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

[Qazoo306]

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 :/

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Priority
Mega Evolving is in the same prioroty bracket as switching, and so (correct me if I'm wrong) to switch out on a mega evolving gengar, you would need at least base 110 speed. That rules our a ton of Pokemon, give or take, that could switch out to get a more favorable match up against the Gengar + whatever.

pwne edit: you are indeed wrong, mega evolving happens after switching.
Qazoo edit: thanks, I wasn't sure about it. I assumed it would be right because of the way that priority brackets work with speed determining everything, including the order of switching out.

 

[Arcticblast]

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Priority
Mega Evolving is in the same prioroty bracket as switching, and so (correct me if I'm wrong) to switch out on a mega evolving gengar, you would need at least base 110 speed. That rules our a ton of Pokemon, give or take, that could switch out to get a more favorable match up against the Gengar + whatever.

pwne edit: you are indeed wrong, mega evolving happens after switching.
Qazoo edit: thanks, I wasn't sure about it. I assumed it would be right because of the way that priority brackets work with speed determining everything, including the order of switching out.

While yes, you were wrong about the priority, Shadow Tag also does not prevent switching itself - it prevents the opposing side from choosing to switch. If one player's Thundurus switches to Mega Gengar while the other player's Amoonguss switches to something else, the Amoonguss switch will not be prevented.

 

[Roxer]

The current meta is very weird in my opinion, after the sleep clause suspect test the thing i see the most is TR with amoongus, also some tother thing i've been noticing is that people have been bithcing about mkang "omg so op pls ban", but i dont thik that we need to run a suspect test on him, if we do that we would have to do it for all the S-Rank threats.
But yes, if we did a suspect test on kanga i feel like most people would vote to ban it, which is pretty obvious, since many people on the ladder are unprepared for it, like most pokemon, MKang is a threat and you should check/counter it, we cant ban a mon just because your team isnt ready for it. what you need to do is get your team building skills worked on, change up your team, and predict more, not bitch about it. My team was very weak to TerraCott, but i dont bitch about it everywhere "omg pls ban Cott so op i'm too weak to it", then all that i had to do is add a simple Aegislash that only helped my team you should do the same when it comes to mega kanga, add a Lando-T or Aegislash or something, sometimes you'll see that it only makes your team better.
I think that we dont need to suspect test anything at the moment, the meta is lacking that OP thing that everyone bitches about that's actually a reasonable "bitch". If we are going to suspect test something, make it Perish Trap, it's very gimmicky and stuff, and sometimes your team just cant deal with it, I dont think there are enough decent arguments that support banning Perish Trap, but still, thats just me.

 

[BlankZero]

The current meta is very weird in my opinion, after the sleep clause suspect test the thing i see the most is TR with amoongus, also some tother thing i've been noticing is that people have been bithcing about mkang "omg so op pls ban", but i dont thik that we need to run a suspect test on him, if we do that we would have to do it for all the S-Rank threats.
But yes, if we did a suspect test on kanga i feel like most people would vote to ban it, which is pretty obvious, since many people on the ladder are unprepared for it, like most pokemon, MKang is a threat and you should check/counter it, we cant ban a mon just because your team isnt ready for it. what you need to do is get your team building skills worked on, change up your team, and predict more, not bitch about it. My team was very weak to TerraCott, but i dont bitch about it everywhere "omg pls ban Cott so op i'm too weak to it", then all that i had to do is add a simple Aegislash that only helped my team you should do the same when it comes to mega kanga, add a Lando-T or Aegislash or something, sometimes you'll see that it only makes your team better.
I think that we dont need to suspect test anything at the moment, the meta is lacking that OP thing that everyone bitches about that's actually a reasonable "bitch". If we are going to suspect test something, make it Perish Trap, it's very gimmicky and stuff, and sometimes your team just cant deal with it, I dont think there are enough decent arguments that support banning Perish Trap, but still, thats just me.

Saying "Oh just prepare for it" is probably the dumbest argument I've heard for the no-ban side if the MegaKhan argument. You can't just "build for it" without severely limiting the the rest of your team, and because MegaKhanis such a good standalone mon, the rest if the team can be literally whatever you want it to be. So what if you put Terrakion and Conk on your team as Kanga checks? The enemy team can just a bulky ghost type such as Jellicent and ruin both of your checks with 1 mon, and follow up with the other 4 members with very little team cost.

