np: Doubles OU Stage 3 - Hate to Love You - SKYMIN HAS BEEN BANNED

[Checkmater]

Once you go Raichu you can't go back

This thing is so good it's so hard to make teams without it now because its ability to just look at Thundurus and say hi you're not going to exist this game while providing great utility and spreading aids everywhere is really good.


On another note skymin resuspect when?

It seems to me that Diancie has become extremely good in a meta without skymin, same with dragons and talonflame, because skymin was the only grass with a good/decent matchup vs dragons/fires. Maybe grasses are fated to be bad because grass typing-->free goggles is really nice but as it stands there really aren't any offensive grasses worth mentioning besides Venusaur

 

[Paraplegic]

Something I've been toying around with a lot lately is regular abomasnow. I know it doesn't sound very good, and admittedly it isn't the best. But I've really been liking it in the current meta, due to what seems to be a resurgence in rain lately. Its ability to get rid of the rain is great to disrupt opposing swift swimmers, and with its typing, it can beat most of them too so its not like its just dead weight and doesn't do anything after setting up hail. Its also a great response to landot, which is always good! But like I said, its not the greatest mon out there, considering it does require considerable amounts of support to be effective. Speed control is 100% necessary for it to be effective, whether it be tailwind or TR. It also requires something to beat sun, as while it can disrupt the opposing weather, it can't exactly switch into zard. Sorry for the complete synopsis guys, just wanted to share something I've been enjoying using recently!(also like I said at the beginning, I know its not the best, so don't crucify me pls)

 

[deoxys speed]

On another note skymin resuspect when?

It seems to me that Diancie has become extremely good in a meta without skymin, same with dragons and talonflame, because skymin was the only grass with a good/decent matchup vs dragons/fires. Maybe grasses are fated to be bad because grass typing-->free goggles is really nice but as it stands there really aren't any offensive grasses worth mentioning besides Venusaur

Diancie, dragons, and talon are all really good rn so u want skymin back in the meta to discourage the use of diancie? Do u realize that just makes dragons and talon that much better lol. Also the only fire/dragon type skymin had a good matchup against(barring flinches) was Heatran. Please don't get people on a "lets retest skymin" bandwagon because no reasonable human being wants to see that shit.

 

[Checkmater]

Diancie, dragons, and talon are all really good rn so u want skymin back in the meta to discourage the use of diancie? Do u realize that just makes dragons and talon that much better lol. Also the only fire/dragon type skymin had a good matchup against(barring flinches) was Heatran. Please don't get people on a "lets retest skymin" bandwagon because no reasonable human being wants to see that shit.

read:

skymin was the only grass with a good/decent matchup vs dragons/fires

barring ferro vs latios this is true. None of the grasses (virizion/whimsi/serp/whatever other skymin replacement doesn't count) have any way of beating/combatting heatran, talon, latios, hydreigon or (pulls up list of all the fire types in the meta) volcarona, blaziken, infernape, Char Y, etc.

If you're talking about Skymin bringing down Diancie-->Fires/Dragons become good that's not really the case because it would bring all 3 groups down from prominence. Skymin existing wouldn't make Diancie bad. It would just be an extremely good (and possibly the only?) Diancie+Fire check.

as for

Please don't get people on a "lets retest skymin" bandwagon because no reasonable human being wants to see that shit.

iirc the vote was 3 votes off so ???
with lots of the people who visit just for suspects voting ban too
that sounds close enough for a re-suspect unless there's some strong af reason not to re-suspect it.

 

[KyleCole]

read:
If you're talking about Skymin bringing down Diancie-->Fires/Dragons become good that's not really the case because it would bring all 3 groups down from prominence. Skymin existing wouldn't make Diancie bad. It would just be an extremely good (and possibly the only?) Diancie+Fire check.

Yeah its kind of a shame that the only ways to outspeed and KO diancie are random steel coverage, greninja, serperior, venu/ludi in weather, or Choice Scarf mons. Shaymin Sky would definitely fix this but I think leaving things the way they are is a better route than freeing Shaymin Sky, maybe if Diancie becomes a super problem somehow you could argue that we need a retest but I just don't see the need.

