MZ
And now for something completely different
- -Water
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Just gonna do some replies and put in some of my thoughts because I am bored. Thievul simply is not good. Don't see how its a threat unless you have 0 spdef on your entire team. It only works with Throat Spray or pincurchin. Ninjask was going to be banned anyways.Ninjask was a strong blanket check on really borked things like Thievul
Its okay, but is just outclassed by mawile. Was really good in the speculation period. Hope it gets more viable now that the only water types are ice types as well. I guess theres basculin and ludicolo, but basculin isnt getting much usage, and ludi gets bopped by freeze dry, which apparently everything which has the darn move runsStonjourner is a joke, just a joke with stealth rocks.
Simply put, this is why Arctozolt will possibly be the first suspect. It has unresisted stab (because of freeze dry), bolt beak which is really strong, a better attack stat than arctovish (yes 100 > 90) and checks groundvally, arctovish, lapras, gourgeist etc. that are all either threats or walls in the tier. Arctovish has endless amounts of 'broken signs' for PU and I think we really should have just got Crustle, Golurk or Galarfisk instead if we could choose.I am really scared of this thing. Having access to stabbed bolt beam and a really good movepool is a bit scary for our tier. It has access to Bolt Beak, which is the Electric version of Fishious Rend as a main electric stab, Icicle crash for the ice stab, Freeze Dry for the few Pokemon that can resist to bolt beak + icicle crash (hey) and the last move is really customizable. It can run Low Kick, Stompig Tantrum, Substitute, Stone Edge, Rock Tomb and Nuzzle. I can see a few sets that will be really strong on it
Okay I think I'm going to respond to this because I feel like you completely misunderstand the philosophy taken by the council.I'd like to propose that we allow for all of the banned mons to remain in the tier and to be suspected (if deemed necessary) by the community after we have been allowed to adjust to the recent metagame changes. I think we jumped the gun by banning so many threats right away without seeing how we could adjust to the presence of these new mons.
This generation has provided us the (arguably) least busted group of mons at launch of this tier that I've seen in 4 generations.
View attachment 233619While I do believe that Swoobat will prove to be unreasonable to check as the meta progresses, I think that it's in our best interest to allow us time to find out ways to check it. Already, I started to see development of the meta with: Stonjourner, Glaceon, Pawniard, Gourg-Super, Liepard, and Munchlax in response to not only swoobat but also to a lot of other common threats. I think it's possible that if we let the meta play out, we'd see adaptations that may not make this mon outright broken.
View attachment 233622Initially, I was on the bandwagon (or should I say... ban wagon. lol I'm done.) for kicking arctovish out as soon as possible but I became more and more convinced that the meta had ways of checking it outside of just running another arctovish itself. Palpitoad, Gourg, Mawile, Silvally-Dragon, Bellossom, Mareanie, Shedinja, Shiinotic, Pyukumuku are all mons that can be used in conjunction with good teambuilding to put enough pressure on arctovish to prevent it from being overbearing. These mons fit on most team compositions too so it's not like arctovish is invalidating any playstyles. We have answers for it available to most teams and if given time I think we could adjust to it.
View attachment 233621We didn't even give this mon a full day. We didn't have any time to use it or to see what it could do in our tier. I fought it several times on ladder and I found ways around it by running bulky offense. It wasn't broken enough to justify a quickban. Bolt Beak is even less spammable than fishious rend due to the common ground immunties. We needed more time with this. I'm a little disappointed with everyone for instantly jumping on this thing. Remember, having diversity with our wall breakers is what makes this game fun.
View attachment 233620Okay, I understand the reasoning behind the others but silvally? I've used band silvally-normal extensively and it's extremely good but we have so many mons in the tier that check it. Yes, it has access to coverage (flamethrower and surf) but it can't run both of them and you need to make predictions/lock yourself into that coverage to get those kills. While Mawile and Carkol are the preferred rockers, they're not specifically run for silvally normal and good teambuilding with Throh, Grapploct, Musharna, Gourgeist, Stonjourner, Shuckle, Klang handles many of the problems you have with this thing.
Overall, I think we need more time with these mons to decide whether they're broken. It's mind boggling to me that so many of the council decided to vote ban on Silvally-Ground (Silvally-Ground: 5 PUBL / 4 PU ) and Fire (Silvally-Fire: 3 PUBL / 5 PU / 1 Abstain). Silvally-ground is arguably one of the healthiest mons in the tier for what it can do for teambuilding and stopping volt-turn cores. Silvally-fire's weakness to rocks and inability to switch-in makes it extremely manageable.
