SEA said once in ADVcord something to the effect of "People would use Ninjask more if Ninjask users weren't scorned" and quite frankly they're spitting. In no other pokemon format that I've played has there been, not just a specific style (because if you know me you know I despise stall), but a specific pokemon (other than sneasler in DLC1 gen 9 OU) that makes me want to throttle my opponent. Like I'll talk a bunch of shit when I'm mad but there are few pokemon able to get me to be toxic as fast as Ninjask does. It's even worse with Sand Attack Jask.
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OU ADV OU Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter vapicuno
- Start date
I love how multiple people say something about how jask discourse has taken over this thread and you all just use it as an opportunity to talk about ninjask more. Is there anything else to this tier to you? Can we talk about something with value instead of the same rehashed baton pass and sand attack hate that's been spewed on this forum for the past few months? Honestly it makes me sad that this is all this thread has become.
Ok people have actually complained quite a bit about thread monopolization and I think this is pretty accurate. This needs to stop. We've heard what you had to say about Ninjask, about Sand Attack, about Speed Pass. This is a metagame discussion thread, not a Ninjask Suspect thread or whatever. The metagame doesn't solely revolve around Ninjask, there is a lot more to talk about. You're free to keep discussing Ninjask on our discords, but I'm gonna ask you to stop cluttering this thread up with Ninjask talks, we've had enough of it and it shouldn't monopolize this thread like it has these past few months.
Failure to abide by the above will result in infractions.
Hypnogar is kinda crazy. The early game Ability to use hypnosis as they switch and hypnosis again giving it a psudeo 84% accuracy (60% twice) early game is incredible. Beyond that it's a fire and mixmence check with boltbeam and a fast boom too, solving a ton of issues in the builder, especially for those mixoff smurfesk cores. Wanted to shout it out cuz I've been spamming it a ton lately and love the booger.
60% also lategame is a potential savior. Early game you use the force out to get a much more secure sleep and lategame you can hail marry reverse momentum so heavily.
60% also lategame is a potential savior. Early game you use the force out to get a much more secure sleep and lategame you can hail marry reverse momentum so heavily.
I've been fucking around with SD 3 Attacks Celebi and it's honestly kinda nice:
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Ancient Power
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
The best quality of this set is that it beats other Celebis. They can't leech you, you're unintentionally bluffing SD Pass, and a +2 Shadow Ball is a 2hko on all relevant Celebi spreads. Ancient Power hits the fliers and kills Modest Zards. If HP Fighting weren't so important for the normals + Tyranitar I'd consider HP Rock to get the +0 ohko on Moltres.
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Ancient Power
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
The best quality of this set is that it beats other Celebis. They can't leech you, you're unintentionally bluffing SD Pass, and a +2 Shadow Ball is a 2hko on all relevant Celebi spreads. Ancient Power hits the fliers and kills Modest Zards. If HP Fighting weren't so important for the normals + Tyranitar I'd consider HP Rock to get the +0 ohko on Moltres.
Why nit run BP last slot tho... u can still pass but u have some lure potential on stuff like ttar, opposing bi, dol, starmie, while smth like ancient power can hit flying ones
BP can allow the celebi who lured in ttar for ex. To bring in smth else
Because that's not why I'm using the pokemon and also I think SD Passing is cheesey and not very good. The teams this is used on already have issues with skarmory despite using mag, I don't want to exacerbate that
This celebi alone has issues with Skarmory, and sd + move to bait roarers, especially rock, is extremely viable. If you play well with the right lead sd pass should never struggle into skarm with mag.
There are very good sd celebi with 2a and baton pass, using baton pass as a coverage move. This isn't dissimilar to cm 2a pass celebi which does the same kind of thing.
SD pass can be extremely potent, I don't see why you would kneecap to sd 3a.
I think sdpass isn't inherently cheesy, the structures are just way too exploitable as is. The breakers either need another boost after they get passed to (dders like gyara and tar or agil meta) or they're entirely dependant on the sdpass and can't really achieve much without it (liechi aero). Physical threats are slower than special threats which makes it a lot less flexible in my eyes than cm pass but I think it's definitely still legitimate
I do have some thoughts on SDPass.
I am not familiar with the mon (i say the mon, you will understand in this post later) but I do think SDPass Cele always feels underwhelming for a number of factors, and I want to discuss that, as I feel this one variant of Celebi is its most underexplored, alongside sets like SubCM (which to be fair, isnt really explored due to the fact it struggles at beating offense, which btw is the same issue I have with CM/Seed/Psy/Giga, which I consider a not so great set nowadays due to also struggling vs opposing offense).