 

[shaian]

The current meta is very weird in my opinion, after the sleep clause suspect test the thing i see the most is TR with amoongus, also some tother thing i've been noticing is that people have been bithcing about mkang "omg so op pls ban", but i dont thik that we need to run a suspect test on him, if we do that we would have to do it for all the S-Rank threats.
But yes, if we did a suspect test on kanga i feel like most people would vote to ban it, which is pretty obvious, since many people on the ladder are unprepared for it, like most pokemon, MKang is a threat and you should check/counter it, we cant ban a mon just because your team isnt ready for it. what you need to do is get your team building skills worked on, change up your team, and predict more, not bitch about it. My team was very weak to TerraCott, but i dont bitch about it everywhere "omg pls ban Cott so op i'm too weak to it", then all that i had to do is add a simple Aegislash that only helped my team you should do the same when it comes to mega kanga, add a Lando-T or Aegislash or something, sometimes you'll see that it only makes your team better.
I think that we dont need to suspect test anything at the moment, the meta is lacking that OP thing that everyone bitches about that's actually a reasonable "bitch". If we are going to suspect test something, make it Perish Trap, it's very gimmicky and stuff, and sometimes your team just cant deal with it, I dont think there are enough decent arguments that support banning Perish Trap, but still, thats just me.

Blank already covered the issue with the "just prepare for it" argument, so I won't go into that. However, I do want to go into what separates MKang from all the other S-rank pokemon. Each of the other ones have a glaring weakness to them; Charizard can not handle rocks, and is hard countered by Heatran, Tyranitar and quite a few other common threats. Tyranitar, much like Mkang, is absolutely punished by fighting types, but on top of that, it gets eaten by ground, steel, water, fairy and grass. Cresselia has issues with dark, bug and ghost. Kanga has 1 weakness, fighting, and that is very easy one to get around on top of that. It's so incredibly easy, I'd even say effortless, to build with Kanga, because you only have to specifically address 1 issue. And even then, it can handle that weakness relatively easily on it's own:

+1 252+ Atk Mega Kangaskhan Return vs 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 418-492 guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Mega Kangaskhan Return vs 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 292-343 (90.4-106.1%) 37.5% chance to OHKO

meanwhile,

252 SpA Life Orb Keldeo Secret Sword vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 361-429 (87.1 - 103.6%) 18.8% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Infernape Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 338-398 (81.6 - 96.1%) guaranteed 2HKO: Standard Infernape can not OHKO this fucking thing, but get's OHKO'd in exchange

-1 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 195-231 (51 - 60.4%) -- 89.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

For the record, even without being at +1, it does 67.3-79.7% against Standard Conk, which is quite possible the bulkiest counter it has. That sheer power of it's stab attacks, it's bulk, how easy it is for it boost its attack, all make it so that maybe 4-5 pokemon can actually handle it. Outside of its counters, it straight up OHKO's non-bulky pokemon, that take neutral Returns:

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kingdra: 279-330 (95.8 - 113.4%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 355-418 (119.1 - 140.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gardevoir: 379-447 (136.3 - 160.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y: 328-387 (110 - 129.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

No other pokemon in the tier, except for maybe Deo-A, has the capacity to just murderfuck things to this degree. And Deo-A is good for maybe 1-2 KO's at best, since it's so damn fragile, on the other hand, Kanga has bulk, and quite a bit of it too. Some other calcs, just to show how easy it can take things on that resist Return:

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 32 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 282-336 (101 - 120.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 252 HP / 6 Def Bisharp: 282-336 (84.4 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 264-312 (65.3 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Even bulky pokemon are susceptible to it's PuP boosted attacks:

+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 339-400 (76.3 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (Assuming you power-up punched the turn prior)

And sometimes, it doesn't even need to boost:

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 253-298 (83.2 - 98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

So yes, this shit right here is why it's different from other S rank pokemon. It's not so much a matter of preparing for it, so much as a matter of containing its Godzilla in Tokyo-eque murder rampage. Sorry for the essay, but ya'll ready know how much I hate the damn thing.