A perfect example of why we need time to adjust to the tier is evident by a conversation I had with a user yesterday. He had said he thought lapras was unmanageable in the tier currently. I suggested using Munchlax to check his team's weakness. I myself had not used munchlax this gen prior to yesterday. So I built around it and found that it may actually be one of the better mons in the meta right now. It's the most reliable ice/fire check in the tier and it serves as a great spdef wall to checks most every special attacker. At +1 it hits surpisingy hard too. This user and I would not have found this mon if we hadn't had time to first work with it in the metagame. I suggest we do the same for the mons mentioned above.
You're advocating for a specific split from current policy where you suggest that instead of banning and resuspecting we just leave the mons in the tier for a while. I really do understand why, these are not on the same level as previous quickbans in the same way. Furthermore, given how so many mons are like, lightly broken right now, it's very back and forth on which actually need to leave the meta. Like I had no interest in banning Swoobat, TJ voted no on everything except Noctowl, and 2x was the only one who wanted to ban Throh. Opinions vary drastically. Between this variation and the fact that as dumb as Arctozolt might be it's clearly no Tauros, I've seen plenty of comments about how these bans may not have been necessary. Understand that while I'm now going to explain why I completely disagree with this proposal and don't plan to change our approach, I do get where you're coming from.I'd like to propose that we allow for all of the banned mons to remain in the tier and to be suspected (if deemed necessary) by the community after we have been allowed to adjust to the recent metagame changes. I think we jumped the gun by banning so many threats right away without seeing how we could adjust to the presence of these new mons.
This generation has provided us the (arguably) least busted group of mons at launch of this tier that I've seen in 4 generations.
View attachment 233619While I do believe that Swoobat will prove to be unreasonable to check as the meta progresses, I think that it's in our best interest to allow us time to find out ways to check it. Already, I started to see development of the meta with: Stonjourner, Glaceon, Pawniard, Gourg-Super, Liepard, and Munchlax in response to not only swoobat but also to a lot of other common threats. I think it's possible that if we let the meta play out, we'd see adaptations that may not make this mon outright broken.
View attachment 233622Initially, I was on the bandwagon (or should I say... ban wagon. lol I'm done.) for kicking arctovish out as soon as possible but I became more and more convinced that the meta had ways of checking it outside of just running another arctovish itself. Palpitoad, Gourg, Mawile, Silvally-Dragon, Bellossom, Mareanie, Shedinja, Shiinotic, Pyukumuku are all mons that can be used in conjunction with good teambuilding to put enough pressure on arctovish to prevent it from being overbearing. These mons fit on most team compositions too so it's not like arctovish is invalidating any playstyles. We have answers for it available to most teams and if given time I think we could adjust to it.
View attachment 233621We didn't even give this mon a full day. We didn't have any time to use it or to see what it could do in our tier. I fought it several times on ladder and I found ways around it by running bulky offense. It wasn't broken enough to justify a quickban. Bolt Beak is even less spammable than fishious rend due to the common ground immunties. We needed more time with this. I'm a little disappointed with everyone for instantly jumping on this thing. Remember, having diversity with our wall breakers is what makes this game fun.
View attachment 233620Okay, I understand the reasoning behind the others but silvally? I've used band silvally-normal extensively and it's extremely good but we have so many mons in the tier that check it. Yes, it has access to coverage (flamethrower and surf) but it can't run both of them and you need to make predictions/lock yourself into that coverage to get those kills. While Mawile and Carkol are the preferred rockers, they're not specifically run for silvally normal and good teambuilding with Throh, Grapploct, Musharna, Gourgeist, Stonjourner, Shuckle, Klang handles many of the problems you have with this thing.
Overall, I think we need more time with these mons to decide whether they're broken. It's mind boggling to me that so many of the council decided to vote ban on Silvally-Ground (Silvally-Ground: 5 PUBL / 4 PU ) and Fire (Silvally-Fire: 3 PUBL / 5 PU / 1 Abstain). Silvally-ground is arguably one of the healthiest mons in the tier for what it can do for teambuilding and stopping volt-turn cores. Silvally-fire's weakness to rocks and inability to switch-in makes it extremely manageable.
