Announcement np: SS OU Suspect Process, Round 12 - Monster Mash

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Remember the key point that I've (as of now) made and highlighted three times is that Melmetal beats things 1v1. Not that it forces things out (although it definitely does this) and not that it 6-0s teams.

You also appear to be making the point that even though Melmetal can beat everything 1v1 that it somehow simultaneously can't beat everything 1v1. Which of those is true? It can't be both of them!
Melmetal wins the first 1v1, and loses the second. Yes, theoretically it can beat nearly every 1v1, but only once in a match. Sacrifices are almost always essential to win any game, regardless if theres a Melmetal or not.
Also, Magnezone beats things 1v1 too. It traps steel-type pokemon, and kills them. It also deals considerable damage to next pokemon sent out too. Dragonite, Nidoking, Zapdos-Galar can also win countless of 1v1s thanks to their strength or coverage. Is beating loads of 1v1s yet only once really a reason to warrant a ban?

Blacephalon and Lele lose 1v1 to loads of Mons that are faster than them. Off the top of my head - Garchomp, Weavile, Koko, Dragapult, Kartana to name but a few, let alone surprise scarf mons that can win the 1v1. In addition they also lose 1v1 to lots of defensive mons like Heatran, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Corviknight, Toxapex and of course Melmetal itself.
Scarf Blacephalon and Lele can easily murder most of these faster mons, while Specs can kill these defensive mons. Theres no true way for the opponent to figure out which item you’re running before you attack. Besides, why would you stay in when facing such mons? Blacephalon and Lele wallbreak with specs or clean up lategame with Scarf. Losing specific 1v1s is not important to them, they win so many other 1v1s which is why they’re strong. You have 5 other pokemon to add on a team anyways to defeat theese weaknesses.

Melmetal wins 1v1 against many things you intuitively think it wouldn't such as Garchomp, Landorus, Hippowdon, Toxapex, Zapdos, Slowbro, Victini. You just stay in, tank the hit and KO frailer mons in return with your unboosted hits, and use your other options to get around the walls.
It has big longevity issues. All chip done to it, whether stealth rock or moves like volt switch or u-turn, eventually weakens it until it actually begins to lose the 1v1 with these mons. It wants to run leftovers for recovery, but its then passing up on the damage of Choice Band, the special defense assistance from Assault Vest, or the protection on contact moves from Pads.

It has so many moves it wants to run, but only 4 moveslots to put them in. Without TPunch, it dies to slowbro, without EQ, it dies to Victini and hates toxapex, without Ice Punch, it has limited options to deal with Landorus and Zapdos, without Superpower, it dies to Ferrothorn and other steels, without rock slide, it dies to Volcarona, without Toxic or Thunder Wave, it cant threaten its walls nor setup sweeper and without Protect, its difficult to scout what Choiced mons will do.

You normally need two Mons to take Melmetal down - it's clearly too good.
The same can be said for literally anything that runs band, scarf or specs or can setup, sometimes you have to sack a mon just to safely revenge kill.
 
Remember the key point that I've (as of now) made and highlighted three times is that Melmetal beats things 1v1. Not that it forces things out (although it definitely does this) and not that it 6-0s teams.

You also appear to be making the point that even though Melmetal can beat everything 1v1 that it somehow simultaneously can't beat everything 1v1. Which of those is true? It can't be both of them!

Blacephalon and Lele lose 1v1 to loads of Mons that are faster than them. Off the top of my head - Garchomp, Weavile, Koko, Dragapult, Kartana to name but a few, let alone surprise scarf mons that can win the 1v1. In addition they also lose 1v1 to lots of defensive mons like Heatran, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Corviknight, Toxapex and of course Melmetal itself.

Melmetal wins 1v1 against many things you intuitively think it wouldn't such as Garchomp, Landorus, Hippowdon, Toxapex, Zapdos, Slowbro, Victini. You just stay in, tank the hit and KO frailer mons in return with your unboosted hits, and use your other options to get around the walls.

You normally need two Mons to take Melmetal down - it's clearly too good.
My man I'm sorry but I really can't take you seriously when reading your comments, it just comes across as trolling. The main thing you need to keep in mind- and not in a way that is a manner of opinion, but as a fact of the tier- is that this is a 6v6 metagame. In a 6v6 metagame, the 1v1 is only a matter of the matchup and turn-by-turn trades where multiple factors need to be accounted for. The 1v1 only ever really matters in a 6v6 format if there are very few checks to something which constricts answers to a very narrow pool, and even then that is more along the lines of being 6-0'd which still takes into account the 6v6 format ironically. The entirety of what you said has been centered on the idea of the 1v1, when in reality it needs to be centered on the idea of the 6v6. So of course it is going to take more than one pokemon to beat Melmetal, this shouldn't be a surprising or overwhelming fact at all.

With that in mind, the bottom line that should be picked out of this suspect test so far is that Melmetal:

1). Has a lot set variety, and is therefore sometimes difficult to scout.

2). Has incredible bulk that can be leveraged in its favor.

3). Is very splashable.

But also that:

1). It does have a lot of set variety, but one set isn't efficient in every matchup and most teams have multiple opportunities to account for its sets.

2). Its incredible bulk often times has to be leveraged defensively when checking big ticket threats.

3). Even though it is very splashable, it can't do everything at once.

Melmetal is in fact a very strong Pokemon, top 5 easily, but it isn't broken in the way you describe it at all (even though there can certainly be a case elsewise). I wish I had enough time and energy to push ladder but I'm rather burned out with this tier, having played it for 2 years but feeling like I really got nowhere fast. However, I think it's safe to say that I stand with the Do Not Ban sentiment.

(P.S)

I really don't understand why this needed suspect tested in the first place to be honest. Its flaws are inherently obvious, and though its natural advantages make it very dangerous on paper, in practice it is a little more limited. This is specifically because of its own leverage when attempting to fill roles in the teambuilder other than just being pure muscle. However, I am thankful for the clarity that this discussion is bringing and I am firmly confident Melmetal will not be banned.
 
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I don't expect I have the time nor the Gen 8 OU skill to ladder and make Reqs, so the following is moreso me musing and maybe seeing if it provides any food for thought to add one more perspective to the ongoing discussion.

Something that came up a couple pages back and sparingly throughout the thread is the idea that Melmetal has 4MSS due to its limited coverage when running Protect and/or Toxic on top of its obligatory DIB for STAB. 4MSS is a term I see used in a lot of different contexts and manners, so for the sake of consistency I will outline what I consider 4MSS to be and will be applying it as for any subsequent talk I make.

4MSS: Describes the situation in which a Pokemon with a given set is considered to have notable checks, counterplay, or other shortcomings introduced by the inability to run more than 4 moves in its pool simultaneously.

What sets this apart from simple versatility is that the Pokemon is considered to suffer in performing its primary function rather than generally performing adequately-or-better regardless of what 4 moves the set elects for (usually then just determining edge cases or just a few specific match-ups with the non-locked-in moves).

So the reason I want to outline this is that I almost feel, on a Mon-scale level, Melmetal illustrates some aspects of this trait itself. Melmetal is a Pokemon that can 1v1 or soft-check almost anything relevant in the tier when played well, but due to lacking recovery and/or having notable trade-offs to mitigate Chip Damage (Pads deal with Contact but leave Hazards and any direct hits to chip, while Leftovers are gradual and make DIB a bit riskier), but outside of getting an extremely advantageous play, whether due to mispredict or general team match-up landing favorably, usually that will be the extent of Melmetal's contribution and it falls on the rest of the team to capitalize.

In light of this, most teams the role of Melmetal is probably best suited to gearing it to cover a few significant holes (i.e. does my team need more back-up for Weavile, for Drag, for Lele, etc.) while providing some additional leeway against others that it can contribute to but isn't necessarily your answer to. Melmetal's set is obviously locked in at the beginning of the battle, so save for some mind games to gain advantage with a bluff or a threat, if the things your set is best suited for are absent from the opposing team, Melmetal is simply going to pull less weight than usual. This may or may not be a problem depending on how the team is composed, but neither the build nor the execution guarantees Melmetal simply WILL trade for something, you have to know what he can get when observing both teams and make that progress before the opponent wears him out or neuters him with a Burn or such. Melmetal has a ceiling that allows him to potentially trade every game, but it requires playing well above the "floor" level, with his suited-ness to the opposing team determining how well that will have to be.

Every single time a versatile Pokemon is suspected, 4MSS gets brought up as a reason for why it's not as strong as people say it is.

In a video explaining why Elena is so strong in Ultra Street Fighter 4, Bafael makes a point that I feel has a lot of parallels to suspect discussion:

"The only real weakness she had was a reliance on meter. [...] But reliance on meter is the most pretend weakness ever. It wasn't that Elena needed meter or else she didn't work. Instead, it was Elena having so many great ways of spending meter between her great EX moves and FADCs that it was hard to choose which ones you wanted."

I have no stake in this suspect, nor the meta knowledge to justify a stance one way or the other, but even I know that trying to argue that versatility is a weakness is just... incorrect.
I want to respond to this old post in particular because I think the comparison to USF4 Elena sounds a bit flawed, as someone who is mostly going off the provided quote (I have to watch it proper when time permits, as I type this in parts) and isn't very familiar with Fighting Games, unless the quote in question is the extent of the comparison for the sake of this discussion.

The primary issue I take with this comparison is that compared to 4MSS, this sounds as if Elena will have access to all of her options, Meter-based or otherwise, going into any match (by which I mean you don't pick and choose a load out of only some of them that you will then not be able to use at any time during that fight), and the strength of her performance then is that whatever she is up against, she has a wealth of options of which something she can access at the moment will allow her to respond with.

4MSS (not even just in the context of Melmetal) feels like a very different comparison because your Pokemon is decided before your battle begins. You can at best pick based on trends or predict based on past-play by an opponent, but if your Melmetal ideally wants Toxic this match and yours has Ice Punch, or the T-Wave set and yours has AV, there is nothing to do for it but play out the sub-optimal match-up in question. This is what I think most defines the 4MSS limitation: The Pokemon WILL NOT be able to do everything it wants to while only having 4 moves available. Versatility in Pokemon isn't quite of the same nature because it only serves you consistently during the team-building stage, but the options are static and limited to what you built out of a larger option list once a battle begins.

This may also be why the argument can get so murky: Does a Pokemon have 4MSS in the context of the Metagame at large, or strictly on how the Mon fits into and supports/is supported by its team? If Melmetal will always lose to something with having to pick its set, but can be tailored such that its team handles 90% of the game and one build it runs will cover the other 10%, is that 4MSS limiting it or simply dictating what set suits the team it's slotting into? It reminds me a little of how I think of Lando-T, an offense-oriented Pokemon with surprising defensive utility, that can serve as a glue for several key parts of a team but can't be stretched too thin per match across those parts.