 

[Derivatives]

I'd like to take this opportunity (despite the dumb shit i posted itt earlier this year) to point out that bunnies and Mega Diancie aren't busted or anything like people thought would happen after the skymin ban js..........

Anyway since we're talking about meta stuff I have found that since the widespread decline in the usage of Cresselia and the noticeable decline in the usage of Aegislash, it somehow seems as if teams have started to get bulkier. I believe it's because of people trying to make their teams with Aegislash or Cresselia+5 offensive mons in the past, but since there are some people who build their teams with the thought of "I can't use these in my teams", they try to make up for the lack of bulk by spreading it out among all of their Pokemon, which then makes their teams capable of taking on HO very easily. It also meant that, since their Pokemon were bulkier, they could fit more utility stuff on a single Pokemon. This also explains the rise in THALK's success, as each Pokemon has great defensive stats paired great defensive synergy with their teammates, while also having its utility spread out among more Pokemon.

• Mega Kangaskhan's 105/100/100 defenses can switch in to quite a bit, and it brings Fake Out support/priority to the table.
• Landorus-T brings Intimidate to the team as well as a cool Fighting resist (while Fighting isn't a big offensive typing, it discourages it from being used often).
• Amoonguss has Rage Powder and Spore, which can create lots of free turns for any member of the team, right next to a Rain resist.
• Heatran has Sub+Lefties to preserve it for an incredibly long time, and very good resistances that are key to the team's success.
• Thundurus provides Taunt and Thunder Wave as well as a Ground immunity.
• The filler is usually something like a Dragon, as they have lots of resistances that haven't already been added to the team, or possibly something like Sylveon with a monstrously high Special Defense stat.

and ofc there's the fact that every mon can do this while being pretty powerful

Now this post isn't just a big thing trying to discourage people from using Aegislash and Cresselia; they are still pretty good. However, stop cramming all of the bulk and utility that you need in a single Pokemon, as that simply will not be as spreading it out.

Also if this seems to be a retarded post that looks like I'm just realizing THALK's power I'm just highlighting bulky teams and how they have been doing so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Stratos]

Once you go Raichu you can't go back

This thing is so good it's so hard to make teams without it now because its ability to just look at Thundurus and say hi you're not going to exist this game while providing great utility and spreading aids everywhere is really good.

aw jeez this is one of those checkmater posts that you read and just have to desperately hope nobody takes seriously.

Sure raichu is ok but you're dedicating an entire slot of your team to being nothing but a thundurus counter. When thundurus isn't on the opposing team Raichu is pretty bad because it hemorrhages momentum like hitmontop and even when it is, as long as thundurus isnt the mon they were relying on to stop the rest of your team then it's not that good. Basically it's what I said already: using raichu is like saying you've got a five mon team that can beat anything but thundurus. it works occasionally, but far from always.

Diancie, dragons, and talon are all really good rn so u want skymin back in the meta to discourage the use of diancie? Do u realize that just makes dragons and talon that much better lol. Also the only fire/dragon type skymin had a good matchup against(barring flinches) was Heatran. Please don't get people on a "lets retest skymin" bandwagon because no reasonable human being wants to see that shit.

....i want to see it.

The argument isn't that Skymin is good vs Dragons or Talon because it's obviously not, the argument was it's way better against them than the other grasses (due to italian slash and italian sash respectively). Which is true. I think we should retest Skymin because I think it was never broken in the first place; I like the way the metagame's been going but honestly most of the things i've been trying out lately (blaziken, gengar, latios, talonflame; i've seen others using more deoxys-a, jirachi, and thundurus) were good against skymin anyways lol so i dont think the meta's changing has anything to do with skymin's ban.

KyleCole you can't even remotely make the argument that we "needed" a mence retest so i think saying we have to prove we "need" a skymin retest is silly.

i also disagree that the meta's been getting bulkier but im too lazy to post more atm

 

[Peli]

free skymin so the community can ban it again

 

[Checkmater]

Something I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts about is skymin unban's effect on Trick Room. I know Stratos adamantly supported that Skymin and Skymin Hyper Offense in general had a very good trick room matchup, but I personally never felt that way, and found it easy to adapt to skymin. Now, with people running more defensive grasses ie Amoonguss I think Trick Room has fallen farther as an archetype, and seems to have gotten very little play in both seasonal and open.

