Metagame Sketchmons

drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
Sorry back again. Following some deliberation, the council have come to a decision on 2 of the things I previously brought up in my above post^.

Firstly: Quiver Dance
The Council have unanimously decided to ban Quiver dance. The move is just too good and unbalances the meta. Gives sweeping potential to literally any special attacker, making it practically impossible to be prepared for all of them. The ability to boost both speed, attack and bulk is quite frankly terrifying. This combined with the fact that common perpetrators included stuff like tapu lele, which with psysurge made prio revenge killing impossible made this decision fairly easy to make.

Secondly: Porygon-z:
This mon has been talked about a lot both in the thread and in places like the om room, as many people have complained that it was too broken. Well the council agree and have decided to ban porygon-z. Adaptability combined with either boomburst and specs/scarf, or a moongeist beam z-conversion set make porygon practically impossible to prep for. The damage output is just outright absurd, 2kho'ing practically the entire meta with rocks up with like boomburst. The moongeist set alone isnt banworthy, but when you pair it with the boomburst set, pz becomes incredibly ban worthy, as it can viably run either set, and if you guess wrong, you either let it set up for free, in which case its too bulky for any of your prio moves to kill anymore and you lose..... or you sack a pivotal mon in the hope that its the conversion set. I think further points have already been brought up extensively, so I wont elaborate any further. Tagging The Immortal

The council is still deliberating on:
1. Ash-Greninja
2. Kartana

We have decided against banning lele, as with the qd ban we dont think lele will be as banworthy or unhealthy for the meta. However, we have not yet made a decision on the above 2 mons, so if any of you all have any opinions please do share them (with reasoning!)
I'm not going to respond extensively to the Ashninja discussion because I'm not sure how I feel about it. Really fast and strong and from preview it might be regular Ninja too, but idk if it's banworthy.

Kartana however I do not feel is banworthy. It struggles to pick a move, having to choose from better Steel STAB, coverage, priority, or possibly set up (is this a thing?). The fact that it can't do everything at once combined with bad offensive typing and awful special bulk makes it, while good and threatening, not banworthy in my opinion.

I'm really happy with the council decisions that have already been made ^_^ long live sketchmons!
 

RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
Sorry back again. Following some deliberation, the council have come to a decision on 2 of the things I previously brought up in my above post^.

Firstly: Quiver Dance
The Council have unanimously decided to ban Quiver dance. The move is just too good and unbalances the meta. Gives sweeping potential to literally any special attacker, making it practically impossible to be prepared for all of them. The ability to boost both speed, attack and bulk is quite frankly terrifying. This combined with the fact that common perpetrators included stuff like tapu lele, which with psysurge made prio revenge killing impossible made this decision fairly easy to make.

Secondly: Porygon-z:
This mon has been talked about a lot both in the thread and in places like the om room, as many people have complained that it was too broken. Well the council agree and have decided to ban porygon-z. Adaptability combined with either boomburst and specs/scarf, or a moongeist beam z-conversion set make porygon practically impossible to prep for. The damage output is just outright absurd, 2kho'ing practically the entire meta with rocks up with like boomburst. The moongeist set alone isnt banworthy, but when you pair it with the boomburst set, pz becomes incredibly ban worthy, as it can viably run either set, and if you guess wrong, you either let it set up for free, in which case its too bulky for any of your prio moves to kill anymore and you lose..... or you sack a pivotal mon in the hope that its the conversion set. I think further points have already been brought up extensively, so I wont elaborate any further. Tagging The Immortal

The council is still deliberating on:
1. Ash-Greninja
2. Kartana

We have decided against banning lele, as with the qd ban we dont think lele will be as banworthy or unhealthy for the meta. However, we have not yet made a decision on the above 2 mons, so if any of you all have any opinions please do share them (with reasoning!)
As a player with limited Sketchmons experience...

According to what have I seen, Ash-Greninja abuses something like, Water Spout, or, random coverage move that is specifically targeted on its usual checks to go through transformation... and as drampa said Greninja in general is very unpredictable due to Protean making majority of its sketched moves viable options... and I haven't seen Greninja in Sketchmons games too much in my experience (due to my ladder) so I won't comment on this.

