Announcement SV Monotype Suspect #2: Cold Heart (Baxcalibur Suspect)

[DugZa]

Hello everyone, the Monotype council recently conducted a survey to determine the best way to tier Ice-type moving forward. With over 160 responses, there was overwhelming support for action to be taken on Baxcalibur as shown here. As such, the Monotype council has unanimously decided to suspect Baxcalibur as the second suspect of the generation.

Baxcalibur was quick to cement itself as an integral part of both Dragon- and Ice-type teams in SV Monotype from the get-go but still lacked the necessary tools to push it to a breaking point within the tier. However, the recent DLC release turned a new leaf on its fate with Baxcalibur's new found access to Scale Shot. This allowed Baxcalibur to run Swords Dance sets more effectively while getting a risk-free Speed boost thanks to Scale Shot. Furthermore, the DLC also blessed Ice-type teams with one of, if not, the best Snow and Aurora Veil setter in Ninetales-Alola which only further contributed to Baxcalibur's threatening presence, providing it with ample setup opportunities with little to no risk whatsoever backed up by the Snow and Aurora Veil boost. Albeit not to the same extent as Ice-type teams, Baxcalibur is complemented exceptionally well on Dragon-type teams too. Screens support provided by teammates such as Dragapult along with the ever so important Shed Tail support provided by Cyclizar only further exacerbate Baxcalibur's impact within the tier. Moreover, Baxcalibur can successfully pull of both Swords Dance and Dragon Dance sets; both of which mandate slightly different counter-play at times; while a fast Choice Scarf user is near mandatory to revenge kill Dragon Dance sets, they can easily be taken advantage of by Swords Dance sets that opt for Ice Shard as a move.

That said, Baxcalibur does come with its fair share of limitations. Firstly, as tempting as Loaded Dice sets are on Baxcalibur, they leave it extremely vulnerable to hazards, especially in a metagame such as this that is plagued by hazards. This issue is more apparent as both Dragon- and Ice-types don't have access to very reliable hazard control options and in turn forces most Baxcalibur sets to opt for Heavy-Duty Boots, often forgoing Icicle Spear and making Scale Shot a very shake move. On top of that, with threats such as Urshifu-S, Iron Valiant and Dragapult and the tier being relatively offensive and fast-paced as a whole, Baxcalibur's Speed proves to be mediocre at best prior to any boosts.

All in all, both Dragon- and Ice-type teams provide the necessary team support to push Baxcalibur over the top. We believe its positives and dominance strongly outweigh its negatives and thus opted for this suspect which is further supported by the overwhelming support seen in the survey.

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In order to cast a vote in this suspect test, you must participate on the [Gen 9] Monotype ladder in which Baxcalibur will continue to be allowed. You must make a new account to ladder with. This account's registration date must be at earliest the day this suspect begins. You must prefix your account name with the tag: BAXSD9 in order for your account to qualify. Tagging Kris to implement this on the ladder!

The requirement for qualification is at least 82% GXE and at least 40 games played. The suspect test will last two weeks until Sunday, October 15th @ 11:59 PM EDT (GMT-4). You will then have three days to cast your vote. Baxcalibur will require a 60% majority of voters in favor of banning it in order for it to be banned from Monotype.

Upon meeting the requirements, you must post proof of the qualification in the Voter Identification thread, which is separate from this thread and will be created closer to the end of the suspect. Do not post your proof in this discussion thread.

You may use this thread to discuss this Baxcalibur suspect or ask for clarification for any questions you may have.

You may not use this thread to post one-liners or discuss topics unrelated to this specific suspect, such as possible future suspects.

Please stay respectful when you post and follow all Monotype forum rules. Please also make sure to follow the Monotype tiering philosophy found here.

 

[Wincon]

Here’s some broken Bax on dragon. Was gonna save this for tournament but I kinda need this Mon gone because it puts too much of a limit on team building atm. I just came back to monotype and I’ve built over 100 teams and some of them are just trash while Bax is around, or you gotta run something mediocre like encore on scarf ninetails over healing wish to stop it from blatantly sweeping you behind an aurora veil/screens or not only quagsire but mamoswine as well so you’re not being forced to play reactively when Bax comes in/sets up. Everybody sleeping on Bax on dragon but he’s just as broken and just as easily supported around. All the checks people run for Bax fall to adamant loaded dice spear, especially at +1 such as Quagsire, Corviknight etc., and the checks people run for Bax such as scarf meow, scarf enamorus, scarf cyclizar, fluttermane etc all lose to ice shard after a dragon dance or two behind screens and you can’t even burn it to deal with it like other physical attackers.

