Metagame NP: NU Stage 12 - Higher Ground

[Finchinator]

Silvally-Ground has been at the forefront of potential suspect discourse recently, including a 3.38 out of 5 on the community survey when asked if it was problematic for the metagame. The council also discussed Silvally-Ground prior to the survey and continued to after seeing these results, which led us here. Although there's a split on whether Silvally-Ground should be banned, it has been discussed on each side enough throughout the last few months that we have collectively deemed it suspect worthy.

Unlike some prior suspects, Silvally-Ground is not a versatile presence with an overabundance of coverage, thriving on unpredictability. Much on the contrary, Silvally-Ground focuses primarily on a Swords Dance variant. Multi Attack with the Ground STAB is a fantastic fit in the metagame, especially when complimented by the one coverage move it does require: Rock Slide. Together these two moves give it the classic EdgeQuake coverage that has always been challenging to resist. On top of this, Silvally-Ground can pick between being able to boost its speed with Flame Charge or function as a pivot with U-turn to round out its set. U-turn also helps chip down would-be checks earlier in games, particularly damaging Grass types with super effective damage. While NU has seen a number of Swords Dance Silvally forms this generation due to Multi Attack gaining strength, nothing has been quite this potent and that is largely a testament to how well Ground Multi Attack covers the metagame with these moves.

Silvally-Ground is not particularly challenging to use either as it has respectable natural bulk and the ability to serve as an immunity to Volt Switch and other Electric type attacks. It may lack the standout defensive utility Goodra had on the specially defensive end or Bewear had on contact moves, which helped open the door for both to maximize their offensive presence, but Silvally-Ground does have sufficient speed in a slower metagame, naturally outpacing 4 or 5 Pokemon on a majority of teams we encounter. Revenge killing it can be a challenge as well if it gets a Flame Charge under its belt or you leave it healthy. While it is true faster threats like Scarf Rotom-Mow and offensive Starmie can dispose of it without a speed boost, it is a challenge for them to switch in. The same applies to Choice Scarf Passimian, Tauros, Salazzle, Heliolisk, and others, who can all take it out from decent ranges of health while outpacing it, but cannot switch in comfortably.

Checking Silvally-Ground on the defensive end is a much more plausible task in this metagame. While Unaware Quagsire and Levitate Weezing hold strong as true counters to Swords Dance Silvally-Ground, certain Grass types like Dhelmise and Decidueye can also withstand any attack -- even at +2 -- from Silvally-Ground while making quick work of it or forcing it out. In addition to this, Silvally-Ground lacks the muscle to OHKO certain walls at +2, leading to it getting crippled or taken out. Mudsdale, Vileplume, and Vaporeon in particular are able to minimize Silvally-Ground's impact if kept healthy. On the outskirts of the metagame, more fringe options like Tangela and Gourgeist can also blank SIlvally-Ground, too. There are also some less reliable scenarios such as getting the faster Will-O-Wisp with Talonflame on Silvally-Ground, but you risk Rock Slide, or being able to revenge kill a chipped Silvally-Ground with First Impression from Sirfetch'd once it is below half health.

While there absolutely is counterplay to Silvally-Ground on both the offensive end and defensive end of the spectrum, as we alluded to above, it is true that this counterplay is a bit more sparse than it is for most offensive threats and also less comfortable for offensive teams to integrate. Silvally-Ground is able to function as one of the most threatening offensive options in the metagame because of this, working potentially as a breaker or cleaner depending on the team on a variety of playstyles. It is also able to outlast or overwhelm would-be counterplay depending on the game state; it is able to withstand singular super effective attacks from walls such as Vaporeon, which can go a long way in certain scenarios. Being able to do all of this without needing to compromise much coverage wise and while remaining fully invested in attack and speed is a huge advantage of Silvally-Ground, too, as it will always have the moves it needs to cover a vast majority of the tier and almost always carry its own weight at the very least. Moreover, Silvally-Ground limits teambuilding to a certain degree due to its offensive presence and is seen as a consistent option, but it is not impossible to cover by any stretch of the imagination. It will be interesting to see if those who qualify for the suspect believe Silvally-Ground is a bit too strong for the metagame or if there is enough keeping it in check for it to stick around!

• Reading this is mandatory for participating in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 79 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 79 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 83. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 79 GXE will suffice. **It is now 79 GXE**

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
79	50
79.2	49
79.4	48
79.6	47
79.8	46
80	45
80.2	44
80.4	43
80.6	42
80.8	41
81	40
81.2	39
81.4	38
81.6	37
81.8	36
82	35
82.2	34
82.4	33
82.6	32
82.8	31
83	30

• You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be NULA. For example, I might signup with the ladder account NULA Finch
• 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 NU 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 aspects being tested, Silvally-Ground, 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.
• The suspect test will go on for two weeks, lasting until Wednesday, May 4th @ 11:59pm (GMT-4), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.

Tagging Kris and Marty for being awesome helpful people, thanks!

 

[Meri Berry]

Would like to give a quick post with my personal thoughts on Silvally-Ground in regards to the current meta. I think there's a multitude of reasons that one might want to ban it or keep it unbanned. Although currently I lean slightly towards Unban, I think that its worth considering both sides, as this will likely be really close similar to Goodra and people are at least aware of how good Silvally-Ground is currently.

Why keep Silvally-Ground?