Thoughts?

 

[megacyber]

Im not so sure about that- even before the skymin ban, people were running a shit ton of stuff for amoonguss. Fangame's tr has 2 spore switchins and electric terrain, for example.

 

[Big_Danny_Mason]

If you argue that you should "play around Serene Grace flinches" please teach me how to control RNG in PS!

The idea of playing around air slash flinches isnt that just get lucky, its where you put yourself in a position that you cant get flinched. Things like talonflame, abomasnow, mega aero, mega gengar, thundurus etc put skymin in a position where it cant threaten you with air slash flinches. Thinking of playing around serene grace air slash flinches doesnt mean you endure them, and I would liken thinking like that as trying to wall kang as a means of beating it, which is certainly a terrible idea. The fastpace nature of doubles is that you beat threats before they beat you.

I also agree with the idea that skymin as a trick room counter really isnt the best line of thinking. Certainly it can, but if your idea of a counter is a 54% roll or whatever it is, you are not going to be winning consistently.

 

[Roxer]

Remember this is only my opinion and w/e so don't murder my anus please

Putting yourself in a position not to get flinched is a really invalid argument, as both you and your opponent have 5 other mons to work around and 2 pokemon on the field at the same time. You and your opponent will always be making plays around what the other has on the field at the moment and what he has on his team, that means you have to predict what your opponent will do and what HE thinks you'll do during said turn. This will depend on how good of a player you are and how you're able to read your opponent. "Not putting yourself in a bad situation" is entirely PLAYER dependant, not team or Pokemon dependant. Surely enough there are times when teams have an ugly matchup, but that's because you made poor choices in teambuilding, thus making the matchup your own fault. What I'm trying to say is that "just bring a check/counter to help yourself not be put in a bad situation against said thing" is invalid, as the enemy will also have counters and checks that can neglect your own. Him not having these counters/checks are of his own fault in teambuilding, not anything else. The same holds true for predictions and such.
Adding to that, "dont put yourself in a bad situation" is valid for literally everything in the tier, making it even more of an invalid argument. (Remember: it is only invalid as an argument, it holds true in any other situation). If we were to use this argument, we could have unbanned things like Primal Groudon or Arceus, but that argument is not the reason why they're banned, it is something else, same goes for Skymin:
Luck in general completely neglects the "play around your opponent part", as it can just stop you from doing whatever you wanted to do and force your plays through sheer RNG or even the threat of RNG. This wouldn't be a problem at all (Think: Rock Slide) if Skymin didn't have favorable RNG, which means he can control the flow of the game and influence plays/turns throughout the entire match with pure luck, which is terrible for a metagame and is why I think Skymin should stay banned.

 

[thinkin]

the only shay check that it can flinch down faster than in like 20 turns is chary, if you dont bring fuckin shay checks dont complain about it beating neutral targets.

 

[Big_Danny_Mason]

Surely enough there are times when teams have an ugly matchup, but that's because you made poor choices in teambuilding, thus making the matchup your own fault. What I'm trying to say is that "just bring a check/counter to help yourself not be put in a bad situation against said thing" is invalid, as the enemy will also have counters and checks that can neglect your own. Him not having these counters/checks are of his own fault in teambuilding, not anything else. The same holds true for predictions and such.

I don't want to be mean, but this makes it sound like you are satiring yourself. Quality teams are built around a certain thing you want to abuse (rain, sun, trick room, bunnies, kang being god, etc). Building around these things mean you can exploit there strengths while covering for inherent weaknesses. That means that if something beats you (read as: skymin counter), you bring things that can deal with that. Its part of the inherent subtlety that is this game. If a good player is building around skymin, they are going to take counter measures to things that beat skymin, such as bringing something that handles talonflame. It then becomes your job to counter their counter while teambuilding, and maneuver your team in battle such that these counters can do their job. If you cant, then you lose fair and square.

What drives me nuts about the entire ban is that it was designed to see if skymin's power and support capabilities were overpowering. Yet I would bet anything that the reason that at least 80 percent of the people who voted ban was purely because of flinching.

