Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread

[Shandeur]

This is more of a question post (idk if its allowed since its discussion I'd assume so)
What are people's opinions with regards to Tyrunt and Onix, which both fill a similar archetype (although not identical)?
Do you prefer one over the other? Or tend to use both simultaneously? Why so? (if you prefer one over the other)

Personally, I prefer Tyrunt over Onix. Being able to destroy Mienfoo at +1 with Strong Jaw Psychic Fangs is great and is something that Onix just can't do. It's also less prone to get revenge killed due to it's Dragon Typing making it Neutral to Water and Grass, unlike Onix's quadruple weakness to them.

 

[RamentheGod]

This is more of a question post (idk if its allowed since its discussion I'd assume so)
What are people's opinions with regards to Tyrunt and Onix, which both fill a similar archetype (although not identical)?
Do you prefer one over the other? Or tend to use both simultaneously? Why so? (if you prefer one over the other)

As a dragon dancer, I feel tyrunt almost completely outclasses onix. Onix lacks raw power and coverage, which lets it get stonewalled by stuff like ferroseed, and having a 4 x weakness to grass and water severely limits the window it has to set up and pick up kills. Tyrunt on the other hand is much stronger, has coverage in close combat and a strong jaw boosted psychic fangs, and a dragon typing that lets it set up freely on many more Pokémon and stay healthy enough to sweep. They do work well in tandem together but if you had to choose a lc dragon dancer I’d say tyrunt all the way

 

[rarre]

This is more of a question post (idk if its allowed since its discussion I'd assume so)
What are people's opinions with regards to Tyrunt and Onix, which both fill a similar archetype (although not identical)?
Do you prefer one over the other? Or tend to use both simultaneously? Why so? (if you prefer one over the other)

Personally, I prefer using tyrunt over onix as a dd sweeper. Having good coverage in Close Combat and Psychic Fangs is massively helpful in breaking mons that onix would struggle with, such as ferroseed and timburr/mienfoo. Tyrunt can also take grookey’s grassy glide if it’s near full hp, something that onix can’t do for obvious reasons. Onix isn’t totally outclassed, but I personally feel tyrunt is a much better choice.

 

[PyProd]

If you consider it offensively, then Tyrunt's strong attacks and great coverage, make it a great dragon dancer and, obviously, the superior choice. However, what Onix may lack offensively it shows defensively, as Onix is a dragon dancer with actual defensive utility, being able to check the likes of Koffing and Fire-types notably better than Tyrunt can (except for maybe Vulpix but it has to rely on clicking a move which does 0 to anything else).

Onix also needs more support to achieve its breaking power than Tyrunt, but if the necessary support is there to notably take care of Ferroseed, Onix can ravage teams all the same. Its diversity in 4th move combination against Tyrunt's predictable moveset makes Onix a bit unpredicatble: will it Protect against my High Jump Kick? Will it explode if I switch something in?

I think the Grookey Grassy Glide point is moot: sure, it OHKOes Onix, but Tyrunt will often also be put in range of Grookey's Grassy Glide because of the HP it has to trade to set up. Not being weak to it and Carvanha which has risen surely helps, I'll give you that!

TLDR: Tyrunt is obviously superior but Onix slander is unjustified, it has uses over Tyrunt.

 

[Éric]

hi i wanna talk about the fish bc i think there are a lot of mixed, totally opposite opinions in our community about its situation so maybe with this post we will do something? idk ill try

a bit of history on the mon

vullabys departure got rid of the best dark type in the tier, which in turn made psychic types a huge pain: now they no longer had to always deal to a immunity to it, and also no longer had to run dazzling gleam. that put a strain in the teambuilder which, for a time, we filled with grookey, diglett or hope and steel types. come lcwc, and we start seeing fish usage. why? well, for starters, its a dark type, which makes it be able to check the aforementioned psychic types. moreover, it hits really hard. like dumb hard, ohkoing knocked stuff left and right. it also has flip turn as its water stab so it can pivot out while chipping checks if it cant outright ohko whats in front of it, added to its broken speed boost ability. after lcwc and during lpl, its been seeing more and more usage bc of these traits.

nowadays, carvanha is a clear pressing force on the metagame. it doesnt take much for a game to be swept by carvanha: it 2hkoes every eviolite mon in the meta without rocks (except trace porygon, but it dies with rocks, and ferro, which doesnt have recovery and gets trapped), and straight up ohkoes a lot of things when theyre knocked. it is sufficiently fast and has a really good defensive profile to be able to get in on the field repeatedly throughout the match to wreak havoc. when it does enter the field, something is more than likely dying if prediction is correct (or maybe even if it isnt). it is even a really good lead, especially paired with koffing, bc it beats psychics leads and flip turns on mienfoo, leaving permanent damage with neutralizing gas. regen is usually the best way to check pivot moves like flip turn, and having koffing as your partner just denies that. here are some replays where carvanha shines:

replays of carv winning

Laroxyl vs Shrug, LPL8: carv on carv action, both break midgame and eventually one of them gets in a position to sweep the entire game.
Grankie vs Mendez, LPL8: carvanha is able to win the game vs a trace porygon team.
Laroxyl vs Prodigezz, LC Winter Seasonnal Finals g1: carvanha showing one of the reasons that foongus is bad: its a grass type that loses to the fish.
Laroxyl vs Prodigezz, LC Winter Seasonnal Finals g2: carv on carv action again, they kill 6 mons together and one of them cleanly sweeps the game.

of course, no mon is without flaws, and carvanha is no exception. lc is weird regarding checks and whatnot, since the tier is so offensive. its not uncommon to find mons without actual checks, and carvanha is a prime example. it 2hkoes every single mon if rocks are on the field, which isnt a hard condition to meet at all in this metagame with natu hazard control. still there are a few ways to control carv in the teambuilder:

mons that check it

takes "only" 40% from crunch, and checks so many things that youre not putting yourself in disadvantage by running it in a lot of teams. still, it has no recovery, so its one crunch away from getting 2hkoed. its also tasked with checking a lot of mons, which will give it a hard time if theyre together (cores like carv + pory or carv + abra will be hard bc its one hit away from getting 2hkoed). it also is trappable after a flip turn: gambit ohkoes and pinch kills it too.
the only mon in the meta capable of revenge killing the thing at any point in the match. still, it cant switch into crunch if its life orb, and only once if evio. it also can get trapped by sash diglett or burned by pony? its just offensive counterplay, but the best one out there at that, and the most splashable one.
if theres a reason to use timburr, it is carvanha. its a fighter that revenge kills it, but it has timburr problems (it isnt mienfoo and loses to koffing) and cant switch in either except in a predicted crunch.
these mons take a hit and ohko back. pory can even switch in on crunch without rocks (youre still a flip turn away to die tho). keeping mons at 60% to check stuff isnt the most demanding thing in the world but its also not the easiest either.
a version of foongus that trades regen for carvanha checking abilities. it has foongus problems and is really not that useful outside of this role tho, i wouldnt use it.
this one doesnt really count but how funny is trapping a lead carvanha with lead scarf diglett

there are also some other non team related ways to check it, which i think is what makes the fish feel controllable enough. the mon needs life orb to do the stuff it does, and needs protect to outspeed stuff. this leaves it really weak to prediction, against any team really. mienfoo is the most common mon in the metagame, and one that resists its primary stab. every turn is kinda a "should i crunch or should i fangs" kinda situation if foo/dark resist is healthy enough. that coupled with its life orb, hazards damage and iron barbs makes it die pretty quickly, or even get trapped by weak priority like pinch feint or dig sucker. it also needs to use protect sometimes, which can leave it wide open to punishment. many times you have to make a decision about if protecting on a supereffective attack (carv is dying to anything anyway) or attacking on the switch, to which your oppontent can act accordingly, and attack on the crunch (with like natu/foo uturn) or switch to the check on protect, getting it healthy. couple that with the fact that it also needs prediction to switch into the psychics, since both run super effective moves to it. here are some replays to illustrate my points:

replays of carv losing

Éric vs Wail Wailord, LPL8: carv on carv action, one traps ferroseed but dies in the process bc of a sucker punch diglett, while the other one loses to prediction between protects.
Laroxyl vs Prodigezz, LC Winter Seasonnal Finals, g3: carv isnt able to beat a team with fightspam while switching into natu uturn.

