; or still use PS main, Smogon's simulator, but challenge your friends in custom battles. It is your choice.

I feel like we've been through this whole tiering philosophy thing 1000 times, but I'll do it again.

1. We don't tier to make all types equal because it doesn't actually do anything to help them. It just exacerbates matchup in a metagame that already has some matchup problems. That is bad! It isn't fun when the entire metagame has turned into a giant game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

2. We don't make complex bans because Smogon encourages simplicity in its tiering. Go take a look at the current discussions in Policy Review on PU and Baton Pass stuff. Complex bans aren't acceptable. Being an OM, especially one of the more popular ones, doesn't mean we're exempt from this.

3. The types are like playstyles and we tier so that there is diversity and counterplay among the playstyles we can use. There are 8-9 top tier types, each with multiple viable builds and another 4-6 types that can fare well in the meta when a top level player is using them. That leaves 3-5 bad types. That is plenty of diversity. We're not going to ban a bunch of stuff from the top tier types just so they suck as much as the bad types and are on a level playing field.

4. The Monotype metagame isn't geared toward facilitating a group of people role-playing as gym leaders. If you want to do that, just accept your challenges in the Ubers or AG format and make your own rules for the challenges. It isn't the council's job to oversee this and make sure you can have fun doing it.

5. We aim to make a balanced metagame for Monotype players to compete against one another in a tournament setting. Good players in standard tiers can do more than just play one style. The same is true here. If you "main" a type, you will certainly lose in a tournament setting because you're easy to counter team. Learn the full meta, learn to play more than one type. We're not going to to cater to anyone's favorite type just because it is their favorite. Whining and being sarcastic in a post here on Smogon isn't going to change that. Contributing something positive to the discussion and arguing for your side in this suspect might help though.

With these ideas in mind, I'll return to the Sablenite stuff.

Many of us want to ban Sablenite because it will make the metagame more diverse (point #3 above). We think there is an opportunity to move some of the lower-tier types up in the rankings, while allowing the top tier types to explore more diverse builds (read some of the earlier posts for details). Importantly, this is done without significantly nerfing any type that currently has any impact on the overall metagame. All these are good things that lead to a healthier meta.

When I make the comment that we shouldn't be considering what this does to Ghost, I'm not being edgy or an asshole. I'm saying it because that is something I know many people still consider and it is antithetical to how the council (not just me) have chosen to tier this meta.

Edit @ below: the post was directed toward a number of people, not just you. Especially the part about role playing as gym leaders.

As for people hating the idea, I get Hitler references all the time, so at least some people dislike it. :p I also wasn't targeting that specifically at you, but I get my post can come off that way. Apologies.

 

[Argus2Spooky]

I wanted to take a moment to respond to Argus' post, as well as a couple others in this thread. I apologize if this offends any of you, but I think these are things that needed to be addressed.

Some of you hate the direction we've gone with adopting the philosophy that "no type should be overpowered".
That is fine. You're allowed to hate it, but please respect it.

This community is a part of Smogon, thus we have adopted many of Smogon's philosophies. If you don't like that, then go play Monotype in a different competitive Pokemon community; or still use PS main, Smogon's simulator, but challenge your friends in custom battles. It is your choice.

I feel like we've been through this whole tiering philosophy thing 1000 times, but I'll do it again.

1. We don't tier to make all types equal because it doesn't actually do anything to help them. It just exacerbates matchup in a metagame that already has some matchup problems. That is bad! It isn't fun when the entire metagame has turned into a giant game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

2. We don't make complex bans because Smogon encourages simplicity in its tiering. Go take a look at the current discussions in Policy Review on PU and Baton Pass stuff. Complex bans aren't acceptable. Being an OM, especially one of the more popular ones, doesn't mean we're exempt from this.

3. The types are like playstyles and we tier so that there is diversity and counterplay among the playstyles we can use. There are 8-9 top tier types, each with multiple viable builds and another 4-6 types that can fare well in the meta when a top level player is using them. That leaves 3-5 bad types. That is plenty of diversity. We're not going to ban a bunch of stuff from the top tier types just so they suck as much as the bad types and are on a level playing field.