 

[Checkmater]

can we get the sarcasm out of our posts we're getting so deep on the meta-satire that I can't tell if we're making fun of ourselves, stratos, pokemon, or the government anymore...

Like I want to read this post but when I read stuff like this

i totally understand what you're saying! while we bring our 3 skymin checks that really exist in the meta game, none of our opponents have prepared for them! surely landorus-t talonflame and thundurus are obscure and unnoticeable checks to skymin, nobody will predict me using thunder wave on their skymin, nor will they have any sort of check to it!

I just get a headache...

 

[Roxer]

I don't want to be mean, but this makes it sound like you are satiring yourself. Quality teams are built around a certain thing you want to abuse (rain, sun, trick room, bunnies, kang being god, etc). Building around these things mean you can exploit there strengths while covering for inherent weaknesses. That means that if something beats you (read as: skymin counter), you bring things that can deal with that. Its part of the inherent subtlety that is this game. If a good player is building around skymin, they are going to take counter measures to things that beat skymin, such as bringing something that handles talonflame. It then becomes your job to counter their counter while teambuilding, and maneuver your team in battle such that these counters can do their job. If you cant, then you lose fair and square.

What drives me nuts about the entire ban is that it was designed to see if skymin's power and support capabilities were overpowering. Yet I would bet anything that the reason that at least 80 percent of the people who voted ban was purely because of flinching.

That's actually the point I was trying to get across (but i suck at english so and google translate is bad so), when two decent players with decent teams fight each other, it's up to them to maneuver their team while battling so you can create win conditions and etc. This is always true because if the 2 players have well built teams, they'll have checks and counters to each other's Pokemon, thus making the game entirely player dependant and not team or Pokemon dependant, a true 50/50 matchup.

Problem I have with Skymin is how it can influence these 50/50 matchups with luck, having to play around a 60% chance of you getting flinched or dropped is terrible and leads to a lot of turns where luck decides the winner, as you can't truly predict a 60% chance unless you are RNJesus.
The fact that Skymin can sway plays and make truly 50/50 matchups 60/40 or even 70/30 because of a chance to flinch/drop makes me think it isn't healthy for the game and it should be banned.

 

[Stratos]

Well obviously you don't want your game to come down to if your opponent's Skymin can get a single flinch which is why you don't let it. If you absolutely don't have a way to outspeed skymin then you can still just double into it with both mons and there's nothing it can do about that. i'm not even sure what your post is supposed to be saying. "if your teams were evenly matched except your opponent has a skymin and your skymin matchup is shit then your teams aren't evenly matched?" well thanks lol. it seems like you're treating skymin's changes to flinch/drop as something separate than the essentiality of "skymin," but they're not.

anyways this is all discussion that can be held more in depth if/when we retest skymin but i'd really rather not this stupid debate tear up this thread so i'm going to lay a moratorium on skymin discussion.

 

[Checkmater]

yfw Stratos revived this thread then killed it

What are some thoughts on Mega-Gengar?


I keep floating between loving this thing and hating it. On the one hand, I'll have games where I feel in control and in a commanding position the entire game due to Shadow Tag, in other games Gengar-Mega feels like shit and I wish it was a gengar-regular or even any other mega really. I feel its damage/coverage is kind of lackluster, same with its typing and defenses. On the other hand, Shadow Tag is just so good and constraining switches is really nice.

Also what are your opinions on Shiny Gengar vs normal Gengar?

 

[Elegyy]

yfw Stratos revived this thread then killed it

What are some thoughts on Mega-Gengar?


I keep floating between loving this thing and hating it. On the one hand, I'll have games where I feel in control and in a commanding position the entire game due to Shadow Tag, in other games Gengar-Mega feels like shit and I wish it was a gengar-regular or even any other mega really. I feel its damage/coverage is kind of lackluster, same with its typing and defenses. On the other hand, Shadow Tag is just so good and constraining switches is really nice.