I can confidently say Kartana is banworthy. First of all, it has array of moves it can choose to bypass its usual checks; I personally go for something like, Bolt Strike to specifically hit Celesteela and Skarmory which would otherwise be impossible to surmount, Sacred Fire to hit Steel-types less harder in exchange of an ability to spread burns for the team, or Sunsteel Strike which is significantly powerful than Smart Strike and bypasses some notable abilities like Disguise from Mimikyu. That is not to mention I run pivoting move, namely U-turn, with Kartana and switch back to Magnezone with Blue Flare.

tldr; Kartana's move choice is unpredictable; while this is same for most of the offensive 'mons in the meta, Kartana has freakin 181 attack and this means you might end up sacking something while you attempt to scout moveset. Also it has p threatening Speed tier that can harass balance / fat teams. That's p much what I think about this 'mon.

Probably not a best post but I did my best
 
Ash-Greninja Suspect Announcement


Ash-Greninja is now being suspected on the Sketchmons Ladder on PS! Ash-greninja is can be quite the scary offensive threat. Regular greninja already has a great speed tier, but with battle bond activated, it boasts a ridiculous speed tier and very high spa combined with the ability to run powerful stab in water spout. This allows it to blow away stall, balance, and offense teams if they dont have an answer. It also gets stab priority in water shuriken, allowing it to take on mons like excadrill in sand, which is among the few non-scarfed mons which can outspeed ash-ninja. Furthermore, it is hard to tell if the greninja you are facing is an ash-greninja, or a protean one, both of which have different switchins usually. This of course makes it easier to fool your opponent, and get a free battle-bond. Due to the fact that specs spout blows past so much of the meta with ease, the council have deemed Ash-Greninja suspect worthy.

Common Sets: Almost always, if you are facing an ash-greninja, it will be specs water spout, as this gives it insane natural power along with a STAB move with 150 bp without recharge. The remaining three moves are usually water shuriken, ice beam, and dark pulse, giving it powerful STAB's, priority, and ice beam as a way to take a chunk out of bulu and AV tang. However, you can also run strong coverage like blue flare, or potentially something like vswitch to lure and gain momentum.

The drawbacks with ash-greninja include being quite predictable once revealed to be ash-gren, with mons like tapu fini and AV tang being able to confidently switchin most of the time. Furthermore, its quite fragile, and therefore can be taken out by hard prio such as first impression on like mega bee or espeed on mons like awak/mmawile/mpinsir etc. However, a lot of the time ash-gren is paired with lele, so prio isnt always succesful. Finally, as it 9/10 times will run specs water spout, hazard stack can be a pretty big issue, as it cuts water spouts bp quite substantially if it has to switch out a few times.


Suspect details:

The requirements to vote are only 2600 COIL on the suspect ladder. Even for om standards, this is a pretty low requirement, so that should be a great reason to participate!
Below this you can find a chart estimating the number of battles you will need to get reqs for the corresponding gxe.

No alt name is required

Use this Sketch thread to discuss anything related to the ban, and voice your opinions, you dont need reqs to do this, you only need reqs to officially vote.

To make your vote, please comment a screenshot of your reqs and in bold write BAN or DO NOT BAN. A 60% majority will be needed for a ban.

Note that Ash-Greninja will be allowed on the ladder.
The Suspect Test will last for 2 weeks, and will end on the 29th of October (which could also potentially be the last weekend sketch will be playable on the main server!)


Tagging The Immortal
 
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drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
Ash-Greninja Suspect Announcement


Ash-Greninja is now being suspected on the Sketchmons Ladder on PS! Ash-greninja is can be quite the scary offensive threat. Regular greninja already has a great speed tier, but with battle bond activated, it boasts a ridiculous speed tier and very high spa combined with the ability to run powerful stab in water spout. This allows it to blow away stall, balance, and offense teams if they dont have an answer. It also gets stab priority in water shuriken, allowing it to take on mons like excadrill in sand, which is among the few non-scarfed mons which can outspeed ash-ninja. Furthermore, it is hard to tell if the greninja you are facing is an ash-greninja, or a protean one, both of which have different switchins usually. This of course makes it easier to fool your opponent, and get a free battle-bond. Due to the fact that specs spout blows past so much of the meta with ease, the council have deemed Ash-Greninja suspect worthy.

Common Sets: Almost always, if you are facing an ash-greninja, it will be specs water spout, as this gives it insane natural power along with a STAB move with 150 bp without recharge. The remaining three moves are usually water shuriken, ice beam, and dark pulse, giving it powerful STAB's, priority, and ice beam as a way to take a chunk out of bulu and AV tang. However, you can also run strong coverage like blue flare, or potentially something like vswitch to lure and gain momentum.

