Metagame Monotype Suspect: Medichamite

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Welcome to the first SM Monotype suspect! Medichamite was released last week and has already made its mark on the metagame. Mega Medicham is capable of 2HKOing at worst almost every wall in Monotype, meaning only a couple of Pokemon can switch into it. This puts extreme pressure on players when they build teams, as most types cannot defensively check Mega Medicham at all. Mega Medicham is powerful enough that it is almost impossible to justify the use of Pokemon such as the previously S-ranked viable Mega Alakazam that cannot be used alongside Mega Medicham. While the tiering philosophy does not require the viability of every type, Mega Medicham puts a significant limitation on building teams with any form of defensive backbone and building teams that it itself is legal on, which is a potentially oppressive result.

Considering the state of the metagame before its release, Mega Medicham is almost impossible to check for most of the most prominent teams. While the metagame can adapt to defeat Mega Medicham, this adaptation could not be very viably done by the previous teams and would mostly come from teams previously unviable that could not compete with the greater metagame. This results in a metagame that almost completely revolves around Mega Medicham even when it may not be on either team in a battle. Metagame shifts are welcome, but centralization of the metagame around the presence of one Pokemon is definitely cause for concern.

These factors have resulted in very quickly converging the Monotype metagame into three categories that beat one of the other two categories and lose to the second: teams with Mega Medicham, new teams that counter those in the first category, and standard teams. This rock-paper-scissors result is undesirable because it removes a great deal of skill from the game.

Because of its potentially broken status and concerning centralization of the metagame, the Monotype council has voted to suspect Mega Medicham in order to more closely review its influence on the metagame.

In order to cast a vote in this suspect test, you must participate on the Monotype ladder in which Mega Medicham is allowed. The requirements for qualification are 2800 COIL or more in 70 games or fewer. The B-value for this suspect test is 14.0. The suspect test will last two weeks and conclude at 11:59 PM EDT (GMT-4) May 2nd. You will then have three days, until 11:59 PM EDT (GMT-4) May 5th, to cast your vote. Mega Medicham will require a 60% majority of voters in favor of banning it in order for it to be banned from Monotype.

Upon meeting the requirements, you must post proof of the qualification in the Voter Identification thread, which is separate from this thread. Do not post your proof in this discussion thread.

You may use this thread to discuss this Mega Medicham suspect or ask for clarification for any questions you may have.

You may not use this thread to post one-liners or discuss either the suspect system, other suspects, or topics unrelated to this suspect.

Please stay respectful when you post and follow all Monotype forum rules.

To earn 2800 COIL, you must have at least a certain GXE corresponding to the number of games you have played:
Code:
GXE | Games
90      39
88      43
86      48
84      54
83      57
82      62
81      67
80.5    70
This means if your final GXE is below 80.5 when you hit 70 games, you will not have 2800 COIL and will not have met the requirements.

To calculate for yourself the required number of games for any given GXE, compute:
N=14.0/log2(40*GXE/2800)

Tagging The Immortal to set up the suspect ladder. Thank you!
 
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Acast

Ghost of a Forum Mod & PS Room Owner
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
I've already seen this argument come up a couple times in the chat room on PS and the suspect has only been public for a little over an hour, so I decided to address it here before people bring it up.
But Fighting needs Mega Medicham.
This is fundamentally flawed logic. We do not tier types; we tier a metagame. Our concern is the overall health of that metagame, not the individual types. It's unavoidable that some types will just be bad.

A pokemon has come along that might make a bad type a little better, but this pokemon also has more than enough support on another type to make it an overwhelming force that restricts teambuilding and battling strategies for other types. In this situation, we need to keep the overall health of the metagame in mind. Fighting enjoys having a mega for the first time this generation, but many of the other types are suffering from the restrictions placed on them by Mega Medicham's presence.

Psychic now seems to be the go-to type in major tournaments because it's so reliable with Mega Medicham (It might not be the only culprit, but it's the primary one). Balanced and stall teams just crumble under it unless they have Mega Sableye, Doublade, or Mega Slowbro, and offensive teams can be worn down by Fake Out and Bullet Punch. Of course you could bring a random Ghost type to switch in on HJK, but then Medicham can just pick off the vast majority of Ghosts with a coverage move as they switch in. This introduces everyone's favorite situation: a 50/50. Do I predict HJK and switch to my ghost, or do I predict a coverage move and stay in? Those situations are fundamentally unhealthy and we strive to avoid them in our metagame wherever possible.

I'm perfectly open to differing opinions, but please think about the overall metagame when forming that opinion. Fighting is only 1/18th of the metagame at most. "Fighting needs it" is not a valid argument.

tl;dr: Would you rather play a metagame in which the only truly reliable type is Psychic, or a metagame in which Fighting doesn't have a mega?
 

Scholar

Shinjiro's babe
is a Tiering Contributoris a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Here's my take on this suspect test. Mega medi isn't as broken as Magearna or Celesteela. I talked this over with a few of my competitive friends, and they say if mega medi must go, so should Mage. In my opinon, as I seen tho the ladder, mega medi is needed for fighting to even work this gen, because it finally gives a check to mage, and really helps during the disadvantage matchup. Medi mega wasn't ban last gen, so why ban it now, what is it doing this gen, that it couldn't last gen? That's the real question. Psychic was a great type last gen, even better that now psychic can run mega bro (just putting it out there), which was ban last gen. Fighting before mega medi had a hard time dealing with toxapex, since it would have to count on brelooms spore in order to kill it while sleeping.

Tl; DR
Mega medi shouldn't be ban, cuz it Isnt doing anything this gen it couldn't last gen. Plus there are more broken mons than mega medi that should be ban before him.
 
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Acast

Ghost of a Forum Mod & PS Room Owner
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
Here's my take on this suspect test. Mega medi isn't as broken as Magerna or Celesteela. I talked this over with a few of my competitive friends, and they say if mega medi must go, so should Mage. In my opinon, as I seen tho the ladder, mega medi is needed for fighting to even work this gen, because it finally gives a check to mage, and really helps during the disadvantage matchup. Medi mega wasn't ban last gen, so why ban it now, what is it doing this gen, that it couldn't last gen? That's the real question. Psychic was a great type last gen, even better that now psychic can run mega bro (just putting it out there), which was ban last gen. Fighting before mega medi had a hard time dealing with toxapex, since it would have to count on brelooms spore in order to kill it while sleeping.

Tl; DR
Mega medi shouldn't be ban, cuz it Isnt doing anything this gen it couldn't last gen. Plus there are more broken mons than mega medi that should be ban before him.
The primary reason was that Hoopa-U was still running rampant in ORAS. Who has time to worry about Mega Medi when an even better wallbreaker is legal? If Hoopa-U had been banned, we might have suspected Medichamite at some point, but there's really no way to know because we never got to that point.

Regarding your other argument about there being other "more broken mons" than Mega Medi, does Magearna make multiple playstyles irrelevant? I'd argue Mega Medicham does. As I said in my previous post, stall and balance are ruined by a well-played Mega Medicham unless the defending team has Mega Sableye, Doublade, or Mega Slowbro. That's extremely unhealthy for our metagame. It's already offense-oriented as it is, so letting Mega Medi stay will turn this into a meta that's only kind to offense and hyper offense. I can't say the same thing for Magearna.
 
Here's my take on this suspect test. Mega medi isn't as broken as Magearna or Celesteela. I talked this over with a few of my competitive friends, and they say if mega medi must go, so should Mage. In my opinon, as I seen tho the ladder, mega medi is needed for fighting to even work this gen, because it finally gives a check to mage, and really helps during the disadvantage matchup. Medi mega wasn't ban last gen, so why ban it now, what is it doing this gen, that it couldn't last gen? That's the real question. Psychic was a great type last gen, even better that now psychic can run mega bro (just putting it out there), which was ban last gen. Fighting before mega medi had a hard time dealing with toxapex, since it would have to count on brelooms spore in order to kill it while sleeping.

Tl; DR
Mega medi shouldn't be ban, cuz it Isnt doing anything this gen it couldn't last gen. Plus there are more broken mons than mega medi that should be ban before him.
For this suspect, you should be thinking about Mega Medicham's effect in the metagame alone; even if Magearna was more broken, the question is about Mega Medicham in the metagame right now, not Magearna. I say "right now" because "it wasn't banned last gen don't ban it now" is not a valid point. It might've slipped under the radar, but why should that prevent us from banning it now if we deem so? That's a lazy way of thinking about it.

Also, while Mega Medicham wasn't suspected last gen, we're obviously in a new generation with different things to consider. Mega Medicham itself has hardly changed, but everything else around it certainly has. If you think about it, many of the things that could keep Mega Medicham in check are a lot less common now. With the rise of Fairy, Dark (with Mega Sableye) is a lot less common. Steel has shifted away from hyper offensive with Doublade to something more balanced with Magearna (although some cheeky ladder users are using Doublade + Bisharp apparently). And, Mega Medicham's main counters, Mega Sableye, Doublade, and Mega Slowbro are much less effective in general due to power creep and preference of offensive playstyles. It also got some new offensive partners, like Counter Alakazam and Genesis Supernova Mew.