I think it fair to consider that Melmetal's nature isn't going to make him the kind of "I have to prepare for everything in particular" monster some previous offensive-ban Mons have been, but also that he does have the capacity to do several jobs for a team as needed. I think a large part of the discussion comes down to how much value is placed on a Pokemon with this type of offensive/defensive utility, where its assumed performance, even when played extremely well, is usually to contribute heavily to "just" 1-2 Pokemon being beaten on the opposing team, rather than having a hand in contributing against the whole team directly as might be thought of Hazard Control mons (weakening overtime and pressuring item choice on top of it) or Offensive Cleaners (who might take out a large number of mons but only after the game has given them a leg-up rather than managing to take many down on their own). Between that and the "end of gen" tiering concerns, I feel this test is also seeing a lot of influence from its timing and context outside Smogon that wouldn't swing things to the same extent if Gen 9 wasn't due out until Holiday 2023 instead.
 
Melm switches into a lot of mons.
Melm can win 1v1s from full vs the majority of the tier.
True!

But...
  1. The mons that it doesn't reliably 1v1 are easy to fit - Zap, Corv, Buzzwole, Slowbro, Washtom, BalloonTran and Pex all help with a team's Melmetal matchup and are all super common anyways thanks to Kartana, Weavile, Urshifu, Garchomp, etc.
  2. Getting Melm to below 50% is easy - Rocky Helmet users, Iron Barbs and Rough Skin, Spikes, Volt Switches, Knocks and moves that it wants to come in on in general all do significant chip to it. Sure, Melm can switch into a Dragapult's Shadow Ball or a Lele's Psychic but it'll very quickly be in range to die after one or two more hits.
  3. Melm loses to almost every good mon when it's below 50% HP, even if its opponent is, too. Excluding all the stally mons, there are very few mons that can't revenge kill a 45% Melmetal. Down the VR you'll see a lot of mons that don't want to trade from full but do want to revenge kill once it's weakened. Lando, Pult, Heatran, Weavile, Chomp, Kart, Lele, Zapdos, Koko, Ttar, Volcanion, Skewda, Blaceph, Excadrill, Rilla, Victini and Volcarona are all A- or above offensive mons that will always outspeed and always revenge kill Melmetal.
  4. Melm's restrictiveness in the builder is outweighed by the options it allows. This goes for Landorus and Heatran, too - having solid defensive and offensive options to cover a sizable portion of a metagame can actually help other mons thrive. Many of my more creative teams will use Melmetal to fill holes in teambuilding that few other mons could do. If glue mons like Lando and Melm were to be banned, teams would naturally be split into much more full-on defensive teams or full-on offensive teams with less room for inbetween, and hence less variety.
When thinking about a suspect mon-less meta i think:

>Would it be more varied?
>Would it be more fun?
>Would it be less luck-reliant?

I feel a Melmetal ban would actually reduce teambuilding freedom as it fills a unique glue role in the meta for a wide variety of team styles and hence would result in a less varied meta.
I feel a Melmetal ban would result in a less fun meta since not only would variety and creativity be reduced, but more defensive teams would thrive, and there would be no more funny double iron bash to click.
I feel a Melmetal ban would not affect luck elements of the meta, since it's a pretty straightforward mon with almost all of its moves 100% accurate, its multihit move being guaranteed to hit twice instead of being a range, its moves' secondary effects do not come into play any more often compared to the average OU mon.


Its wallbreaking power isn't unreasonable for a tier with Lele, Weavile, Urshifu, and Kartana, especially given its much lower speed than those guys.
Its defensive power is below that of its competition as a defensive steel in Ferrothorn and Corviknight, as it lacks reliable recovery and has poor spdef.
Its unpredictability isn't unreasonable when compared to Mew, Dragapult, and Tornadus.

Melmetal is not broken, and I will be voting Do Not Ban.
 
So for this Melmetal suspect i will be stating my opinions here on why i think it should not be banned, Melmetal may be controversial but i do not believe that it has become threatening enough to warrant a ban.

I've gathered multiple justifications:

1. It is preventing many many threats from being unhealthy, and some may even become so restricting that they may warrant quick bans, these pokemon are
- weavile: with weavile's high versatility, melmetal was keeping it in check because it was one of its only reliable switchins, given the current state of the metagame, weavile is also preventing alot of pokemon from being restricting, (dragapult, dragonite, garchomp, etc), so melmetal gone would cause a chain reaction of suspect tests which is always horrible for a balance metagame.
- dragapult: now dragapult is another extremely restricting pokemon with choice specs but, with melmetal gone the dragon dance set would be unhinged, the dragon dance set's only real counter is melmetal especially if its weakness policy, or unaware clef, which brings me to the third pokemon, clefable
- Clefable: clef is already a problem as is with its many many sets like trickbarb, cm, etc, it would become extremely oppressive and difficult to handle that the entire metagame would centralize around it and many many nasty sets like cosmic power would arise ultimately resulting in a suspect test.
- Tapu lele: perhaps the most dangerous(but not most unhealthy) on this list, is lele, lele has very limited switchins especially specs psychic and scarf, which melmetal is good at keeping under control, if melmetal goes, this will result in multiple complaints about tapu lele, ultimately resulting in a suspect which is again, horrible for a good metagame
- Tapu fini : last but not least, tapu fini, the calm mind set, the trapper set, melmetal was good at checking this, if melmetal goes this becomes more common and while its not going to be suspected, it would ultimately make the metagame more boring and discourage many many users from playing


2. Forcing progress:- This metagame severely lacks pokemon that force progress vs defensive teams which results in a stale and boring metagame, cinderace, kyurem, dark shifu, are gone, it is sad to see breakers just being extinguished from the tier, u essentially want a metagame with breakers, breakers are healthy for a metagame the definition of breaker meaning it has counter measures but it also forces progress when it comes in, melmetal gone would result in a defensive metagame with almost no effective breakers and the tier would be a very lame wasteland full of stall, it is ultimately healthier for melmetal to stay inthis metagame as it is the staple alongside landorus therian holding ss together by keeping multiple pokemon in check, just like heatran which brings me to my third point.

3. It is a staple of the tier: There has been awhile since the ou tier has had a solid staple like landorus therian, heatran and ferrothorn have come close but melmetal i feel completes this tier, as it fits well on many great teams that can be fun to play with and against, and have highly anticipated moves, melmetal overall just makes teams much more complete and defines balance, it can fit on any playstyle given its great sets and is healthy for this metagame to survive the defensive wave, and balance out the tier with offense/defense, we dont want too much defense involved, otherwise again the tier would be in shambles.

4. There are many many more restricting aspects in the tier that can be looked at, for examples:

Regenerator: the ability that in my opinion ruined this tier specifically, forcing teams to run threats just to stop regenerator cores specifically or just get switched on in an never-ending vortex, a regenerator clause should be considered here. Limiting teams to 1 regenerator user would resolve this issue.

Toxapex: again another pokemon made stupid by regenerator, the fact that this pokemon wasnt suspected before melmetal is beyond me, it is forcing powerful ground/psychic/electric attacks to be on every team or a taunt user, all because of its extremely restrictive movepool, tspikes, knock, scald, recover, etc, low risk high reward almost completely killing rain teams and HO.

Heavy Duty Boots: in my opinion the most restrictive and broken thing in competitive pokemon HISTORY!!!! THIS item ruined competitive singles and made alot of unnecessary pokemon raise to ou, go to ubers, or become restrictive themselves, for example dragonite, zapdos etc. I absolutely DEMAND that this item gets suspected in the future if melmetal was even considered C rank, this item must be suspected, it has killed an entire playstyle and buffed 2 so much that the tier has become almost unplayable, entry hazards were a crucial part of the game , sticky webs was a fun playstyle, and hazard stacking teams were a legitimate strategy (still is but nerfed), those who complain about entry hazards are only the stallers, correct me if im wrong, it was a great and crucial part of competitive singles, and the boots ruined everything.

Weavile: perhaps the mon most worthy l of a suspect or discussion other than torn, the only counter to lifeorb at +2 after a spike was defensive melmetal, imagine how broken this would become, its deadly stabs combined with its signature move had it not been able to miss wouldve probably gotten it quickbanned.

Tornadus-therian: if my arguments came true for boots and regenerator, it would fix this issue, the boots + regen make torn extremely dangerous and unhealthy, and it makes the metagame near unplayable.


5. Melmetal has the world of counterplay and measures especially offensively to keep it in check , many many checks, flame body tran + corv, knock users + steel birds, zapdos with static, blace can offensively check it, volcarona too, urshifu, even garchomp, specs pult, victini, any fire type really, blaziken, etc, and its extremely slow, all melmetal has is bulk and power, speed is an essential and absolute MUST to truly make a mon worthy of a suspect, and melmetal doesnt have it, anything checks it offensively, again to me power is not an argument as that is the definition of a breaker and as i stated above the tier needs more breakers as we are losing them, everybody else would suffer from how horrible this metagame would become and only stallers would benefit.

Conclusion: i am defiant in keeping melmetal in this tier as i would like to save this tier from dying completely and i am willing to take drastic measures here, now that ive given light and insight to the newer players that think melmetal is okay, i will be giving out teams to them =) all the do not banners, y'all gonna get free unreleased teams just hmu ;D, help me save this tier from getting tanked once again just like the kyurem ban's severe metagame backlash. (A bit selfish here but i really care about this tier)

As always, please dont let stall and boredom thrive =) test the defensive restrictions, leave melmetal alone.

And on a positive note, i hope this is received well and my justifications are taken into consideration, these are my thoughts no filter, thanks again =)
To check the mons you mentioned, you'd need to run a bulky set, with av/leftovers, which kinda excludes the breaker role.

1) Weavile
If bulky melm is the only thing keeping your team alive, the best it can do against standard weavile is to force it out in exchange for it's leftovers, after which it is liable to get chipped down. God forbid the weavile is choice banded, because after switching in to one knock off, all it takes is one predicted low kick to then lose it. It can't even beat life orb if it takes a small amount of chip.

252+ Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 181-214 (38.1 - 45.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Weavile Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 298-352 (62.8 - 74.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 128 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 313-370 (70.6 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

2) Dragapult
Sure you can check dd sets, but only like 24% of dragapults are dd, compared to specs, which is around 50%. And again, if av melm is the only thing on your team keeping pult in check all it takes is one shadow ball drop, or a flamethrower burn to lose your check.

3) Clefable
This might be the only mon which always loses to melmetal 1v1. Trick variants will give melm trouble though.

4) Tapu Lele
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Focus Blast vs. 128 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Melmetal: 272-320 (61.3 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

5) Tapu Fini
Melm is also a good check to fini, although getting tricked might be annoying.