• A Ground-type option above 300 speed: This is the major reason why people really don't want to let Silvally-Ground go. There is no doubt that Silvally-Ground is a major contributor to why balance and bulky offense teams can afford to be faster in the current meta, especially with the addition of Stakataka as another Steel-type Stealth Rocks setter. The main other viable Ground-types are Mudsdale, Golurk, Quagsire, and Rhydon, which are all much slower. The removal of Silvally-Ground will likely lead to an overreliance on much less viable Electric-immune options such as Togedemaru and Manectric (which I've heard mentioned recently, though I think it sounds very poor).
• Not that hard to revenge kill: I think that revenge killing Silvally-Ground, despite the speed it adds to teams, is still a relatively easy task to revenge kill it. Choice Scarf users such as Passimian, Rotom-Mow, and Indeedee-F force it out with ease, and there's a lot of naturally faster Pokemon that threaten it significantly such as Salazzle, Starmie, Heliolisk (or Galvantula for haters), Inteleon, Tauros, etc. I ignore options like Talonflame and Aerodactyl as theydon't do much damage to Silvally-Ground, but they are still faster.
• Impact can be mitigated defensively: I'm not going to sit here and pretend Silvally-Ground isn't one of the best breakers in the tier, but there are workarounds for how you build around it. A few hard checks exist in Quagsire, Weezing, Dhelmise, and Tangela, and there are some soft checks that exist as well (namely Vaporeon, Mudsdale, Mantine, Xatu if you're brave, Decidueye, Rotom-Mow, Tsareena, Vileplume, and barely viable Eldegoss). However, there's a lot of ways to mitigate it, mainly in how Pokemon that it exploits can threaten it. For example, Assault Vest Copperajah does over 65% with Heavy Slam and has a chance to OHKO with Power Whip on the switch, SpDef Escavalier can live 2 Multi-Attacks and Toxic in return, SpDef Stakataka does about 75% with Gyro Ball, and Diancie practically forces it out if it gets a Diamond Storm boost on the switch. Most Pokemon are prepared to pressure Silvally-Ground for switching directly in, and there are enough soft and hard checks to prevent a sweep from Silvally-Ground.
• Trick and Knock Off immunity is nice: This is a relatively minor point and I'll spend very little time on it, but the fact that Silvally-Ground is able to absorb annoyances like Trick and Knock Off allows it to solve interesting dilemmas within the builder. This applies for other Silvallies as well, however.

Why ban Silvally-Ground?

• Enables VoltTurn cores very well: The last point is all well and good, but this changes when Silvally-Ground gets a switch-in from Volt Switch or U-Turn on one of the Pokemon it exploits. This opens up a guessing game that is favoured towards the Silvally user, where they can either Multi-Attack/Rock Slide the Pokemon right in front of them, Swords Dance to try and set up for a sweep, or U-Turn out and keep the vortex going. U-Turn in particular is very annoying, often being Super Effective versus a number of its soft checks and slowly chipping them into range of an eventual Silvally-Ground sweep. The fact that Silvally-Ground is both a huge benefactor of VoltTurn and also a U-Turn user itself is very tricky to build and play around.
• Flame Charge sets are very volatile: I think that Flame Charge sets are underexplored, and they are by far the most volatile set. Flame Charge Silvally-Ground isn't outsped by many scarfers that people use now, mostly outsped by Scarf Heliolisk and Inteleon. At +2 and with a little chip, its able to force its way past many soft checks, especially with Flame Charge to guarantee damage on Grass-types that normally take Neutral damage to U-Turn. This means that Flame Charge can get to the point that it 6-0's teams much more consistently than U-Turn Silvally-Ground, even though it comes at a big cost of flexibility.
• Restricts how you play and build with your checks: This is probably the biggest reason people want it gone. Silvally-Ground forces you to either run a hard check to it or run a soft check or two + a revenge killer, which can be restricting on the team builder. Also, if you are trying to use soft checks to beat Silvally-Ground, you will often need to keep their HP very high. For example, Vaporeon doesn't effectively check +2 Silvally-Ground unless its at full HP, and the same can be said for Pokemon such as Vileplume as well. This means that Silvally-Ground can force certain structures to play very safe with certain Pokemon, effectively taking them out of the game and allowing the opponent to take advantage.

I've made my biases clear, but I think that its one of the suspects which I'm not 100% sure which to vote, and I don't think most people know either. I just hope that the meta doesn't get worse if Silvally-Ground leaves, as I could easily see its departure encouraging really slow balances that caused people to become disillusioned with the metagame in the first place.

 

[turtledoggo1]

reqs laddering bingo!!!
does not matter if it's the opponent or yourself
post alongside voter identification for free brownie points
goodluck and HF @everyone going for reqs

 

[Lilo]

Hey everyone,
Just finished getting reqs and after reading both Finch's and Meri's arguments about Silv-G (which are really well elaborated btw) i'm still undecided regarding it's ban.

I hate the idea of " if this mon gets banned we will have to ban x,y or whatever" and i can definitely see where the ban of silv-g can result in other bans in the future.

My main concern with losing Silvally-Ground is that Rotom-Mow becomes indeed more potent (even if slightly) and we all know how that went in the early days post-flygon ban.

Other than that i don't really have a problem banning Silv-Ground: It destroys Bulky Offense and forces u to run rather passive mons to beat it (weez, quag, *muds*); Flame charge sets are annoying for offense and even balance if u can just get a bit of chip on grasses early on; The voltturn factor and restrictive nature it possesses mentioned by Meri.

One point I do want to mention is that Meri talked about how it's "Impact can be mitigated defensively" but I have to say currently with the amount of great pivots we have like Dragalge and Xatu, Silvally-Ground can safely be brought in versus a multitude of mons and all of the mons listed above, in this case Diancie, Staka (probably the hardest), Copper and Escav.

With all this said, I will wait for more arguments about Silvally-Ground before I decide whether i want to go for a BAN or a NO BAN.

 

[Finchinator]

Hey everyone,
Just finished getting reqs and after reading both Finch's and Meri's arguments about Silv-G (which are really well elaborated btw) i'm still undecided regarding it's ban.

Just want to note that I wrote the OP, like other suspect OPs, in order to present the baseline facts on both sides rather than argue my personal opinion.