Considering this, the fact that types that run balance like Normal, Flying, Poison, and Water are easily dismantled by Mega Medicham is magnified in this new metagame. From what I've seen in MPL, it is so much harder to run balanced types because of Mega Medicham. And it's also so easy to just use Psychic; given how it probably has the least amount of poor matchups out there, it's a great "go-to" type. This makes Mega Medicham even more important when you try teambuilding.

The High Jump Kick + whatever + Fake Out + Bullet Punch set is super good. I don't think I need to talk about it much since it's basically the same as last gen, but, while it can still break balance, Fake Out + Bullet Punch helps it out a ton against offensive mons. Most of the time, you're better off looking for something that can revenge kill it rather than something that can take a hit and retaliate, but the double priority changes that up when they have to take a considerable chunk of damage first.

Right now, Mega Medicham has the most drastic effect on the metagame thanks to its power and reliable teammates. If I were to vote right now, I would be voting ban.
 
Here's my take on this suspect test. Mega medi isn't as broken as Magearna or Celesteela. I talked this over with a few of my competitive friends, and they say if mega medi must go, so should Mage.
Disregarding the questionable notion that either Magearna or Celesteela are "broken", what does one have to do with the other?

Even if they are broken, that doesn't make Mega-Medicham balanced, and isn't an argument against suspect testing Medichamite.

In my opinon, as I seen tho the ladder, mega medi is needed for fighting to even work this gen, because it finally gives a check to mage, and really helps during the disadvantage matchup...Fighting before mega medi had a hard time dealing with toxapex, since it would have to count on brelooms spore in order to kill it while sleeping.
Refer to Acast's post to learn why this argument is flawed.

Also, sorry to break it to you, but Fighting isn't really relevant even with Mega-Medicham.

Medi mega wasn't ban last gen, so why ban it now, what is it doing this gen, that it couldn't last gen? That's the real question. Psychic was a great type last gen, even better that now psychic can run mega bro (just putting it out there), which was ban last gen.
This suspect is taking place because the council feel that Mega-Medicham is unhealthy in the metagame right now. All previous suspects, metagames, attitudes, etc are irrelevant and shouldn't be used as arguments.

Tl; DR
Mega medi shouldn't be ban, cuz it Isnt doing anything this gen it couldn't last gen. Plus there are more broken mons than mega medi that should be ban before him
So to sum up your arguments as to why Mega-Medicham shouldn't be suspected (not banned):
  • There are more broken threats such as Magearna and Celesteela
  • Fighting needs it to be relevant
  • It wasn't banned last gen, so why ban it now?
These are all evasive arguments that don't actually speak to Mega-Medicham's affect on the metagame right now.

If you want to convince people that Mega-Medicham isn't broken, talk about the actual pokemon. Address the arguments made for Mega-Medicham's suspect, articulated in the OP of this thread, and make counterpoints.
 
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Before I make this post, I spent a decent amount of hours making a resource showing tournament w/l stats and number of times certain types were used before and after medicham. I will be using that resource for some of my points and if you want it --> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvtKr7eteF90od-r9GZwtM6ioPZdLQ84pGe3BNX-0KM/edit?usp=drivesdk now onto the actual post.

So medicham is the first mon to be suspected and frankly I don't necessarily agree with this suspect as of yet and in this post I will go through the reasoning medicham is seen as broken and why In my opinion I don't think deserves a ban.

Medicham restricts teambuilding
Now restricting is a buzzword in a lot of suspects but to understand why it isnt medicham we have to look into what this actually means (or at least what my headass thinks it means zzz.) So in my experience, having your teambuilding restricted means that you can't run the best mons for your team overall but instead have to waste mon slots or move slots to counter specific pokemon. To understand why this isnt medicham we gotta look into a hypothetical scenario: what if a mon like skarmory was released in medichams place instead of day 1. Types like fighting would be able to break steel easier and without the need for keldeo, things like dragonite and diggersby arent forced to run fire punch and can instead opt for another coverage move, and things like celesteela cant run the spdef variant and are rather forced to opt for the physical variant to replace skarmory. And then skarmory is finally released. Types like fighting are now forced to carry keldeo or infernape to deal with it, more fire coverage moves like fire punch on dnite and diggers and ran to help break the steel core easier, and instead of the physical variant celesteela can now run a spdef or offensive variant meaning that types like ground now have to deal with a new threat in skarmory and a new threat in offensive/spdef celesteela. People are going to complain and say that skarmory restricts our teambuilding by forcing to prepare for a threat that wasn't previously there and also having to deal with a new threat in offensive or spdef celesteela variants that weren't previously present on steel. There might even have been a skarmory/celesteela suspect. Does that mean skarmory is broken? No, rather it means that the meta is adapting to deal with a new threat. The things that break skarmory were already viable options but weren't used because skarmory wasnt released. And honestly I believe it is the same way with medicham. Obviously some types are still going to struggle with breaking medicham but some types struggle with breaking skarmory. Just like no types 100% lose to slarmory, no types 100% lose to medicham either. Obviously, types that don't have the same tech as other types will need to carry things for specific mons. If you watch a battle between a dragon team and a dark team you can see the magearna counters without magearna even being on the field. But that doesn't make magearna broken by itself.

Psychic is the go-to type in tournament/has very few bad matchups if any
Now this is where im going to be using the "resource" I talked about earlier. Before medicham, there was certain types that got brought much more than other types and certain types got a ridiculous win percentage of over 60% when used in tournament. The most notable of these is steel. Now mind you, this is a game with about 18 usable types. So for types to have a win percentage of above 60% in tournament play is pretty insane. While normal did also go over 60% it had much less games played so that skews the results. Whereas steel has the most games played and STILL managed to get the best win percentage of every type. To further emphasize my point, ill tell you about a ladder experience I had with steel. Now I am a mediocre player, decent at best, and I have no experience with steel. Yet in my first 35 games I went 34-1 and I went to top 5 in ladder in a day. I know ladder isnt a good gauge of skill, but for a mediocre player to pick up a types hes never used and preform that well on ladder doesn't tell you about the player, but rather the type hes using. After medicham certain types are still a bit better and have more success, but now more people are able to use their steel weak types and not have to worry about as much steel spam on the ladder and in tournament, and the statistics back that up. Types like grass, normal, ice, ghost and poison are already looking like they are going to pass the pre medi usage by the ratios. Obviously its a bit early to tell but its also a bit early to say medicham is dominating the tournament scene. Especially when the w/l stats say different.

Medicham is one of the greatest wallbreakers in monotype
This is actually true but your giving him slack for doing his job well. Im sorry for bringing up a different pokemon but lets for example look at celesteela. Celesteela can be a physical setup sweeper, a special setup sweeper, physical defensive leech seed, specially defensive leech seed, assault vest max special attack, assault vest max physical attack, assault vest physically defensive, ive even seen some scarf or specs variants and each of these it pulls of spectacularly. Not to mention the fact that each set has a different list of counters and checks and its almost impossible to tell which set it is from type matchup. Now you look back at medicham. MedichM isnt that. hes the best wallbreaker in the game, but thats all he is, a wallbreaker. (Or maybe a decent late game cleaner if you run bullet punch) and even though hes the best wallbreaker around right now you deal with him the same way you deal with other wallbreakers. Hes not that fast and hes pretty frail. You just need to keep offensive pressure going and keep momentum in your favor and even medicham wont stop you from winning. Its the same for a bunch of wallbreakers. The list of counters to a wallbreaker is meant to be small, thats the point. The way to beat a wallbreaker is through the massive list of checks that they all have, medicham included. So i dont see how a wallbreaker that has a small amout of counters if any, like every other wallbreaker is a reason for banning.

Medichams offensive presence
Lets face it: medicham makes it hard for archetypes like balance to function since it poses a constant threat and it forces you to play smarter and more carefully. But is this really a new concept in monotype? I dont think so. Lets look at a mon like alolan muk. A poison team with muk is able to pressure a psychic team into not clicking psychic moves simply by being on the other persons team list. They dont even have to switch muk in once without the psychic user being too scared of getting trapped with choice mons. So this allows the poison user to make more aggressive plays and in turn swing the game in his favor. All because he had a mon on his team list. There are also examples of this with magnezone vs steel, dugdrio in general, and the one im getting into now: dd landorus. Landorus has the capability of threatening both bulky types and offensive types by being able to choose a speed boost and an attack boost. If you just sent in a choiced mon and kill ANY of my mons with an attack landorus resists, landorus basically gets to set up and for some types, thats the whole game. This relates to medicham because for types like balance to win they are forced to play more carefully than they normally would and not give medicham the opportunities he wants. Obviously, this is a great thing to force on your opponent but my point is medicham isnt the only mon with that skill.

