Metagame np: USUM DOU Stage 1 - New Perspective

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Idyll

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Welcome to the fifth Suspect Test of Doubles OU! This time, instead of suspecting a new, different element in the metagame, we're going to revisit an old buddy pal of ours in Marshadow! Ever since it was first suspected in Stage 3 and voted to stay in the Doubles OU metagame, it has stood as a top-tier attacking threat. Not much really changed to Marshadow itself; it still boasts the same high Attack and Speed stats with superb STAB coverage that made it a phenom on the offensive, and it still has access to the same plethora of third-slot moves it always had, with Shadow Sneak and Hidden Power Ice being the most common choices as well as being boosted by its ability Technician. Marshadow's signature move Spectral Thief still does the same old in taking away any boosts, dissuading the old set-up ploys popular in a past era of the meta. What changed with Marshadow, however, was the community's perspective on it as ever since the first suspect, there have been increasing cries that Marshadow may not be what we once thought it was, and that our view on it back then was quite premature. The metagame also faced some developments in the time within; in particular, Marshadow with its signature Z-Move Soul-Stealing Seven-Star Strike grew in favor and became feared for its ability to capably claim one every game. A seasonal and the Smogon Snake Draft tournament came and went, and now we're here: to determine Marshadow's place in the metagame once more!

Also, it's the very first stage of USUM DOU, hype!

As usual, the only requirements to vote for the suspect are the ladder points required further below on the post. There are NO posting requirements; still, we advise everyone to actually read the arguments others present for and against Marshadow's overbearing metagame presence (or lack thereof) and still attempt to participate in discussion on this thread. A sheer volume of people saying one thing or another will change nobody's opinion so make sure you're actually doing something to make people think.

Important Info!: The ladder will be open for TWO WEEKS! Yes, you read that right! The suspect ladder will now be open for an entire two week period unlike the past suspects which had laddering periods of their own due to the holiday season.

The deadline of the suspect will be December 28 (Thursday), 11:59 PM (EST)

The B value for this suspect is 14.5. One will need to achieve a COIL of 2600 to qualify. In addition, one will also be required to have a minimum of 76.85 GXE with a game limit of 60 maximum.

N=14.5/log2(40*GXE/2600)

Remember to keep an open mind in this suspect! Please respect the opinions of others; remember, just because you believe in your side does not mean the other is wrong!

Have fun!



 

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I'll post my thoughts on Marshadow, which I believe is too much for the DOU tier due to its lack of reliable defensive or offensive counterplay.

Marshadow is a really interesting Pokemon and what makes it so threatening is the combination of Speed, Power and unresisted STAB. There are essentially no pokemon that can switch in on Marshadow and threaten it back (or really switch in on Marshadow at all). The common answers are really Tapu Fini (which can die to a Spectral thief + Z move), Landorus-t to pressure with Intimidate (which can die to a LO Hidden Power Ice), Salamence which faces the same problems but with slightly more bulk, and the less common Tapu Bulu.
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 252 HP / 128+ Def Tapu Fini: 103-123 (29.9 - 35.7%) -- 31.5% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 128+ Def Tapu Fini: 223-264 (64.8 - 76.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Life Orb Technician Marshadow Hidden Power Ice vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Landorus-Therian: 369-437 (115.6 - 136.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Life Orb Technician Marshadow Hidden Power Ice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Salamence-Mega: 338-400 (102.1 - 120.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Tapu Bulu: 274-324 (79.8 - 94.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

When Marshadow is paired with Stealth Rock or the right partners, it becomes an unmanageable threat for most teams. Switching into SSSSS with Rocks is essentially an impossible task, while pairing Marshadow with a pokemon such as Metagross (currently both are on some of the most popular team compositions in the meta) the bulky Fairy-types that can take on Marshadow are suddenly not as well equipped to remove Marsh.

Similarly Marshadow has some of the best priority in the tier in its Technician Shadow Sneak. While its not threatening many Pokemon from full, Sneak from Marsh limits the offensive counterplay that exists to Marsh. Opposing speed control becomes less sturdy of an answer to Marsh when it's able to chunk 30% from just about anything in the tier. Faster pokemon than Marshadow are often not bulky enough to handle 2 Shadow Sneaks and this can really limit the way that pokemon such as Tapu Koko or Mega Gengar, (the former can be 2hkod by non-LO sneak, the latter can be KOd by LO sneak or a high roll from non LO) are played in matchups against Marshadow. Other offensive answers such as Scarf Tapu Lele or Sash Deoxys can be rendered useless by a change in Terrain or the presence of stealth rock, both being very common in the current meta.

For being an offensive powerhouse Marshadow also has respectable bulk and can survive the length of a game frequently. It can also be difficult for its checks to KO it, a problem when trying to check a pokemon as strong as Marshadow.
136+ SpA Tapu Fini Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Marshadow: 270-320 (84.1 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(idk how much spatk you guys run on fini but this is the max spatk that never KOs)
252 SpA Life Orb Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Marshadow in Electric Terrain: 253-298 (78.8 - 92.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
196 SpA Aerilate Salamence-Mega Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Marshadow: 260-308 (80.9 - 95.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Marshadow: 177-208 (55.1 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-------
not checks but less relevant calcs that can further show its bulk
16+ SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Marshadow: 144-169 (44.8 - 52.6%) -- 21.5% chance to 2HKO
52 SpA Teravolt Kyurem-Black Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Marshadow: 129-153 (40.1 - 47.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
56 Atk Teravolt Kyurem-Black Fusion Bolt vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Marshadow: 143-169 (44.5 - 52.6%) -- 22.3% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Marshadow: 144-171 (44.8 - 53.2%) -- 31.3% chance to 2HKO


Marshadow excels offensively and defines this metagame. Its ability to power through offensive and defensive counterplay is, in my opinion, enough of a reason to remove Marshadow this time around.
 
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kaori

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I think this is a good suspect and I'm thrilled it's gonna resolve before SPL. In my 4 years of playing doubles formats Marshadow has a really good case for the most restrictive Pokemon to teambuilding I've ever had to deal with, right up with VCG 16 Xerneas. I can't tell you how many ideas I have that I have to instantly trash because it just gets run over by Marshadow. The combination of its speed tier, respectable bulk and insane coverage invalidates so many Pokemon and playstyles it's absurd. I hope I don't have to write much more but I think Marshadow should absolutely be banned and anyone who plays the tier regularly should know that.
 

GenOne

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Marshadow's unresisted STAB coverage, blazing speed stat, decent bulk and ability to steal stat boosts leave the opponent with few options for counterplay besides:
  • Being faster
  • Cycling through Intimidate users
  • Setting up speed control, or
  • Using a bulky redirector like Amoonguss
This is compounded by a metagame where Terrains already have a good probability of negating other "strategic" tactics like using priority moves or status moves, so aside from the four counterplays listed above we're basically left with a metagame where you win based on positioning and your type chart matchups alone. Unfortunately, Marshadow 2HKOs almost everything (if not outright KO'ing) without regard to the type chart whatsoever, which makes it incredibly centralizing.

To be fair, Marshadow has had some good influence on the metagame (it freed us from the setup hell that we had before it entered the meta) but people quickly realized that your teambuilding options get pretty narrow when Marshadow negates 75% of your would-be ideas for new concepts. Now we're left with a metagame that's decently fun to play, but really boring to build for.

The fact is, Marshadow is way too over-centralizing. Some people might enter into this suspect thinking "Marshadow has flaws but I don't want setup to be a thing again." To that, I would say that if Marshadow is over-centralizing, it's over-centralizing; broken doesn't check broken and if new flaws emerge in a post-Marshadow meta, that's when you start looking at other aspects of the meta that need to be adjusted.

