Metagame np: SM UU Stage 10.1 - Things That Scare Me (Mega Sableye remains banned, see post 37)

[Moutemoute]

Hey, guess who's back ?! I finally got my reqs and I think I can briefly give my thoughts on Mega Sableye.

I've been using this two teams while laddering :

The first team is the one I used for my match in UUPL (first week vs Charmflash) and I did pretty well with it. It allowed me to do my first 10 matches. Then I opted for the second team with which I am more comfortable. Both of its teams can deal with Mega Sableye pretty effectively thanks to Facade Mega Altaria and Firium Z Nasty Plot Infernape so I didn't struggle that much vs it.

However, I would like to point out something I don't like about Mega Sableye which is how how it's incredible for Entry Hazards support. Thanks to Magic Bounce, it can bounce back Entry Hazards but it also prevent Rapid Spin thanks to its Ghost-type which makes it insanely useful in Spikes Stacking team. I faced a couple of times Balanced Team with Spikes support and a powerful Setup Sweeper and it was super duper hard to deal with it since Tentacruel can't deal with Mega Sableye. The fact that this Pokemon is able to pressure almost any user of Rapid Spin / Defog is pretty nasty since you will struggle a lot to remove Entry Hazards from your side of the field vs a well played Mega Sableye. This Pokemon brings so much support to Pokemon like Moltres and Talonflame which allows them to perform better than ever in this metagame (especially Talonflame that I met quite a lot).

While I agree that Mega Sableye isn't as much broken as I first thought and it has some great checks / counters like Mega Altaria, Nasty Plot Infernape, Flame Orb Megahorn Heracross, Primarina or Sylveon, I also would like to point out that those checks can be handle with ease by Mega Sableye teammates. For example, Amoonguss shut down almost any kind of set of Mega Altaria and it can also deal with Sylveon (if Sludge Bomb) and Primarina to a lesser extent. Tentacruel is pretty good too and can check NP Infernape and Fairy-types if it's played with either Sludge Bomb or Sludge Wave. I think that Mega Sableye is trully amazing in BO / Balanced team and it brings so much to this team with so few downsides.

Overall I don't like at all the current aspect of the Underused and how Mega Sableye impact the tier.

 

[Yifeng]

Hi it's me, Bob, and after finally getting reqs (shoutouts to pokeisfun for giving me the best team ever), I've decided to vote ban on Mega Sableye and below is my thought process on why I've decided to vote ban on it.

Hide

 

[Stall is coming]

 

[Hogg]

View attachment 174665

You can post your reqs here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sm-uu-stage-10-1-voting-identification-thread.3650122/

 

[Nightingales]

Between work and a general lack of desire to do much of any serious laddering, I didn’t go for reqs. So disregard my opinion at will. Or don’t, I’m not your mom.

Also, 4am mobile posts? Time to catch some hands.

The biggest thing that I dislike about MSab isn’t that it’s hard to kill, a pain in the ass, whatever. It’s the brainless hazard control. I get that it’s pretty easy to keep hazards off against passive teams, but the double Defog argument falls flat because a) double defog doesn’t mean that hazards don’t even get on the field and b) you still can take damage from them. Sableye existing makes HAZARDS a 50/50. Do you know how dumb that is? Rocks are a necessity. Ask Kink, he’s the one I quote. So when a single mon can not only invalidate attempts at setting hazards by simply getting onto the field but also make even thinking of hazards a bad idea, I have an issue.

“But night, just kill Sableye and it’s easy to get hazards up!”

Congratulations, you’ve killed Sableye. Now you deal with the rest of the enemy team. And killing Sab isn’t as easy as that might sound, either. You could toxic it- wait, no. Hazards? Sure, find a way to get them up. This mon’s only way through it is to hit it harder than it can heal. And look at its weakness! It’s got one! It’s goddamn faeries!

