Metagame NP: RU Stage 9: Save Tonight (Mega Houndoom, Mienshao, and Entei BANNED)

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dhelmise

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Hello, you all may have seen UU is banning Drought.

RU is not banning drought which we are allowed to do via the precedent set in this thread (this is the decision reached by myself and Phantom).

Tagging The Immortal so that when he implements UU drought ban he does not implement it in RU, much appreciated in advance.

If you believe Drought is suspect worthy in RU then feel free to use this thread to discuss it.
hey im not the immortal and you also didnt tag me but i implemented the uu drought ban and also handled this
 
YAHALLO NYANPASU THE RUTL IS BACK VROS
Anyway, I feel it is time to address a Pokemon that a plethora of SPL spectators along with RU players have been complaining about: the broken-ass serpent.

Defensive Pokemon are always extraordinarily more difficult to prove unbalanced than offensive Pokemon. This is especially true when they do not utilize set-up moves, such as another menacing bulky Water-type we had in this tier for a short while in Suicune. However, when the Pokemon in question walls a large part of the tier with essentially the same set with minor differences, I feel we have a duty to address it. Milotic runs the potent combination of Scald + Recover + Haze on basically every set, and complements it with 1 of the following 3 moves: Toxic, Ice Beam, and Refresh. Anyone who's ever played Pokemon before knows how frustrating it is to play a Pokemon with Scald, as it has a solid chance of crippling one's entire team. Haze is the move that diversifies Milotic from many other Pokemon we've seen, as stops any set-up sweeper from setting up on it. This makes Milotic much more difficult to aggressively pressure than other walls in the tier. It's ability, Marvel Scale, is a boon to its defensive capabilities, as it is able to switch in on Scalds heighten its Defense stat, thereby mitigating the issues that arise from being afflicted with a burn. Toxic is useful for crippling walls and sweepers alike, while Ice Beam can hurt pesky Grass-types that would otherwise be able to switch in on Milotic. Refresh, meanwhile, makes the serpent even more impossible to kill, as it removes any status conditions that would hinder this monster.

Milotic possesses an excellent base Special Attack stat of 100 along with a very respectable base Speed stat of 81; both of these marks are extremely high for a wall. This in tandem with its excellent bulk makes it very difficult to handle. The main problem that arises when facing Milotic is how specially defensive it is even without investment; this is best illustrated by the following damage calculation:
252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoqueen Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Milotic: 165-196 (41.8 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Anyone who has played RU before knows just how ridiculously powerful that Sludge Wave is. And yet, Milotic manages to avoid the 2HKO despite not having any investment in its Special Defense stat. It is due to this bulk that Milotic becomes a massive pain for both special and physical attackers alike, as it can run mixed defensive spreads to handle devastating physical and special attackers like.
252 SpA Choice Specs Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 252 HP / 120+ SpD Milotic: 139-165 (35.2 - 41.8%) -- 83.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
This damage calculation again illustrates this point, as the serpent is able to easily avoid the 2HKO from one of the strongest special attacks in the tier, despite not even having maximum Special Defense investment. With maximum Special Defense investment, it reaches absurd levels of Special bulk, as evidenced by the following calculation:
+2 252 SpA Salazzle Acid Downpour (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Milotic: 315-372 (79.9 - 94.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Its 81 Base Speed adds to this problem, as it allows it to easily outrun otherwise-threatening Pokemon such as Doublade, CB Rhyperior, Dragalge, and the like. This Speed and bulk in tandem with its access to both Scald and Haze (and Toxic) make it nearly impossible to take advantage of Milotic as is possible with basically every other wall in the tier. Hardly anything in RU can immediately threaten Milotic enough without a boost to create an opportunity to set up on it in a 1-on-1 situation; unlike other walls, the aforementioned combination invalidates any attempt to overpower the serpent through the heightening of one's own stats. Its typing is excellent, and leaves it only weak to Grass-type moves in addition to the rare Electric-move. Milotic is bulky enough to live many boosted hits as well, with only exceedingly strong Z-moves being able to knock it out; this is obviously problematic because these attacks can only be used once in a given game.