 

[Haruno]

Blank already covered the issue with the "just prepare for it" argument, so I won't go into that. However, I do want to go into what separates MKang from all the other S-rank pokemon. Each of the other ones have a glaring weakness to them; Charizard can not handle rocks, and is hard countered by Heatran, Tyranitar and quite a few other common threats. Tyranitar, much like Mkang, is absolutely punished by fighting types, but on top of that, it gets eaten by ground, steel, water, fairy and grass. Cresselia has issues with dark, bug and ghost. Kanga has 1 weakness, fighting, and that is very easy one to get around on top of that. It's so incredibly easy, I'd even say effortless, to build with Kanga, because you only have to specifically address 1 issue. And even then, it can handle that weakness relatively easily on it's own:

+1 252+ Atk Mega Kangaskhan Return vs 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 418-492 guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Mega Kangaskhan Return vs 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 292-343 (90.4-106.1%) 37.5% chance to OHKO

meanwhile,

252 SpA Life Orb Keldeo Secret Sword vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 361-429 (87.1 - 103.6%) 18.8% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Infernape Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 338-398 (81.6 - 96.1%) guaranteed 2HKO: Standard Infernape can not OHKO this fucking thing, but get's OHKO'd in exchange

-1 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 195-231 (51 - 60.4%) -- 89.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

For the record, even without being at +1, it does 67.3-79.7% against Standard Conk, which is quite possible the bulkiest counter it has. That sheer power of it's stab attacks, it's bulk, how easy it is for it boost its attack, all make it so that maybe 4-5 pokemon can actually handle it. Outside of its counters, it straight up OHKO's non-bulky pokemon, that take neutral Returns:

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kingdra: 279-330 (95.8 - 113.4%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 355-418 (119.1 - 140.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Gardevoir: 379-447 (136.3 - 160.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y: 328-387 (110 - 129.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

No other pokemon in the tier, except for maybe Deo-A, has the capacity to just murderfuck things to this degree. And Deo-A is good for maybe 1-2 KO's at best, since it's so damn fragile, on the other hand, Kanga has bulk, and quite a bit of it too. Some other calcs, just to show how easy it can take things on that resist Return:

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 32 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 282-336 (101 - 120.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 252 HP / 6 Def Bisharp: 282-336 (84.4 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 264-312 (65.3 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Even bulky pokemon are susceptible to it's PuP boosted attacks:

+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 339-400 (76.3 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (Assuming you power-up punched the turn prior)

And sometimes, it doesn't even need to boost:

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 253-298 (83.2 - 98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

So yes, this shit right here is why it's different from other S rank pokemon. It's not so much a matter of preparing for it, so much as a matter of containing its Godzilla in Tokyo-eque murder rampage. Sorry for the essay, but ya'll ready know how much I hate the damn thing.

There is so much wrong in this one post I don't even..... Even blanks posts aren't this bad... :( jk ily blank <3 but yeah this post is really wrong. I'll post more of an in depth explanation but a few notes.

We are not rating mons based solely on their offensive presence. If we were then fucking cresselia would be undoubtedly D rank.

Mons aren't only worried about (inset weakness here). Kanga included as well, kanga absolutely HATES burns, intimidators among other things. There is much more to doubles than just how much damage you can inflict and how many weaknesses you have.

There's so much more I can say but I'll edit later. I suggest learning more about the tier before coming to such hasty assumptions. Also what are with those calcs? Those are literally the most random calcs I've seen in kanga arguments....

 

[BlankZero]

There is so much wrong in this one post I don't even..... Even blanks posts aren't this bad... :( jk ily blank <3 but yeah this post is really wrong. I'll post more of an in depth explanation but a few notes.

We are not rating mons based solely on their offensive presence. If we were then fucking cresselia would be undoubtedly D rank.

Mons aren't only worried about (inset weakness here). Kanga included as well, kanga absolutely HATES burns, intimidators among other things. There is much more to doubles than just how much damage you can inflict and how many weaknesses you have.

There's so much more I can say but I'll edit later. I suggest learning more about the tier before coming to such hasty assumptions. Also what are with those calcs? Those are literally the most random calcs I've seen in kanga arguments....

What about the part where even -1 Kanga murderizes Lando T with Ice Punch?

Also this line made me laugh out loud at its stupidity.

We are not rating mons based solely on their offensive presence.

Um.... It's MegaKhan. It's an offensive mon, so ya, we are basing it solely on its ability to give and receive damage. If we were talking Cress, we'd be discussing a support mon.