The drawbacks with ash-greninja include being quite predictable once revealed to be ash-gren, with mons like tapu fini and AV tang being able to confidently switchin most of the time. Furthermore, its quite fragile, and therefore can be taken out by hard prio such as first impression on like mega bee or espeed on mons like awak/mmawile/mpinsir etc. However, a lot of the time ash-gren is paired with lele, so prio isnt always succesful. Finally, as it 9/10 times will run specs water spout, hazard stack can be a pretty big issue, as it cuts water spouts bp quite substantially if it has to switch out a few times.


Suspect details:

The requirements to vote are only 2600 COIL on the suspect ladder. Even for om standards, this is a pretty low requirement, so that should be a great reason to participate!
Below this you can find a chart estimating the number of battles you will need to get reqs for the corresponding gxe.

No alt name is required

Use this Sketch thread to discuss anything related to the ban, and voice your opinions, you dont need reqs to do this, you only need reqs to officially vote.

To make your vote, please comment a screenshot of your reqs and in bold write BAN or DO NOT BAN. A 60% majority will be needed for a ban.

Note that Ash-Greninja will be allowed on the ladder.
The Suspect Test will last for 2 weeks, and will end on the 29th of October (which could also potentially be the last weekend sketch will be playable on the main server!)


Tagging The Immortal
Can we get a mention of Tail Glow sets here? I know that ladder stats are bad, but Tail Glow is used more than Water Spout at every level of the ladder. It's very threatening at +3 thanks in part to priority in Water Shuriken and abuses the threat of Protean pre-Ash much better. Imo this is the more threatening set and even if you don't agree it at least deserves a mention. I don't find Water Spout or miscellaneous coverage to be nearly as threatening, or indeed banworthy.
 
Can we get a mention of Tail Glow sets here? I know that ladder stats are bad, but Tail Glow is used more than Water Spout at every level of the ladder. It's very threatening at +3 thanks in part to priority in Water Shuriken and abuses the threat of Protean pre-Ash much better. Imo this is the more threatening set and even if you don't agree it at least deserves a mention. I don't find Water Spout or miscellaneous coverage to be nearly as threatening, or indeed banworthy.
well thats embarassing, ofc Tail glow is spammed af, mostly cos its powerful and super scary. Cant believe that I forgot to add that, thank you for reminding me. That should only be further cause for ash-gren to be potentially banworthy and justification for the suspect, as if you expect it to be water spout, it can turn out to be tail glow and destroy you.
 
upload_2017-10-26_16-58-35.png

This mon is broken as shit, and I think the only reason why its being ignored so much is the multitude of other broken stuff (Reg ninja, Kartana, tail Glow anything, Koko, Pinsir) that compete with it a ton for team slots. Banning ashninja wont magically balance sketchmons, and IMO its not the most broken thing in the tier, but it is broken and this is a good step forward.
Ban
 

Sylveon.

Penny saved is still a fucking penny
Haha, baby exact 2600
sketch.PNG

Anyways, voting BAN as it's not only ash-ninja(which is kind of stupid by itself), Sketchmons needs to filter out some of the offensive threats in general and this seems like a positive way forward. Also ngl really happy about the increased activity on the ladder during the suspect, and hope this continues as it's time more and more people try out the meta now that it's been handled much better than before.

Also, BAN THAT ORIGAMI PIECE OF SHIT.
 

MZ

And now for something completely different
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Council just gave me reqs so I've been messing around and got kinda close ig but w/e I'll just post now. We absolutely need to ban and i don't think that's a question here, we really just should've gone much farther with quickbans just to free up the meta more but fine whatever let's do this the old fashioned way. Can't see the need to post reasoning when the only do not ban people haven't even bothered justifying why they're making the edgier call, but might post more if a debate or something were to actually happen.
 
Well if you really want to know, I don't think Ash-Greninja is really broken. Before going Ash it has middling stats, and its typing affords it no resistances to any kind of viable Extreme Speed user. It ends up being not all that unpredictable because, quite frankly, it's always gonna be a Sp attacker since if it goes physical it is forced to run either Waterfall (if it picks Knock Off) or Night Slash (if it picks something like Crabhammer), and Water Shuriken being special just encourages it even more to be special. Tail Glow sets (which I personally have never seen) may be a problem because Tail Glow is an OP move, not because it is on Gren. Water Spout puts it in an even worse position against Extreme Speed users, since it becomes piss weak when Greninja gets damaged. And it isn't hard to damage Greninja.
I'm WAY more worried about Kartana, but this isn't the time to discuss this guy. Ashninja should stay imo.
 