in my opinion, this prediction weakness inherent to it is what makes it "balanced" in the metagame. yes, it is able to win entire games if you cant help, but you always can. still, it is hugely threatening, and i wouldnt be opposed to a ban if this kind of counterplay were to seem not enough.
in conclusion, carvanha is a really threatening mon to account for in the lc metagame. some people want it banned because of its ability to easily sweep any given game, while others even think its bad (!!) bc it has to predict in order to do so (sometimes). should action be taken?

one last thing

the no time to develop the metagame argument is bullshit please dont use that and look at bw lc instead

 

[Colin]

So, I am fairly new to the tier, but here is my hopefully not terrible take on Carvanha.

I think Carvanha is just slightly overhyped, because the team structures it fits on are rather specific, although they are quite good and one of them is probably the best widespread team structure currently used. you are likely running it one of two ways; the first of which would be on a bulky offense designed to beat its traditional checks and counters such as Ferroseed and Grookey while mitigating its lack of longevity through some sort of hazard control. this strategy has been largely optimized through this team , although small tweaks can be made and it will likely become obsolete after the meta further evolves. the need to run Koffing to invalidate Mienfoo as a check to Carvanha also heavily limits the variety in defensive cores possible with Carvanha, and Ferroseed is usually also chosen due to it being otherwise too difficult to slot in a water/carv check of your own although for structures able to fit in something such as defensive Staryu Pawniard is a solid option.

the second way you would likely be running Carvanha is on a HO such as (yes I know its not a top tier team but it serves as more of an example), where it is quite potent in a sweeper chain along with suicide lead Dwebble. this sort of team structure is less defined and optimized, and is generally seen as less good then the more common bulky offenses and balances roaming around, but it is amazing at enabling Carvanha to clean with pressure from teammates and hazards quickly forcing damage onto the steels, and other teammates to abuse priority users. the damage onto Mienfoo is generally achieved through one of knock, favorable range due to hazard stack, or other teammates forcing damage onto Mienfoo. this variety of ways to get foo into range allows for more diversity of Carv HO builds, although Dwebble is an almost instant slot and the options for your sweeper chain aren't extremely plentiful.

Eonito also made a point mentioning other possible cores that are not in these teams, such as + and + not in a HO context. these cores are certainly viable and solid, and in fact their existence is what would make me support a Carvanha suspect test even if I would be firmly DNB. as of now they are just not as good as the + (/) core as they are considerably more vulnerable to prediction as they need more than just a likely otherwise non-resisted flip turn onto Ferroseed to break through and are likely worse at trading since Diglett secures a lot of favorable trades. however, in the case that the meta evolves to the point where it is unclear what are the best carv structures are, the meta could become more matchup fishy (pun very much intended), and banning Carv + whatever psychics need it down the line could be the best solution. overall I'm in a weird state of mind where I'm pretty sure Carv doesn't need banned but the metagame doesn't have a whole lot of time left until Violet Scarlet come out, and some people wanted certain psychics banned.

As of now, I think Carvanha is manageable through the teambuilder by countering the teams as a whole it finds home on, and against other structures exploiting it in ways Eonito suggested and limiting its opportunities through offensive pressure. I also support a suspect test, but that is more from a logistical standpoint than an "Carv broken" standpoint.

I could go into other things, but I am not experienced running Carv, and all I can think of otherwise has been stated by Eonito .

 

[DuGuo]

Because I was very bored, I decided to write a post here to talk about my opinion on this meta. As we all know, I am not conservative about meta changes, so the following may be extreme. Thank you!

First of all, I would like to say something about this meta. Yes, I don't like it It has a lot of speed and prediction, and the difference between strong players and average players is not too big.
In my eyes, due to the deletion of Pursuit in gen8, Vullaby left, onix become less, natu began to grow in number. It brought a lot of speedties with spe, which is the same as the LC overlord mienfoo. You can see this scene in almost every game. At the same time, the team of LC is becoming unitary. I know many excellent LC players have built many interesting teams, but it is undeniable that the team of LC is becoming more and more same. I don't like that.

Second: BAN or SUS?

Mienfoo: I will support you to pay attention to mienfoo, but if mienfoo leaves, it will bring a worse meta - natu will become slower. As a tank, def pory will become more rampant. Gen9 is coming. I don't think it's necessary to take this risk.

Carvanha: The culprit of many predictions, have enough power to tear up the whole team, I absolutely support sus it. However, you should know such a premise that even if carvanha is ban, it will not change the meta in particular.

Grookey: I didn't think of brookey, but my friend Shou Dui thinks it severely limits teambuild. After careful consideration, I decided to add brookey here. Actually, I'm not sure. I'm looking forward to more ideas from others.

Third: a little questions, i am looking forward to more replies.
1. What do you think is the cause of team homogeneity?
2. Which mon do you expect from sus?
3. If vullaby returns...
4. You can also raise your own questions. I hope more people will participate in the discussion.

At last, lcpl is coming, I would like to see a manager here consider draft me I hope to see new changes in lcpl. Of course, I will love this tier anyway. That's it. Thanks for reading!
By the way, please give me some likes I wrote this post in a hurry and did not make preparations, which makes this post a bit top heavy and there may be many mistakes XD. I hope to see more excellent players participate in this discussion.

Enjoy.

 

[jns0808]

Because I was very bored, I decided to write a post here to talk about my opinion on this meta. As we all know, I am not conservative about meta changes, so the following may be extreme. Thank you!

First of all, I would like to say something about this meta. Yes, I don't like it It has a lot of speed and prediction, and the difference between strong players and average players is not too big.
In my eyes, due to the deletion of Pursuit in gen8, Vullaby left, onix become less, natu began to grow in number. It brought a lot of speedties with spe, which is the same as the LC overlord mienfoo. You can see this scene in almost every game. At the same time, the team of LC is becoming unitary. I know many excellent LC players have built many interesting teams, but it is undeniable that the team of LC is becoming more and more same. I don't like that.

Second: BAN or SUS?

Mienfoo: I will support you to pay attention to mienfoo, but if mienfoo leaves, it will bring a worse meta - natu will become slower. As a tank, def pory will become more rampant. Gen9 is coming. I don't think it's necessary to take this risk.

Carvanha: The culprit of many predictions, have enough power to tear up the whole team, I absolutely support sus it. However, you should know such a premise that even if carvanha is ban, it will not change the meta in particular.

Grookey: I didn't think of brookey, but my friend Shou Dui thinks it severely limits teambuild. After careful consideration, I decided to add brookey here. Actually, I'm not sure. I'm looking forward to more ideas from others.

Third: a little questions, i am looking forward to more replies.
1. What do you think is the cause of team homogeneity?
2. Which mon do you expect from sus?
3. If vullaby returns...
4. You can also raise your own questions. I hope more people will participate in the discussion.

At last, lcpl is coming, I would like to see a manager here consider draft me I hope to see new changes in lcpl. Of course, I will love this tier anyway. That's it. Thanks for reading!
By the way, please give me some likes I wrote this post in a hurry and did not make preparations, which makes this post a bit top heavy and there may be many mistakes XD. I hope to see more excellent players participate in this discussion.