Others
For this one im going to reply to some of the things that I didn't want to put in a huge passage.
Medicham has a ton of help in psychic.
While I don't disagree with this, I believe that its less about the type and more about how much the team composition is made to help that one mon. So unless you are using like ice, you are able to make almost any mon look good by building the team around their weaknesses and strengths.

Medicham psychic is unbeatable
I disagree with this. Psychic still has weaknesses to dd lando, ss water, ghost and dark, bug, well played poison, and powerful wallbreakers like banded kyurem, landorus incarnate, specs hydreigon, and greninja, While they aren't unmanageable, they all give psychic issues.

With mega medi around there is no reason to use mega alakazam.
I also disagree with this. Different archetypes require different mons and i think that mega alakazam is much better suited for the likes of hyper offense psychic than mega medi is. Hes fast, hes strong, and he benefits from the genesis supernova on mew. Everything about his screams hyper offense. Not tobad mention the fact that trace on mega zam prevents ho psychic from losing to weather sweepers as many ho teams are prone to doing.


CONCLUSION
I think that mega medicham isn't warranted a ban, and even if he is, I think that tournament play hasn't progressed enough to give the metagame any chance to adapt to medicham and that is why it is being perceived as broken in my opinion

P.s if you want to use the "resource" I made whether your for or against medicham I encourage you to. I didn't just make it for myself.
 
I personally feel the examples you used to suggest that mega medi doesn't restrict team building isn't the most solid. For one, Diggersby and Dnite run fire punch because it has great coverage alongside EQ which is commonly found in their sets not because of skarm. on top of that celeseteela would necessitate running fire punch for them anyways. Secondly if skarm wasnt around people would still be running keldeo on fighting because it is their best special attacker, its not their simply to make their matchup vs skarm easier as Double Dance Terrakion and (if I'm correct in my interpretation of this scenario) mega medi is also going to be able to take out skarm when its released so keldeo isnt there for that reason.

The way mega medi limits team building is that it forces teams to consciously carry mons that may be less effective in other matchups, for example, steel having to carry doublade. Doublade isn't nessarily bad per se in this meta but it is certainly ineffective against many other matchups but steel teams without it will auto lose to medi generally which comprimises there effectiveness in the meta as a whole. It would also restrict some teams to running particular megas such as Dark teams having to run mega sab over shark so as to have a reliable switch in to medi but those who want to run shark would then be forced to drop a team slot to accomodate regular sab which is not as good of a mon as it was last gen.
 
Medicham restricts teambuilding
Now restricting is a buzzword in a lot of suspects but to understand why it isnt medicham we have to look into what this actually means (or at least what my headass thinks it means zzz.) So in my experience, having your teambuilding restricted means that you can't run the best mons for your team overall but instead have to waste mon slots or move slots to counter specific pokemon. To understand why this isnt medicham we gotta look into a hypothetical scenario: what if a mon like skarmory was released in medichams place instead of day 1. Types like fighting would be able to break steel easier and without the need for keldeo, things like dragonite and diggersby arent forced to run fire punch and can instead opt for another coverage move, and things like celesteela cant run the spdef variant and are rather forced to opt for the physical variant to replace skarmory. And then skarmory is finally released. Types like fighting are now forced to carry keldeo or infernape to deal with it, more fire coverage moves like fire punch on dnite and diggers and ran to help break the steel core easier, and instead of the physical variant celesteela can now run a spdef or offensive variant meaning that types like ground now have to deal with a new threat in skarmory and a new threat in offensive/spdef celesteela. People are going to complain and say that skarmory restricts our teambuilding by forcing to prepare for a threat that wasn't previously there and also having to deal with a new threat in offensive or spdef celesteela variants that weren't previously present on steel. There might even have been a skarmory/celesteela suspect. Does that mean skarmory is broken? No, rather it means that the meta is adapting to deal with a new threat. The things that break skarmory were already viable options but weren't used because skarmory wasnt released. And honestly I believe it is the same way with medicham. Obviously some types are still going to struggle with breaking medicham but some types struggle with breaking skarmory. Just like no types 100% lose to slarmory, no types 100% lose to medicham either. Obviously, types that don't have the same tech as other types will need to carry things for specific mons. If you watch a battle between a dragon team and a dark team you can see the magearna counters without magearna even being on the field. But that doesn't make magearna broken by itself.
I think you structured your arguments well, and I like that you took the time to look at tournament stats, but you are introducing so many hypothetical scenarios which make your argument hard to follow. But if I'm reading this right, your main argument is
"Mega Medicham does not overly constrict teambuilding, the metagame is just adapting to it, which is perfectly healthy."
However, Skarmory is a poor Pokemon to even begin to compare Mega Medicham to. For example, Skarmory is a great physical wall, but it's easy to prepare for; overwhelm it with Swords Dance, most special attackers, random coverage, etc. But how do you prepare your defensive Poison, Water, or Flying core to be able to actually switch into Mega Medicham? You can't. That's why Mega Medicham shifts things away from balance; with quicker, faster Pokemon, Mega Medicham can't exploit the defensive core and basically get a kill every time it switches in on, say, your Zapdos / Toxapex / Swampert.


Psychic is the go-to type in tournament/has very few bad matchups if any
Now this is where im going to be using the "resource" I talked about earlier. Before medicham, there was certain types that got brought much more than other types and certain types got a ridiculous win percentage of over 60% when used in tournament. The most notable of these is steel. Now mind you, this is a game with about 18 usable types. So for types to have a win percentage of above 60% in tournament play is pretty insane. While normal did also go over 60% it had much less games played so that skews the results. Whereas steel has the most games played and STILL managed to get the best win percentage of every type. To further emphasize my point, ill tell you about a ladder experience I had with steel. Now I am a mediocre player, decent at best, and I have no experience with steel. Yet in my first 35 games I went 34-1 and I went to top 5 in ladder in a day. I know ladder isnt a good gauge of skill, but for a mediocre player to pick up a types hes never used and preform that well on ladder doesn't tell you about the player, but rather the type hes using. After medicham certain types are still a bit better and have more success, but now more people are able to use their steel weak types and not have to worry about as much steel spam on the ladder and in tournament, and the statistics back that up. Types like grass, normal, ice, ghost and poison are already looking like they are going to pass the pre medi usage by the ratios. Obviously its a bit early to tell but its also a bit early to say medicham is dominating the tournament scene. Especially when the w/l stats say different.
I just don't agree with the logic behind this. You are relying too much on just pure data, which is not entirely indicative of Mega Medicham's role in the meta. Again, I appreciate the time that you took to get the stats, but there are better ways to get your point across.

Medicham is one of the greatest wallbreakers in monotype
This is actually true but your giving him slack for doing his job well. Im sorry for bringing up a different pokemon but lets for example look at celesteela. Celesteela can be a physical setup sweeper, a special setup sweeper, physical defensive leech seed, specially defensive leech seed, assault vest max special attack, assault vest max physical attack, assault vest physically defensive, ive even seen some scarf or specs variants and each of these it pulls of spectacularly. Not to mention the fact that each set has a different list of counters and checks and its almost impossible to tell which set it is from type matchup. Now you look back at medicham. MedichM isnt that. hes the best wallbreaker in the game, but thats all he is, a wallbreaker. (Or maybe a decent late game cleaner if you run bullet punch) and even though hes the best wallbreaker around right now you deal with him the same way you deal with other wallbreakers. Hes not that fast and hes pretty frail. You just need to keep offensive pressure going and keep momentum in your favor and even medicham wont stop you from winning. Its the same for a bunch of wallbreakers. The list of counters to a wallbreaker is meant to be small, thats the point. The way to beat a wallbreaker is through the massive list of checks that they all have, medicham included. So i dont see how a wallbreaker that has a small amout of counters if any, like every other wallbreaker is a reason for banning.
Mega Medicham sets itself apart from other wallbreakers because its so few checks which are relatively uncommon. Celesteela is much much more easier to check as long as you aren't Rock or Ice obviously. You're correct in saying that Mega Medicham doesn't run that much of a variety of sets, but it can already do whatever it wants to do with the standard sets. Mega Medicham has nearly unparalleled, immediate power among the other wallbreakers. Where is this "massive list of checks" that Mega Medicham has? Other than Landorus-I, I'm sure no other wallbreaker can boast such a small list.