Well if you really want to know, I don't think Ash-Greninja is really broken. Before going Ash it has middling stats, and its typing affords it no resistances to any kind of viable Extreme Speed user. It ends up being not all that unpredictable because, quite frankly, it's always gonna be a Sp attacker since if it goes physical it is forced to run either Waterfall (if it picks Knock Off) or Night Slash (if it picks something like Crabhammer), and Water Shuriken being special just encourages it even more to be special. Tail Glow sets (which I personally have never seen) may be a problem because Tail Glow is an OP move, not because it is on Gren. Water Spout puts it in an even worse position against Extreme Speed users, since it becomes piss weak when Greninja gets damaged. And it isn't hard to damage Greninja.
I'm WAY more worried about Kartana, but this isn't the time to discuss this guy. Ashninja should stay imo.
Ash greninaj being forces to be special in the the same way that porygon z was; this is so good why would you want anything else. It's disengenous to pretend thats a disadvantage any more than Mega Metagross being physical was; mixed attacking is nice for unpredictability but if you lack options for that in sketchmons you have different issues.


252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 227-268 (79.6 - 94%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Thick Club Marowak-Alola Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 191-225 (67 - 78.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 220-259 (77.1 - 90.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 234-276 (82.1 - 96.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 246-291 (86.3 - 102.1%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

The only espeed users that check Greninja (altho yes, plenty can rk weakened ones) are +dmg item diggersby and the rare alolan golem, to say nothing of how they obviously can't switch in
 

Fardin

Tournament Banned
with all the stupid stuff allowed, idt ninja is broken atm. Maybe if more stuff were banned before starting this suspect, it would've deserved the ban for sure... but since u guys prioritized it before the others like kart, koko and a few other, I would vote no ban if I bothered to get reqs
 
Ash greninaj being forces to be special in the the same way that porygon z was; this is so good why would you want anything else. It's disengenous to pretend thats a disadvantage any more than Mega Metagross being physical was; mixed attacking is nice for unpredictability but if you lack options for that in sketchmons you have different issues.


252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 227-268 (79.6 - 94%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Thick Club Marowak-Alola Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 191-225 (67 - 78.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 220-259 (77.1 - 90.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 234-276 (82.1 - 96.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 246-291 (86.3 - 102.1%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

The only espeed users that check Greninja (altho yes, plenty can rk weakened ones) are +dmg item diggersby and the rare alolan golem, to say nothing of how they obviously can't switch in
idk man 3 out of the 5 mons you've listed in the calcs don't get STAB on Extreme Speed, so their not OHKOing isn't anything out of the ordinary. But they do get pretty close, in some cases - which highlights Greninja's absolute frailty. I'm not using its frailty as an excuse for its brokenness or lack thereof - many frail pokemon are broken, that's not the point. The point is that Ash-Gren's most threatening set, which is Water Spout, gets mangled by Extreme Speed users. By most priority, in fact - and once Greninja's HP is lowered, Water Spout becomes useless.

Ash-Greninja is very good, and may even be broken - but I don't think it's fair to ban it now, when there are more broken things roaming around. ffs Kartana should've been banned long ago, nothing with 181 base attack, decent speed and great defensive typing should be able to use moves as strong as it can run in this meta. Also worth noting that Kartana resists all the relevant Extreme Speed users, and most less relevant ones too (such as Mega Altaria and Alolan Golem)
 

