RU Suspect Coverage: Stage 7

Introduction

After the stage 6 suspect test ended with a supermajority ban on all three of the suspected Pokémon—Dragalge, Mega Pidgeot, and Serperior—a new phase of the RU metagame began. With the loss of two of the most terrifying threats to offensive teams in the tier since Tornadus's ban and of arguably the most fearsome wallbreaker to ever touch RU, a new metagame quickly started to develop around new threats. This era of peace, however, didn't last very long, and on February 12th, two new threats were put on the table by tier leaders Molk and SilentVerse and the RU council: the greatly buffed Pangoro and the ever-threatening Moltres. Both suspects had already been requested by the community a few times in the past, with Pangoro being considered too strong as a wallbreaker for stall and balanced teams to handle, while Moltres had been consistently brought up as suspect-worthy since the Zoroark and Yanmega ban for being too much of a threat to offensive teams with its Choice Scarf set and to balanced teams with its Life Orb set.

The Suspects

Pangoro

In XY, Pangoro was nothing more than a niche pick for teams that wanted an unusual wallbreaker with an awesome move in Parting Shot, decent bulk, and an interesting defensive typing to gain switch-in opportunities. Its offensive Fighting / Dark coverage was absolutely unwallable outside of Fairy-types, but a shortage of viable STAB moves (prior to ORAS, it had only Hammer Arm, Sky Uppercut, and Crunch) meant that it was very uncommon. After the hype died down and the metagame settled, it saw some use only on niche Trick Room or Dark- or Fighting-type spam teams. However, with the release of ORAS, Pangoro was gifted with some amazing tutor moves, such as Knock Off, Drain Punch, Superpower, Gunk Shot, and Ice Punch, all of which found a place on its main sets. These moves gave Pangoro the ability to break down defensive and slower balanced teams, allowing it to threaten a KO almost every time it faced a slower opposing Pokémon. Its Choice Band set was nigh impossible to switch into outside of Pokémon such as Garbodor and Qwilfish (which still took massive damage from Knock Off), which couldn't threaten it back, and its Swords Dance set was pretty much impossible for slower teams to deal with, with even Quagsire being incapable of beating it thanks to Mold Breaker. The latter set was also surprisingly effective against more offensive teams thanks to Pangoro's above average bulk and strong STAB Knock Off, which, even unboosted, was able to put a dent in pretty much anything. In addition to those two sets, Pangoro was also able to run a few more niche sets such as Choice Scarf and Assault Vest to surprise some of its checks, including Cobalion and Hitmonlee, which were outsped and KOed by a Fighting-type attack, and Psychic-types such as Meloetta, which had their Focus Blast tanked with the bulk granted by Assault Vest and were KOed by Knock Off in return.

Moltres

Moltres had been a controversial threat in RU for a long time. The first complaints arose after the banning of Zoroark and Yanmega, particularly during the RU Open of the Official Smogon Grand Slam. Players discovered that, with the same amount of support that Yanmega required, they could use a fantastic Pokémon for multiple team styles and for multiple roles. Up until that moment, the most common and effective Moltres set was the wallbreaker set, which made use of Life Orb to maximize Moltres's wallbreaking capabilities (with a moveset of Fire Blast, Hurricane, Hidden Power Grass, and Roost). However, because the number of Moltres switch-ins were incredibly scarce, a pool that was pretty much limited to Assault Vest Slowking, Lanturn, Cresselia, and Regirock, the premier set from that point forward became its Choice Scarf one. The metagame had evolved into a more offensive one where VoltTurn was common, and the additional Speed with this set (Moltres was the fastest Choice Scarf user in the tier bar niche picks such as Durant), the momentum from U-turn, and the ability to safely bring in Pursuit trappers to support a late-game sweep with Moltres itself made Choice Scarf Moltres a staple on many teams. Moltres's only real downside was its Stealth Rock weakness, which was easily mitigated by two fantastic potential partners, Gligar and Skuntank, and the inaccuracy of its strongest moves, which was addressed by including Flamethrower in its sets. With the introduction of ORAS, nothing really changed for Moltres, and it remained as one of the greatest wallbreakers in the tier and one of the most effective ways to deal with faster threats. After more pressing issues were dealt with via previous suspect tests, it was finally Moltres's turn to be put on the table.

Ladder Trends

The effect that powerful wallbreakers tend to have in a metagame is a shift toward more offensive playstyles, and with Pangoro and Moltres around, giving them as few opportunities as possible to freely attack was very important if you didn't have one of their few switch-ins.

However, this didn't completely solve the problem, as offensive teams still had to deal with Choice Scarf Moltres, which, while not too strong to handle reliably, was still troublesome to outspeed and take out. For this reason, Choice Scarf Durant started becoming popular, acting both as a Moltres answer and lure and as a generally reliable revenge killer with useful moves such as Baton Pass, with its effectiveness being particularly evident in the SPL game Spirit had against FAJI. A popular way to get rid of Moltres easily in an offensive metagame was running Stone Edge on Pokémon such as Virizion and Cobalion, which usually didn't run moves to hit Moltres on their most popular sets. These two in combination with other Fighting-types made for especially effective cores in the metagame, especially as they also helped with checking Pangoro. Of course, reliable Stealth Rock setters were another popular way of keeping Moltres in check, and with Skuntank and Golbat being the most popular Defog users, Pokémon such as Rhyperior became pretty great at keeping rocks up for the majority of the game.

Creative answers to Pangoro were also born and ranged from fast Cresselia with Moonblast (which was very popular because Pangoro usually stayed in against it, especially Jolly variants) to any sort of Psychic-types running Colbur Berry or Fairy-type coverage in Dazzling Gleam. An especially effective set at this stage was Assault Vest Meloetta, which acted both as a solid Moltres check due to its huge bulk and as a decent Pangoro lure with Focus Blast or Dazzling Gleam to take it out.

Conclusion

The results of stage 7 finally came out on March 2nd with a ban on both of the suspected Pokémon, with Moltres being the first Pokémon in XY RU history to not be banned with a supermajority and Pangoro getting the boot with a supermajority of over 80 percent. The results of this suspect test were perhaps controversial, with many prominent RU players such as Nails being openly against the ban of both Pokémon and Molk himself abstaining from the vote on Moltres. However, just as many well-known RU players received the banishment of Moltres well, and in the end, it can be said that the outcome was important for balancing the RU tier, especially considering that—just like with the stage 6 bans—players agreed not to use these Pokémon during SPL games as well.

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