Medichams offensive presence
Lets face it: medicham makes it hard for archetypes like balance to function since it poses a constant threat and it forces you to play smarter and more carefully. But is this really a new concept in monotype? I dont think so. Lets look at a mon like alolan muk. A poison team with muk is able to pressure a psychic team into not clicking psychic moves simply by being on the other persons team list. They dont even have to switch muk in once without the psychic user being too scared of getting trapped with choice mons. So this allows the poison user to make more aggressive plays and in turn swing the game in his favor. All because he had a mon on his team list. There are also examples of this with magnezone vs steel, dugdrio in general, and the one im getting into now: dd landorus. Landorus has the capability of threatening both bulky types and offensive types by being able to choose a speed boost and an attack boost. If you just sent in a choiced mon and kill ANY of my mons with an attack landorus resists, landorus basically gets to set up and for some types, thats the whole game. This relates to medicham because for types like balance to win they are forced to play more carefully than they normally would and not give medicham the opportunities he wants. Obviously, this is a great thing to force on your opponent but my point is medicham isnt the only mon with that skill.
I'd agree that Landorus-I is probably the other most prominent wallbreaker in the meta, but Mega Medicham is arguably much more dangerous, being on Psychic which we all know is the bee's knees and having goodies like HJK + Fake Out. But yeah, we need to focus on Mega Medicham. Wallbreakers tend to make balance teams play more safely, true, but Mega Medicham does so with much more ease and can have that effect across several matchups. I don't think you can say that another single Pokemon does the same thing (other than Lando-I i guess). The thing is that Mega Medicham can swing matchups against balanced archetypes so easily. The argument of "just play smart" is just flawed.

Others
For this one im going to reply to some of the things that I didn't want to put in a huge passage.
Medicham has a ton of help in psychic.
While I don't disagree with this, I believe that its less about the type and more about how much the team composition is made to help that one mon. So unless you are using like ice, you are able to make almost any mon look good by building the team around their weaknesses and strengths.

Medicham psychic is unbeatable
I disagree with this. Psychic still has weaknesses to dd lando, ss water, ghost and dark, bug, well played poison, and powerful wallbreakers like banded kyurem, landorus incarnate, specs hydreigon, and greninja, While they aren't unmanageable, they all give psychic issues.
No one is saying this. There ARE archetypes which do beat Mega Medicham Psychic. However, should everyone just only use those types? What about balanced water? Should it just cease to exist?

With mega medi around there is no reason to use mega alakazam.
I also disagree with this. Different archetypes require different mons and i think that mega alakazam is much better suited for the likes of hyper offense psychic than mega medi is. Hes fast, hes strong, and he benefits from the genesis supernova on mew. Everything about his screams hyper offense. Not tobad mention the fact that trace on mega zam prevents ho psychic from losing to weather sweepers as many ho teams are prone to doing.
I don't think anyone brought this point up either unless I missed it. I don't see how it would be relevant either? But Mega Medicham teams use Focus Sash Alakazam anyway, which is "fast, strong, and benefits from the genesis supernova on Mew", but also has the benefit of being an emergency check to so many offensive mons, like Excadrill, which is hard to fit on Psychic.
 
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I wanted to spend a little more time formulating my thoughts, but I just had to respond to Bluxio's post.

The most obvious mistake is in looking at that data in the first place, which was poorly collected from the start. You only looked at when a type is used and when it wins and then assume there was no outside interference. If you actually watch the MPL games that are being played, you can see just how much Mega Medicham is affecting everyone's teambuilding. I'd bet if you asked teambuilders, most would say they put a lot of weight in having a solid plan to check Mega Medicham. Look at how many games either featured Mega Medicham itself or just as importantly featured a team built to beat Mega Medicham Psychic. This is what you need to be paying attention to, not this arbitrary win rate statistic that doesn't actually show anything about the metagame. Players may not use Psychic every single game because, if you just look at the actual games, a huge proportion of the teams are literally built to beat it.

Looking at how Mega Medicham performs in the metagame, when you say "Well it's a wallbreaker, so of course it beats balance!" that honestly just doesn't make any sense. Can any Pokemon ever be broken if you use that logic? Xerneas is just doing its job as a sweeper! No, that's a terrible argument because it ignores the fundamental definition of broken because the word is comparative. Is Mega Medicham far too powerful relative to the rest of the metagame? All you really need to do is compare Mega Medicham to other wallbreakers to see whether that is the case or not. The question isn't whether a wallbreaker is broken because it beats balance. The question is whether this specific wallbreaker is broken because it's too good when compared to other wallbreakers and the other Pokemon in the metagame.

As a minor side note, comparing Mega Medicham, a Pokemon that literally breaks an entire playstyle that was prevalent in Monotype, to Skarmory, which literally doesn't pressure any types let alone playstyles in the first place, is somewhat ridiculous and really makes the entire paragraph you wrote on that topic unsound because its premise was just false. That's not even addressing the fact that Skarmory is adapted to by changing one coverage move on one Pokemon, while Mega Medicham is "adapted to" by completely changing almost the entire team.
 
Mega-Medicham is not broken on its own. Cham is broken because it has fantastic teammates that allow it to only need to perform its singular function of wallbreaking and destroying certain archetypes. (This is why nobody is talking about Fighting as the issue only Psychic)

Psychic is a type that has probably the most tools to dismantle opposing offensive teams with its own offensive Pokemon. With scarfers like Victini and Jirachi neither fairy nor steel can build offensive momentum vs. Psychic with set up sweepers. Shift Gear Mag cannot beat Victini and Shift Gear Mag has difficulty hitting Jirachi hard enough quickly enough with flinch hax to take it down in time. Koko dies to either after LO or recoil chip combined with hazards from Deoxys-S (more on Deoxys-S in a bit). Agility Mew sets up on and beats offensive Ground and both Defensive and Offensive flying variants with a +2 Genesis Supernova taking down Mantine after SR chip and Mantines univested in Sp. Def just die to a +2 Psychic in Terrain. This MU is especially important because Mew beats an archetype (flying) that used to have a decent MU against Psychic last gen. Sash Counter-Zam is a get out of jail free card vs. any physical sweeper or not particularly specially bulky special sweepers, and does really well against weather teams which means that Psychic doesn't have to run Scarf Gard to have a chance in these MUs anymore. Running Offense vs. Psychic isn't really a good response to Mega-Cham since it has so many partners to help cover for its weakness in that MU. So a player in the meta has to run a team with a designated Mega-Cham counter and even then because Psychic has Deoxys-S to set hazards for it these counters get worn down super quickly since at 2 layers of hazards even things like Doublade can get worn down.

TL;DR Psychic beats opposing offense. Mega Medicham beats most opposing Balance and Stall together they make Psychic a combo of pain that is near impossible to beat unless you run designated Mega-Medi counter on a type that isn't already rolled over by offensive psychic. Ban Mega Medicham (next time give us some advance warning GF)
 

Acast

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Is there any chance that we'll be getting any suspect tours? Just curious because I'd rather do that than go through laddering :[
We're not ruling out the possibility, but don't expect them to happen either. We haven't really discussed it but the council doesn't seem enthusiastic about suspect tours. We'll announce it here if we decide to host any.
 
So in my experience, having your teambuilding restricted means that you can't run the best mons for your team overall but instead have to waste mon slots or move slots to counter specific pokemon. To understand why this (being restrictive to teambuilding) isnt medicham we gotta look into a hypothetical scenario: what if a mon like skarmory was released in medichams place instead of day 1...

...Types like fighting are now forced to carry keldeo or infernape to deal with it, more fire coverage moves like fire punch on dnite and diggers and ran to help break the steel core easier...

...The things that break skarmory were already viable options but weren't used because skarmory wasnt released. And honestly I believe it is the same way with medicham.
First off, literally what?

Second off, do you honestly think Keldeo and Infernape wouldn't have been used on Fighting if not for Skarmory?

Third off, this whole hypothetical is flawed; you're comparing an offensive wallbreaker with a defensive wall as though they produce similar adaptations when they super, super don't.

And fourth off, Mega Medicham doesn't really restrict teambuilding in the way you think. It doesn't force players use niche sets and pokemon to wall it, because there are no niche sets and pokemon that can wall it (cept Doublade). There is nothing most Balanced / Defensive teams can do except go on the offensive, and as a result Mega-Medicham ends up restricting entire team builds.

Medichams offensive presence
Lets face it: medicham makes it hard for archetypes like balance to function since it poses a constant threat and it forces you to play smarter and more carefully.
No, it forces you to play risky.

You have to make double switches and 50/50 plays to keep Mega Cham from coming in against any of the 4/6 members of your team that lose to it 1v1 while the psychic team pivots effortlessly around with Victini and Jirachi for extremely low risk and high reward. Basically it throws all the momentum on Psychic's side.

Medicham is one of the greatest wallbreakers in monotype
...though hes the best wallbreaker around right now you deal with him the same way you deal with other wallbreakers. Hes not that fast and hes pretty frail. You just need to keep offensive pressure going and keep momentum in your favor and even medicham wont stop you from winning.

So i dont see how a wallbreaker that has a small amout of counters if any, like every other wallbreaker is a reason for banning.
How many "other wallbreakers" are able to 2HKO 99% of the defensive (and bulky offensive) metagame with 1 set and literally only 3 hard counters? Then how many of those wallbreakers also have priority, decent speed, and support from one of the best types in the meta?

There are no other Pokemon who exert as much offensive pressure as Mega-Medicham can in literally any matchup, regardless of type or build. And just because you can check a wallbreaker doesn't mean it doesn't won't beat your team: remember Hoopa-U?

