np: Doubles Stage 2.5 - Go to Sleep (Suspect Discussion)

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Electrolyte

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Unfortunately, statistics are based off of ladder matches, and given that Doubles is still quite "new", our ladder comprises mostly of newer players. This will hopefully fix itself overtime, and I think it is since the ladder is much better than I remember (or maybe I'm just higher up idk)

When considering suspects, Sleep is definitely a good starting point (not as an option, as a starting point.) We can trust that we had a pretty stable metagame before we started considering Sleep Clause, or else we would have made other changed in the tier, and the only metagame difference between now and then is the lack of Sleep Clause, so anything that's broken SHOULD be improved by the lack of Sleep clause in some way.

The most direct pool of Pokemon in relation to the Sleep Clause removal are Sleep spammers themselves, but their typings and averagedly low stats prevent them from being broken. Many others, such as Amoonguss, have stepped up and taken a valuable role in the meta, checking other threats that could potentially be broken.

The next group on the list are our top-tier sweepers that benefit from the opportunity that Sleep spam causes. Pokemon such as Mega Charizard Y, Aegislash, and Mega Kangaskhan love being supported by Sleep, because they have so much more breathing room. There are some pretty darn powerful Pokemon in this group, so if we're gonna suspect something, it should fall under this category.

But which Pokemon specifically? An important thing to note is that each Pokemon benefits from sleep in different ways and levels. Keep in mind that many of the Pokemon in that group are pretty susceptible to Sleep themselves, so often the disadvantage outweighs the advantage. Other Pokemon simply don't benefit enough- either they can't capitalize upon the short opening quickly enough or they are burdened by counters that are not bothered by Sleep. This rules out a large portion, including the slow sweepers and sweepers that lack bulk / setup.


If you can tell what I'm getting at here, you'll begin to notice that I'm describing a lot of the traits of Mega Kangaskhan. It is a powerful threat benefitted by Sleep, but because of its bulk, speed, and power, Sleep comes at little disadvantage to it. It can set up easily with PuP, which also deals damage, and is almost impossible to prevent with Taunt, helping it quickly take advantage of even the smallest of windows of opportunity without fearing retribution. Its few checks and counters (Fighting-types, bulky walls) are all terribly discouraged by Sleep, which is often carried by Pokemon that naturally beat them (Amoonguss, for example, as Pocket stated, easily checks Fighting-types and can outlast most other walls in the meta. Jumpluff too has a speedy Sleep Powder and Leech Seed, which can even provide healing for Mega Kangaskhan if it switches in.) Mega Kangaskhan's traits are perfect for the abuse of Sleep, and abuse, it has- it benefitted so much from our last suspect, and could very well be broken now.
 
psa: if it comes down to banning a pokemon or reinstating sleep clause, we're reinstating sleep clause
That's a really narrow minded view tbh.

We tested the absolute hell out of Sleep Clause, including having a minitour DURING the suspect test. MegaKanga is very obviously broken, as has been pointed out time and time and time again, by exceptional players, and by general outcry as well.

It would be far easier and make much more sense to just test Kangaskhan definitively in a real suspect test (not the joke we had before), then to reban something we literally just determined as not broken either way.
 

Electrolyte

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pwnemon your post implies that (even if it's not true, I would still like to clarify lol) I think that the removal of Sleep Clause has made Mega Kangaskhan broken. This is not true. What I was explaining was that the Pokemon that we should consider for the next suspect should have been impacted in some way by the removal of Sleep Clause (if there was something broken before that, we should have addressed that item instead. Because there was not, we can assume that we're looking at the effects of Sleep Clause on major threats that were already close to being broken and were made even more powerful by the recent decision.) I wouldn't go so far as to claim that everything benefitted by SC removal is broken and that we should "clean up messes" after SC removal. All I was saying was that we should take SC removal effects into extreme consideration, because if anything is going to be making the move from just ok to broken, it's probably going to be because of SC removal.


Also, if we do find Mega K to be broken right now, removing Sleep isn't going to help as much as it will be unnecessary because as clarified before, Mega K has plenty of other traits that make up a majority of the threat that it poses to the meta. SC removal just tipped it over the edge, but hardly makes up for all of any brokenness that it may have.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
I agree; if Mega Kangaskhan is broken with or without sleep clause, then Mega Kanga should be banned. However, most of the arguments i've seen for banning it say "Mega Kanga wouldn't be broken EXCEPT sleep clause was removed and now it is." In that case, it's most logical to work backwards to a point in the metagame where a 91% majority agreed that literally everything was balanced and just freeze there. If something must change with our meta, it is only logical for it to be sleep clause, not mega khan.