I agree with most of your other points, and the fact that toxapex hasn't been tried yet makes me want to believe the "SOmG0n LOves StaLL!1!!!" conspiracy. There are tournament viable teams where half the team is regenerators and 4/6 hold Heavy Duty Boots, yet no one wants to ban/limit them at all. Hazards were nerfed enough with so many pokemon getting defog (fun fact: defog kartana was an actual viable set in gen 7). Honestly all of this just comes down to too many defensive pokemon having regen and abusing boots. Torn-t and slowbro in particular are just free momentum generators since they can't even be chipped by rocks. Even limiting boots to only one per team would greatly improve this tier.

I think melmetal is great as an offensive pokemon, but the amount of variance in it's sets is still keeping me on the fence about it.
252+ SpA Heatran Eruption (150 BP) vs. 128 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Melmetal: 338-402 (76.2 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 

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I'll be voting DO NOT BAN since I feel Melmetal restricts its own presence already. You are either forced to run an insane amount of speed on a very slow pokemon and can't invest much anywhere else or opposing Melmetal will outspeed you which is a huge disadvantage in the 1vs1. In addition to that you need to run speed anyway if you wanna outspeed Mons such as Gastrodon, Hippowdon or Reuniclus which can be crucial. Of course Melmetal is a good pokemon with high potential and a very nice tool to trade health for a kill / Toxic or break rather bulky teams while having a good natural bulk. However, it doesn't really counter anything defensively. It is barely a softcheck to stuff like Lele, Weavile, Clefable (CM) or Dragapult and it kinda needs Leftovers + Protect to be somewhat consistent vs those (and as I mentioned previously you'll have a tough time investing in sdef AND speed at the same time). The meta atm is also well equipped for Melmetal with lots of Helmets and Flame Body. Melmetal is great, but I just don't think it is broken at all.
 
In my opinion, I think Melmetal should be banned. There are not a lot of good counters to it, because of its huge defense stat. Although it does have a low special defense stat, with an assault vest it can still take a few hits, and return it with much more damage. Another one of my biggest factors is that it gets access to T-wave. Even if you do have the best Melmetal counter, you might also get unlucky and be fully paralyzed, and thus not be able to kill it.
 
I will be voting no ban.

I believe the main issue people have with Melmetal is that it is able to sponge almost any hit from a Pokemon supposed to check it, and OHKO it back thanks to its great coverage.

Though teams naturally have a lot of checks:

:landorus-therian: :magnezone: :slowbro: :zapdos: :toxapex: :corviknight: (:skarmory:) :buzzwole: :volcarona: :rotom-wash: :heatran: :ferrothorn: :gastrodon: :scizor:

It's actually hard to build a team without any defensive counterplay. Most teams are able to pivot around it and always have ways to weaken / kill Melmetal given how slow it is.
 
Unlike all the other suspects I've played, this one has a special one, from MY perspective;
I didn't notice any team focused on supporting Melmetal to play its "broken" role, I rarely even saw it, and when I did it was a generic glue that limited you to using another Slow Steel type. (Demerit of some opponents? Perhaps.) Cinderace was a foot in the @$$ individually, even though you knew what he would do 99% of the time, Kyurem was impossible to prepare against...
Sure, Melmetal hits like a horse but it's a high-risk, high-reward breaker in a tedious metagame full of Regenerator and Boots wherever you go. The current list of Sample Teams has only one team with Melmetal out of 11.
Although I have been inactive for some time, this is my view after getting the merits for voting and watching some battles. And well, we already have excellent posts that show enough responses and counterplay, and how Melmetal is a healthy addition of Breaker. So I'll go to Do Not Ban and hope that in the future of gen 9*, defensive threats will also be noticed. Yeah I know if it wasn't for the release of DLC1 Clefable would probably get banned from that metagame, Boots and Slowtwins always being controversial and wtf Quick Claw still does in OU?
Btw, TL;DR: Melmetal must remain in OU.
*This is not a criticism to the council, on the contrary, the creation of the surveys and greater voice of the members compared to previous generations show an evolution that could have saved us from things like Tornadus-T Gen 6, the controversial ones involving Mega Sableye and Arena Trap and anticipated past suspects of Zygarde.
 
So I'm 50 games in (though only actually got to play 48 of them because of my potato Internet), not sure if I'm actually going to qualify to vote (though am comfortably 1400s atm), but having used Melmetal in almost 50 games straight I figured I'd at least get my experience with Melm out there. Having finally experienced what it's like to play Melmetal, I already have this conclusion: Melmetal is not broken. Like, at all.

Now, Melmetal is undeniably a great Pokemon, but it also has some very noticeable issues in practice.

:Corviknight: :Landorus-Therian: :Tapu Koko:
1. Melmetal can be rather hard to position.
One of the things that has been brought up regarding Melmetal is its bulk, which allows it to often tank even a super effective hit and crush the attacker in return. To repeat that, it can take a super-effective hit. Usually just one, if that. This, coupled with Melm's naturally low speed, means that it is often very important to keep Melmetal healthy, which ends up being rather restrictive when it comes to actually getting the thing on the field. This basically mandates multiple pivots on your team to safely get Melmetal in; that isn't unreasonable, but the fact Melmetal is a fat mon that can't actually switch in reliably against most Pokemon means its bulk isn't as much of a selling point as you might think. "But doesn't Melmetal have 10 resists and an immunity?" you ask.

:Heatran: :Buzzwole: :Ferrothorn:
2. A lot of the meta naturally shits on Melmetal.
Now, I tend to have a lot of bad luck on the ladder, not just in the RNG sense, but also in how a lot of ladder runs for me tend to get cut short through repeat random countertech or inherently bad match-ups (if I don't qualify to vote, it'll probably be because frustration over this). So maybe it's just my bad luck acting up again, but a lot of matches I've experienced this run were not very receptive to Melmetal. And it wasn't that the opposing teams were weird structures meant to specifically screw Melm or anything; for the most part, the teams I ran into above the bottom rung of ladder were generally what you'd expect. It just happens that a lot of solid team structures naturally make Melmetal somewhat underwhelming in practice. Sure you can generally come in safely against Clefable, Glowking and Lele, but you could also just- use Heatran, who notably doesn't have to worry about Flamethrower and often ends up overall tankier because it doubles up on a lot of key resists. Speaking of, Melmetal has only 3 weakness. It just happens those weaknesses are all really good offensively, in part because of how annoying other Steels like Heatran and Ferrothorn already are, so a lot of teams naturally carry some if not all 3 of those banes. And even if these were random countertech options, they'd still probably be used for those other Steels.

In short, Melmetal doesn't really dictate the tier that much. Sure, Clefable would definitely be better if it wasn't around, and you'd have to slot Tran or Ferro if you wanted a fat Steel for Lele (how unreasonable.), but most of the meta wouldn't change that much in viability if Melmetal were removed; checks like Lando and Heatran would still be dominant, Rocky Helmet Buzzwole would still be in demand for Weavile, Urshifu and Kartana, Ferro would still be able to bullshit its way around the likes of Weavile and Koko. Most of the stuff in place would be that way with or without Melmetal. This definitely isn't a case like Dracovish or Darkshifu where the attacker places a very obvious strain on the tier, Melmetal just happens to encourage a lot of naturally good sets.

