Nobody makes me want to main forums like CTC
I've always found this to be a stupid argument because you cannot surmise tera types accurately from team structure.
Sure, there are times when it's obvious, 9/10 times the dnite is tera normal, rmoon tera flying, etc but that's not what I'm talking about. You can take my SPL team last week as an example: it's a little weak to wisp hex pult, and you will eventually see the balloon on kingambit, so you can make a good guess that one of my wisp targets (zama, kingambit, even hammy) is tera fire. However, from the opponent's perspective, it is a complete guess as to whether the zama or the kingambit is tera fire. There's many good reasons I could be tera fire on either.
Why does this matter? Well it's a very important difference in information. The GF user knows if they have the wrong tera and whether or not they have a 6-0 matchup, but the opponent does not. Even with a bad matchup, if you preserve your GF reasonably well, you can consistently force your opponent to keep multiple pokemon healthy enough to handle the worst case scenario, which is much more difficult than what the GF user has to do. Even with the wrong tera, you are at an advantage simply because of how versatile and oppressive the pokemon is.
The availability of toxic is being largely overstated here. It's actually quite difficult to fit toxic onto a team these days, much less one that can stand up to GF. Toxapex sucks ass, Clodsire often drops toxic and isn't a GF answer, Glowking's moveslots are super contested and can't always fit toxic, and often needs to be sdef for huge threats like volcarona, raging bolt, kyurem, etc. These toxic users are not good or cannot switch into two flare blitz's, making them shaky half answers at best. You've technically got other toxic choices like glimmora, pecharunt, and mandibuzz, but these are super fringe and imo barely viable.
The real GF answer and toxic user mentioned here is gliscor, but once again, toxic is increasingly rare on gliscor despite GF's dominance because it's forced to run other sets to be more consistent. Taunt Lando-T in particular will shut down toxic/spikes/eq gliscor with ease and has made that set inconsistent, on top of existing counterplay like skarm, corv, clefable, balloon ghold, sub serp, subcm enam, etc. In order to be more consistent, we've seen more sets like taunt, SD, and U-turn, but most of these can't fit toxic and are hardly effective answers to GF.
All of this counterplay is true, but in the case of tera types, the issue is that the GF user knows exactly which portion of the meta they cover, but you cannot. It places an undue burden on the player trying to contain GF. Not every team can fit Scald Alo+Toxic Glowking/Gliscor+ID roar zama to cover one single threat, and it's pretty damning that this is the amount of teambuilding resources I need to dedicate to just one mon.
I've actually criticized storm zone
in the past for this phrasing, and funny enough it was also being used to defend a really broken mon (chien pao). I'm gonna repeat myself when I say that the phrase "A well built team should not be suffering from a glaring X weakness" is vapid, meaningless, and misses the point. By definition, a "well built team" will account for the top metagame threats and not have any big weaknesses, but that doesn't mean that these top metagame threats are healthy or balanced. The existence of these "well built teams" is constant, no matter how good or bad the meta is, as long as people care enough to play. You could drop miraidon into OU tomorrow and "well built teams" would have answers to it. Does this mean that miraidon should stay in OU?
The point is that by saying "well built teams can handle GF," you're completely missing how difficult it is to build those teams and how restricting of a metagame presence GF is. We're openly acknowledging that we can dedicate 2 teamslots to checking GF and still lose to a viable set. I think that's quite bad!
All true, but shaky at best, and usually puts you at a disadvantage. It's not really easy to fit encore which is faster than dd GF onto a team lol, fairy teras are a valuable resource that you need to check other threats (like grass tera for waterpon or ghost for zama, etc) and blowing that on a GF that hasn't tera'd can put you at a disadvantage. This GF set can literally beat dondozo and clodsire so it's straining unaware, it's immune to burns in base form and it's not easy to fit in status users that can check GF. The durability of phazers like ting lu, zama, and less viable ones like dragon tail dnite or roar tusk/moltres are generally lower than GF and can be outlasted, which is an issue seeing as you're only putting off the problem, not taking care of it.