To make a slightly less silly and rushed post about the metagame: We are freeing zekrom over my dead body. Its defensive typing is actually super good—resists like six common types in elec/water/fire/grass/steel/flying while only being weak to fairy/ice/dragon/ground, one of which is (ice) very uncommon to be STABed and no unstab ice attack is going to kill it. You compared it to Kyurem-B, which would be a fair comparison if Freeze Shock didn't have a charge turn, but otherwise, Zekrom is easily the better of the two with its access to a 130 power STAB with a 30% paralysis chance, and better defensive typing. Considering kyurem-B is already the closest thing we have to broken (YES, SUCK IT MEGA KANGA HATERS, I JUST SAID THAT), let's not.

As to kanga itself: i still don't see how it's broken. Nollan brought up the issue of Kanga being able to run multiple surprise sets, but each one reduces it's effectiveness so badly it hurts. Fake Out is the only somewhat expendable move on its set and even then, Fake Out is being blamed for breaking kanga by allowing you to set up sleep. See Nollan vs Braverius, where Kanga managed to surprise Zach with ice punch and do fuck-all the entire rest of the match. As for the standard set, it's absolutely great, but it's dicked by follow me or rage powder, by fast fighting types, by ghosts, by fake out, and can be outplayed with straight up double targetting, with sleep, with smart use of intimidate, with will-o-wisp. Yes, it requires you to carry one or more of these things on your team. None of these are obscure and otherwise unviable. You CAN beat kanga without them, too, if you can outplay. And requiring you to bring a countermeasure hardly makes something broken, just good. "Overcentralization" means that a metagame is shaped around a pokemon, with teams consisting mostly of that mon, its counters, and their counters. That argument is so nonapplicable to kangaskhan—the meta would hardly change were it banned, its counters are all generically good—that i feel like it's only used by people who want kangaskhan out but know it can be beaten. Perhaps simply i just don't know how to use it, but in my multiple teams i've made with kanga, it hasn't been even close to giving me an undue advantage or being unfair.
 
Maybe it's just me, but I have a really hard time finding a reason to not use MegaKhan on every team I make, unless I was going to make Full TR or something. Khan is so good that it really holds back a lot of other Megas from really shining in Doubles. Before you can even get another Mega, it has to outperform Khan and you have to have a damn good reason not to run it. The only times I can actually see it as inferior to another mon is when running MegaMawile in Trick Room or running MegaZardY for Sun (and maybe MegaManectric/MegaGarchomp for Rain/Sand abuse). The fact is that it is Overcentralizing. It has been since release and has gotten even worse now, even before sleep clause was lifted. I felt it was broken at that time too, and still feel it is, just based on how damn good it is and how easily it fits into any team without any thought. It is basically Doubles' version of BW2 Genesect. It's not OMGNERFPLS broken level like Zekrom would be, but it's almost stupid not to use it on your team without a really really good reason. It can be splashed into anything regardless of team comp and it is frequently. I wouldn't be surprised to find it on top of the usage stats very soon.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
But high usage is NOT a valid argument for brokenness! Especially not when you're saying that using one mega often precludes you from using other megas, since you can literally only run one on a team. Overcentralization does not simply mean it has high usage—see my previous post. I will not allow us to ban things simply because we use them a lot; this is an unstable system which ends up banning way more than it needs to. High usage is hardly an indicator that something is the best Pokemon in the metagame, anyways (rotom-w was number one in late BW with like 20+% usage yet they banned deo-d at 8% and lando at 9%).



As a side note, if you're always using mega kanga, maybe you're just not the best teambuilder. I've built with mega scizor, mega mawile, mega gyarados, mega char y. I havent used mega gengar yet but it's something Randy used to great success in SPL and i want to try it out. Lolk's mega manectric team is one of the best i've ever seen in the metagame. Mega lucario is sorely underrated; there's also good teams with mega heracross, mega abomasnow, and mega tyranitar. So yeah idk how you can be saying kangaskhan gets used on every team ever.
 
Honestly I kind of find Ludicolo, Hitmontop and Scrafty to be good enough to justify not running Kanga even on teams that want Fake Out support.
I used to have the problem of thinking I needed Kanga on every team, but I really just wasn't that good at teambuilding.
Again, I think a Kanga suspect would be interesting just to see what happens without Kanga in the meta, but its not really broken and tbh is used a lot less than Lando-T and WashTom which are threats that don't even have the opportunity cost of a mega slot.
 
/late

I feel mega kanga is broken for a lot of reasons other people listed. Blood totem showed calcs showing how bad Kanga reks its "counters." A lot of other good points have been listed, but what I hate about it more than anything else is how easy it is to fit on a team and use.