:Urshifu-Rapid-Strike: :Blacephalon:
3. Melmetal's illusion of choice.
The line that decides whether something is too unpredictable or has 4MSS is a thin one, as it often won't be immediately apparently which category a stronger mon falls into. Melmetal definitely seems to be the first kind on paper, sporting not just a solid movepool but also the ability to viably run a bunch of different items, which would surely make a serious difference on whether a team can handle Melmetal, right? Possibly, but for me personally I rarely felt that my particular Melm set made that much of a positive difference. I have used every main Melm set, and in practice I didn't really feel much of a difference between them; sure, Band will score a few more KOs and AV will occasionally live a hit the other sets can't, but generally something that's good against one set will be good against the others and a mon that gets blanked will do so against most of Melm's sets. Changing a Melm to the Protect set may ease your match-up vs Blacephalon, for instance, but it isn't going to suddenly give your team a good Blace match-up. In interest of fairness, here is every game out of my 30+ wins where my particular Melm set made a substantial difference:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1686737417
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1688071689
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1688902761-x258n490v3kpvldmc4u674ry76v859fpw
~~~​

So to recap, Melmetal requires careful positioning and support, is naturally handled by generally solid team styles and while it has a variety of sets, each set usually only affects a few match-ups. In other words, Melmetal is a Pokemon that has a great reward yield but requires very careful play and the right match-ups for the user to consistently get results out of it. Melmetal is a prime example of a Pokemon that rewards good play, but without that good play often struggles in a way other strong attackers like Weavile, Urshifu and Kartana don't; even when those attackers have a bad match-up you can usually get at least something out of them reliably, even if just a single Knock. Even on the receiving end, I honestly didn't ever find Melmetal unreasonable to deal with like I did with stuff like Heatran and Kartana (which might be because of the balance/bulky offense teams I was using, I admit). On its own, Melmetal definitely isn't broken, and with how I don't think much would change if you took it out, I would argue it hasn't really twisted the tier enough to be unhealthy.

:ss/Weavile: :ss/Urshifu-Rapid-Strike: :ss/Blissey: :ss/Buzzwole: :ss/Kartana:
But on that note, I did want to quickly bring up one more thing: the fear that Melm getting banned would make stall too dominant. First, stall being dominant is not automatically a bad thing; I hate stall, but I acknowledge that's just personal preference. Second, I don't think stall would really be much better off. Because while Clefable would definitely be better off without Melmetal around, I doubt Blissey, another Pokemon that is very afraid of Melmetal, would. Because as long as all of Buzzwole, Urshifu, Weavile, Kartana, offensive Garchomp, offensive Lando, Zeraora, and even Specs Lele and Taunt Heatran are running around, Blissey is inherently going to be stuck as okay but not great. And Blissey is kind of really important for hard stall, so as long as Blissey itself is only okay, stall is not exactly going to have it easy.
 

ausma

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Hi everyone, I'd like to pitch my thoughts on Melmetal. Just yesterday I managed to get reqs after a lot of hours of frustration and unrelenting RNG. I'm happy to say I finally got it, but I played upwards of 200 games on the OU ladder which, despite being frustrating, really let me fully assimilate my thoughts on how to use Melmetal and also how to play against it.

From the perspective of an OU council member, I supported the suspect primarily because there was a great share of survey support to suspect it specifically and because there isn't really anything else I feel is overtly destabilizing the metagame. In spite of how I personally was (and still am) very in the DNB camp, I thought giving it a further, formal investigation via a suspect was conducive in a lot of ways. This is mainly because its influence on the metagame is very abstract due to its share of sets, access to status, and the obscene flinch odds of DIB often changing how it interacts with its array of checks, and by extension, changing how said checks opt to interact with it over the course of the game. Looking at it in a vacuum, it is undeniably a top tier and an arguably broken threat, but imo the reasons why it's top tier and the types of structures we see it on are super key to analyze in this discussion, because it speaks volumes about what Melmetal actually does in this metagame.

___

What does it do, ausma smogon?

The post-Kyurem metagame has in my eyes been the best competitive quality and most fun the tier has been since the start of the generation, and bluntly, I think Melmetal actually contributes to that positively. In essence, it is a Steel-type tank that has the ability to take advantage of key Pokemon with its superb resists and raw bulk to either make progress and/or break serious holes depending on the matchup. Barring this, Melmetal also has specific strengths, such as boasting the incredible feat of OHKOing Clefable without a damage-boosting item being necessary and DIB giving it serious flexibility as an offensive threat into 99% of the metagame due to its flinch odds and obscene power.

A lot of people view the SS OU metagame as being somewhat matchup fishy, and while that's a whole other discussion, I think that descriptor is fair. There are a lot of Pokemon in the metagame that have attributes that are obscenely polarizing (Dragapult, Tapu Lele, Heatran, etc) but can be held back through specific team choices (Blissey, Slowking, Dragonite, etc) that may not be the most comfortable fits on your desired structure. Obviously those are very linear examples, but it's the acknowledgment of threats and not wanting to actively shiv your team's game-to-game quality that forces reactive role compression, and in doing so often means sacrificing some reliability into certain matchups.

However, I think what's amazing about Melmetal is that it actually really grants teams with the resilience and options to respond to a gigantic amount of the threat pool while being a juggernaut progress-maker itself. It's a glue, much like Landorus-T or Ferrothorn, but takes a much more extreme direction by simultaneously being a wallbreaker and tank, which allows it to excel into most matchups in a way that's a godsend on a majority of balanced teams. It's for this reason alongside the more nuanced interactions that come from its offensive profile and set options that lead me to feel that Melmetal is actually healthy for the metagame.

While the above regarding its merits are a bit of an over-simplification, the balance of offense and defense Melmetal packs, alongside no immediately exploitable weakness and great set options to support its team, really is game-changing for balance and bulky offense. Melmetal is capable of gluing these structures through shoring up poor matchups with raw bulk, power, and coverage. Even if it isn't always enough by itself, being able to guarantee a trade, pressure bulky Water-types with Thunder Punch + Thunder Wave, or lock a vital Toxic into Pokemon like Zapdos or Slowbro means that it can always provide a smart teambuilder and player a path to victory even in the worst of matchups.
___

Doesn't this support why it is broken? Why isn't it?

On paper... it should be, and typically it is in practice since this attribute is often-times seen in polarizing setup sweepers that require very little to get out of hand (think Spectrier or Magearna), or simply have too much they can do with too little overlapping counterplay (think Kyurem). However, Melmetal is very different in this regard because 1: it's very rarely a setup sweeper (only being so with IDPress under the right conditions) and 2: its overlapping counterplay is why it has taken so long for us to really realize how amazing it is at its job.

Melmetal manages to balance its obviously phenomenal strengths with serious drawbacks, which makes these strengths amazing and undeniably versatile, but not necessarily banworthy imo. When you Toxic a Zapdos or Slowbro, Melmetal may have just made progress, but it did not win the 1v1 whatsoever, especially since it likely is missing out on super effective coverage, and is also vulnerable to adverse contact effects without Protective Pads. Whenever you land a Thunder Wave into Corviknight and Toxapex, Melmetal suddenly excels into your walls, but chip damage becomes irreversible without dedicated team support, and it cannot afford to pivot into the omnipresent Knock Off lest it grows vulnerable to Rocky Helmet and friends. You also have your now-paralyzed Pokemon that likely has defensive leverage into Melmetal to pivot into Thunder Wave if it tries to keep spreading status. The point I'm trying to make here is that while its progress can be unstoppable (that's part of why it's good lol), you absolutely are not lost for options to respond to it, and more often than not, the Melmetal player needs to be smart and deliberate to really find gamebreaking value with those sets due to Melmetal's inherent drawbacks (namely its Speed which causes its value to diminish as it takes more damage). And yet, despite that, sometimes it can't even do that because it doesn't have the best set and coverage for the matchup. Yet, because of its strengths, it can still put in work, and that's what makes its sets consistently good and powerful (duh). In fact, every structure has options into Melmetal to some capacity, and while it's a Pokemon that demands respect, teams absolutely can respond to it. It can become horrifying once teams are worn down, but I can name a ton of Pokemon that fit that requisite that also have safe options to respond to potential switch-ins (Dragapult, Weavile, Tapu Lele, Kartana, Tapu Koko, Urshifu-R, etc).

I see a lot of people questioning why this suspect hasn't happened sooner, and the answer is that, because of the above, it's taken really long for it to really, fully come into its own in DLC2, only really hitting its stride in this year's WCoP onward. All of these sets we see Melmetal pack have actually existed for a long time, only really having recent deviations in terms of specific coverage options, EV spreads, and usage. The main pro-ban reason that I most empathize with comes in terms of set variety. However, its intersecting checks, Speed (actually critical in this discussion), lack of recovery, and undeniable need of time and progress to get out of hand (by which point it may be too late) really stop that from fully actualizing in a way akin to Kyurem.

I think a lot of people have already discussed Melmetal's weaknesses and the nitty gritty of them quite extensively, so I won't repeat too much more of that, but I highly suggest reading through the thread to get a good read on them.
__

Consensus

To me, I don't think Melmetal is broken, and if anything I think it's healthy. Is it amazing and flexible? Without a fucking doubt. Is it going to be able to carve enough progress and use DIB to win games? You bet. But given the severity of its flaws, I can't really see a world where it's too much for the metagame, especially given that it's actually a massive boon for it in a lot of ways.

My last thought is that I'd heavily encourage posters here to try making a team either around Melmetal or with Melmetal, and then give it a shot. I think a lot of perspective comes through when actually utilizing it. Whether you feel it's still broken, if you feel it isn't, or if your opinion changes outright, Melmetal is the kind of Pokemon whose strengths and weaknesses are a lot more pronounced in practice due to how nuanced many of its strengths--and its limitations--actually are. I believe this is conducive for everyone; if you haven't tried it yourself, I really suggest doing so.
 
To check the mons you mentioned, you'd need to run a bulky set, with av/leftovers, which kinda excludes the breaker role.

1) Weavile
If bulky melm is the only thing keeping your team alive, the best it can do against standard weavile is to force it out in exchange for it's leftovers, after which it is liable to get chipped down. God forbid the weavile is choice banded, because after switching in to one knock off, all it takes is one predicted low kick to then lose it. It can't even beat life orb if it takes a small amount of chip.

252+ Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 181-214 (38.1 - 45.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Weavile Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 298-352 (62.8 - 74.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 128 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 313-370 (70.6 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

2) Dragapult
Sure you can check dd sets, but only like 24% of dragapults are dd, compared to specs, which is around 50%. And again, if av melm is the only thing on your team keeping pult in check all it takes is one shadow ball drop, or a flamethrower burn to lose your check.

3) Clefable
This might be the only mon which always loses to melmetal 1v1. Trick variants will give melm trouble though.

4) Tapu Lele
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Focus Blast vs. 128 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Melmetal: 272-320 (61.3 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

5) Tapu Fini
Melm is also a good check to fini, although getting tricked might be annoying.

I agree with most of your other points, and the fact that toxapex hasn't been tried yet makes me want to believe the "SOmG0n LOves StaLL!1!!!" conspiracy. There are tournament viable teams where half the team is regenerators and 4/6 hold Heavy Duty Boots, yet no one wants to ban/limit them at all. Hazards were nerfed enough with so many pokemon getting defog (fun fact: defog kartana was an actual viable set in gen 7). Honestly all of this just comes down to too many defensive pokemon having regen and abusing boots. Torn-t and slowbro in particular are just free momentum generators since they can't even be chipped by rocks. Even limiting boots to only one per team would greatly improve this tier.