My personal opinion is that Silvally-Ground is probably not banworthy. I’m not 100% sold yet and I am excited to get back on the ladder after a break for the last few weeks, but I’d say I’m 70/30 now on voting to keep it.

I feel like on balance teams we see an abundance of Quagsire or bulky Grasses/Weezing, which can minimize or outright blank it. It’s nice to have such an offensive Volt Switch and Trick immunity for sure, which I feel is a big plus to having Silvally-Ground in the tier actually, but it doesn’t really make as much progress — if any — as premier breakers. in addition, it isn’t as menacing a threat to sweep given the durability of defensive answers to it (while Silvally-Ground lacks recovery itself). I actually think the metagame adapted nicely to it and we found that Pokemon that handle Silvally-Ground also have really interesting niches for other reasons as well, which I see as a healthier metagame development than not as our tier continues to gradually grow. The counter argument is that a few things were forced to be more common largely because of Silvally-Ground to begin with and even then there was a limited pool of true answers, which I understand, but I think we gave everything some time to settle and it’s panned out sufficiently enough to where Silvally-Ground strikes me as restrictive, but not to a crippling extent to the metagame or teambuilding within it.

Bulky-offense may be a better matchup for Silvally-Ground, but even there it’s not foolproof by any stretch of the imagination. I find the notion that it can outlast checks with UTurn or eventually sweep with Flame Charge to be a very realistic one, but also largely the subject of aggressive outplaying rather than giving one an unreasonable advantage — the counterplay in terms of both soft checking and revenge killing seems to be there. Silvally-Ground lacks OHKO strength and can only find drawback free setup opportunities infrequently. If you can get any top tier offensive threat in repeatedly or without consequence, it’s surely going to carry its weight and potentially go above-and-beyond, but a prerequisite of that is good positioning and I don’t think Silvally-Ground has an uneven or unfair impact on game states when you consider all things equally. I find a lot of my success with it over the last few months to be due to being a step ahead or a lot of my struggles against it due to being behind or managing my counterplay poorly in the short term rather than being blatantly unprepared. Obviously you need to be cognizant of Silvally-Ground in the builder to not end up unprepared, but that’s not really a herculean task — we have some tools that fit here as well.

I actually really enjoy fitting Silvally-Ground on as a complimentary piece on fully offensive teams, where it makes a superb Volt Switch immunity and normally does a good job at forcing chip on Vaporeon, Mudsdale, or Vileplume for a trade or a teammate to later take advantage of this dent it left. But I don’t view this alone as an unhealthy presence or something overbearing either. It’s instrumental to sequencing, but it’s something you can call out by going to your Scarf Rotom-C on the SD/Multi Attack without risking the outright loss or mitigating with status and Protect (among other things). Right now I actually think balance is kept a little proactive and forced to avoid being overly passive due to the presence of things like Silvally-Ground, Grimmsnarl, Machamp, Exploud, etc and I think that removing one of the biggest catalysts of this dynamic could stunt the pacing of the tier as well. Obviously that’s more speculative and should not be used as concrete evidence, but personally I find it to be a symptom of a healthier current metagame rather than one of a problematic one due to Silvally-Ground.

I do get why a lot of people are worried about it outlasting things like Scarf Rotom-C, forcing higher risk scenarios for offense, and mandating specific counterplay onto some archetypes, but I don’t find it to be overly restrictive and I think Silvally-Ground is more healthy than not overall right now. This is subject to change, but I certainly lean do not ban for now.

 

[Rabia]

I voted Silvally-Ground a 4 on the survey because I felt it was the most appropriate option to test and could entertain pro-ban sentiments surrounding it. However, I currently am do not ban because I 1) feel you can appropriately prepare for it without resorting to otherwise niche Pokemon and 2) believe it brings more good than bad to the tier.

Especially lately, we've seen the rise of a few hard answers to Silvally-Ground, among them Quagsire, Weezing, Decidueye, and Dhelmise, in addition to many other checks like Mudsdale, Foul Play/Grass Knot Xatu, Vileplume, Vaporeon, and Alolan Exeggutor seeing continued use. Of course, Silvally-Ground's U-turn complicates some of these as "true" counters because it can repeatedly weaken them for an eventual KO after a Swords Dance boost. However, this often means you take a good bit of chip damage along the way from Rocky Helmet and Stealth Rock, which makes avoiding revenge killers harder.

An interesting tech I've seen talked about is Facade, which makes Weezing trivial to defeat and means you care less about Talonflame's and Vileplume's status, but I don't find it anything that just breaks Silvally-Ground. Many of its checks contend with boosted Facade just fine. Flame Charge is another move that gets a lot of hype because of how it limits potential revenge killers, but I find it not worth the opportunity cost outside of Spikes offense. Silvally-Ground just gets too much out of U-turn to justify it, and with Quagsire balance really rising with the drop of Stakataka---this is probably my favorite balance core at the moment---you'd really rather the pivot utility.

I think a Silvally-Ground ban would be reasonable; it's certainly our best setup sweeper and is sort of a "do it all" offensive Pokemon. But, I'm not yet convinced it's too strong for our tier nor that banning it would help us get positive metagame development---likely the opposite.

 

[Stories]

Still on the fence about my vote for similar sentiments to Young Lilo, being that if Silvally Ground leaves, Rotom-C becomes a problem. In my opinion we shouldn't keep something broken in the tier just to check something else broken, and both should go, but this all hinges on the idea that Silvally is actually broken.

Many defensive checks I've seen in the thread (Weezing, Mudsdale, Tangela, Quagsire) all fall victim to what I like to call "Fast strong mon with U-Turn is broken wow I'm so shocked" where your only answer to a Pokemon is to sacrifice ALL momentum and give your opponent a free switch into their breaker of the day. Taking a U-Turn isn't so bad even with hazards up, but when you bring in your Physical wall and now you're staring down the barrel of an Exploud or Indeedee shotgun and have to pick one, its not so fun.