I'm voting ban this time around, but could be talked out of it. Look forward to reading what others have to say!
 
its defenses are mediocre, with 90,80,90 defensive stats.
No, they are not—especially for such a fast, offensive Pokémon. To put this in perspective, Marshadow's 90/80/90 defenses are almost on par with Zapdos's, with the Defense stat only 5 points lower.

it can easily be checked by almost every tapu (except bulu) which are omnipresent due to the need on most, if not all teams to change terrain.
See miltankmilk's post above on how traditional Marshadow checks—including the aforementioned Tapus—get run over by Marshadow's moves, especially Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike.

koko is faster, and can hit it hard, and marsh cant do much in return (unless it has a z move), and if carrying specs koko can OHKO marsh before it can get a hit off.
If Marshadow is not running Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike, then it almost always carries Life Orb—in which case Marshadow always 2HKOs with Shadow Sneak:
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Koko: 142-169 (50.5 - 60.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Also, Specs Tapu Koko is not very common in this meta.

lele can outspeed it with scarf and OHKO it with psychic.
Lele, Scarfed or otherwise, cannot switch directly into Marshadow for fear of taking a Spectral Thief to the face—making it a shaky check at best.

most rain teams have no trouble with marsh because swift swim will make almost every common user faster than marsh in rain, same goes for sand and excadrill.
It does not matter whether or not a couple of team archetypes are able to adequately deal with Marshadow; it matters whether or not all viable team archetypes are able to do so. If only a few can adequately deal with Marshadow, then there is definitely a problem with how it restricts team options.

its also not terribly hard to double team and attack it with both mons on the field to get rid of it.
A Marshadow need only click Protect, and the opponent shall waste his entire turn while Marshadow's partner KOes one of the opponent's Pokémon.
 
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Marshadow's unresisted STAB coverage, blazing speed stat, decent bulk and ability to steal stat boosts leave the opponent with few options for counterplay besides:
  • Being faster
  • Cycling through Intimidate users
  • Setting up speed control, or
  • Using a bulky redirector like Amoonguss
This is compounded by a metagame where Terrains already have a good probability of negating other "strategic" tactics like using priority moves or status moves, so aside from the four counterplays listed above we're basically left with a metagame where you win based on positioning and your type chart matchups alone. Unfortunately, Marshadow 2HKOs almost everything (if not outright KO'ing) without regard to the type chart whatsoever, which makes it incredibly centralizing.

To be fair, Marshadow has had some good influence on the metagame (it freed us from the setup hell that we had before it entered the meta) but people quickly realized that your teambuilding options get pretty narrow when Marshadow negates 75% of your would-be ideas for new concepts. Now we're left with a metagame that's decently fun to play, but really boring to build for.

The fact is, Marshadow is way too over-centralizing. Some people might enter into this suspect thinking "Marshadow has flaws but I don't want setup to be a thing again." To that, I would say that if Marshadow is over-centralizing, it's over-centralizing; broken doesn't check broken and if new flaws emerge in a post-Marshadow meta, that's when you start looking at other aspects of the meta that need to be adjusted.

I'm voting ban this time around, but could be talked out of it. Look forward to reading what others have to say!
Marshadow is not overcentralizing because the "few options for counterplay" are already major parts of any decent team in the USUM meta.
Common mons that are faster than marshadow-
Tapu Koko
Scarf lele
Deo-a
Mega Gengar

Common forms of speed control-
Tailwind (Zapdos, Salamence, Pelliper)
Trick Room is set vs. marsh teams consistently with help from intimidate, fake out, or just the bulk of the TR setter
Rain

Common Bulky Redirector-
Amoonguss
ally switch (lol)

Marshadow's bulk-
Yes marshadow has decent bulk. However, when I use marshadow, I find myself clicking CC the most. The defense drops from CC are not insignificant.

Positioning
Imo we should have a metagame where you win based on positioning. Doubles is all about positioning to gain an advantage over your opponent. This isn't singles; we have two pokemon on each side. If marshadow gets a kill, the other mon on your team should be able to take advantage of that (set up speed control, kill marshadow, etc).

That is why I'm currently leaning no ban. I'm glad we do have these suspect tests and if I'm completely wrong and people decide to ban marshadow, so be it.
 

GenOne

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Marshadow is not overcentralizing because the "few options for counterplay" are already major parts of any decent team in the USUM meta.
Common mons that are faster than marshadow-
Tapu Koko
Scarf lele
Deo-a
Mega Gengar

Common forms of speed control-
Tailwind (Zapdos, Salamence, Pelliper)
Trick Room is set vs. marsh teams consistently with help from intimidate, fake out, or just the bulk of the TR setter
Rain

Common Bulky Redirector-
Amoonguss
ally switch (lol)

Marshadow's bulk-
Yes marshadow has decent bulk. However, when I use marshadow, I find myself clicking CC the most. The defense drops from CC are not insignificant.

Positioning
Imo we should have a metagame where you win based on positioning. Doubles is all about positioning to gain an advantage over your opponent. This isn't singles; we have two pokemon on each side. If marshadow gets a kill, the other mon on your team should be able to take advantage of that (set up speed control, kill marshadow, etc).

That is why I'm currently leaning no ban. I'm glad we do have these suspect tests and if I'm completely wrong and people decide to ban marshadow, so be it.
  • Koko still takes at least 50% from LO-boosted Shadow Sneak
    252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Koko: 142-169 (50.5 - 60.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • Scarf Lele drops to Shadow Sneak if you can cancel out Psychic Terrain.
  • Deo-A only wins that matchup if it has a Focus Sash intact and/or Psychic Terrain is up.
  • Mega Gengar also drops to Shadow Sneak unless Psychic Terrain is up.
  • Marshadow just steals Zapdos's seed boost, leaves for a couple of turns and comes back when Tailwind expires
  • Salamence drops to HP Ice
  • Pelipper's a problem for Marshadow but most teams bring good rain checks anyways
  • Intimidate is the only thing that stops Marshadow from KO'ing most TR setters. The common ones like Hoopa-U and Bronzong are either physically frail or weak to Ghost moves.
  • Amoonguss is a problem for Marshadow, that's why I listed it in my post
  • Ban Ally Switch
 
I’m not going to say pro or anti ban just yet but I’m going to say it’s extremely frustrating reading the pro ban arguments because they mention 3 different sets at once (lo sneak, lo hp ice, sssss) and making it seem like marshadow can somehow use all these sets at once and take on every damn counter to marshadow. If marshadow can somehow use all the above mentioned moves and sets at once then yes please ban it it’s stupid. I feel like the real issue here is (I’ve noticed this with the deoxys suspect) that people are overwhelmed with the variety of sets marshadow can carry and just want to straight up ban it. Honestly the next suspect is going to be megagross because it can access a lot of counterplay moves like hammer arm ice punch ground punch iron head zen head butt thunder punch and it’s amazing bulk.

That being said, marshadow does have unresisted coverage and a speed tier that makes it difficult to counter, which I completely agree with. But i want to add on that in order for marshadow to be as threatening as it sounds like everyone is making (it can take out all of it’s listed counters) marshadow would need 2 item slots and 5 move slots. But that’s Pokemon. A lot of Pokémon will be carrying something to counter it’s own counters in some form or another (see hp ice/hw zapdos, flamethrower celesteela, Shuca/chople berry Tran/staka,etc)

I’m not going to say what anyone here is saying is invalid. But it’s just frustrating having the problem stated in a way that makes it a bigger problem than it actually is.
 