Due to the aforementioned reasons, it is extremely difficult to find any sort of reason to not use Milotic on a balance team. The serpent has currently been used on 55% of RU teams in SPL, a number that is sure to increase as the weeks progress. While obviously not as splashable as SM OU Landorus-Therian due to the multitude of sets the latter can run in tandem with its access to Stealth Rock, the serpent still fits on a ridiculous amount of teams; one could easily argue that it is the most splashable Pokemon in any non-Ubers SM tier, bar the aforementioned Landorus. The statistics in SPL currently would back this notion up as well. In Snake Tour, Gligar received much more usage than Milotic, but this can easily be attributed to the lack of defoggers that existed in the tier, a problem that has now been alleviated due to the changes that Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon have brought about; needless to say, with the banning of Durant, it is essentially guaranteed that Milotic will the most-used Pokemon for the rest of the tournament, if not extraordinarily close to Gligar. The fact that a Pokemon without any set-up moves, Stealth Rock, or Defog can match and potentially exceed the usage of Gligar is utterly ridiculous, and highlights the former's effectiveness. The influx of Defoggers introduced into the tier in addition to Pokemon such as Mega Blastoise and Tsareena make it easier to rid one's field of entry hazards, thereby alleviating one of Milotic's weaknesses.

In conclusion, I feel that Milotic is definitely worthy of a suspect test. Even if you do not agree that it is broken, it is clearly more influential than anything else in the tier, and walls a myriad of physical and special attackers. It invalidates numerous Pokemon, and was almost single-handedly responsible for the epic decline in viability of Doublade; it also completely walls another S-rank Pokemon in Feraligatr, the alligator needing to run SD + Superpower to have any chance of killing the demonic serpent. Milotic, as mentioned earlier, is also a hard counter to another S-rank Pokemon in Salazzle. Ultimately, Milotic is a stone-cold answer to far too many Pokemon in the tier; one can even customize its spread to handle specific threats better if they so wish. Even with minimal specially defensive investment, it can still counter a plethora of special attackers. It is ridiculously splashable, and is by far the best glue Pokemon in the tier. Its movepool is perfect for it, and fits in wonderfully with its typing and base stats to create a menace that is almost impossible to take down without a super effective move. It can even do ludicrous things like survive a Life Orb Roserade's Leaf Storm 100% of the time, highlighting its massive bulk (you can even tech Mirror Coat in the last slot if you want). Due to the nature of Pokemon, it is much more difficult to examine a defensive Pokemon's broken qualities compared to a more offensive one, especially when the Pokemon in question lacks a set-up move. However, Milotic is clearly an exception, and deserves to be suspect tested.

-GOAT RUTL
 
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njnp

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Hi, I don't have a ton of ru knowledge but in my short time in this tier I wanna say.....thank you for banning Durant.

Milotic certainly reminds me alot of toxapex in ou. Thankfully it doesn't have t spikes or regen but...its certainly the best thing I could think of too compare it too. I feel like this mon is too much for the tier but it's rough cause I think its also a gel to the tier similar to toxapex is in ou. Being that it can basically live most hits from even super effective moves along with walling/handling a decent amount of the tier(as shake described well in his post above). It has access to a great movepool. Most importantly scald and toxic leaving diancies running heal bell at times because of the status it spreads even opposing milotics running refresh is quite interesting. I would go into further detail but again I don't have enough knowledge to elaborate the best.

I'm definitely looking forward to what the council decides.
 