Silvally also provides many things for the tier besides just keeping Rotom-C in check, of course. Simply having it in the tier overall brings the speed tier up and thus makes building much easier. Its also only one of a few select Ground-types that are even viable anyway, so losing one to pick from really blows.


Overall I'd say the bad outweighs the good here and even if we have to take the ban Silvally -> ban Rotom-C -> ban Blastoise pipeline then that's simply the better solution and best option for the tier in the longrun.

 

[turtledoggo1]

Echoing some of the posts from above, I strongly believe Silvally-Ground should stay unbanned.

The general Smogon Tiering Framework says that threats should be banned only if they are broken (too strong), uncompetitive, or unhealthy (which doesn't have a clear definition but mainly just undesirable for the metagame). I don't believe Silvally-Ground fits any of that criteria. I'll first list some bullet points below on some of my reasonings for point one about its strength.

• Its checks and counters are very good and common Pokemon in the metagame (bulky waters and grasses, Weezing, Mudsdale, etc...) While it's also not difficult to revenge kill (Mowtom, Talonflame, Starmie, Indeedee-F, Passimian all either OHKO or kill after a small amount of chip)
• Due to its inability to hold items such as Leftovers or HDB, overall average bulk, and its role as an offensive pivot, Silvally-Ground is very susceptible to being worn down
• Flame Charge variants are more difficult to revenge kill but the lack of pivoting means it oftentimes cannot score the OHKOs it wants since it lacks the prior U-Turn chip, while also being forced to appear on very specific offenses (which are also pretty predictable)
• While its checks and counters and be pivoted on into strong breakers, it can be applied to most mons in the tier that utilize a pivot move, and is not a trait only limited to Silvally

This all leads me to believe a team utilizing Silvally-Ground does not have a significant advantage over a team that does not. I'll go over some recent tournament/high ladder replays to further prove my point.

Me vs Elodin NU Open R3
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nu-1557091875-nihe4jwke69pxp2nnkjnovbwbsflzskpw

While yes, the Silvally-Ground user won, it was not due to it doing 'broken' things. For most of the game, I did not have many opportunities to safely being it in. Most of the Pokemon on Elodin's side could either 2HKO or OHKO my Silvally, and even the things that couldn't (Xatu, Quagsire) just either walled or pivoted on me. Even on turn 29 when I had free opportunity to setup, It fell flat against a hard wall in Quagsire, and thus I was relegated to basically being a U-Turn bot the entire game.

Me vs Ho3nConfirm3d Ladder, 1564 Rating
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nu-1553694090-n3ws0g77o1e88bywhcz96ktwwegxbt6pw

This replay shows some of the flaws with something like Facade Silvally, and the issues with Flame Charge variants in general. The Silvally-Ground has troubles setting up freely, and illustrates how difficult it can be to setup safely without being severely crippled or weakened in the process. While it had Facade to deal with the issue of status, it was still not enough to deal with Xatu, and shows the problem of how easy it can be to whittle it down through something like Rocky Helmet. My team on paper doesn't have many ways to beat Silvally, in practice it is a lot different, with two natural revenge killers, a defensive pivot in Xatu, and a soft check in Mowtom, while nothing also really lets it in for free. In essence, the matchup was not severly in the Silvally-Ground's favor, there was no significant advantage because of the Silvally-Ground.

Xiri vs zS NU Winter SSNL R14
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8nu-621434

In this battle, it wasn't really that simple for the Silvally-Ground to make progress, as there was strong counterplay in Decidueye and Mudsdale, while it also had to be careful around the offensive threats of the team, really just forcing it to be a UTurn bot. At the end, it illustrates again some of the problems of finding true opportunities to get onto the field, though, it didn't matter in the battle outcome in this instance.

=====================================================================================

Moving onto whether it's uncompetitive (too haxy) or not, Silvally-Ground is a pretty straightforward Pokemon. It normally just uses the same moveset of SD/Multi Attack/Rock Slide with either Flame Charge or Rock Slide as the fourth option. The only RNG really lies in Rock Slide, which still isn't the most favorable for the Silvally-Ground user and also has the chance to miss, making it pretty balanced and still usually rewards the more skillful player.

Its potentially unhealthy effects is more of a subjective manner, but personally I believe it doesn't exhibit any signs of unhealthiness, in fact in my opinion it's very healthy for the metagame. Once again, I'll list below some bullet points as to why:

• You don't have to go out of your way to defensively check it during teambuilding. Off the top of my head, Quagsire, Weezing, Mudsdale, Vaporeon, Xatu, Mantine, and the plethora of Grass-Types all do fine against it, and chances are there's multiple per team
• Preparing for a top threat is normal, and is something that should obviously be taken into account when teambuilding
• It provides the metagame with a splashable Ground-Type, raises the speed level, and eases teambuilding a ton. While that is not a super convincing DNB reasoning, it's moreso about how much more of a positive it adds rather than a negative

 

[Phantomistix]

I'll start this off with saying that having 'It provides the tier with a volt/trick immune, makes building easier yada yada yada' IS NOT a valid DNB argument at all. If mon is broken, it has to go. If it causes another mon to be broken after going, ban that too. That has always been the way.

People been saying common checks include Vaporeon/Mantine - no. They only check it when they successfully burn it. Arguments for Talonflame are weak in that the mon can NEVER come in safely without slow pivoting (which won't matter if Silvally is at +1 speed), and even then you take big chip on said slow pivot, or worse, have to sack a mon to bring talon in and still miss wisp, which is still very positive in the Silvallys favor as it can be wished/heal belled back up.

