np: SV UU Stage 2.1 - HandClap

[pomfpomfpluff]

I'm kinda surprised that Sandy Shocks and Pawmot are being seen as even somewhat problematic at the moment, not because I necessarily disagree, but because I'd assumed that Gengar was the biggest elephant in the room at the moment. Talking about Gengar here would basically just be a waste of time since I'd just be parroting what others have been saying for months at this point, so I'll just say that the word "manageable" basically means nothing in this context and that like what others have previously said, "manageable" can be used to refer to other broken mons we've already banned. I also wanted to bring up a bit of a minor gripe I have before I babble on about the Electrics.

Overall I think gengar forces at least two of its checks onto most balance type builds

Gengar punishing and limiting Balance is actually a one of the very few things it does which contributes positively to the overall metagame in my opinion. Fat is not the end all be all when it comes to mons and mons that inherently punish fat for existing aren't inherently broken because of it, especially since it's not like we're in a super Balance dominated metagame either (BO and HO are also quite strong). The wide variety of potential checks you can fit onto Balance squads makes fitting two checks less of a hassle than one might think and I don't think that Gengar lends to making all fat teams looking the same. My main issue with Gengar in the current metagame is how it just styles on basically all of it's checks effortlessly, which means that we get into situations where Tink gets 2shot by Shadow Ball because fuck you.

Anyway now that that minor tangent is over it's time for the Electrics. I've always been an advocate of Pawmot getting the boot from UU since the early fear mongering surrounding Revival Blessing. This mainly stems from how I personally found the UU Alpha to be one of the most fun tiers I've ever played and the lack of Pawmot was certainly a driving factor behind why that was the case. It has proven itself to be quite the extreme physical threat based on it's own merits as just a regular attacker thanks to how boosted and spammable base 120 power dual stabs coming off of a good attack stat basically smashes everything without minimum an immunity/resistance to one STAB and tremendous bulk. The utility and coverage provided by Pawmot's immense movepool don't help much in that regard either.

Sandy Shocks meanwhile is less so problematic because of it's own achievements and moreso because of the guessing games Tera as a mechanic basically forces you to play if you want to even remotely have a shot at beating it. Hazard Shocks by itself is perfectly fine and only really contributes to the issue of hazard removers being significantly worse as individual mons than hazard setters, which is an issue that would persist regardless of whether it was here or not. My issue with it mainly stems from how Tera Blast kind of throws a wrench into standard counterplay and basically forces blind guessing, which I am not a big fan of on such a splashable and variable mon.

Overall I'd agree with the assessment that the metagame is in a good place at the moment despite the fact that given the option I'd ban all three of these mons. Either or is fine imo, it's just nice to be playing an established and somewhat settled metagame for a change lol.

 

[Lily]

I don't really understand the sentiment that gengar is "manageable," because far more broken things than gengar have also been "manageable," it doesn't mean they weren't completely ridiculous to "manage." Overall I think gengar forces at least two of its checks onto most balance type builds and is still a menace most of the time. If this is what manageable means then that's cool ig.

Regardless of I feel about gengar though, what surprises me is that pawmot is apparently on the radar. Feels a hell of a lot easier to "manage" to me.

Lots of common Pokemon check Gengar, either hard or soft. Hippowdon fears very little. Tyranitar dissuades spamming STABs. Grafaiai makes Shadow Ball a hard click. Tinkaton can pivot into anything. Gastrodon can easily tank Shadow Balls (pre-Tera). Pretty much anything that outspeeds Gengar (Talonflame, Noivern, Weavile, Maushold, Kilowattrel, priority from Scizor, Mimikyu, and Bisharp) can OHKO it either from full or after very minor chip damage.