Mega Kangaskhan can fit on any kind of team bar full Trick Room, and to a lesser extent sun because Ninetales is garb. If you're building a team around a core or mon that doesn't involve a different mega, Mega Kanga is almost always going to be your go to mega evo, unless it creates some kind of gaping hole like a big fighting weakness (unlikely due to the popularity of mons like Togekiss, Amoongus, and Lando-T).

While I agree with the anti-ban side that Kanga doesn't restrict _that_ much, I do think it being banned would create a lot more diversity in options for the mega slot.
 

Electrolyte

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idk about Kang being the best Mega all the time; this isn't necessarily true. Mega Kangaskhan is a powerful self-made sweeper but it provides relatively little support to its partners and is degraded by lack of spread. Things like Intimidate Mega Mawile / Mold Breaker Mega Gyarados are a bit more situational but often benefit teams a lot more than Mega Kang because of their Intimidate pre-evo ability. Things like Mega Gardevoir and Mega Charizard Y have immensely powerful STAB spread moves that actually deal more damage and apply more offensive pressure than Kangaskhan.

Mega K is a frightening sweeper, but I don't think the metagame argument is really valid because its effects on the metagame are actually quite positive (it's not overcentralizing, it doesn't force the use of unviable Pokemon, it doesn't decrease the use of viable Pokemon, and it checks gimmicks, which are all beneficial for the meta) If you're simply just slapping it onto teams without second thought, you're missing out on the potential use of a more specialized Mega Pokemon that could help a lot more.

I would rather look to its actual field presence than its metagame effect as that's where we will find most of the sound and relevant support for its possible ban. It's not always better than other Megas; it's just more good in general, but assuming it will be the best choice in all situations is a real folly.
 

Laga

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rather have a Pokemon that doesn't support teammates whilst not needing support than have a pokemon needing too much team support.

This is why the "kanga doesn't contribute much to your team synergy" isn't that big of a deal. Also it does kinda provide Fake Out support so I might go as far as to say that it's just straight up wrong.

Things like Mega Gardevoir and Mega Charizard Y have immensely powerful STAB spread moves that actually deal more damage and apply more offensive pressure than Kangaskhan.
I highly disagree with this. Kangaskhan's Return is going to hit much harder in one of the enemy spots than the spread moves of gardevoir and megaYzard, which means that it's around equally as hard to switch into, and to power it up, Kangaskhan's Return isn't resisted by that much.

I feel more pressured offensively by Kangaskhan than Charizard almost every time because of the threat of PuP on the switch, Return killing you or doing assloads of damage, or Sucker Punch sniping down your Latios. This is especially relevant when you consider how much harder it is to kill a Mega Kangaskhan than a Charizard-Y. (also the priority really puts a lot of "offensive pressure" on your opponent)
 
It's really late where I am, so I'll probably edit this later with an actual argument, but what is everyone's opinion on perish trap? In my opinion, perish song isn't game breaking or broken. It's one of the best way to check set up sweepers IMO. Trapping abilities aren't broken either. Their function is to trap and KO other Pokémon of yours' checks. Alone they aren't broken, but in my opinion, perish song + trapping abilities together is broken.
 
PerishTrap is a gimmick that relies on team machup and involves no skill.
It is not broken. End of story.
Blank had a good joke about PerishTrap btw
 
PerishTrap is a gimmick that relies on team machup and involves no skill.
It is not broken. End of story.
Blank had a good joke about PerishTrap btw
I did?

I think the only good PerishTrap I've seen was Champ's because it used it as a way to break through any sort of non-offensive lead, like anything having to do with Sleep or any kind of setup is just crushed and the rest of the team is left open for abuse.
 
I did?

I think the only good PerishTrap I've seen was Champ's because it used it as a way to break through any sort of non-offensive lead, like anything having to do with Sleep or any kind of setup is just crushed and the rest of the team is left open for abuse.
Q: Why should we remove the voices of the people who use perishtrap (like iliketrains12)
A: Because then they can't use their voices to sing the perish song.
 
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The problem with perish song in that in a metagame favoring relatively bulky offense, perish trap can be extremely hard to break through. Take this as an example:

You sent out Bisharp and Terrakion, you opponent sends out Togekiss and Gengar (to be mega)
Togekiss is swapped with amoongus. Gengar mega evolves, Gengar uses perish song, Terrakion uses rock slide, Bisharp iron heads where Togekiss was.

Amoongus Rage Powders. Gengar disables rock slide on terrekion. Bisharp uses knocks off on amoongus.