Pass Cele is one of the most unique pivots of the tier, it can swing momentum insanely hard depending on the MU but it can also fall off drastically depending on said MU too, I like to think of Pass Cele as more of a Spikeless mon, as said teams with "6 strong mons" or Magneton Offense or even Dugtrio Offense usually like the idea and offensive benefit Boost or SubPass provides, SD is unique as it is the one most likely to close out a game, but its also the one that fails the most consistently, ideally, the most consistent Pass set is SubSeedPass, however said set has great problems of fitting into teams and is overall difficult to get consistent teams and use off it, CMPass for this reason is by far the most splashable, as special or mixed attackers r extremely dangerous in ADV and the boost complements them perfectly, however CMPass still has the same old Zard/Aero/Molt/Mence/RoarZap problems, which sucks, not to mention the 2 move coverage problem (which is a reason I dislike SD/BP + 2 attacks) that makes life hell, especially since no matter the combo, you will be walled by something relevant. However SD/Seed/Recover/BP is a interesting mon, Seed+Recover earlygame can be a lethal bluff for a SDPass lategame, which can be unexpected, however this "unexpectedness" unfortunately falls flat once u realize that most people do in fact use Mag there, making it a very linear and easy to deduce strategy, not to mention that while the longevity helps, it doesnt fix the whole RoarZap/Aero/Zard/Molt problem, it is however the greatest punish to a bad CB lock or gives a nasty surprise by the bluff. My next idea is probably to try and use SD/Seed/Recover/BP alongside mons that hit Skarm extremely hard (think Max Spa Pert, +1 Dedge Lax, maybe CB or MixMeta) and use SDPass to finish off opps by passing off a surprise SD to a threat, perhaps Agility Meta in this scenario, that makes SDPass much more inherently dangerous, as Cele can easily run anything in these "6 strong mons" types of teams, making it a near ultimate versatility tool, jam up Skarm earlygame as the opponent is unsuspecting and reveal Celebi mid to lategame to reveal a nasty SD, or just use Celebi early mid game and spam Leech Seed+Recover+BP, only to reveal surprise 4th SD endgame, obviously would need a lot of Skarm lures ideally like Max Spa Pert, Curse Dedge Snorlax, Band/DD Ttar, maybe Band/Mix Meta, but all in all, its a interesting concept which I have seen before but not seen it been give as much thought as it deserves, perhaps it could be more explored or anything of the likes.
Sad fact I cannot run SD/CM/Seed/BP as a set. That set really appealed to me when I was a noob, I wish I had made it work. It will never be forgotten.
I am not familiar with the mon (i say the mon, you will understand in this post later) but I do think SDPass Cele always feels underwhelming for a number of factors, and I want to discuss that, as I feel this one variant of Celebi is its most underexplored, alongside sets like SubCM (which to be fair, isnt really explored due to the fact it struggles at beating offense, which btw is the same issue I have with CM/Seed/Psy/Giga, which I consider a not so great set nowadays due to also struggling vs opposing offense).
Pass Cele is one of the most unique pivots of the tier, it can swing momentum insanely hard depending on the MU but it can also fall off drastically depending on said MU too, I like to think of Pass Cele as more of a Spikeless mon, as said teams with "6 strong mons" or Magneton Offense or even Dugtrio Offense usually like the idea and offensive benefit Boost or SubPass provides, SD is unique as it is the one most likely to close out a game, but its also the one that fails the most consistently, ideally, the most consistent Pass set is SubSeedPass, however said set has great problems of fitting into teams and is overall difficult to get consistent teams and use off it, CMPass for this reason is by far the most splashable, as special or mixed attackers r extremely dangerous in ADV and the boost complements them perfectly, however CMPass still has the same old Zard/Aero/Molt/Mence/RoarZap problems, which sucks, not to mention the 2 move coverage problem (which is a reason I dislike SD/BP + 2 attacks) that makes life hell, especially since no matter the combo, you will be walled by something relevant. However SD/Seed/Recover/BP is a interesting mon, Seed+Recover earlygame can be a lethal bluff for a SDPass lategame, which can be unexpected, however this "unexpectedness" unfortunately falls flat once u realize that most people do in fact use Mag there, making it a very linear and easy to deduce strategy, not to mention that while the longevity helps, it doesnt fix the whole RoarZap/Aero/Zard/Molt problem, it is however the greatest punish to a bad CB lock or gives a nasty surprise by the bluff. My next idea is probably to try and use SD/Seed/Recover/BP alongside mons that hit Skarm extremely hard (think Max Spa Pert, +1 Dedge Lax, maybe CB or MixMeta) and use SDPass to finish off opps by passing off a surprise SD to a threat, perhaps Agility Meta in this scenario, that makes SDPass much more inherently dangerous, as Cele can easily run anything in these "6 strong mons" types of teams, making it a near ultimate versatility tool, jam up Skarm earlygame as the opponent is unsuspecting and reveal Celebi mid to lategame to reveal a nasty SD, or just use Celebi early mid game and spam Leech Seed+Recover+BP, only to reveal surprise 4th SD endgame, obviously would need a lot of Skarm lures ideally like Max Spa Pert, Curse Dedge Snorlax, Band/DD Ttar, maybe Band/Mix Meta, but all in all, its a interesting concept which I have seen before but not seen it been give as much thought as it deserves, perhaps it could be more explored or anything of the likes.