Now, we can combine this with the fact that it doesn't synergise all that well with our best pivots. Sandy Shocks can bring it in against Wo-Chien, which immediately scouts your Choice lock with Protect or just eats a Sludge Bomb and KOs you, or Scream Tail which also scouts your Choice lock with Protect and, if you happen to click Nasty Plot, can just Encore you into that. Grafaiai's most common pivot targets are fat Ground-types and Tinkaton, not stuff Gengar wants to see. Slowking brings it in on Tinkaton, Wo-Chien, Scream Tail, Tyranitar, Gastrodon etc - really not matchups you wanna be dealing with if you can avoid it. Gengar's at its strongest when it can outspeed and OHKO the mon in front of it, which is *very* rare - in the entirety of the A-ranks, the only Pokemon that are slower than Gengar and OHKOed by it are Pawmot and Lucario.

I mean heck I even went to check the usage stats & replays for this week of UUPL so I could grab a recent replay to demonstrate my point, since you mentioned it's a big threat even when you go out of your way to check it, but it only appeared in one game, where all it did was die to a Scizor's Bullet Punch. But here are some slightly older ones:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-678293
Even at +2 it only manages to chip offensive Tinkaton; it would've struggled to crack 50% vs the standard specially defensive set. Gigaton Hammer also would've just straight OHKOed and Gengar would've accomplished nothing at all.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-678563
Even with Tera Ghost the lacking immediate power of Shadow Ball causes significant problems

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-678523
It does seem decent damage here but it's just not anything overwhelming at all

There are replays where it performs a bit better but still very few examples of Gengar taking over games. This is what makes it difficult for me to take Gengar's on-paper influence and see it as a banworthy threat from there. It just struggles with getting in and actually clicking the button.

All of the above is based on the Choiced sets (minus the Mossy vs Fc replay) because, again, they're all that's really seeing use. Again, if the other sets become a problem later, we can look at it then, but we have to look at what the Pokemon is doing rather than what it can do.

I find it concerning that your initial reply to this mon being broken essentially "well nobody is using it right now."

I don't. You can make most things look broken on paper through making them beat their otherwise common counters.

252+ Atk Choice Band Tinted Lens Tera Fighting Lokix Axe Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 360-426 (100 - 118.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
How do I beat Lokix if my switch in gets OHKOed?

252 Atk Tera Grass Grafaiai Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 336-400 (85.2 - 101.5%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
My Grafaiai counter just got dropped by Grafaiai

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Fighting Noivern Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 432-508 (106.9 - 125.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Tera Fire Gardevoir Mystical Fire vs. 252 HP / 172+ SpD Tinkaton: 180-212 (48.1 - 56.6%) -- 88.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Tera Grass Salazzle Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 80+ SpD Gastrodon: 460-544 (107.9 - 127.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I think you get the point here.

There's a glaring flaw with these calcs - there is a massive opportunity cost either in your moveset or the cost of your Tera. This also applies to the Tera Fighting Gengar mentioned in your post; not only do you need a free setup turn with one of the frailest Pokemon in the tier, but you also need to have a Life Orb, burn your Tera, and hit the attack on top of that. That's a lot of prerequisites and it doesn't even open up partners as well as you'd think; partners like Pom-Pom and Polteageist that appreciate Tinkaton's removal are happy about it, sure, but they can't even use Tera themselves at that point, so you're still not even beating something like Tinkaton + Tyranitar (a very common and good core). That's why you don't see this happening often.

Since both of you wanted to draw a comparison to Pawmot, there is a key difference there. Pawmot doesn't need lure sets to 2HKO the entire tier bar Hippowdon - it does it naturally. Pawmot doesn't need a setup turn because its raw power is enough that it just clicks buttons, so your immediate response is more limited. Pawmot's defensive typing and slightly better defensive stats give it opportunities to abuse common defensive Pokemon for opportunities to break - more importantly, it actually OHKOs them, so they're threatened out in the first place. See Tinkaton, Tyranitar, Slowking, Talonflame and Slither Wing. Pawmot can and does also heal itself with the combination of Natural Cure and Rest, a godsend for a Pokemon that really only needs 3 moves to KO everything. I do not see how these Pokemon are comparable - and this isn't even me saying Pawmot is broken, I don't really think it is. It has a number of issues that hold it back in my mind, and it seems you guys agree.