Medicham has a ton of help on psychic
...I believe that its less about the type and more about how much the team composition is made to help that one mon.
"Broken-with-support" is still broken.
 
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Wanka

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Chill with the "it's only broken on psychic because of it's support and fighting doesn't even matter." You can still see how fucked it is on fighting as well. You don't necessarily have to be winning and having extensive amounts of success on a type to see the intricasies of a broken pokemon. Regardless of what type it's on it still has no true counters outside of detrimental niche mons. Just because fighting is an average type doesn't mean it's not broken on fighting.

Also, in regards to the comparisons to oras. Medicham was next in line for a suspect don't get it twisted. Not many people knew that so there's a lot of "it's no different from oras." Well, in oras it was on the suspect list and a good reason why we could never get around to it was due to the fact that the community had to try suspect 2 mons twice in a metagame in order to baby the community into making good decisions so just be aware of that before u conjure up some blasphemy about a comparison to oras because it was broken there too. Your welcome.

Vanishes
 
Megacham is spooky but manageable, and with most megachams it's the same setup, I keep seeing hjk, fake out, and some other move to counter another type. You just need a scarfed mon or something to go and outspeed it, as it is relatively frail, and also use protect to counter hjk as it makes it miss. It's not 2 broken, just very very annoying.

Yet I do agree that it does 2HKO or OHKO a huge amount of mons and kills my ferrothorn everytime ;(

(THIS IS AN OPNION)

Also lol this battle (http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/battle-gen7monotype-563335034)
 

Havens

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I personally see Mega-Cham in the meta two different ways.

Positively, MegaCham brings light to Fighting and Psychic, as both types were relatively hard to use at the beginning of Gen 7; Fairy was an incredibly hard MU for Fighting (and still is), Flying/Steel got another bulky wall in Celesteela; while Psychic Monos could relatively get 6-0ed by Dark or Ghost if you didn't bring a Gardevoir to deal with Mega Sableye, and even without it, you'd have to deal with other powerhouses such as Greninja, SpDef Ttar, and other mons of the like. Mega Medicham's presence in the metagame allows both types to be viable now that it can break certain cores and mons that wasn't possible before. It even encourages other monotypes or mons to rise in usage, such as Doublade on Steel or Ghost Mono in general. For this reason, I believe MegaCham is welcomed in the meta.

However, on the negative side, MegaCham's presence alone forces many teams to build around it in order to succeed. With a ridiculous 656 Attack stat at Max Adamant Nature, and an impressive coverage movepool to boot, this mon can reliably 2OHKO almost anything and EVERYTHING the meta has to offer. Granted most would run Jolly because it just hits everything so hard. It also carries two different forms of priority, something that Psychic hasn't reliably had since the beginning of Mega Metagross' ban, yet hasn't necessarily been required of Psy due to it's amazing scarfers in Victini, Jirachi, and even Latios. Just that type coverage alone destroys Bulky cores such as Defensive/Balanced Flying, Balanced Dark, and even Stall teams / Unaware mons Like Clefable suffer from MegaCham's overwhelming power, that these kinds of mons and teams can't reliably handle. For example:

252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 64 Def Clefable: 259-306 (65.7 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 283-334 (71.8 - 84.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Celesteela: 249-294 (62.5 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 201-237 (60.1 - 70.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega Zen Headbutt vs. 248 HP / 192 Def Tapu Fini: 163-193 (47.5 - 56.2%) -- 29.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 36 HP / 220 Def Alomomola: 333-393 (69.3 - 81.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega Thunder Punch vs. 248 HP / 232+ Def Slowbro: 188-222 (47.8 - 56.4%) -- 29.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

These are just a few Calcs from a JOLLY MegaCham. Some of the best walls in the meta get absolutely destroyed by this pokemon. Some of only a few reliable switchins to this monster are Mega Sableye (the best switchin to MegaCham), Tapu Koko (For it's speed speaks for itself), and Doublade, for Doublade can reliably tank it's hits very well, unless for some reason it runs Max attack Adamant Fire Punch, in which case potentially 2OHKOes it. Mega Sableye can reliably burn it and recover the damage, making it the optimal switchin, especially since a TPunch/FPunch doesn't even do half, and the threat of Foul Play would most likely force it out 9/10 times.

If it were up to me, I would keep MegaCham, because I'm tired of an incredibly bulky meta where it's mostly full of walls and defense. But at the end of the day it is way too reliable, has way too many great teammates on both types, and is just way too powerful for the meta to effectively handle right now.
 
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Considering the state of the metagame before its release, Mega Medicham is almost impossible to check for most of the most prominent teams. While the metagame can adapt to defeat Mega Medicham, this adaptation could not be very viably done by the previous teams and would mostly come from teams previously unviable that could not compete with the greater metagame. This results in a metagame that almost completely revolves around Mega Medicham even when it may not be on either team in a battle. Metagame shifts are welcome, but centralization of the metagame around the presence of one Pokemon is definitely cause for concern.

These factors have resulted in very quickly converging the Monotype metagame into three categories that beat one of the other two categories and lose to the second: teams with Mega Medicham, new teams that counter those in the first category, and standard teams.
I would like elaboration here.... . I would like a good number of these prominent/standard teams to be defined. Additionally, there seems to be a implicit suggestion that the teams under attack are "balance" teams, but imho, those were not worthy of of being considered of standard to begin with due to losing matchup ups to several of the truly easy to recognize standard offensive and stall teams.

When I think of "most prominent teams" this includes like, a fairy core , 2-3 steel cores, a poison core , an electric core, and 2-3 psychic cores, 2 normal cores: with flying , bug, and maybe ground trailing behind them at the top of the midtier types. Medicham's effect on these teams does not seem to me as something that can be described in such strong language. I could go in more depth and case by case, but its effect is clearly largest against megavenu/A-muk/toxapex poison, normal, 1 of the steel, and the existing psychic cores. I do not see any of these teams as "no longer ladder/tournament" viable. Some of them practically benefit. Medicham has a larger affect on less represented team archtypes (and types?) such as say, water stall, but I can not think of a truly prominent water team in the meta developed between say, the mega beedrill release and now, and only a few (mid tier) water cores before then.
 
I personally see Mega-Cham in the meta two different ways.

Positively, MegaCham brings light to Fighting and Psychic, as both types were relatively hard to use at the beginning of Gen 7; Fairy was an incredibly hard MU for Fighting (and still is), Flying/Steel got another bulky wall in Celesteela; while Psychic Monos could relatively get 6-0ed by Dark or Ghost if you didn't bring a Gardevoir to deal with Mega Sableye, and even without it, you'd have to deal with other powerhouses such as Greninja, SpDef Ttar, and other mons of the like. Mega Medicham's presence in the metagame allows both types to be viable now that it can break certain cores and mons that wasn't possible before. It even encourages other monotypes or mons to rise in usage, such as Doublade on Steel or Ghost Mono in general. For this reason, I believe MegaCham is welcomed in the meta.

However, on the negative side, MegaCham's presence alone forces many teams to build around it in order to succeed. With a ridiculous 656 Attack stat at Max Adamant Nature, and an impressive coverage movepool to boot, this mon can reliably 2OHKO almost anything and EVERYTHING the meta has to offer. Granted most would run Jolly because it just hits everything so hard. It also carries two different forms of priority, something that Psychic hasn't reliably had since the beginning of Mega Metagross' ban, yet hasn't necessarily been required of Psy due to it's amazing scarfers in Victini, Jirachi, and even Latios. Just that type coverage alone destroys Bulky cores such as Defensive/Balanced Flying, Balanced Dark, and even Stall teams / Unaware mons Like Clefable suffer from MegaCham's overwhelming power, that these kinds of mons and teams can't reliably handle. For example:

252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 64 Def Clefable: 259-306 (65.7 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 283-334 (71.8 - 84.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Celesteela: 249-294 (62.5 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 201-237 (60.1 - 70.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega Zen Headbutt vs. 248 HP / 192 Def Tapu Fini: 163-193 (47.5 - 56.2%) -- 29.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 36 HP / 220 Def Alomomola: 333-393 (69.3 - 81.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega Thunder Punch vs. 248 HP / 232+ Def Slowbro: 188-222 (47.8 - 56.4%) -- 29.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

These are just a few Calcs from a JOLLY MegaCham. Some of the best walls in the meta get absolutely destroyed by this pokemon. The only reliable switchins to this monster are Mega Sableye (the best switchin to MegaCham), Tapu Koko (For it's speed speaks for itself), and Doublade, for Doublade can reliably tank it's hits very well, unless for some reason it runs Max attack Adamant Fire Punch, in which case potentially 2OHKOes it. Mega Sableye can reliably burn it and recover the damage, making it the optimal switchin, especially since a TPunch/FPunch doesn't even do half, and the threat of Foul Play would most likely force it out 9/10 times.

