PU Suspect Coverage: Houndoom

By TJ, Gum, and HJAD. Released: 2019/04/03.
« Previous Article Next Article »
Art by Kaiju Bunny

Art by Kaiju Bunny.

Introduction

Directly after its arrival in PU, Houndoom was suspect tested and removed from tournaments. The reason why Houndoom got suspect tested was because it had similar qualities to other Fire-types, such as Magmortar and Pyroar, which were deemed broken and banned in the past. Houndoom's amazing Special Attack combined with its decent Speed tier, good offensive typing, and access to both Nasty Plot and Pursuit gave it many opportunities to dominate the metagame offensively. There were only a small pool of Pokémon like Regirock, Lanturn, and Poliwrath that were able to switch in and deal with Houndoom, but even then, they could still lose to its other, more niche sets like Grassium Z. Moreover, Houndoom's ability to ignore Colbur Berry through Unnerve made it an amazing Pursuit trapper and partner for dangerous Fighting-types like Gurdurr and Primeape, which could easily sweep teams once their more popular checks, such as Mesprit and Froslass, were removed.

Hot Sets

Houndoom

One of Houndoom's more prominent sets throughout the suspect test was its Pursuit set, as it was effective against every team archetype. This set provided unrivaled support to several Pokémon in the tier, being capable of trapping two S-Rank Pokémon in Mesprit and Froslass while ignoring Colbur Berry thanks to its Unnerve ability. This meant that Houndoom would never struggle to force them out, and once it Pursuit trapped them, they would be severely crippled for the rest of the game; thus, Houndoom created a menacing offensive core with Fighting-types like Primeape and Gurdurr, with only few Fighting-type checks capable of taking on the duo.

Niche Sets

Houndoom

While Houndoom had a great STAB combination, it still left it walled by threats like Poliwrath, Carbink, Lanturn, Regirock, and Pyukumuku. To remedy this, Houndoom could run Solar Beam while holding a Grassium Z, which made all of these Pokémon unable to wall it while still allowing it to keep its amazing STAB combination and giving it an excellent matchup against stall teams. However, holding a Grassium Z meant that it became a little harder for Houndoom to break through Hitmonchan and that it couldn't revenge kill healthy threats like Stoutland and Skuntank any longer; furthermore, it could also only be used once, which meant that the Z-Move required great timing. Nevertheless, this set was still very solid due to its ability to hit most of its checks while preserving its good STAB combination.

The Suspect

Ban Reasoning

Houndoom immediately imposed itself as a top threat in the USM PU metagame, with many claiming that it was a broken element in the tier, creating a massive teambuilding constraint, with typical balance and bulky offensive styles being restricted the most. This was due to the lack of switch-ins in the upper viability ranks of PU that could effectively take it on. Amongst the A ranks, Regirock, Lanturn, Poliwrath, and most notably Hitmonchan rose to the top as the most reliable Houndoom switch-ins, of which only Hitmonchan could reliably switch into any set. For these reasons, it was argued that counterplay to Houndoom was unreliable and that it was too centralizing for the tier. Other reliable switch-ins such as Assault Vest Alolan Raticate and Monferno saw extremely little usage and were unviable in the tier prior to Houndoom's drop, implying that the tier would have to use highly niche Pokémon to adjust to Houndoom's presence. Furthermore, pro-ban users would tend to argue that its wallbreaking capabilities coupled with its solid Speed tier meant that, in practice, it was far harder to limit Houndoom's wallbreaking opportunities by playing aggressively than for other Pokémon with similar wallbreaking capability in PU. Examples of Pokémon with similarly few switch-ins are Aurorus and Jellicent, both of which suffer a Speed deficit compared to Houndoom that limits their real wallbreaking opportunities in-game; Houndoom on the other hand would become the tier's fastest wallbreaker, with damage output similar to the aforementioned threats and many more opportunities to use its power. Finally, pro-ban users claimed that Houndoom's Unnerve ability combined with STAB Pursuit meant that the tier's most prominent Fighting-type checks such as Mesprit and Froslass, which usually rely upon their Colbur Berry to avoid Pursuit trapping, would now take much more damage. This would further add to the teambuilding strain, as now a reliable Fighting switch-in would need to be safe from Houndoom's Pursuit set, which was the case for only a few Pokémon such as Victreebel and Oricorio-E, making strong picks like Gurdurr and Primeape even stronger.

No Ban Reasoning for Houndoom

On the other hand, the main argument suggesting that Houndoom wasn't broken was that it was just another good wallbreaker that was checked easily by offensive pressure. This was a fundamental part of the anti-ban argument because between Houndoom's mediocre Defense and susceptibility to all entry hazards and common priority attacks, the metagame was more equipped to handle Houndoom and it wasn't as overwhelming as Pyroar (a previously banned Fire-type) due to its inferior Speed tier or as threatening in practice as people made it out to be. People also argued that there were a lot of niche Pokémon like Monferno, Marill, and Zweilous that countered Houndoom, as well as a myriad of viable offensive Pokémon like Dodrio, Lycanroc, Alolan Dugtrio, Floatzel, Gurdurr, Kangaskhan, and Choice Scarf Primeape that were able to revenge kill it. Furthermore, Pokémon like Lanturn, Poliwrath, Hitmonchan, and Regirock were seen as common glue Pokémon on balance teams and were situational switch-ins to Houndoom. While versatile, Houndoom couldn't handle everything in the tier with just one set, meaning Pokémon like Carbink were fairly reasonable methods of counterplay. Another argument was that with Pokémon like Lilligant, Alolan Sandslash, Froslass, and Mesprit influencing the balance archetype heavily, Houndoom added something to the metagame and was able to solve this issue by threatening out the former two and Pursuit trapping the latter two. Lastly, people thought that there hadn't been enough time to properly adjust to Houndoom's presence in the tier yet and that there was room for adaptation, with Pokémon like Froslass running Water Pulse and Alolan Persian running Power Gem to circumvent it.

Closing Words

Due to its amazing offensive prowess, great typing, excellent Speed, and insane versatility, Houndoom was promptly banned and moved to PUBL with 65% of voters voting ban.

HTML by Lumari | Script by HoeenHero.
« Previous Article Next Article »