Suspect Mix and Mega Suspect 1: Sandy Shocks

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Mix and Mega council has decided to suspect Sandy Shocks!

It would be an exaggeration to say that Sandy Shocks has never been a bad pokemon, but it has always had things going for it. A solid speed tier, good special attack, and excellent typing as well as access to pivoting ensures that Sandy Shocks has all the tools it needs to thrive. With Manectite, it is a reasonably bulky pivot that can come in on Pokemon weak to it to farm momentum while still maintaining a healthy damage output and speed tier, while Pidgeotite turns it into an incredible powerhouse of a breaker that forces teams into tough choices between being made into pivot fodder and losing pokemon. Glalitite, meanwhile, gives it the opportunity to delete would-be ground type answers like Pinsirite Tusk off the face of the planet. In some eyes, this was already enough to make Sandy Shocks potentially too strong for the metagame, but with the recent unban of Zap Cannon Pidgeotite sets have gained another incredibly powerful tool by which to bypass any would-be checks like Blissey that lack an immunity, as well as heavily restrict the ability of offensive pokemon like Dragapult to come in on it to chase it out.

However, all is not well for this ancient magnet. Without Glalitite, it has no real ability to hit Pokemon like Great Tusk besides relying on weak neutral coverage like Flash Cannon or Tri Attack, and with Glalitite, it gives up both the overwhelming power of Pidgeotite that bypasses its normal checks and the utility that makes Manectite so easy to fit on teams. While not terrible, its speed tier is hardly amazing either, and even with its fastest mega stone it doesn't clear 131 speed and is thereby outpaced by anything actually fast. It does not resist Pixelate extreme speed, and its weakness to water ensures that even manectite sets are readily eliminated by Choice Band Palafin's jet punch. Even outside of direct answers, common offensive Pokemon such as Latiasite Gholdengo and Dragonite can at least avoid outright losing to it.

One final thing for consideration is that Mix and Mega grants Pokemon access to immunities for both of Sandy Shock's stab moves; between Latiasite, Pinsirite, and Sceptilite, there's ample ability to customize answers and switch-ins beyond the already-used Great Tusk, such as Latiasite Clodsire. At the same time, most of these specialized answers don't see much use outside of Sandy Shocks, or are in direct competition with other necessary tasks for a team's defensive backbone, like Sceptilite making it harder to fend off enemy Dragapult. Are these measures necessary, and if so, is resorting to them a reasonable ask?


Requirements:

Requirements can be achieved by getting 80 GXE with 30 games, down to 76 GXE with 50 games on the Mix and Mega ladder. In order to participate in the suspect, you must create a fresh alt (creation date no earlier than 22 February 2023) with the prefix MNMSS at the start of the name. When you have obtained the reqs, make sure to post proof of your alt's record (generally a screenshot) in this thread, and if you wish to do so, you can also share your thoughts on the test here.
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Code: 
MNMSS Testing- ✓
MNMS Suspect?- ✓
It's MNM SSnake- ✗

The deadline for this suspect will be just under two weeks from now, concluding on March 7th at 11:59 PM GMT +0 (6:59 PM EST).
Voting:
Once the suspect period is over, everyone who has obtained reqs will be tagged. The post will then outline a process of blind voting, which will be clarified once the time arrives. For now, follow the above "Requirements" subheading to ensure that you have posted your reqs correctly. You must post on this thread in order to be tagged in the voting thread, however you do not need to include your vote on this thread.

A super-majority of 60% ban votes is required for Sandy Shocks to be banned from holding mega stones.

TL;DR:
- Sandy Shocks is allowed to hold mega stones on the ladder during the suspect test
- The GXE requirement is 80 and the minimum game count is 30, down to a minimum of 76 after 50 games
- You must ladder on a newly-created alt using the prefix MNMSS
- You must post your reqs in this thread, though the voting process will happen in a separate thread. You are not required to state your vote in this thread.
- The suspect test will conclude at 11:59pm GMT +0 (6:59pm EST) on Tuesday, March 7th.
- A ban vote of 60% is required to prevent Sandy Shocks from holding Mega Stones.
 
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honestly all this sustest taught me is that tera (palafin) is broken and houndstone isnt completely ass. started first with tink, hence the name, but someone ran hound early so wanted to have fun. i blame ponchlake on my last two losses because of what he said 20min prior and nothing else.

no thoughts on shocks as a whole outside of pidgeotite (which i personally find broken as a stone anyway but this isnt a shared belief with the council afaik). grounds are splashable etc but my main gripe with shocks is how limiting it can be to answer (pidgeotite preys on venu moon but loses to tusk, glalitite preys on tusk but loses to venu moon, and theres very few consistent answers in general with those two being a couple of that small selection). if it werent for the fact i was running rain i know that the parahax wouldve caught up to me. i personally wouldnt call it the most problematic thing in the meta but thats not a hard goal to reach with tera bundle/pfin + garg running around too. simply because of zcannon pidgeotite being so oppressive im gonna vote ban, but i could see this being freed if pidgeotite were to ever go again or even just not banned at all depending on how the meta develops.
 
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leaning towards dnb, shocks is slow and manageable imo compared to the likes of Palafin and Iron Bundle, which I realised are the bigger problems rn. It would feel stupid to ban it before those two or tera. Also I still believe Garg should have been suspected first >:(.
 
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def voting ban lol, palafin and bundle might be dumb (they are) but so is shocks so it def deserves a ban (garga is annoying too, although harder to build on i think)
I disagree with the two posts above, shocks is not slow lol, ok very fast mon like pult/barras can outspeed it but it's still faster than most of the threats so that means 4-5 Pokemon in a team and it is enough to do the job (palafin for example is way slower even if it has a prio) / I also don't think pidgeotite is the best stone it and def not what pushes it above the limit, I already found it broken before the zap canon unban and it only provides para haxx to pass through "checks" but that's all, you don't hit grounds, you don't have manec utility for palafin, you're slower too, idt pidgeotite is really good on shocks
on the other hand it's super annoying to check, I'm sorry but if your answer to shocks is "venu moon" there is a problem lol this mon is shit af (works for bundle too though which proves it is stupid), and you can't have reliable check except like blissey + a ground or stuff like that but even then you'll struggle to check it reliably
I think it's worth mentioning that Shocks carries 3 moves with secondary effects (tbolt/epower/fcanon or tri attack) (and zap canon on pidge) so there are high chances that your check will get paralyzed/get a key spd drop/get a secondary effect from tri attack that shuts it down, and even if it's not what comes in mind first when talking about shocks for a mon that is often able to fire 5-6 attacks freely in a game where it has checks it's enough to get those effects sometimes
Overall feels too much, obviously it usually doesn't win on the spot bc you'll have checks/soft checks but its super restrictive in the builder and even then you cannot reliably check it, therefore I will vote BAN but im looking forward other actions against tera & maybe garg (even though I feel like it's broken in the builder but you don't meet it often and when you do it's usually bad teams so you're able to deal w/ it, tera feels more annoying to me)

s/o Redflix for the thousands of teams & advices he gave when I kept throwing with his goated teams, sorry bro <3
 
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Confirming as mnmss put rocks up

My thoughts about this mon hasnt changed since my post about it (which i recommend people to read if they havent made their mind up)
I also dont think pidge is the sole factor of this mon getting suspect tested and share the same opinion as osake about manectite and glalitite being good sets that already do feel restrictive in the builder.
I majorly used this stall ( glalie shocks stall (pokepast.es) ) and when i wanted the games to be faster, switched to this team.
 
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