A perfect example of why we need time to adjust to the tier is evident by a conversation I had with a user yesterday. He had said he thought lapras was unmanageable in the tier currently. I suggested using Munchlax to check his team's weakness. I myself had not used munchlax this gen prior to yesterday. So I built around it and found that it may actually be one of the better mons in the meta right now. It's the most reliable ice/fire check in the tier and it serves as a great spdef wall to checks most every special attacker. At +1 it hits surpisingy hard too. This user and I would not have found this mon if we hadn't had time to first work with it in the metagame. I suggest we do the same for the mons mentioned above.
I appreciate that you read my post and took time to respond to me. I also respect the policy in place to protect the tier from being unplayable with the current mons. I'm just noticing that we had a reasonably large tier shift with losing ninjask and clefairy and banning a mon that we gained and I'd like to see us have a few weeks to see what works and what doesn't. It's similar to the process of not posting a VR nomination the day after a mon drops into the tier. I understand that you've seen enough to have an opinion on these mons in the tier but I feel as though experience with these mons has only helped me see that they're not as outright broken as they appear on paper. If we really go forward with the resuspects I understand the decision. I also understand that we resuspected Yama last gen because many of the other mons weren't worth resuspecting (magmorter/archeops/ect). I'm really not trying to get into a back and forth or have to do a bunch of calcs because I don't have the time and I know that ultimately it devolves into cyclic "I'm right, you're wrong-type arguments" due to different meta experiences.You're advocating for a specific split from current policy where you suggest that instead of banning and resuspecting we just leave the mons in the tier for a while. I really do understand why, these are not on the same level as previous quickbans in the same way. Furthermore, given how so many mons are like, lightly broken right now, it's very back and forth on which actually need to leave the meta. Like I had no interest in banning Swoobat, TJ voted no on everything except Noctowl, and 2x was the only one who wanted to ban Throh. Opinions vary drastically. Between this variation and the fact that as dumb as Arctozolt might be it's clearly no Tauros, I've seen plenty of comments about how these bans may not have been necessary. Understand that while I'm now going to explain why I completely disagree with this proposal and don't plan to change our approach, I do get where you're coming from.
Now, as Teddeh has pointed out, you've put forth an extremely bland assessment of the mons we banned. The idea that the council simply did not notice that Silvally-Normal can theoretically be checked by "Throh, Grapploct, Musharna, Gourgeist, Stonjourner, Shuckle, Klang" is pretty ridiculous. We just also noticed how it was an incredibly stupid mon regardless. I can't stress enough how strongly I agree with this ban because Silvally-Normal literally beats all of those Pokemon (aside from defensive Shuckle lol) with perfectly viable sets and puts solid pressure on them even with its sets that are less geared to handle that specific counter. So the first major split I have from you here is simply how stupid these mons are. "I'm confused, in what way shape or form does Silvally-Normal have counterplay"- HJAD
Secondly, resuspects are going to happen. I am 100% confident we will see a reassessment of Swoobat, Arctozolt, and Arctovish as long as they stay in PUBL. Gonna hedge my bets slightly on Silvally-Normal just because I really want more forms banned and handling a lot of those is going to be annoying, but I still intend to try to resuspect it at some point. We have this ability to remove and reintroduce Pokemon, it's a really wonderful thing that lets us prioritize creating a fun and playable metagame first and foremost. And to be clear, even if Arctozolt was not as instantly broken as Tauros or Medicham, I did not need more time to see how restrictive and problematic it clearly was. It simply was not worth keeping around in the meta. My goal with the bans was to eliminate what I felt warped teambuilding the most, output unfair amounts of pressure, had completely skewed risk/reward, or however else you want to think about it. That's why I want Noctowl banned too, when you have an uncounterably powerful breaker that also forces you to play around cleaning/sweeping sets with Blunder Policy Hypnosis or Agility, I find it way too much to reasonably prepare for. With the knowledge that resuspects are going to happen, it therefore becomes best practice to remove Pokemon that would warp the development of our meta until we reach a semblance of stability and then see if we can fit them in again.