Now I know that MAlt is pretty good, but not all of them are running DD Facade, so one good turn and it just burns. That’s it. Burns and leaves you to either try and set up, or switch. Which it might burn the switch. Your answer is to Pray half the time, especially considering that you’re not just dealing with MSab, you’re dealing with MSab and a team of shit behind it. So your Altaria might suddenly find itself facing down a fat steel. Bet that burn helped, right?

Maybe, MAYBE in a vacuum it might be a good addition. But this thing, when thought about as a mon in a team just takes things and yeets them over a cliff. Maybe we’ll land on our feet, but I think we should say Sablebye.

 

[teal6]

here is the team i used for reqs: https://pokepast.es/4d592a7efdaa728b

fairium z modest azelf doesn't even ohko sableye fwiw but most of the time they dont protect or recover on t1 because of skill swap potential. i used np doom cuz he was good in oras uu when regular sableye was good and he walls mega sableye too, but also it turns out his type and movepool and speed tier is outrageously good anyway in this tier (threatens celebi, mamo, sciz, can do good damage to alt, outspeeds lati, etc.). mamoswine is just really strong and has good priority so for HO thats what i wanted. scizor is broken as hell. celebi was to help with stall but can be switched or should probably be colbur. bisharp is a bp resist that puts out a lot of damage.

mega sab should be banned because its unfun and too good

 

[Jaajgko]

So I did some laddering with Sableye stall and clearly the only times I lost were to some wack shit, Facade Altaria and Haxorus. Clearly Sableye stall limits the stallbreaking options to only a few mons whereas before you could take advantage of Stealth Rock + good plays to get through stall. In this UUPL match, even though Osh didn't really have a great match-up against stall, he took advantage of Stealth Rock to chip away the opposing team until his opponent wasn't able to switch on his mons anymore. Which shows that the better player can still win against stall without having much prepared for it just through the power of stealth rock. However, had it been Sableye stall, Amaroq could've just switched around all the time without any risks. Letting Sableye drop in UU means that Hazards-based strategies to beat stall become very limited which I think will lead to an unhealthy metagame where you'll have to fear the stall match-up if you don't have Celebi / Facade Alty / Crawdaunt / Haxorus / some other bs. And I stated that Sableye teams weren't easy to build so building a good one would be rewarding but I feel that w/ Sableye you can easily spam a known team without much risks. So yeah I initially thought it would be a nice addition to the tier but stall teams are too big of a pain to deal with, even though Facade Altaria can often 6-0, it's just one particular set on one mon.

 

[Kink]

I honestly don't remember do council members even need to get reqs? It's been so long since we've done this... anyway I got them to be safe, used a generic kink team and had zero issues with any M-Sableye. The two competent users that I faced had a really hard time with long-term planning due to the constraints Mega Sableye puts on teambuilding. There are many small things I can point to, but it's literally as simple as this for me: interesting sets beat M-Sableye, and those same interesting sets are very viable against common cores/styles in this tier. Which means that the tier can adapt and it'll be a change that promotes even more versatility, and I love that, however, I really dislike what Mega Sableye does to force these interesting sets to come about: a radical change in the "feel" of the metagame, since the same old lovely mons are now going to be doing radically different things in many games, and something else will need to come in to fill that void.

For example, I used a really interesting CM Sylveon Rest Snore Hypervoice set (credits to Killintime) to hard-counter not just Mega Sableye, but a slew of other mons and built the team to support Sylveon's function (that same team got me 41-4 for reqs). This now means that Sylveon cannot use a staple and viable Wish/Tect set and if I need a cleric in that role, I need to turn to other options. Luckily, those options are viable, but the shift in the overall "feel" of UU felt different. Luckily enough, that team faced all kinds of different cores and playstyles and the one other major thing I noticed is that the choice between using Mega Sableye and its spiritual opposite Mega Altaria is a really, really hard one. Especially when we're talking about stall teams and overall role compression. To me, all this says is that "things will change". That's not enough for me to vote ban, and so I stand by my original decision to unban this freaky creepy gem-hoggin hazard-bouncin' gremlin.

