Suspect SV AAA Suspect #4: Dragonite

[Gangsta Spongebob]

Confirming as DRAAAG Rad

Screenshot

Never played AAA much before, but damn this meta is great

 

[Uninteleon]

lets ban this hoe

 

[PociekMociek]

very wacky suspect run, i went 23-2 but that was too little gxe (smh back in my days 21-4 was enough) for a very wacky pokemon - dnite is like if you took gholdengo and dialed down everything, its nowhere near as nuclear (mglo +2 steel beam deleting regenvest moon from this planet vs flaccid +1 espeed barely 2hkoing impish chomp), its nowhere near as potent defensively - espeed pp is suprisingly limited when you decide to use it for revkilling and the counterplay is suprisingly varied but not awful to fit into teams, dozo/intim corvi (which lose to tbolt) are good, garganaci (who loses to low kick/eq) is ok, physdef chomp/scream tail (which can be overwhelmed by band) are great, prio blocking also technically exists but that one sadly is bad
i won't lie i won a fair share of games by just clicking dd and having the correct coverage but i have also won a fair share of games by clicking bu with mglo talonflame (and we're not suspecting that are we UT )
yeah if you face mr QT dnite (which you too can get for 2.99$ if you buy showdown premium)

or just the one weird coverage dnite who's less common than wbb tinkaton or smth it might beat you but it does not feel as consistant as joe/tusk or as uncheckable as bax/pult(flutter), it is teetering the line but right now my vote is DNB
team i used for suspect:
https://pokepast.es/58875227f4642cc4

 

[Siamato]

Gonna vote Ban.

If Dragonite is indeed quite inconsistent and MU reliant, it doesn't change the fact it's too oppressive in the teambuilder for balance and more aggresive style.

Let's be clear, you can't understand the issue if you're playing fat to stall teams. In these kind of playstyles people are spamming mons like BU/Iron Def Corviknight, Unaware/Pixi physically defensive Scream Tail, Garganacl, Dondozo or bulky Regen Chomp with Dragon Tail. So yeah, if you're starting to run 3-4 mons that individually checks a Dragonite set, then yeah, you're quite fine lol.

And this is the current trend. People are playing extremely fat and boring (to me at least) structures because there are still too many offensive threats to deal with. Only fat to stall playstyles offer enough defensive space to guard against these many threats. By "many", I imput this current trend to 2 things:

• Dragonite. Balanced or more offensive teams tend to lose to a set because your defensive core is limited. Offensive counterplay is usually a way against things that are too hard to deal with defensively but here's the issue: offensive counterplay is extremely difficult due to Dragonite's busted priority. It's not like, Cinderace, Talonflame that you're going to deal with with Chien-Pao or Scarf Rotom-W, Hydreigon, Garchomp, etc for instance. Offensive options are basically limited to Dazzling mon that are decent but not great and particularly MU reliant.

• The dumb special mons. Zoroark-Hisui and Gengar are really difficult to deal with defensively for balanced teams because, if you want to be really safe vs them, you have to rely on things like RegenVest Garchomp, Bulletproof mons or generally passive mon that break the dynamism of balanced/BO styles. Iron Moth is also something I still have in mind but hopefully it somehow nerfs itselft by running Desolate Land pivot set which is often mandatory for defensive purpose (whereas Hadron/BoR sets can break almost anything).

These 2 things are responsible to the direction the metagame is taking to me, fat/semi-stall. And this is not a state I find particularly enjoyable because fat structures often tend to be redundant due to a teambuilder over pressure (knowing that our tools are already limited by the current dex).
Realistically, just see how people are just spamming physically defensive Unaware Scream Tail which is the passivest thing existing just because it prevents well to lose to dumb setup. Although, looking at VRs, Dragonite is definitely one of the reason this set makes sense. Corviknight that has been the heart of balanced teams providing defensive utility and momentum has to give up the last for BU/ID otherwise it's gonna lose to DD Roost Dragonite. Garchomp which is an amazing and scary breaker became a purely defensive mons to deal with Dragonite sometimes (but not only hopefully). We're playing quite shit Dazzling mon mainly to not autolose to Dragonite in more offensive structures. Etc.

I could continue this post more in-deph by looking at Dragonite's sets (DD Roost 2 atk, LO 3 atk + Roost and Band mainly) in practise or posting replays where Dragonite stupidly won against a balanced/BO team because it just had the right set (note that against balanced and more aggresive styles, even without the autowin set, Dragonite will not be a burden for sure) which is generally the kind of situation we want to avoid in a balanced metagame but I think we all already know what this mon does and why it's suspected tested.


In conclusion, I'm not saying Dragonite is broken, but its presence is not healthy for the metagame and the reason why it should go.

Quoting Osake's post for another approach and I also recommend to read Atha's suspect test OP to a brief explanation about Dragonite.

 

[Rose]

I was 20-1 but then playing multiple games at once caused me to choke. The sunk cost fallacy disallowed me to start over so I ended up with this very scuffed run. Leading towards DNB.

 

[Michael213]

Finally got the reqs showdown didnt feel like loading in my actual rank im like 1470 rn lol

 

[Stories]

triage is dumb

 

[NoobHereWaddup]

every five matches there was a hydreigon ready to ruin my day (or iron jugulis in my second to last match, thanks ladder)

As for dragonite, i heavily agree that whether the mon is a threat or not is incredibly dependant on its moveset vs your team, but usually one pokemon is not enough to reliably check dragonite.
What ive noticed is that for teams to not struggle against dragonite they either have 2 pokemon dedicated to checking its different coverage (stuff like wbb corv + treads, wbb steel type + volt absorb corv, dazzling/psychic surge + a fat setup mon) or just a fat mon with unaware, but teams that can afford to run that don't usually struggle against setup pokemon anyways.
Im leaning towards ban due to how restrictive it can be in teambuilding

 

[Atha]

reqs

You should try building and using offense against a well played Dragonite before voting DNB. Dazzling doesn't help. You cannot afford to lose momentum repetitively when the whole point of your team is keeping momentum (Dnite doesn't even let you any kind of reward for sacrificing your pokémon, making setup pointless a lot of the time). Dnite exterminates offense, I think it's the main reason why it should be banned.