Enjoy.

I think the team Homogenity is largely caused by the relatively fixed options for teambuilding in LC. I mean to say, the reason Psychic+Steel+Poison+Fighting is basically required is simply because LC is like a cat and mouse game, as is every tier, but the relative lack of mons excarberatesit.
Case in point- Mienfoo is usually where teambuilding starts - very solid mon, high damage output, decent bulk, great utility with priority and pivoting. Immediately, you need a cat for this mouse- A poison to ensure Mienfoo does not run free. You also need a psychic, to deal with both the Mienfoo and the Poison. After that, you add a steel, because you cannot afford to let the psychics (and porygon) run rampant.
While the formula is largely the same, the sets picked for these mons usually change how they are played more than most tiers. In addition, the last two slots have a bevy of mons you can use, somewhat ironically, from Grookey to the Trappers to Carvanha.

Simply put :Mons in general is cyclic in nature, LC simply condenses that down to a select group of mons


P.S.- I wrote this in 5 minutes if I said something stupid @ me on discord I'll fix it

 

[Acehunter1]

Thank you DuGuo for the post, you gave me a reason to make this post :P

I guess it's been no secret to anyone that I've been pushing for a Grookey ban for a very long time. In fact, ever since Grassy Glide was introduced in Gen8, which was probably more than two years ago now, I wanted Grookey banned. Even with Pokemon Home bringing back many top tier mons like Mienfoo and Foongus, I've always seen Grookey as problematic. The way that the meta has developed with it in the last two years has made me even more certain of this.

Grookey's main attribute is its access to very powerful reliable priority. The sheer power of a 91-base power STAB priority is unequaled in Little Cup. It is enough to OHKO many of the faster frailer mons in the tier, while taking the speed factor out of the equation. This makes Grookey a Pokemon that cannot be checked offensively. Unlike say Mienfoo, which Pokemon like Abra can get in on with a free switch and force it out, a Pokemon has to be able to take at least one hit from Grookey to be able to beat it. The presence of Grookey and the inability to rely on speed to check it forces teams to run bulkier, and therefore often slower, Pokemon in their team. With Vullaby gone, it doesn't help that the main Grookey checks are Poison-types, which are typically slow and offensive momentum-draining. While faster hyper-offensive teams were viable in previous generations, Grookey's presence makes it very hard to build hyper-offense teams in SS (by hyper-offense teams, I do not mean teams like screens setup spam, and Grookey even restricts what is viable on setup spam lol, like when's the last time you've seen a smasher? They used to be viable or usable at the very least, now setup spam has to use Grookey-resistant or -neutral sweepers). The only usable hyper-offense teams in SS are specifically sun teams, because all Fire-types on sun naturally resist Grookey's Grassy Glide, and a few teams which requires the presence of a Pokemon that is designated to be able to take hits from Grookey, like my team here using Larvesta or papillon's team here using Ponyta and Grassy Seed Grookey.

The second issue to me with Grookey has been brought to my attention by levi, and it is that Grookey also has great wallbreaking power. With its terrain monopoly in LC, not only it gets priority of unmatched power, but it also gets unmatched wallbreaking power. Having access to moves like Swords Dance and Wood Hammer makes running slower, bulkier teams also a harder thing to do. I might not be the best to attest to this, since I haven't really played these kinds of teams in previous generations. However, Grookey's presence is, in my opinion, the main factor that makes Spritzee an unviable Fighting-type check in SS LC. Compared to SM where Fighting-types could be checked by Poison-types, Fairy-types like Spritzee or Snubbull, or simply offensively with offensive threats including but not limited to Vullaby, Abra and Gastly, Grookey's presence in SS makes Poison-types (and Larvesta) the only viable options, since the role compression of checking both Fighting-types and Grookey is invaluable and now even considered standard and expected in SS. This has been exacerbated by the Vullaby ban, since the meta lost another of Grookey's soft checks.

For these reasons, I've been saying forever but probably not officially enough, that I think Grookey should be banned in SS LC. I think this is what is needed for the meta to become less centralized, healthier, and more enjoyable for everyone. I've seen countless people complaining that the SS LC meta is bad, from both before and after Vullaby's ban. While one can argue whether Vullaby meta was better than the current meta or not, I think banning Grookey would be the best solution.

A lot of people are arguing against a Grookey suspect because they argue that it's far from broken. They are right, in the current meta, I do not think Grookey is broken. However, that is beside the point entirely. Grookey is not broken because great checks to it have existed since its release, such as Vullaby, Foongus, Ponyta, etc. However, this apparence of non-brokenness has, in my opinion, hidden how unhealthy Grookey's Grassy Glide and wallbreaking power is for the tier. That is why no tiering action has been taken against it yet, and now people have gotten used to its presence, and the invisible strain it puts on the meta.

TLDR, quoting levi as he has put it before:
1. grooks strong prio means that it cant be traditionally handled by soft checks rlly. like if u dont hard check it then it just 1 shots everything; compare this to foo where u can spam soft checks and still rkill it even if u arent 100% prepped
2. grook has big wallbreaking power too so its pretty hard to check in a vacuum. tho it happens that its current checks are already very good, we're basically pigeonholed into them w.o alternatives
3. this makes it disproportionately influential compared to comparably strong mons. the pt of contention is whether this is enough to overcome the gap in strength between it and foo

I probably should've made this post a long time ago, but I can't go back now. Better late than never, I guess. And better late than never to take action against Grookey and change SS LC for the better.

 

[reggg]

Because I was very bored, I decided to write a post here to talk about my opinion on this meta. As we all know, I am not conservative about meta changes, so the following may be extreme. Thank you!

First of all, I would like to say something about this meta. Yes, I don't like it It has a lot of speed and prediction, and the difference between strong players and average players is not too big.
In my eyes, due to the deletion of Pursuit in gen8, Vullaby left, onix become less, natu began to grow in number. It brought a lot of speedties with spe, which is the same as the LC overlord mienfoo. You can see this scene in almost every game. At the same time, the team of LC is becoming unitary. I know many excellent LC players have built many interesting teams, but it is undeniable that the team of LC is becoming more and more same. I don't like that.

Second: BAN or SUS?

Mienfoo: I will support you to pay attention to mienfoo, but if mienfoo leaves, it will bring a worse meta - natu will become slower. As a tank, def pory will become more rampant. Gen9 is coming. I don't think it's necessary to take this risk.

Carvanha: The culprit of many predictions, have enough power to tear up the whole team, I absolutely support sus it. However, you should know such a premise that even if carvanha is ban, it will not change the meta in particular.

Grookey: I didn't think of brookey, but my friend Shou Dui thinks it severely limits teambuild. After careful consideration, I decided to add brookey here. Actually, I'm not sure. I'm looking forward to more ideas from others.

Third: a little questions, i am looking forward to more replies.
1. What do you think is the cause of team homogeneity?
2. Which mon do you expect from sus?
3. If vullaby returns...
4. You can also raise your own questions. I hope more people will participate in the discussion.

At last, lcpl is coming, I would like to see a manager here consider draft me I hope to see new changes in lcpl. Of course, I will love this tier anyway. That's it. Thanks for reading!
By the way, please give me some likes I wrote this post in a hurry and did not make preparations, which makes this post a bit top heavy and there may be many mistakes XD. I hope to see more excellent players participate in this discussion.

Enjoy.