I think the main thrust of your reasoning can be seen with the quote "I think we jumped the gun by banning so many threats right away without seeing how we could adjust to the presence of these new mons". This describes the mindset of a suspect test pretty well- take a meta and really take a while to evaluate how a Pokemon impacts it and whether that impact is healthy. But I am already 100% confident that Arctozolt's presence was going to necessitate major and likely problematic shifts to teambuilding. Could we end up managing it? Maybe. But it would define the PU metagame to an unhealthy degree. I see no issue with going "I don't want every team to try to fit in a Lightningrod user for the first 2 weeks of beta, we can resuspect it later once the tier has some kind of identity".
Ultimately I only voted ban on the things that I do not believe we have reasonable counterplay to- Arctovish, Arctozolt, Noctowl, Silvally-Normal, Silvally-Ground, and Silvally-Fire. I believe all of those would have or will now be a negative force in shaping our new meta. They have existing counterplay, but it's not good and not especially healthy and there are only so many incredibly silly offensive threats a metagame can take. Note my exclusion of Swoobat there- in this case I agree with your Munchlax example talking about how we can and will find more reasonable ways to adapt to certain threats. I think Swoobat deserved to continue on in the meta as people experiment with bulky Beheeyem, Vullaby, or whatever other checks we're innovating. But I also think we have to draw the line somewhere. Silvally-Ground is not one of the healthiest mons in the tier for stopping volt-turn cores, and just as you're flabbergasted that I could want to ban it I'm shocked that you could even think of its presence as being so benign (or Volt-Turn as being such a problem). Remember we have had a month to judge all of these mons except the one that has STAB BoltBeam and a 190 BP Electric attack. I've seen people try to adapt to most of these mons throughout alpha, which is why I came to the conclusion that Arctovish is adorable and fun to use but really just needs to get out now so we can sort this tier out rather than linger for a few weeks. The metagame will not fix itself, it is the job of the council to do so, and banning at the start of the meta is just how we do that.
If you totally disagree with me about how broken all these things are then fine, there's nothing I can do to convince you that a ban was necessary. But hopefully this explains the philosophy behind why a quickban rather than a suspect test is justified.
And a final note- I've seen people agree with all the above but not want to ban things because last gen we only had 1 resuspect. I get it, but this gen is going to be different for a myriad of reasons (not our first time around the block, less fear of screwing up our first official tours, DLC, general preparedness to freely resuspect). We're going to do our best.
Finally, a personal note, my own thoughts on the meta unconnected to the above- I think all the Silvallies are borderline broken. I don't care that Gloom and Shiinotic can kinda counter Silvally-Ground, if it can do like 30-40% on a switch so they're forced to stay healthy all the time that's bad enough but add in 2 excellent pivoting moves and it's just kinda stupid. Like, if Gloom switches into Multi Attack it already needs to Strength Sap to switch in next time and now you can freely Parting Shot to Beheeyem or Noctowl. Every time. Ok yes that's simplified but it really feels like how all of these work. Hit insanely hard and have amazing pivoting to keep your team abusing defensive mons that can't be risked. Don't take this as some kind of plan to ban every Silvally form because I'm loathe to remove anything else from this meta let alone another 14 mons (Ground and Fire can absolutely get the boot though because of how few things can even pretend to counter them), but I don't know how anyone could think these aren't just the stupidest things left in the meta outside of Noctowl. The only way they're mitigated is with constant, well-applied offensive pressure and a liberal dosage of entry hazards which really has less to do with them and more to do with just playing well generally.
I think the same on Swoobat case.
Banned? Of all the things that could be quickbanned - Swoobat? No way. Swoobat not only is incredibly frail, unlike other similar fast sweepers that we have - or had - it's also very passive and reliant on setting up - it can't set up on forced switches. Generally it takes like 30-70% HP just to set up and then gets revenged by any priority move or any scarfer above base 60 speed. Or you can just hard switch in your Liepard/Pikachu/Stonjourner/Glaceon/... and kill it - because what can Swoobat do against it? Weak to rocks, most common priority moves are supereffective vs it, there's a good couple of mons that can tank a hit and kill it back. Nasty Plot sets are plain bad, Calm Mind is solid but manageable, SubSalac can catch people off-guard but that's it - as long as you don't let it get both boosts and a sub - your mistake if you do. The only set that might seem banworthy is that Electric Seed CM Roost stuff - but that's like saying that Zangoose behind screens or Leafeon in sun is broken - you have to use the very mediocre support mon in Pinchurchin and build the rest of the team around that. Ninjask left and it was faster than Swoobat - yes, but it also lot the best support in Trapinch. Not even that Swoobat is not particularly difficult to stop - it's not constricting in teambuilder. Priority or/and scarfer.. or Persian, Liepard, something bulky.. Mostly what you would want anyway for Raichu/Liepard/weather or Silvallies.