Double Dice Screens + Shed Tail
https://pokepast.es/043982c14e9c3f78

Scarf Memento Tatsugiri Screens + SD Dice Guys
https://pokepast.es/3c5cbfa675415cd5

Banded Bax + Specs Wake + CS Vacuum Wave Kommo-o
https://pokepast.es/d02af78bcbd09923

Also got some ice teams, though I’m sure people have already

Piloswine + ID Avalugg Balance
https://pokepast.es/3face8e19a970ef5

 

[mushamu]

I don't have time to get reqs atm but I'm leaning on voting ban on Baxcalibur. I feel like the tier would benefit greatly from it leaving since it's the most metagame warping 'mon that we have. Getting Scale Shot was a huge boon to it, mainly because you don't need to use Dragon Dance for the Speed Boost anymore. Scale Shot / Earthquake / Icicle Crash is basically perfect coverage with the only hard answers being niche pokemon like Dondozo and Orthworm if you discount the choiced pokemon that usually can't OHKO it because screens/hail will be up. Thermal Exchange as an ability also limits counterplay tremendously, meaning you can't beat it by burning it with pokemon like Sableye, Moltres, and Galarian Weezing and instead have to rely on brute force or a hard answer to beat Baxcalibur.

1. Baxcalibur is constricting in the builder
In practice I can't see Baxcalibur being healthy for the metagame long term and it will have a negative affect on building in tournament play as having to build around Baxcalibur with near perfect support is unrealistic without sacrificing other matchups to beat one Pokemon. There hasn't been a major Monotype team tournament since DLC 1 dropped but I've seen some instances of this in casual play. A common example is Iron defense Corviknight which people have run to 1v1 Baxcalibur with Body Press, but realistically speaking it is not a good Pokemon in today's metagame with the reasoning being Corviknight has a lot of other good sets it can run with Baxcalibur outside of the picture. Dropping Iron head on Flying means you always lose to huge threats in Flutter Mane, Hatterene, and Iron Valiant, which means you either have to 1. run another slot in Articuno to wall those three or 2. sacrifice the matchup entirely. This is only one of the examples of Baxcalibur being metagame warping, and Pokemon like the aforementioned Dondozo and Orthworm being ran to beat it are other instances of it being too much in the builder. Dondozo is pretty much a certified awful Pokemon at this stage in the metagame, and Orthworm, while decently viable, can be passed up for another flexible slot especially considering the variety of options Steel has.

2. Baxcalibur is unpredictable
Even though Baxcalibur's main set is Loaded Dice with Ice / Dragon / Ground coverage, as the metagame evolves it will eventually use other options to beat different matchups. Scale shot is good, but for raw power, Choice Band Baxcalibur's Glaive Rush can easily shred through answers like Dondozo and be majorly problematic. Other sets like Dragon Dance + 3 attacks exist too. Substitute + Leftovers can remove the need to play carefully around status, meaning you can pretty much use something like Toxapex as setup fodder and start sweeping. Ice doesn't necessarily need Baxcalibur as a wincon; it has access to many other Pokemon to use for that role so Baxcalibur can easily use different sets. With the metagame developing, guessing Baxcalibur's set at team preview is going to be really tricky, as playing around the "wrong" set can be game defining. If you predict Baxcalibur to be Swords Dance + 3 attacks and try to click Toxic with Toxapex and it clicks Substitute against Poison, you pretty much just lost. If you go Mandibuzz and then the Baxcalibur clicks Dragon Dance under support, then it's taking 2-3 Pokemon down at minimum. It can pretty much customize itself to whatever you want it to beat without major opportunity cost in the builder.

3. Baxcalibur is unhealthy ingame
With it playing team preview mindgames put aside, Baxcalibur is also really awkward to deal with in-game. A lot of games with Baxcalibur often come down to winning 5050s so Scale Shot doesn't boost Speed into winning. I don't think this point is as big as the others but oftentimes dealing with a well-played Baxcalibur feels like playing with fire due to how lethal it is with the right turns and support.

I'm still not 100% on Baxcalibur being broken; I definitely feel like it's important to consider Ice as a type when taking Baxcalibur into account. On one hand, Alolan Sandslash is often overlooked as a Rapid Spin user, meaning the ability to beat Ghost-type Pokemon with Knock Off gives Baxcalibur's item slot more flexibility, but on the other hand Ice is notoriously known for its awful defensive typing. I'm not arguing Baxcalibur should/shouldn't be banned because it's on Ice, but I just wanted to note the unique properties of the type as something to think about when looking at the Pokemon that's being suspected itself. Personally I don't find Baxcalibur to be broken on Dragon because Dragon's support is worse than Ice's, but even then it's a threat to be reckoned with as it is an inherently extremely strong Pokemon in itself. Ice definitely isn't the most broken type ever and has its fair share of bad matchups, but with Baxcalibur, I believe it is overwhelming enough for it to be banned.

 

[TTK]

I also am unsure whether I will be able to get reqs or not (life of a final year student be hittin) but I'm somewhat leaning towards ban right now, due to the line of reasoning I'm about to present in this post and it's unlikely that any pro-unban argument would be enough to dissuade me from changing my vote.

The way I'm thinking about Baxcalibur's position in the current meta is "How does the metagame interact with it?" I am a stickler for the Tiering Policy (however archaic it is in certain contexts) and Baxcalibur can fit under the "Broken" umbrella. Mushamu has already eluded to running IronDef Press Corviknight to 1v1 Bax but at the risk of making the FM mu weaker on Steel or running niche mons like Dondozo or Orthworm to check Bax. This issue is much more apparent in a metagame like Monotype which has a type constriction. LE DON and Orthworm are only usable on Water and Steel teams respectively, what happens to the other 16 types on the board?

But you're probably thinking "Baxcalibur always had limited defensive counterplay, what suddenly changed?" Ice's viability in the metagame changed when DLC1 dropped. Alolan Ninetales offers it enough support to bring it over the edge and that's what it was lacking on one out of two of its types. Cyclizar Dragon was there to bring it in with a Substitute up but that couldn't happen more than twice a game in most circumstances whereas with Alolan Ninetales Ice, you either get 8 turns of Veil (which benefits it more imo than 8 turns of snow) or 8 turns of snow for a guaranteed +1 def boost at all times. Giving a mon with 115/92/86 bulk a consistent boost in it gives it many opportunities to set up. Scizor, one of its strongest offensive checks without a band (metal coat) fails to 3HKO it with veil + snow up. If a strong offensive pokemon like Scizor cannot be a consistent offensive answer, do you think defensive counterplay even has a chance when it can't even get burned and Toxic distribution is basically locked to Poison (Bax folds Poison if it gets a single SD) + Unaware Quagsire Water? (And quagsire is 3hkod on the switch so you either sack it to Toxic it or you're locked into Recover spam)

"Is Alolan Ninetales the issue then?" No, Alolan Ninetales is not the issue. "Is Light Clay the issue?" You could perhaps argue this but hypothesise this: Bax is the only pokemon the community believes is broken under veil/screens, why nerf screens when they're fine with the majority of the metagame? Why not just hit Baxcalibur? And this is where we are in terms of a suspect test.

To round up my thoughts, Baxcalibur is one of the strongest pokemon in the metagame at the moment. It can run a good number of sets ranging from DD 3 Attacks, Sub SD/DD, SD Scale Shot, even Choice Band which all generally do the same thing in pressuring defensive counterplay while being quite hard to deal with offensively when considering Ice has Snow + Veil making revenge killing it a strenuous task. In combination with how niche its hard counters are to fit on teams, I believe it is an unhealthy pokemon in the long run and support a ban on it.

Thanks

 

[iBones]

Here’s some broken Bax on dragon. Was gonna save this for tournament but I kinda need this Mon gone because it puts too much of a limit on team building atm. I just came back to monotype and I’ve built over 100 teams and some of them are just trash while Bax is around, or you gotta run something mediocre like encore on scarf ninetails over healing wish to stop it from blatantly sweeping you behind an aurora veil/screens or not only quagsire but mamoswine as well so you’re not being forced to play reactively when Bax comes in/sets up. Everybody sleeping on Bax on dragon but he’s just as broken and just as easily supported around. All the checks people run for Bax fall to adamant loaded dice spear, especially at +1 such as Quagsire, Corviknight etc., and the checks people run for Bax such as scarf meow, scarf enamorus, scarf cyclizar, fluttermane etc all lose to ice shard after a dragon dance or two behind screens and you can’t even burn it to deal with it like other physical attackers.