I’m not going to say pro or anti ban just yet but I’m going to say it’s extremely frustrating reading the pro ban arguments because they mention 3 different sets at once (lo sneak, lo hp ice, sssss) and making it seem like marshadow can somehow use all these sets at once and take on every damn counter to marshadow. If marshadow can somehow use all the above mentioned moves and sets at once then yes please ban it it’s stupid. I feel like the real issue here is (I’ve noticed this with the deoxys suspect) that people are overwhelmed with the variety of sets marshadow can carry and just want to straight up ban it. Honestly the next suspect is going to be megagross because it can access a lot of counterplay moves like hammer arm ice punch ground punch iron head zen head butt thunder punch and it’s amazing bulk.

That being said, marshadow does have unresisted coverage and a speed tier that makes it difficult to counter, which I completely agree with. But i want to add on that in order for marshadow to be as threatening as it sounds like everyone is making (it can take out all of it’s listed counters) marshadow would need 2 item slots and 5 move slots. But that’s Pokemon. A lot of Pokémon will be carrying something to counter it’s own counters in some form or another (see hp ice/hw zapdos, flamethrower celesteela, Shuca/chople berry Tran/staka,etc)

I’m not going to say what anyone here is saying is invalid. But it’s just frustrating having the problem stated in a way that makes it a bigger problem than it actually is.
The point isn't that they can run all three of these sets at once, but that all three of them are viable and the opponent doesn't know which set it is until its revealed. In that way Marsh gets to pick its checks and counters which makes it even more dangerous on top of its unresisted STABs and great speed tier.
 

Mr.GX

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One thing I noticed is most of the calc's mentioned here are at neutral. Seeing how common Intimidate is in this format, here are a few calcs:

-1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 72 Def Tapu Fini: 171-202 (49.7 - 58.7%) -- 71.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
-1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Tapu Bulu: 183-216 (53.3 - 62.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
-1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Scizor-Mega: 154-183 (44.7 - 53.1%) -- 28.9% chance to 2HKO
-1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Diancie: 145-172 (47.6 - 56.5%) -- 87.5% chance to 2HKO
-1 252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Gengar-Mega: 198-237 (75.5 - 90.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Metagross-Mega: 174-211 (57.8 - 70%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I personally don't think Marshadow is really broken. Considering how almost everyone got Intimidate on their teams, you are capable of surviving even super effective hits from an lo Marshadow. Set-up is still possible, but requires extra support in the form of scarf users, etc. And Z-Moves, once again, can be severely weakened by a timely protect. Doubles is never 1v1 (unless you are down to your last mon, in which case your opponent probably played better), both players are capable of making reads, and one wrong read can put the Marsh user at a disadvantage.

Marshadow is an offensive threat, a good one at that. Its simply a good Pokemon with amazing typing, coverage and speed. But is it broken? It does restricts team building a bit, you need counters and switch-ins. But so does other popular Pokemon like Salamence, Deoxys, Kyurem etc. As the above calcs show, I wouldn't consider Marshadow broken by any means, or meta defining. So, leaning towards no-ban as of now. Looking forward to what others have to say.

Hope this helps!
 

Level 51

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Okay no but for real, you can't just say "oh Intimidate exists, we can free Marshadow!!" Just because a switch-in ability on some common Pokemon drops the damage output of an opposing Pokemon by 50% doesn't mean the Pokemon is automatically not broken. Sand Stream, Drought and Snow Warning are on some decent Pokemon like Tyranitar, Charizard-Y and Ninetales-A. Should we free Kyogre? You can nerf its damage output so much by just switching your weather Pokemon in!!!

You talk about how one wrong read can put the Marshadow user at a disadvantage. This is the same for every Pokemon ever; as you should know from playing a year of VGC 2016, using the wrong moves on any Pokemon will put you at a disadvantage. The idea here is that Marshadow has so many different options on what moves it wants to use and also on what moves it even has in the first place that it's really difficult to play around; this is an especially notable point because the two most common Intimidate users, which is what your argument appears to pivot around, are outsped and drop to HP Ice.
 

Mr.GX

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is a Tiering Contributor
>

>



Okay no but for real, you can't just say "oh Intimidate exists, we can free Marshadow!!" Just because a switch-in ability on some common Pokemon drops the damage output of an opposing Pokemon by 50% doesn't mean the Pokemon is automatically not broken. Sand Stream, Drought and Snow Warning are on some decent Pokemon like Tyranitar, Charizard-Y and Ninetales-A. Should we free Kyogre? You can nerf its damage output so much by just switching your weather Pokemon in!!!
1. The Kyogre argument is out of context here.
2. I mostly posted a bunch of Intim calcs since none were posted in previous posts.

Intim exists on almost every team, and there are numerous other ways to counter Marshadow, including Chople/Kasib berries which I noticed have been used in tour games before or Aurora Veil Ninetales. Remember, the Marshadow user isn't the only one with the surprise factor. As much as I hate to say it, Ally Switch is a thing now and Protect can be used to scout and potentially figure out their set safely. Redirection + Set up still works, after which Marshadow is potentially at a disadvantage so I wouldn't say Marshadow shuts down set up strategies entirely. I just can't bring myself to see this Pokemon as broken. Good, but definitely not broken.

Just my opinion.
 
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Level 51

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1. The Kyogre argument is out of context here.
2. I mostly posted a bunch of Intim calcs since none were posted in previous posts.

Intim exists on almost every team, and there are numerous other ways to counter Marshadow, including Chople/Kasib berries which I noticed have been used in tour games before or Aurora Veil Ninetales. Remember, the Marshadow user isn't the only one with the surprise factor. As much as I hate to say it, Ally Switch is a thing now and Protect can be used to scout and potentially figure out their set safely. Redirection + Set up still works, after which Marshadow is potentially at a disadvantage so I wouldn't say Marshadow shuts down set up strategies entirely. I just can't bring myself to see this Pokemon as broken. Good, but definitely not broken.
Please explain how the Kyogre argument is out of context here. Like Marshadow, Kyogre cannot OHKO Pokemon like Tapu Fini, Mega Scizor or Tapu Bulu if an opponent switches in a specific opposing Pokemon, which clearly indicates its lack of relevant damage output. Also like Marshadow, Kyogre also notably cannot be OHKOd by any of its common checks, even on SE hits in some cases, but clearly according to your logic that's no biggie.

Chople and Kasib aren't Marshadow counters, they are Marshadow checks. No Pokemon which runs Chople and Kasib can really retaliate against Marshadow with an OHKO, except maybe Stakataka and Necrozma. Or are you really advocating for Kasib Lele? The fact that we're even considering using such suboptimal items on Pokemon shows how centralising Marshadow is and how much it restricts teambuilding—have you ever heard of anyone running Coba Berry to beat Salamence? Furthermore, Marshadow hits for solid amounts even on neutral hits, which is usually what it's hitting for. Chople and Kasib are irrelevant.

Next: Ally Switch is a thing now? I wouldn't want to derail the conversation in this thread because there's a separate thread for Ally Switch, but Ally Switch is such a dumb move that you can use the same argument for anything that hits for single-target damage: let's also free Ho-Oh because you can just play around it with Ally Switch. Let's also free Zekrom because you can just play around it with Ally Switch (oh, also Zekrom doesn't OHKO Mega Scizor or Mega Metagross!!!!). I don't think using one broken idea to justify another one is a good or compelling argument in any way.

And yes, if you set up a Mega Salamence alongside some form of redirection you're at an advantage. Surprising!
 
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7doublesoususpecttest-676512895

So this matchup highlights marshadow vs a kasib berry necrozma with 2 pretty standard teams. I have found myself clicking photon geyser turn 1 quite a lot, since if the player with marshadow doesnt sack it like an idiot and manages to stall out trick room, you can get in a lot of trouble with regards to getting trickroom set for the second time.

I feel like in this replay we see marshadow fail to make much of an impact besides koing hoopa at -1. His team really had trouble with the necrozma camerupt combination, as all it took was some chip on tapu fini before his defensive backbone fell apart. Even after I lost my kasib berry, I did manage to scare out an intimidated marshadow with tapu bulu, letting me get TR back up for the win.