So, TL;DR - we need to let things actually be explored before we can do much about them. Usage does not equate to viability - of course; we have NUBL hero Pompom in A- rank after all - but when things are seeing very, very limited use, you kinda have to sit and wonder why. I encourage you guys to get games with the "broken" sets and let us know how it works for you. That'd help with illustrating the argument a bit more. I hope this clarifies my position.

 

[Liz Angeles]

Lots of common Pokemon check Gengar, either hard or soft. Hippowdon fears very little. Tyranitar dissuades spamming STABs. Grafaiai makes Shadow Ball a hard click. Tinkaton can pivot into anything. Gastrodon can easily tank Shadow Balls (pre-Tera). Pretty much anything that outspeeds Gengar (Talonflame, Noivern, Weavile, Maushold, Kilowattrel, priority from Scizor, Mimikyu, and Bisharp) can OHKO it either from full or after very minor chip damage.

Now, we can combine this with the fact that it doesn't synergise all that well with our best pivots. Sandy Shocks can bring it in against Wo-Chien, which immediately scouts your Choice lock with Protect or just eats a Sludge Bomb and KOs you, or Scream Tail which also scouts your Choice lock with Protect and, if you happen to click Nasty Plot, can just Encore you into that. Grafaiai's most common pivot targets are fat Ground-types and Tinkaton, not stuff Gengar wants to see. Slowking brings it in on Tinkaton, Wo-Chien, Scream Tail, Tyranitar, Gastrodon etc - really not matchups you wanna be dealing with if you can avoid it. Gengar's at its strongest when it can outspeed and OHKO the mon in front of it, which is *very* rare - in the entirety of the A-ranks, the only Pokemon that are slower than Gengar and OHKOed by it are Pawmot and Lucario.

I think essentially where my opinion differs here is in how reliable different checks are vs it. One point I feel is important is how easily energy ball and tera ghost Shadow Ball can annihilate most of the checks mentioned. Just by changing one move and running energy ball gengar can essentially invalidate several of its best answers, and while doing this comes at a significant opportunity cost, in that you're forced to lose either Sludge Bomb or trick, if the payoff is destroying some of the most important defensive lynchpins of the tier in gastrodon and hippowdon then its more than worth it.

I just don't see a way to consistently answer this mon outside of having a faster revenge killer and that feels completely ridiculous to me when the mon outspeeds 80% of the tier. Overall maybe sandy shocks is more obnoxious and if that goes I might feel differently because running multiple checks to sandy shocks and gengar while also fitting a bad pokemon to remove hazards so I don't lose to them is what's really killing the tier for me rn

 

[Liz Angeles]

Gengar punishing and limiting Balance is actually a one of the very few things it does which contributes positively to the overall metagame in my opinion. Fat is not the end all be all when it comes to mons and mons that inherently punish fat for existing aren't inherently broken because of it, especially since it's not like we're in a super Balance dominated metagame either (BO and HO are also quite strong). The wide variety of potential checks you can fit onto Balance squads makes fitting two checks less of a hassle than one might think and I don't think that Gengar lends to making all fat teams looking the same. My main issue with Gengar in the current metagame is how it just styles on basically all of it's checks effortlessly, which means that we get into situations where Tink gets 2shot by Shadow Ball because fuck you.

For the record there is nothing inherently wrong with a pokemon destroying balance teams. For example, iron jugulis is an absolute nightmare for most of my balance teams to face, or sub dd mence, and even haxorus can be ridiculously annoying at times, or slowking can just pivot in and click future sight and be a massive nuisance. The difference with gengar is that its counterplay is far more limited and it breaks through its checks far more easily, while also requiring multiple checks.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I think sometimes when things are going well, we look a little too hard to try find things to fix that don’t need fixing. Gengar, Sandy Shocks, and Pawmot are all very good mons in the meta. They all, in m opinion, provide a very positive contribution to the current state of SV UU. While they are certainly great, they do not fall into the same level of brokenness as the things that we have banned thus far, and it’s not even really close. I’ve watched most of the SV UU games in UUPL and Masters and I don’t really recall ever saying “wow that Gengar was impossible to answer” unless the opposing team just ignored it in the builder.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have to tier the tier, but in the early stages of a new Gen I think we should have a little more leeway before pulling the trigger on anything, especially since we haven’t yet reached 3 month shifts yet. If something is broken then obviously action is needed but that is just not the case here. I remember last month the Gengar outcry was far worse, and now it’s not really as bad which means people adapt or metas change. Maybe it can’t change enough to handle Pawmot later on, but it’s certainly not worth doing any kind of suspect at this point. I think Sandy Shocks has to burn its tera to really be problematic so I’m not really big on it being a menace. Pawmot maybe, but let’s wait.