Double Dice Screens + Shed Tail
https://pokepast.es/043982c14e9c3f78

Scarf Memento Tatsugiri Screens + SD Dice Guys
https://pokepast.es/597a197568703263

Banded Bax + Specs Wake + CS Vacuum Wave Kommo-o
https://pokepast.es/d02af78bcbd09923

Also got some ice teams, though I’m sure people have already

Piloswine + ID Avalugg Balance
https://pokepast.es/3face8e19a970ef5

The post failed to mention it, but the real issue is that 3 of these 4 teams have screens support for Baxcalibur. It explains a lot of what I've been saying for a while now. The issue is not Baxcalibur

 

[ArkenCiel]

I'm personally still not convinced that Baxcalibur is broken. While it's undeniably strong, it's not like I see it winning an egregious amount over other types. For the time being I just see Ice as having a meteoric rise to the upper ranks of viability but laddering for the suspect could make me think otherwise about how broken it really is. I'll consider using Ice / Dragon only and seeing how that shakes out for me.

 

[Chaitanya]

The post failed to mention it, but the real issue is that 3 of these 4 teams have screens support for Baxcalibur. It explains a lot of what I've been saying for a while now. The issue is not Baxcalibur

We are not looking at screens if the only issue behind them is baxcalibur lol

A common example is Iron defense Corviknight which people have run to 1v1 Baxcalibur with Body Press,

use id bp ih roost... is it great? nah but everyone thought flying was absurd and now flying is a bit worse and is a bit more constricted... It's certainly not unusable by any means either. Idt having to slightly alter a set on a pokemon that is a mainstay regardless is proof something is broken or is absurd in the builder lol

This is only one of the examples of Baxcalibur being metagame warping, and Pokemon like the aforementioned Dondozo and Orthworm being ran to beat it are other instances of it being too much in the builder.

but at the risk of making the FM mu weaker on Steel or running niche mons like Dondozo or Orthworm to check Bax.

niche? these mons were getting decent usage before bax became popular, and will continue to do so even if bax gets banned.
dozo will always find utility in a tier consisting of pao sneasler gambit dnite physical pult ceru shifu and various other physical threats. Regardless, between azu shifu cloyster and tauros, you aren't forced to use dozo in the slightest.


I speed ran reqs and while im defending bax above, im entirely undecided on what im gonna vote. its obv a really good mon and i agree with mushamu that you can sorta use it for what u wanna beat most. I lost to it a couple times but i also beat it more often while only using ground Think bax is funnily enough 'more broken' on dragon than ice. Shed tail support is truly excellent. On ice it exacerbates some bad mus and is super cool vs fire but other than that it doesnt feel like anything absurd for now. So far dragon hasn't popularly used it much/had great success with it and i think the meta could use a bit more time to settle to it. There is a lot of unexplored stuff offensive stuff in this meta still and ice as we know is defensively always gonna be frail. Dragon still feels clunky but if I ended up voting ban its likely going to be because of bax behind shed tail, not on ice. 2 weeks is a long time in an unsettled meta t so I just hope everyone keeps an open mind regardless of how you're leaning atm.

 

[Havens]

I think we're grossly exacerbating Baxcalibur than what it actually is. There's an unnecessary amount of hoops that it has to jump through before it does anything significant.

Let's not kid ourselves here, Ice as a type right now is the best it's ever been in any Metagame, but as a result of "x + y". Gutted recovery, gutted hazard removal, less walls, Steel sucks and is slow, Snow being changed from Hail, plus the obvious great additions in Alolan Ninetales, Alolan Sandslash, Mamoswine line, and etc. are creating the suspect that we have in front of us right now. It just so happens that Baxcalibur is the presumed biggest abuser, benefactor, and contributor to the type's dominance over the metagame. Is that really true though? Sure you obviously have matchups where it's flat out won, but think about how much has to be done in order for Baxcalibur to truly do anything effective in neutral/losing matchups. On Ice, you want some combination of having the snow set, Aurora Veil up, hazards off the field, to be protected behind a Substitute, and even when all of those requirements are fulfilled, you still have to click SD/DD first before you win the game. It's not so versatile so that it's practically impossible to beat in play or in teambuilder, at least right now. If it takes hazard damage you're more likely to assume it's loaded dice with SD/Scale Shot/Icicle Spear. If it doesn't then it's most likely DD/Glaive Rush/Icicle Crash. Sometimes it really has almost 0 value if it's the stock, standard set of just boost move + sub + 2 attacks, and other times it's just a burn shield.