Last thing, I've also heard a few people saying they don't necessarily find M-Sableye broken, they simply don't like what it does to UU. I'd like to emphasize a very important tiering philosophy that I also try to live by, despite the fact that thinking in these terms 100% means I tend to have less "fun" in this tier than I think I could have. We don't tier based on things we like. Nor do we tier based on things we dislike. If we dislike how the meta will adapt to it, by virtue of degree of its unbrokenness, that's kind of our problem, isn't it? Food for thought prior to making our final choices.

After giving this further thought, I'm inclined to ban Mega-Sableye. My own argument is insufficient as a reason to unban it. I can see why I thought what I thought during my reqs run, but after having the chance to battle and observe more users that knew how to use M-Sableye to its fullest, I can't see it having an overall positive affect on the tier. Apologies to anyone who previously agreed with me but, even if it looks a little silly, I can't allow an incomplete view of my thoughts and opinions persuade users into a decision.

 

[Smallsmallrose]

IDK if I'll get reqs at this point. (I'm drained from trying all week, I keep getting really close with like 30-something to 3 and 81 gxe but I manage to drop just enough games before 45 to lose reqs. Either by horrible frozen-Scizor level luck or me panicking from getting so close. Please council just make it 40 games next time my crops are dying) However, I do have some final thoughts to close out. My thoughts haven't changed TOO much from my last post, it's super safe. You can manually switch it in on most of the tier's hazard setters and spinners so most of the time when you're using Sableye you're in control of the game. I also retain my statement of it being able to handle more hazard setters than any defogger in the tier. There was one team here That I used on a 35-8 run that I decided not to keep because 4 of those losses happened at the last minute and I went on full tilt. The team's idea was to use double regen while using Sableye as sole hazard control, and honestly? It worked. The only time I felt threatened by hazards was if my Sableye took some unfortunate hax, or got lured by some weird offensive rocker Z-Pert or something else that I wasn't expecting. I even found ways to outplay some of the offensive hazard setters that people believed could still handle Sableye, such as Steelix, Krook, Mamoswine, etc. The first few games were fairly rocky (Pun intended) as I was trying to get a feel for it, but as soon as I really figured out how to play Sableye, hazard setters couldn't touch me. This is really busted with double regen btw, as 33% healing with no other chip from the hazards let me bring Amoonguss and Slowbro up to full almost instantly if my opponent wasn't constantly pressuring them. And that leads me into my next point. Did you guys just kinda......Skip over the fact that Amoonguss manhandles most Sableye answers? There was one game on ladder where a specs Prim user got really frustrated with me because it could basically never threaten my Sableye. I was able to chip it down with wisp, hazards, and careful Amoonguss switches after scouting with protect. Facade Alt had some big struggles with my Amoonguss as well. There was the occasional fire move alt that could handle both Sableye and Amoonguss, but those Alts were usually setup food for that Chandelure I have as well. All in all, the only Alts that threatened me were the extremely rare 3 attacks Alts, which usually had to have a hyperspecific move in the fairy slot like facade or a special move to not get messed up by a single burn. And even then those Alts usually had to have a cleric in case my Amoonguss ever got in on a non-fire move and spored it should I decide to do that over a burn. Its far harder to threaten Sableye than one may think. My team in general was great at taking advantage of fairies, through using them for setup for Klefki and Chandelure, and stopping any of the heavy hitters with Amoonguss. Not even the Togekisses on ladder could threaten me very well with Rhyperior and Klefki on watch. I used Sableye in a couple of my main runs on the ladder and honestly the Sableye team was one of my best performing. It covers such a huge pool of hazards on it's own and it can be difficult to threaten, and even the hazard setters it doesn't like, it can fight with crafty and creative play. Before I said Sableye was too "Safe" and that the biggest trait of it was that it could no-sell swap in on most bulky hazard setters and passive mons, but when you stare death in the face and use it more aggressively, in my case using it as a sole hazard measure to battle even the hardest hitting setters, it gets even scarier. I don't think I'll get reqs before midnight, but here's my final plea to anyone who may be on the fence, I'd recommend voting ban.