We dont keep brokens to check brokens. We didn't keep archaludon to check waterpon, and even though waterpon is better now, it would be stupid to go back and unban bridge to check waterpon. You may disagree but the voters decided and it's been done. We may be losing a volcarona and kingambit check, but there are other checks to both, mons that are much less oppressive on the builder and much healthier for the tier. It is absolutely a net positive to ban GF, and it may be a net positive to look into these alleged "brainless spam mons" as well.
Imma keep it real with you, and I think you already know this, but sun is truly ass rn. Even with GF already here, I really don't see sun getting that much worse tbh. The banded sets in sun are honestly noobtraps, there are way better breakers that sun has access to like band tusk, band rmoon, a billion bolt sets, and I think there's room to explore stuff like heatran, offensive cinderace, CB ceruledge, blaziken, arcanine-hisui, sandy shocks, iron moth, slither wing etc. Even raging bolt is imo 2x more threatening in sun than GF is, and I am confident that banning GF is not going to greatly harm sun's already low viability. GF did very little to fix its issues to begin with (hazards, glowking, struggle to fit in crucial resists like ghost, ground, fairy, dragon) and imo the real killing blow to sun was when torkoal lost yawn. Making your weather setter passive and unable to pivot is a huge flaw that GF is not fixing, and I really am not convinced by the argument that we have to keep GF to keep sun viable and checking other teamstyles or w/e.
Idk why you draw an arbitrary line in the sand between rain/sun and suicide lead/veil/webs as if weather is not cheese and the other stuff is. It can all be cheesy, it's all still viable, GF is not preserving some intricate harmony that is holding off the threat of "boring boots spam balance." I think you are injecting your own opinions on what kind of metagame is good here, which is fine, you're definitely entitled to your vote and your views. But let's not act like this is some objective best meta that we must all strive for. The votes will speak and determine what direction the meta takes, and it's up to voters to adjust or keep going.
In the few weeks or so before SPL was starting up, I remember boots balance was very popular and arguably "the meta" with teams like
this volc+weav balance or this
meow+kyurem balance which was easily topping ladder. These teams fell off and show no signs of returning, because this meta is offensive af and it's actually very easy to break these balance teams in half. We have way more tools at our disposal to break balance than balance does to try and contain all of offense, and it shows in the meta rn.
Weav boots spam is not the end of the world, it's not unbeatable, I would argue it's pretty mid rn, and a GF ban will not change that. We don't keep broken mons in the tier to maybe stop a teamstyle you personally don't like from becoming more common. If it does come to that, I'm confident you will adapt
I will be voting
BAN on Gouging Fire and I encourage every voter to do the same.
Lets address this. U named possible fire zama and gambit as arguments against gouge when those 2 with the appropriate tera also benefit the user while forcing the opponent to keep multiple checks in the back, preserving the fairy vs fire for steel/fire zama and the pult vs tusk for anti fire/fairy gambit. How is having to guess goug tera different from having to guess volc tera/val tera, or the aforementioned threats? Just because volc and val can be more easily offensively checked?
Reread this sentence to urself and replace GF w volc, zama, or gambit. Thank you for substantiating my original argument for me:
'Why does this matter? Well it's a very important difference in information. The GF user knows if they have the wrong tera and whether or not they have a 6-0 matchup, but the opponent does not. Even with a bad matchup, if you preserve your GF reasonably well, you can consistently force your opponent to keep multiple pokemon healthy enough to handle the worst case scenario, which is much more difficult than what the GF user has to do. Even with the wrong tera, you are at an advantage simply because of how versatile and oppressive the pokemon is.'
A well built team should have a fighting chance vs the top threats in the meta, I stand on that. Here are some statistics on gouging:
.......Sitting at an astounding 50% wr and fighting primarina and weavile for usage in the top 20. But professor, what about none-tour usage? The masses are suffering!
Here are the 1500 stats making up 50% of the ladder games. Gouging usage is relatively high but still healthy. In fact, the higher up you look on the ladder, the more checks emerge over gouging such as zama and glim. Below are 1695 and 1800 stats, putting this usage at about the top 5% of ladder games. These players use more glim, zama, and still preserve the usage of other mons already ahead of goug that check it, such as lando/bolt. Notice how dozo usage even creeps up the higher you go, and goug usage goes down the higher you go.