The bulky grasses can be brought in safely most of the time, but they have to eat hazards, a flame charge/uturn, the latter of which leads to another breaker staring at them, blocking their opportunity to recover. The uturn part also goes for Mudsdale. This doesn't mean much at face value, considering the momentum vortex argument can be said abt a lot of mons, but when you take in Silvally's above average 95/95/95 bulk, resistance to rocks, splashability, speed tier, very strong STAB even without set up and good coverage, this mon stands out above others.

The only consistent, true checks are Weezing and Quagsire. I have been on the Weezing train for almost a year at this point and am happy it's finally getting the usage it deserves. Quagsire though, is the single most passive mon in the tier, there's a reason it's still PU by usage, even with people spamming Silvally since before January shifts. Outside of checking most setup mons, it does nothing and is very easy to exploit and kill.

• Its checks and counters are very good and common Pokemon in the metagame (bulky waters and grasses, Weezing, Mudsdale, etc...) While it's also not difficult to revenge kill (Mowtom, Talonflame, Starmie, Indeedee-F, Passimian all either OHKO or kill after a small amount of chip)

Calcs

0 Atk Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Ground: 114-135 (34.4 - 40.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Indeedee-F Expanding Force (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground in Psychic Terrain: 213-252 (64.3 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Passimian Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Ground: 195-229 (58.9 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I'll ignore Talonflame and assumed you meant wisp it. 2 out of the mons you mentioned need Silvally to have already taken a third of its HP in chip, that is not a small amount by any means. Not to mention they both have to lock into very exploitable moves to do this. You go 1 for 1, potentially not even OHKOing and losing some HP/dying in the process, and then get exploited for locking into a move.

Getting tired of having to reiterate this over and over, but being forced to build teams with the same 2-3 mons or you are in a very disadvantageous position is NOT healthy for the tier. This mon is doing waaaaay more bad than good for the tier, and needs to go.

 

[Ren-chon]

I'll start this off with saying that having 'It provides the tier with a volt/trick immune, makes building easier yada yada yada' IS NOT a valid DNB argument at all. If mon is broken, it has to go. If it causes another mon to be broken after going, ban that too. That has always been the way.

Agreed. It doesnt matter if a 'mon is literally holding the tier together and makes it more fun or w/e, if somethings broken, we need to address it and take due action. Saying it stops Mowtom from mindlessly Volt Switching is a fine argument, but saying it stops Mowtom from mindlessly Volt Switching and therefore should stay in the tier to keep it in check isnt, and we should refrain from doing so. That said, however... I heavily disagree with a lot of your points.

People been saying common checks include Vaporeon/Mantine - no. They only check it when they successfully burn it. Arguments for Talonflame are weak in that the mon can NEVER come in safely without slow pivoting (which won't matter if Silvally is at +1 speed), and even then you take big chip on said slow pivot, or worse, have to sack a mon to bring talon in and still miss wisp, which is still very positive in the Silvallys favor as it can be wished/heal belled back up.

You dont need to burn it. The simple fact Silvally has to take a Scald in the first place already makes it all the easier to handle, since now you only need to do like, around 40% extra to deal with him, which isnt exactly that hard (Salazzle deals 41 min with Flamethrower, for example). Also, lets not pretend like Groundvally can just switch into everything and go on to click Swords Dance as it pleases. It can be a menace once it SDs, yeah, but every time it does so it has to risk getting hit and chipped in the process, which sucks considering it has literally no form of recovery in its most standard sets. The argument that it can be Wished back to full doesnt sit too well with me either, since that can also easily be applied to stuff like Mudsdale, Tsareena, Mowtom or whatever which means more often than not Gvally is delegated to U-Turning duty.

The bulky grasses can be brought in safely most of the time, but they have to eat hazards, a flame charge/uturn, the latter of which leads to another breaker staring at them, blocking their opportunity to recover. The uturn part also goes for Mudsdale. This doesn't mean much at face value, considering the momentum vortex argument can be said abt a lot of mons, but when you take in Silvally's above average 95/95/95 bulk, resistance to rocks, splashability, speed tier, very strong STAB even without set up and good coverage, this mon stands out above others.

If anything, thats could be considered quite the con for Silvally sometimes. Its forced out every time it U-Turns (...obviously), and lets not pretend the Groundvally check is the only one being chipped by hazards; as much as it resists SR, considering how it has no recovery whatsoever, a 6% chip + any potential damage it might take can go a long way through a game. Once it U-Turns, you can plan your game around either not letting it in safely, or not giving it the chance to setup without taking a good chunk of its health back. This dynamic isnt exclusive to Silvally-Ground, as just about every set up sweeper requires this sorta planning ahead to handle them. The ground dog just happens to be the best out of them, but that doesnt equate to it being broken. Btw, its 95 base bulk is nice, yeah, but its not that amazing once you realize it has barely no useful resists and most "momentum drain"-esque 'mons we have, like Vaporeon, Sylveon or Mantine can hit it reasonably hard actually, so it can barely ever set up safely despite its bulk.

The only consistent, true checks are Weezing and Quagsire. I have been on the Weezing train for almost a year at this point and am happy it's finally getting the usage it deserves. Quagsire though, is the single most passive mon in the tier, there's a reason it's still PU by usage, even with people spamming Silvally since before January shifts. Outside of checking most setup mons, it does nothing and is very easy to exploit and kill.

Quagsire is actually a pretty nice blanket check to a lot of meta threats: Groundvally, OTR Staka, SD Esca, Aero, Salazzle, Blastoise, Physical Croak, Curselax (if Curse/Haze) and so on. Protox sets are also quite annoying to handle, and not as passive as you may think unless your opp has a Vileplume, since even Xatu risks getting burnt. This doesnt have much to do with the suspect itself, but just want to reiterate how useful Quagsire is and how it goes beyond being just a Silvally-Ground check/counter.