 

[Hogg]

Voting thread is up! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/usum-uu-suspect-process-stage-10-1-voting.3650248/

 

[spuds4ever]

Probably most people have already voted and I personally am unsure as to whether sab is broken or not but just some thoughts about how it would affect the metagame if it does stay (lol if it doesn't but i'm bored so w.e). I didn't see it very much on ladder but after using it, I think it's definitely gonna make passive balance builds and more reactive BO builds that often use hippo and enjoy a hazard advantage worse. I don't think this is necessarily bad as the former was already bad imo with mons like terrak and z-latias really able to capitalise on teams that don't really attack as well as scizor which I always find to be more of a headache to build around with fat teams cos nothing can really safely deal with all scizor sets throughout the match not to mention its pursuit capabilities, classic example of switching to mola thinking it's band n getting shat on by offensive SD sciz. The latter i don't think matters nerfing because I think it is probably the most dominant playstyle in UU given what I've seen from ladder and spl.

Stall will be better as it can simply go hazardless as some successful stalls have already shown is viable (thinking like shedinja stalls and such) and other styles will have to adapt their setters, e.g. SD Z cobalion, diancie, NP celebi for fatter teams, aforementioned skill swap azelf, SD terrak, LO mamo for more aggresive builds. Even with this, it's not as if the more passive setters could keep rocks up against fatter builds (i.e. the builds that would be running sableye in the first place) anyway. Gligar is always gonna defog on hippo for free, fat starmie can always spin on empoleon etc..

So I don't think sableye is gonna sway the meta balance badly in terms of archetypes apart from passive balance which I think was bad already, it is an adaptable threat and won't fundamentally change the hazard game outside of stall in the tier imo like some might think (and also like some thought it would when bisharp was retested). That being said, I do think it could be broken due to how difficult it is to punish particularly given how freely it switches in to so many pokemon (especially given that you probably won't have hazards up). Only one weakness means that you're gonna have to be willing to soak a wisp or a knock off even if you double in against it because only fairies can really force it out, your other option is running sub on set up sweepers and even then you probably won't be able to hard switch in. The only real punishes that aren't easily exploitable as far as I can see are facade mega alt, heracross or z-infernape which feels like a very short list for a mon that does so much with so little risk. Stuff like prima is also invalidated as a punish as rose's team pointed out by running protect. Edit, acc mega houndoom n absol also punish it n the latter can pursuit trap but these are also more niche but could be interesting to see them take off a bit. Final edit: CM klefki meta let's go

 

[Hogg]

The votes are in: Mega Sableye will remain UUBL! Thanks to all who participated in this suspect. You can view the vote results at https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/usum-uu-suspect-process-stage-10-1-voting.3650248/post-8129097.

And so, with Mega Sableye gone, I think it's time to ask a very important question:

Where do we go from here?

This is a very important question, and one that the council has been actively discussing for some time. We are in the final year of SM UU. I'm of the opinion that we've had a great run, and I'm very happy with the tier overall. But that doesn't mean that we just stop here! This is our last chance to get our house in order. Pearl and I have been talking a lot about the state of the tier, and we have some ideas of how to move forward from here. However, there is one big elephant in the room that needs to be discussed before we can move on:

SCIZOR

Scizor has been a major part of UU since day one, and since those early days of UU Beta, it has remained more or less the top dog (bug?) of the tier. Through countless metagame shifts, at our tier's most stable and at its most volatile, Scizor has always been a dominant threat. Nor has it been without controversy either; there have been several "ban Scizor" movements. And, frankly, there's a lot of good reason to ban it. It has cemented itself as the best 'mon in the tier for some time now, with incredibly high usage. It is nearly impossible to reliably counter, and probably warps the tier more than anything else. Swords Dance sets in particular are extraordinarily threatening, with bulky offensive Iron Plate and Buginium Z sets on the rise at the moment. There are very few 'mons with the ability to just completely turn games around in the way that Scizor can (Mega Altaria is probably the only competition it has on that front). It has some counterplay, but it's limited enough that I think there's a very good case to be made that Scizor really is just broken.

