NU Suspect Coverage: Sigilyph

By Rabia. Released: 2021/01/28.
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Art by tiki

Art by tiki.

Introduction

After several months of significant metagame changes due to DLC releases, council voting, and monthly tier shifts, NU finally settled down enough to have its first suspect test of the generation, and Sigilyph was chosen as the first candidate! Sigilyph benefits from the ability to run a plethora of different coverage moves and sets to pick and choose its answers, making counterplay radically shift depending on what Sigilyph is running. This versatility led to tier leadership and the NU council to believe Sigilyph was too much for the tier and in need of a suspect test.

Sets

Sigilyph

This is Sigilyph's defining set and use of its expansive coverage to best enable it to clean late-game with Calm Mind; however, you can forgo Calm Mind for a third coverage move to make Sigilyph incredibly difficult to pivot around. While Air Slash is opted for most of the time to hit Dark-types like Guzzlord as well as Cresselia for neutral damage, Psyshock is also good, especially when paired with Calm Mind, to better deal with specially bulky Pokemon such as Mantine. There are also other viable options not listed: Dazzling Gleam lets Sigilyph lure in and remove Guzzlord, Energy Ball catches Diancie and Gigalith, and Protect can be used over Roost to scout faster, Choice item-reliant revenge killers like Mienshao and Choice Band Aerodactyl at the cost of longevity.

Psycho Shift Sigilyph lacks the early- and mid-game pressure of Life Orb variants but can neutralize defensive answers like Copperajah, Bronzong, and Gigalith with a burn. This lets Sigilyph easily set up against otherwise solid checks and rapidly snowball out of control. Air Slash is the sole attacking move for its neutral coverage. Cosmic Power is also occasionally seen to make Sigilyph even harder to take down once it accrues several boosts, although without Calm Mind, it is noticeably weaker.

Beyond these two sets, Sigilyph had a few others that, while not super influential in determining its power level, added to its insane versatility. Tinted Lens sets with Choice Specs were great at breaking through even resistant foes with just Air Slash, and because of how frail Dark-types were as a whole, Sigilyph had an even easier time pressuring them. Cosmic Power sets with Weakness Policy made Sigilyph an extremely potent option on dual screens teams, accruing several boosts and then sweeping teams with Stored Power. Even bulky support sets were possible to capitalize on Sigilyph's large utility movepool.

Ban Reasoning

Sigilyph's combination of fantastic coverage and utility options made it too difficult to find coherent defensive counterplay to. No matter what you threw at it, you always ran the risk of your answer being removed by Sigilyph's coverage, and it wasn't at all easy to safely scout versus Sigilyph because of its good power level. Steel-types were easily dealt with by Heat Wave, Rock-types disliked Energy Ball, and fringe options like Dazzling Gleam heavily pressured Guzzlord. Furthermore, Magic Guard enabled Sigilyph beyond a reasonable degree. It made Sigilyph incredibly difficult to wear down through passive damage; gave it too many free opportunities to switch in; and enabled unhealthy cheese-based sets like Psycho Shift + Flame Orb to succeed and prevent Sigilyph from being crippled by paralysis. On paper there existed plenty of counterplay to Sigilyph; in practice that counterplay was flimsy at best and faltered to one misplay.

No Ban Reasoning

Although Sigilyph was a top-tier threat, it had several issues that potentially held it back from being banworthy. For starters, Sigilyph couldn't fit every move it wanted to into its moveset. All of Psyshock, Air Slash, Energy Ball, Heat Wave, and Dazzling Gleam were important moves for it to have, but even if it ran an all-out attacking set, it still was forced to drop one of those moves, in the process also becoming much easier to wear down over time because of losing Roost. Additionally, Sigilyph's Speed and bulk, while plenty passable, weren't the greatest, which left plenty of offensive options like Aerodactyl, Choice Scarf Tyrantrum, and Heliolisk to do well against it. There was also a high usage rate of Dark-types like Guzzlord, Zoroark, and Drapion, which all gave Sigilyph issues depending on the coverage and set it ran. Lastly, because of the prominence of Protect, it wasn't that difficult to scout for Sigilyph's coverage and thus figure out what your defensive answers were to it.

Final Thoughts

Sigilyph has been banned from NU with a 55.55% majority. Look for new defensive structures to pop up now that Sigilyph is gone, as well as Cresselia rising to even further prominence now that its main Calm Mind sweeper competition is gone. Even Galarian Articuno could see some success now!

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