Sad fact I cannot run SD/CM/Seed/BP as a set. That set really appealed to me when I was a noob, I wish I had made it work. It will never be forgotten.
Feel like the big issue with SD pass Celebi is two-fold. First of all, fitting SD/BP on Celebi means that it loses an insane amount of value as a pivot compared to more typical calm mind or defensive sets. It can't really beat much of anything by itself with that set so you have to be wary of exposing it too early or else it can be very easily taken advantage of every time it does try to switch in. As you said, your best SD pass scenarios are usually late game so you just kind of feel like you're playing 5 v 6 in the early game trying to create a situation where you can get the pass off.
Basically it's just such a large commitment of resources to try to create a game state that still can be completely and utterly destroyed by a surprise taunt gengar or something. I think the biggest problem I have with trying to use SD pass is in a lot of instances I end up feeling like I could have produced pretty close to the same value with a mon that is meant to set up late game by itself (e.g. sub salac hera). Instead of using sd pass celebi, you also then have the option of slotting in a rain dance sleeper like Kingdra alongside it to create an extremely potent and synergistic late game duo.
Understandable about the Ninjask monopolization and my sincere apologies for it. As such, I promise that this will be my personal last comment about Ninjask on this forum if someone could provide a solution for discussions about the mon. Outside of the Discords, could you provide a platform of Ninjask discussions so more people can voice out their opinions on Ninjask? Discord servers are great places to voice out opinions and have meaningful discussions with other players, however, they're not appropriate places to talk to the general playerbase or influential members of the metagame.
Complaints about Ninjask have been present for years and have been rising for the past few months, yet there's rarely any valuable discussions about it or solutions to it. Now I would understand if there are one or two bad actors questioning sand attack Ninjask in the tier, but there seems to be a much larger amount of people advocating for action against it. Forgive me for my harsh words, but I personally believe it's unfortunate that instead of a creation of a new platform to host discussions about this problematic mon in the tier, the solution that often gets presented by people of this community is "stop talking about Ninjask or there will be consequences". Outside of myself, there are people in this community who use sand attack Ninjask on ladder to simply piss our opponents off so they could form a proper opinion about Ninjask. What I'm trying to indicate is that there are people of this community who love the community, yet are using a strategy that creates toxicity and hostility on ladder games because many opinions about Ninjask have been drowned out. Perhaps it's time for the birth of a proper formative thread where people can debate about Ninjask.
To conclude, I and others of this community will continue to use sand attack Ninjask as a way to freely protest against the strategy in the metagame we love. If anybody thinks what we are doing is toxic then I say two things: either adapt/teambuild around it, or form a opinion about it. When spikes have taken over the meta, rapid spinners and superman teams rose. If there's a reliable counter to sand attack Ninjask teams, I highly recommend people to discuss them to create a healthy metagame where Ninjask is no longer seen as a threat and is instead something that players haven't prepared for either mentally or with their teams. If nobody has a good solution with sand attack Ninjask, it goes to show that it's a problematic and toxic presence in the meta.
Again, I would like to apologize for the Ninjask spam and contributing to the Ninjask monopolization within this thread. I promise this will be my last comment revolving around Ninjask, and hope that there will be no action against my voice in this thread. Meanwhile, I also hope for the influential people of this meta to realize that at the very least discussions about Ninjask should have it's own platform.