 

[Stratos]

Saying "Oh just prepare for it" is probably the dumbest argument I've heard for the no-ban side if the MegaKhan argument. You can't just "build for it" without severely limiting the the rest of your team, and because MegaKhanis such a good standalone mon, the rest if the team can be literally whatever you want it to be. So what if you put Terrakion and Conk on your team as Kanga checks? The enemy team can just a bulky ghost type such as Jellicent and ruin both of your checks with 1 mon, and follow up with the other 4 members with very little team cost.

Ok no, at this point you're basically just turning it into a battle. Roxer's argument of "just bring checks" is entirely valid just as it is for any other Pokemon. Looking over four of my teams I see decent Kanga checks in scrafty, fm rachi, WoW talon, top (x2), subchand, bulky thund, mawile, scizor, landorust, amoong (x2), jellicent, and rotom-w. This is such a wide variety of potential answers to a single pokemon—two fighting, two ghost, three steel, three flying, each for the most part filling different team roles—fourteen total kanga checks across only four teams. And no, they don't all handle kanga on their own, but that's why you leave room for smart play. If your opponent is able to disable your kanga answers easily without said kanga answer answers being at all threatened, then congratulations, they outplayed you, probably had a better team than you, and entirely deserve their win. That doesn't make kanga broken—not when there are so many options from an entirely non-exhaustive list to pick from to check it. Kang checks hardly all fit the same mold that makes them easy to eliminate clearing the road for a sweep. Here's a replay of a fighting type free team handling a kang just fine: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-114395331. Furthermore, the idea that kang can "just run ice punch" is laughable. To do so, kang has to drop one of its other moves,. Running ice punch greatly reduces kang's general effectiveness.

 

[youngjake93]

Ok no, at this point you're basically just turning it into a battle. Roxer's argument of "just bring checks" is entirely valid just as it is for any other Pokemon. Looking over four of my teams I see decent Kanga checks in scrafty, fm rachi, WoW talon, top (x2), subchand, bulky thund, mawile, scizor, landorust, amoong (x2), jellicent, and rotom-w. This is such a wide variety of potential answers to a single pokemon—two fighting, two ghost, three steel, three flying, each for the most part filling different team roles—fourteen total kanga checks across only four teams. And no, they don't all handle kanga on their own, but that's why you leave room for smart play. If your opponent is able to disable your kanga answers easily without said kanga answer answers being at all threatened, then congratulations, they outplayed you, probably had a better team than you, and entirely deserve their win. That doesn't make kanga broken—not when there are so many options from an entirely non-exhaustive list to pick from to check it. Kang checks hardly all fit the same mold that makes them easy to eliminate clearing the road for a sweep. Here's a replay of a fighting type free team handling a kang just fine: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-114395331. Furthermore, the idea that kang can "just run ice punch" is laughable. To do so, kang has to drop one of its other moves,. Running ice punch greatly reduces kang's general effectiveness.

See, this is why I really think people underrate Kanga. This is an example of Kanga being handled "just fine" and yet it had 4 switch-in opportunities, dealt 178.2% dmg, and stalled a turn of Trick Room with Fake Out that also allowed statused mons to come in to block sleep. If Kanga had been the bulky set, on a team that supports Kanga sweeps or not against Trick Room, then it accomplishes EVEN MORE. I would take 70% dmg as a net positive from a mon that can function as a bulky Fake Outter. 178% on a bad day is such gravy, although it does cost the mega slot.
Anyway, Tentacruel did 125.5% dmg and was on the field playing around hits/stalling TR a majority of the time. :) Successful mon imo.

 

[Haruno]

What about the part where even -1 Kanga murderizes Lando T with Ice Punch?

Also this line made me laugh out loud at its stupidity.

We are not rating mons based solely on their offensive presence.

Um.... It's MegaKhan. It's an offensive mon, so ya, we are basing it solely on its ability to give and receive damage. If we were talking Cress, we'd be discussing a support mon.

He's literally trying to show how mega kanga is clearly the "best" S rank mon from an offensive standpoint while completely ignoring the strengths of the other S rank mons and posting mostly irrelevant calcs (cough attacking keldeo, cough attacking conkelderp among other things) he didn't even post a calc of kanga using ice punch on landoge so just from the looks of it, you misread/interpreted his post more than I did. He's literally ignoring everything bar pure offensive potential and weaknesses/resistances while failing to account for other common factors such as weather, status, etc. If anything he showed a clear lack of understanding of the doubles tier and yet tried to make an argument justifying how kanga should be suspected or SS rank or whatnot.