 

[Slip]

Some interesting development in the NP thread it must be my birthday or something. Seems like there are 3 Pokemon in general that are really being discussed in here so I will hit on each on them along with a special final point incuding "Slips Significant Signal of the Day" (signal was the best synonym I could find for word that starts with an S)

Gengar
Just gonna get this guy out of the way first. Gengar hits hard, but is definitely exploitable imo. Choice sets can be scouted pretty easily and the meta isn't super nice to the hex set right now. Will-O, NP, Hex is probably under explored tbh as when I think about what switches into Gengar's stab moves, none of them really like to get burned allowing for Gengar to come back in and sweep later. I do however agree our pivots don't help it much at all and on top of its strong versatility, Gengar can definitely flop and set up the opponent well due to it being choice locked or unable to touch certain Pokemon. Pokemon like Toxtricity have also been rising in usage which forces Gengar into a guessing game with it turning into Tera Normal (same thing can be said with brambleghast or specs noivern (tho not as popular anymore)). Bottom line is right now I think it's hard to get Gengar in unless you either start with it or let something die to set it up for a revenge kill right now. Its versatility and strength makes it a pain but it is definitely beatable right now I feel.

Sandy Shocks
Sandy Shocks being a paradox mon is fitting as the state of this Pokemon makes my head spin to where I can't decide if its just one of the best mons in the tier or needs the ban hammer immediately. I have watched this mon go IN to cripple teams horribly or being able to set up free hazards every time it comes in. On the other hand though, its speed tier is a bit unfortunate and we do have Pokemon that can stop it in its tracks (Scream Tail, TTar at least kills for health trade, tink can trade if it teras, scizor addition, Pawmot). The main thing that really makes me wary is its health stat. Shocks lives a surprising amount of hits while threatening to kill anything in return if it is tera'd. Realistically due to this Shocks is probably going at least 1 for 1 every time it teras. If it comes in on something slower than it, then not only does it threaten any mon that wants to switch in with cover moves, but it can also easily hide behind teammates that can handle the revenge killers that threaten Shocks a lot more easily. Due to just the sheer amount of pressure Shocks can produce, I think it at least deserves a suspect, though I'm not so sure I'd ban it just yet. As I said we do have Pokemon that can answer it, its just an annoying guessing game most of the time or getting the chance to actually revenge it.

Pawmot
Funny to see the rat on the chopping block after we banned Hands (nice call Lily). Pawmot is in the same exact boat as Shocks I feel, but instead of health being a problem, its speed. Pawmot can run Choice Scarf very well compared to Sandy Shocks and can threaten all of the same Pokemon shocks does. It also outspeeds Shocks without a Scarf which can offensively check the mon while also making sure it doesn't get locked into one move. Natural Cure allowing it to take burns or use a switch turn to heal with rest (though this loses a lot of momentum usually imo). The list can go on and on with its coverage. The 3 problems that make me hesitant to ban this thing is that Pawmot is relatively frail, its attacking moves outside of its STAB moves are quite weak due to its lower attack stat, and it needs to run Tera Electric for Double Shock making its typing very 2 dimensional in a meta where Tera typing is an excellent tool to help give Pokemon more typing depth on their teams. Due to these issues, I think Pawmot can be suspected, but I am unsure if I would necessarily ban it.