So why haven't we tested it? Well, the reason is simple: a lot of us feel that broken or not, there's a pretty good chance that Scizor significantly improves the tier by its presence. Banning Scizor would have significant ramifications, ones that could potentially destabilize the entire tier. There's simply too much power creep to reliably check all the top threats defensively short of playing full stall, and there is nothing in the tier that compresses checks to powerful threats more than Scizor. Right off the bat, Mega Altaria is already borderline banworthy in many eyes, and the sole thing holding it back is Scizor's 40% usage rate. Of course, broken checking broken is never a great argument and if Alt is that threatening than we can always look at it too, but follow the logic even further. What happens to Terrakion and Latias if Scizor and Mega Altaria go? Terrakion has about three reliable switch-ins total, but the fact that it's checked by the omnipresent Scizor and can potentially give MAlt setup opportunities provides a real opportunity cost to its use. And for that matter, how exactly do we reliably check Latias with those gone? Already Latias has the tools to break through most of its "counters" and has proven unphased by trends like Scarf Krookodile's meteoric rise last year. What happens when we remove two of its best offensive checks?

Basically, right now the 'mons at the top are balanced on the edge of a sword. It's precarious, but it is a balance. And so, a constant question that the council has been attempting to address is: has the balance tipped? Has Scizor reached the point where it is so centralizing and so threatening that it no longer has an overall positive effect on the meta? That's a really hard question to answer, but an important one. And with the release of Sword and Shield likely coming in under six months, it's a question we have to answer soon.

So as things are, the council has developed two potential paths for how to move forward for UU. One path involves suspecting Scizor and if it gets banned, focusing our last months on properly developing the metagame in a post-Scizor world. The other path involves making the formal decision to retain Scizor, and looking at hacking away at a couple of things on the UUBL list (and potentially reviewing some other problematic threats in UU). While we've been discussing this on and off for some time now, I've set a hard deadline of this Sunday, May 19 for us to come to a formal decision, because whatever we decide will take time to properly implement. As the community, I'd love to see your take on it as well.

 

[explodingdaisies]

I'm happy about the outcome. In regards to scizor. As much as I feel it can be overbearing at times, it pretty much is THE glue of the meta. Banning scizor (if it actually gets banned) would be the equivalent of opening Pandora's box. It is keeping the tier together. If you came to me 6+ months ago with the thought of banning scizor, I would have been a bit more open because then it would have given us plenty of time to get the tier balanced. But, with sword and shield on the horizon, I think banning scizor would be the wrong direction to take the meta and I doubt we have enough time to get the meta to a balanced state.

Just my 2 cents

 

[avarice]

I'm happy about the outcome. In regards to scizor. As much as I feel it can be overbearing at times, it pretty much is THE glue of the meta. Banning scizor (if it actually gets banned) would be the equivalent of opening Pandora's box. It is keeping the tier together. If you came to me 6+ months ago with the thought of banning scizor, I would have been a bit more open because then it would have given us plenty of time to get the tier balanced. But, with sword and shield on the horizon, I think banning scizor would be the wrong direction to take the meta and I doubt we have enough time to get the meta to a balanced state.

Just me 2 cents

Also v glad Sableye is gone, that thing was aids. Honestly I don't like the "glue" argument when there's still a fair amount of time left for damage control. I doubt RU would've started its suspect process if its glue mon in that of Gligar didn't rise (also Doublade and Steelix to an extent). Granted, Scizor is a much better pokemon as it had both offensive and defensive sets to choose from, but those rises for RU shook up the tier. Frankly I haven't played long enough to have a strong opinion on all the UUBL mons/Weather but that route looks promising too.

but I think its obvious which I'd be more willing to try

 

[Moutemoute]

Would love to see Underused doing the same than RarelyUsed by suspecting some UUBL

 

[Fusion Flare]

Would love to see Underused doing the same than RarelyUsed by suspecting some UUBL

I'm open for dropping Weavile. Not too broken imo.