Amoongus Protects, Gengar disables bisharps knock off. Terrakion close combats Amoongus.

Amoongus goes back to Togekiss, Gengar Protects. Terrakion still is spamming close combat, and Bisharp Iron Heads Togekiss.

at this point, Gengar can switch into another trapper your two Pokemon perish. Rinse and repeat with all six of your opponent's pokemon and you win.

How much skill does that take? Not much at all and it isn't so common from team preview that you would just lead with mega gengar counters. There are other pokemon that I've seen able to do it too, like Gothitelle, or what ever the fully evolved form of it is, and Murkrow, who can do stuff like prankster feather dance and perish song. For all of the above reasons, I think that the combo of Perish Song + Shadow Tag = broken.
 
The problem with perish song in that in a metagame favoring relatively bulky offense, perish trap can be extremely hard to break through. Take this as an example:

You sent out Bisharp and Terrakion, you opponent sends out Togekiss and Gengar (to be mega)
Togekiss is swapped with amoongus. Gengar mega evolves, Gengar uses perish song, Terrakion uses rock slide, Bisharp iron heads where Togekiss was.

Amoongus Rage Powders. Gengar disables rock slide on terrekion. Bisharp uses knocks off on amoongus.

Amoongus Protects, Gengar disables bisharps knock off. Terrakion close combats Amoongus.

Amoongus goes back to Togekiss, Gengar Protects. Terrakion still is spamming close combat, and Bisharp Iron Heads Togekiss.

at this point, Gengar can switch into another trapper your two Pokemon perish. Rinse and repeat with all six of your opponent's pokemon and you win.

How much skill does that take? Not much at all and it isn't so common from team preview that you would just lead with mega gengar counters. There are other pokemon that I've seen able to do it too, like Gothitelle, or what ever the fully evolved form of it is, and Murkrow, who can do stuff like prankster feather dance and perish song. For all of the above reasons, I think that the combo of Perish Song + Shadow Tag = broken.
Just something real fast here.

I don't know about you, but if any Amoongus of mine took a Terrakion Rock Slide, and a Bisharp Iron Head, it is probably dead as fuck and isn't Rage Powdering.
 
Just something real fast here.

I don't know about you, but if any Amoongus of mine took a Terrakion Rock Slide, and a Bisharp Iron Head, it is probably dead as fuck and isn't Rage Powdering.
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Amoonguss: 243-289 (56.2 - 66.8%)
252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Amoonguss: 160-188 (37 - 43.5%)

Sitrus Amoonguss would have 14.7-31.8% remaining and that's assuming they are both Life Orb and Amoonguss has no defensive EVs(which is the standard).

Best case scenario for Amoonguss has no problem:
252 Atk Terrakion Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 82-97 (18.9 - 22.4%)
252+ Atk Bisharp Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 127-150 (29.3 - 34.7%)
 
Fair enough, but it's going to live the next turn Knock Off as well?
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Amoonguss: 199-234 (46 - 54.1%) -- 47.7% chance to 2HKO
That's with no physical defense investment
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 133-157 (30.7 - 36.3%) -- 58.1% chance to 3HKO
That's with physical defense investment

252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Amoonguss: 243-289 (56.2 - 66.8%)
252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Amoonguss: 160-188 (37 - 43.5%)

Sitrus Amoonguss would have 14.7-31.8% remaining and that's assuming they are both Life Orb and Amoonguss has no defensive EVs(which is the standard).

Best case scenario for Amoonguss has no problem:
252 Atk Terrakion Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 82-97 (18.9 - 22.4%)
252+ Atk Bisharp Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 127-150 (29.3 - 34.7%)
Did you remember to include the spread modifier on rock slide?

EDIT: also, Mega-Gengar can take Terrakion's rock slide uninvested
252 Atk Terrakion Rock Slide vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gengar: 109-130 (41.6 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
 
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Most Amoongus is going to run Sitrus with 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpDef and a Calm nature btw.

Also, Perish Trap is such a bad strategy in general. Running a super common Fake Out/Taunt lead will nullify 99.9% of your issues
 
I don't use full perish trap because i don't find it consistent,that's why i only use it as a side strategy that i can use when the conditions are right to get a major boost in the battle.A fast encore is really deadly and with the fact people spam protect so i often find a lot of opportunities to perish trap,tho its not just protect something like locking an opponent to fake out,sub,etc can easily give me tons of momentum.
 

