And we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Go get your shovel
And we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Stakataka has been a defining piece of the Gen 9 National Dex Doubles metagame for some time now as a powerful trick room option that combines strong offense with impressive defensive characteristics. Stakataka has been a somewhat relevant piece of Doubles OU metagames throughout Gen 7 and 8, although it has always been held back by a few severe limitations, including two four-times weaknesses to typically common offensive types in Ground and Fighting and a propensity to having its offensive power weakened by common Intimidate Pokemon like Landorus-Therian and Incineroar. In Generation 8, Stakataka acquired access to the move Body Press, allowing it to somewhat overcome this Intimidate issue by utilizing its absurdly high Defense stat offensively. When unopposed, Stakataka’s impressively low speed allowed it to take advantage of an extremely powerful Gyro Ball that was capable of reaching 150 base damage on many common targets, and being capable of acquiring even more damage output from its Beast Boost ability. Stakataka’s upside was, by itself, more than enough to secure it a solid niche in both DOU formats it was legal in prior to Generation 9, even in the face of well-defined weaknesses and counterplay.
However, with the arrival of Generation 9 and National Dex Doubles’ creation, Stakataka has been able to benefit greatly from several new introductions that it missed out on from being cut from the Pokedex of Scarlet and Violet. Stakataka acquired the ability to hold the Clear Amulet item, all but eliminating the weakness to Intimidate that had helped hold it down for generations, making Gyro Ball one of the most devastating attacks in the entire format. As if that wasn’t enough, Stakataka gained access to Terastillization, helping it overcome its mediocre natural defensive profile and turn into one of several viable Tera Types to allow it more opportunities to set Trick Room for itself and start sweeping. The combination of these buffs would eventually help turn Stakataka from a solidly viable but somewhat uncommon pick into one of the most versatile, powerful, and self-sufficient trick room options ever seen in any DOU tier. Stakataka has seen usage on an impressive variety of archetypes in NDDOU, ranging from Sun, to Fullroom, to Semiroom. Stakataka still struggles to break through slower, bulkier pokemon like Iron Hands or Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, who take significantly less damage from Gyro Ball and are capable of OHKOing Stakataka if it doesn’t use Tera (and can still threaten it for respectable damage after a Tera). Further, Stakataka’s less impressive (but still decent) special bulk means it can still get fairly worn down over time before it even gets a chance to really get going. However, Stakataka’s ability to pair effectively with basically any other strong Pokemon in the tier affords it impressive flexibility that can make it more difficult to reliably and consistently answer Stakataka.
While Stakataka has been around in some capacity since the creation of the tier, Stakataka’s usage started to increase significantly with each successive ban, including the bans of Urshifu-Rapid, Zamazenta, and Metagross-Mega, all of which possessed type advantages into Stakataka or were able to utilize impressive physical bulk to shrug off Stakataka’s attacks. Stakataka reached a new level of prominence in last year’s edition of Doubles Derby, where it saw over 17% usage (somewhat high for a Trick Room option). Further, the end of Doubles Derby saw the banning of Zygarde, another powerful mon with a positive Stakataka matchup. In the next team tour featuring NDDOU, NDPL, Stakataka usage increased even further, making it all the way to being tied as the third most used Pokemon, with an impressive 25% usage rate and 71% win rate through the regular season. The most recent survey saw a marked increase in interest in tiering action regarding Stakataka, with Stakataka scoring a 2.66 out of 5, the highest of any mon present on the survey. Concerns about Stakataka have been reverberating throughout the community for a while now, and given the fairly high usage rate and score on this survey the NDDOU council has decided the time is right for a suspect, especially with the arrival of the next Doubles Derby coming in the next several weeks.
As usual, 60% of the vote must be in favor to ban Stakataka.
NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING THE NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!
The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:
- Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in DOU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played DOU before the test, full stop.)
- At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
- Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, sealoo, or Runo, or a member of staff.
- If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me, big pichu, or eragon - or post here!
The suspect laddering period is now underway and the deadline for getting requirements is Sunday, February 23rd 6:00 PM Pacific Time (GMT-8).
Stakataka will be legal during this suspect.
Suspect Test Ladder Rules:
- Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitance when making the alt, just pick another name. There are infinite possibilities and we have had trouble for this repeatedly. If you wish to participate in the suspect, you should be able to exhibit decent enough judgement here. We will not be lenient.
- We will be using the regular National Dex Doubles ladder for this suspect test. We will not be creating a new Suspect Ladder. At the beginning of every battle, there will be an announcement denoting the ongoing suspect with a link to this thread.
- The element being tested, Stakataka, will be allowed on the ladder.
- Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
- Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
- No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
- No discussion on other potential suspects -- if you wish to discuss another Pokemon, we encourage you to do so in the metagame discussion thread, but this thread is strictly to discuss if Stakataka is banworthy or not - not, for example, Clear Amulet or Shadow Tag;
- No discussion on the suspect process -- this includes testing Stakataka vs other potential suspects;
- Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it.
- You are required to make respectful posts; Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have an informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
- Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
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see more usage as their team slot opens up, which i think are far healthier options and open more options for team building. 