MZ

And now for something completely different
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Ok both Isotonex's post and Cute Charm Clefable's right above me speak to a significant misunderstanding of how suspecting something works. We don't not ban things because it keeps other things in check or because it might not be quite as bad as something else. If Kartana is worse than Ash Ninja (I agree that it is and think both ought to have been quickbanned along with Quiver Dance but that's not the point) then we can still ban ash ninja and deal with kartana later. So frankly "i wouldn't vote ban because other things are in the tier" is completely absurd. As for the other actually legitmate points brought up by Cute Charm Clefable, yes I agree that espeed users all mess with ninja but frankly when you play with it or face it it's just not that simple. Ash ninja finds an annoying amount of switchin/double opportunities and is almost guaranteed a kill every time it comes in. Check or no check, that's significant. It doesn't automatically mean broke, but it is quite significant. Bringing up physical sets is absurd and irrelevant, not seeing tail glow is frankly just because of a flawed suspect system and we really shouldnt have had a public test, but I would encourage anyone citing lack of experience to go out and challenge actual other people in the OM room who might be mildly familiar with sketchmons (sketch players is too strong a phrase) to get more experience with dealing with ninja. Really the original DNB post by cute charm clefable sounds like it just lacks experience actually facing this mon or perhaps only faced greninja with one team which was the only one used for the whole reqs run and had a very good matchup versus it. Anyway my point is that yes, Kartana is absolutely stupid and more broken and I'm mortified we didn't quickban it, but stop pretending that's an excuse not to ban ninja please.
 
Well if that's the case then I absolutely look forward to Kartana's suspect test. I don't plan on changing my vote though, which really won't matter because most people are voting ban anyway.
 

thesecondbest

Just Kidding I'm First
i played briefly and kart was no issue at all because i had the based core of parting shot pex and u-turn tang. Now, the question is, are they splashable enough to beat stuff other than kart or is kart overcentralizing? Anyways it's too late for me to get reqs bc ladder is sparse and i haven't run into any ninjas anyway so i have no idea if its banworthy or not. But tail glow is pretty gross so i can believe that ninja is op. Kart is damn strong and the setup sets are scary, but then it still has the issue of shitty coverage. some people i saw run v-create though, so maybe kart is busted. all i know is i didnt have issues with my particular team bc i am attracted to regen pivots in this and aaa
 

Jrdn

Not a promise, I'm just gonna call it.
I've spent the suspect test playing with teams I made and forgot about months ago. I had mixed results...but good thing I'm on the council so the results don't matter!

Ban. It's too strong for the tier, with sets like Tail Glow and choice specs dominating teams. Not to mention you don't know if its ash gren or protean gren at first glance, which makes it all the more difficult to handle.
 
I don't play much so feel free to point out where I'm wrong etc. n_n

Completely agree with Zard and QT. I agree Kartana is more busted than Gren simply due to the plethora of incredible physical moves that allow it to beat it's previous counters. Moves like V-create, Bolt Strike, Precipice Blades, etc dick balance, DD destroys offense, Scarf is also terrifying with potential literally any move with base power above 100 coming from a pokemon with 181 base attack. I do think this should get quickbanned despite people disagreeing however we're here about Gren.

Gren in my eyes is very similar to Porygon-Z. Every single reason as to why PZ was banned can be said equally about Gren. You don't want it to set up a tail glow in this case cause that's stupid scary but if you stay in fearing that and it's specs you die not to mention the already lack of switch ins regardless. Granted this can be said for other pokemon however there's too many mindgames. Is it Protean, is it specs, is it some random coverage and blows you back, is it tail glow? Yes there are still issues in the tier, but getting Ash-Gren out allows much more flexibility in the meta and gets rid of a frankly broken pokemon.
 
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Due to the ladder being unfortunately quite inactive, I have decided to reduce reqs to 2500 COIL. Furthermore, in the daily tournament in the other metas room on PS!, the 2 finalists of the sketchmons daily tomorrow will be given reqs.

Voting ends by the end of the day tomorrow, so a verdict on the fate of ash-greninja will be announced shortly after. If you are unhappy with the current way the vote is heading towards, have a go at getting reqs if you havent already!
 

drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
Due to the ladder being unfortunately quite inactive, I have decided to reduce reqs to 2500 COIL. Furthermore, in the daily tournament in the other metas room on PS!, the 2 finalists of the sketchmons daily tomorrow will be given reqs.

Voting ends by the end of the day tomorrow, so a verdict on the fate of ash-greninja will be announced shortly after. If you are unhappy with the current way the vote is heading towards, have a go at getting reqs if you havent already!
o nice now i can be lazy

reqs <------------- look there they are!

I've thought a lot about whether or not Ash-Ninja deserves a ban, and it honestly hasn't been an easy choice for me.

My pro-ban thoughts:
I'm going to focus on Tail Glow because I think that's the most important set. Feel free to disagree / point out how I'm wrong, but please tell me why if you do.