Im not really leaning very hard one way or the other at this point. I feel like I am able to handle marshadow, though with a bit of tailoring specifically for it. The Kasib berry is useful in mega gengar matchups as well, so I wouldnt say that its only good for marshadow, but in reality that's not much of a needle mover.
 

talkingtree

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Before I head into my current viewpoint on this metagame, just going to get this out of the way. The posts above, generally speaking, seem to be more geared towards getting likes and shouting into an echo chamber than actually discussing the impact Marshadow has on the meta. I recognize that many users may have already had their minds made up for a long time, but posts absolutely dripping with sarcasm and passive aggression, maybe with some surface-value facts thrown in there isn't good for much more than those likes. Everyone posting here cares about the state of the Doubles OU metagame, so keep that in mind when responding to a dissenting opinion. I'm not going to bother going through to specifically call out the problematic aspects of some posts above me though, since imo that only really derails the discussion from "Is Marshadow being removed the best way to further our metagame" to "is user X good at posting about whether Marshadow should go".

Just a warning, this probably won't be a short post, because I don't believe that this is a simple issue. I assume that the contributors above who are quite experienced in Doubles have thought the issue through extensively already, and that's why they're able to reduce it to "wow this is so stupid get rid of it duh" or "who even thinks this is broken lol learn to adapt losers". However, the reality is that Marshadow lies in a bit of a gray area. Being the subject of a resuspect, there are elements of timing and meta adaptation at play that led the council to believe it may be worth revisiting, but these changes are, in the grand scheme of the metagame, rather small; expecting a close vote to stay to turn into an obvious ban or an obvious do not ban is silly.

I apologize if this comes off as pretentious or taking everything too seriously, it's possible that I'm overcompensating, but I just want to go into everything so that anyone reading this thread who maybe wanted to get reqs for a TC vote could understand the issue they're about to help decide.

There's one concern that I want to address out of the gate. I've heard talk of people worrying that banning Marshadow would revert the tier to its setup-heavy, unstable, and unpopular form before its introduction. However, remember that Swagger was a large component to that metagame, allowing Tapu Fini + Swagger user to turn a variety of bulky physical attackers (Tyranitar, Ferrothorn, Snorlax, Zygarde) into giant threats. The time between Swagger's ban and Marshadow's suspect was only a week, so there's no way to know what a metagame without Swagger and Marshadow might look like. Regardless, Smogon tiering policy encourages users to remove any broken, uncompetitive, unhealthy, *insert buzzword* element, even if that potentially prevents a larger issue. Basically, don't leave Marshadow in the metagame for the sole reason that you disliked the meta before its release.

There are a number of ways to deal with Marshadow, among them being Intimidate, redirection, faster Pokemon, speed control, and in a pinch, resist berries. The question we're left to deal with is whether the strain that Marshadow puts on the metagame, in both the building and playing phases of Doubles, is too overwhelming for the metagame to thrive. The reason both building and playing phases come into play are the myriad of sets that Marshadow is capable of running, with Z-Move, LO Sneak, and LO HP Ice all being reasonably popular, and niche options like Feint and Sash showing some use. If Marshadow were entirely one-track, the building phase would be the main time that players have to deal with Marshadow - account for its potential presence and your team will be prepared. While it's true that no one Marshadow set breaks through all its counters, in the midst of a game the user facing Marshadow has to account for each of those possible sets and make a play that won't result in a loss to any of them.

All of this isn't just saying that Marshadow is an offensive powerhouse that must be accounted for in building; in fact, similar arguments could be made for Tapu Lele, Mega Salamence, Hoopa-U, and Kyurem-B as terrifying offensive threats that have ways of circumventing their checks while tanking hits. The main point in my opinion that makes Marshadow suspect-worthy is the immediate invalidation of a variety of sets. When attempting to build around a setup sweeper, enormous amounts of effort are required to keep Marshadow from turning hard-earned boosts against you. As a result, I've often found myself 4 or 5 Pokemon into a team, then forced to scrap it because "right, Marshadow exists, there's no way this idea will work."

For the sake of argument, let's discuss "setup + support" as an archetype. Other playstyles have similar problems with elements of the metagame, with prominent examples including rain with Ferrothorn and Tapu Fini, sun with Heatran and Landorus-T, and bulky balance with Kyurem-B. The differences here lie in the degree to which the problems can be accounted for in building. Rain teams can use Terrakion or Tapu Koko, sun teams get by with Landorus-T and Kyurem-B, and bulky balance slaps on a Mega Scizor or Mega Metagross to take on Kyurem-B. However, Marshadow doesn't work the same way. A variety of setup Pokemon, from Substitute users, to non-Speed boosting stat raisers, to slow Dragon Dancers get thrown out because of Marshadow and Spectral Thief.

I voted Do Not Ban on the first Marshadow suspect test. I stand by that vote, since at that point, I saw it performing worse than the expectation of it being entirely broken and rarely ending games on its own. With the popularity surge of Z-Move Marshadow and Stealth Rock support, it's becoming clear how few Pokemon can reliably switch in, making Marshadow's job easier. Being able to build and account for Marshadow has clearly become more difficult, but I'm not here to tell you whether that should cross your own perception of the line between really good and banworthy.

While laddering for the suspect, please take a moment to consider whether you're playing around Marshadow "too much", or whether it feels like your team has to be too focused on answering Marsh and thus sacrifices its general utility. Whether Marshadow is too stringent on the metagame's ability to handle the rest of the metagame, is, in my opinion, the central question to its brokenness.

I'm not going to end this with a tl;dr, ban/dnb marsh, because I don't think it's that simple and I don't want anyone saying "Oh talkingtree probably knows what he's talking about, I'll just follow his vote." Take this time to think for yourself and analyze the metagame in-depth, and post your thoughts here to keep the conversation going! It's obviously not required to do so, but I think the exercise of having to write out your thoughts can really clear up where you might be on the subject and the discussion generated will help our community reach a consensus.

Happy laddering everyone!
 
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http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7doublesoususpecttest-676512895

So this matchup highlights marshadow vs a kasib berry necrozma with 2 pretty standard teams. I have found myself clicking photon geyser turn 1 quite a lot, since if the player with marshadow doesnt sack it like an idiot and manages to stall out trick room, you can get in a lot of trouble with regards to getting trickroom set for the second time.

I feel like in this replay we see marshadow fail to make much of an impact besides koing hoopa at -1. His team really had trouble with the necrozma camerupt combination, as all it took was some chip on tapu fini before his defensive backbone fell apart. Even after I lost my kasib berry, I did manage to scare out an intimidated marshadow with tapu bulu, letting me get TR back up for the win.