It is clear at this point this is one of those noob check mons. The higher the skill level, the lower this mon's usage and winrate. It is time to look inward and consider why such an easy wincon is farming you so effortlessly. This is similar to when gambit was winning every game in the earlier sv games and people considered it broken, even so far as to discuss a ban. I am not saying this mon doesnt potentially need to be looked at, as I put it at the highest on my list of on the radar mons. It is on par with gambit, volc and zama in terms of its ability to take over games, with slightly more offensive bias whereas dog has more defensive bias. Regardless, we have barely stepped into post nerf rain meta and do not know the full extent of the ramifications. Teams are getting bulkier, poorly structured anti offense that sits around doing nothing get punished by gouge.
I digress, back to addressing your points:
All true, but shaky at best, and usually puts you at a disadvantage. It's not really easy to fit encore which is faster than dd GF onto a team lol, fairy teras are a valuable resource that you need to check other threats (like grass tera for waterpon or ghost for zama, etc) and blowing that on a GF that hasn't tera'd can put you at a disadvantage. This GF set can literally beat dondozo and clodsire so it's straining unaware, it's immune to burns in base form and it's not easy to fit in status users that can check GF. The durability of phazers like ting lu, zama, and less viable ones like dragon tail dnite or roar tusk/moltres are generally lower than GF and can be outlasted, which is an issue seeing as you're only putting off the problem, not taking care of it.
This entire argument is baseless as you call my points shaky, when 'not really easy to fit encore', 'not really easy to fit status', and 'not really easy to keep things in the back alive' are your only points then you come across just as ignorant.
'The availability of toxic is also limited' when gliscor usage beyond eclipses gouge usage at every level of OU played shows that gouging usage is even more limited.
'We dont keep brokens to check brokens. We didn't keep archaludon to check waterpon, and even though waterpon is better now, it would be stupid to go back and unban bridge to check waterpon.'
This is either willful ignorance or you are just slow, arch was banned because of the no drawback +1 per turn move as strong as stab draco that allows it to freely spam vs every non unaware mon in history. If i want arch unbanned for its body, I would still want electro shot to stay gone because it is the move that broke the mon. Look at the usage stats, ep landorus is doing the Lebron Miami run rn in ou boasting high usage and high winrate. Alongside it, the other 2 grounds tusk and scor are both top tier in usage. Among other things, tanky traders like bolt, kyurem, and the aforementioned encore users like val, or red card users like glim, in addition to stall staples such as garg and alo all do a good job of curbing this mon. Btw, most of these checks and counters that are 'hard to fit' on a team have way higher usage across the board than gouge, and the disparity only worsens the higher the ELO.
'Idk why you draw an arbitrary line in the sand between rain/sun and suicide lead/veil/webs as if weather is not cheese and the other stuff is. It can all be cheesy, it's all still viable, GF is not preserving some intricate harmony that is holding off the threat of "boring boots spam balance." I think you are injecting your own opinions on what kind of metagame is good here, which is fine, you're definitely entitled to your vote and your views. But let's not act like this is some objective best meta that we must all strive for. The votes will speak and determine what direction the meta takes, and it's up to voters to adjust or keep going.'
I do not draw the arbitrary line as to what kind of ho is cheese. I have always championed diversity and never wanted a limited metagame. I said in multiple posts that a healthy meta needs ho and stall in it to form a checks and balances system and force good team building. The zap lu gk samu boots spam meta proved that once you limit the amount of none boots progress makers in the meta, a certain saturation will be achieved to min-max. Gouge is one of those key non-boots progress makers, punished by a well built hazard/status system and rewarded when it is allowed to be greedy. Ofc i will have no idea what meta we WILL get, but using past data I can extrapolate what meta we MIGHT get once a few dominoes fall in place, which is what I am actively trying to prevent. Rain's demise is so drastic that we have had no time for other experimentation with the style, perhaps it will bounce back and become yet another form of offensive check to gouge. TDK used a rain team and did quite well, we just need to let people experiment and for the meta to adjust for itself before all the rushed bans. Lastly, nowhere did I state what style is good for the meta or what style is bad for the meta, boring is referring to the absence of alternatives due to minmaxing or a lack of power in the meta, making boots the default best style with knock hazards as progress makers since nothing kills anything.