Slip's Significant Signal of the Day
Today's signal is "Longevity;" Meaning: "a long duration of individual life" (source). The reason I was so keen on banning Iron Hands is because of the fact that its stats were so high, and even though it was slow and could be abused in a sense with encore or will-o, it would still end up usually trading at least 1 or 2 mons for itself. Gengar, Shocks, and Pawmot are all great picks for teams in the current metagame, but their longevity is questionable as they do not have reliable offensive recovery to keep them alive like Hands did, while also being exploitable in how little hits they can take. The only special case being Rest Pawmot, but as stated earlier having to rest then switch out can be quite rough on team positioning. Shocks is the closest out of these 3 to have good enough longevity to be a problem. Most of its answers has to usually trade a lot of health, hope it tera'd, or hope that it is chipped. Look up the most offensive sets of any of the counters I mentioned and you can see how much the health trades look like depending on if it has tera'd or not. Plus boots means it can come back in and reak havoc if it lives a hit and kills a faster, offensive mon that tried to handle it. I could be wrong about how awkward it can be for Pawmot rest which is why a suspect for that is also fine, but I have never felt super overwhelmed by the mon most battles.

Conclusion / The Tidy Up
These mons have great coverage and are hard hitters, but their general lack of longevity or making a team feel awkward hold them back from being super broken. Shocks definitely should be suspected first if anything as it can live hits and force trades or kills especially if it has boots and is able to come back in. I agree with Mantis we should generally be a little more lenient due to not even being to 3 month tier shifts yet. We also have home coming relatively soon, but if we are gonna go through with this at least have it be shocks.

 

[KM]

Now, we can combine this with the fact that it doesn't synergise all that well with our best pivots. Sandy Shocks can bring it in against Wo-Chien, which immediately scouts your Choice lock with Protect or just eats a Sludge Bomb and KOs you, or Scream Tail which also scouts your Choice lock with Protect and, if you happen to click Nasty Plot, can just Encore you into that. Grafaiai's most common pivot targets are fat Ground-types and Tinkaton, not stuff Gengar wants to see. Slowking brings it in on Tinkaton, Wo-Chien, Scream Tail, Tyranitar, Gastrodon etc - really not matchups you wanna be dealing with if you can avoid it. Gengar's at its strongest when it can outspeed and OHKO the mon in front of it, which is *very* rare - in the entirety of the A-ranks, the only Pokemon that are slower than Gengar and OHKOed by it are Pawmot and Lucario.

co-signing all of lily's post but especially this part -- it's 100% crucial to understanding why gengar is not even close to as broken in practice as it is on paper. even with dedicated team support to getting it in the field, it is nigh impossible for it to find situations where it forces pressure through an OHKO. even if it does, both of its stabs (and focus blast) having common immunities makes even "free" clicks potentially counter-productive. most often, using gengar feels like pivoting it in against something that you NEED to click the right move against, otherwise you actively lose the turn. (e.g. - sure, maybe you pivot it in against a wo-chien that's low enough to die to sludge bomb -- but there's a tinkaton in the back). it very, very rarely has lossless, progress-making clicks in the way that pawmot and shocks (among other threats) do and its performance at the highest tiers of play reflect that.

 

[Negative Charge]

Gengar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Cursed Body
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hex
- Focus Blast / Tera Blast

Huge fan of this set. I find choiced gengar to be pretty bad in this meta, there's just too much prediction needed and way too many ways to exploit choiced gar after a kill. This set goes pretty crazy, I think Boots>Leftovers but you could run that too.

 

[Melt Gibson]

SD Scizor V3

Scizor @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 112 HP / 172 Atk / 224 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Trailblaze
- Tera Blast / Close Combat

Thanks to 31rudy in the UU room for bringing this to my attention. If you go Adamant over Jolly and take the needed Speed out of your Attack, you actually still end up with more Attack than you would with 252 Jolly. 13 whole extra points worth, in fact. Does this hit any extra benchmarks? No, probably not. However, the extra power is always nice to have when you're clicking one of the most spammable priority moves in the game at +2, so it's not like there's no point in running this spread over the others I've posted. You're also still slower thank Tinkaton before a Trailblaze, meaning you avoid getting hit with Encore while trying to set up.