Thank you
While I do agree with the fact it has less value as a pure pivot. I dont actually think its that huge of a commitment. The idea is because of Seed+Recover+BP, you can still do a lot of what a purely defensive pivot Cele would try to achieve, after all Max HP Cele still tanks a lot and can switch into waters, Zapdos and Snorlax, which are nice defensive qualities, I understand the worries, and honestly you raise some great points. I did not really think about how some offensive mons can produce similar value offensively (Salac Hera is a great example), the thing is though, said mons arent good defensively (I dont consider Kingdra a particularly good mon to begin with, and Hera has almost zero defensive utility, especially with a Salac set). Maybe the problem we are having with SDPass is that we are trying to use it to sweep instead of trying to use it to complement breaking? I also think the magless idea has potential. I just havent felt inspired to do anything about it lately. Much to wonder about, I reccomend trying! Only way we will answer the question
I made a thread for it on the forums
Because what 3 attacks SD celebi loses in BP utility it makes up for in the surprise factor of killing other Celebis, Modest Zards, Moltres, TTars, and the Normals, aka things Celebi normally has abysmal matchups into. The slightly worse Dugtrio matchup and the way worse Swampert matchup can be compensated for with things like Gyarados (used on the team I'm messing with because it's a steel resist), Suicune (absolutely loves the jumpscare Blissey gets from a +2 HP Fighting), DD Mence (like gyarados but stronger but not a steel resist), and Aerodactyl (absolutely loves the removal of Blissey), among many other pokemon I haven't mentioned (Heracross, Superrachi, Agiligross, etc). Now I'm not trying to say that SD 3A Celebi is secretly a top tier set, but what I am saying is that it's genuinely decent and worth building around. I'll probably post an RMT of this later but this is the team I've been messing with and it's gotten me back to the 1500s https://pokepast.es/98dccec8a3e63948
I used my personal rendition of SD pass celebi last weekend in ROAPL finals. I ditched the healing moves for ap fight coverage and accepted it was there for a good time, not a long time. In the end I didn't have to show the mon, which to me talks more about the pace of the team.
SD pass, like any pass, is a tool rather than an archetype. If you build your team sufficiently agro enough and play it well, the need to use bi as a pivot decreases, however it does become a much harder matter of positioning and timing to get the boost pass off.
Alright so I speed built a team this morning trying to make a magless set up work, and I surprisingly have had a lot of success with it - managed a 31-12 record & got up to 1510 without too much trouble (67.9% GXE).
Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Brick Break
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Fire Blast
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 244 HP / 124 Def / 140 Spe
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
- Leech Seed
- Recover
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 180 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Fire Punch
- Body Slam
Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Immunity
EVs: 92 HP / 116 Atk / 144 Def / 144 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Self-Destruct
- Body Slam
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Punch
Metagross @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Agility
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Explosion
Banette @ Leftovers
Ability: Insomnia
Happiness: 0
EVs: 112 HP / 252 Atk / 144 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Brick Break
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Fire Blast
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 244 HP / 124 Def / 140 Spe
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
- Leech Seed
- Recover
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 180 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Fire Punch
- Body Slam
Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Immunity
EVs: 92 HP / 116 Atk / 144 Def / 144 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Self-Destruct
- Body Slam
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Punch
Metagross @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Agility
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Explosion
Banette @ Leftovers
Ability: Insomnia
Happiness: 0
EVs: 112 HP / 252 Atk / 144 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
I went with lead mix mence here because it does a really good job at preventing early spikes and makes sure you don't immediately get off on the wrong foot against Skarm. You might notice that you don't really have a ton of great answers (that don't involve blowing up) for Skarm outside of mence and Jirachi, but I actually have been also getting a shit ton of value out of wisping and knocking off the Skarm if they happen to try to set up on the Banette.
Outside of the skarm matchup, lead mix mence IMO is about as good as it gets at generating early momentum, and it can force your opponent into switches that allow Celebi/Jirachi in. Early game for Celebi, I'd just usually leech straight into BP - you have no shortage of offensive options here and the earlier you start to wear down your opponents key defensive answers, the more likely you'll have success. If you go Jirachi, it's pretty straightforward too - try to paralyze anything you can that switches in. Since your breakers are all pretty slow (sans Metagross after an agility), para spam is a great way to make progress early and set yourself up for potential breaking situations in the mid and end game. Outside of making Jirachi very hard to kill, wish passing is also incredible here. With wish support you have a lot more liberty to try to use your breakers mid or even early game and not end up completely handcuffing your endgame.