If it were up to me, I would keep MegaCham, because I'm tired of an incredibly bulky meta where it's mostly full of walls and defense. But at the end of the day it is way too reliable, has way too many great teammates on both types, and is just way too powerful for the meta to effectively handle right now.
To even add onto your comments onto the negative side is that some of these mons can still be a threat to Mega-Medicham. Celesteel and alomomola can protect when Megacham HJKs and finish it off the next turn or so. Not to mention Quagsire, Amolmolm, and Slowbro have scald as their most common moves. Which puts Mega-medicham at a even bigger risk. The Support Clefable and Fini get from Klefki makes your calcs a bit unreliable. I Although Victini handles Klefki quite well Klefki still has access to Thunderwave which cripples Megacham. I played Fighting in ORAS and I can admit, Medicham is a very reliable pokemon when it comes to breaking walls, but Even if a mega-Medicham is put in front of a Wall, they still have ways of dealing with Medicham.
0 SpA Slowbro Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Medicham-Mega: 99-117 (37.7 - 44.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO --->with the 16% rocky helmet damage w/ 30% chance to burn.
0 SpA Alomomola Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Medicham-Mega: 49-58 (18.7 - 22.1%) -- possible 5HKO --->with the 16% rocky helmet damage w/ 30% chance to burn.
0 SpA Tapu Fini Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Medicham-Mega: 224-266 (85.4 - 101.5%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Skarmory Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 4 Def Medicham-Mega: 246-290 (93.8 - 110.6%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Celesteela Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 4 HP / 4 Def Medicham-Mega: 148-175 (56.4 - 66.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ---> Chance that Celesteela gets the HJK prediction right and makes Megacham deal 50% to itself
0 SpA Quagsire Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Medicham-Mega: 70-84 (26.7 - 32%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
 
I'm still trying to gather my thoughts here because I don't usually post my opinions about anything that's being suspected and take them somewhere else. It wasn't until I was testing Mega Medicham with Waszap going some rounds with him before it was released on PS! that this thing is still a huge annoyance and threat to get around. I feel like I'll just be repeating everything that's been said here (well actually I am). Mega Medicham is part of the list of what is supposed to be suspected last generation and Scpinion (if he was still around the metagame) can also confirm it since I asked him about it in PMs but wasn't able to get to it because of two of the same suspects from both Mega Sableye and Hoopa-U taking a big chunk of the council's time (should have saved it).

I'll just jump to the qualities it has:
  • Mega Medicham's base 100 Attack stat coupled with the ability Pure Power to bolster its already impressive Attack, makes it one of the best wallbreakers in the metagame right now, which means, it's going to be dishing out heavy damage and overwhelm balanced and defensive teams.
  • Not only does Mega Medicham have access to two great STAB options such as High Jump Kick and Zen Headbutt (or Psycho Cut for things such as Baneful Bunker Toxapex), but it does have access to great coverage moves like Thunder Punch, Ice Punch, and the more less alternative, Bullet Punch (Fairy) and Fire Punch (mainly for Doublade but nothing else reliable to hit).
  • Let's not forget about the amazing Fake Out to deal chip damage every time it switches in: break Focus Sashes, Sturdy, get off damage to offensive threats, get others down to KO range for Mega Medicham or its teammates to KO easier, etc.
  • It's not really that good of a quality in my eyes but base 100 Speed stat is decent enough to Speed tie with other base 100s but Fake Out can sort of patch it up.
  • This just goes without saying that Mega Medicham does not have many counters as depicted in the posts above as only three (such as Mega Sableye, Doublade, and Mega Slowbro) are the only three that can definitely stand a chance against it. What does that mean exactly? That means Mega Medicham has mostly checks that can't really switch into it.
  • Let's also add another quality that Mega Medicham has, from what I mentioned above, this puts Psychic teams at a better advantage because with the help of its wallbreaking capabilities, this gives teammates such as Mew (for example) to sweep teams afterwards. I'll also add that Mega Medicham's teammates are able to handle these threats that Mega Medicham cannot (Gardevoir and Victini taking on Mega Sableye, Victini and Meloetta for Doublade, Meloetta and Celebi for Mega Slowbro).

Mega Medicham has a bunch of support from Psychic teams and the less usable Fighting <-- (this I don't care much for) teams.

Psychic:
- Ability to utilize entry hazard support to shorten the longevity of the opposing team capitalize on Mega Medicham's offensive potential and as said above, makes it easier for Mega Medicham to KO once they're in range.
- Pivots of U-turn from the likes of Victini and Jirachi to bring in Mega Medicham against threats that it's able to wallbreak.
- Victini and Latios as another reliable wallbreaker and cleaner.
- Knock Off from the likes of Mew and Deoxys-S to remove items, especially from Scarf users. Jirachi and Slowbro providing Thunder Wave support for Mega Medicham to gain speed control.
- Mew being an even more dangerous sweeper once Mega Medicham has gotten rid of its checks / counters or weakened them.
- Mega Medicham has Healing Wish support from Gardevoir and Jirachi to be kept healthy and to get another chance of breaking down threats or clean.
- Trappers such as Gothitelle


Of course, Normal has always had a problem with Mega Medicham. High Jump Kick OHKOes Chansey and Meloetta, 87.5% chance to OHKO Porygon2, Porygon-Z would need to find opportunities to set up Z-Conversion, Mega Pidgeot has to come in on a free switch otherwise it's KOed by any of its attacks, the now less usable Choice Scarf Diggersby has to rely on a roll from Return to KO it.
Poison: Mega Medicham pulverizes a bunch of them as well (except Toxapex when fully defensive). Main checks to Mega Medicham are Shadow Ball Gengar, Brave Bird Crobat, and Adamant Protect Life Orb Scolipede with Megahorn.
Steel: I shouldn't need to resort to Doublade to checking this thing but doing a test run against Mega Medicham, it's still insane from the fact that Skarmory gets 2HKOed by High Jump Kick, it can't really switch into that. People keep talking about Protect and everything when Mega Medicham is able to reliably hit Celesteela with Thunder Punch if choosing not to use High Jump Kick. Also, I shouldn't have to rely on mindgames with Protect for Mega Medicham to lose 50% of its health and that's rather unhealthy so please don't use that as an excuse to check / counter Mega Medicham. Doublade wow, where do I even begin with this guy? Fire Punch hits it, not much of a complete wall to Mega Medicham is it? It's just hard to fit on Steel teams when you have better options to use.
Ice: Don't need to discuss that, your only checks to it are Alolan Ninetales Moonblast given it's not running Bullet Punch and Choice Scarf Kyurem-B Outrage.
Rock: Not getting into this easier.
Dark: Mandibuzz can't switch into a High Jump Kick since it gets 2HKOed, Mega Sableye is your main counter to Mega Medicham. Alternative check would be Mega Sharpedo to KO with Crunch.
Flying: Mega Medicham can destroy the Skarmdos core. Ice Punch is still able to take out Gliscor, have a chance to OHKO Dragonite, OHKO Landorus-T even at -1. Scarf Landorus-T can OHKO with Earthquake but has a very low chance to. If running Thunder Punch, Mega Medicham can take out Mantine and Gyarados. Mega Charizard Y has to rely on speed tie to KO Mega Medicham or it dies from Thunder Punch.
Water: Relying on Scald burn hax to check Mega Medicham is also unhealthy. What if you don't get the burn then what happens next? Mega Medicham is able to break down Water Stall just enough for its teammates to finish off later. Many of them are 2HKOed. Gyarados would need to rely on mindgames for getting a Dragon Dance up and Mega Evolving. Mega Slowbro is a good stop to Mega Medicham as it take continuous hits from Thunder Punch.
Grass: Relatively on the same boat. Choice Scarf Tapu Bulu is your most reliable check to it. I guess risking to sack Whimsicott with Stun Spore.

I don't need to do a comment on the other few This is good enough.


Don't want to run calcs.
Short Summary:
Mega Medicham is an amazing wallbreaker that was supposed to be suspected last Generation ORAS. With its debut in the metagame for Gen 7, it's still a huge threat as it always been and hardly anything has changed. It's ability Pure Power, priority in Fake Out to rack up chip damage, and access to two great STAB moves and coverage grants it the ability to wallbreak several teams as well as dismantling balanced and stall teams, forcing some to shift into a more offensive style to check Mega Medicham and we shouldn't need to do that. You need to preserve your faster checks / counters to it as well as Choice Scarf users as much as possible to get rid of Mega Medicham. The amount of support Mega Medicham has on Psychic is also insane as it always been.​



We've been through this long enough from the past suspects with Mega Sableye and Hoopa-U (Aegislash to a similar extent when the tiering philosophy banned it). Please shift away from "it'll make this type much worse" type of mentality and focus on the metagame as a whole and how this affects other types in the process. Also, please shift away from "Why isn't this one or that one suspected?" This should be strictly on the topic of Mega Medicham, not others that you think should deserve to be suspected. I've actually endured Mega Medicham's presence long enough and certainly, I don't need to continue doing so. I'd rather see it gone and continue making the metagame healthy.