I'll ignore Talonflame and assumed you meant wisp it. 2 out of the mons you mentioned need Silvally to have already taken a third of its HP in chip, that is not a small amount by any means. Not to mention they both have to lock into very exploitable moves to do this. You go 1 for 1, potentially not even OHKOing and losing some HP/dying in the process, and then get exploited for locking into a move.

I mean... Yes? Of course we need to chip it to revenge kill, unless youre running something like Inteleon, Starmie (also two good offensive checks to it, btw) or Scarf Mowtom. If everything faster could OHKO it we wouldnt be doing a suspect, and if it was impossible to chip we wouldve QB the second Bronzong left the tier. Also, 1/3 is actually a rather small amount when:

Calcs

0 SpA Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground: 132-156 (39.8 - 47.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 Atk Mudsdale Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Ground: 136-162 (41 - 48.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Vaporeon Scald vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground: 194-230 (58.6 - 69.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Mantine Scald vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground: 152-180 (45.9 - 54.3%) -- 47.3% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Xatu Psychic vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground: 97-115 (29.3 - 34.7%) -- 9.1% chance to 3HKO
Xatu Night Shade vs. 0 HP Silvally-Ground: 100-100 (30.2 - 30.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
0 Atk Stakataka Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Ground: 213-252 (64.3 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (if you stay in with Staka youre a madman tho)
0 Atk Snorlax Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Ground: 103-123 (31.1 - 37.1%) -- 77.8% chance to 3HKO
0 SpA Quagsire Scald vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground: 128-152 (38.6 - 45.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 Atk Ferroseed Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Ground: 97-115 (29.3 - 34.7%) -- 9.1% chance to 3HKO

The average weakest option, Xatus Night Shade, is still a 36% chip factoring rocks, not to mention it can just Teleport out to something that can better handle the dog. Im not even trying to be malicious and pick stuff that can beat Silvally-Ground, but rather these are just all the mons people often use as set up fodder, and Groundvally isnt safe against literally any of them unless your team lacks anything that could outspeed and kill it after, at which point its just a teambuilding issue. Also ngl, I find it rather... ironic? That your whole post builds up the idea of Silvally being this broken behemoth but then you say how a 1 for 1 trade involving them isnt worth it for the other party

Getting tired of having to reiterate this over and over, but being forced to build teams with the same 2-3 mons or you are in a very disadvantageous position is NOT healthy for the tier. This mon is doing waaaaay more bad than good for the tier, and needs to go.

We arent exactly forced into it though lol you can easily build a team without Quag, Weez or a super bulky grass and still handle Gvally just fine. We have plenty RK options that you can explore (Starmie, Inteleon, Aqua Tail Aero, Viri, Sneasel, Scarf Decid, GK/Surf Choiced Helio, Overheat Salazzle Gourgeist-S, Tauros and so on). Some of them need Vally to be chipped, yes, but please refer to that wall of calc up there or to the fact its ability isnt Regenerator. Even for defensive options (or slower offensive ones) that go beyond the usual Muds, Quag, Weez and such, we arent exactly lacking them either: Bulky Decid, Dhelm, Eldegoss, Phys Def DTail/Protox Guzz, Tangela and Eggy-A to name a few. All of them can handle a +2 Multi-Attack, cripple/kill it in the process or force it out. Defensive counterplay can be a bit more complicated, as noted by the fact most answers I mentioned are just bulky grasses and risk being U-Turned on, but thats kinda the point: you force out Silvally-Ground and then can adapt your game accordingly, not to mention how Silvally was pretty much tailor made to deal with slow balance anyway, so its fine that the defensive answers are a bit more limited, but still efficient at dealing with it.

Please, lets remember that whenever you argue how Silvally-Ground can chip everything, how easy it is to stay healthy through cleric support, and so on and on, the EXACT SAME THING will also apply to your opponent: Groundvally can be easily chipped through RHelmet and hazards, its checks can be kept healthy through Wish/Heal Bell, and it also doesnt have that easy of a time setting up when all would be fodders do basically 40%+ on average. Needless to say, Im heavily leaning no ban here

 

[Stories]

Part 2 of why your Sylveon should be set to female:

There's a new Throat Chopper in town and Sylveon users are opting to use Cute Charm and Moonblast in favor of Pixilate Hyper Voice. Setting Sylveon's gender to female can actually influence Cute Charm odds in your favor due to many contact attackers having a high male ratio or are always male.

Braviary has been rising in usage in since the post-April shift metagame due to being a Flying-type that can beat Stakataka and also preys upon the huge influx of type disadvantages such as Tsareena and Machamp. Being able to potentially prevent such a powerful Pokemon from attacking could allow Sylveon to safely Wish for itself or an ally.

Grimmsnarl commonly runs Throat Chop currently just to beat Sylveon using Hyper Voice. Sylveon would much rather sacrifice a little power than have the tables turned on it in an otherwise favorable matchup.

This thing is labeled as NU so more people put it on teams I guess. Hitmontop's moves all make contact, especially Triple Axel, so the odds of infatuating it are quite high. Shoutouts Uberfiend.

Although Tauros can nearly OHKO Sylveon with Iron Head, pivoting in on a Close Combat or Throat Chop provide a chance to avoid an Iron Head the next turn.

It should be noted that in-game gender ratios are not applied to the randomizer on PS! so Pokemon like Machamp and Arcanine will have a 50% to be male instead of a 87.5% chance. I wish this weren't the case as many Pokemon have a very high male:female ratio such as all starters, eeveelutions, and fossil Pokemon.

 

[Danny]

When I first noticed the immense hole that was left from Flygon leaving, I scrambled for alternatives. A fast ground pivot which was neither passive nor weak was hard to come by, and my first choice immediately was to patch all my Flygon teams with Silvally ground. Now my baby is all grown up and suspected, but is it even justified?