Electrolyte

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Let's not waste time arguing about whether Amoonguss will survive LO Iron Head + Rock Slide combo (seriously how is that relevant???) when it's pretty obvious that the TerraSharp was pretty screwed by simply not switching to a better matchup from the beginning. Gengar could very well have just been an attacker and with Focus Blast / Follow Me you could have easily lost Terrakion or Bisharp in one swift move so it wasn't that great of an idea to stay in initially anyway. The example was not a very great one :/


Perish Trapping is annoying if you're caught off guard but it is too uncommon and has way too many answers for it to be considered a priority when it comes to suspect. I have never seen it outside of the lower ladder, and I'm sure that nobody on the upper ladder or Smogon will be using it for tournaments and such any time soon.


For the sake of discussion, however, there are a few reasons why Perish Trapping does not deserve to be banned. One thing I'd like to note is that Perish Trap is also pretty easily predicted by team preview. If your opponent has a Gengar with Follow Me / Rage Powder support and no other possible Mega Pokemon, you can probably assume it's Perish Trap (unless you're in highest part of the ladder / facing someone in a Smogon tournament) Once you know the opponent's strategy, just send out your Taunter or pivoter or whatever that can handle Perish Trap. If you DON'T have one of these things, you should consider adding them.

Sheer offensive power works too; one main reason why the trap was successful in the given TerraSharp example was because the player didn't recognize that they were in a terrible matchup from the beginning, Perish Trap or not.


All you really need to beat Perish Trap is:
- A fast / priority Taunter
- A U-Turner / Volt Switcher
- A powerful attacker with moderate bulk
- Fake Out

And the awesome thing is that you should probably have the first and the third anyway because a lot of other more relevant threats (Trick Room, Tailwind) are also countered by them. So it's not like you're being forced to use something unviable.
 
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Darkmalice

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It's easy to suspect if your opponent is going to use Perish Trap from team preview, and it should always be suspected on Mega Gengar. This helps a lot to play around it. For example, choosing a lead combo that can quickly KO Mega Gengar, or leads that can escape from Shadow Tag like Ghost-types, U-turn etc.

Also Qazoo, in your scenario, you could have easily avoided the Perish Trap first turn by targeting Gengar with Iron Head instead of targetting Togekiss. Rock Slide + Iron Head would have KOed, and you still KO Togekiss in the event that it uses Follow Me. Granted, KOing Mega Gengar means your opponent can still send in Gothitelle for trapping. Alternatively, as Electrolyte said, use a different lead combo because Mega Gengar with Focus Blast will have beaten your leads.

Yeah most of what I said was already said by Electrolyte, just wanted to reinforce it.
 
Let's not waste time arguing about whether Amoonguss will survive LO Iron Head + Rock Slide combo (seriously how is that relevant???) when it's pretty obvious that the TerraSharp was pretty screwed by simply not switching to a better matchup from the beginning. Gengar could very well have just been an attacker and with Focus Blast / Follow Me you could have easily lost Terrakion or Bisharp in one swift move so it wasn't that great of an idea to stay in initially anyway. The example was not a very great one :/


Perish Trapping is annoying if you're caught off guard but it is too uncommon and has way too many answers for it to be considered a priority when it comes to suspect. I have never seen it outside of the lower ladder, and I'm sure that nobody on the upper ladder or Smogon will be using it for tournaments and such any time soon.


For the sake of discussion, however, there are a few reasons why Perish Trapping does not deserve to be banned. One thing I'd like to note is that Perish Trap is also pretty easily predicted by team preview. If your opponent has a Gengar with Follow Me / Rage Powder support and no other possible Mega Pokemon, you can probably assume it's Perish Trap (unless you're in highest part of the ladder / facing someone in a Smogon tournament) Once you know the opponent's strategy, just sound out your Taunter or pivoter or whatever that can handle Perish Trap. If you DON'T have one of these things, you should consider adding them.

Sheer offensive power works too; one main reason why the trap was successful in the given TerraSharp example was because the player didn't recognize that they were in a terrible matchup from the beginning, Perish Trap or not.


All you really need to beat Perish Trap is:
- A fast / priority Taunter
- A U-Turner / Volt Switcher
- A powerful attacker with moderate bulk
- Fake Out

And the awesome thing is that you should probably have the first and the third anyway because a lot of other more relevant threats (Trick Room, Tailwind) are also countered by them. So it's not like you're being forced to use something unviable.
Just saying Iliketrains12 has used perish trap in all his seasonals game and he is 2-0 and i used perish trap on my r2 match and i won.

Also sheer offense isn't really the best counter because you can just get encore'd + disable and gengar is usually with a liepard(I use raichu cause i like it more o3o) also a lot of people use the standard 252 satk/252 spd with the trapping gengar which only has 1 attacking move so a bulkier spread is arguably better(I have one that lives an earthquake from adamant lando-T)
 
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