I think melmetal is great as an offensive pokemon, but the amount of variance in it's sets is still keeping me on the fence about it.
252+ SpA Heatran Eruption (150 BP) vs. 128 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Melmetal: 338-402 (76.2 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Just gonna give my two cents on this "smogon loves stall" conspiracy stuff:

As far as boots are concerned, I've never been one to think we should bring back item clauses. There are certain strategies that were nerfed because of them yes , but was that was all negative? Absolutely not. Boots themselves gave viability to stuff that we would have been rarely seen in OU otherwise on top of the massive changes we received when gamefreak cut content from previous games. I also think it's a bit contrary to infringe on an item's use when smogon has historically rarely if ever used item clauses in the OU formats.

The problem with boots isn't totally clear cut either, as it coincides with regenerator. Some have pointed out they think it's more of a defensive versus offensive broken-checks-broken scenario between the two, which is something I strongly disagree with. Regenerator has added a buffer for the power level of the tier thanks to entries like Dragapult, Melmetal, and Urshifu-R and returning faces like Kartana, Tapu Lele, and Heatran. As much as I think Regenerator has been pretty overtuned this gen, I never thought it totally ruined the metagame at all. It adds a level of protection and scouting for a tier with a high power level.

Without much more complicated opinioning, the whole "smogon loves stall thing" is a joke and nothing more.

(P.S.)

Random sidenote, Is it just me or are all the content creators trying to make melmetal out to be more than it is? lol
 




Hey everyone, the OU tiering council has decided to retest Melmetal.



Melmetal has become one of the most controversial and storied Pokemon in the history of SS OU. Melmetal was initially quickbanned within two days of being released, but then retested soon thereafter only to remain banned in a close vote. As the generation progressed and more Pokemon were released, Melmetal eventually returned to OU. It finally settled into the metagame, where it remained as a strong option for nearly two years. Finally, recent discussion amongst the playerbase and councilmen accompanied by survey results showing significantly increased support for action has led to us suspecting the Iron Basher, putting its tiering placement under scrutiny one last time this generation.

Now that we have seen the metagame with Melmetal present for nearly two years, it has become a more stable and known entity rather than an albatross. Melmetal absolutely has its flaws in terms of speed, durability, and being limited in terms of moveset coverage. However, it makes up for these flaws through sheer strength and innate physical tankiness. The juxtaposition of characteristics that it presents is unique, making its unique tiering history unsurprising and its evolution in the metagame as time elapses understandable as it clashes with other options as physical attackers and Steel types.

When it comes to Melmetal, there are a number of sets it can use; we see a good distribution of each set as well rather than one or two being the predominant variants. For example, recently we have seen an uptick in Substitute Melmetal and Assault Vest Melmetal. The former can be accompanied by running three attacks, which burst out onto the scene during OLT, or the classic Acid Armor set, which is a relic that recently retained more interest as well with a very low floor, but scarily high ceiling. Assault Vest is a good way to pivot into strong special attackers like Dragapult and Tapu Lele and achieve surprising 1v1s like beating offensive Heatran. Substitute and Assault Vest sets are not quite the most common on Melmetal, however, as we see Protect + Toxic with Leftovers and two attacks -- commonly Double Iron Bash and Earthquake -- plenty as well. The Protect + Toxic variants are especially dynamic with Magnezone support, which can remove problematic presences such as Ferrothorn, Skarmory, and Corviknight. Another option with three attacks that we have yet to mention is also Thunder Wave, which helps Melmetal outrun many more opposing Pokemon and make the most of flinch chances with Double Iron Bash. These sets tend to run Double Iron Bash, Superpower, and Thunder Punch, which grants it more widespread coverage. When you drop Protect, you may also encounter Protective Pads rather than Leftovers as this removes the chance of taking Rocky Helmet, Rough Skin, or Iron Barbs damage while also evading status from Flame Body and Static. Finally, more niche options like Choice Band and Life Orb can be seen with extreme support such as Trick Room, which simply hopes to maximize damage output in a shorter window of opportunity.

Melmetal's adaptability can span further than just the aforementioned set mix as well as different spreads can allow for many different uses of Melmetal. For example, the mono-Steel typing allows for many resistances and only a handful of weaknesses, which makes checking choiced Tapu Lele, Calm Mind Tapu Fini, and Slowking-Galar feasible with some investment in its lower special defense stat. On the flip side, running more attack can allow for Melmetal to become even more potent on the offensive side as coverage moves like Superpower can sufficiently dent Ferrothorn, Thunder Punch can increase likelihoods to 2HKO bulky Water types, and Double Iron Bash can dent even the sturdiest of walls or force recovery on certain resists. With high attack and Iron Fist, it is no shock that Melmetal can be a premier physical threat. It can go even further, too, as with paralysis support on the set or throughout the team, speed investment can also allow for more interactions where Melmetal's Double Iron Bash attacks first, too. This gives Melmetal a great chance to flinch foes, which compounds well with paralysis chances to make Melmetal challenging to take down. A lot of these paths are opened up due to Melmetal's high base HP stat, which allows for investment to be used elsewhere in the grand scheme of things.

Unfortunately, Melmetal can only do so much at the same time, which makes choices such as EV allocation, item slotting, and movesets crucial towards maximizing your Melmetal on each team. Without enough bulk, Melmetal can be worn down quickly by special attackers, even if they are using moves that are not super effective. This can be amplified by losing out on Leftovers recovery, especially if the moveset lacks Protect. On the flip side, survivability can be cut without Protective Pads if you run into the wrong Rocky Helmet users or a prickly foe -- there is no assuring that Melmetal will be hanging around particularly long in any given match-up. Without enough coverage and attack investment, it is easy for things like Buzzwole, Corviknight, Skarmory, Slowbro, Ferrothorn, Zapdos, Rotom-Wash, or Volcarona to prove themselves as short- or long-term checks depending on what specifically Melmetal is lacking offensively, too. Even when Melmetal carries what it needs, it lacks the immediacy to remove bulkier threats in one-shot with coverage moves, which can lead to progress being undone due to the slower nature of Melmetal.

Some of these shortcomings can be remedied by team support, which continues to land Melmetal on novel structures as it remains a primary option in the tier. Recently we have seen Grassy Terrain support to make it healthier while weakening opposing Earthquake users. Other options like Wish Clefable and anti-Spikes Defog users such as Tornadus-Therian and Zapdos have also proven handy on the right team, too. However, this does not always make up all of the difference needed for Melmetal to be as durable and consistent as it needs to necessarily be broken in the metagame. While Melmetal is undoubtebly a strong option and one of the best Pokemon in the tier with many unique attributes, does this alone mean it is banworthy? No, what truly would make it banworthy is lacking sufficient counterplay as the games run their course. That much is in the eye of the beholder as Melmetal truly has unmatched strengths in this metagame with such a unique profile, but it also has shortcomings holding it back at the same time.


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GXEminimum games
8050
80.249
80.448
80.647
80.846
8145
81.244
81.443
81.642
81.841
8240
82.239
82.438
82.637
82.836
8335
83.234
83.433
83.632
83.831
8430

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Melmetal should be banned and for only on reason. It's hard to predict against due to its extreeme versatility and excellent coverage options. Double Bash does way too much damage. It's also slow, but with t-wave support not quite slow enough. It also gets It's flinch rate far to often and is immune to toxic. If assault vest wasn't an option I'd say he should stay, but pokemon's should not have to play heatwave, flame thrower, or Mystical Fire just to deal with ferrothorn and melmetal. (Rillaboom has prio and so does Weavile) even Landorous can't exactly deal with it if being forced to switch constantly and that is with INTIMIDATE. His godly attack and HP stat is ridiculous when paired with vest. Also his fist moves his at insane levels to even bulky mons like Tapu Fini. I've been staying for months due to it's versatility that he is too over powered for the tier. It literally has an answer for everything regardless of set choice. A good screens user, t wave user and or defogger make him go brrrr. The main problem is his weakness are also is extreemly easy to cover fire, fighting, and ground are all covered easily in one mon by half of OU (Ex: Zapdos, Latios & Latias, Tapu, etc) so in conclusion due to its amazing move pool, natural Uber defining stats, and VERSATILITY; I'd say he has to go. Also, It's fairly easy to cover it and he's brainless to use. He hits just as hard naturally as plus 1 SD Kartana, but with way more bulk and better (If not the same use) in coverage. This is a no brainer. I'm sure in Uber it will find use. Lando finds use in Uber setting up rocks and ish (I don't play Uber much but when I have, I have seen it more often than you'd think) pult gets use in Uber. I think Melmetal should be in Uber tier. 2 years has been long enough. This thing is just qs good as Kyurem. The only difference is Kyurem needed support to maximize his greatness. This thing can slide on damn near any team available.

So my vote is. BAN MELMETAL

Or ban DOUBLE IRON BASH and make him play iron head like every other steal type and he can stay. Bash is the real problem it plays through Substitute etc. Hits hard so etc.

Pros to keeling him in tier are he checks a lot of offensive sets that without his presence will spike the use of a lot of other mon such as DD pult and more. Or take away one of the Punch options either ice or Thunder punch like we did flygon after gen 4

I will be voting no ban.


I believe the main issue people have with Melmetal is that it is able to sponge almost any hit from a Pokemon supposed to check it, and OHKO it back thanks to its great coverage.


Though teams naturally have a lot of checks:


()


It's actually hard to build a team without any defensive counterplay. Most teams are able to pivot around it and always have ways to weaken / kill Melmetal given how slow it is.
No one play skarm anymore, Thunder Punch 2hkos pex, with excellent coverage mon and ice punch he demolishes Landorous, scizor went to uu for a reason, without heatwave or a miss zapdos looses or will only cripple it or force the switch which they will have answer for zapdos of they don't suck. Slowbro is meh but is a check. Buzzwhole same but his psychic weakness is annoying and most switches that cover him loose to melmetal, so Tran, corv, Horn, and zone are only real checks here. Obviously any high special attacker with a fire move will check it, but if they play something who can absorb them easily like heatran or pex it doesn't matter. Mel causes constant switches which allows racked SR, spikes, and toxic damages. It also on the right team that protects it is always the most potent mon. The fact that thing hits just as hard as plus 1 SD KARTANA is beyond me and that's with no set up. Yall are tripping

Melmetal wins the first 1v1, and loses the second. Yes, theoretically it can beat nearly every 1v1, but only once in a match. Sacrifices are almost always essential to win any game, regardless if theres a Melmetal or not.


Also, Magnezone beats things 1v1 too. It traps steel-type pokemon, and kills them. It also deals considerable damage to next pokemon sent out too. Dragonite, Nidoking, Zapdos-Galar can also win countless of 1v1s thanks to their strength or coverage. Is beating loads of 1v1s yet only once really a reason to warrant a ban?





Scarf Blacephalon and Lele can easily murder most of these faster mons, while Specs can kill these defensive mons. Theres no true way for the opponent to figure out which item you’re running before you attack. Besides, why would you stay in when facing such mons? Blacephalon and Lele wallbreak with specs or clean up lategame with Scarf. Losing specific 1v1s is not important to them, they win so many other 1v1s which is why they’re strong. You have 5 other pokemon to add on a team anyways to defeat theese weaknesses.




It has big longevity issues. All chip done to it, whether stealth rock or moves like volt switch or u-turn, eventually weakens it until it actually begins to lose the 1v1 with these mons. It wants to run leftovers for recovery, but its then passing up on the damage of Choice Band, the special defense assistance from Assault Vest, or the protection on contact moves from Pads.