If you play the early game right and can control the momentum, you should have a good idea of your opponent's defensive structure and at that point you should be able to identify some kind of win condition for the team and can start progressing towards creating that game state. Even though this team is extremely offensively oriented, it has a surprising amount of defensive backbone and flexibility in terms of handling any threats your opponent might have. I will note that this team does kind of get absolutely bodied by Moltres since your best response is ostensibly mence, if you can manage to paralyze it you can mostly handle the threat after that. Honestly considered going with hydro pump over dragon claw for the m/u.
I know that Banette is probably pretty... sub-optimal here, but it actually ended up working pretty damn well in this team comp. You have pretty solid offensive coverage and a great attack alongside two of the best support moves in the game. Insomnia is great here since it gives you some much needed insurance against sleep abusers. There's honestly nothing more gratifying than switching this thing into Smeargle and just ruining its day. This team also creates a lot of situations where a boom from your opponent is like their only option, so having this thing in the back to catch it can just straight up win you the game in some instances.
I'm sure there are some major flaws here that I might be overlooking but overall this team is a blast to play with and I didn't really find myself in any really bad or unwinnable matchups. I pretty much used SD Celebi the way you were suggesting and teams really struggled to actually take advantage of it.
Honestly man if you really wanna go magless i highly recommend Dd taunt tar with lum. Comes in on anything skarm does and completely shuts it down and set up on it. Now that said looking at your team i personally would replace banette with it but you probably want to keep it so honestly maybe replace lax? The issue with that is your swampert matchup will get much worse though.
I have also been laddering with SD pass lately.
here’s my current team also featuring lead CB Rachi.
https://pokepast.es/8a7f42cad95fa1e4
Lead CB Rachi is a surprisingly great starter for this team. You only have to swap out vs mence and meta of the common leads, and gyara comes in with no issue into both and starts spreading twave so even those aren’t too bad.
Especially funny is tar leads because 80% of the time they stay in and get assblasted straight to hell with hp fighting. The speed is EVd to out speed smeargle just in case
Also doom desire is hilarious and my favorite move in the game. Nothing like a blissey coming in assuming it’s special or tank and then 2 turns later their skarm or other physically tanky Mon gets evaporated by doom desire because it calls the damage on blissey.
Honestly most of the sets are pretty standard so not much to talk about there, celebi has hp fighting in case they have a tar they either didn’t lead with or didn’t leave in vs rachi. You set up Sd, they come in thinking you were gonna cm/leech, and you one shot them. I used to run heal bell here and ran liechi on metagross but got rid of it. Other options would be a rock move for fliers but you would need to redo the EVs so you can actually outrun stuff lol.
Other note I have about the team is that it really hates fire. If they have moltres or zard I hope gyara is healthy, cause ttar is not the best answer to them, zard especially with subpunch zard being the most common. (I have 4 fire weak mons lol) Usually you can deal with this but you will have to make a sacrifice somewhere.
wispers are also very bad for the team, especially gengar. This is why I used to run heal bell, but I get more use out of hp fighting these days.
overall it is a very fast paced team, so you have to predict a decent bit early to set up an opportunity for Sd passing.
I’m currently (tied for) rank 5 with this team so it’s not too gimmicky even with the fire weakness.
Attachments
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2189379444-4qsp6rgs0ko4pfx78gt6pzcdx7f73ehpw
Loving ADV OU at the moment, but I think we should do something about this. It's just silly and all it takes is for them to mag your skarm (which as we all know isn't exactly uncommon)
I've messed around with similar ideas in the past but when someone told me about torment skarm and sand attack dug before trapping with garde, my mind was blown. This is just straight up nasty! Getting +6/+6 with a spike up just for a common interaction is ridiculous. I also had a funny/cringe idea with recycle starf berry porygon2 follow up but let's not even go there.
I'm sure there must be some kind of counterplay but nothing that isn't unreasonably specific comes to my mind. Even something that can tank a +6 move won't stop it most of the time, since you're more likely than not to still be behind a sub after -6 to mag's accuracy. I guess blissey could break the sub and you could get hit by breloom's mach punch or something, but that doesn't seem reasonable at all especially when you consider that priority isn't too common in ADV, in my experience thus far anyway.
Every time I did it to my opponent they pretty much forfeited the second they realised what was going down. I don't blame them.
If anyone I used this on in ladder sees this, I am truly sorry <3 In my defense, it was pretty funny.
Thoughts?