 

[Estarossa]

Agree massively with moute that suspecting some UUBL could be a cool idea, been interested in seeing it ever since RU and then NU started doing it.

A fairly obvious way of dealing with scizor right now imo would be a separate no scizor ladder for a few weeks that would allow the ramifications of banning it to be most obvious instead of just speculating on what the reaction cascade would be, and then making any decisions after that, with the potential to make a few extra bans / unbans on that ladder every couple of days to see what happens and how it changes things (ie. banning m-alt/terrakion too etc), without actually affecting the main ladder.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I haven't played UU seriously in nearly a year and from a standpoint of judging whether Scizor is actually broken or not, I have nothing of substance to contribute. There is one thing, however...

So why haven't we tested it? Well, the reason is simple: a lot of us feel that broken or not, there's a pretty good chance that Scizor significantly improves the tier by its presence. Banning Scizor would have significant ramifications, ones that could potentially destabilize the entire tier. There's simply too much power creep to reliably check all the top threats defensively short of playing full stall, and there is nothing in the tier that compresses checks to powerful threats more than Scizor. Right off the bat, Mega Altaria is already borderline banworthy in many eyes, and the sole thing holding it back is Scizor's 40% usage rate. Of course, broken checking broken is never a great argument and if Alt is that threatening than we can always look at it too, but follow the logic even further. What happens to Terrakion and Latias if Scizor and Mega Altaria go? Terrakion has about three reliable switch-ins total, but the fact that it's checked by the omnipresent Scizor and can potentially give MAlt setup opportunities provides a real opportunity cost to its use. And for that matter, how exactly do we reliably check Latias with those gone? Already Latias has the tools to break through most of its "counters" and has proven unphased by trends like Scarf Krookodile's meteoric rise last year. What happens when we remove two of its best offensive checks?

I'm happy about the outcome. In regards to scizor. As much as I feel it can be overbearing at times, it pretty much is THE glue of the meta. Banning scizor (if it actually gets banned) would be the equivalent of opening Pandora's box. It is keeping the tier together. If you came to me 6+ months ago with the thought of banning scizor, I would have been a bit more open because then it would have given us plenty of time to get the tier balanced. But, with sword and shield on the horizon, I think banning scizor would be the wrong direction to take the meta and I doubt we have enough time to get the meta to a balanced state.

Just me 2 cents

Hahahahahahahahahaha, NO. Again, you guys are cool dudes and you are infinitely more knowledgeable about the inner workings of UU than I could ever hope to be, but this logic is straight

. For the sake of making this argument more concise, let's assume Scizor really is broken. Ok, so it's busted, but you're hesitant to ban it since its removal could send a lot of other things over the edge. As Hogg has admitted, that's called a broken-check-broken metagame, and that's a state no tier or format should ever reach. But if UU really has reached that state, then what? Well, think of it this way. Let's assume Sword and Shield release sometime in November, like most mainline games have typically done. Let's knock out the month of May since it's basically halfway over already, and let's assume June is the slot for the hypothetical Scizor suspect. When all's said and done, you got about 4 and 1/2 - 5 months to make any tiering decisions/suspects needed in a post-Scizor meta. Now, I ain't no TL, and I get there's other factors to consider like tournaments and real life shit the leaders have to do, but I think that should be just enough time to handle Latias, Terrakion and Mega Altaria. And if we have to carry out suspects/bans after Sword and Shield's release, so what? Changing up the banlist in previous generations is nothing new in the slightest, and it's become less of a taboo in recent years especially. The goal of Smogon tiering is to make competitive metagames, and if banning Scizor and whatever else would become broken in lieu of its absence would make the tier more balanced and competitive but the playerbase nonetheless rejects that opportunity in spite of knowing of the boons it could bring, that seems pretty antithetical to what we're trying to accomplish with this system in the first place.

Also, hell no to more UUBL suspects. Focusing on Scizor and fixing up any faults in the current meta is much more important than endlessly satiating our new toy fetish. The only exception should be if the mods and supporters of said unbans can come up with heavily researched, compelling reasoning that these unbans would make the tier BETTER. Besides, it literally hasn't even been 6 hours since the Mega Sableye retest ended in a ban, and you want MORE retests? Goodness gracious, have patience!