It has so many moves it wants to run, but only 4 moveslots to put them in. Without TPunch, it dies to slowbro, without EQ, it dies to Victini and hates toxapex, without Ice Punch, it has limited options to deal with Landorus and Zapdos, without Superpower, it dies to Ferrothorn and other steels, without rock slide, it dies to Volcarona, without Toxic or Thunder Wave, it cant threaten its walls nor setup sweeper and without Protect, its difficult to scout what Choiced mons will do.




The same can be said for literally anything that runs band, scarf or specs or can setup, sometimes you have to sack a mon just to safely revenge kill.

This is true, but the aforementioned is exactly why it's too good. Like fortress with rapid spin. It's just too good at doing its role. No matter which route you take with him you'll always be able to bring out the best of that set by building around him its able to come in and out to easily imo and the opponent is forced playing around it the entire match regardless. That is an issue with momentum. Sure your right pivot is very helpful, but most volt switch users (the better pivot are not seen) and u turn doesn't do enough damage

I'll be voting DO NOT BAN since I feel Melmetal restricts its own presence already. You are either forced to run an insane amount of speed on a very slow pokemon and can't invest much anywhere else or opposing Melmetal will outspeed you which is a huge disadvantage in the 1vs1. In addition to that you need to run speed anyway if you wanna outspeed Mons such as Gastrodon, Hippowdon or Reuniclus which can be crucial. Of course Melmetal is a good pokemon with high potential and a very nice tool to trade health for a kill / Toxic or break rather bulky teams while having a good natural bulk. However, it doesn't really counter anything defensively. It is barely a softcheck to stuff like Lele, Weavile, Clefable (CM) or Dragapult and it kinda needs Leftovers + Protect to be somewhat consistent vs those (and as I mentioned previously you'll have a tough time investing in sdef AND speed at the same time). The meta atm is also well equipped for Melmetal with lots of Helmets and Flame Body. Melmetal is great, but I just don't think it is broken at all.
I think its too good because you have five other mons to cover it. He's good enough to where you opponent has to play around it the entire match. His coverage options are very good and it can fit on nearly any team with little thought. I think the real issue is it's excellent coverage and bash does too much damage. So melmetal itself isn't exactly the problem Bash is. Also it had access to t wave and assault vest. Pivot with u turn doesn't do enough damage and it's immune to toxic. So paired with something immune to ground and excellent a defogging (zapdos) is insanely hard to deal with

To check the mons you mentioned, you'd need to run a bulky set, with av/leftovers, which kinda excludes the breaker role.


1) Weavile

If bulky melm is the only thing keeping your team alive, the best it can do against standard weavile is to force it out in exchange for it's leftovers, after which it is liable to get chipped down. God forbid the weavile is choice banded, because after switching in to one knock off, all it takes is one predicted low kick to then lose it. It can't even beat life orb if it takes a small amount of chip.


252+ Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 181-214 (38.1 - 45.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Weavile Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 298-352 (62.8 - 74.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 128 HP / 0 Def Melmetal: 313-370 (70.6 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


2) Dragapult

Sure you can check dd sets, but only like 24% of dragapults are dd, compared to specs, which is around 50%. And again, if av melm is the only thing on your team keeping pult in check all it takes is one shadow ball drop, or a flamethrower burn to lose your check.


3) Clefable

This might be the only mon which always loses to melmetal 1v1. Trick variants will give melm trouble though.


4) Tapu Lele

252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Focus Blast vs. 128 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Melmetal: 272-320 (61.3 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


5) Tapu Fini

Melm is also a good check to fini, although getting tricked might be annoying.


I agree with most of your other points, and the fact that toxapex hasn't been tried yet makes me want to believe the "SOmG0n LOves StaLL!1!!!" conspiracy. There are tournament viable teams where half the team is regenerators and 4/6 hold Heavy Duty Boots, yet no one wants to ban/limit them at all. Hazards were nerfed enough with so many pokemon getting defog (fun fact: defog kartana was an actual viable set in gen 7). Honestly all of this just comes down to too many defensive pokemon having regen and abusing boots. Torn-t and slowbro in particular are just free momentum generators since they can't even be chipped by rocks. Even limiting boots to only one per team would greatly improve this tier.


I think melmetal is great as an offensive pokemon, but the amount of variance in it's sets is still keeping me on the fence about it.

252+ SpA Heatran Eruption (150 BP) vs. 128 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Melmetal: 338-402 (76.2 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
I agree with you completely, but as a lover of the pex I can't agree. One Regenerator per team is fair. Regenerator, boots, plus fast taunt is very good I agree. However, I don't think getting rid of Melmetal would kill the tier. It would force balanced teams for play differently. However, I am not a player of your caliber and may not be seeing what you mean. I think the issues with Melmetal is its coverage options. It has ice punch and Thunder Punch and Bash hits extreemly hard. I'm on the fence on this one. However, the mons that answer it are ones you don't want to play. I don't dislike stall and hazards (I agree with boots/should be limited to one per team.) With spinners, defogger, and boots hazards have been weakened. However, knock off users and spin blockers are helpful. Also fast taunt users. Pex isn't as offensive and melmetal so players will think it's fine because they don't realize it's survivability is too good. However, pex has more counters imo opinion than metal. Regieleki, psychic users, earthquake, Ferrorhorn etc. I believe horn is more annoying for rain teams just as pex is. Leech is ridiculous. Forces way too many switches. Anyways, my issues with melmetal is its versatility. Assault Vest set is utterly ridiculous because it can tank hits almost too well and win every 1v1 which really matters. Iron Bash plays through Substitute too well and completely walls all DD users. It's access to ice punch and Thunder Punch, Toxic and T wave are insane. Its flinch is damn near auto win at the right moment. It's immune to toxic has extreemly useful resistances and had basic easy to cover weakneses. Is Weavile nuts, yes, but it does have a crippling weakness to all entry hazards possible. So for hyper offensive teams (I get your point there. However, weavile has been in OU for years, so I agree with you and don't want to be biased) although, our Dark and Ice coverages suck in this game so I think Weavile is even more stable than Melmetal. It also forces a lot of switches and dents anything with NO set up at all. The biggest thing Melmetal has to worry about is Spikes that's it. It's counters can easily be handled. There are so many good Levitaters. Fighting is easy to cover, so it's low special defense is the only real draw back. I believe access to Assault Vest and Ice punch are ridiculous. Also it gets T-wave and even Earthquake. I think another real issue is Iron Bash itself and not just Melmetal himself. However as for Weavile, I agree. Band/SD is insane or even LifeOrb adamant is insane. Tho it can't come in and out that much due to its crippling spikes, SR problem. Can it close games, yes, but it is very easy to handle when you know how to play against it. Melmetal is never easy to deal with. I do like your arguments yours have been the only to make me possibly reconsider for the sake of the meta as a whole. However, I think it's versatility is the issues. Weavile has one role. Pex has one role. And so on. Melmetal has one million roles. I don't want to sound bad, but after testing Gen 8 for a min; I'd say it's a bit too good at attacking and defending all in one mon. Also as for able you are right, but scizor and iron head would just see more play again? Or fast taunt users? I wouldn't necessarily call that stall? (I'm asking)

So far I like this format, but recently I have notice Melmetal to just be aggravating as I feel it just does too much damage with Double Bash. It also sponges to well and volt turn isn't around a u turn doesn't do enough. As for pads (I don't like pads) just gotta play around what you know has helmet. I'd rather have Vest or sub 3 attacks. Tho sometimes you need him to break through the helmet user, but that's my point. It's has godly stats, godly movepool, great typing, excellent ability, amazing STAB and its pros far out weigh its cons. When I look at that and the fact it's been 2 years and nearly a year since Kyurem; I do believe the ban could be possible. Or maybe an agreed community nerf. Why do we have to ban it in general? Is it possible to ban a specific set or move option or coverage/item option. We gotta' get with the times.
 
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Hi everyone! I also managed to get the requirements for voting.

OUTD Segr. Eelda
segretaria_vote_Melmetal.png


Overall, I think Melmetal is a great Pokémon, but it definitely is much less broken than other Pokémon in the current metagame (Urshifu Rapid-strike and Rillaboom to name a few). While it certainly has strong defensive stats and an amazing ability, Melmetal suffers at most the Rocky Helmet users due to its Double Iron Mash. Of course, one could run it with the protective pads, but then its offensive power would not be enough not even to annoy a Corviknight or a Toxapex with Thunder Punch. Finally, not only Melmetal suffers from special attackers due to its lack of Sp. Def, but being so slow it is easily revenge killable by basically any strong Fight-type Pokémon (Urshifu, Blaziken, Kommo-o) or Ground-type Pokémon (Landorus-T, Excadrill, Nidoking, Garchomp).

Hence, my vote is Do not ban.

:jirachi: edit: Hey, please don't forget to also put your reqs in the identification thread for them to count!
 
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I would like to state more opinions about this suspect and address some obvious critics,

1. First thing's first, when did people start disregarding the broken checks broken argument?, that is mind blowing to me, for one, if you ban something's counters, of course it is going to become broken, its broken BECAUSE you banned its counters LOL. That is a bit ridiculous let me give an example, heatran and dragonite checks volcarona, you banned heatran and dragonite, of course it becomes broken, say garchomp has weavile and buzzwole as counters, of course if you have those two leave the tier garchomp would become broken, so u see this argument is immediately valid unless we control the tier based on bias and not in general, and lean toward balance and stall players, essentially leaning immediately towards what the ban supporters say. I NEVER said it was broken to begin with, people are indirectly saying its broken, its not even broken checks broken, its "ARGUABLY healthy pokemon is preventing another pokemon from being broken because its a counter" ,the reason a pokemon is broken is because it doesnt have counters, it has a counter that some people want to ban. Very simple, it has counters, you just decide to ban it because some people THINK its broken


2. Second thing i would like to address is the bias towards balance and stall players, notice how certain people say just because it hurts offense more than fat which is untrue to begin with cause if melmetal has the right set it can beat balanced or fat teams better than it beats offense, basically labelling melmetal broken because it can punch enough holes in teams to force progress, something this tier is lacking, someone mentioned other breakers like blaziken and crawdaunt, so what differs them from melmetal? Its bulk alone, people don't know how to handle and manuever around melmetal, they know how to handle blaziken and crawdaunt, talking as someone who builds roughly 5-6 teams a day and with the most experience in the tier, i know there are almost hundreds of ways to handle melmetal, people just can't innovate because they choose not to look into other pokemon,
A pokemon with that much counter measures doesnt even warrant a discussion, it should be A rank at best Leaning towards A+. The entire community should be happy with the suspect test outcome, not leaving several unhappy (the entire offense playerbase being disregarded for so many years) , so i urge the balance and stall players to look into other mons and innovate more, that will open your eyes and make you see its really not broken, you just did not know how to handle it.

3. The gen is ending it could have been suspected sooner, 2 years melmetal was in ou, people didnt care to look into it because the meta teams handled it well, now towards the end of the gen the metagame is detereorating and melmetal is beating a dead meta's teams, when you could have reused the same teams from a year ago to handle melmetal just fine, the gen is about to end, but smart changes should be made, melmetal completes and balances out this meta very well and since the gen is ending, the last thing we want is a past gen unstable meta with more threats unleashed because of an unnecessary suspect.