Do you think it all has anything to do with the removal of Z moves and the ability to punch holes into teams? I'm not as familiar with previous generations of LC but I believe SM wasn't as centralized as this meta. What AceHunter said about Grookey is a good point too though, that it's monopoly access to insanely strong priority just negates alot of other pokemon and requires certain hard checks. And on the mienfoo note, banning it would seem to me to be like banning Lando T in OU, where it's not super OP, just an amazing glue mon. Carvanha I could definitely see being suspect tested however

 

[LilyAC]

The problems with the current meta are hard to explain. The easy and obvious problem to identify is the prevalence of speed ties. Outside of this we're not too sure what the problems are. It kind of just feels like games have a lot of very basic 50/50s or mindgames, moreso than usual. Whatever the problems are, it's not very fun.

As such we've been discussing a Vullaby resuspect in council chat for a while now

Many of us agree that there is no good or clear path forward in terms of suspecting something new. We can't pinpoint Mienfoo or Grookey as a source of the problems. These are strong mons but they're perfectly manageable. So suggesting to ban one of these would require theorising the metagame that will come afterwards, which is not reliably possible for Pokemon this influential.

On the other hand we already know the Vullaby metagame was better, making it a safe choice. We've seen it before so we know exactly what to expect and the meta will develop quickly. We know it alleviates the speed tie problem and whatever else has gotten worse. So that's most likely where we're headed.

 

[jns0808]

Short post because I'm very low on time:
Acehunter has some valid points but Grookey has the 4MSS syndrome. It cannot run all the tools it needs to wallbreak, while also running protect for trapinch, or U-turn for pivoting.

That being said I'm not completely against a Grookey suspect, but i would probably vote DNB if it happened.


Also P.S. if grookey was banned we probably have to do Carv right after , not necessarily a bad thing just something to note.

 

[Drifting]

Thank you DuGuo for the post, you gave me a reason to make this post :P

I guess it's been no secret to anyone that I've been pushing for a Grookey ban for a very long time. In fact, ever since Grassy Glide was introduced in Gen8, which was probably more than two years ago now, I wanted Grookey banned. Even with Pokemon Home bringing back many top tier mons like Mienfoo and Foongus, I've always seen Grookey as problematic. The way that the meta has developed with it in the last two years has made me even more certain of this.

Grookey's main attribute is its access to very powerful reliable priority. The sheer power of a 91-base power STAB priority is unequaled in Little Cup. It is enough to OHKO many of the faster frailer mons in the tier, while taking the speed factor out of the equation. This makes Grookey a Pokemon that cannot be checked offensively. Unlike say Mienfoo, which Pokemon like Abra can get in on with a free switch and force it out, a Pokemon has to be able to take at least one hit from Grookey to be able to beat it. The presence of Grookey and the inability to rely on speed to check it forces teams to run bulkier, and therefore often slower, Pokemon in their team. With Vullaby gone, it doesn't help that the main Grookey checks are Poison-types, which are typically slow and offensive momentum-draining. While faster hyper-offensive teams were viable in previous generations, Grookey's presence makes it very hard to build hyper-offense teams in SS (by hyper-offense teams, I do not mean teams like screens setup spam, and Grookey even restricts what is viable on setup spam lol, like when's the last time you've seen a smasher? They used to be viable or usable at the very least, now setup spam has to use Grookey-resistant or -neutral sweepers). The only usable hyper-offense teams in SS are specifically sun teams, because all Fire-types on sun naturally resist Grookey's Grassy Glide, and a few teams which requires the presence of a Pokemon that is designated to be able to take hits from Grookey, like my team here using Larvesta or papillon's team here using Ponyta and Grassy Seed Grookey.

The second issue to me with Grookey has been brought to my attention by levi, and it is that Grookey also has great wallbreaking power. With its terrain monopoly in LC, not only it gets priority of unmatched power, but it also gets unmatched wallbreaking power. Having access to moves like Swords Dance and Wood Hammer makes running slower, bulkier teams also a harder thing to do. I might not be the best to attest to this, since I haven't really played these kinds of teams in previous generations. However, Grookey's presence is, in my opinion, the main factor that makes Spritzee an unviable Fighting-type check in SS LC. Compared to SM where Fighting-types could be checked by Poison-types, Fairy-types like Spritzee or Snubbull, or simply offensively with offensive threats including but not limited to Vullaby, Abra and Gastly, Grookey's presence in SS makes Poison-types (and Larvesta) the only viable options, since the role compression of checking both Fighting-types and Grookey is invaluable and now even considered standard and expected in SS. This has been exacerbated by the Vullaby ban, since the meta lost another of Grookey's soft checks.

For these reasons, I've been saying forever but probably not officially enough, that I think Grookey should be banned in SS LC. I think this is what is needed for the meta to become less centralized, healthier, and more enjoyable for everyone. I've seen countless people complaining that the SS LC meta is bad, from both before and after Vullaby's ban. While one can argue whether Vullaby meta was better than the current meta or not, I think banning Grookey would be the best solution.

A lot of people are arguing against a Grookey suspect because they argue that it's far from broken. They are right, in the current meta, I do not think Grookey is broken. However, that is beside the point entirely. Grookey is not broken because great checks to it have existed since its release, such as Vullaby, Foongus, Ponyta, etc. However, this apparence of non-brokenness has, in my opinion, hidden how unhealthy Grookey's Grassy Glide and wallbreaking power is for the tier. That is why no tiering action has been taken against it yet, and now people have gotten used to its presence, and the invisible strain it puts on the meta.

TLDR, quoting levi as he has put it before:
1. grooks strong prio means that it cant be traditionally handled by soft checks rlly. like if u dont hard check it then it just 1 shots everything; compare this to foo where u can spam soft checks and still rkill it even if u arent 100% prepped
2. grook has big wallbreaking power too so its pretty hard to check in a vacuum. tho it happens that its current checks are already very good, we're basically pigeonholed into them w.o alternatives
3. this makes it disproportionately influential compared to comparably strong mons. the pt of contention is whether this is enough to overcome the gap in strength between it and foo

I probably should've made this post a long time ago, but I can't go back now. Better late than never, I guess. And better late than never to take action against Grookey and change SS LC for the better.

*Edit: Writing this post made me mad, fck, can we ban this shit.

Something you don't touch on here that I wanted to add about Grookey is how insanely unpredictable it is.

When I'm in team preview and I see a Grookey theres's about an equal chance that it'll be 1 of 3 sets;

• Life Orb
• Eviolite
• Grassy Seed SD

The problem with this diversity compared to say, Diglett, a mon that has even more viable sets it can go for, is how completely different the things it beats are.

If I'm using one of my Larvesta or Morelull teams, both of which are incredible counters for the first two Grookeys, and the Grookey I'm facing happens to be the late game one, i'm completely screwed against +2 Acrobatics. The way you would normally beat Seed Grookey is by preserving your Mareanie or Koffing. Now not only does Mienfoo already place enormous weight on these mons, but once again, LO and Eviolite Grookey will just U-Turn against them and come back once they're dead.

This places people fighting Grookey in a tough spot: Having to preserve their Poison type who is already stressed with Mienfoo in case it's Seed Grookey, and also being forced to preserve a mon that punishes the U-Turn of every other Grookey (Flame Body, Effect Spore, Iron Barbs).

And believe it or not, this is the preferable conundrum to deal with. The really annoying one is determining between LO and Eviolite Grookey's, as that element is hidden until the Grookey attacks or is attacked. This makes several interactions a nightmare:

1. Life Orb Grookey loses to things like Natu and Sash Sludge Bomb Diglett, whereas Eviolite Grookey beats them
2. Eviolite Grookey's Grassy Glide misses out on a bunch of kills that LO Grookey easily takes, essentially forcing a 50/50 on whether a mon should stay in or switch out

In a tier like Little Cup where one mistake can ruin a game, and where momentum is so important, being forced to guess like this every time an opponent sends out a Grookey is incredibly taxing. The only good mon that actually consistently beats Grookey is Ponyta, and that mon has plenty of it's own problems (mostly Diglett).