4. The Monotype metagame isn't geared toward facilitating a group of people role-playing as gym leaders. If you want to do that, just accept your challenges in the Ubers or AG format and make your own rules for the challenges. It isn't the council's job to oversee this and make sure you can have fun doing it.

5. We aim to make a balanced metagame for Monotype players to compete against one another in a tournament setting. Good players in standard tiers can do more than just play one style. The same is true here. If you "main" a type, you will certainly lose in a tournament setting because you're easy to counter team. Learn the full meta, learn to play more than one type. We're not going to to cater to anyone's favorite type just because it is their favorite. Whining and being sarcastic in a post here on Smogon isn't going to change that. Contributing something positive to the discussion and arguing for your side in this suspect might help though.

With these ideas in mind, I'll return to the Sablenite stuff.

Many of us want to ban Sablenite because it will make the metagame more diverse (point #3 above). We think there is an opportunity to move some of the lower-tier types up in the rankings, while allowing the top tier types to explore more diverse builds (read some of the earlier posts for details). Importantly, this is done without significantly nerfing any type that currently has any impact on the overall metagame. All these are good things that lead to a healthier meta.

When I make the comment that we shouldn't be considering what this does to Ghost, I'm not being edgy or an asshole. I'm saying it because that is something I know many people still consider and it is antithetical to how the council (not just me) have chosen to tier this meta.

Looks like you misread my post pretty hard, and though admittedly a lot of it was sarcasm, I do agree (begrudgingly) with a lot of your points. I did acknowledge the tiering philosophy, and while I strongly disagree with it, it's something that the council decides on, not the community, and it looks like we're just going to have deal with. I do have some complaints though.

"Some of you hate the direction we've gone with adopting the philosophy that 'no type should be overpowered.'"

Yeah, I'm not sure who was saying that. The arguments in this thread right now are whether Sablenite is overpowered, not whether overpowered types should get to stay overpowered. Either one of us misread, or you're reading between the lines or something. Either way, somebody is asserting a point that isn't true about what is being discussed. I would like to ask that you not associate arguments that nobody is making with my own in the future.

"The Monotype metagame isn't geared toward facilitating a group of people role-playing as gym leaders."

Regarding Point 4, I'm sort of irritated that you would assert that anyone was making that argument, as I certainly wasn't. In fact, if you do ctrl-f you'll find that nobody used the word "gym" in this entire thread at all, other than you of course. To be honest, I don't appreciate the strawman arguments, but I guess a four point list wouldn't be as aesthetically pleasing as a five point one. If people actually thought that was a rational and valid argument, you would have seen it in the thread by now.

"Good players in standard tiers can do more than just play one style."

I believe I mentioned somewhere in my first post that Ghost certain users should adjust their teams a little by taking off all their mon's and replacing them, and so I completely agree. If you want to have a relevant spot in the meta, stay away from certain types.

"Whining and being sarcastic in a post here on Smogon isn't going to change that. Contributing something positive to the discussion and arguing for your side in this suspect might help though."

Whining? You might be a little lost there as well. I cited statistics, made my case about the ban's effect on Ghost a certain type and even agreed to support the ban. The sarcasm was mostly in there to play devil's advocate with myself and further the point. To be honest my post wasn't even against the ban, but rather it was about informing people on how the ban will affect other players once it is instated.

Beyond those four bits, I agree absolutely with whatever scpinion said. Once again, I strongly apologize for using "Ghost" the "G" word in my previous point, as I know it is a very touchy topic and as an authority any challenges, especially satirical ones, can feel like a dangerous threat. The council has made its decision with the philosophy, and I am fully prepared to deal with the repercussions when Sablenite is banned, as I hope other Ghost certain users are as well.

 

[Erica*07]

Greetings comrades, it is I, Professional Spooklord Argus!