On Dragon, Bax has worse team synergy but better team support simply by Cyclizar Shed Tail giving it leniency to not run Sub on its own and opt for EQ/Zen/Crunch, but it isn't even the best Shed Tail user on Dragon; that belongs to Kommo-o and Garchomp. It's arguable that you'd run Bax on Dragon more so to be Choice Banded w/ Glaive Rush and Ice Shard knowing you can't be burned than to actually sweep teams, and essentially doing better than what Dragonite's job was the past 4 generations was to just be a Banded breaker.

Its not like there's so few, choked options to deal with it anyway. Body Press is basically the new Scald with how splashable it is on basically any type of team, there's various Vacuum Wave/Low Kick users thanks to DLC that give teams means ways to deal effective damage to it, the meta is insanely fast and tempo-oriented compared to previous generations to where it mandates a Speed Boost first by DD or Scale Shot means, and frankly a part of this suspect can be attributed to a fresh meta where people haven't had time to figure out the best means to neuter it or are too lazy to figure it out. I guarantee you'll get more mileage out of combating it if we're all utilizing phazing through Roar/Whirlwind/Red Card; it doesn't take a lot to run, and in a metagame that's very tempo-oriented I promise it has more value than just running out Baxcalibur.

If I have time to get my reqs I will be voting no ban.

 

[Scarfire]

niche? these mons were getting decent usage before bax became popular, and will continue to do so even if bax gets banned.
dozo will always find utility in a tier consisting of pao sneasler gambit dnite physical pult ceru shifu and various other physical threats. Regardless, between azu shifu cloyster and tauros, you aren't forced to use dozo in the slightest.

One of these mons was used once in MPL (by you) and lost, the other was used 7 times and lost 6 of them, and even then was just an option less than a necessity, which is the important distinction. Dondozo is definitely niche, orthworm less so and even then I do think steel can do some other shit. In regards to water tho;

Your alternative mons include two mons which are uncommon and hard to fit (cloy and azu), and both do absolute zilch to bax behind snowveil. Regardless, they do still function as answers but similarly to dondozo feel forcefully tacked on to handle an overbearing threat. Tauros is literally just the bad outcome of being forced to use smth when shifu and quaq provide much more; feel like this is textbook constraining by example.

Urshifu itself as an answer I just don't understand unless you're claiming we continuously go hard into bax clicking SD and click CB CC. Scarf works if you do that and veil and snow are both down, but otherwise +2 scale just kills, and dd +1 glaive kills on roll. Uncomfortable plays to try and force ngl.

Sure you obviously have matchups where it's flat out won, but think about how much has to be done in order for Baxcalibur to truly do anything effective in neutral/losing matchups. On Ice, you want some combination of having the snow set, Aurora Veil up, hazards off the field, to be protected behind a Substitute, and even when all of those requirements are fulfilled, you still have to click SD/DD first before you win the game. It's not so versatile so that it's practically impossible to beat in play or in teambuilder, at least right now. If it takes hazard damage you're more likely to assume it's loaded dice with SD/Scale Shot/Icicle Spear. If it doesn't then it's most likely DD/Glaive Rush/Icicle Crash. Sometimes it really has almost 0 value if it's the stock, standard set of just boost move + sub + 2 attacks, and other times it's just a burn shield.

This part of this post really feels like its over-extending the difficulty of setting up bax lol (in regards to neutrals which is most matchups rn for ice tbh). Having snowveil up is pretty easy wth ninetales and it having encore gives bax a lot of entry points. Boots DD sets don't need hazards off, and even if hazards are up you'd be surprised how much snowveil bax can take even after rocks (kingambits 5fallen iron head into sucker doesnt kill after rocks, as a threshold to consider). To continue on with hazards, this tiers prominent rockers are majority ground types (empo, heatran, and clef are notable non-grounds) which struggle to keep them up vs ice and even if they do get them up, there is barely any ghosts running around blocking avalugg/sandslash from spinning them. 'To be protected by a subsitute" is also quite untrue for 2/3 of its setup sets. And then lastly actually having to click sd/dd isn't exactly difficult with the given support. Really feel like this is wanking how hard bax is to use for some reason, and I do think it is indeed too versatile for the builder. There is no natural checks for it, u have to tech mons for it (Uncomfortable ID corv/dondozo builds like mentioned in previous posts), and some types don't even have that much and just have to resort to play to prevent the veil setup + burn snow turns + prevent bax from getting a free turn. I will agree with that it isn't impossible to beat in play, figuring out its set is half the battle and there often is some form of way outs you can find depending on the remaining snow and veil turns remaining, but it still can create very uncomfortable situations in game that feel out of your control, and has a really ugly builder impact.