I'm tired and need more rest...going back to sleep thank you terrors for proofreading this before I send it (I'm not a big fan posting these types of long comments since I feel I would be disorganized but I appreciate it)!
 
  • This just goes without saying that Mega Medicham does not have many counters as depicted in the posts above as only three (such as Mega Sableye, Doublade, and Mega Slowbro) are the only three that can definitely stand a chance against it. What does that mean exactly? That means Mega Medicham has mostly checks that can't really switch into it.
I know you didn't want to use calcs, but there are indeed a few more defensive checks against a mega-cham with only SR support . Additonally, Medicham will always give up something- Hi-jumpkick/ fake out/zen headbut / ice punch and Hi-jumpkick/fake out /ice punch/ thunderpunch are the most common, and some people even cripple it's coverage further by running bullet punch... It is nonsensical to assume that medicham always goes for full wall breaking potential with 0 priority moves (ala the OU adamant set). The monotype usage stats do not reflect this, and of course, many other pokemon would be godlike if they always ran the right moves out of their potential options. While it's not particularly safe to scout it's moves- a set missing even one of psychic stab/ice punch/thunder punch has quite a few more checks, especially for posion/water/flying. Very conveniently, because of a psychic team's composition, it is not absurdly demanding to expend a walling attempt with with megavenu/normal slowbro/ defensive lando-t, because psychic team's dont run other physical attackers other than victini- which poison/water should have multiple checks for tini without preparing for specifically, and getting something in will force them to sac a partner which had much more relative importance to their team than yours had.[/quote]
Of course, Normal has always had a problem with Mega Medicham. High Jump Kick OHKOes Chansey and Meloetta, 87.5% chance to OHKO Porygon2, Porygon-Z would need to find opportunities to set up Z-Conversion, Mega Pidgeot has to come in on a free switch otherwise it's KOed by any of its attacks, the now less usable Choice Scarf Diggersby has to rely on a roll from Return to KO it.
Poison: Mega Medicham pulverizes a bunch of them as well (except Toxapex when fully defensive). Main checks to Mega Medicham are Shadow Ball Gengar, Brave Bird Crobat, and Adamant Protect Life Orb Scolipede with Megahorn.
Steel: I shouldn't need to resort to Doublade to checking this thing but doing a test run against Mega Medicham, it's still insane from the fact that Skarmory gets 2HKOed by High Jump Kick, it can't really switch into that. People keep talking about Protect and everything when Mega Medicham is able to reliably hit Celesteela with Thunder Punch if choosing not to use High Jump Kick. Also, I shouldn't have to rely on mindgames with Protect for Mega Medicham to lose 50% of its health and that's rather unhealthy so please don't use that as an excuse to check / counter Mega Medicham. Doublade wow, where do I even begin with this guy? Fire Punch hits it, not much of a complete wall to Mega Medicham is it? It's just hard to fit on Steel teams when you have better options to use.
Ice: Don't need to discuss that, your only checks to it are Alolan Ninetales Moonblast given it's not running Bullet Punch and Choice Scarf Kyurem-B Outrage.
Rock: Not getting into this easier.
Dark: Mandibuzz can't switch into a High Jump Kick since it gets 2HKOed, Mega Sableye is your main counter to Mega Medicham. Alternative check would be Mega Sharpedo to KO with Crunch.
Flying: Mega Medicham can destroy the Skarmdos core. Ice Punch is still able to take out Gliscor, have a chance to OHKO Dragonite, OHKO Landorus-T even at -1. Scarf Landorus-T can OHKO with Earthquake but has a very low chance to. If running Thunder Punch, Mega Medicham can take out Mantine and Gyarados. Mega Charizard Y has to rely on speed tie to KO Mega Medicham or it dies from Thunder Punch.
Water: Relying on Scald burn hax to check Mega Medicham is also unhealthy. What if you don't get the burn then what happens next? Mega Medicham is able to break down Water Stall just enough for its teammates to finish off later. Many of them are 2HKOed. Gyarados would need to rely on mindgames for getting a Dragon Dance up and Mega Evolving. Mega Slowbro is a good stop to Mega Medicham as it take continuous hits from Thunder Punch.
Grass: Relatively on the same boat. Choice Scarf Tapu Bulu is your most reliable check to it. I guess risking to sack Whimsicott with Stun Spore.

I don't need to do a comment on the other few This is good enough.
I'm glad to see this kind of argument, but I feel something inconsistent with how you weight defensive checks>offensive checks so heavily, with the exception being the section on poison. I feel like singling out flying/water/dark's specific balance cores is not something specific to mega medicham- all three have weaknesses to common sets on wallbreakers like z-move tapu bulu, kyurem-b, char-y, and others. Additonally water/flying may even opt for offensive cores, and having greninja or knock-off tornadus come in after a KO is something that HO psychic will at best have jirachi or meloetta for.

Indeed, most teams have some kind of speed control that they slap on to cover their type weakness, and as a result, many succesful teams of the last month, especially the offensive ones, often already include an "unplanned" medicham check. A team breaking this convention would open itself up to abuse at the hands of things ranging from volcarona to garchomp to latios to bulu, and medicham is not forcing a new teambuilding impetus than them.

I'm not sure what ice/rock/grass are here for since none of them really like facing HO psychic team even without medicham (goth trapping avalugg to gurantee rocks up permenently, goth trapping shuckle to stop the webs offense for NP mew's aurasphere, goth trapping venusaur to open up victini , etc) Fire punch medicham should not have even been mentioned. I do not believe that steel cores (except for hard defensive/semi stall) is forced to run it to beat the current standard psychic HO with medicham to begin with (they are at a disadvantage, but not that much of a disadvantage).
S
We've been through this long enough from the past suspects with Mega Sableye and Hoopa-U (Aegislash to a similar extent when the tiering philosophy banned it). Please shift away from "it'll make this type much worse" type of mentality and focus on the metagame as a whole and how this affects other types in the process. Also, please shift away from "Why isn't this one or that one suspected?" This should be strictly on the topic of Mega Medicham, not others that you think should deserve to be suspected. I've actually endured Mega Medicham's presence long enough and certainly, I don't need to continue doing so. I'd rather see it gone and continue making the metagame healthy.
This part I agree with. However, unlike those other mons, it is medicham's performance on its "good" type and not its "crutch" type that I feel is a sustainable addition to the metagame. I don't think medicham is overcentralizing on Psychic , and I am unconcerned with fighting being weakened as I still consider it's place in the meta to be awkward with medicham (mostly due to leaving posion/electric/fairy matcups relatively unchanged). Only medicham psychic is worth basing tiering decisions on.[/quote]
 
I didn't want to post again until I've at least laddered a bit on the suspect ladder, but n64lord, most of what you've said so far has just been worryingly false. I'm not a fan of picking at every paragraph one by one because that's really not a very readable format, but there are a lot of points for me to go over.
I would like elaboration here.... . I would like a good number of these prominent/standard teams to be defined. Additionally, there seems to be a implicit suggestion that the teams under attack are "balance" teams, but imho, those were not worthy of of being considered of standard to begin with due to losing matchup ups to several of the truly easy to recognize standard offensive and stall teams. When I think of "most prominent teams" this includes like, a fairy core , 2-3 steel cores, a poison core , an electric core, and 2-3 psychic cores, 2 normal cores: with flying , bug, and maybe ground trailing behind them at the top of the midtier types.
First, the stall archetype is not standard and is actually limited to only one type in Water, which is unreliable this generation and is definitely not common at all in the metagame. Second, balance teams are absolutely standard and many of the top types before the Mega Medicham drop were balance: some Fairy teams, Steel, some Psychic teams, Flying, Normal, and Poison. So saying that balance teams "were not worthy of being considered of standard" is simply ignorant of the metagame state. Also, some of these balance teams actually had great matchups against offense, so I'm not sure why you think they lost to offense. Third, Electric is far from the top, there's only one Steel core, and Flying and Ground are hardly "midtier types". So what you think of as "most prominent teams" isn't actually grounded in the metagame itself.