There was something inherently wrong with the tier prior to the Goodra ban, but I don’t believe that it was fixed. I can’t put my finger on it as I more or less gave up on NU after NUSD. I still can’t really define what the issue is myself. Hopefully however, in this suspect test there has been more time invested into building, and there have hopefully been breakthroughs with how to properly deal with what was(and possibly is) an overwhelming threat.

I do however have a question. If council is so anti ban, why did we suspect it vs the countless other threats in our metagame? When our tier is rife with potential brokens and we still have the largest BL of any low tier, it appears almost like a waste of time. It seems to me like this was just an excuse to write long essays about why you think the mon ISN’T broken, and to get some people the TC badge. I’m not entirely sold either way, leaning DNB only because of my playing experience but I do understand the effect it has on the builder. I would implore people to build their own teams with Silvally in mind, and ladder for reqs so that they can formulate their own opinion. I used a team that was overly prepped for silv g, and although I didn’t face many, it was still good vs other builds without the mon in question. My only real request from this suspect regardless of outcome is that we get new teams and ideas from this because in my eyes this appears to be a fruitless venture, but ig we shall see.

 

[Finchinator]

Danny that is a fair question, so I’ll try to give some inside insight and transparency.

A handful of councilmen aren’t in favor of banning Silvally-Ground as some posts above show. However, just because something doesn’t have full council support doesn’t mean it’s not worth suspecting. There was consistent community support in the survey and a number of council members who are less sure of their stance.

Personally I was on the fence until I posted myself, even considered flip-flopping after laddering (although I ran a lot of Grass Pledge filler and ran into a slew of Quagsire so that’s a flawed sample). I will be voting DNB ultimately and I think the community anticipates it staying, but it’s never really a waste when >half the community indicates support for a suspect and the idea is accepted by the council. Not every suspect has to lead to a ban and it won’t be lost time at all if we at least did our due diligence.

There was the support both internally and externally for a suspect, so we had it just like any other suspect is ultimately the conclusion. I also floated the idea of preceding or proceeding this suspect with a Blastoise suspect, but the council did not support this nearly as much and even the survey responses were slightly lesser on this front. It’s still not 100% off the table, but seems less likely.

Retests with open ongoing and NUPL around the corner when nothing has much individual support are very unlikely, unfortunately. Having a large NUBL doesn’t indicate much on our end and honestly may reflect more on the fact that RU is more of a centralized tier in terms of usage — we have not banned much more than other lower tiers actually.

I hope this clears up a bit more of why we acted as we did, and never hesitate to ask further questions ofc.

 

[SlickL7690]

So, this suspect test has made me very sad. I was excited when I heard it was announced because I was super tired of SG as a whole. This entire thing has made me realize that I just kinda hate Silvally in every form no matter what. I find it to encourage lots of annoying and lame plays since it is only good based on the current threats in the meta and not really on its own merits. I know the tiering system rejects any objective truths about “good” Pokémon but the fact that Silvally is such a presence despite having like, 1 or 2 sets that are viable just makes me sad. It’s a Pokémon that feels like it’s impossible to switch into if you don’t have like, a Rotom Mow, but it’s also a Pokémon that can’t switch into anything because it has no reliable recovery. I basically find myself trying to make a team and coming to terms with the fact that I’ll have to walk on eggshells around it, trying to pamper it and have it avoid damage because the respect it gives trumps the the ways you’ll probably ever actually use it.

I don’t even think it’s broken. I’ve appreciated looking at what other people have been saying as well, and I agree with people that it has plenty of counter-play. I just find it so annoying that it fulfills such an awkward speed tier, with a powerful move that makes it what it is. The bulk is also super wack, as it’s not quite 100 across the board so it can’t really tank any hits, just kinda absorb one or two weak hits. It also takes advantage of how hazard removal is mostly Rapid Spin, as it’s faster than pretty much every rapid spinner and can U-Turn out. If you’re running Defog then that’s either on Talonflame (who can be extremely passive as a result but that’s fine as it’s the prime mon of the tier and I don’t find it too hard to build around) or you’re essentially taking up a slot that could be used offensively. It came in response to Volt Switch spam as well, which just kinda gives me a headache because half the time it just sits in the back waiting for you to get too comfortable with Volt, and other methods of momentum like U-Turn are either super sparse or on slow mons who wouldn’t really benefit from running it unless it were scarf, which would then complicate what that Pokémon is even doing because imo, only Rotom Mow should be running Scarf as every other user of it doesn’t really function that well with it.

My last major complaint against it is definitely how Spikes are borderline nonexistent. Not a single NU Pokémon has Spikes. If you want that immediate pressure against the opposition, you need to get a Sandslash or some other obscure pick from a lower tier just to set it up. Toxic Spikes are nice but with Heal Bell being pretty viable with Vaporeon and Sylveon, it’s not hard to play around it and remove the hazards and avoid the passive damage. From what I’ve seen though, it isn’t like SG is the glue that holds together the team and can raid wipe the opponent, but it usually only needs to do like, one thing: pressure one problematic Pokémon on the opponents team and give a lot of good chip on slower wall breakers like Sylveon. It feels like Lando-T but without the fun anticipation of what set it will be running because NU feels…off. Idk how else to put it. Everything with SG feels unearned except it isn’t. It’s almost completely one dimensional in my eyes.

I‘m bad at the game generally so I won’t get recs but I hope I can point out why I at least dislike this thing and find it super frustrating to have in the tier.