Beyond just responding to others, some extra 2 cents I have on Bax is that SD Scale feels like the weaker of the sets at its disposal rn. Needing 2 turns to get going + dropping the defences that you're trying to abuse, while being rocks weak, not healing the damage, or being able to speed on fairies is many levels of gross. DD 3 attacks with boots or DD SubLefties seem to make the most of the support Bax has been given this meta and the +1 +1 boost is more than enough for the meta right now. On Dragon, good ol SD ice shard with boots still seems to be the wave.

 

[Azick]

Personally I'm gonna vote ban, I found myself spending entire games doing nothing other than trying to outposition baxcalibur and think its a very easy mon to set that abuses the support it finds on the type to a further extent than anything else. Anyways I just want to respond to a few lines in this post that aggravated me. Havens

"Let's not kid ourselves here, Ice as a type right now is the best it's ever been in any Metagame, but as a result of "x + y". Gutted recovery, gutted hazard removal, less walls, Steel sucks and is slow, Snow being changed from Hail, plus the obvious great additions in Alolan Ninetales, Alolan Sandslash, Mamoswine line, and etc." It just so happens that Baxcalibur is the presumed biggest abuser, benefactor, and contributor to the type's dominance over the metagame. Is that really true though?

This entire sentiment just makes zero sense to me. Like yes, Ice is probably at its best right now and it is due to "x+y" or a combination of factors. Is a combination of factors not how ANY type gets better? Yes it so happens that Baxcalibur is the presumed biggest abuser because it quite literally got the most support on the survey that was specifically meant for us to get input on how to tier ice because it was a complicated situation with all of these factors. So whether or not you personally think Baxcalibur is the biggest issue on ice it is what got the most support and thus was always going to be the thing getting suspected.

On Ice, you want some combination of having the snow set, Aurora Veil up, hazards off the field, to be protected behind a Substitute, and even when all of those requirements are fulfilled,

I think people grossly overestimate how difficult it is position Baxcalibur properly. Yes, ideally you want a large combination of things, but Bax in itself has solid bulk and finds many opportunities to set up if you just position decently with one of things.

On Dragon, Bax has worse team synergy but better team support

I really have no clue what you are trying to say. How in the world does Baxcalibur have poor synergy on Dragon? It is a staple Pokemon that easily fits on the type and has tons of use for Dragon in a variety of matchups aided by the solid team support.

 

[wkxkevin]

My main gripe with baxcalibur is that it's very hard to kill before it kills you if setup correctly and the setup requires very little.

On Ice, I have seen a lot of great teams lose on turn 3 because snowtails setup up veil turn 1 and sacrifices itself. Baxcalibur comes in, takes 30% from something like a super effective close combat and clicks scale shot on turn 3. Suddenly, it outspeeds your entire team and can kill you before veil runs out, or at least, punch such a large hole that it becomes trivial for things like chien pao and mamoswine to clean late game.

On Dragon, it has great team support such as the likes of screens pult and shed tail cyclizar. Behind screens and a sub, you are most likely losing this game. Although it's much harder for dragon to set up the bax sweep, bax can do a lot behind just screens or clean a team late game with a single shed tail.

That's just the loaded dice set. Bax can also run band, boots with dragon dance, etc.

However, I think we can all agree, that the main reason people are complaining is because of ice. The combo of alolan ninetails supporting baxcalibur, mixed with chien-pao and mamo in the back is very difficult for many teams to stop. The main reason fighting is at an all time high right now is because of this(urshifu too). Figthing is one of the only type, other than steel which sucks, and bug which isn't too great either, that can reliably handle ice doing this. Yes, types like dark, rock, ground, fire, and water can counter with opposing weather, it's not enough. Fire can't spam fire attacks out of fear of bax getting a thermal boost, ttar is not a good switch bax, pao, and mamo, water can't deal with ice reliably because of the multitude of freeze dry and only dondozo truly counters bax, and ground vs ice, well you know...

I will address one counter argument though. As the dlc dropped, the number of vaccuum wave users exploded. This coupled with mach punch, and bullet punch users make ice's job insanely difficult. For example, ground can slightly weaken ice for calm mind ubloodmoon to sweep with vaccum wave. Specs valiant almost always run vaccum wave, scizor bullet punch, breloom mach punch etc. Although the prevalence of priority is a huge hinderace, it's not something ice can't bypass. For example, sd chien pao can ohko scizor with succer punch.