Loving ADV OU at the moment, but I think we should do something about this. It's just silly and all it takes is for them to mag your skarm (which as we all know isn't exactly uncommon)
I've messed around with similar ideas in the past but when someone told me about torment skarm and sand attack dug before trapping with garde, my mind was blown. This is just straight up nasty! Getting +6/+6 with a spike up just for a common interaction is ridiculous. I also had a funny/cringe idea with recycle starf berry porygon2 follow up but let's not even go there.
I'm sure there must be some kind of counterplay but nothing that isn't unreasonably specific comes to my mind. Even something that can tank a +6 move won't stop it most of the time, since you're more likely than not to still be behind a sub after -6 to mag's accuracy. I guess blissey could break the sub and you could get hit by breloom's mach punch or something, but that doesn't seem reasonable at all especially when you consider that priority isn't too common in ADV, in my experience thus far anyway.
Every time I did it to my opponent they pretty much forfeited the second they realised what was going down. I don't blame them.
If anyone I used this on in ladder sees this, I am truly sorry <3 In my defense, it was pretty funny.
Thoughts?
Covet on lax is a interesting idea, unlikely on some kind of bizarre rest set but the classic 4a lax with covet for skarm spin beatdown could be decent. That set needs suittar and dug and mag to be viable, due to being mono normal coverage and especially sand weak. At that point you are investing so much you would rather the classic slam talk set.
That gimmick can cheese you some wins sure but there are a few major problems with it....
This is the most glaring issue, but if your opponent doesn't have Mag you have a pretty horrible team build into literally any other matchup. You sacrifice so much of Skarm's utility as a wall and progress maker when you don't invest in bulk, so it'll be much more susceptible to being worn down by all of the threats that it's supposed to be able to wall. This is compounded by the fact that you also are running a Skarm that has Torment instead of any one of it's infinitely better moves. Even worse than all that, you have a completely wasted team slot running Dug with that set if you can't trap the Mag since it literally does nothing against anything else if you can't get the cheese. I guess the Gardevoir set is okay and it is usable in OU but there are definitely better options. Against a competent player with any other team you're going to get absolutely destroyed.
Also if your opponent decides to scout for a yolo skarm or does anything but click Thunderbolt (this is pretty rare but it does happen) they're obviously going to know what you're trying to do and then you end up with the same problem as the last paragraph where you now pretty much insta lose. Plus like, if you do happen to get someone with the trick then they're going to know it's coming if you face them again so you once again will be in a really tough spot.
I don't think there's any usage stats for Gen 3 but you can probably maybe guarantee a win for yourself in the 20ish% of the time you run into Mag and then pretty much insta-lose the other 80% of the time. Is that really something that needs to be addressed?
If you really want to cheese with sand-attack strats Ninjask sand-attack pass is way more toxic and likely to actually accomplish the goal of getting you a win in some matchups
That's one of my problems with it mate. Its extremely uncompetitive and a total match up fish. I'm already aware of everything you're saying. It's just praying that they tbolt you as you torment, and once that happens its just a lame sequence into the Garde sweep.
Yeah it's definately stupid to run it and have a worse skarm/dug, no doubt about that. Things like this are not what competetive pokemon should be about. Imagine a player who's trying to learn gen 3 ou, only to run into this. 100% quit moment for a lot of players.
I'm terrible at explaining things sometimes maybe my post didn't do it justice.
Edit* you can see in the replay that halfway through I realised I wanted dug to die lol
Like I didn't even know what I was doing. Just clicked torment, hoped for tbolt, ruined my opponents day lol
I don't think this is true at all. It's like getting ftk'd by some janky setup in a card game. You laugh and move on with your life. This also discourages people from going hard mag on skarm t1 which probably means they built their team badly!
I also don't think we need the tiering council to solve any little silly thing you can do in this tier. I mean you can do a similar thing fishing for your opponent to bring p2 by using dug and your own p2. Where's the line?
i would like to point out that in this situation when youre against the dug as the mag player you could just try to self ko the mag by wasting all your toxics on sub, only using hp when they have a sub up and otherwise spamming protect and tbolt, thereby getting you into struggle pp range. gard cant really get subs up because you know them down in 2-3 hits with struggle and it doesnt have lefties here, so its best play is to calm mind twice or thrice, get sub up, be at around 40% health, kill the mag and then pray they dont have smth that can deal with an 80 speed 40% mono psychic, like blissey or several fast mons. this isnt even good into mag teams, everyone here is just being stupid. its a matchup fish that doesnt even really win the matchup its meant to