Also what are your opinions on Shiny Gengar vs normal Gengar?

well m-gengar is really good with uh ninetales

Nah I'm kidding, honestly you're right. It's honestly too hard to rely on such a frail shadow tag user, as the best function of shadow tag is to switch in and trap things, and when you can't really switch in to much (gengar is frail) AND you dont get shadow tag first turn, it's not a great mega. Most of my dumb teams (spindanine, for example. I will not count ninetales as dumb :L) have mega gengar lol. It's really nice with disable and for trapping kang, but idk about it's use outside of that.

Shiny mega gengar because omg shinies are so rare

 

[talkingtree]

regular gengar: non-shiny.
mega gengar: if perish song, use shiny. otherwise, normal.

ez

I'm definitely with you about its effectiveness - I've ended up with no mega on a team more times than I can count because I switch Mega Gengar to sash for its utility. Actually outrunning the 110s instead of having a heart attack every Gengar vs Latios mirror is nice though.

 

[Yellow Paint]

Thoughts on modest gar? It only really misses the outspeed on serp, and the extra damage has been quite useful overall.

 

[Derivatives]

my feelings are pretty much the same tbh lol

any combination of good gengar checks against a mega gengar team makes the mega gengar user feel incredibly hopeless when using mega gengar (i.e. you run into thundy+lando or lando+latios or something) as it's your mega and you're nervous about ever sending it out at all while you have a fucking kangaskhan or something when you have sash gengar+sash gengar doesn't lose to superpower>knock off landorus-t(!)
Normal>Shiny unless it's AIDS/ptrap mgengar

Paint I think you meant Whimsicott ;)))

 

[Paraplegic]

I personally really like the over all utility mega gengar provides, since shadow tag is just so for its ability to suck opponents momentum dry. It is also possibly the best mega kang answer in the game, being able to trap and then burn it, with like 0 counterplay. It does take up the mega slot though, and using your team's mega slot for utility isn't usually the greatest, as evidenced by mega lopunny. But over all I personally think its pretty good in this meta, just being sooo useful. And as for the modest vs. timid gar thing, I've personally found modest to be much better except in mega gar mirror matches, where it can be really beneficial to try and play speed tie mindgames. Modest just hits so much harder though so imo its totally worth it to go for it.

 

[Big_Danny_Mason]

I personally really like the over all utility mega gengar provides, since shadow tag is just so for its ability to suck opponents momentum dry. It is also possibly the best mega kang answer in the game, being able to trap and then burn it, with like 0 counterplay. It does take up the mega slot though, and using your team's mega slot for utility isn't usually the greatest, as evidenced by mega lopunny. But over all I personally think its pretty good in this meta, just being sooo useful. And as for the modest vs. timid gar thing, I've personally found modest to be much better except in mega gar mirror matches, where it can be really beneficial to try and play speed tie mindgames. Modest just hits so much harder though so imo its totally worth it to go for it.

I don't really disagree with your post, but I do think its important to note the uniqueness of the utility that mega gengar provides. Compared to a theoretically decent but not worth the slot mega like lopunny isnt really the greatest comparison because the role of offensive trapper is something totally unique to gengar, whereas the role of fast fake outer plus encorer can be filled adequately with infernape.

I think that when building a team around mega gengar its important to focus around the idea of trapping, which sounds obvious, but im not sure that people really, really do. One core that I had a lot of success with was genesect, scrafty and mega gengar. Once I had mega evolved, the ability to constantly be u-turning out to intimidate and trapping really lets you pull of some nifty moves, keeping opponents trapped without ever exposing gengar to damage.

Genesect goes nice with gengar because of the large amounts of things it has the capability to ohko with its large diversity of moves on the choice scarf set. Another good partner for gengar is blaziken. Similar to genesect, it has the potential to outspeed and ohko a ton of things. The main way to play around blaziken is to switch around and have it accumulate negative boosts from overheat and superpower. With shadow tag, that isnt an option.

 

[Derivatives]

I'm not quite sure about Genesect and Blaziken's ability to perform with Mega Gengar but that sure as hell seems cool in theory. I might try that out sometime.

On the topic of Genesect, has anybody been using that lately? It has access to some cool coverage, but I guess a spike of THALK usage has taken away from what it can do since subtran and thunder wave can make it virtually useless, but other types of teams haven't had much of a big "don't use Genesect" label on them. Thoughts?