 

[CBU]

Would love to see Underused doing the same than RarelyUsed by suspecting some UUBL

free dnite

 

[Sickist]

free dnite

no don't please

Anyways, on the quick note of restesting UUBL's, which would be following the footsteps of RU and NU, I don't think there are actually any things that are legit retestable. The reasons they were banned still stand, as not much has changed against their favor in UU, so retesting would be a mistake in my eyes, unless we install some weird complex ban, not allowing Salamence and Gyarados to hold Flyinium+(Bounce or Fly, respectively), (which are the only reasons they were broken), which as a whole will never happen, due to it being a complex ban that doesn't really mean anything as a whole and would be borderline impossible to implement anyways. Moral of the paragraph: Restesting UUBL's is probably not a good idea.

As far as possibly suspect testing Scizor, I'm going to shadow explodingdaisies's post, and say that this is also not that great a move considering how close we are to Gen 8. Now personally, I don't think Scizor is quite bannable, and that it would effect the meta in a positive way, i.e. making alot more things disappear from UU, such as Mega Altaria and Terrakion. However, in the instance of it being suspected and banned, I think what explodingdaisies said summarizes it best here: the metagame wouldn't have time to even balance from the loss of Scizor, and it would make Gen 7 UU crumble into small bits of rubble. Not exact quoting, but you get the gist. Personally, I think the best step from here is to let the metagame settle down after the Sableye suspect, and see if any major factor stands out, i.e. Terrakion, for example. I won't say anything more about Terrakion then using it as an example, but interpret it as you want. Overall, I think the best step UU as a whole tier could take is to a breather and let the metagame take it's course before jumping on the suspect wagon RIGHT BEFORE the next generation.

Personally tho, on one last note for UUBL retesting, a complex ban with Gyarados not being able to use bounce+flyinium, as well as Salamence not being able to use Fly+Flyinium would be dope, and Gyara/Mence would be cool additions to the tier in my eyes. Anyways, peace!

 

[Freeroamer]

If I’m totally honest I think Scizor is definitely broken but it’s less so right now than it has been in previous iterations of gen 7 UU, and this conversation is happening way too late to have anything come of it that’ll benefit the tier in the long run.

Scizor literally is the identity of this tier at this point. I’ve made posts in previous np: threads about how dumb it is with regards to how much pressure it places on every kind of build but it’s done this since gen 7’s release and gen 8 is max 6 months away so why consider changing this now? At this point making teams and realising you’ll have to dance around x Scizor set or rebuild cos it thrashes you feels like the hallmark of gen 7 uu.

yeah Altaria and Terrakion and a bunch of other threats would become dumb but I’m confused at why this is an argument for keeping Scizor in the tier. If I had said in the Sableye thread that Moltres or any other Stealth Rock weak pokemon will be broken so we shouldn’t unban Sableye I would’ve had at least 3 responses telling me what awful logic that is. Same with literally any other suspect. Apply the same logic to every mon on the table. The only reason this is a valid counter argument now is because as said before there isn’t time to deal with the ramifications of a potential Scizor ban. Even beyond the obvious examples everyone can spot, a change this big will have unexpected effects and things you wouldn’t even have considered will come at you and be potentially problematic. The time remaining isn’t enough to go through this process.

I would’ve loved to have this conversation in more detail earlier, but I think the potential damage of a Scizor ban allied to the limited time left in gen 7 renders it pretty moot, even if I think said damage is part of why it’s broken. Please god don’t let this metagame become like ORAS, I don’t think it’s amazing at current but it’s perfectly playable and if it was captured right now it would be a reasonable addition to UUPL and Classic and whatever else.

 

[justdrew]

I concur that Scizor is broken. It has Kommo-like versatility where no one Pokemon checks all of its sets. But if you've been playing competitive UU for over year you can probably agree that you have gotten used to it. The Scizor ban itself is fine but what worries me is the slew of other bans that will come with it.