Due to the nature of Pokemon, it is much more difficult to examine a defensive Pokemon's broken qualities compared to a more offensive one, especially when the Pokemon in question lacks a set-up move. However, Milotic is clearly an exception, and deserves to be suspect tested.
-GOAT RUTL
Milotic is arguably the best Pokemon in the metagame right now. It does not need a suspect test. Milotics is able to deal with both status users + setup attackers 1v1 courtesy of haze and refresh, and is incredibly splash able when it comes to balance builds because of all the Pokemon it checks. The problem is when it comes the discrepancy between Milotic's ability to blanket check so much in the teambuilder, versus in play. It's no where near as hard to overwhelm Milotic as you suggest. First of all, the latter two calcs you post, are based on Milotic with varying amounts of unvaible spdef investment. In reality, physically defensive Milotic is easily beaten my Specs Yanmega Bug Buzz and +2 Acid Downpour from Salazzle. I don' think that Milotic being able to forgoe phys def for spdef is a valid counterargument, even based on the team, as any loss in phys def makes Milotic vulnerable to losing to Feraligatr, Zygarde-10%,Pangoro, even Flygon. Milotic (with max phys def for all below unless stated otherwise) gets 2HKO'd by Bewear after rocks, easily switched in on by Roserade and Shaymin, drops to +1 Shattered psych from Necrozma, KO'd by LO Pangoro at +2, 2HKO'd by Nidoqueen with Tbolt, 2HKO'd by Zygarde-10% Outrage, 2HKO'd by Tyrantrum Headsmash, tricked by Gardevoir, Taunt + Toxiced by Mandibuzz,, loses 1v1 to CM Meloetta, OHKO'd by Normalium Cloyster after rocks, 2HKO'd by Honchkrow, dies to +2 Acid Downpour from Salazzle, 2HKO'd by Hurricane into Skystrike by Moltres......the point is, if a team has any offensive pressure at all, its not that hard to overwhelm Milotic. Most teams will generally naturally either evolve to have a way to pressure Milotic, or have something that can switch into Milotic without the opposition getting any net gain (Florges, Umbreon, your own Milotic). In the case of Florges and Umbreon, Milotic even gives the opponent an oppurtunity to wish pass, an cleric support mitigates burn worries. Yes, Miltoic is splashable, but to say its putting meaningful pressure on anything resmbling balance is incorrect, and the tier currently has enough wallbreakers on offense to punish it. Because it is both surmountable, and generally does not really require a respective archetype to go out of its way to check, I don' think its suspect worthy.
 

FlamingVictini

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I'm having a hard time believing your post -Tsunami-. All I read is "Milotic is a good pokemon," and I don't see any valid reason to suspect test it. If it was really banworthy, why didn't you use it on that shitty stall team you brought in spl? I love you man, but your understanding of the tier right now is questionable at best. Please save your "-GOAT RUTLs" for when you're actually good at ru, and for when you're actually RUTL.
 
I'm having a hard time believing your post -Tsunami-. All I read is "Milotic is a good pokemon," and I don't see any valid reason to suspect test it. If it was really banworthy, why didn't you use it on that shitty stall team you brought in spl? I love you man, but your understanding of the tier right now is questionable at best. Please save your "-GOAT RUTLs" for when you're actually good at ru, and for when you're actually RUTL.
Using it on stall is shaky because stall needs Pyukumuku and then you end up stacking weaknesses, which is even more problematic when you're running 2 birds. You could argue I should have run more Speed on one of them, but meh it was a tradeoff bop. obviously didnt work out. Milotic is better on balance anyway than stall.
so bop there it is
-GOAT RUTL
 