With that being said, I don't know if I would necessarily support a Grookey ban. It's obviously insanely good and a bit oppressive, but the meta is relatively healthy and competitive regardless, and there are problems that are far more prevalent imo (such as the weight of Natu and Mienfoo speed ties but that's for another day). I might even support a Vullaby test before banning Grookey, as Lily said.

 

[Colin]

so this is more of a noob's kneejerk reaction to the discussion, but I think most people agree about the problems with the metagame have to do with the speedties, as well as the very defined and therefore prediction reliant midgame caused by the limited viable team structures.

of the options that have been suggested, grookey would probably need to be suspected with Carvanha like Reggg suggested, and even then there is a high likelyhood that trappers would be even more broken then they are as opposed to a mixed bag where they both remove a fundamental aspect of singles and also make speed ties much safer and as speed control are not broken.

I also think that with some exceptions it is fairly easy to figure out which set the Grookey has since seed acrobatics is found on HO, Eviolite Grookey is seen on balances and BO's as an offensive pivot and backup wincon/breaker and LO grookey is used on similar teams as the eviolite grookey but fewer teams can get away with using LO on it.

I am newer than the vull meta so I have nothing to say here.

Abra has always been problematic to me not due to its impact on the builder, but because exacerbates the prediction problems a LC game would already have.

trappers due to their inability to pivot into their targets have always been prediction reliant since you can always lose to one double and the only thing you can do about it is overwhelming the trapper with counter trapping, packing grookey, or carrying nothing that can be trapped from full without gambit. porygon and the psychic types (with the exception of abra who both loves and hates this) in particular would be much more manageable with the trappers gone.

I don't like fighting koffing since gas chokes the pivoting patterns of most teams to a degree, and a truly reliable pivot into koffing that doesn't loathe sludge poison in most games is a premium. unfortunately it is too important a piece defensively to ban.

A natu ban as stupid as it may seem is the most direct solution to the speed tie problem since its interactions with the rest of its speed tier are the most coinflippy and the others in its speed tier, bar foo mirror, win or lose reliably in most situations if you know the set. this idea probably wouldn't help the builder woes the tier has that much though, and if anything it would lose the tier a koffing check and a pivot.

I am not an experienced player at the tier, but these were my scattered thoughts about the state of the tier and possible action that can be taken.

 

[Acehunter1]

The problems with the current meta are hard to explain. The easy and obvious problem to identify is the prevalence of speed ties. Outside of this we're not too sure what the problems are. It kind of just feels like games have a lot of very basic 50/50s or mindgames, moreso than usual. Whatever the problems are, it's not very fun.

As such we've been discussing a Vullaby resuspect in council chat for a while now

Many of us agree that there is no good or clear path forward in terms of suspecting something new. We can't pinpoint Mienfoo or Grookey as a source of the problems. These are strong mons but they're perfectly manageable. So suggesting to ban one of these would require theorising the metagame that will come afterwards, which is not reliably possible for Pokemon this influential.

On the other hand we already know the Vullaby metagame was better, making it a safe choice. We've seen it before so we know exactly what to expect and the meta will develop quickly. We know it alleviates the speed tie problem and whatever else has gotten worse. So that's most likely where we're headed.

I'm not pretending to know what a meta without Grookey would look like. I am not theorising the metagame that will come after. However, I think from the points I've listed, that Grookey greatly contributes to shaping the meta, and I'm glad that you agree with me that Grookey is extremely influential in this current meta (or "disproportionately so" as levi put it).
I'm in favor of a Vullaby resuspect too, for what it's worth, arguably better and more skill-based than the meta right now. However, the SS meta with Vullaby wasn't perfect, it had its own share of problems, as well as being even less diverse than the current meta. Considering my stance on banning Grookey extends to way before that, I believe that a Vullaby meta could also benefit from Grookey being gone, and a meta without Grookey
I think that while it's a shot in the dark, a Grookey ban would be the best option to hopefully obtain a better and healthier meta. Ideally this would have happened much earlier in the generation, but alas we've come this far.

 

[Éric]

On the other hand we already know the Vullaby metagame was better

No, it wasnt. Vull meta was horrible, it was so stupidly centralized between the same 4 slots thanks to that bird, and coming back to it would be such a mistake. Im not on the opinion that this meta rn is bad, but if everyone else is, the solution is not to revert to another bad meta but to change this new one. All metagames are fixable. Even if i thought vull meta was better id still think this way

 

[Éric]

Fuck the double posting rule.
This post before may come off as mean because i wrote it in my phone in under a minute, but the truth is doing a retest of an already banned Pokémon is undesirable, moreso if we already suspected it twice. This is not to say that I think all retests are something we should avoid (even if I have many complaints about how they handled them in the past, like with the Zamazenta-C suspect that I'd like changed here, but besides the point). I understand that some people of the community (won't say the majority because really only council people have positioned themselves, and that creates a kind of echo chamber effect) might think that freeing the bird would help the metagame, even if I don't, and the metagame could be actually better than this one (my opinion on either of those metagames is irrelevant to my argument). Still, I think we should avoid going back and forth with the bird, for these reasons:
1. Metas are always fixable: I think it's a fact that every problem we can have with a metagame can be adressed via bans. The premise is quite simple: if something's wrong, if we take it out nothing will be no longer wrong. This has happened multiple times in the past, with metagames like modern BW LC after Misdreavus, modern DPP and ORAS OU after Dugtrio, ORAS UU after Conkeldurr and SM UU after Quagsire, to name a few. If we found the right thing to suspect (I'll get to that in a later part), we should be able to fix this metagame, if needed.
You could say this doesn't necessarily have to be the case, as in some other instances like BW OU after absolutely everything and SM LC after Trapinch (and arguably SS LC after Vullaby) bans have happened and nothing improved, or even worsened in the case of BW OU because it sucks and has been and still is being horribly handled. Still, I think the chances of it working are bigger than not, and I think that gen ending shouldn't be an issue (all my examples of metas being fixed are after them being current).
2. A lot of action regarding one single problem isn't desired: this would be the third time that we suspect the emobird. Now, this isn't something prohibited (see:

how do you make this smaller) but I still think this is something we don't wanna repeat. I get that this point could be seen as subjective, but reverting to a metagame we had before is a) undoing a year of work and b) not guaranteed to work: it was banned for a reason after all, isn't it likely that it's broken again regardless, and we will have to suspect it again. A lot of time might be lost, and even if it isn't, it's just to revert to a metagame we had rather than having a new one, which is something that I wouldn't desire.
With this said, I wouldn't like action taken on Vullaby, since I think it's had enough already, and there are other paths via new bans. However, if we ended up unbanning the bird, we should, in my opinion, follow it up with a Porygon suspect. Won't elaborate.
Now, what should our course of action be, according to me, if we choose to ban stuff? Let's look at the usual suspects (pun non intended):
this would for sure fix the Mienfoo on Natu speed tie problem, but I don't think it is broken on its own. Every team packs a check to it that doesn't only check it but do other things, added to other soft checks like the Psychics. It sure is good, but I don't think it is currently a problem in the metagame, but rather a bless to check half the metagame.
I don't think this is problematic in the slightest. It helps keep in check a lot of stuff, especially the Eviolite set, thanks to Grassy Glide, and is a good breaker but one that doesn't beak the tier in half or is unstoppable. Many meta mons help handling it, and it does more good than bad in my opinion.
see: my complete post on the subject. In short, the fish is a really strong mon in the current metagame, that serves a defensive purpose and is able to be stopped by every team. Besides, even if it was deemed too strong for the tier, its ban wouldn't solve any of our problems (speed ties and teams being similar), since its counterplay is independent of those factors and the metagame isn't likely to change much with it's departure, but rather to go back to what it was when we didn't use it.
the duck has been broken in the past, but in my opinion the metagame has adapted a lot. Steels and special walls in general as are used as ever because of it and another psychic spamming friend, but now many mons use spreads that don't boost Porygon's special attack. What's more, its defensive presence is very valuable, being able to check both special and physical attackers, and also to countertrap the grounds.
now comes my hot take. I think Abra is broken, and I also think it would help with some of the metagame's problems if it were gone. In short as for why is it broken, this mon is literally impossible to check. If you think Eviolite Grookey or Diglett are enough, you are delusional. It beats all its used checks, and is immune to both Fake Out and Arena Trap. But why do I think it would help if it were gone? Well, we mainly use the steels like we do, especially Ferroseed, to have a chance at beating it. With it gone, teams wouldn't really need steels the way they do now: special attackers still need to be checked, but non Abra ones have more checks than the steels (like the aforementioned EVs for Porygon, Grookey and trappers for Staryu and Porygon, and Frillish without a steel for all of them. Expanding on this, all of these mons already are able to check the special attackers, but either they can't deal with Abra and need the help of a steel, or can't deal with a special attacker and Abra, which are often paired, and they too need the help of a steel. Deleting Abra would help a lot with this, expanding diversity in special attackers checks). In its place, we would probably use Ponyta-Galar, which is just an inferior version of Abra, much more easy to handle, but it'd still offensively check things like Mienfoo or the Poisons, while not dying to Grassy Glide. With this, we would see more variation (likely, in my opinion) than just the steels for special attackers checking antics, so teams would be more varied.

I understand if this last solution isn't desired by some, or if they don't believe it would actually fix their concerns with the tier. In reality, I think the tier is completely fine, and all the problems I've talked about are non issues, but I think I'm on the minority and I had to adress this, since I think it would be the best course of action. If anyone thinks I'm fucking stupid for wanting to ban Abra, feel free to haha react and respond to this thread. The more information regarding the playerbase opinion we have, the better. Especially if it comes from people who we consider good at the game. Please and thank you, peace

 

[ACNT]

1/ Vullaby Retest

I support Eonito, I am completely against the possibility of retesting Vullaby. I see no reason why Vullaby would be less broken in the current meta, nor more skill-based. Vullaby's main problem remains: its versatility and its Nasty Plot set, and against Nasty Plot, most of the time you CAN'T afford to lose a turn to guess the set or the spread. Right now, Vullaby's Nasty Plot set wins its duel against almost the entire metagame, and the duels it shouldn't be able to win, it can still win on a flinch. Nasty Plot Vullaby is not a skill-based pokemon. It's fairly easy to play, very luck based, restrictive for teambuilduing, overcentralizing and hinders the viability of most playstyles. I don't understand how anyone can support Grookey's wallbreaking power while ignoring the infinitely more devastating power of Vullaby's Nasty Plot sets that can destroy entire cores on their own. As long as we have almost no viable fast special attackers (which is globally the case with a few exceptions), this Vullaby set will remain a big problem. And the worst part is that banning Grookey conjured to a Vullaby suspect would only make Vullaby much stronger than it already is by removing one of the strongest priorities. I'm completely against it, even without webs and veils, screens support is more than enough.

Suspect

Now, I'm going to use Smogon's tiering policy as the basis for my next paragraph on the next 3 pokémon: Mienfoo, Grookey and Carvanha, since I think these 3 pokémon are the most controversial. Here is what Smogon's tiering policy says about broken pokémon.
I will also use LPL usages, since it's the last good LC tour with the usages, and it's thus representative of the current state of the metagame.

1/ These aren't necessarily completely uncompetitive because they don't take the determining factor out of the player's hands; both can use these elements and both probably have a fair chance to win. They are broken because they almost dictate / require usage, and a standard team without one of them facing a standard team with one of them would be at a drastic disadvantage.

2/ These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere.

Only one pokémon meets the first criterion : Mienfoo.
No pokémon really meets the 2nd criterion, but the closest is certainly Carvanha.

Grookey renders some pokémon (Corphish, Shellder) almost completely useless and limits teambuilding slightly, but its counters are broadly the same as Mienfoo's except for Mareanie. It's a pokémon that has a good number of counters and checks but it does limit teambuilding in my opinion. His winrate, on the other hand, was nothing special in the last LPL, at 48%.

Carvanha limits teambuilding a bit, but to a lesser extent. Most teams rely on Grookey for revenge kill, residual damage or a very specific gameplan to not weaken key pokémon like Ferroseed, or to prevent some pokémon from losing their Eviolite. The problem is that playing Carvanha when you don't play Grookey or Morellull requires a game that seems to me to be more precise on defense than on offense. For this reason, at the last LPL, Carvanha has the 2nd highest win rate of the 15 most used pokémons, with 55.88% wins, which is very high.

Now Mienfoo.
Does Mienfoo limit the build? For me, the answer is yes. Obviously, it is a nearly mandatory slot in all LC teams except for some very rare structures, with a 92% usage in the last LPL. I repeat, 92%. And still, a higher score than Grookey with almost 52% wins, which means that the 8% of teams where Mienfoo was not present lost much more than the average. But that goes beyond the obligation to play it. My personal thesis is that Carvanha and especially Grookey are problematic mainly because of Mienfoo. Mienfoo is excellent at knocking off a lot of the metagame, which makes Carvanha's and especially Grookey's job much easier. Koffing has the risk of being overloaded by the combination of Grookey + Mienfoo, one making the knock, the other managing to force his way through. Mienfoo can also force Koffing or Mareanie onto the field by the offensive pressure he puts on, which benefits Carvanha who can arrive safely for wallbreak. Mienfoo, in its current state, makes pokemons that would normally only be strong unhealthy. I hear some people saying that Mienfoo would be a gatekeeper. I would simply tell them that if a pokémon is broken, it should be banned and this is not an argument. And even if one were to find this "gatekeeping" theory admissible, I would reply that Mienfoo is neither really limiting Carvanha, nor really limiting Grookey, which are the two most problematic pokémons right now.
The end of the generation doesn't seem to me to be a valid argument either. But even if that argument were valid, I would find it completely absurd to suspect anything other than Mienfoo, if you don't want to suspect Mienfoo, then don't suspect anything it's pointless. Any argument against a Mienfoo suspect should focus on demonstrating why Mienfoo is not unhealthy for the meta, or broken.

Gothita is not broken by itself. It's the combination with other pokemons that makes it unhealthy. Mienfoo at the moment is in a situation that I find, mutatis mutandis, similar. I suspect in truth that if he has never been suspect this gen, it is more for reasons of comfort. The comparison with Lando-T is often made, but Lando-T does not pose as much of an offensive presence in OU as Mienfoo does in LC via Knock Off, in a tier where bulk is almost non-existant compared to OU.

So here are my conclusions :

1/ Mienfoo is an unhealthy pokémon for the metagame at the moment: it is overcentralizing, causes too much ties and 50/50, makes too many offensive pokémon strong while not limiting them defensively as well as before because of the presence of Neutralizing Gas in the metagame.
2/ Mienfoo meets the "broken" criterion, regarding Smogon policy.
3/ And thus, I'm strongly in favor of a Mienfoo suspect.