Im not really leaning very hard one way or the other at this point. I feel like I am able to handle marshadow, though with a bit of tailoring specifically for it. The Kasib berry is useful in mega gengar matchups as well, so I wouldnt say that its only good for marshadow, but in reality that's not much of a needle mover.
danny that marsh doesn't really count, its not a set that's seen very often, sash marsh isn't worth it do to the fact that it can usualy take a hit, and is fast enough its just not needed. ('ive seen it one other time)

I'm still not sure what my stance will be but im leaning to not ban. I've done a lot of calculations, and here's my thoughts on it. contrary to what miltankmilk said, tapus are quite reliable counters. scarf lele is the most common lele set, and it can OHKO marsh with psychic. koko can hit extremely hard with tbolt or dazzling gleam, and with any other reasonably attack from a partner, marsh will be gone. fini eved to withstand specteral thiefs, and deal heavy damage in return. unless it is carrying HP ice, (I've seen HP ice marsh useage decreasing) marsh will not be able to OHKO mega mence, with hyper voice/double edge hitting extremely hard in return. just like with koko, double teaming up on marsh with hyper voice will almost guarantee the OHKO. taking a completely different route, any forms of speed control will make marsh too slow to do much, and will get destroyed by faster threats. necrosma (with kesib) using photon geyser will OHKO marsh, and it will get of trick room and make fast teams useless. M-swamprt, used on practically every rain team can guaranteed 2HKO, with a decent chance to OHKO, and like other threats, with another hit marsh will be killed. another reason marsh isn't incredibly OP, is that almost all of the things that check it, were already omnipresent in the meta ether way. almost all teams carry a tapu so that they have terrain control. now heres a few reasons it could be considered OP. marsh usage has completely destroyed usage of heatran on most teams, due to the fact that CC can OHKO tran (not using chopple). marsh has made having an intimidate user, such as mence/lando (quite often both) necessary on a lot of teams, where they wouldn't be needed In other cases. marsh has made other things that USED to be top tier threats practically never used. hetran (as stated before), mega dianceie, lax, aegi, and zygarde have dropped in usage drastically since marsh came into the mix. one last thing I noticed was mega-gross usage is way down, personally I think that is due to volcanion being able to completely destroy it, and as stated before volcanion use is directly related to marsh. but to counter all of that; I have seen an incredible rise in the use of semi-room teams and other forms of speed control. I'm still not quite sure which way I will vote. I don't think it is "overpowered" but I'm not quite sure weather it is negatively effecting the tier.
I meant to post this at the beginning of the suspect thread as a post of information that tries to stick with mostly facts, inform both hoping to avoid some bad reasoning from both parties, addressing both the problematic and non problematic features of Marshadow, as well as illustrating how Marshadow currently gets handled in competitive play. Well I failed that goal spectacularly, but at least hopefully this post gets completed before the voting thread is :up:

Marshadow is really fast and its neutral coverage is honestly frightening. However, I don't think it's exactly broken in a vacuum.
- and if it deserves to be banned, the argument mainly rests on its unique - understandably quite stifling - position in the metagame.

Let's lay down the facts first before diving into metagame discussion. There's little to be added to the discussion about the good parts of Marshadow. It is faster than every unboosted Pokemon in DOU aside from Koko, Mega Gengar, Deoxys, and Shaymin-Sky that sees minimal use. It has perfect coverage in 2 STAB moves, leaving a lot of flexibility to a Pokemon that does not need it. Its ability and movepool allows it all the right options for team support or simply busting through its checks, forcing opponent to react to its choices. It hits very hard, either with SSSSS that can OHKO most neutral targets, or simply with Life Orb boosted moves. In addition, Marshadow is quite difficult to OHKO. Pokemon like scarf Genesect fails to OHKO Marshadow even with a Download-boosted Psychic. In addition to Ghost / Fighting being a decent neutral defensive typing with minimal weaknesses aside from Psychic and Fairy being prominent weaknesses, Marshadow does not get OHKOed by non-STAB super effective coverage moves, or even STAB super effective moves from things with modest offenses, like Tapu Fini. In addition, it can steal boosts, and this bulk is only accentuated when it is often able to steal defensive boosts - for example stealing Misty Seed boosts or CM boosts, which happens quite frequently in real-match scenarios.

This is where now the metagaming must come in, and I will first try to defend my position that Marshadow isn't banworthy. I will keep sticking with the facts as much as possible, but the thing with metagaming is subject to opinion, which isn't hard fact.

While Marshadow sees very high usage and is a successful cog in most teams, it doesn't take over games single-handedly like you might think when you see all the draws of Marshadow listed out. This is possible because there exist counterplay to Marshadow. For one, It has trouble OHKOing bulky Pokemon, sometimes even with super effective hits. It fails to OHKO Metagross with Life Orb Spectral Thief. While it is able to KO, but not always OHKO, the common intimidators themselves with Hidden Power Ice, it neuters all its other moves and forces Marshadow to fall behind on the damage race, especially if its HP Ice gets protected or switched on. Talking of damage race, while its Spectral Thief isn't a slouch offensively, it isn't strong enough to immediately take over in the damage race with its modest Base Power and single-target damage that can be dampenend by Intimidate.

This means that something that resists Fighting and is neutral to Spectral Thief, like Amoonguss, as well as most Pokemon that just simply get hit neutrally next to intimidate support like Tapu Bulu, gets to take a go at Marshadow. The thing is, both Fighting and Ghost are prominent neutral coverage types. While this means that it is harder to counterplay by switching in resists - a serious blow to cycle-oriented teams - but they have plenty of counterplay to Marshadow as well, and those have been more threatened by Kyurem-B anyways. Marshadow is a good Pokemon to bust holes and make progress on the opposing team offensively with its neutral coverage, but it is often possible to force Marshadow to either Protect or switch out and fall behind on the damage race, or attack into it and trade in your key piece that is fairly certain to make progress every time it gets a free stab at your opponent, and now it becomes much harder to make progress on, or defeat a key defensive threat like Ferrothorn or Snorlax later in the match. This key tactic prominent in doubles forces a lot of Singles staples like Greninja or Blaziken that can easily 2HKO the entire metagame, to be quite (often unnecessarily) volatile Pokemon to use on many teams, with high damage ceiling, but possibly something that could get very little done. While Marshadow fixes that problem of potentially getting nothing done because at least it's a neutral attacker, and it's probably ludicrous to compare Marsh to those 2 unmons, I believe that being able to threaten many 2HKOs in and of itself is not exactly mean broken. In addition, as typical of most progress-makers, Marshadow provides minimal resists and defensive utility with its fairly neutral defensive typing. Offensive team archetypes such as rain, psyspam, or Trick Room can basically bypass Marshadow quite handily by not letting it get meaningful attacks off. Finally, its versatility does not mean much when you don't have the right moves or items to be as threatening - it is a liability against psyspam or other offensive teams without Shadow Sneak, while with Sneak it is quite vulnerable to Intimidate - and this issue becomes even more pronounced when you are using SSSSS, becoming quite mediocre without LO damage boost and quickly turning into liability vs Intimidate.

I believe Marshadow is more threatening in team preview than it is in practice. It is still very strong mon in practice, but not the unstoppable beast that it seems to be in team preview, where it is literally not possible to resist its combination of Ghost, Fighting, and Ice type moves. We only see it really take over game in cleanup scenarios, especially late game with SR support, but so could most other fastmon. I also believe that Marshadow sees use because it is one of our best tools against cycling and defensive play - and will probably be replaced with any of our other neutral-attacking Pokemon, and I don't see how a metagame that revolves around one set of broken Pokemon that includes Marshadow is that much fundamentally different from another set that happens to not include Marshadow and includes a bunch more very defensive Pokemon that will be very difficult to break. I see its centralization to be a main arguing point, but in a tier littered with threats such as DOU, I believe a certain amount of centralization is quite beneficial, and stops gimmicks from running rampant. I don't personally see why Marshadow should have a special target on its head over multiple other Pokemon that can blow you up at any notice, like Deoxys-A, Hoopa, Salamence, and Kyurem-B, aside from Marshadow's position as a lynchpin of offense (that it desperately needed) in most teams.

Happy suspect voting!
Marsh isn't faster than all mons but deoxys-a, shaymin-s, look, and mega gengar, it's faster than everything else assuming they are not scarfed. Just feel the need to point out that some of the "few counterpart options" make use of a choice scarf in order to outspeed and OHKO marsh. The rest of what you said I agree with completely
 
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Hey friends! Gonna just throw in my two cents on Marshadow. Also, I've only been playing the SM DOU meta since two days ago, so please forgive any uneducated remarks I may make in this post.