lighthouses

Inordinary
is a Tiering Contributor
Okay so, just a few things as im not very good at this
1) Doublade would still be pretty bad even if milotic wasnt present, its shit on by almost everything in the upper ranks and gets screwed up pretty bad by recent changes(steelix being introduced, gligar getting defog and immunity in the same set and mandibuzz just to name a few)
2) Milotic has to be very picky in its ev spread, if it runs enough spdef to beat salazzle and nidoqueen then it's not able to reliably beat gatr and so on.
3) It's extremely easy to take advantage of, since you need it to be at full or close to full pretty much at all times in order to beat the stuff you're meant to. Basically you switch in, eat a hit, and are forced to recover, this combined with the fact that milotic gets pounded by a large portion of the tiers wallbreakers makes it very punishable.
4) To add onto the previous point, the amount of free turns given by milotic is ridiculous. If you lack refresh you're very susceptible to all the toxic users in the tier(many of which are very efficient at luring milo in such as gligar, nidoqueen and some scarf pokemon). And if you do run refresh the opponent can easily force you to click it everytime you get toxic'd, not to mention that you have to run mono attacking scald on it which is pretty passive(there are plenty of wallbreakers that dont give a damn about scald burns like roserade, shaymin, mega abomasnow and dragalge just to name a few)
 
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phantom

Banned deucer.
However, Milotic is clearly an exception, and deserves to be suspect tested.

-GOAT RUTL
No. The council has expressed disinterest in suspecting Milotic and has no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. The reasons brought up to suspect Milotic are shoddy at best, have been refuted already by several users, and fail to discern whether Milotic is just good or deserving of a suspect. You’re free, however, to discuss any other relevant topic, but Milotic will not be up for debate anytime soon.

-ACTUAL RUTL
 

MrAldo

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Lycanroc-Dusk @ Lycanium Z
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Accelerock
- Fire Fang
- Stone Edge

I believe phantom came up with the idea of the fire fang initially but the whole point is that it was discussed some days ago on the RU discord. I do agree that Fire Fang is the most efficient coverage move for this mon since it covers more targets since it hits Bronzong, Virizion, other grasses without having to use the z-move to kill them, Escavalier, and other things. Drill Run only hits Doublade, Mega Steelix, and Rhyperior harder which are valid targets but Fire Fang let you cover more things overall. Fire Fang is tough claws and has roughly 86 base power so it has respectable power going for it.

This could be a very fun mon. Hopefully it is competent. Looking forward to use it.

Share your thoughts on this mon and how WE FINALLY GOT RID OF REGULAR BLASTOISE, WOO HOO. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING.
 
Hidden Ability Gen 7 Starters are available now through Pokebank. Intimidate Inciniroar is probably the most relevant thing here.
They're still no big niche that can set Incineroar apart, to be fair (you could argue about AV or SD, but it has too much of a disadvantageous typing defensively or is too slow to be worth using over other breakers). Decidueye is better off with the Overgrow boost instead of avoiding contact damage from Ferroseed or something. Primarina just got a watered-down -ate ability (it's UU but worth mentioning).
 
They're still no big niche that can set Incineroar apart, to be fair (you could argue about AV or SD, but it has too much of a disadvantageous typing defensively or is too slow to be worth using over other breakers). Decidueye is better off with the Overgrow boost instead of avoiding contact damage from Ferroseed or something. Primarina just got a watered-down -ate ability (it's UU but worth mentioning).
I know that most RU viable physical attacker has a Super Effective STAB or coverage to hit Inciniroar, but it is nice that you can turn certain OHKOs to 2HKOs.
And when paired with something like Gligar, you can play around something like Mega Obamasnow who can't hit OHKO both with the same move prior to setting up.

I was using a Scarf set yesterday, though I am still struggling to decide which 4th move I should use to round up Flare Blitz, Dark Lariat and U-turn. Other than that, it may be a fun set so far. But despite being able to get rid of Stealth Rock with the team I am using, Flare Blitz wears it down to quickly even when trying to go for it late game and Toxic is also a big issue. Besides that I am probably better of replacing Dark Lariat with Knock Off.
 
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Good thing we got rid of regular blastoise. I think it was a bad spinner and that's it. I just hope that UU stops using ambipom and it drops to RU, then NU. I think Lycanroc-Dusk might have a niche as a physical swords dance sweeper with priority. Its bulk may hold it back, though.
 
Mienshao moved from UU to RU
Entei moved from UU to RU
Forretress moved from UU to RU
Houndoom-Mega moved from UU to RU
Ambipom moved from UU to RU

Mienshao and Entei are most relevant ones here. I don't Forretress making much an impact, Mega Houndoom probably won't last long, and Ambipom is Ambipom.
 
We have also lost another D-ranker in the form of Camerupt-Mega. Which is really good and showing the RU ladder is starting to improve.

With Emboar (who will probably just be like Typhlosion from last gen) rising to here though I doubt that too much, but still.
Emboar does have a few niches than having a STAB that outdamage Bewear's Double-Edge (Flare Blitz) and a slightly higher speed stat. Priority is sucker punch is also an asset. However, the defensive benefit Bewear provides is usually more appreciated in teams.
 
Shit with Mega Houndoom in the tier will this lead to Drought being banned and Ninetales sucking? Please if Houndoom proves to be a threat, just ban Houndoom
 

Myosin

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These are some pretty cool shifts! I definitely think Mega-Houndoom, Entei, Mienshao, and Forretress will have a pretty big impact, and as for Mega-Houndoom, I somewhat expect to see a suspect of either Drought or Mega-Houndoom itself, as it's proven in UU that it's too strong of a force to be dealt with, and I don't think RU will fare well against it either.

Forretress is probably being overlooked a bit, but I think being a pivot along with having hazard removal, Spikes, and ability to check Pokemon like Gardevoir and Shaymin all in one will make it worth using on plenty of teams. It's main set would likely look something like this:

Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Volt Switch / Toxic
- Gyro Ball
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin

Entei will likely be a pretty solid wallbreaker as well, as many switch-ins aren't too fond of a possible burn from Sacred Fire (namely Tyrantrum, Gligar, and Rhyperior). However, I definitely could see a rise in the usage of Milotic (as if it didn't already get enough usage lol) and Snorlax, both of which take Entei's hits well and don't mind the possible burn. Anyways, Entei's set would likely look like this:

Entei @ Choice Band
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Extreme Speed
- Stone Edge
- Flare Blitz

Mienshao is a really nice offensive pivot for offense and balance builds, and even Choice Scarf sets hit pretty hard with High Jump Kick. Gligar will be an easy way to beat Mienshao, but other Fighting resists such as Gardevoir and Doublade don't appreciate a Knock Off. Additionally, Scarf Stone Edge means even Scarf Moltres isn't a reliable revenge killer. Besides Choice Scarf, I could possibly see Reckless Choice Band being a decent set, as it sits in a nice Speed tier and deals a ton of damage. Here's those sets:

Mienshao @ Choice Scarf / Choice Band
Ability: Reckless / Regenerator
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- High Jump Kick
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge

Overall I think the state of RU is looking up and I can't wait to play it some more with the new drops!
:mad:
 

cyanize

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for the record, gligar is not at all an easy way to beat mienshao; remove its evio through any method (including shao itself) vs choice band, and you get this:
252 Atk Choice Band Reckless Mienshao High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Gligar: 135-159 (40.4 - 47.6%) -- 50.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
not to mention mienshao's decent 95 special attack can actually allow it to use hp ice on mixed lo sets:
0 SpA Life Orb Mienshao Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Gligar: 203-244 (60.7 - 73%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
and of course, it can simply u-turn on gligar into threatening teammates such as sd feraligatr, blastoise, glalie, moltres, yanmega, whatever - you get the point.

pretty much restating what most people on discord/ps have been saying the past day, but i feel like all three of the bigger drops are broken and need to go, even if just to preserve the upcoming week of rupl. mienshao is way too strong for how fast it is, has a lot of random bullshit it can run to circumvent supposed "counters", and even just with the simple choice sets is damn near impossible to reliably stop. and just to put the cherry on top, it literally has the two best coverage moves that a mon of its archetype could learn (knock off and u-turn), allowing it to provide ridiculous support to aid both itself and its teammates while still being a terrifying breaker. scarf sets practically 6-0 offense and still put in insane amounts of work vs any balance lacking gligar or one of the niche ghost types it is "countered" by, and band/lo tear balance and other slow teams to shreds while still being fast enough to just get kills for free vs offense, even vs resists like nidoqueen and necrozma (252 Atk Choice Band Reckless Mienshao High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Necrozma: 183-216 (54.6 - 64.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO this is fucking ABSURD lmao).
mega houndoom shouldn't need any more explanation than some of the calcs posted in ru discord, really.
+2 252 SpA Solar Power Houndoom-Mega Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Diancie in Sun: 229-270 (75.3 - 88.8%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 SpA Solar Power Houndoom-Mega Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Milotic in Sun: 351-414 (89 - 105%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 SpA Solar Power Houndoom-Mega Fire Blast vs. 188 HP / 192+ SpD Thick Fat Snorlax in Sun: 303-357 (59.6 - 70.2%)
+2 252 SpA Solar Power Houndoom-Mega Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 152+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2 in Sun: 463-546 (123.7 - 145.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Solar Power Houndoom-Mega Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Dragalge in Sun: 276-324 (82.6 - 97%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
and so on.

even without drought, though, this thing is way too much of a problem to warrant keeping around. think salazzle, but you trade a one time nuke and a tad bit of speed for way more initial and boosted power, arguably better defensive typing, a better secondary stab that can flinch its way through counters, and most notably much more bulk that allows it to set up more reliably and more often, and lets it use taunt even more effectively to prevent things from beating it. np taunt has like maybe two reliable stops that don't have a chance to just get flinched and die next turn, and even discounting setup it can just punch holes in frailer teams with its 140 base spa and high speed.

entei is less problematic overall, and even maybe not broken at a cursory first glance; however, the problems with entei lie primarily in burn being the absolute perfect status for it to inflict, as it invalidates all but 2 of the most common offensive fire "resists" that it doesn't just plain 2hko (slowking and mega blastoise) and guess what? they both get bodied by stone edge after rocks, so entei might as well not have any offensive switchins. this becomes a huge problem when taking into account its solid bulk + typing and pretty decent speed tier even with adamant, as it gets a lot of turns to do what it likes vs more offensive teams and the offensive teams just kinda have to pray they don't get burned or roll over and accept defeat. but that's not all! entei is also very obnoxious vs balance. and before you say "but milotic counters it it's fine!", does being essentially forced to pack milotic on every balance team ever because nothing else is a reliable answer to this one offensive threat sound like a healthy meta to you? plenty of balance teams nowadays are dropping milotic as their water due to its exploitable and somewhat passive nature that can be a detriment to the teams it finds itself on - mons like jellicent, slowking, blastoise, and golisopod are gaining traction as teams' sole water types over milo, and such teams simply find other ways to handle threats that milo covers. entei's presence would just completely remove that freedom unless you enjoy being on the backfoot constantly vs it or are very lucky/good and play around it so that it never hits your water with edge or burns your rock type.
snorlax kinda comes close to a reliable answer, but after minimal chip (think 15%) and rocks it has a very high chance to drop to two stone edges, and even if you manage to keep it constantly healthy throughout the match, that involves literally always resting whenever entei hits you and means you're much more susecptible to anything that takes advantage of a sleeping snorlax that's leaving its attacks up to chance; not to mention if you get forced out after taking damage while asleep and don't get a chance to recover, you'll have to take on entei at lower hp and hope it doesn't decide to flare blitz or stone edge you for the 2hko. anything outside of those two (and i suppose slowbro but that pokemon is bad even in an entei meta, and being burned doesn't exactly help it either), like rhyperior, gigalith, physdef mandi, and gligar, gets heavily crippled by burn, and, in the case of non-resists, 2hkod by flare blitz after being burned. with all that said, i would be open to an entei retest if it were to get quickbanned, as it could very easily be one of those cases where it's more broken on paper than in practice, but i don't like the idea of having to deal with the meta implications it has in rupl when there hasn't been enough time to explore counterplay; there's precedence of this procedure in zydog, so i don't see why a pretty blatantly more unbalanced version should be allowed to stay long.
 

phantom

Banned deucer.