We have less than half a year until the new generation which means we need to move fast. I don't like the idea of having a bunch of consecutive suspect tests because that seems like a very draining process. What I propose is a "New Meta" tour in which we ban Scizor and the most likely to be broken Pokemon as well (it's looking like Mega Altaria, Terrakion, and Latias). This will be a standardn Gen 7 UU single elimination just like UU Open. In a tour setting I think the playerbase can gain a better understanding of this potential meta because of more competitive gameplay than ladder. If we can get enough players for a 6-8 round tour in which we seriously analyze this potential meta it will be far better than potentially 4 consecutive suspect tests which will be time-consuming, frustrating, and possibly a turn off to some of the more educated and experienced players.

 

[Sickist]

I concur that Scizor is broken. It has Kommo-like versatility where no one Pokemon checks all of its sets. But if you've been playing competitive UU for over year you can probably agree that you have gotten used to it. The Scizor ban itself is fine but what worries me is the slew of other bans that will come with it.

We have less than half a year until the new generation which means we need to move fast. I don't like the idea of having a bunch of consecutive suspect tests because that seems like a very draining process. What I propose is a "New Meta" tour in which we ban Scizor and the most likely to be broken Pokemon as well (it's looking like Mega Altaria, Terrakion, and Latias). In a tour setting I think the playerbase can gain a better understanding of this potential meta because of more competitive gameplay than ladder. If we can get enough players for a 6-8 round tour in which we seriously analyze this potential meta it will be far better than potentially 4 consecutive suspect tests which will be time-consuming, frustrating, and possibly a turn off to some of the more educated and experienced players.

If you like this idea drop a like in support :)

I agree with most of the stuff here except for 1 major thing: Latias being banned after Scizor leaves.

While the others are questionable (or not, just outright broke), Latias has ALOT more counterplay and checks, and I believe with Scizor leaving, would open up alot more checks for Latias, such as Bronzong, Alomuk, Registeel, etc. Even with it's better sets being stuff like Electrium to lure said steels, the more the better. Overall, I don't feel anything else should be done to Gen 7 UU, but if it were to be that Scizor and co. is removed, Latias should stay, unless after a while we determine otherwise.

 

[Fusion Flare]

I agree with most of the stuff here except for 1 major thing: Latias being banned after Scizor leaves.

While the others are questionable (or not, just outright broke), Latias has ALOT more counterplay and checks, and I believe with Scizor leaving, would open up alot more checks for Latias, such as Bronzong, Alomuk, Registeel, etc. Even with it's better sets being stuff like Electrium to lure said steels, the more the better. Overall, I don't feel anything else should be done to Gen 7 UU, but if it were to be that Scizor and co. is removed, Latias should stay, unless after a while we determine otherwise.

*see mega steelix switching in on lati for free and cursing to high heaven or straight up oofing it with gyro ball*

 

[pokemonisfun]

Scizor should get a suspect now

1) It's the best sweeper in the tier and Bullet Punch means you need to have solid answers to it, not just playing around it. This really warps teambuilding in the tier, most notably by the use of Magneton which is otherwise almost completely outclassed
2) It can cheese through some of its answers like Quick Attack plus hazards kills Infernape and badly hurts Manectric, boosted Z Superpower annhilates Aggron, and Fury Cutter stomps on Quagsire

Scizor suspects have been requested many times before. Council has always declined, for justifiable reasons. I expect they will decline again, probably citing UU Open as a primary excuse (but we always have tournaments....like UUPL literally ended a week ago, this is a lazy reason in my opinion). I don't expect this to get traction but I might as well try. Please suspect Scizor!

I was just reiterating what many people thought of before of me. That was June 22nd 2018.

Everything Hogg and others have said on concerns about only 6 months left for the tier is valid and I agree with.

Nevertheless, it rings hollow because it lacks the context that we have been asking Scizor suspects for over a year, with the only response being "wait longer (for legit reasons)." And now when it comes to it, you are going to tell us there's no time left?

Hmm...