My first impression of Marshadow was that it had an amazing typing and solid stats all-around. As if great coverage with a Ghost/Fighting typing wasn't enough, it possessed great offensive stats (125 Atk/125 Spe) with fairly good defensive bulk (90/80/90). Assuming the player is running a Jolly Marshadow with max Speed, Marshadow outspeeds most of the common mons found in the DOU meta, with the exception of Deoxys-A and Timid Tapu Koko and some others. However, Marshadow can mitigate any speed disadvantage with a Technician-boosted Shadow Sneak, doing at least 33% damage to mons that don't resist it and even 2HKOing Tapu Koko with a Life Orb. Yes, Tapu Lele with its Psychic Surge ability could stop those Shadow Sneaks, but I've seen many players, myself included, switch-in Tapu Fini or Tapu Koko on the field to change the terrain and enable Marshadow to get that last finishing hit or simply deal significant damage with Shadow Sneak. There's also the option of running speed control with Icy Wind or Tailwind to prevent potential threats such as Tapu Koko and Deoxys-A from outspeeding, enabling Marshadow to get the kill. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Marshadow has only a few weaknesses and those weaknesses can be mitigated with the correct support surrounding it.

Secondly, I also want to note that setup against Marshadow is tough to accomplish because the opposing mon will risk losing its stat boosts due to Spectral Thief. I would also like to note that Spectral Thief hits pretty hard with its 90 base power (135 with STAB), and the opponent would essentially risk getting his entire team swept by a boosted Marshadow if he or she opted to setup (i.e. Swords Dance, Dragon Dance). I do see a potential counterargument that fast Dragon Dance users such as Gyarados and the occasional Quiver Dance Volcarona can deal with Marshadow before it has a chance to steal boosts, but like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, 99% of Marshadow teams, or DOU teams for that matter, run speed control. There's also the presence of common Intimidate users such as Landorus-T and Mega-Salamence which can negate the Attack boosts of Dragon Dance and in general weaken physical attackers that threaten Marshadow. Slow Dragon Dance users, non-Speed boosting users, and Weakness Policy users easily fall to Marshadow. One of the very few reliable setup users, if not the only one, that I've both played against and used in the suspect ladder was Curse Snorlax due to its immunity against Spectral Thief and ability to survive LO Close Combat after a Curse boost. However, it does not overshadow the fact that many setup users are rendered powerless before Marshadow, making it fairly unreliable to run setup in a meta where Marshadow runs rampant.

Furthermore, Marshadow has the potential to run many sets. Obviously the most common sets present are the LO and Z-Move set, but the opponent can be kept guessing as to which set Marshadow is running, in which a wrong guess can result in a loss of a mon. Of course, this can be said about many of the prominent mons in the DOU meta, but I will reiterate that Marshadow can run a sheer multitude of sets (i.e. Ice Punch, Will-o-Wisp, even Sash Endeavor with Shadow Sneak if you're cool).

Lastly, in regards to teambuilding, I do believe Marshadow restricts it. I have already mentioned that setup teams are a huge risk when facing Marshadow, but its dual-STAB coverage is such a threat that very few mons can switch in without taking a good chunk of damage. I too have had to switch out some mons on my team to account for Marshadow and even considered giving a mon a Kasib or Chople Berry to prevent getting OHKOed. If one has to use a weird set to specifically deal with Marshadow and reduce the usage of otherwise reliable mons such as Heatran and Aegislash, then I believe it is overcentralizing.

Just as a side note, there were many games I would have lost while laddering, but Marshadow simply ran over the opposing team. I unfortunately don't have replays to show for it, but I can attest to Marshadow's ability to easily take away the opponent's win condition.

In summation, I believe Marshadow to be banworthy due to its solid stats and great typing, few weaknesses that can easily be mitigated, ability to shutdown setup teams and run many sets, and its significant impact on teambuilding. I will most likely vote to ban, but I am open to any refutations in my argument, as it is nice to see the metagame from another individual's perspective. :]
 
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danny that marsh doesn't really count, its not a set that's seen very often, sash marsh isn't worth it do to the fact that it can usualy take a hit, and is fast enough its just not needed. ('ive seen it one other time)

I'm still not sure what my stance will be but im leaning to not ban. I've done a lot of calculations, and here's my thoughts on it. contrary to what miltankmilk said, tapus are quite reliable counters.
I feel its important to break this down because I find this logic to be faulty on many levels. First off, if I haven't already convinced you that Tapus are not reliable marshadow answers, you must not understand the idea. A reliable answer is a pokemon that can either a) always switch into a pokemon and threaten it out, or b) always threaten it out when coming in on a free switch (maybe theres another definition you can fit here, but this is the gist of it).
scarf lele is the most common lele set, and it can OHKO marsh with psychic. koko can hit extremely hard with tbolt or dazzling gleam, and with any other reasonably attack from a partner, marsh will be gone. fini eved to withstand specteral thiefs, and deal heavy damage in return.
Scarf lele is a decent answer to marsh, but its only reliable when the opponent doesn't have a different Tapu in the back which isn't particularly reliable. I've made this point previously but you decided to ignore it. Koko is faster and can hit hard, but no non-Z move is a guaranteed ohko on Koko and Marshadow can ohko it back with Z move or LO thief + Sneak. Fini doesn't reliably switch into Z marsh and neither does bulu (especially when rocks are up)
unless it is carrying HP ice, (I've seen HP ice marsh useage decreasing) marsh will not be able to OHKO mega mence, with hyper voice/double edge hitting extremely hard in return. just like with koko, double teaming up on marsh with hyper voice will almost guarantee the OHKO.
HP ice is more common than you are giving it credit for. In tournament play it receives decent usage and is the second most popular option for its 3rd move slot. Doubling marsh is also a great option you're right! But this requires both pokemon being able to hit a pokemon that hits 383 speed first. This is not always reliable and requiring teams to have multiple options faster than that speed tier is very restrictive.
taking a completely different route, any forms of speed control will make marsh too slow to do much, and will get destroyed by faster threats.
This is perhaps the only thing I agree with, and again, speed control being an answer isn't even good because Marsh has strong priority. For speed control to reliably check marsh, everything needs to be at high HP which is situational.
necrosma (with kesib) using photon geyser will OHKO marsh, and it will get of trick room and make fast teams useless. M-swamprt, used on practically every rain team can guaranteed 2HKO, with a decent chance to OHKO, and like other threats, with another hit marsh will be killed. another reason marsh isn't incredibly OP, is that almost all of the things that check it, were already omnipresent in the meta ether way. almost all teams carry a tapu so that they have terrain control.
Kasib necrozma is a great example of how back breaking marshadow is to teams. Necrozma is forced to forgo decent item options to handle Marsh. Kasib is not a viable item for necrozma without Marsh in the tier. This argument is the same for chople Ferrothorn. When the way a team beats marshadow is to lure it in with a resist berry, otherwise the team is toast, that is a sign that a pokemon is putting a massive burden on teambuilding and gameplay. On the 'everything was common anyways' logic, please read what I wrote about tapus not being reliable as well as look at how Kasib necrozma and Chople ferro have taken off as last-ditch efforts to not lose to marsh for teams. Those are not common options without marsh.
now heres a few reasons it could be considered OP. marsh usage has completely destroyed usage of heatran on most teams, due to the fact that CC can OHKO tran (not using chopple). marsh has made having an intimidate user, such as mence/lando (quite often both) necessary on a lot of teams, where they wouldn't be needed In other cases. marsh has made other things that USED to be top tier threats practically never used. hetran (as stated before), mega dianceie, lax, aegi, and zygarde have dropped in usage drastically since marsh came into the mix.
quick points here because i don't even know what to say lol. 1)Yes marsh does ohko mons with super effective moves, that isn't what makes it broken. Its the unresisted coverage, speed and strength. 2) Intimidate was common anyway, see pre-marsh meta and even ORAS. 3) diancie has other problems as does heatran, marsh is just part of that. Aegis is still very good right now, lax and zygarde took as much of a hit from the swagger ban as they did from marsh but there's a correlation with marsh as well.
one last thing I noticed was mega-gross usage is way down, personally I think that is due to volcanion being able to completely destroy it, and as stated before volcanion use is directly related to marsh.
I don't know what I'm reading here but its just not true at all. Metagross usage is at an all time high and volcanion is used because its got amazing typing and coverage with good bulk and great STABs. Yeah not being weak to CC is great but theres more to it than that.
but to counter all of that; I have seen an incredible rise in the use of semi-room teams and other forms of speed control. I'm still not quite sure which way I will vote. I don't think it is "overpowered" but I'm not quite sure weather it is negatively effecting the tier.
Lastly, Semiroom teams are the ones affected by marsh the most. The best semiroom setters are food for marsh such as Hoopa-U and Gardevoir and other semiroom staples like volcanion/heatran/landorus-t/fini aren't benefitting from marsh by any means. Jrenner, with all due respect wherever you are getting these ideas on the metagame its just wrong. You are entitled to your opinion but you are factually incorrect on many things in this post and that worries me. I hope i've been able to correct these false notions for you and others reading this thread.
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Rant over.
 

