First blood I guess...
A non-voter in the Poliwhirl suspect here! Tbf, I'm one series away from getting reqs but that doesn't matter since the points that I'm going to make is what's to be judged. It's because I only played two matches in NUSD where Whirl is banned and only won one of those two. What I noticed in general is that the trend is to use Venomoth to replace Poliwhirl and the other top 4 mons are used.
First, I guess I need to address the stats based on how I interpret it. The more use of big 5 + 1 comps does not necessarily mean the whirlless meta is more centralizing. This was already concluded in the RBY NU Hub so I won't delve into this again.
Second, in relation to that first point, I think whirlless diversify the meta in one way...which is to go with sleepless comps. Stats also suggest that Venomoth only appears in about 60% of the games. Is it because it has a competition with Exeggcute? No! Check the stats and Exeggcute is also rare. Probably the Venomoth's are just unrevealed but there is a reason why they are unrevealed. It's because it is hard to send Venomoth in. Also, mime and clef using twaves or the popularity of zard and toise being para'd coz they have body slam too can sleepblock Venomoth. Unlike with Poliwhirl that it can threaten with Amnesia Set-up, Venomoth can be given such free turns. Venomoth is probably not staying in para'd mime and zard. It 5hkos Blastoise while stoise can 3hko it back. Clef can also just twaved it. Thus, if I were to got the reqs, then I would have voted for whirl ban. I think this comparison (Whirl to moth) is also obvious thus the support for the whirl ban in NUSD. Sleep is very impactful but Poliwhirl takes it and abuse it (i.e. Amnesia Set-up) to a level that makes it broken-ish indeed.
Third, I guess I should also address the lead metagame. Chub tried Porygon lead and yeah it's kinda bad and also doesn't fix the issue of some players which is the much popularity of Zard lead. Won't talk about much with Porygon since the idea is not mine. There's also a solid Wigglytuff lead in case one want to go with Charizard sweep endgame. I encountered a backZard in NUSD and it indeed needs to respected still. Mime is also still a good lead. Zard wouldn't want to be para'd for no reason and it's very early in the game which is very risky. Zard vs stoise lead is also risky for zard (risky to click fire spin because there's a good chance it will miss).
Fourth, I think I'll just edit this post is I think I need to add or address more issues. Feel free to argue against what I said and even point out the legalities issue or the way I look at this suspect test since I am also not that expert in smogon policy and tiering decisions anyways.
That's all for now and thank you for reading!