Now that that's out of the way, here's what I actually wanted to talk about:



I've been doing a ton of theorycrafting on this thing with pomfpomfpluff and Queen of Bean as of late. With access to U-Turn, Knock Off, Roost, and Defog, utility with Long Reach is probably going to be the best set, but that's boring and I want to experiment, so:

Decidueye @ Choice Specs
Ability: Overgrow
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 72 HP / 252 SpA / 184 Spe
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Leaf Storm
- Giga Drain / Focus Blast
- U-turn

Now, you may ask: What's the point in running this over Gengar? Isn't the Speed difference enough to just make it strictly better than Decidueye? Normally, yes, you would be right. However:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Decidueye Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 282-332 (69.8 - 82.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

You can actually genuinely threaten Tyranitar without having to rely on making a prediction nearly as much as Gengar would. You can almost kill maximum investment SpDef TTar, and unless they're Jolly for whatever reason, you also always outspeed.

252+ SpA Choice Specs Decidueye Giga Drain vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 224-266 (65.6 - 78%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

If you can catch them on the switch, this is an option. Or, if you'd prefer to just make an attempt at killing them outright:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Decidueye Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 390-458 (114.3 - 134.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Situation too dodgy? Not sure if you're going to make the shot? Just U-Turn out! It's free damage!

0- Atk Decidueye U-turn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 90-106 (26.3 - 31%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Look at that! A whole quarter!

How's your matchup vs Tinkaton? Not bad, actually. You do at least 36% to the standard 172 Careful set, which is less than Gengar but not by a huge margin.

You can honestly even try out different Tera types on it if you really want to, Tera Ghost seems to be decent enough since Shadow Ball is just really spammable overall, or Tera Fighting if you want similar resists to Fairy and extra power on Focus Blast. Knock Off seems like it could be an option too if you wanna opt for extra utility in the same vein as Jugulis.

Is it going to be the best set? Probably not. Do I think it's worth investing time into working on, and has the potential to be very good? Absolutely.

 

[sleestacks]

Decidueye @ Choice Specs
Ability: Overgrow
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 72 HP / 252 SpA / 184 Spe
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Leaf Storm
- Giga Drain / Focus Blast
- U-turn

i love the idea of choiced decidueye - it's the massive defensive utility of Brambleghast that we all know of, mixed with an alternative offensive ghost type and pivot all in one team slot. your set is probably what I would use for specs, but focus blast is sadly illegal. I would probably run Tera Blast Fighting.

 

[Melt Gibson]

i love the idea of choiced decidueye - it's the massive defensive utility of Brambleghast that we all know of, mixed with an alternative offensive ghost type and pivot all in one team slot. your set is probably what I would use for specs, but focus blast is sadly illegal. I would probably run Tera Blast Fighting.
View attachment 502287

Shit, I coulda sworn it got Focus, my bad lmao. You could def do TB Fight though, or Ground if you really hate Grafaiai

 

[Queen of Bean]

i dont really think focus blast or terablast fighting are worth it. i think running roost for healing on forced switchouts is nicer.
the reason i dont think its really worth it is that you only hit like bisharp and grafaiai with terablast and you can just u turn on them instead, both taking good chip from leaf storm too.

 

[Melt Gibson]

i dont really think focus blast or terablast fighting are worth it. i think running roost for healing on forced switchouts is nicer.
the reason i dont think its really worth it is that you only hit like bisharp and grafaiai with terablast and you can just u turn on them instead, both taking good chip from leaf storm too.

Fair, but consider, some people just really hate Bisharp

I did also have the thought that Tera Blast Ground could be neat to look into, still hits Bisharp and Grafaiai while giving you sand immunity and such, kinda in the same vein as PomPom? It's pretty much all conjecture at that point but I think it's still an option worth exploring. Roost doesn't seem that bad either, but it depends on if there are enough matchups where you can actually click it as opposed to the chip + recovery from Giga Drain being more valuable, which, again, is probably just conjecture and also matchup dependent.