MajorBowman

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This isn't going to be a long post as my thoughts on this suspect aren't too strong either way, but I wanted to post since my opinion is different from what seems to be the majority.

I don't see Marshadow as some unstoppable force or unhealthy presence. To me, it's just another very good Pokemon. I understand some of the arguments being presented in favor of banning Marshadow and I really don't have direct counters to them, but they just aren't strong enough for me to get on board. Maybe it's the types of teams I find myself using most of the time, but I've honestly never had a huge issue with Marshadow whenever I'm building or playing to the point where I wanted it out of the metagame. The way I see it, it's just a top tier Pokemon that demands respect both in teambuilding and during games, similar to something like Landorus or Metagross or any other Tier 1 Pokemon.

I really don't have much else to say as, like I said, I don't feel super strongly about Marshadow. My opinion on this suspect could pretty easily be summed up with a simple "meh." I just wanted to put it out there that not everyone near the top is dead set on sending Marshadow to the shadow realm. When you cast your vote, don't let the mob cast it for you.

e: thought about one more thing to say. I do think people are suuuuuper overreacting to Marshadow in general. I'm feeling a lot of "OH MY GOD MARSHADOW IS BROKEN BAN IT" and I just think that's objectively wrong. It's not ohkoing everything it touches or surviving every hit, and its sets are all similar enough that most of its checks work for most sets. If Marshadow was *really* that bad I think it would have been banned the first time around. I do think this suspect test is justified enough that I'm not annoyed it's happening or anything, but I think everyone really needs to take a deep breath and step back for a second before voting ban as soon as the voting starts. If you consider all the variables and still think it deserves to be banned then by all means make that your vote, but I do think a lot of people have just instantly deemed it broken without putting much thought into it.
 

Idyll

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Just gonna keep my opinion on this one brief. I think its combination of Speed, power, and excellent, practically unresistable neutral coverage make it something that's unhealthy for the metagame and I'm in agreement with miltankmilk much said. Just the two Ghost / Fighting STABS, which are p strong from the get go, apply enough pressure from the get go and are pretty restrictive when it comes to plays, considering just at the base of it, it's pretty hard to take hits from. Add the fact that it has varied arsenal, LO and Z being equally destructive as well as the game between Sneak vs HP Ice being an ever looming threat, and Marshadow becomes something that I really feel is an offensively overpowered menace. Sure, it doesn't get the raw destructive power that Deo-A has, but what Marsh has, and nearly always has in most matches, is near-infinite instant pressure. It can break nearly at will on most targets, and it can clean anything it damn wants too; all the while, it's not the glass cannon that Deo-A is, and its STABs don't have any glaring drawbacks that prevent it from doing its job.

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I want to address something that talkingtree said though. Marshadow isn't really like the threats that you exampled e.g. Lele, Mence, Hoopa-U, Kyurem-B. Yes, they're pretty strong offensive forces on their own right. However, they all have notable ways to be played around on. Tapu Lele can easily be played with Scarf, otherwise it's just slow for an offensive piece; Mega Salamence can be simply played around with resistances and just purely tanking on its attacks; Hoopa-U is pretty slow and needs set-up to get going; and Kyurem-B is similar to non-Scarf Lele. Unlike them, Marshadow doesn't really have any notable offensive flaws; it's faster than almost the entirey of the unboosted metagame, missing out on Tapu Koko, Mega Gengar, and Deo-A, and its coverage is pretty much unresistable (it also has Sneak for the stuff that outruns). Marshadow doesn't really need an item or specific condition to become a threat, nor is it easy to play around it defensively with resistances when there isn't much that actually do. In order to do its job to the fullest, it literally just has to come in and then bam, instant offense.

You did mention intimidate, Speed control, redirection, and resist berries as counterplay. The former three aren't really exclusive to Marshadow; it's just how you check stuff and win games as a strategy i.e fundamental doubles play, so they're not really relevant. Resist berries, specifically Chople and Kasib, are notable; fundamentally speaking, metagames adjust to the best strategies and the usage of such is, in my opinion, a reasonable reaction. However, the running of such isn't really exclusive to Marshadow; pinch berries will be fundamentally used to play around top threats, and the fact that stuff are preparing for Marshadow, a clear top threat, is just natural. The counterplay you mentioned aren't really exclusive to Marshadow and, aside from the fact that the resist berries may or may not be irrational, are not really relevant.

The problem I find with Marshadow is that it's intensely difficult to really "prepare" for Marshadow in the team builder and in play. Again, its STABs alone are pretty destructive, but then there's also the variation of sets that have to be played somewhat differently. This, I feel, is just not ok.

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While I did say all of that, I would like to say that, similarly to Jake, I also do not have a strong opinion on Marshadow. I'd similarly just go "meh" and post some "lol"s on the Discord if it doesn't get banned. I do understand why people wouldn't want this gone, and I'd be fine with it too, because using Marshadow offensively is kinda litty lol. I'd just rather it be gone than here.

On another note, I really didn't mention Spectral Thief. That's more beceause I consider it more of a sidefeature than anything else; the near-disappearance of some set-up strategies in the metagame I consider natural because that's how it should adjust, anyway. It's not really a bug that I'd consider a problem; hell, I pretty much didn't consider it at all when it comes to my ban reasoning. In addition, talks about the kind of stuff that would happen to the meta if Spectral Thief disappears kinda goes to Slipper Slope territory; my philosophy is to stop crime in front of me than crime tomorrow.

So much for keeping it brief.
 

marilli

With you
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I meant to post this at the beginning of the suspect thread as a post of information that tries to stick with mostly facts, inform both hoping to avoid some bad reasoning from both parties, addressing both the problematic and non problematic features of Marshadow, as well as illustrating how Marshadow currently gets handled in competitive play. Well I failed that goal spectacularly, but at least hopefully this post gets completed before the voting thread is :up:

Marshadow is really fast and its neutral coverage is honestly frightening. However, I don't think it's exactly broken in a vacuum.
- and if it deserves to be banned, the argument mainly rests on its unique - understandably quite stifling - position in the metagame.