 

[Shandeur]

I agree a lot with Éric's statements on certain possible suspected mons. Despite some of these mons being great threats, you can deal with most of them. I'll state some more things about the mons he's mentioned.

Starting off with the most dominant Pokemon in the current little cup meta, Mienfoo has gotten better and better, even as the meta has developed. I wasn't playing LC before the Vullaby suspects, however, I can tell Mienfoo has always been a threat. Of course, despite it being dominant in the current meta, you can at least deal with it. Every team packs some sort of hard-check to the Foo, and has other soft checks such as Natu. But even then, it can lose if it gets unlucky and loses a speed tie. It's a very polarizing mon, and can both be positive and negative for the tier.

I'm honestly unsure why people are saying to ban this thing. Yes, it's strong, and it can check and revenge kill things accordingly. However, like Éric, I don't find it to be unstoppable. The meta doesn't revolve around Grookey. The Poisons that have been checking Mienfoo can help with this, and doesn't always beat some Pokemon, even with coverage for it. (I.E: Ferroseed not immediately getting KO'd by Drain Punch.) It helps the meta more than hurts it.

With recent meta developments, The Fish has gotten its time to shine. Despite its frailty, it's a great threat. However, I don't think it's bannable. Every team has at least one way to beat it, even with its neutral coverage, which can KO many mons. Either you deal with it offensively, such as Grookey or Timburr. (who is becoming less and less common) Alternatively, you can deal with it defensively via Pawniard or Ferroseed. In my opinion, Carvanha should stay. Like Éric said, it wouldn't change the problems of the tier.

My main issue with Porygon is the fact that you don't know what set it's running until it comes out. However, despite the unpredictability, it's fine for the tier. It has its counters, and most of the time, they can't really be pushed past by getting, say, a Paralysis or Freeze from Tri-Attack. The Steels that have come more into the light via Psychics becoming more powerful helps with the battle against the duck. More Special walls have risen up to combat these special attacking mons, and that keeps it in check too. It's also able to help with killing the trappers with the defensive set.

Abra has the same issue of Porygon; Not knowing which set it has until it's too late. Oftentimes you can use a weak priority move to break a possible sash, but then learn it was Shed Shell with Substitute and Focus Punch. Now your Pawniard's dead, and you've lost the game. Having possible immunities to both Fake Out and Arena Trap has pushed Abra over the edge, and it's impossible to reliably check it due to its brutal power and amazing speed tier. It can even beat certain Physical Attackers on Offensive teams, due to the Sash Variant being able to run counter, which can guarantee a KO if something brings it down to the sash. You can't even check it with Dark Types most of the time, as Focus Punch just destroys Pawniard, and you can even beat Carvanha if you have a Substitute or Sash intact. Personally, I think Abra deserves a suspect as well, as there's no reliable checks to it, as every possible mon you can think of has some way of losing to Abra.

 

[DuGuo]

I am glad to see that my post last night has brought such a great impact, although I only provide a channel for everyone's ideas: >. I think it does show that there are some problems in meta today.
After a rough reading, I found that everyone's ideas were not unified. What should we do? With regard to these replies, I would like to briefly state my thoughts.

Simply put :Mons in general is cyclic in nature, LC simply condenses that down to a select group of mons

I think you have a point, now most LC teams are indeed in the form of 4+2, at least in my eyes.

I probably should've made this post a long time ago, but I can't go back now. Better late than never, I guess. And better late than never to take action against Grookey and change SS LC for the better.

I like this sentence. I support sus grookey to some extent, but not ban, but you are right, my bro.

Do you think it all has anything to do with the removal of Z moves and the ability to punch holes into teams? I'm not as familiar with previous generations of LC but I believe SM wasn't as centralized as this meta.

I am also not good at the previous generation LC, but I think it is reasonable to say so.

On the other hand we already know the Vullaby metagame was better, making it a safe choice. We've seen it before so we know exactly what to expect and the meta will develop quickly. We know it alleviates the speed tie problem and whatever else has gotten worse. So that's most likely where we're headed.

In fact, I didn't play LC before ban vullab I don't know what this will bring, but I have a question - what should the web, scraggy and zigzagoon do if vullaby return?
Anyway, I support your idea of making this meta better. No one knows the real answer to this question. Good luck for us.

However, the SS meta with Vullaby wasn't perfect, it had its own share of problems, as well as being even less diverse than the current meta.

My friend Shou Dui agrees.

3/ And thus, I'm strongly in favor of a Mienfoo suspect.

I certainly agree with sus mienfoo and agree with you to some extent, but I must point out the impact if mienfoo is ban. Most people will use timburr to replace mienfoo. Without the regenerator, it will wear out quickly, which will bring the strong of porygon, maybe more than that. Because of its low speed, more natus will choose fewer SPE EVs to make them more disgusting tanks.

Due to my time constraints, I just skimmed through all the answers and wrote some simple replies. There may be many mistakes, but anyway, I am glad to see so many discussions. I think we all want to make this meta better.

 

[ACNT]

I'd like to continue a bit on the subject of Mienfoo after discussing it on the LC discord.
I want to make it clear that I'm not completely against the idea of not suspecting Mienfoo. I think the metagame currently isn't that bad personally, although it could be better. My point of view is rather that if a suspect is to be made, Mienfoo should be the only one concerned in my opinion, even if I can hear the arguments for Carvanha (much less for Grookey). I think the issue of usage, the number of games that are decided on 50/50s, hjk misses and ties is indeed an issue. But I also know that many players want to keep Mienfoo for different reasons.

One argument from LilyAC would be that Mienfoo increases the skill ceiling: since Mienfoo checks or can switch on a large part of the metagame and has many options, there are many possible path ig to use his Mienfoo, which creates complexity in its use and thus a better skill ceiling. This is a valid argument, supporting the idea that the good parts of Mienfoo outweigh the bad parts of the metagame and don't make it bad, if I understand the idea correctly.

However, I don't agree with this idea, at least I would qualify it. I have nothing to say about the substance of the statement, but I don't have the same conclusion. Firstly, this nuance in the way Mienfoo plays seems to me to be directly related to the way he vamps the whole LC metagame, in short it is a consequence. This is precisely because Mienfoo is a key pokémon in the totality of matches and it is important to find a good balance to not lose it too quickly while taking advantage of the offensive pressure it brings: in short, it is above all a characteristic shared by the vast majority of hegemonic pokémons in a metagame. Secondly, Mienfoo lowers the skill ceiling of other pokémon, Koffing is for example only dedicated to switch on Foo and Grookey in most cases + block the opponent's regenerator, which limits the possibilities to play the pokémon in a different way in game.

Another question that may come to mind is why suspect Mienfoo before when it has never been done before? For me the question simply lies in a major evolution of the metagame: Neutralizing Gas. Koffing was supposed to reduce the influence of Mienfoo and the Regen Core within the metagame. In truth, the problem is that it only reduced the influence of Mareanie and Foongus and made Mienfoo stronger than he ever was. Neutralizing Gas had two perverse incentives: the first was to severely limit the viability of Mareanie and especially Foongus who controlled its offensive possibilities. I think we should question the increasingly common presence of Larvesta in a metagame where hazard control has rarely been so precarious, relying almost entirely on Staryu and Natu. It's not a coincidence: many players realized that Koffing could quickly be overloaded by Grookey + Mienfoo (and eventually the opposing Koffing) and found an appropriate response.
The second reason comes with the first: Koffing has replaced Mareanie and Foongus in most teams, except that Koffing does not have as much staying power. In short, Neutralizing Gas has reduced Mienfoo's defensive utility but made it immensely more dangerous offensively, which in my opinion justifies the question of its suspect being seriously discussed, and not approached half-heartedly as some sort of unpleasant formality.