I think overall, the problem is the combo of alolan ninetails + baxcalibur + chien-pao. This goes back to the aegislash dilemma we had in SS. Everyone hated the steel immunity core and wanted something to do about it. So we suspected aegislash. Low and behold, it stayed because it wasn't individually broken. I think ice is in a similar dilemma. What's broken is the combination of all 3(plus the 3 additional pokemon ice can add). Baxcalibur just stands out because a. OU banned it(idc that mono ignores ou but it's still a factor), b. it's pretty strong on dragon too, and c. it actually has bulk unlike chien-pao.

I would vote ban because I think unlike aegislash, bax is a bit too strong. The fact that you can't burn it is just the cherry on top.

 

[QueenIvy01]

Personally, I love Baxcalibur as a mon in general in comp. It's attack and health are really good despite others outclassing those stats. With Icicle Spear, Outrage and other phsyical stab moves its a very good contender for any tier (probably not ou tho). However in Monotype it's VERY overpowered especially because of its ability to not be burned and get a attack stat because of it. Not only does it have that, it has Dragon Dance that already pairs well with its ability. It can overwhelm its ability in one move if the opponent plays incorrectly, and can wipe a whole team with Icicle Spear + Dice + Dragon Dance and a +1 boost on its attack. With all of this in mind I have to vote BAN. It's def and sp.def stats doesnt make it less of a threat nor does its speed, its insanely strong with a lot of potential and could honestly something more useful in Uber....who am i kidding it's probably not gonna do that well

 

[Parangua15]

I just have reached the requirements to vote in this suspect. It’s the first time I’m participating in a suspect to vote and I’d like ask for help to be clear in a couple of things.
When the post says: “Tagging Kris to implement this on the ladder” it means I have to do anything else at the moment of create my account? Because if that’s the case, I didn’t do it :(
Another thing is about to proof I got the requirements. Could someone explain me how it works? It’s just like take a screen shot or something like that hahah.

please help

pt: I will vote ban, it’s unstoppable against flying, ground, grass. Only a mistake by the user makes possible kill it without sacrifice 2 or 3 lads.

 

[ken]

text

You can see how to post proof in the identification thread.

 

[pikachu<3]

Got reqs, so I guess I'll take the time to post my thoughts here.

I admittingly haven't played this meta much at all (took a break from mons since the core challenges; the vast majority of my games since then are the games i played for reqs), but I found baxcalubur not broken in the slightest; I spammed a water team somewhat weak to bax and beat every bax I saw on ladder. On ladder, I mostly faced fighting, with some ground/dragon/bug/dark/fire/water/flying/poison mixed in at random. I basically didn't see ice at all, which means ice is probably not good considering ladder loves to abuse broken offensive mons.

Overall I find the pro-bax arguments very unconvincing, mainly because most of them talk about it being "broken on paper" on ice with loaded dice bax getting a free switch on a clear field with both screens and hail up. While this is possible to occur, it's somewhat unlikely due to the nature of ice; ice is a naturally frail type that really only gets one shot at executing its gameplan in most battles; if that shot goes away due to losing a 50/50, getting caught off guard due to a unexpected scarfer/move/ev spread/hax, or whatever, ice is usually going to lose even if the game is a win "on paper". I'd like the pro-bax players to put up a list of replays of bax doing broken shit; i believe @finnception made a post asking for one in the main monotype discussion and got no response.

To end this, I'll post a replay from gen7 illustrating my point of ice's fraility:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7monotype-756345446

Here Rimefang has the "unblockable spinner" snowslash, has light clay ninetails with viel, and the other side is running a team that gets swept by +2 cloyster. To make matters worse, the cloyster set ice boreas is running is spear/smash/t-spikes/spin, a set rather bad in the mirror. Should be, according to the logic of some of the pro-ban arguments on this page, a free win for rimefang.

But in the replay, snowslash never gets a chance to spin and screens never even come up due to aggressive plays and 50/50s. What should have been a win on paper is instead a convincing loss. At the end of the day, ice is still ice and a couple of shiny new toys doesn't change that.

 

[Cee o-o]

Got reqs, so I guess I'll take the time to post my thoughts here.

Water stall should never lose to Baxcalibur if you have an Alomomola that can wish pass to your body press Dondozo. Usually this will involve using rest to PP stall and clicking body press to chip whatever scoundrel they switch to when their bax is in trouble (usually alotails).

With that said, I'm voting ban because the mon is over-constricting in builder. I wish it shouldn't be this way because having cool dragon pseudo legendaries is what attracts many people to playing monotype.