4. Notice how the last time a defensive pokemon was banned was the very end of gen 6, there are many defensive pokemon i stated that needs to be looked into, and yes this INCLUDES toxapex, pex is not good right now because everybody is checking their team to have 2-3 pex counters just to keep it in check, what if they just built a balance without that consideration?, they would realise and say "hey! pex was holding back so many pokemon, i was just too blind to see it because teams r focused on having a pex check). They are blinded by offense so they dont realise that defense has restricting capabilities. And in my opinion anybody who thinks toxapex is fine and healthy does not have enough teambuilding experience or ladder experience/tier experience to realise these in depth and specific teambuilding measures that they are unconsciously taking to keep toxapex in check. Remember it boils down to experience and tier knowledge here, pex is considered broken because they are trying to run down its usage by specifically preparing for it more than other pokemon, and that gives the illusion that its not good because everybody is overpreparing for it.

5. Remember, as i stated above, stall and balance do not make a metagame, all playstyles contribute to and play an important role in the metagame, so please don't be biased toward stall and balance.


I hope this makes a good lecture and sheds light on those who responded to me (directly or indirectly), remember folks i state a third time because i am DEFIANT about this, every playstyle makes a metagame, not just stall and balance.
Finally, it's refreshing to see a top-level player addressing the clear bias that has existed toward balance/stall in smogon's tiering process over the years. Particularly, I'd like to re-emphasize the following points:

1. Usual ban arguments against Melm, and in general against most breakers in the past have been a result of the majority balance favoring playerbase refusing to adapt and explore options outside of the established cookie-cutter defensive cores. Melm has a crippling drawback in it's speed, something that can be exploited to develop literally hundreds of countermeasures.

2. Absolute on point about Pex, whose issue is an extension of the plague that is Regenerator. This ability alone is responsible for degrading the quality of the metagame since gen 7, with Pex and Torn being the two biggest offenders.

3. HDB is something that needs to be looked at as well. The core issue with the metagame is the lack of solid options that force progress against defensive builds that create a dull, slow, boring meta. On top of the shortage of good breakers, HDB limits progress-making potential of teams to an unhealthy extent. You know something is wrong with a metagame when PP stalling becomes the primary mode of beating some threats in a good chunk of the games.
 
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Finally, it's refreshing to see a top-level player addressing the clear bias that has existed toward balance/stall in smogon's tiering process over the years.
Sorry to break it to you (not really) but there is no conspiracy or bias in favor of balance/stall.

. Usual ban arguments against Melm, and in general against most breakers in the past have been a result of the majority balance favoring playerbase refusing to adapt and explore options outside of the established cookie-cutter defensive cores.
There is some real irony in accusing pro ban arguments towards most breakers in the past of being unwilling to adapt while going on to act like there isn't enough ways to force progress or break defene. And people usually DO explore outside options, which often end up being poor against most things that aren't those breakers. Which is what leads to a general consensus of it hurting teambuilding. Dracovish? Forced junk water absorb mons. UrshifuS? Forced exploitable cores. Spectrier? Yeah lets use gimmicks like Exploud or Snorlax, or junk like spdef Ttar or shadow ball Blissey. Kyurem? Sure nerf all the waters and make defensive cores exploitable and predictable.

Fortunately that isn't the case with Melmetal. Which is uniquely positioned to be restricting yet not so overwhelming.

This ability alone is responsible for degrading the quality of the metagame since gen 7, with Pex and Torn being the two biggest offenders.
Regen providing defensive teams reliable backbones to fall back on? You act like they're impossible or unreasonable to break in anyway there being plenty of tools to do so.

HDB is something that needs to be looked at as well. The core issue with the metagame is the lack of solid options that force progress against defensive builds that create a dull, slow, boring meta.
Toxic, knock off (which in turn enable hazards), future sight, and specific examples like Tricksludge from Glowking or Sticky Barb from Clef. And the breakers in the tier. Which reminds me.

On top of the shortage of good breakers,
This is a mind boggling claim to make. In addition to Melmetal we have options including (but not limited to): Garchomp, Heatran, Dragapult, Weavile, Tapu Lele, Blaziken, Kartana, Rillaboom, Blacephalon, Volcanion, Tyranitar, UrshifuR, Victini... That's just OU tiered mons. You could easily plunder lower tiers for viable wallbreakers. Nidoking and Aegislash come to mind and even Tapu Bulu.

HDB limits progress-making potential of teams to an unhealthy extent. You know something is wrong with a metagame when PP stalling becomes the primary mode of beating some threats in a good chunk of the games.
HDB do slow down initial early game progress but they are not a full stop against any decently built team. Many pokemon still run non HDB items perfectly well, even rock weak mons.

I have ultimately leaned no ban for Melmetal, between personal experience with it and some of the really strong posts in the thread discussing its strengths and weaknesses, which did so in a nuanced and well put together argument. Even with that, it's staggering to see some takes like "toxapex needs action on it" or "defense too strong" or the like.
 
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Some stuff
It's not really a conspiracy, as in council members plotting in a dark room. It's a bias created by the personal preferences of the player base, which hosts an overwhelming population of balance/stall users at the higher level. The majority of suspect voting and reasoning arguments are dominated by personal preference. An actual fair suspect and tiering process would take measures to address that bias, as is true for all matters of politics.

Next the concern about Regenerator. "Providing a defensive background" is a ridiculous understatement. Regenerator provides free health with zero opportunity cost, a characteristic that is a major roadblock to making healthy amounts of progress on a consistent basis. The amount of tools and firepower you need to pack to deal with Regen, especially in the case of Pex and Torn is indeed unreasonable and unhealthy. Shrugging of STAB EQs from Base 130 atk+ hitters to get off a knock, toxic, tspikes, or scald burn and then switching out and coming back later with nearly half HP, and play from there with zero consequences, or in the case of Torn, being repeatedly able to switch in to take attacks from top threats while outspeeding them and not having to waste any turns clicking recovery moves, does sound pretty unreasonable to me.

I only explained this much cause this is the Melm thread, so gotta stay on topic. You're free to hit me up in Pms if you want to discuss what's "unreasonable".

Finally, you listing down any and every offensive threat as "breakers" to refute the point of breaker shortage is laughable. Just because a mon has high attack stat and uses an offensive set, doesn't make it a breaker. 90% of those mons have certain limitations that prevent them from making significant progress against any well-made 2-3 mon fat core. They need holes already punched in to be able to do something, which is the breaker's job. The only commonly used mons in OU that you can actually consider a "true breaker" are limited to: CB Ttar, Crawdaunt, Lele, LO Weavile (extremely frail and only usable on HO) and Melm (maybe Victini if we're being generous). You'll understand this more if u get more experience using offense in higher levels.

Anyways, it seems our disagreements are in a different place rather than Melm tiering, so best if we keep these topics short and limited.

For everyone I've seen/met that uses stall, I've seen/met 10 people who hate it. Also I don't understand why you put balance and stall in the same boat, when these play styles are very different and are preferred by different types of players

That fact that (as it now seems) the majority of people are against a Melm ban, despite the fella matching up wonderfully against stall, also shows flaws in this belief
I said "in higher levels". Meeting people who say they hate stall doesn't mean jack. I don't hate stall at all, I think it's a perfectly good playstyle that needs to be respected and should function well in a healthy meta. But that doesn't change my opinion that the interests of balance/stall are over-represented in any suspect discussion. The balance/stall grouping is just a placeholder for any fat build.

If you want to do an actual survey, go to the ladder, scope of the teams used by the top 10 accounts, and then make a comparison about playstyle favor/usage. Alternatively, you can go through the replays of the playoffs of any high level tournament (But keep in mind that a lot of tour teams are not trying to get a consistent run of wins, but trying to counter team their specific opponent)

Also Melm matches up poorly vs stall fyi.
 
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It's not really a conspiracy, as in council members plotting in a dark room. It's a bias created by the personal preferences of the player base, which hosts an overwhelming population of balance/stall users at the higher level. The majority of suspect voting and reasoning arguments are dominated by personal preference. An actual fair suspect and tiering process would take measures to address that bias, as is true for all matters of politics.
For everyone I've seen/met that uses stall, I've seen/met 10 people who hate it. Also I don't understand why you put balance and stall in the same boat, when these play styles are very different and are preferred by different types of players

That fact that (as it now seems) the majority of people are against a Melm ban, despite the fella matching up wonderfully against stall, also shows flaws in this belief
 

dex

Hard as Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is
is a Site Content Manageris an official Team Rateris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a CAP Contributor Alumnus
It's a bias created by the personal preferences of the player base, which hosts an overwhelming population of balance/stall users at the higher level.
Let's test this theory.

OST Finals:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-619433
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-619454

Neither player brought anything close to stall. Bush's g1 team is balance assuredly, then he went straight HO in g2. Stresh brought the same bulky offense in both games. Neither player brings anything close to stall.

SPL Finals:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-615637

TJ brought offense into mind gaming's stall and won, notably without a Melmetal.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-616129

100p brought their classic balance squad into bro fist's stall and won, again, there is a distinct lack of Melmetal.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-616100

Gtcha beats suapah in a balance v balance matchup. Both teams are fairly offensive though, I would not call Hydreigon + Koko vs. Weavile + Blacephalon bulky by any stretch of the imagination.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-617409

Gtcha's offense beats bro fist's bulky offense. No stall in sight.

Say what you want about stall in the current metagame, but don't mischaracterize the beliefs of the higher level playerbase. I certainly don't qualify to say what they are thinking, but it is clear that there is no bias towards stall at the highest level in the current metagame.
 
Let's test this theory.

OST Finals:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-619433
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-619454

Neither player brought anything close to stall. Bush's g1 team is balance assuredly, then he went straight HO in g2. Stresh brought the same bulky offense in both games. Neither player brings anything close to stall.

SPL Finals:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-615637

TJ brought offense into mind gaming's stall and won, notably without a Melmetal.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-616129

100p brought their classic balance squad into bro fist's stall and won, again, there is a distinct lack of Melmetal.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-616100

Gtcha beats suapah in a balance v balance matchup. Both teams are fairly offensive though, I would not call Hydreigon + Koko vs. Weavile + Blacephalon bulky by any stretch of the imagination.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-617409

Gtcha's offense beats bro fist's bulky offense. No stall in sight.

Say what you want about stall in the current metagame, but don't mischaracterize the beliefs of the higher level playerbase. I certainly don't qualify to say what they are thinking, but it is clear that there is no bias towards stall at the highest level in the current metagame.
Excellent post! With perhaps millions of relevant games to consider with the ladder+tour scene, you've chosen to make your point by HANDPICKING a total of EIGHT games. I must applaud your sense of logic and reasoning.


Not to mention I didn't say anything about a playstyle "good or bad", but simply about playerbase population. Whether a player has won or lost ONE GAME is beside the point.
 

dex

Hard as Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is
is a Site Content Manageris an official Team Rateris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Excellent post! With perhaps millions of relevant games to consider with the ladder+tour scene, you've chosen to make your point by HANDPICKING a total of EIGHT games. I must applaud your sense of logic and reasoning.


Not to mention I didn't say anything about a playstyle "good or bad", but simply about playerbase population. Whether a player has won or lost ONE GAME is beside the point.