I think that the biggest problem with Greninja is that you do not know whether it is Ash-Ninja or Protean until it has made a move. I play somewhat differently versus each of them. If it's Ash-Ninja sending out Tapu Fini is almost always the smart play, while if its Protean that is a very risky move. If you assume its one or the other you tempt fate; if it's Ash and you thought Protean it might set up Tail Glow and sweep, if it's Protean and you predicted Ash a vital part of your team might have just been removed.

Once Greninja has been Ash'd and is at +3 (if Tail Glow) most offensive mons can't revenge it. Out of mons that naturally outspeed it there is one (Mega Sceptile) that is both legal and lives +3 Water Shuriken. Priority has been discussed a lot, and boils down to if Greninja managed to avoid chip it lives most hits (run Alolan Golem guys its good I swear even if Zygarde does switch in all over it). Mons that can tank hits from it exist but aren't common, and can be beaten by coverage like Volt Switch or Ice Beam if it's not Tail Glow (or sometimes if it is).

252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Volt Switch vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Azumarill: 312-368 (85.7 - 101%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Volt Switch vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Fini: 206-244 (60 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Ice Beam vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Chesnaught: 418-492 (110.2 - 129.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

not that Chesnaught is common or anything...

My Anti-Ban thoughts:
Very briefly: if Protean greninja is the reason Ash-Ninja is suspect-worthy, as it seems to me, why are we suspecting Ash-Ninja? Protean Greninja has way more versatility, and can be slapped on as an offensive check to things way more easily because it gets STAB on everything. To me, this seems like a far more pertinent ban than Ash-Ninja. I honestly haven't gotten a good answer to why Ash-Ninja is so much better than Protean besides something along the lines of "well you must not play the tier if you don't think that" which isn't really an answer but an avoidance of one.

Being Ash'd and in perfect health to prevent being KO'd by Extremespeed
252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 227-268 (79.6 - 94%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Thick Club Marowak-Alola Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 191-225 (67 - 78.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 220-259 (77.1 - 90.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 234-276 (82.1 - 96.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 246-291 (86.3 - 102.1%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Thick Club Marowak-Alola Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 191-225 (67 - 78.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 220-259 (77.1 - 90.8%) -- 25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 234-276 (82.1 - 96.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 246-291 (86.3 - 102.1%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Pixilate Altaria-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja-Ash: 386-456 (135.4 - 160%) -- guaranteed OHKO


as shown in the hide is not necessarily easy. I believe it was Official Fissure who was arguing that its not that difficult to achieve due to Z moves and forcing your opponent out, but Greninja still has trouble setting up in the face of anything it doesn't force out, and if the opponent decides to sack and gets a hit off you could be in trouble.

This is kinda a small point and not one that effects Greninja's functioning in the bigger picture, but Greninja has a small case of 4mss on its Tail Glow set, where it wants to run all of Tail Glow, Water Shuriken, Dark Pulse, Hydro Pump, and some form of coverage, probably Ice Meme. Without one of these moves it gets walled by something extra, and even with all of them its still walled by the common Tapu Fini. Other sets don't really have this problem to nearly as much of a degree, merely the problem of deciding which move to sketch.

Final thoughts:
I'm going to vote Ban Ash-Ninja. I believe that at least some of my misgivings come from the fact that I have been running both Golem-A and Tapu Fini for this suspect test, and I have seen much better arguments come from the pro-ban side in general. However I am not entirely certain this is right... However I do believe that Greninja as a whole is too good for the meta and if this is the way the council chooses to deal with it then I force myself to accept it.

Edit: Force is honestly too strong a word here, as while I don't necessarily like this solution it's the best one I can see that isn't complex.

FINALLY:
I disapprove of this suspect for multiple reasons. I know, as Megazard says, that this shouldn't effect how I vote, but I really think Ash-Ninja was the wrong thing to suspect. Not only do i think Protean Ninja is the bigger problem as I said above (which is relevant), but things like Mega Aerodactyl, Kartana, and Serperior seem to be more important to be suspected to me. There is also the fact that move tutors have been confirmed for USUM, which means that there is a very high likelihood of Ash-Ninja getting access to Gunk Shot, which would make it not only more broken here, but might get it banned from OU (this is pure conjecture). I really don't think this suspect was well thought out, although I respect that my opinion does not necessarily align with that of the councils, some of whom at least have been seen to say that Ash-Ninja is an "easy ban" (again something I disagree with).
 
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