 

[Darkmalice]

Ok no, at this point you're basically just turning it into a battle. Roxer's argument of "just bring checks" is entirely valid just as it is for any other Pokemon. Looking over four of my teams I see decent Kanga checks in scrafty, fm rachi, WoW talon, top (x2), subchand, bulky thund, mawile, scizor, landorust, amoong (x2), jellicent, and rotom-w. This is such a wide variety of potential answers to a single pokemon—two fighting, two ghost, three steel, three flying, each for the most part filling different team roles—fourteen total kanga checks across only four teams. And no, they don't all handle kanga on their own, but that's why you leave room for smart play. If your opponent is able to disable your kanga answers easily without said kanga answer answers being at all threatened, then congratulations, they outplayed you, probably had a better team than you, and entirely deserve their win. That doesn't make kanga broken—not when there are so many options from an entirely non-exhaustive list to pick from to check it. Kang checks hardly all fit the same mold that makes them easy to eliminate clearing the road for a sweep. Here's a replay of a fighting type free team handling a kang just fine: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-114395331. Furthermore, the idea that kang can "just run ice punch" is laughable. To do so, kang has to drop one of its other moves,. Running ice punch greatly reduces kang's general effectiveness.

I prefer Return over Double Edge, and this replay shows why.

If Mega Kang had Return instead of Double Edge in that replay, it would have still KOed Rotom-W but wouldn't have KOed itself. It may have also had a chance at KOing Landorus-T with Return. That could have changed the outcome of the match given that Amoonguss couldn't spore both Kang and Rotom-H, and Landorus-T was Choice-locked into EQ. Mega Kang still also put in quite a bit of work.

[EDIT] youngjake93 . The glitch means you deserved a better outcome. Return would have stilled spared Kang's life. Whichever move having a better outcome depends on whether you're willing to trade Mega Kang for Landoge or not.

 

[youngjake93]

I prefer Return over Double Edge, and this replay shows why.

If Mega Kang had Return instead of Double Edge in that replay, it would have still KOed Rotom-W but wouldn't have KOed itself. It may have also had a chance at KOing Landorus-T with Return. That could have changed the outcome of the match given that Amoonguss couldn't spore both Kang and Rotom-H, and Landorus-T was Choice-locked into EQ. Mega Kang still also put in quite a bit of work.

That's actually a glitch. Double Edge recoil is supposed to happen at the end of the move completely, so meh. If Double Edge worked the way it was supposed to, then Lando would have died.

 

[Haruno]

That's actually a glitch. Double Edge recoil is supposed to happen at the end of the move completely, so meh. If Double Edge worked the way it was supposed to, then Lando would have died.

Double edge's recoil happens at the end of every hit so no there wasn't a glitch on the simulator.

edit: fix dub edge plz

 

[youngjake93]

Double edge's recoil happens at the end of every hit so no there wasn't a glitch on the simulator.

No ur rong bro

 

[BlankZero]

I think maybe you're underestimating the fact that using Kanga or switching in Kanga or attacking with Kanga usually has a virtual ZERO opportunity cost, in 99% of cases.

 

[Bughouse]

For what it's worth, I do always have a significantly harder time vs Kanga when I don't have a Fighting Pokemon on my team, even if I compensate for that with 2 (or more) extra Kanga threateners like Landorus-T or Scizor. Then again, perhaps it's time I try out some others things Pwne mentioned like SubChand or building around a FM Rachi instead of Togekiss, etc. before I make any final judgments.

Or maybe we can just see rise of the MEGA GENGAR!

I am curious though what people recommend against the dreaded Transform Mew + MegaMom combo...

 

[BlankZero]

Kanga still wrecks all of it's usual checks (Sub Chandy, Gengar, Jirachi) simply by switching from Sucker Punch to Crunch. And it gains the ability to do something to Trick Room Ghosts before they set up.

 

[Haruno]

Kanga still wrecks all of it's usual checks (Sub Chandy, Gengar, Jirachi) simply by switching from Sucker Punch to Crunch. And it gains the ability to do something to Trick Room Ghosts before they set up.