You said higher level, I looked at the finals of the biggest tournaments on Smogon. I don't see how that is handpicking, I am literally looking at the highest-level games available. Also, I doubt the ladder scene is really a good way to think about anything related to this. It is well known that the ladder metagame tends to be a lot more matchup fishy than the actual metagame due to how there is no prep involved in ladder games, so the ladder metagame really doesn't hold that much of a bearing, if any at all, on this discussion. There is no bias in the current metagame towards stall. Stall is a viable playstyle that has distinct and varied counterplay that can be prepped for with or without Melmetal. Melmetal's existence doesn't push the meter in either direction.
 
I think it is far less common for Stall to be overly dominant as a play style than offensive ones, since Pokémon has on average probably three good niche offensive Pokémon for every good defensive one. Still, if it does occur, it is not unheard of measures being taken against stall (an example being SM UU banning Quagsire some time ago). I think some top players' fascination with stall, if any were to actually confirm to have that, stems from the sheer methodical way of playing it and the option to be able to totally control their opponent's actions to the fullest. This is understandable in my humble opinion, top players in every game typically sooner or later would experiment with or be intrigued by the possibility of playing in a way they can't possibly lose.

To prevent this post not being about Melmetal at all, I want to add some things that came to my mind the past couple days, after I made my first post here:

Several people have claimed that Melmetal is broken, because it can come out victorious of pretty much every 1v1 situation, and therefore demands the use of 2 opposing Pokémon to put down. This is a purely tactical observation of this game, not a strategic one. From a strategic view point Melmetal is a very limited Pokémon: It can't continuously take strong hits throughout a lengthy match*, it can't help team partners position themselves better, it can't control or set hazards, and of course it can't be played like a sweeper. It can only take some strong hits and make some strong hits. Unless every other of its team members are just as self-sufficient and capable of winning all their 1v1 interactions, this Pokémon doesn't force unreasonable choices. If you were allowed to run 6 Melmetals, this Pokémon would probably be broken. But you're not, therefore I don't think it is broken.

Thanks for reading.

* I experimented with Restalk Melmetal early in my first suspect reqs run. It was bad.
 
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Unowndragon

克敌必胜!
is a Tiering Contributor
UPL Champion
I will vote DO NOT BAN on this suspect

Maybe my reason sounds a little strange,If not based on the strength of Melmetal itself,I have some objections to the prospect's time and weavile.

I know Melmetal has really powerful Bases and Move-Double Iron Bash+Iron Fist so powerful,Many pokemon are afraid of this move-flinch!u may remember this-If there is a Jirachi,there is a way,but on gen8,if there is a Melmetal,there is a way.Base 135/143/65,Mlmt have really powerful Defensive,and it's steel type,u always need Zapdos,Corviknight,Ferrothorn,Volcanion and Magnezone to against Double Iron Bash,but these mon and Toxapex,slowbro will be dabai by other move of Mlmt-Thunder Punch,Superpower/Earthquake,Thunder Wave,Acid Armor+Body press.etc.and u can't use Landorus-T to against Mlmt's Double Iron Bash,and Slowbro/Toxapex,Both will be affected by flinch.

But now gen8 ou game,weavile so problem-strong STAB knock off+Triple Axel,It makes many pokemon afraid,and Weavile's speed really high(125speed),on many offense team,we need Mlmt to against Weavile,if Mlmt ban now,Weavile will be ban on SwSh OU.

It is true that mlmt is very difficult and terrible, but now Swsh ou games have been accustomed to its existence. Its low speed and weak recovery have become obvious weaknesses in the knock off SWSH OU game.Spikes,Rocky Helmet,Iron Barbs/Rough Skin are good way to against Mlmt.

if Melmetal's suspect on 2021,i think Melmetal can ban on SWSH OU,but on 2022,so much Weavile game i prefer DO NO BAN Melmetal.
And now is later game on SWSH OU,one month later we will play SV OU(Gen 9),I don't think it's really necessary to spend energy to suddenly change an already mature format.This is actually my objection to ban Melmetal's reason.

If you insist on ban, I think you should consider the terrible problems caused by Weavile.
 
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So for this Melmetal suspect i will be stating my opinions here on why i think it should not be banned, Melmetal may be controversial but i do not believe that it has become threatening enough to warrant a ban.

I've gathered multiple justifications:

1. It is preventing many many threats from being unhealthy, and some may even become so restricting that they may warrant quick bans, these pokemon are
- weavile: with weavile's high versatility, melmetal was keeping it in check because it was one of its only reliable switchins, given the current state of the metagame, weavile is also preventing alot of pokemon from being restricting, (dragapult, dragonite, garchomp, etc), so melmetal gone would cause a chain reaction of suspect tests which is always horrible for a balance metagame.
- dragapult: now dragapult is another extremely restricting pokemon with choice specs but, with melmetal gone the dragon dance set would be unhinged, the dragon dance set's only real counter is melmetal especially if its weakness policy, or unaware clef, which brings me to the third pokemon, clefable
- Clefable: clef is already a problem as is with its many many sets like trickbarb, cm, etc, it would become extremely oppressive and difficult to handle that the entire metagame would centralize around it and many many nasty sets like cosmic power would arise ultimately resulting in a suspect test.
- Tapu lele: perhaps the most dangerous(but not most unhealthy) on this list, is lele, lele has very limited switchins especially specs psychic and scarf, which melmetal is good at keeping under control, if melmetal goes, this will result in multiple complaints about tapu lele, ultimately resulting in a suspect which is again, horrible for a good metagame
- Tapu fini : last but not least, tapu fini, the calm mind set, the trapper set, melmetal was good at checking this, if melmetal goes this becomes more common and while its not going to be suspected, it would ultimately make the metagame more boring and discourage many many users from playing


2. Forcing progress:- This metagame severely lacks pokemon that force progress vs defensive teams which results in a stale and boring metagame, cinderace, kyurem, dark shifu, are gone, it is sad to see breakers just being extinguished from the tier, u essentially want a metagame with breakers, breakers are healthy for a metagame the definition of breaker meaning it has counter measures but it also forces progress when it comes in, melmetal gone would result in a defensive metagame with almost no effective breakers and the tier would be a very lame wasteland full of stall, it is ultimately healthier for melmetal to stay inthis metagame as it is the staple alongside landorus therian holding ss together by keeping multiple pokemon in check, just like heatran which brings me to my third point.

3. It is a staple of the tier: There has been awhile since the ou tier has had a solid staple like landorus therian, heatran and ferrothorn have come close but melmetal i feel completes this tier, as it fits well on many great teams that can be fun to play with and against, and have highly anticipated moves, melmetal overall just makes teams much more complete and defines balance, it can fit on any playstyle given its great sets and is healthy for this metagame to survive the defensive wave, and balance out the tier with offense/defense, we dont want too much defense involved, otherwise again the tier would be in shambles.

4. There are many many more restricting aspects in the tier that can be looked at, for examples:

Regenerator: the ability that in my opinion ruined this tier specifically, forcing teams to run threats just to stop regenerator cores specifically or just get switched on in an never-ending vortex, a regenerator clause should be considered here. Limiting teams to 1 regenerator user would resolve this issue.

Toxapex: again another pokemon made stupid by regenerator, the fact that this pokemon wasnt suspected before melmetal is beyond me, it is forcing powerful ground/psychic/electric attacks to be on every team or a taunt user, all because of its extremely restrictive movepool, tspikes, knock, scald, recover, etc, low risk high reward almost completely killing rain teams and HO.

Heavy Duty Boots: in my opinion the most restrictive and broken thing in competitive pokemon HISTORY!!!! THIS item ruined competitive singles and made alot of unnecessary pokemon raise to ou, go to ubers, or become restrictive themselves, for example dragonite, zapdos etc. I absolutely DEMAND that this item gets suspected in the future if melmetal was even considered C rank, this item must be suspected, it has killed an entire playstyle and buffed 2 so much that the tier has become almost unplayable, entry hazards were a crucial part of the game , sticky webs was a fun playstyle, and hazard stacking teams were a legitimate strategy (still is but nerfed), those who complain about entry hazards are only the stallers, correct me if im wrong, it was a great and crucial part of competitive singles, and the boots ruined everything.

Weavile: perhaps the mon most worthy l of a suspect or discussion other than torn, the only counter to lifeorb at +2 after a spike was defensive melmetal, imagine how broken this would become, its deadly stabs combined with its signature move had it not been able to miss wouldve probably gotten it quickbanned.

Tornadus-therian: if my arguments came true for boots and regenerator, it would fix this issue, the boots + regen make torn extremely dangerous and unhealthy, and it makes the metagame near unplayable.


5. Melmetal has the world of counterplay and measures especially offensively to keep it in check , many many checks, flame body tran + corv, knock users + steel birds, zapdos with static, blace can offensively check it, volcarona too, urshifu, even garchomp, specs pult, victini, any fire type really, blaziken, etc, and its extremely slow, all melmetal has is bulk and power, speed is an essential and absolute MUST to truly make a mon worthy of a suspect, and melmetal doesnt have it, anything checks it offensively, again to me power is not an argument as that is the definition of a breaker and as i stated above the tier needs more breakers as we are losing them, everybody else would suffer from how horrible this metagame would become and only stallers would benefit.

Conclusion: i am defiant in keeping melmetal in this tier as i would like to save this tier from dying completely and i am willing to take drastic measures here, now that ive given light and insight to the newer players that think melmetal is okay, i will be giving out teams to them =) all the do not banners, y'all gonna get free unreleased teams just hmu ;D, help me save this tier from getting tanked once again just like the kyurem ban's severe metagame backlash. (A bit selfish here but i really care about this tier)

As always, please dont let stall and boredom thrive =) test the defensive restrictions, leave melmetal alone.

And on a positive note, i hope this is received well and my justifications are taken into consideration, these are my thoughts no filter, thanks again =)
This is a disappointing post.

"If we ban X then X will be broken" is actually not an argument.
It never has been or ever will be a valid argument in any suspect test.
It's about as valid as an argument as how a mon will do in Ubers if we ban it from OU


When factoring in if a mon is unhealthy for a meta, this has never and again, will never be a relevant perspective.

I'm personally undecided as of now- but those who vote should not be voting based off this post- whatsoever.
It's not a valid reason to vote ban or no ban, either way.
This poster knows better, hence my disappointment.

This player also knows better than to go off on a tangent about boots and regen as a misdirect.. very irrelevant.

"X is the real problem- look at X instead!" is AGAIN, not a valid argument in a suspect test.

If a mon becomes a problem once another mon is banned, then we cross that bridge when we come to it.

That's how it's been and always will be.

I realize this is a respected and talented player who I personally like, so it's kinda awkward for experienced players to call them out like I am now, but this is not something other players should be parroting and regurgitating- this is a very bad take.

I'm sorry Storm, but this is not a precedent we can established.
Posts like this give players, especially newer ones, the wrong sort of mindset for future suspect tests.

I will gather more thoughts specifically on Mel and post those thoughts at a later date.

However, after conferring with other experienced players and OU room leaders who agree with me about this particular post and how damaging it is to the way we conduct suspect tests, I find it imperative to reply to this thread with the above information.

P.S
After posting I just noticed the post above mine:

"If you insist on ban, I think you should consider the terrible problems caused by Weavile"

The ripple effect of Storm's post has all kinds of people confused on how we suspect mons.
 
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In my opinion, it's entirely valid to argue that a mon's presence in a tier holds things together and that it balances out other mons. I don't think it's valid to say that this is the main argument for a mon to stay in a tier, especially when it's overly disruptive or straight up broken, but to say that a meta would shift to the worse and be exposed to new problems from a ban is valid
 
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