If you still want a list of the previous "prominent/standard teams": Fairy, Steel, Psychic, Flying, Poison, Ground, and Normal were pretty easily the top 7 with a fairly accurate ordering from most powerful to least.
Medicham's effect on these teams does not seem to me as something that can be described in such strong language. I could go in more depth and case by case, but its effect is clearly largest against megavenu/A-muk/toxapex poison, normal, 1 of the steel, and the existing psychic cores.
Fairy is hugely pressured by Mega Medicham, as it often only runs one revenge killer in the form of Tapu Koko, which can't keep up in a kill trade if it comes to that. Steel is so obviously affected by Mega Medicham; you just need to look at the difference between old Steel teams and new Steel teams. The influx of teams that use both Bisharp and Doublade completely changes the playstyle away from the previously very slow and bulky balance Steel. It's almost impossible to balance reliably beating Mega Medicham and not inviting an automatic loss to something like Alolan Raichu. This might work in tours where you're preparing over an entire week to beat someone, but if you're playing on the ladder, you're going to struggle seriously with consistency. About the specific types, Flying can't even handle Mega Medicham in the first place, since it has literally no reliable switch-ins for any viable sets. Psychic also lacks reliable switch-ins pre-scouting for the most part and, even when it does have switch-ins, they are often very easily removed by Gothitelle anyway. Seeing as Psychic literally resists both of Mega Medicham's STABs, that's pretty ridiculous. Of course, Normal and Poison can't reliably beat Mega Medicham without some insane luck or ridiculous number of 50/50s that they need to win consecutively either. Even if we, for some reason, consider Electric to be a top type, it also struggles with Mega Medicham because Fake Out pressures the offensive Pokemon while High Jump Kick just breaks the defensive core.
I do not see any of these teams as "no longer ladder/tournament" viable. Some of them practically benefit. Medicham has a larger affect on less represented team archtypes (and types?) such as say, water stall, but I can not think of a truly prominent water team in the meta developed between say, the mega beedrill release and now, and only a few (mid tier) water cores before then.
None of these types are tournament unviable, but many of them need to almost completely revamp their strategies or be used with extreme care to avoid just losing to Mega Medicham. That's the influence we're referring to. The reason you can use them in tournaments is because you're preparing. However, as I said before, on the ladder, this is completely different. You're going to struggle so much with consistency if you use types that either need to cteam Mega Medicham or cannot beat it in the first place.
I know you didn't want to use calcs, but there are indeed a few more defensive checks against a mega-cham with only SR support . Additonally, Medicham will always give up something- Hi-jumpkick/ fake out/zen headbut / ice punch and Hi-jumpkick/fake out /ice punch/ thunderpunch are the most common, and some people even cripple it's coverage further by running bullet punch... It is nonsensical to assume that medicham always goes for full wall breaking potential with 0 priority moves (ala the OU adamant set). The monotype usage stats do not reflect this, and of course, many other pokemon would be godlike if they always ran the right moves out of their potential options.
None of your proposed movesets for Mega Medicham are used in Monotype. The two main sets are either STAB attacks + Thunder Punch or High Jump Kick + Ice Punch + Bullet Punch. Fake Out is mandatory. The reason your sets aren't good is because Ice Punch's coverage overlaps with Zen Headbutt almost completely. Psychic-type STAB coverage pairs very nicely with Thunder Punch; you don't need BoltBeam coverage because it doesn't cover anything that Mega Medicham needs that Zen Headbutt couldn't. If you choose to use Ice Punch, then because it overlaps with Zen Headbutt and BoltBeam is pretty unnecessary, you would use Bullet Punch to help the offense matchup. The point is that Mega Medicham is so strong it doesn't need a lot of coverage when its STAB attacks solve the issue most of the time. About "a few more defensive checks", what does this have to do with Misaka's statement that you're quoting? She said herself that there are defensive checks that cannot switch in and that's the heart of the matter. If you're running defensive checks and not counters to Mega Medicham, you are almost certainly at least a balance team, which means you cannot afford to arbitrarily lose Pokemon to get a free switch into them.

Also as a side note, where did you get "monotype usage stats" for Mega Medicham? Nobody has usage stats for Mega Medicham right now because Mega Medicham was released at the beginning of April. There's no way you could have any usage stats whatsoever as far as I know.
While it's not particularly safe to scout it's moves- a set missing even one of psychic stab/ice punch/thunder punch has quite a few more checks, especially for posion/water/flying. Very conveniently, because of a psychic team's composition, it is not absurdly demanding to expend a walling attempt with with megavenu/normal slowbro/ defensive lando-t, because psychic team's dont run other physical attackers other than victini- which poison/water should have multiple checks for tini without preparing for specifically, and getting something in will force them to sac a partner which had much more relative importance to their team than yours had.
Again, no one's arguing Mega Medicham has few or no defensive checks. The point is it has almost no counters. Obviously it has checks; even Hoopa-U had defensive checks. The issue is that it cannot be switched into by almost any team. By the way, STAB attacks + Thunder Punch set beats all of your examples barring defensive Landorus-T, which isn't that common right now and would lose to the High Jump Kick + Ice Punch + Bullet Punch set, so it's not a switch-in prior to scouting. And even if Mega Medicham lacks Ice Punch, Landorus-T can't switch in more than once.

I'm glad to see this kind of argument, but I feel something inconsistent with how you weight defensive checks>offensive checks so heavily, with the exception being the section on poison. I feel like singling out flying/water/dark's specific balance cores is not something specific to mega medicham- all three have weaknesses to common sets on wallbreakers like z-move tapu bulu, kyurem-b, char-y, and others. Additonally water/flying may even opt for offensive cores, and having greninja or knock-off tornadus come in after a KO is something that HO psychic will at best have jirachi or meloetta for.
I'm a bit confused here. Z-Move Tapu Bulu is not a common set whatsoever, and Mega Charizard Y is literally countered (not just defensively checked) by Mantine and Toxapex. Greninja almost never OHKOes Mega Medicham, and Tornadus-T is not common at all in Monotype right now. A 10% Mega Medicham is often just as threatening as a 100% Mega Medicham. Also, what's wrong with putting emphasis on defensive checks?

Indeed, most teams have some kind of speed control that they slap on to cover their type weakness, and as a result, many succesful teams of the last month, especially the offensive ones, often already include an "unplanned" medicham check. A team breaking this convention would open itself up to abuse at the hands of things ranging from volcarona to garchomp to latios to bulu, and medicham is not forcing a new teambuilding impetus than them.
Again, I'm pretty confused. First, Volcarona can't OHKO without Inferno Overdrive, Garchomp must use Outrage to KO Mega Medicham with the help of Rough Skin, and Tapu Bulu is outsped unless it's exactly Choice Scarf, which is less common than Choice Band on Fairy. Anyway, ignoring the unreliable examples you gave, sure, offensive checks work to beat Mega Medicham. How do you plan on getting these offensive checks when none of them can switch in to Mega Medicham. Is the plan to sack Pokemon to Mega Medicham to get an unreliable chance to check a Pokemon that can literally just switch out if threatened? You can't even trap it with Dugtrio without prior chip or Pursuit trap it effectively.

I'm not sure what ice/rock/grass are here for since none of them really like facing HO psychic team even without medicham (goth trapping avalugg to gurantee rocks up permenently, goth trapping shuckle to stop the webs offense for NP mew's aurasphere, goth trapping venusaur to open up victini , etc) Fire punch medicham should not have even been mentioned. I do not believe that steel cores (except for hard defensive/semi stall) is forced to run it to beat the current standard psychic HO with medicham to begin with (they are at a disadvantage, but not that much of a disadvantage).
If you're going to bring up Gothitelle, Mega Medicham + Gothitelle almost completely breaks the metagame right. Gothitelle beats all of Mega Medicham set's counters other than Mega Sableye and Doublade. If you bring up Gothitelle, Mega Medicham is difficult to check, let alone counter, for almost every type other than literally Ghost and Dark.
I hope this helps to clarify some of your misconceptions and answer some of the questions you had. I'd be happy to help you further if you want to message me on Showdown or Discord.
 
I sincerely don't see the point in banning Mega Medicham this early. Yes it is shaking the metagame, but we also need to account for the fact that it was and is legal in ORAS monotype and used the same moveset then that it does now. Nothing about it has changed. In addition, SM gave every type new pokemon and unique buffs in capabilities (new moves or base stats), Z crystals, and or terrains to point out the big ones.
Another extremely important thing to consider is the fact that we still don't have all the mega stones just yet. What's going to happen when we get Mega Gallade, Mega Diancie, Mega Swampert, Mega Gardevoir, Mega Altaria, and so on? I'm very confident to say that once we have more of the mega stones released, it will have a large impact on Mega Medicham. It will have a large impact on how the whole tier functions. We need to wait before anything else. I don't want to see another similar Hoopa-Unbound argument where there are just no counters and it should be banned solely for that fact. That's just not a good enough reason when there are loads of great checks on every monotype. I do not believe that psychic is any different now than it was in ORAS at this point. If anything it's less diverse because it doesn't have Mega Gardevoir as an option atm. I believe that we need to wait on more mega stones to be released and for the meta to slow down and adapt to mega medicham because as far as I see it, Mega Medicham does literally the EXACT SAME THINGS IT DID IN ORAS. Nothing about that has changed. You can say that it can forgo fake out now as opposed to ORAS but in all honesty that just makes it easier to check because it loses the priority+flinch damage.
I am opposed to banning Medichamite because we are still missing plenty of mega stones and mega medicham has not been here for more than 2 weeks. We need to wait before we make such a hasty decision to ban this mon. Yes it is strong. No it is not unstoppable. It's basically the exact same Mega Medicham that existed in ORAS. It can be dealt with now just like it could be dealt with then. DO NOT BAN.
 
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