In exchange though it loses the ability to handle faster mons but more importantly it also loses the ability to let itself function well against opposing speed control which seems like far too high a cost to play. Overall kanga can't afford to deviate much from its most used set of return/pup/fake out/sucker punch because each move provides so much of kangas utility. Though I suppose running crunch/ice punch does always it to screw up its usual checks so there's that.

 

[nyttyn]

In exchange though it loses the ability to handle faster mons but more importantly it also loses the ability to let itself function well against opposing speed control which seems like far too high a cost to play. Overall kanga can't afford to deviate much from its most used set of return/pup/fake out/sucker punch because each move provides so much of kangas utility. Though I suppose running crunch/ice punch does always it to screw up its usual checks so there's that.

Ironically, due to the fact that people have come to expect Sucker Punch so much, I've consistently found that it actually becomes inferior to Crunch as a result, since everyone always assumes that you'll run SP and not Crunch, at least for the sake of ladder play and best of 1s, which allows Crunch to score KOs that people just flat out don't expect. Kind of silly, but there you go.

also TBH between icy wind, follow me, thunder wave, her fantastic bulk, and fast teammates, i've honestly never really felt that priority was nessescary on mega kang. Certainly, I've enjoyed the ability to smack ghosts without relying on sucker punch more then I've enjoyed the access to powerful priority. But your mileage may vary, and it all depends on what support you bring to the team.

point is that imo people are really exaggerating the need for sucker punch.

 

[BlankZero]

Ironically, due to the fact that people have come to expect Sucker Punch so much, I've consistently found that it actually becomes inferior to Crunch as a result, since everyone always assumes that you'll run SP and not Crunch, at least for the sake of ladder play and best of 1s, which allows Crunch to score KOs that people just flat out don't expect. Kind of silly, but there you go.

also TBH between icy wind, follow me, thunder wave, her fantastic bulk, and fast teammates, i've honestly never really felt that priority was nessescary on mega kang. Certainly, I've enjoyed the ability to smack ghosts without relying on sucker punch more then I've enjoyed the access to powerful priority. But your mileage may vary, and it all depends on what support you bring to the team.

point is that imo people are really exaggerating the need for sucker punch.

Kanga needs Suckerpunch until you have a good amount of other Priority on your team.

Until such event happens (and I'm talking like 3 others at least), you should be using Suckerpunch.

 

[Electrolyte]

Mega Kangaskhan doesn't need Sucker Punch, but by god is it useful for beating almost every common thing that relies on Speed to check it, making Kangaskhan the very frightening Speed-tier bypassing monster we're familiar with. The combination of bulk, damaging setup, and powerful priority make Mega Kangaskhan much more than just an absurdly powerful attacker. It gives Mega K a decent chance of overcoming almost anything you try to throw at it- if you send out a wall, it will PuP and muscle past you. If you try to check it with a faster sweeper, you get donked by Sucker Punch, which is even more threatening as Choice Scarfed bulkymons are not very common, restricting the list of possible offensive checks and counters to the frailer glass cannons of the tier that rely on their natural Speed to beat it (but then get sniped by priority. This is evident from the fact that Pwnemon's list of common Mega K counters is almost 100% bulky Pokemon.*) Countering it relies on quite a bit of skill and prediction, and not all counters even work in every situation; sending out a wall first that gets set up on before it's KOd will force you to lose the possibility of checking it with faster sweepers. Even if the Mega K player screws up, they still have sizable bulk and only 1 weakness to fall back on, so playing with Mega Kangaskhan is a lot less risky than playing against it.


*(Personally I think the fact that defensive walls are really the only way to handle Mega Kangaskhan is highly beneficial for the Doubles tier. I like the way Mega Kangaskhan helps prevent the tier from plunging into typical hyper offense by cockblocking a lot of glass cannons that few other Pokemon can do as reliably. The usage and viability of a lot of new popularizing Pokemon and sets are partly due to Mega K's presence (WoW Talon, Choice Scarf Lando, for instance) and this maintains healthy balance between Offense and Defense.)