We definitely should have suspected light clay or chien-pao instead and I would have banned those instead of Baxcalibur. This solution still works because light clay (not on fairy) and chien-pao are indirectly nerfed by banning Baxcalibur.

 

[ArkenCiel]

I think most people are concerned about ice's recent upsurge in viability and usage. Baxcalibur, icy rock, or light clay is the question posed to us by the survey but whatever it is, people want action taken against ice, that much is clear, and it just so happens that Baxcalibur is what we're honing in on. Fortunately, we now have more tournaments to look at to get a better idea of how Baxcalibur performs on ice but unfortunately, the suspect is already drawing to a close so soon. This suspect might have come a little too early because it would have been nice to have more tournament games to extrapolate from now that we've had some time to relearn the snow mechanic, what ice has to offer, and adapt.

ANYHOW, these are all seven replays of ice winning last week in tours:
Coo1313 (Ice) vs fkmyluck (Fire)
Keahi (Ice) vs CaptainDaimyo (Water)
TheRealBigC (Ice) vs Memedose46 (Flying)
ElectroBoi420 (Ice) vs. valroirr7894 (Water)
Snow Jiniri (Ice) vs. Toadow (Water)
tMoi (Ice) vs. kythr (Flying)
weird mon (Ice) vs. Lookslikemyname (Electric)

Some things to note:
From all of ice's wins this week only two of them end with Baxcalibur and it's against flying and electric.
In the other five replays where ice wins, Baxcalibur only makes an impact in one of them and that was also against flying.
In the same five replays where ice wins, Baxcalibur is dead by the end of every replay but one.

Conversely and interestingly enough, out of the seven replays where ice won, Chien-Pao is the only one to survive in every replay but one.
And by my count, ice lost in MORE games than it won.

I'll be the first to admit that we can't come to any definitive conclusion from the less-than-twenty or so unimpressive replays that ice produced last week. I'm not using these as evidence but they're definitely not in line with the idea that ice is domineering. However, from what I have personally seen so far, including these replays and more, ice as a type has been underwhelming and isn't even close to topping usage. Baxcalibur on dragon actually impressed me more but that's not really people's main concern. I kinda wish this suspect was delayed further but with all that said I don't find Baxcalibur to be the problem on ice and voting Do Not Ban.

 

[Calaeb]

I think Baxcalibur is an issue in and of itself, but the support that it has behind Veil & Snow is also part of the issue.

 

[TheWyvernKing]

Conversely and interestingly enough, out of the seven replays where ice won, Chien-Pao is the only one to survive in every replay but one.
And by my count, ice lost in MORE games than it won.

I don't think Pao being the only surviving mon is really admissible for much, it's way more of a late game cleaner. On the other hand, Bax is often brought in earlier in the match where it's more likely to have access to both screens + snow.

The reason why I was initially on board for the ban was from games like this:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-1949314253-c8ng2e3gdasiutzgprdqu4aspc9v4dppw
This is early meta (2-3 weeks ago), and there are a couple other examples I can probs dig up especially with the Poison matchup. While sub isn't as common, Sub SD Bax can practically solo some Poison and non-Dozo Water builds. not to mention still being a heavy threat to alot of types like Flying.

I'm on the fence as of right now, but when I think of why I'd really consider a ban, I can 100% see sets like this coming in tours - especially when the meta is more established. Like it or not but I definitely see this as a very real constraint for some types in future tournament play. Gonna just not vote but I'd probs still lean towards ban tbh.

That being said I think you're right in the suspect being early for Bax. I personally am not a big fan of where the meta is at right now, but things have settled down alot since this suspect first started and I don't think alot of people recognize their POV of Bax will be very different this coming week compared to when reqs first started - largely in part to meta changes such as increase in Dondozo which make Bax a bit less threatening.

 

[DugZa]

The voting thread is officially up: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-monotype-suspect-2-baxcalibur.3729729/

More details can be found on the thread; qualified users will have until Wednesday, October 18th @ 11:59 PM EST (GMT-4) to submit their votes; thank you to everyone for sharing their thoughts.

 

[DugZa]

Baxcalibur remains legal in SV Monotype: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-monotype-suspect-2-baxcalibur.3729729/post-9824313

Qualified users who haven't voted yet will have until the deadline mentioned on the voting OP to submit their votes if they would like it to count towards the Tiering Contributor badge.

Looking forward to hear everyone's thoughts on the suspect results and updates on the current metagame on the metagame discussion thread!