The second reason is that some random combination of moves on this pokémon may 6-0 your bulky team, unless it was built with the obsession of not losing to any Dnite ; and with no offensive counterplay. I don't think all teams should be expected to drop U-Turn on Corv for a setup move and have something else that deals with Tbolt Dnite (which is commonplace now).

bannish

 

[choicebadkyurem]

Reqs

Whilst being banned from the tournaments room for 2 days after I did something dumb, I was talking to my bestie Part and he said perfect time to do reqs lol also shout out to him for keeping me sane through this bs. So I did in two runs and 1 day. Second screenshot because I deleted the first one :sob:. Thoughts on the metagame as a whole: Ban Hadron Engine its stupid, free Shadow Tag you won't ;), ban Moth, then Gren, and never free Magnet Pull because I like my broken Corviknight . I will probably vote ban because it annoys Isaiah :p but I think Dnite is fine to be honest it requires lots of support to work and don't use Life Orb Thunderbolt its ass.

Teams

I mostly spammed this Ishah Stall+Water Absorb Chomp? (pokepast.es) Water Absorb Chomper helps the Gren and Washtom mu could go Natural Cure like Q-Tip The Quaq Is Back Good Vr. (pokepast.es) I used this once I got higher on ladder and could mu fish a bit more I like it but it's a bit inconsistent very fun on ladder though, and Magic Guard offensive Quaqaval is stupid good.

 

[Cheezy]

i didn't have too much trouble with dragonite because i ran a team with idef corv and just outplayed any dragonites with thunderbolt, but it definitely has a very unhealthy chokehold on the meta forcing ppl to run idef corv or unaware mons on every balance/stall team, and offense usually just loses to it so im leaning ban.

 

[RoyalReloaded]

got so comically lucky, sorry to anyone who was on the receiving end

the tier is super unfun to me right now. it feels like HO is the only way to go otherwise its impossible to break anything. in my perfect world all immunity abilities are banned (well baked body, earth eater, etc.) but i know that isnt reasonable

 

[Plushietran]

reqs

i mostly stole teams from this thread but here's one i used

This tier is pretty good but Dragonite is quite silly get rid of them

 

[cjw405]

I'm probably going no ban even if I despise this thing

The team I used

 

[Turtlek]

 

[Blitz]

Noticed the typo in the prefix too late in the run but I got the blessing from overlord UT

Thanks Arcueid and Eli for the teams that carried my run. Fun nonsense that murdered me included Galvanize Hyper Voice Arcanine, SubLO Triage Lilligant, Skill Swap Normalize Trapper Toxic Gengar, and Drought Pelipper into SFLO Iron Moth...

And yea Dnite is pretty constraining in the builder. Don't think it's broken but it's one of many threats that are significantly hard to prep for and removing it from the tier would be best.

 

[cat]

LordBox your team is so fucking goated wtf (even if it took me thousands of tries)

 

[Magiquaza]

Met the reqs, I used 2 forms of https://pokepast.es/14a173698afaa6af for 30 games and then used the sample to finish the last two. I'm not sure what to vote, since I hardly saw any dnites on the ladder.

 

[longhiep341]

Disconnecting against a 1100 player was as painful as hitting 79.9 GXE after 25 games, but then I haxed jrdn after totally misplaying and got req, sorry about that. Didn't see many Dragonite, but others have conveyed enough info that I won't repeat them. That said, should I accept that DragonKnight is too OP and ban myself or keep messing around? Hard to tell.
- Team used - Dual satans para spam
This team represents me and UT 's favorite, most fun and competitive strategy - trapping. I successfully trapped 18 Corviknight during my run - 16 with Decidueye and twice with Garde. Para spam from Blissey and Chomper help slow down faster U-turn from Roaring Moon and Slither Wing for Decidueye and pretty much everything faster than Garde, as well as free turns for trappers to do things when foe gets full para in general. I even built likely worse but more demonic versions - Triple Satans (used in the earlier games), featuring either Mean Look Encore Hawlucha (Volt Absorb, Triage or Prankster) or Gengar (Normalize or whatever ability with Mean Look Encore, preferably an immunity to something faster to trap them) in place of Pex.

 

[shadowpea]

dfm's team is op

will probably vote ban. i hate using this thing but its also a pretty big reason why building's so painful rn

 

[spidget]

Shoutout to my good friend bait
This used to be my favorite OM until I ran into a showdown admin who warned me for having my dragonite nicknamed as FEET PIC SELLER... Crazy how quaquaval can have a fat ass for april fools but my dnite cant sell feet pics. Anyways I'll be voting ban for dnite because I'm struggling to come up with a new nickname I like and also it's too constraining on the teambuilder. Here's the team I used https://pokepast.es/8afb4e014555ffb0 it's the Ivar57 team I stole for the previous suspect test so thanks to him, but with a dnite over scream tail for maximum dishonesty. Looking forward to seeing less corviknights

 

[yoshib4]

Probably going to vote ban. Pretty constraining

 

[Dragonillis]

Will vote ban

Atha Je ne demandais pas mieux comme accronyme
Osake Merci pour les teams
Lyna Free HL
Kabilapok Et c'est dans la boîte !

 

[UT]

Voting is up, PM me with any issues!