Let's lay down the facts first before diving into metagame discussion. There's little to be added to the discussion about the good parts of Marshadow. It is faster than every unboosted Pokemon in DOU aside from Koko, Mega Gengar, Deoxys, and Shaymin-Sky that sees minimal use. It has perfect coverage in 2 STAB moves, leaving a lot of flexibility to a Pokemon that does not need it. Its ability and movepool allows it all the right options for team support or simply busting through its checks, forcing opponent to react to its choices. It hits very hard, either with SSSSS that can OHKO most neutral targets, or simply with Life Orb boosted moves. In addition, Marshadow is quite difficult to OHKO. Pokemon like scarf Genesect fails to OHKO Marshadow even with a Download-boosted Psychic. In addition to Ghost / Fighting being a decent neutral defensive typing with minimal weaknesses aside from Psychic and Fairy being prominent weaknesses, Marshadow does not get OHKOed by non-STAB super effective coverage moves, or even STAB super effective moves from things with modest offenses, like Tapu Fini. In addition, it can steal boosts, and this bulk is only accentuated when it is often able to steal defensive boosts - for example stealing Misty Seed boosts or CM boosts, which happens quite frequently in real-match scenarios.

This is where now the metagaming must come in, and I will first try to defend my position that Marshadow isn't banworthy. I will keep sticking with the facts as much as possible, but the thing with metagaming is subject to opinion, which isn't hard fact.

While Marshadow sees very high usage and is a successful cog in most teams, it doesn't take over games single-handedly like you might think when you see all the draws of Marshadow listed out. This is possible because there exist counterplay to Marshadow. For one, It has trouble OHKOing bulky Pokemon, sometimes even with super effective hits. It fails to OHKO Metagross with Life Orb Spectral Thief. While it is able to KO, but not always OHKO, the common intimidators themselves with Hidden Power Ice, it neuters all its other moves and forces Marshadow to fall behind on the damage race, especially if its HP Ice gets protected or switched on. Talking of damage race, while its Spectral Thief isn't a slouch offensively, it isn't strong enough to immediately take over in the damage race with its modest Base Power and single-target damage that can be dampenend by Intimidate.

This means that something that resists Fighting and is neutral to Spectral Thief, like Amoonguss, as well as most Pokemon that just simply get hit neutrally next to intimidate support like Tapu Bulu, gets to take a go at Marshadow. The thing is, both Fighting and Ghost are prominent neutral coverage types. While this means that it is harder to counterplay by switching in resists - a serious blow to cycle-oriented teams - but they have plenty of counterplay to Marshadow as well, and those have been more threatened by Kyurem-B anyways. Marshadow is a good Pokemon to bust holes and make progress on the opposing team offensively with its neutral coverage, but it is often possible to force Marshadow to either Protect or switch out and fall behind on the damage race, or attack into it and trade in your key piece that is fairly certain to make progress every time it gets a free stab at your opponent, and now it becomes much harder to make progress on, or defeat a key defensive threat like Ferrothorn or Snorlax later in the match. This key tactic prominent in doubles forces a lot of Singles staples like Greninja or Blaziken that can easily 2HKO the entire metagame, to be quite (often unnecessarily) volatile Pokemon to use on many teams, with high damage ceiling, but possibly something that could get very little done. While Marshadow fixes that problem of potentially getting nothing done because at least it's a neutral attacker, and it's probably ludicrous to compare Marsh to those 2 unmons, I believe that being able to threaten many 2HKOs in and of itself is not exactly mean broken. In addition, as typical of most progress-makers, Marshadow provides minimal resists and defensive utility with its fairly neutral defensive typing. Offensive team archetypes such as rain, psyspam, or Trick Room can basically bypass Marshadow quite handily by not letting it get meaningful attacks off. Finally, its versatility does not mean much when you don't have the right moves or items to be as threatening - it is a liability against psyspam or other offensive teams without Shadow Sneak, while with Sneak it is quite vulnerable to Intimidate - and this issue becomes even more pronounced when you are using SSSSS, becoming quite mediocre without LO damage boost and quickly turning into liability vs Intimidate.

I believe Marshadow is more threatening in team preview than it is in practice. It is still very strong mon in practice, but not the unstoppable beast that it seems to be in team preview, where it is literally not possible to resist its combination of Ghost, Fighting, and Ice type moves. We only see it really take over game in cleanup scenarios, especially late game with SR support, but so could most other fastmon. I also believe that Marshadow sees use because it is one of our best tools against cycling and defensive play - and will probably be replaced with any of our other neutral-attacking Pokemon, and I don't see how a metagame that revolves around one set of broken Pokemon that includes Marshadow is that much fundamentally different from another set that happens to not include Marshadow and includes a bunch more very defensive Pokemon that will be very difficult to break. I see its centralization to be a main arguing point, but in a tier littered with threats such as DOU, I believe a certain amount of centralization is quite beneficial, and stops gimmicks from running rampant. I don't personally see why Marshadow should have a special target on its head over multiple other Pokemon that can blow you up at any notice, like Deoxys-A, Hoopa, Salamence, and Kyurem-B, aside from Marshadow's position as a lynchpin of offense (that it desperately needed) in most teams.

Happy suspect voting!
 
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Fran

formerly Frania
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DPL Champion
I can see the perspective of people who try to argue for not banning marsh, but i think there are some factors that you guys undervalue. A marsh meta is definetly playble and certainly its influence cant be compared to something like rachi, i still think we should shoot for the best meta possible and that is in my oppinion without marsh. The things that bother me about it the most are:
  • It literally has no switch ins. People used to make fun of 'just use intimidate' logic before the suspect, but now unfortunately i see it picking up. No viable intimidate users can switch into marsh so if you say 'just use int' you're basicly saying you need at least two diffrent mons to counter marshadow. It can do up to 79% to most finis and up to 93% to the standard amoongus with its z move so unless you get the pinch berry to work with it it just wont work. Yes you can play around it, but assuming youre not playing someone worse than you, the standard good opponent wont give you the freedom of using two mons to check one or will hit blindly allowing you to get the pinch berry. Almost all endgames with marsh where both players are in equal position will almost always come down to the SSSS prediction. Chople ferro has picked up some usage when marsh got released and now its almost as popular as lefties/berrys even if its just meant for dealing with that one mon.
  • Its solid bulk, access to shadow sneak and hp ice with a very strong speed tier make it extremly hard to revenge kill. the only things i can think of are z move tapu koko (any other item won't get the knock out), weather sweepers and focus sash users (you can use the last two groups for checking almost anything). it forces teams to either become hyper offensive rain, full trick room or bulky balance. You either outrun it or have a whole team dedicated to playing around it (all of the balanced teams have the fini-lando-zap core that has the best shot at playing around it). I think we should try to have the most balanced metagame possible and marshadow clearly contradicts that.
  • The lando/meta/marsh/zapdos/tapu fini/kyuremb has consistenly proven to be the strongest team used in doubles, currently a sample team, has went undefeated in snake draft. i think im the most experienced player with this team, as it has brought me to 3 finals in a row of official tournaments and i think got to understand how it works and why its so good. It lies in its ability to make full use of marshadows potencial, while providing the defensive backbone that lets it get around both rain and trick room teams and has almost all of the available tools to make opposing marsh match up as manageable as it can get. I think the success of the team is the best indicator of how broken it is and if you look in any high level doubles tournament matches you will see the effect it has on what people use and how to try to adapt to it (as it has been proven, you kind of can't). and not just limiting to the one team, if you look at Majorbowmans run that got him into last seasonal finals (winners bracket) you can notice that around 90% of the teams he used had marsh on it. Obviously skill is the most important factor when it comes to winning in doubles, but using or not using marsh has been proven to make such a big diffrence, you never should be punished for not using something, as we learned in the kang meta, its just not good for the growth and competitiveness of the format.
Personally i enjoed this metagame quite a bit and i never have had such results as i have now, but i belive its time for the sm doubles to evolve and if we dont like what comes after we can always adjust the format. Also if you think that marsh is the only thing preventing doubles from becoming from set up based stall meta then you probably shouldn't take part in the voting part of the suspect.
 
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