Idk If exist the posibility to ban Multiattack and not Silvally. Outside of the breaker/swepper potencial, Silv provide good rol for a team, mainly Defog and Momentun (uturn is better bc of Pawniard).Hello, PU. Ive decided to chime in into this subject that I had no idea was gonna become this controversial after the bans but that warrants a very worthwhile discussion nonetheless and that’s the proposal of a Silvally ban.
First I wanna say that as someone who played quite a lot of Alpha and participated in the PU Alpha Tour, I understand where a lot of the complains with the most common Silvally formes stems from. I personally have had quite a bit of trouble in recent weeks dealing with Silvally Ground and I find other types equally threatening, while maybe not as common, but I do believe that a lot of the posts regarding this subject have been largely missing in explaining a certain reality in how this Pokemon and its various formes can affect the tier as a whole.
Silvally on paper:
It is true that Silvally stats and coverage options allow for a very threatening wallbreaker that can lend itself into almost any type it wants, create mind games prior to the type being revealed and even after create a lot of trouble for opponents who might have failed to identify the type.
One of the major issues Ive found when this point has been argued is that a lot of it is regarding what certain lesser known Silvally formes are able to do on paper. Ground, Fire, Fighting, Dragon, Flying are amongst the most used Silvally formes and they take most of the ecosystem by simply being too vital as defensive Pokemon, or as great wallbreakers in their own right. This fear of lesser known Silvally formes being equally broken is definitely a possibility that should be looked at, but I find little to no point in exploring this possibility on paper when the you get a lot more out of Silv Ground than lets say Silv Ice (as an example), which leads me to my next point.
Competition amongst Silvally:
Truly you cant fit a reliable counter to every Silvally forme in PU, but I feel like when analyzing the possibility of all Silvally formes being broken, theres been a heavy omission of how Silvally functions as a Pokemon in a team. I will explain this in the most obvious way possible but for a point that will be analyzed further: we all know that you can only utilize one Silvally per team and that most of the common Silvally formes are utilized to this extent because they offer certain utility due to their typing, offensive power, etc., which in turn means that Silv Electric, Bug, Psychic, etc. are pretty much left in the dark or without usage to even make it into PU, while still being viable in certain scenarios.
I believe that this hypothesis about all Silvally formes being broken is credible, but I would only look at all of them down the line if the ecosystem becomes kinder to said formes. How would the ecosystem become kinder to these lesser known formes so they can show how problematic they could be?
- If a very threatening Pokemon or core warrants the use of a Silvally forme that isn’t seen much right now. Lets say you really need Silv Rock to check Noctowl otherwise everyones losing to it (dumb example but you get the point).
- If the utility offered by types like Ground and Poison becomes less essential to the tier.
- If the main Silvally formes that are deemed problematic right now are looked at and potentially banned, leading to others being more dominant and even dumb.
In my opinion, a lot of the Silvally formes offer a much better ecosystem than if they didn’t exist, but it is essential that we don’t hypothesize about how X and Y Silvally could break the tier while in reality they barely gets a spot on a team.
For this reason I would really like to see replays of these lesser known Silv formes being used and doing what theyre supposed to do in practice. This isn’t supposed to come off as rude, but I do think its essential that we move away from this idea of “Silvally in theory” to what these formes could actually do in the tier, and if these sets become more common in the future. It shouldn’t be about “how dumb this Silvally would be if it was used at all”, but how realistic it is to utilize said formes when you get so much out of the other ones for the most part.
Whats the proposal then?
The first step should definitely be to look at these more problematic formes, the ones that have many split votes in the Council, the ones people bring up the most and the most obviously consistent and threatening formes right now. The most obvious right now would be Ground and Fire, but rushing and getting rid of all of them when lots of them barely show up would be handicapping the tier from many healthy defensive and offensive Pokemon, which in turn could make other Pokemon actual broken threats. Focus not on whats dumb on paper but what is actually proving to be a problem to the userbase (thru the userbase, this thread, the examples being presented, council, auth and wherever youre able to form a solid opinion on the manner in a healthy way) and then look at the lesser used ones if the ecosystem allows for them to be equally or more threatening.
Thank you so much for reading.