Alright so, I pretty much stopped taking this metagame and its philosophy seriously after Aegislash was banned and Hoopa-U wasn't, and it looks like we're back here again. Tough luck. Anywho, I love how the basic consensus is that we shouldn't even bring up how ghost is affected since it's already supremely shafted, and that people get pretty butthurt when they even bring it up in discussion:

"(please don't say 'it keeps ghost relevant'...)" ~scp
^ The "..." at the end makes it edgy as fuck

Come on guys! Pleeeeaase don't say it. Have some common decency! It's interesting, to be honest, having to hear all this about how Mega-Sab fucks over 12 types when Ghost has only two win rates over 50% as of March 2016 (vs. Fighting: 51.3%; vs. Grass: 53.3%). That being said, the discussion is actually about how Sablenite is OP on Dark, Ghost is just a necessary loss or some shit and it looks like we'll be taking one for the team and sinking even lower. Tough luck. As a ghost user, I can honestly say that this metagame has never been particularly friendly to us, and if you want to have relevant opinions you should rebuild your team by 1). Taking off all your ghost pokemon and 2). Making them all Psychic/Steel/Flying/Water. Don't want to? Tough luck.

Anyway, as the natural predator of ghost is dark, I'm all for banning Mega-Sab since ghost has nothing to lose apparently /s. I personally don't run Mega-Sableye, it just doesn't work with my playstyle. I know that the vast majority of ghost users rely on Mega-Sab to scrape out whatever victories they can have in the post-Aegiban metagame, and to them I'm going to say: tough fucking luck. Not used to having no check whatsoever against hazards? Better get used to hoping the other guy defogs for you, because that is actually fucking how you're going to have to deal with hazards. (Shoutout to the guy who will play devil's advocate and tell me we should run Drifblim).

The philosophy is No single type should be overly powerful, not Keep all types usable, and sadly it looks like we're forced to be bundled with the centralizing Dark Type core in this nerfing, since Type Bans are akin to losing Daddy Smogon's attention, and god knows we can't have that. And don't forget guys, please don't say "it keeps ghost relevant"... since you were never really relevant anyway!

It's sad, it's miserable, it's the truth. Banning Sablenite would probably spell the end for Ghost. But pokemon tiering has no rule that says you can't leave one behind if that one holds everyone else back. Ghost prevents the nerfing of an overpowered type if we want Ghost to survive. It's unfortunately necessary to leave Ghost behind for the greater good. Sablenite is incredibly centralizing to be forced to build against, and it drags down other types. That being said, I'd like to point out the discrepancy of banning Sablenite for balance but leaving Psychic untouched. I'd appreciate if something regarding Psychic could be figured out, but I won't hold my breath. Psychic was always favored by Game Freak anyway.

 

[scpinion]

Already deleted a post on hoopa and the one above is heavily hinting at it.

Let's keep this thread centered on the Sablenite suspect and we can discuss the way forward once all the votes have been tallied for this suspect.

 

[scpinion]

The laddering period in the 4th Monotype suspect has come to an end. Congratulations to all qualified voters!

If you qualified but your name is not in the list below please start a pm with all members of the monotype council briefly showing that you made reqs and posted to the ID thread before the deadline.

How to Vote
You will message your vote to me here on Smogon via a private message (i.e. Blind Voting). You have 2 options:

Sablenite: Ban
Sablenite: Do Not Ban

A 60% majority will be required to ban Sablenite.

Once we reach the voting deadline I will tally them up and post in the ORAS Monotype discussion thread w/ the results. Everyone's vote will be listed in that post.

Voting ends on Friday, July 1st.

voters

Amei
archbayleef
ArkenCiel
Balance and Speed
Bondie
Confluxx
Crimson Torrent
czim
ed wins
Eien
ElectricApples
Endal
Entei.
Execute
Ferno
Gunner Rohan
Hammyosman
juleocesar
Myth1111
Nefertum
Penguinn
Ridley.
scpinion
SirSkit
Sky Might Fall
Stacy
Star Sky
SubMindRaikou
terrors
The Excadrill
The Llama
TheTacoMan
Torpid
Trichotomy
Wanka
Waszap
Wyn

Tagging The Immortal to remove the COIL metric from the Monotype ladder. Thanks!