While that's true, physical Lucario-Mega is far more common (from what I've seen at the least) since Close Combat can KO even the bulkiest Kangaskhan-Mega sets and is in general far more powerful than Aura Sphere (even after Intimidate a 252 Jolly CC only does around 5% less than a 252 Timid Aura Sphere to a Rotom w/ equal defenses). Regardless of that special variants will prefer to use Aura Sphere because it nets a OHKO on Mega-Kanganskhan (bar the bulkier 252 / 0 sets).Your calcs are truthful, but you know mega lucario has vaccum wave and is faster, right?
252 Atk Mienshao High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 414-488 (100 - 117.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO (I dunno where this calc of yours came from but this is what I wound up with; regardless its not hugely significant but just pointing it out)Yes, there are counters to Mega Kangaskhan (I will use Khan from now on) all over the place. A Jolly Mienshao has a 90% chance to OHKO Khan using a High Jump Kick, and is faster, and will through a sucker punch. Double targeting can also beat Khan. Intimidate and Will O Wisp can cut Khan's attack. And yes most of these strategies can be used against most other teams. The only problem is that Khan is a very easy mon to support.
If we're going to throw the "easy to use (or support) out there" may I also mention some special deals:
- Scarf Landorus-T to EQ things, U-turn and cause immense mind games, or just spam cheap Rock Slides
- Azumarill who can Belly Drum with support (and a ton of useful resistances) and then proceed to Aqua Jet your team for heavy damage
- Heatran who you switch in on Cresselia, Ice-types, Scizor and Mega-Mawile, Fire- and Fairy-types that aren't scared enough to run HP Ground, and a lot of other things, then proceed to use Substitute and be incredibly annoying to get rid of
- Togekiss who spams Follow Me, Air Slash, and Tailwind while doing all sorts of crazy things with its last moveslot
- Thundurus who uses Thunder Wave on everything
- Amoonguss who Rage Powders and Spores to troll you all day every day
- Any of these can be yours today for a wonderful price of $0!
Yeah, Kangaskhan is easy to snag wins with against the lower level players (not to hate on them; we're all bad at some point and that includes me; losing to things like Kanga is how we get better). Hooray. When you start getting up there in terms of player skill, Kangaskhan becomes very difficult to play with if anything.
Heatran (who will probably be used as an example a good few other times) will be supported by things that kill Ground-, Water-, and Fighting-types as without those it can typically take matches. So what does Landorus-T do when Keldeo comes in to get rid of it? It switches out.The rest of a team on any successful Khan team is all about supporting Khan. Any competent user can easily slap together a team that can destroy most other teams using Khan and a few support mon. Like Totem said, he is way too easy to weaponise. Mienshao can be countered perfectly using Talonflame. Mienshao will never be able to take both on at once, and most counters to Talonflame can be easily countered in turn by Khan. An intimidator that switches in trying to cut Khan's attack will in turn be countered by a support mon with Defiant or Competitive, or any fast special attacker while Khan recovers using PuP. A mon trying to counter Khan using Will O Wisp will be countered in turn by a simple Safeguard.
A huge concept in Doubles is switching around (you mention this later but I'm going to say it anyway) or getting things in safely through a less important partner fainting in order to create a favorable position in which you take control of the momentum, allowing you to snag KOs, set up Substitutes/Dragon Dances, and so forth with the proper play. When the opponent has the momentum, you are typically trying to get it back in a similar manner (yes this happens really fast but it still happens).
The word I'd really like to point out is "position". You need Bisharp to be on the field to stop Intimidate, you need Talonflame on the field to stop Mienshao. Unless the opponent has no checks to Bisharp, Safeguard Cresselia, or Talonflame you cannot keep them on the field (and with the momentum the opponent will have Mienshao on the field before Talonflame comes in and since Mega Kang doesn't even have Protect it basically amounts to "switch out or risk fainting"). And the moment they aren't on the field, the opponent can take advantage of it.
Even then a team built all around one Pokemon is very inconsistent, as if the given Pokemon faints, you lose (see: Full Perish Trap). So essentially you still have to use any normally effective support Pokemon that can still be useful with Kanga fainted (Bisharp, Togekiss, Amoonguss) and that could support any other sweeper just as well. There's nothing unique in the way most players support Kangaskhan-Mega (unless they feel like changing it up and using Magmar).
Firstly, "her".The only way to consistently counter a Khan and his team is to run a combination of these strategies, and that involves running 2-3 mons dedicated to anti Khan. I do believe that is the definition of over centralizing. That is, of course, seeing only 2 types of teams in the meta: Khan teams and anti Khan teams.
Secondly, Fighting-types, Intimidate, WoW, and Ghost-types are all really good choices regardless of Kangaskhan. If countering Kangaskhan took completely unorthodox strategies like Gravity, then maybe you'd have a point. As it so happens, it does not.
The reason Ubers are in Ubers is because it takes Ubers to beat Ubers. Lugia can't be taken out by any single threats in the metagame that aren't also banned (it'd take around 3 that would need to consistenly batter away at it to break through its Multiscale + Roost shenanigans and then there are partners to worry about.You might say that is what doubles is all about, trying to find a synergy of mons that work together to cover each other's weaknesses. But then by that reasoning, no mon is broken, and we should allow Xerneas, Palkia, Kyurem-W, Rayquaza, Lugia and Mewtwo into doubles each one of them has a very easy to use counter. We don't use them outside of Double Ubers because they can be weaponised too easily, and with very little support, can easily sweep most opposing teams.
More importantly, Kangaskhan cannot sweep opposing teams with "very little support". You yourself listed three entire team members that were needed and I don't even believe they alone would be nearly enough for a Kangaskhan to "sweep most opposing teams". There is a very clear difference in strength between Kangaskhan-Mega and Kyurem-W, believe it or not.
tl;dr Stop saying Kangaskhan is ban worthy because its "easy to use (in lower level play)", "overused", "annoying to play against", or any other typical trait of a top tier =/
Last edited: