Metagame SM Ubers General Metagame Discussion

I thought it was just part of the intended game mechanics, so I didn't record it. If the move still works like that on the emulator, I assume at least a few other people will notice soon enough.

Edit: Based on other peoples' responses, my experience doesn't appear to have been the case. I suppose my memory was faulty.
 
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Since Marshadow seems to be the topic du jour for this thread, I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring with an opinion piece. I’ll preface this by saying that this will probably be an unpopular opinion, but it is not an unfounded one. I was skeptical of Marshadow when it was announced, and after witnessing its capabilities both as a user and as an opponent of it, I came to the following conclusion: Marshadow is detrimental to the development and future survival of the SM Ubers metagame.

This opinion might seem absolutely ridiculous at first glance; after all, Marshadow’s base stats are nowhere near as daunting as those of the original Anything Goes Pokémon, Mega Rayquaza. However, I urge you, the reader, to not be fooled by Marshadow’s innocent appearance, as far as both aesthetics and base stats are concerned. I will begin a defense of my claim by noting the tools that Marshadow was given that allow it to survive and thrive in the SM Ubers metagame in the form of a bulleted list.

· Marshadow possesses coverage that allows it to blow past some of its would-be checks such as Ho-Oh in the form of Rock Tomb, and Mega Salamence and Zygarde-Complete in the form of Hidden Power Ice. Marshadow’s ability, Technician, assists with this by guaranteeing +Speed Life Orb Marshadow an OHKO all offensive variants of Ho-Oh, as well as physically defensive ones that choose to run enough Special Defense to avoid the OHKO from a +2 Geomancy Xerneas’ Thunder. Furthermore, Hidden Power Ice rips through all Zygarde variants after a Close Combat, since one Life Orb Close Combat is not enough to put Zygarde below half health, thereby keeping it in its more fragile 50% form. Finally, Hidden Power Ice destroys even the bulkiest variants of Salamence after Stealth Rock damage, and can even KO non-bulky Salamence variants without any prior damage at all. Note the following calc: 0 SpA Life Orb Technician Marshadow Hidden Power Ice vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Salamence-Mega: 338-400 (86 - 101.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock.

· Marshadow’s STABs give it perfect neutral coverage. This is an underrated aspect of Marshadow’s proverbial toolkit, as it pushes Life Orb Close Combat’s power to the point where it can 2HKO even some of the bulkiest foes, including Skarmory, after Stealth Rock damage.

· Marshadow lacks a true counter. Marshadow could, in theory, be countered by Mega Sableye if its offensive capabilities were limited to a Life Orb, non-boosting set. Unfortunately, this is not the case in reality; Marshadow has access to Bulk Up, furthering its wallbreaking capabilities. In addition, Marshadow has access to one of the most devastating Z-Moves the game has ever seen in the form of Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike, which allows it to blow past Mega Sableyes that don’t possess maximum physical bulk, and even allows it to fell ones that do most of the time, as per the following damage calculation: +1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 286-337 (94.3 - 111.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO. Physically defensive Yveltal, as noted earlier in this thread, can indeed stop Marshadow in its tracks as long as it has not been compromised by being forced to stomach other forms of damage, but its viability outside of stopping Marshadow is questionable at best, owing to various metagame trends prior to Marshadow’s inclusion (i.e. the prevalence of Magearna, the evolution of Mega Lucario as a more relevant threat [it has a good chance to flat-out OHKO even the bulkiest variants of Yveltal after it has accrued a Swords Dance boost], as well as the rise in usage of Stealth Rock Arceus-Fairy, which will likely increase even further owing to the introduction of Marshadow).


·
Marshadow’s main checks, Fairy-types, can be easily removed by the most common trapper in Ubers, Shadow Tag Mega Gengar. If one were to run physically defensive Arceus-Fairy or physically defensive Xerneas, one could stop all of Marshadow’s possible sets as long as the aforementioned checks are at full health, since a +1 Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike cannot OHKO them. However, both of these Pokémon are easily dealt with by Mega Gengar, a highly viable teammate for Marshadow. Once the physically defensive Fairy is trapped, there is nothing it can do as it is smothered by Mega Gengar’s Sludge Wave, thereby paving the way for Marshadow to run roughshod over the rest of its remaining opponents.


·
Marshadow’s boost-stealing capabilities make it a nightmarish matchup for a variety of archetypes. Marshadow’s signature move, as many of you already know, allows it to steal an opponent’s boosts before dealing damage. This allows it to crush once-potent physical sweepers such as SD Mega Lucario and SD variants of Arceus, since Marshadow always tanks a +2 Bullet Punch from the former and outspeeds the latter while being immune to the latter’s form of priority in Extreme Speed. Stallbreakers are not immune to Marshadow’s pressure in this regard, either. Marshadow can freely steal boosts from CM Arceus variants (which also have a place on stall teams, thereby pressuring that archetype) and Resting Ingrain Z-Geomancy Xerneas, allowing it to pulverize an opponent’s entire team should it snatch the latter's boosts. This can make it a more effective Ditto, of sorts, since not only does it greatly deter setup by an opponent’s power-based sweepers, but it can fulfill many other roles, as well, which Ditto does not (barring copying an opponent’s cleric in Ditto stall vs. standard stall matchups, but that’s a story for another time).

· Marshadow’s access to STAB, Technician-boosted priority in the form of Shadow Sneak allows it to fell would-be offensive checks. Marshadow’s speed tier makes it such that it is only naturally outsped by a small portion of the Ubers metagame. However, this portion of the metagame just so happens to be overly weak to Marshadow’s priority move, Shadow Sneak. It is tempting to believe that Pokémon such as Mega Gengar, Mega and non-Mega Mewtwo, and Deoxys can serve as checks to Marshadow by virtue of their higher speed tier. However, Deoxys-A is cleanly OHKOed by any variant of Marshadow that possesses Shadow Sneak before it can react. Offensive variants of Mega Gengar are always KOed by Jolly Life Orb Marshadow’s Shadow Sneak, and bulky, Perish Trap variants are always felled after Stealth Rock damage. Mega Mewtwo Y is KOed 100% of the time after Stealth Rock damage by Life Orb Marshadow’s Shadow Sneak, and even the physically bulkier Mega Mewtwo X takes a bare minimum of 70% from the aforementioned priority hit, and cannot even OHKO Marshadow back unless it possesses a Psychic-type attack (Mega Mewtwo X is perfectly viable, and is often found, without a Psychic-type move, as many of you know). One of the most common Scarfers in the SM Ubers metagame, Lunala, is easily pulverized by Shadow Sneak after its Shadow Shield is broken, and, even if its Shadow Shield is intact, it takes a hefty 66% hit at a bare minimum from Marshadow’s Life Orb-boosted priority attack.

· Even if Marshadow lacks Shadow Sneak, it cannot be trapped by Mega Gengar. This is yet another underrated aspect of Marshadow’s overall utility. If it could be trapped by Mega Gengar, variants of Marshadow that chose to run the coverage moves I previously mentioned, Hidden Power Ice and Rock Tomb, as well as its main STABs, Spectral Thief and Close Combat, could be dealt with via trapping them with Mega Gengar. However, as Marshadow is a Ghost-type Pokémon, it cannot be checked by such means, as Marshadow can freely switch out.

The next point that I am about to make regarding Marshadow’s detrimental effect upon SM Ubers is not necessarily a tool that Marshadow possesses that allow it to succeed in the SM Ubers realm, rather, it is simply a trend that I have noticed regarding the metagame since Marshadow’s introduction. Marshadow greatly restricts teambuilding creativity, and in some cases, the overall viability of teams. Hyper offense or simply offensively-based teams are essentially required to carry a Scarfer such as Yveltal (which loses two-thirds to three-quarters of its health if it switches in on Life Orb Close Combat from Marshadow) or Xerneas in order to stop Marshadow from proverbially bulldozing them, unless they run Arceus-Fairy, thereby costing the builder his/her Arceus slot from the outset. Bulkier teams must resort to Arceus-Fairy (again, eating the player’s Arceus slot), questionably viable Pokémon such as physically defensive Xerneas, defensive Yveltal, or physically defensive Toxapex (the latter can be easily dealt with by Shadow Ball or Perish Trap Mega Gengar), or simply relying on the opponent’s Marshadow not running the Bulk Up set and choosing to use physically defensive Mega Sableye. This, as you can see, is not a whole lot of viable options. I would liken Marshadow’s effect to Xerneas’ on the XY metagame, although to an even greater degree. Xerneas required the use of less-than-viable Pokémon to check it, and most of those checks were usually easily dealt with by some form of Mega Gengar, whether it was the offensively-based or the Perish Trap variant, just as most of Marshadow’s checks are easily stopped by Mega Gengar. To further the analogy, I foresee SM Ubers as it currently stands going the way of XY Ubers, which is to say that it will not survive on the major tournament circuit. While some may argue that the reason for XY’s exclusion from major tournaments is due to the similarities it supposedly has with the ORAS metagame, I believe it is due to a lack of community desire to play XY Ubers, just as I foresee a lack of community desire to play SM Ubers after Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are released.

This brings me to my most controversial point. While this is nowhere near to an objective, or even factually-based point, I still believe it is valid. SM Ubers is simply less fun with Marshadow in it, owing to the way in which it restricts teambuilding and overly centralizes the metagame. I can already hear the collective gasps of you readers now. I am aware that how “fun” a metagame is because of a Pokémon’s inclusion in it does not necessarily make that Pokémon detrimental to a metagame or its subsequent development, since enjoyment is not an objective measure and varies from person to person. However, I contend that the lack of community desire to play XY Ubers in major tournaments is a direct result of this seemingly meaningless measure; XY Ubers was simply not an enjoyable metagame to play. Sometimes, we as competitive players of a video game originally targeted at children lose sight of the fact that what we play is a game. Games, are, at their core, supposed to be enjoyable. If a game is not enjoyable, and thus becomes more analogous to work, then what is the point of playing it? I would strongly encourage you, the reader, whether you are an authority figure or a new user, to examine whether or not you truly believe Marshadow is a beneficial part of the SM Ubers metagame, both based on the objectively-based, and, yes, the subjective arguments I provided. However, I recognize that I am just one voice in a sea of players, so I’m curious as to what the rest of you think about Marshadow's impact on the metagame. Thank you for your time and attention, and I apologize for the length of this post.

-VD

Side note: This is not a ban nomination or ban discussion post (I'm aware those are not allowed on this particular thread). It is simply meant to be a thought-provoking post that encourages discussion about the impact, whether it is positive or negative, that Marshadow has had/will have on the metagame at large, as well as my opinion on the aforementioned matter. I'll delete it if it is deemed to be overly problematic, but I don't see why it would be.
 

kilometerman

Banned deucer.
Since Marshadow seems to be the topic du jour for this thread, I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring with an opinion piece. I’ll preface this by saying that this will probably be an unpopular opinion, but it is not an unfounded one. I was skeptical of Marshadow when it was announced, and after witnessing its capabilities both as a user and as an opponent of it, I came to the following conclusion: Marshadow is detrimental to the development and future survival of the SM Ubers metagame.

This opinion might seem absolutely ridiculous at first glance; after all, Marshadow’s base stats are nowhere near as daunting as those of the original Anything Goes Pokémon, Mega Rayquaza. However, I urge you, the reader, to not be fooled by Marshadow’s innocent appearance, as far as both aesthetics and base stats are concerned. I will begin a defense of my claim by noting the tools that Marshadow was given that allow it to survive and thrive in the SM Ubers metagame in the form of a bulleted list.

· Marshadow possesses coverage that allows it to blow past some of its would-be checks such as Ho-Oh in the form of Rock Tomb, and Mega Salamence and Zygarde-Complete in the form of Hidden Power Ice. Marshadow’s ability, Technician, assists with this by guaranteeing +Speed Life Orb Marshadow an OHKO all offensive variants of Ho-Oh, as well as physically defensive ones that choose to run enough Special Defense to avoid the OHKO from a +2 Geomancy Xerneas’ Thunder. Furthermore, Hidden Power Ice rips through all Zygarde variants after a Close Combat, since one Life Orb Close Combat is not enough to put Zygarde below half health, thereby keeping it in its more fragile 50% form. Finally, Hidden Power Ice destroys even the bulkiest variants of Salamence after Stealth Rock damage, and can even KO non-bulky Salamence variants without any prior damage at all. Note the following calc: 0 SpA Life Orb Technician Marshadow Hidden Power Ice vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Salamence-Mega: 338-400 (86 - 101.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock.

· Marshadow’s STABs give it perfect neutral coverage. This is an underrated aspect of Marshadow’s proverbial toolkit, as it pushes Life Orb Close Combat’s power to the point where it can 2HKO even some of the bulkiest foes, including Skarmory, after Stealth Rock damage.

· Marshadow lacks a true counter. Marshadow could, in theory, be countered by Mega Sableye if its offensive capabilities were limited to a Life Orb, non-boosting set. Unfortunately, this is not the case in reality; Marshadow has access to Bulk Up, furthering its wallbreaking capabilities. In addition, Marshadow has access to one of the most devastating Z-Moves the game has ever seen in the form of Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike, which allows it to blow past Mega Sableyes that don’t possess maximum physical bulk, and even allows it to fell ones that do most of the time, as per the following damage calculation: +1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 286-337 (94.3 - 111.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO. Physically defensive Yveltal, as noted earlier in this thread, can indeed stop Marshadow in its tracks as long as it has not been compromised by being forced to stomach other forms of damage, but its viability outside of stopping Marshadow is questionable at best, owing to various metagame trends prior to Marshadow’s inclusion (i.e. the prevalence of Magearna, the evolution of Mega Lucario as a more relevant threat [it has a good chance to flat-out OHKO even the bulkiest variants of Yveltal after it has accrued a Swords Dance boost], as well as the rise in usage of Stealth Rock Arceus-Fairy, which will likely increase even further owing to the introduction of Marshadow).

·
Marshadow’s main checks, Fairy-types, can be easily removed by the most common trapper in Ubers, Shadow Tag Mega Gengar. If one were to run physically defensive Arceus-Fairy or physically defensive Xerneas, one could stop all of Marshadow’s possible sets as long as the aforementioned checks are at full health, since a +1 Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike cannot OHKO them. However, both of these Pokémon are easily dealt with by Mega Gengar, a highly viable teammate for Marshadow. Once the physically defensive Fairy is trapped, there is nothing it can do as it is smothered by Mega Gengar’s Sludge Wave, thereby paving the way for Marshadow to run roughshod over the rest of its remaining opponents.

·
Marshadow’s boost-stealing capabilities make it a nightmarish matchup for a variety of archetypes. Marshadow’s signature move, as many of you already know, allows it to steal an opponent’s boosts before dealing damage. This allows it to crush once-potent physical sweepers such as SD Mega Lucario and SD variants of Arceus, since Marshadow always tanks a +2 Bullet Punch from the former and outspeeds the latter while being immune to the latter’s form of priority in Extreme Speed. Stallbreakers are not immune to Marshadow’s pressure in this regard, either. Marshadow can freely steal boosts from CM Arceus variants (which also have a place on stall teams, thereby pressuring that archetype) and Resting Ingrain Z-Geomancy Xerneas, allowing it to pulverize an opponent’s entire team should it snatch the latter's boosts. This can make it a more effective Ditto, of sorts, since not only does it greatly deter setup by an opponent’s power-based sweepers, but it can fulfill many other roles, as well, which Ditto does not (barring copying an opponent’s cleric in Ditto stall vs. standard stall matchups, but that’s a story for another time).

· Marshadow’s access to STAB, Technician-boosted priority in the form of Shadow Sneak allows it to fell would-be offensive checks. Marshadow’s speed tier makes it such that it is only naturally outsped by a small portion of the Ubers metagame. However, this portion of the metagame just so happens to be overly weak to Marshadow’s priority move, Shadow Sneak. It is tempting to believe that Pokémon such as Mega Gengar, Mega and non-Mega Mewtwo, and Deoxys can serve as checks to Marshadow by virtue of their higher speed tier. However, Deoxys-A is cleanly OHKOed by any variant of Marshadow that possesses Shadow Sneak before it can react. Offensive variants of Mega Gengar are always KOed by Jolly Life Orb Marshadow’s Shadow Sneak, and bulky, Perish Trap variants are always felled after Stealth Rock damage. Mega Mewtwo Y is KOed 100% of the time after Stealth Rock damage by Life Orb Marshadow’s Shadow Sneak, and even the physically bulkier Mega Mewtwo X takes a bare minimum of 70% from the aforementioned priority hit, and cannot even OHKO Marshadow back unless it possesses a Psychic-type attack (Mega Mewtwo X is perfectly viable, and is often found, without a Psychic-type move, as many of you know). One of the most common Scarfers in the SM Ubers metagame, Lunala, is easily pulverized by Shadow Sneak after its Shadow Shield is broken, and, even if its Shadow Shield is intact, it takes a hefty 66% hit at a bare minimum from Marshadow’s Life Orb-boosted priority attack.

· Even if Marshadow lacks Shadow Sneak, it cannot be trapped by Mega Gengar. This is yet another underrated aspect of Marshadow’s overall utility. If it could be trapped by Mega Gengar, variants of Marshadow that chose to run the coverage moves I previously mentioned, Hidden Power Ice and Rock Tomb, as well as its main STABs, Spectral Thief and Close Combat, could be dealt with via trapping them with Mega Gengar. However, as Marshadow is a Ghost-type Pokémon, it cannot be checked by such means, as Marshadow can freely switch out.

The next point that I am about to make regarding Marshadow’s detrimental effect upon SM Ubers is not necessarily a tool that Marshadow possesses that allow it to succeed in the SM Ubers realm, rather, it is simply a trend that I have noticed regarding the metagame since Marshadow’s introduction. Marshadow greatly restricts teambuilding creativity, and in some cases, the overall viability of teams. Hyper offense or simply offensively-based teams are essentially required to carry a Scarfer such as Yveltal (which loses two-thirds to three-quarters of its health if it switches in on Life Orb Close Combat from Marshadow) or Xerneas in order to stop Marshadow from proverbially bulldozing them, unless they run Arceus-Fairy, thereby costing the builder his/her Arceus slot from the outset. Bulkier teams must resort to Arceus-Fairy (again, eating the player’s Arceus slot), questionably viable Pokémon such as physically defensive Xerneas, defensive Yveltal, or physically defensive Toxapex (the latter can be easily dealt with by Shadow Ball or Perish Trap Mega Gengar), or simply relying on the opponent’s Marshadow not running the Bulk Up set and choosing to use physically defensive Mega Sableye. This, as you can see, is not a whole lot of viable options. I would liken Marshadow’s effect to Xerneas’ on the XY metagame, although to an even greater degree. Xerneas required the use of less-than-viable Pokémon to check it, and most of those checks were usually easily dealt with by some form of Mega Gengar, whether it was the offensively-based or the Perish Trap variant, just as most of Marshadow’s checks are easily stopped by Mega Gengar. To further the analogy, I foresee SM Ubers as it currently stands going the way of XY Ubers, which is to say that it will not survive on the major tournament circuit. While some may argue that the reason for XY’s exclusion from major tournaments is due to the similarities it supposedly has with the ORAS metagame, I believe it is due to a lack of community desire to play XY Ubers, just as I foresee a lack of community desire to play SM Ubers after Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are released.

This brings me to my most controversial point. While this is nowhere near to an objective, or even factually-based point, I still believe it is valid. SM Ubers is simply less fun with Marshadow in it, owing to the way in which it restricts teambuilding and overly centralizes the metagame. I can already hear the collective gasps of you readers now. I am aware that how “fun” a metagame is because of a Pokémon’s inclusion in it does not necessarily make that Pokémon detrimental to a metagame or its subsequent development, since enjoyment is not an objective measure and varies from person to person. However, I contend that the lack of community desire to play XY Ubers in major tournaments is a direct result of this seemingly meaningless measure; XY Ubers was simply not an enjoyable metagame to play. Sometimes, we as competitive players of a video game originally targeted at children lose sight of the fact that what we play is a game. Games, are, at their core, supposed to be enjoyable. If a game is not enjoyable, and thus becomes more analogous to work, then what is the point of playing it? I would strongly encourage you, the reader, whether you are an authority figure or a new user, to examine whether or not you truly believe Marshadow is a beneficial part of the SM Ubers metagame, both based on the objectively-based, and, yes, the subjective arguments I provided. However, I recognize that I am just one voice in a sea of players, so I’m curious as to what the rest of you think about Marshadow's impact on the metagame. Thank you for your time and attention, and I apologize for the length of this post.

-VD

Side note: This is not a ban nomination or ban discussion post (I'm aware those are not allowed on this particular thread). It is simply meant to be a thought-provoking post that encourages discussion about the impact, whether it is positive or negative, that Marshadow has had/will have on the metagame at large, as well as my opinion on the aforementioned matter. I'll delete it if it is deemed to be overly problematic, but I don't see why it would be.
This is ridiculous so I'll start with the criteria for banning a Pokemon from Ubers according to the Mega Ray ban thread:
  • This Pokemon/ability/etc unreasonably raises the volatility of Ubers. Think Moody or OHKO spam.
Technician is useful but to suggest that it is equal in usefullness to abilities like Fairy Aura, Desolate Land, or even something like Intimidate? That's ridiculous.
  • This Pokemon is ~unreasonably~ centralizing. Think 70%+ usage. Even Xerneas was (I think) ~45% usage.
We can't really make a fair judgement since of new toy syndrome, so this point doesn't apply either.
  • Related to the above point: This Pokemon is obviously in a different power bracket than most of the other Ubers. I argued earlier that M-Ray was in a different power bracket because it is the first ~800 BST Pokemon with a useful ability and unrestricted item.
Marsh barely applies to this as well. First off, it's very far from the current titans we have in terms of viability. You can argue Marsh is an A tier mon, but there is no arguing that it rivals Pdon or Xerneas. It's also 600 BST and its only above average stat is its speed (125 attack is about average in ubers). It also has terrible bulk for Ubers standards.
  • It is no fun to play or watch matches with this Pokemon/ability/etc (henceforth just Pokemon) allowed. Having this Pokemon in Ubers makes me want to play some other meta. I would be bored as fuck to watch a match with this Pokemon allowed. This is a subjective criterion, but an important one I think: if everyone hates Ubers, then why have it? It is our obligation in such a case to try to fix it.
This one is the most subjective so I can't really say you're wrong. imo it's enjoyable to see people trying to use Marsh as a priority killer or something and having it just barely miss out on kills.

If your concern is a mon being "detrimental to the development and future survival of the SM Ubers metagame" then why don't you go after the mons that are the best and most used in the meta? Seems kind of strange that you're going after a more or less hype mon that will be spammed for the next couple weeks until people start dropping it since it's not the best thing to have on your team.
 
its not that the mon itself has broken stats or abilities but the way you're forced to build around marsh is really annoying because it makes it hard to cover all matchups. its hard to end up with really solid team structures now and based on conversations and personal experience, it's looking like team matchup is going to be bigger than ever in this current meta. you're viewing things in a vacuum and not realizing how marsh has crippled the viability of most previously top tier teams and that developing consistent teams is proving to be a very daunting task for many of the top builders at the moment. its not the stats or the movepool or w/e details about the mon thats an issue. its about its effect on teams/teambuilding and overall how its shaking up the metagame.
 

kilometerman

Banned deucer.
its not that the mon itself has broken stats or abilities but the way you're forced to build around marsh is really annoying because it makes it hard to cover all matchups. its hard to end up with really solid team structures now and based on conversations and personal experience, it's looking like team matchup is going to be bigger than ever in this current meta. you're viewing things in a vacuum and not realizing how marsh has crippled the viability of most previously top tier teams and that developing consistent teams is proving to be a very daunting task for many of the top builders at the moment. its not the stats or the movepool or w/e details about the mon thats an issue. its about its effect on teams/teambuilding and overall how its shaking up the metagame.
But to suggest that Marsh affects the meta as much as say Pdon or Xern is ridiculous. People will run Yveltal more (something that's already happened since ORAS) and physical Arceus formes will drop in usage. That's about the major effects on most teams. The other part is people saying that it had a huge impact on stall (toxapex is being used more now iirc) but I don't see how that's an argument since the whole point of stall is having an answer to pretty much as many possible threats, and toxapex was already being used on stall as a solid Xern check.
 

EternalSnowman

DPL Champion
But to suggest that Marsh affects the meta as much as say Pdon or Xern is ridiculous. People will run Yveltal more (something that's already happened since ORAS) and physical Arceus formes will drop in usage. That's about the major effects on most teams. The other part is people saying that it had a huge impact on stall (toxapex is being used more now iirc) but I don't see how that's an argument since the whole point of stall is having an answer to pretty much as many possible threats, and toxapex was already being used on stall as a solid Xern check.
my 2 cents on marshadow, and a lot of what ttg is sayign is true, I felt that the sm meta had already been a very MU heavy tier after my experiences in ssnls and upl, and marshadow has pretty much increased this significantly, as with the mon in the tier, teams that had once been able to win any MU if u played well such as deo-s HO and lance stall now struggle quite a bit against marshadow. All top tier teams and team playstyles have been in this state for a while in ubers, for example standard BO, which is something like choiced xern/ybird, pogre, rocks pdon, supportceus, xern check, something else, is often very weak to stall variants, as the mons can easily get worn down and ppstalled eventually. Balance often struggles against BO and HO struggles against balance, while stall struggles against certain balance/HO builds. this is the state the tier is in and kind of why its hard for people to be consistent in ubers -- even in bo3 scenarios -- since in top level play its very easy you lose say g1 to hax, u win a clean g2, and then lose g3 to mu. the metagame is awarding versatile players that can read what their opponent will bring, but in this same vein its not always possible to know, and marshadow has made MUs extremely difficult for would be high level teams, and puts strain on the balance of the game. imo BO has evolved to being the best playstyle, since you can adapt 1 or 2 mons to deal with stall and generally BO mons are good at dealing with marshadow, however I also know that marshadow has the "new toy syndrome" and while it is a fantastic mon, it is akin to MMeta in ORAS OU, where the meta will eventually evolve to deal with it. I am just echoing what ttg said and elaborating on the MU reliant thing he said, which is defo true not just in post-marshadow ubers, but has been quite prevalent since the beginning of SM, just exacerbated by the arrival of Marshadow.


#FreeMegaDiancie
 

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD or 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Charm
- Calm Mind
- Rest

At the moment, Goth is the best it's been since XY. The introduction of Marshadow forces HO teams (at least classic ORAS / SM builds) out of the metagame entirely, as they only pack 1-2 mons that live a move from Marsh (Xern / PDon) or outspeed and don't die to Shadow Sneak (Scarf Xern / Skymin / Scarf Yveltal). These offenses were historically the worst matchups for Goth teams but now the metagame is infested with stall and bulky balances. Goth preys on these types of teams. They rely on a core of bulky Arceus, generally supplemented with at least 1 more supportive mon Goth can trap. Once their bulkier mons are trapped, these teams can struggle to check a myriad of offensive threats and will lose the hazard war. Use Goth to support your offensive threats or for general stallbreaking in general. The Def EVs let it avoid the counter-trap from AV Muk (lives -2 97.5 Knock + -4 65 Knock + -4 Sneak + 2 rounds of poison) but also let support Arc Judg have a small chance to 3HKO after SR.

Arceus-Water
Arceus-Ground
Arceus-Fairy

Celesteela
Ferrothorn
Bronzong

Chansey
Clefable
Toxapex

Scarf Xerneas
Scarf Tapu Lele

Have fun making some Goth squads
 
totally agree zf. you can also run some speed creep + taunt to ruin skarm and taunt also helps vs sub lugia and other support mons. less support darkceus and darkceus in general is good for this mon since bo/balance/stall are gonna have support arcs that get trapped by goth. trick(scarf) can be a fun but less consistent set if you want to ruin a steel type or other support mon's day.
 
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i agree goth and other relevant trappers will improve in viability since marshadow is prominately a threat for offensive teams forcing them to run an arceus-fairy form or something bulky enough to take on marshadow. The rise of this mon to ubers has lead to the metagame shift to more bo and stall playstyles which as stated above goth feeds on. i think another trapper that will improve from this shift is mega gengar which is already good its on right. gengar-mega is monster to deal with for stall teams and balance or bulky offense teams.
 
on another note sweepers like arceus-normal ,arceus-ground and other sd arceus formes are in decline due to marshadow detering atk boosting sweepers and revenging arceus-normal with fighting stab . what mons will increase in viability due to this? i believe arceus-fairy will be more fairly used over most of the other support formes and mons normally checked by an certain arceus forme or a sweeper like mega lucario will increase in usage as the meta moves forward. The downside to this is that mons that are checked by the more present arceus-fairy will struggle even more and become just niche mons in the metagame
 

kilometerman

Banned deucer.
on another note sweepers like arceus-normal ,arceus-ground and other sd arceus formes are in decline due to marshadow detering atk boosting sweepers and revenging arceus-normal with fighting stab . what mons will increase in viability due to this? i believe arceus-fairy will be more fairly used over most of the other support formes and mons normally checked by an certain arceus forme or a sweeper like mega lucario will increase in usage as the meta moves forward. The downside to this is that mons that are checked by the more present arceus-fairy will struggle even more and become just niche mons in the metagame
I mean Arceus-Ground doesn't need SD to be good. Z-Earthquake OHKOs almost every Pdon set even without a boost, and regular Earthquake and Judgement do a number on a lot of mons, for example Mega Luke.
 
i think his point is that pure attackers are alot better due to marshadow and could be favored over sweepers like arceus-ground that isnt a bad wallbreaker and pure attacker by any means. support arceus fairy is just the favored forme right now as the marshadow check also bulky xern and other mons check it. my point is that certain arceus formes are weak to marshadow and i think he is saying some in particular like an arceus-dark could drop in viability in the current meta.
 
Actually it encourages braindead offense because now the two main offense teams that are viable are the braindead ones, psyspam and webs. Very linear and braindead style of hyper offense. Things like Mega Gengar hyper offense that required precision and aggressive play are dead now though thanks to Marshadow. So yeah, the skill based hyper offenses are now completely unviable not just "nerfed". On top of that, the lack of these hyper offensive teams does not actually help people make well thought out balances, it instead encourages people to forget about many of the old hyper offenses entirely and use shittier balances! This is obvious because whenever one playstyle dies, such as hyper offense in this case, people will not prepare for it as they will weight their preparations towards the balance and stall matchups. But this is where the dilemma starts. Now people can bring hyper offense teams to punish shitty passive balances which are running rampant, but they risk facing a Marshadow and losing at preview. We saw this problem as stall started to die in ORAS. People would bring teams weighted towards fixing their hyper offense/bulky offense matchups and leaving themselves 6-0'd by stall. This encouraged people and rewarded them to use an unviable style such as stall to bank off matchup alone, as they would be greatly disadvantaged to bring anything else since their opponent was only preparing for offensive or balance matchups. This is one reason the matchup problem is going to exist and does exist right now. Pre-Marshadow was great, as all playstyles were viable. Now we enter the SM era of matchup.
 

Mazar

Banned deucer.
Actually it encourages braindead offense because now the two main offense teams that are viable are the braindead ones, psyspam and webs. Very linear and braindead style of hyper offense. Things like Mega Gengar hyper offense that required precision and aggressive play are dead now though thanks to Marshadow. So yeah, the skill based hyper offenses are now completely unviable not just "nerfed". On top of that, the lack of these hyper offensive teams does not actually help people make well thought out balances, it instead encourages people to forget about many of the old hyper offenses entirely and use shittier balances! This is obvious because whenever one playstyle dies, such as hyper offense in this case, people will not prepare for it as they will weight their preparations towards the balance and stall matchups. But this is where the dilemma starts. Now people can bring hyper offense teams to punish shitty passive balances which are running rampant, but they risk facing a Marshadow and losing at preview. We saw this problem as stall started to die in ORAS. People would bring teams weighted towards fixing their hyper offense/bulky offense matchups and leaving themselves 6-0'd by stall. This encouraged people and rewarded them to use an unviable style such as stall to bank off matchup alone, as they would be greatly disadvantaged to bring anything else since their opponent was only preparing for offensive or balance matchups. This is one reason the matchup problem is going to exist and does exist right now. Pre-Marshadow was great, as all playstyles were viable. Now we enter the SM era of matchup.
Ladies and Gentleman,
may I present?
.. the next Ubers Tier Leader
 
Actually it encourages braindead offense because now the two main offense teams that are viable are the braindead ones, psyspam and webs. Very linear and braindead style of hyper offense. Things like Mega Gengar hyper offense that required precision and aggressive play are dead now though thanks to Marshadow. So yeah, the skill based hyper offenses are now completely unviable not just "nerfed". On top of that, the lack of these hyper offensive teams does not actually help people make well thought out balances, it instead encourages people to forget about many of the old hyper offenses entirely and use shittier balances! This is obvious because whenever one playstyle dies, such as hyper offense in this case, people will not prepare for it as they will weight their preparations towards the balance and stall matchups. But this is where the dilemma starts. Now people can bring hyper offense teams to punish shitty passive balances which are running rampant, but they risk facing a Marshadow and losing at preview. We saw this problem as stall started to die in ORAS. People would bring teams weighted towards fixing their hyper offense/bulky offense matchups and leaving themselves 6-0'd by stall. This encouraged people and rewarded them to use an unviable style such as stall to bank off matchup alone, as they would be greatly disadvantaged to bring anything else since their opponent was only preparing for offensive or balance matchups. This is one reason the matchup problem is going to exist and does exist right now. Pre-Marshadow was great, as all playstyles were viable. Now we enter the SM era of matchup.


Firstly, your premise is fundamentally false. We used to have braindead offense styles in form of Deo-S HO, webs, sticky, and "carefully crafted gengar HO teams" (my ass). Now, we're down to psyspam and sticky (NOT ENCOURAGING BRAINDEAD OFFENSE). Which are easily countered by the balance with any combination of dark type pokemon, protect, defog, magic bounce, flying pokemon, taunt, shadow tag, rapid spin, and scarf pokemon.

Now with your claim of psyspam/webs being excessively strong completely shattered. I move on your case of players where they just forget about the existence of older threat to address contemporary threats. My first argument is that incompetency is not an argument, but rather the symptom of player base being not creative nor skilled.

Your ORAS example is perfect indeed. I innovated Whimiscott in ORAS ubers as a way to hard counter hyper offense and bounceless stall (Hack did use it with success to defeat Blim's hard stall). With Whimiscott, I was able to beat vast amount of top ORAS ubers players with little effort. Despite of my success, very few actually cared about this fact and instead majority just whined about the match up. Just because people complain about something doesn't mean that it's actually a valid issue.

Let's move on to a more concrete theorymon of post-marshadow sumo metagame. My opinion is Marshadow will remain popular due to its versatility and undeniable advantage of stopping boosted pokemon's sweeps especially for stopping CM arceus sweeps. Even if the metagame shifts heavily balanced, Marshadow remain useful in conjunction of Shadow tag or other wallbreakers such as Ho-Oh just because Marshadow is one of the best cleaner in the game with it's blistering 125 speed base. The cleaning and anti-boost are two incredibly powerful tools that balances did not have access to before outside Ditto. Your theory hinges on the base that Marshadow will eventually somehow become sufficiently unpopular, therefore it would be advantageous for players to gamble with HO for match up. This is what I disagree with. Marshadow is here to stay and be popular for the rest of SUMO.
 
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my point was simply that you're card stacking and talking about how marshadow can have a positive effect on the metagame but disregarding how people that don't want to spend time getting good and take time to build these "well thought out balances" will find ways to cheese balance rather than having to prepare for all playstyles (who knew centralizing the metagame to one playstyle that is greatly favored could be unhealthy?!?). And once people start stacking their matchups in favor of breaking balance, why not bring offense to punish them? Also, i never called psyspam and webs excessively strong, I called them the two viable offenses as they have natural ways to deal with marsh in the form of speed control and taking away marsh priority. You also call psyspam, webs and other offenses braindead, but then list like 10 ways for balance to deal with them. Seems like you have way more factors to manage to win a game with these offense teams but braindead balance seems to have all the answers for offense kappa.
 
my point was simply that you're card stacking and talking about how marshadow can have a positive effect on the metagame but disregarding how people that don't want to spend time getting good and take time to build these "well thought out balances" will find ways to cheese balance rather than having to prepare for all playstyles (who knew centralizing the metagame to one playstyle that is greatly favored could be unhealthy?!?).
So, you're appealing to the fact that incompetent people will be incompetent? Who cares honestly? They're the free wins in tournaments. Why are we seriously considering their nonexistent impact to high level metagame? Yes, you may get cheesed by Lugia+Deoxys-attack core if your team is specifically weak to it. Does that mean Lugia and Deoxys-attack core have net negative effect on metagame? No, it means that you should use Marshadow. By the way, there has been ZERO cheesing first placer in seasonals.

And once people start stacking their matchups in favor of breaking balance, why not bring offense to punish them? Also, i never called psyspam and webs excessively strong, I called them the two viable offenses as they have natural ways to deal with marsh in the form of speed control and taking away marsh priority.
Yes, I exaggerated with excessive strong thing but the point is that - Marshadow favors two offense playstyles that are bad vs balance therefore if you use marshadow on a balance then the match up advantage that offense have is virtually erased. Oh no! We have to build new balance teams! Fuck it, I'll just call Marshadow a negative impact on metagame and rest on my laurels. :)

You also call psyspam, webs and other offenses braindead, but then list like 10 ways for balance to deal with them. Seems like you have way more factors to manage to win a game with these offense teams but braindead balance seems to have all the answers for offense kappa.
Kappa! Balance is easier to play than offense! What an argument. In this case, why wouldn't you promote the rise of balance for these poor inexperienced players trying to cheese? Yes, balance has more tools than offense because the major tool that offense utilize is pure brawn. The number of methods is irrelevant for the hardness of executing a strategy. The execution of strategy rely purely on the mechanics and metagame. Defogging hazards is a lot harder to pull off than clicking sticky webs on shuckle because you have to react to it and give up a turn+momentum.
 