Houndoom-mega, Entei, and Mienshao BANNED from ru via council vote. Reasoning below:

Houndoom-mega was banned as a result of its incredible wallbreaking ability under sun which make it uncounterable. Its standard Nasty Plot set with Fire Blast / Dark Pulse / Solarbeam has no switch-ins under full sun, and because of mega houndoom's great speed and resilience to priority attacks, it performs consistently vs nearly any archetype. We have chosen to vote on Mega Houndoom rather than drought for three reasons: one is that drought has never been a problem in ru prior to mega houndoom, the second reason is that banning drought rather than mega houndoom results in unnecessary collateral damage by eliminating the viability of many pokemon and a playstyle that have never been overpowered, and the third reason is that mega houndoom may not necessarily be balanced even without full sun support. We may revisit this Pokemon at a later period if necessary.

Mienshao was banned because of its ability to function as a near uncounterable wallbreaker. This type of wallbreaking power isn't unheard of in RU, but when Mienshao's great speed tier and access to U-turn is added to the mix, it makes dealing with it far too difficult. Its access to U-turn and regenerator in particular allows it to easily outlast almost any potential check. Its decent special attack also allows it to make use of Hidden Power Ice to muscle through Gligar, further limiting the pool of viable checks it would otherwise have.

Entei was banned because of its lack of switch-ins on offensive teams. Choice Band Sacred Fire has almost no viable switch-ins that are not bulky waters. Entei's ability to reliably inflict burns with Sacred Fire allows it to cripple all but a few of its checks, and because of its good bulk and speed, it's able to come in on several Pokemon to do just that. This limits good entei checks to only a handful of defensive Pokemon, making it an arguably restricting teambuilding presence.
Houndoom-mega:

Ban: Ajna, Arifeen, Feliburn, FlamingVictni, Kushalos, MrAldo, phantom
No ban: none

Entei:

Ban: Ajna, Arifeen, Feliburn, FlamingVictni, MrAldo
No ban: Kushalos, phantom

Mienshao:

Ban: Ajna, Arifeen, Feliburn, FlamingVictni, Kushalos, MrAldo, phantom
No ban: none

atomicllamas has chosen to abstain from this vote, while col49 has yet to vote; however, col49's vote will not change the outcome.

tagging The Immortal to ban Mega Houndoom, Mienshao, and Entei from the RU ladder. Thanks!
 


While I agree with the prudence of the council's decision to remove Entei from the metagame for the time being in order to preserve its relative stability, I believe Entei should be considered as a candidate for a suspect test in the near future. The fact of the matter is, pure offense hasn't subsisted in the metagame for months now, with BO and balance being the exclusive play styles seen at the highest level, and performing at much more consistent rates than their counterpart extremes, HO, Stall, and simple outright offensive builds. Despite this, I could still see problems arising for balance when facing Entei, as while Milotic is highly prevalent as the essential ideal counter to Entei, it can not be on every team, and options such as Toxicroak exist to take advantage of Milotic's ability to thus switch in. Nevertheless, Entei is vulnerable to being worn down by SR on the field, limiting its longevity even if it can wear down its frailer checks like Blastoise and have its team take advantage of its counters. With Rocks Entei struggles to find switchin opportunities versus any relevant Grass-types and a near majority of the metagame. Of course, it is possible to play around rocks with Entei, or to find double switch initiatives, but these require a healthy level of outplaying in order to maximize Entei's utility. There are other facotrs to consider, such as the double edged sword of Sacred Fire burns, and Entie's ability to run lure sets as well. In essence, however, right now I think Entei is probably broken, but I think its threat level on paper could be undercut by several significant factors, and thus would like to see it in action in an otherwise stable metagame before being locked away permanently.
 
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