Other reasons can be found elsewhere: the absolute lack of ghost type outside frillish hurts which makes HJKs much more spammable than before. Flying pokémons are all but gone with the sole exception of Natu, Abra has seen better days (I don't understand why he's named for a suspect, just look at its terrible lpl winrate, it relies way too much on 50/50), Ponyta-Galar no longer exists. Consequences: very, very few common pokémon are able to OHKO it by taking the current sets and thus forcing it out. To my knowledge, this is the case of Porygon at +1, Abra and that's it, and I'm not even mentioning the sdef spread. No Snubbull, a decaying Spritzee, no Vullaby (hi Ace) and you have the final touch of the board that allows Mienfoo to be more dominant than ever, in a metagame where Regenerator has never been so bad.

Finally, I think the consequences of a future metagame without Mienfoo are out of our hands, especially since we haven't had a metagame without Mienfoo for a while. So I wouldn't go into hypotheticals to defend Mienfoo. A metagame always ends up adapting after the loss of an important pokémon, I don't see why LC would be much different. (cf DuGuo's post)

Again, I am not saying that we should necessarily ban Mienfoo. But I do think that the question of the suspect is a legitimate one, that there are real arguments for it at the moment, and that it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. I can be wrong, maybe Mienfoo is perfectly fine, but I think a suspect would be interesting. I just regret that the timing is pretty bad with the LCPL coming up, and I can hear the practical problems with that. But in this case, I don't know if the issue of any suspects in the immediate future can be supported.

 

[Fiend]

I just wanted to interject on some of this:
I really struggle to find Mienfoo broken under any method of examination. This is also true for Grookey. Simply put, adequate (somewhat subjective, loaded term) counterplay exists against these Pokemon. There's some further points to be said about how good these, or any Pokemon, is relative to their checks but this does not have enough explanatory power to sway me. Mienfoo has always been 'better' than its checks (after the best of those have been banned). I think if Koffing was any less good, and that the main offensive threats in the tier were worse against Mienfoo (knocked or otherwise) it would be reasonable to see it as broken. Similarly, if Grookey wasn't a Grass-type it might be too threatening for the tier. But neither of these is true and given the metagame we have, I do not think a suspect on either is warranted or wanted by consensus.

I think Abra is the least powerful it has been in recent memory, and that Carvanha is also fine. We are allowed to have threatening Pokemon if they are not overwhelming in the sense that counterplay is relatively easy to find and is possible to use without suffering lopsided trade-offs. Trends will make some of your old teams less successful, but most trends are reasonably easy to adapt to. Zig was a good example of an overwhelming Pokemon while Porygon should be an uncontroversial example of a 'fair' Pokemon. Unless something big changes, these Pokemon are not going to be suspected.

There is also nothing wrong with retesting Vullaby, and by extension other Pokemon, if the community feels that the retest subject was inappropriately banned. There seems that a vocal crowd of established players and many newer players think this is true, but it is hard to evaluate the amount of actual agreement or disagreement with a retest of Vullaby within the wider community.

 

[Fille]

I don't feel like typing too much rn, but figured I'd throw a tiny coin in.

1. Just adding my voice to the anti-vullaby faction, I don't particularly enjoy building current meta but that meta I'm refusing to touch.

2. Ban Mienfoo. I'm not gonna pretend it's broken, neither will I pretend that it is difficult to slot a check for. However, that's mainly because we've kinda gotten used to the fact that we need a poison on every team, that's just how it is. My reasoning is very simple tho, a poison type isn't actually neccessary for literally anything else. Like ye they all check other things as well but getting rid of Foo would allow for other mons to shine as checks to the same big mons that would be good. And we all know (please don't pretend like you don't think this'll be true) that Mienfoo will have an 80+% usage this coming LCPL, and that's me playing it safe cause it'll likely be closer to 90-95%, with the only exceptions being sun and that one DwebCarvGrookPonyTimmyAbra team. Banning Foo essentially just frees up 2 slots in the builder, gets rid of speedties, and essentially just allows for more likely diverse teambuilding than banning (or freeing) anything else would. Vull meta would be as centralising. Grookey ban doesn't rid us of the mandatory poison slot + the speedties everyone hates. Foo is central to all of those + many of the general 5050 mindgames that Lily brought up earlier.


Edit: Before anyone brings up Larvesta possibly replacing a poison slot, yes but also no.

 

[Berks]

Suggestion 1: Don't Retest Vullaby
Vullaby was also sticking teambuilding into ruts. It was a different rut because Vullaby could check fights and Grookey instead of the poisons, but you still basically needed Onix on every team. Vullaby should stay gone, it was simply too good.

Suggestion 2: Innovate the Foo-Grook Check Role(s)
I would like to suggest that the dual Fight-Grook check role could be explored more in the meta. We're seeing advances due to the simultaneous rise of Carvanha, in that Morelull is the best it's ever been at the moment, and while it's not amazing, it does handle fighters/grookey fairly well. At the same time, Larvesta and defensive Ponyta with Flame Charge feel underrated as mons that can also fit that role. There are also more niche picks like Archen that nobody seems to be trying at an elevated level. Again, all fairly niche, I understand.

Suggestion 3: Retest Gothita
The one crazy thing that I think could actually be helpful to creativity in the metagame is a Gothita retest. Gothita was banned before we got Pokemon home and the DLCs. A retest could give us a look at a metagame in which Mienfoo has to play more carefully, and potentially one in which we start to rely less on Poisons. I understand that it could also be absolutely ridiculous and only further enable Pokemon like Mienfoo and Grookey, but I think the one thing that could balance it is the untrappable defensive Koffing, so if you want to use that poison role compression, there's an option you can pick that won't be Goth bait. As an interesting history pick, Gothita was banned at the start of LC Ekans Draft 2019, while the overall usage stats for that tour show Koffing at 9 total uses in the tour, so I'm pretty sure it didn't even have NGas yet. This interaction could be healthy, in that it could allow for a new dynamic with Mienfoo, who most of us agree isn't broken but all seem to feel is missing some vital piece of counterplay. I'd like to see a retest to see how this dynamic plays out, because the last time Goth was legal, we had things like Vullaby and Cutiefly in the meta, and we didn't have NGas Koffing. No ban/unban opinions here, but I think a retest would be awesome.

e: My history check was bad, disregard the Koffing didn't have NGas thing and thank you Merritt

That's my thoughts, and if I get drafted for some LCPL team I'll redownload Discord and elaborate further!

 

[Merritt]

As an interesting history pick, Gothita was banned at the start of LC Ekans Draft 2019, while the overall usage stats for that tour show Koffing at 9 total uses in the tour, so I'm pretty sure it didn't even have NGas yet.

Koffing has had Neutralizing Gas since the start of Gen 8. There are no additional (relevant) moves or abilities that Koffing got after the start of Gen 8.

Here's the only game from Ekans that used Koffing in the Gothita metagame if you were curious.

Freeing Gothita into a metagame where there are literally two viable Dark-types, one of which is made out of paper and definitely not a viable switch in to an unlocked Gothita, feels like a mistake, especially in a metagame where people are already complaining about Abra and Carvanha since Gothita is the most effective Pokemon at removing single checks to its offensive partners. It doesn't matter so much that Koffing can switch out of Gothita when your options for switching into it are still not particularly good at retaking offensive momentum and Gothita gets to do essentially free chunk damage with Psychic (or flat out cripple something like Ferroseed via Trick).

There's nothing we've gotten that would make Gothita more balanced, and everything we've gotten (and lost) has only really increased its effectiveness, from our prime Fighting-type having U-turn again to the removal of offensive counterplay in the form of Vullaby.