Why are we seriously considering their nonexistent impact to high level metagame?
this is general metagame discussion after all, so to disregard the 95% of players that make up the rest of the metagame and focus on high level players only seems a bit odd.

Oh no! We have to build new balance teams! Fuck it, I'll just call Marshadow a negative impact on metagame and rest on my laurels. :)
my main point here was actually that people will probably bring teams without marshadow because they can use that slot for something more potent at balance breaking to improve their matchup vs opposing balance since that will be the dominant playstyle. So they'll compromise their matchup vs offense and get rewarded because they won't face it! I'm fairly confident we'll be seeing offense weak teams winning pretty soon because people don't care about matchups they don't have to face. This is where the negative impact occurs on the overall metagame, not because new teams need to be made.

Kappa! Balance is easier to play than offense! What an argument. In this case, why wouldn't you promote the rise of balance for these poor inexperienced players trying to cheese? Yes, balance has more tools than offense because the major tool that offense utilize is pure brawn. The number of methods is irrelevant for the hardness of executing a strategy. The execution of strategy rely purely on the mechanics and metagame. Defogging hazards is a lot harder to pull off than clicking sticky webs on shuckle because you have to react to it and give up a turn+momentum.
I was never calling balance easier to play than offense, I was actually just mocking how you use the word "braindead" to describe a playstyle that doesn't have many advantages pre marsh or post marsh. Offense users have it way harder to break a good balance. It requires thinking and skillful play to beat a good balance in the hands of a good player so I find it funny whenever you call offense braindead considering balance ends up being the top playstyle in pretty much every gen.

Balance/Bulky Offense already had many advantages pre marsh so I don't get how you could think buffing the best playstyle even more creates balance in the metagame. It makes one type of team have distinct advantage which leads to people only caring about that matchup and can lead to games where whoever prepped for balance more will win, even though the losing team might be better because it has better tools vs offense it sacrifices being able to win vs opposing balance aimed at beating balance.
 
While overly simplifying things, I generally agree with Orch.

If you as a player are given tools that irrefutably makes your teams more consistent then the cheese factor of lazy players does decrease. There are two problems with the logic in TTG's arguments that cannot be overlooked. Firstly, it relies on a causality that is assumed in that "Marshadow team" > "HO" > "shitty balance" > "Marshadow team". This circle of match-ups is a guess at best. It assumes Marshadow cannot be an integral part of balance, thus securing the offense match-up to an extent. It also assumed that magical circumstances align so that these HO's happen to beat non-Marshadow teams. But who is to say the way HO is built in SM isn't intrinsically flawed from the beginning and that bulkier teams are in fact favorable vs offensive ones? That is at least a more evidence based hypothesis considering SM HO is lackluster. TTG also makes an argument that basically equates to people being lazy and gambling on match-up by weighting their teams too heavily in favor against what is considered the norm, and while true, that has absolutely nothing to do with Marshadow- it happens in every metagame. Who cares is not even a remotely elitist or inconsiderate statement because again, if you are given tools to decrease the cheese impact, use them. Every metagame has people who gamble in match-ups, and causally linking an arbitrary change in the metagame to an increased effect of this problem without any evidence for it is just not only an argument that doesn't hold, but it doesn't even seem relevant.

Also, not taking jabs at TTG, we went to length discussing this last night and I think he got my points across before I made this post.
 
I felt a problem with SM Ubers existed since the start of the gen because the match-up factor was big and both Level 56 and Astounded agreed with that when we discussed this early gen. I tried to find what the problem was and I came to the conclusion that Darkrai nerf among other changes that came with the new generation were behind this. I just dropped the issue and tried to adapt like any other real Ubers players would do.

Now that Marshadow was released the problem seems really obvious to me. Marshadow made the HOs that can defeat it (Example: HOs running CM Fairy Arceus, Scarfed Yveltal, or Scarfed Xern) really weak to stall and sometimes Xerneas. This made the meta game more match-up based in 2 ways:
1) If you want to run an HO that can defeat Marshadow, you're pretty fucked vs stall if u don't run gimmicks or bs that makes u weaker to other stuff.
2) If u want an HO that can defeat stall, then get ready to lose to Marshadow.

This is just a small example on how Marshadow increased the m-up factor.

A solution to the increasing match-up problem might not be available. Waiting 4 months for releases might be the only thing to do at this point.
 
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How 10 people can like a post with completely baseless claims that is almost 100 % theorymonning is beyond me.

I have been nice letting people speaking their mind in general but now I will say this:

Do not present arbitrary, subjective claims backed by (close to, arbitrary defined HO using three things I would argue have no place on what most people consider hyper offensive teams) zero empirical data. To Outrage specifically: you can't prove any of what you say here.

I will keep this post up as an example of how not draw conclusions from data (or more like, lack thereof). Posts not inclusing proper definitions on the terminology used and empirical data (games, teams) to back claims such as this above will from now be infracted and deleted.

We are literally barely into the marsh meta but from what I have experienced when building, this is simply a conclusion that is too quick.
 
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I think that censoring people due to lack of empirical data in a thread based on speculation is a bit silly. But hey, we just have to wait it out and see what happens.
 

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