 

[Roxer]

Everyone has pretty much said everything there is to say on Mega Kanga, so this is my final argument on the matter:

MK (Mega Kangaskhan) is indeed a very strong pokemon, but he's easily checked or revenge killed by faster pokemon which resist Sucker Punch, Bulky Mons, Intimidate and status, plus a variety of pokemon that can deal with it without fitting on the category above (Aegislash, Rotom-W, Scizor, just to name a few).
Just like any other pokemon, you need to prepare for it, just because your team is extremely weak to something doesnt mean that we should ban it, either your team isnt built well or you dont predict well, thus meaning that your opponent actually deserved the win, that being said, he didnt win because of MK.
If we say that to MK, we should also ban CharY and TTar, since they both can wreck tons of stuff if your team is unprepared for them, yes, kanga has overall more utility in the matter of Fake Out and Sucker Punch, but CharY has spread and strong offensive presence and TTar has an awesome offensive typing and he can Pursuit Trap stuff like Jellicent, Lati@s and Aegislash. We cant ban CharY because he keeps ruining your day by killing Skymin, Gastrodon and a variety of other things that he can kill without a problem, we cant ban TTar because he sweeped you after one or two DDs, we cant ban MK because he just swept you after one PuP, we cant ban Cress because she keeps gving HH to her teamates thus allowing them to rek u while you cant kill her nor stop her, We cant ban TR/Sun/Rain/Sandstorm because it reks ur team without a problem, we cant ban Lando-T because it just sweeped you even when locked into EQ, we cant ban Cradily because you found out that he is the ultimate check to your team. (These are just some things that people on the ladder bitched to me, yes, this dude wanted Lando-T banned because i sweeped him with HH Cress and Lando-T itself) (YES, Cradily is the ultimate counter to my team lol)
MK, like any other S-Rank threat, needs to be checked, it is common knowledge (Atleast should be) that he is an S-Rank threat, and that he needs little to no support to sweep, your careless plays against it (omg gotta kill double target now) and your weak teambuilding skills (Or maybe you're just unlucky to make a decent team that's really weak to it) made you lose, we "CAN'T" ban it because of that.

EDIT: Many of the pokemon that check/counter/wall MK are REALLY versatile, and might only help you instead of making u lose some utility, some good examples are Terrakion and Lando-T, with Terra you'll get Spread and Quick Guard, which is SOOOOOO good on the ladder. With Lando-T you'll get Intimidate and a Scarfer and you might also have a momentum grabber if you make the right plays with U-Turn.
Both of those pokemon can OHKO MK (Lando-T's Superpower wont OHKO bulky tho)

EDIT2: Revenge killing isnt checking nor countering mega kangaskhan, my bad (Thanks ccst :D) He's easily revenge killed.

 

[BlankZero]

I may be nitpicking here but did you really just compare banning TTar to banning Kanga because TTar can Pursuit Trap? I'm sorry, but do you even Doubles? That's the single worst argument for/against anything on this page.

 

[Haruno]

Remind me again how kanga is easily revenge killed when the only things relevant that have a higher base speed than it are the muskedeers? None of the muskedeers can really switch in btw.

The only exceptionally solid switchins to kanga are bulky ghosts with WoW due to the fact that pup is gay AF and makes intimidators as a suboptimal answer to kanga though they're a soft check

 

[youngjake93]

I have recently been swayed more and more to the anti-Kanga side with the best argument for it being the opportunity cost. In most matches it really is at best you only lose 1 mon because of Kanga and at worst you lose like 4. Between Fake Out granting a free turn for your partner to do dmg or set up, Power-Up Punch making switching around Kanga with little repercussion nearly impossible, it being able to tank hits as powerful as Specs Latios Draco Meteor and Fire Blast Zard Y in Sun WITHOUT HP investment, and the fact that it legitimately 2hkos its "best" switch-ins there reeeally is no reason to not use it. If you have a successful team without Mega Kanga, it is because you are an experienced team builder that doesn't feel like using it, not because it wouldn't fit on your team.
I believe that because there is literally no risk to using Kanga, but consistent worthwhile reward and even potential at massive reward that the meta might be better off without Kanga.

I mean come on, Terrakion is literally the only thing that outspeeds and OHKOs any Kanga variant and yet 31% chance to die to Drain Punch on switch-in or 80% chance to KO with PuP+Sucker Punch..
252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Drain Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 288-339 (89.1 - 104.9%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 153-183 (47.3 - 56.6%) -- 84.4% chance to 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 153-180 (47.3 - 55.7%) -- 75.4% chance to 2HKO