Banning gouge and later possibly oger may very well be the downfall of the non-boots progress makers, reducing the meta diversity drastically. Once max boots balance takes hold there will be even fewer offensive ways to make progress because hazards already discourages ho and certain mons like pult, zama, gambit and co on boots spam are opporessive to fat as well.
Now these things may or may not happen, but from where I stand gouge is not in immediate need of a ban.
Over 7 weeks being out of top 10 usage in spl while having the very ironic 50% wr alongside the showdown usage stats for feb reveal that this mon is clearly not immediately broken. The illusion of its opressiveness is in that the games you lose vs it feels like you couldn't do much, similar to a gambit beatdown or a zama beatdown under the right circumstances, also anyone remember what volc used to do?
I am voting DNB not because I think this mon CAN'T BE or ISN'T bordering on being broken, but its role in the ecosystem is so essential that I would rather let it live and observe it further. It is much easier to not ban a mon than to ban it then go whelp we were wrong like was the case with volc last meta and roaring moon before sneasler.
If the mon was truly broken, I would like to see statistical proof like what I provided here showing its absurd winrate and usage. Afterall, when ursa and sneas were banned they had near 70% wr and usage.
I urge the public to hold off on a decision that can shift the metagame drastically again, not two weeks after an already major metagame shift NOT TWO MONTHS into a new meta.
I am not trying to attack everyone and their views, but put forth some statistics and we can debate them. I really don't want to revisit the on-paper mu it has vs the rest of the meta if every pro ban post is going to continue to attack my original arguments on the basis of theorymon, cuz again, I can theory w u all day. Come with stats and we will discuss how this near borderline top 15-20 usage and 50% win rate mon is breaking the metagame apart.
Again, I want to move forward amicably. I want nothing but a diverse and healthy meta with no overwhelming oppressive threats and no dominant archetype being minmaxed undermining variety and creativity. I simply do not see how the stats in comp or ladder support the notion that gouge is even on the same level as the previously banned threats ursa, sneas, and bax.
Give gouge a chance and let the meta settle. If the winrate and usage skyrocket and settle at an exorbitant amount (high 60s), then yes, you are all proven right and us DNB voters are proven wrong. However, if we ban this mon before things have had a chance to settle down, we may not get the clearest picture. I am a champion of diversity and creativity and hate oppressive cheese just as much as the next person. I am on the people's side here, I just see certain future paths unfolding that may be different from others. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Can we let gouge sort itself out in the next couple weeks before the ripple of rain's nerf has even spread throughout the metagame?
TLDR: I think voting DNB on this mon until it proves statistically to be overwhelming for the meta is a better idea. Perhaps this suspect should have been conducted 2 weeks further out.
srn's post is valid and I respect your opinion, but can the ban side provide an inkling of statistical support, a crumb perhaps.
btw the dude below linked a goug sweep due to 2 tox misses when it woulda been one of the dudes in the back that should have swept if toxic landed, if anything that replay is a counter argument for gouge's brokeness since tera poison was better there but u cant always have the right set!
the scale shot niche set winning I can show u 10 replay equivalents with other niche sets, sub dd pressure kyurem being a prominently spammed one that given the correct metagame composition can seem just as broken as the top threats.
Bring me facts and not feelings, lets have a conversation. Looking at spl statistics, dnite is literally higher usage and higher winrate, and can boast the same advantages in set versatility + tera utility. Please just let the meta settle before getting ban happy, If gouge is banned then it is the most benign mon ever to be banned with such a short amount of exposure to the meta. You cannot convince me gouge is on the same level of broken as ursa, sneas, or bax.
Cheers, happy voting DNB if you believe in math and science