 

[Segetarius]

I probably won't be able to get reqs (honestly, at this point I'm convinced that every suspect will be when I have a bunch of tests going on), but I figure throwing in my two cents can't hurt anything. I think this thread has already established that Groundvally is not broken in a traditional sense, nor is it more restrictive than any of the other breakers in the tier. Thus, we are left with the last argument and the most subjective one, whether or not Groundvally is "healthy" for the tier. If I did just magically have reqs rn, I would probably be on the fence, maybe leaning ban a tad, concerning Groundvally, but I just wanted to take a moment to address some of the arguments surrounding the question of whether Groundvally is a part of a healthy metagame by examining its "positives."

Groundvally as a fast Ground Type
I'd just like to take a moment to say that "If Groundvally goes, Mowtom becomes busted, therefore DNB" is not a reason to keep Groundvally because a) it's theorymoning and b) this suspect is about Groundvally, not Mowtom. If anything, if you think Groundvally is the only thing holding the tier together against Mowtom, that's an argument against keeping Mowtom, but that's besides the point. It is admittedly nice to have a mon with all of the defensive perks of a Ground Type (most notably its Electric immunity) and an excellent speed tier, which gives teams a great option to have something faster than the slow(ish) breakers that also has power and good uninvested bulk. However, to say that Groundvally is the only mon that falls under the category of "mid-speed mon faster than the slower breakers with defensive utility" is just wrong. We have plenty of other mid-speed breakers faster than the resident slow nukes that also possess good typing/bulk. They are slower and slightly less splashable, but they are there and they are still good. Really, the only thing super relevant about that base 95 speed is that it makes Groundvally the only good mid-speed breaker faster than non-Scarf Mowtom. Compressing these roles is nice, but it's not like there aren't ways to fill that gap should Groundvally be banned, after all, Mudsdale has only become better and the mid-speed mons will fill the void.

Groundvally as a Trick and Knock Absorber
Frankly, I don't think Trick is that relevant of an argument, since the only mons using it rn are Scarf Mowtom and some Scarf Indeedee. In both of these cases, Groundvally should not be your only option to mitigate them for obvious reasons. "Oh, but it discourages them from using Trick." Uh, not really? You shouldn't be switching into Indeedee anyways because you can't risk switching into Expanding Force. As for Mowtom, like yeah, you block half of its moves (3 if it's running Thunderbolt) but your also dead to Leaf Storm and any team with Mowtom should have a contingency plan for if their Volt Switch is blocked anyways, the same logic applies for Trick. Like, don't get me wrong, getting your wall Tricked a Scarf sucks, but the meta has moved in a proactive direction anyways, which helps to mitigate that. Being a Knock Off absorber is actually a great trait to have rn, as even the mons that are "absorbers," i.e., they can function without their item and/or are a good check to the knock spammer, don't appreciate losing their item. That much I can totally get behind.

Groundvally as a VoltTurn Enabler
I guess I'm gonna have to be the one to say it, but it's important to note (in any suspect) that Groundvally doesn't exist in a vacuum. If there's an argument to ban Groundvally I can get behind, it's this. Honestly, the only team style I think you should even consider using Flame Charge on is HO, because U-turn just makes piloting Groundvally 1000% easier and more brainless. This is only made worse by the fact that the only real ways of punishing Groundvally's U-turn are Talonflame's Flame Body and Rocky Helmet... which is only run on Weezing. Talonflame is not the hardest thing in the world to lure, and Weezing is gonna hard wall you anyways, so you might as well double switch. Even if you are burned, it's trivially easy to fit a cleric onto non-HO teams rn. What really makes Groundvally irritating on VoltTurn is the amount of synergy it has with its parners. Common partners include Talonflame, Xatu, Mowtom, etc. that synergize with Groundvally beautifully both offensively and defensively. This isn't even mentioning pairing Groundvally with sweepers or slower breakers. You can't even consistently mitigate these strategies with hazards, the traditional way of punishing switch moves, due to the widespread use of Boots, Groundvally's Rock resist, and the lack of (Toxic) Spikes in the metagame. Furthermore, even if you get your speed control in against Groundvally, its ability to switch in and out with U-turn with little hazard chip means that you really need to find a way to force significant chip on it to put it in range of many revenge killers not named Starmie and Inteleon (who can't switch in safely).

TLDR I just haven't found the metagame to be super enjoyable as of late, I share a lot of the sentiments of Danny in this regard. It just feels so impossible to build rn with the number of breakers restricting defensive options. Banning Groundvally won't remove these problems entirely, but if nothing else it will limit the amount of easily splashable support the breakers have. On the other hand, losing Groundvally will be a huge blow to bulkier teams that make use of its role compression as a fast Ground, likely pushing the meta in a direction where we are once again searching for the best mid speed mon with power and defensive utility.

Honestly, I'm kinda indifferent to a Groundvally ban, I just have this feeling that the problems with the meta don't boil down to it on its own. However, I likely won't have the time to participate in the suspect anyways, so it'll be up to you guys to decide for yourselves, I just felt the need to point out a couple of things about the arguments floating around. Feel free to call me a moron and good luck getting reqs!

 

[Stories]

I'm seeing a lot of people saying their main gripe with the tier is that there are too many breakers to account for when building. Silvally-Ground is one of these breakers, with a fairly low pool of viable checks, although the ones that do exist happen to be pretty good outside of the Silvally matchup too (Talonflame, Weezing, Mudsdale, Dhelmise), but Silvally also provides plenty of utility for teams. I think Pokemon like Blastoise, Machamp, Exploud, Grimmsnarl, Indeedee-F, Scrafty, Snorlax, etc. are the "breakers" people are having issue prepping for but how do we fix this? None of these Pokemon by themselves are really bannable. The only ones I'd even consider suspecting are Blastoise and Indeedee-F, Grimmsnarl later down the line, or maybe Machamp but probably not.

Basically what I'm doing is saying there is a problem without proposing a solution, because I can't think of any, although trimming the list of threats a team has to prep for is definitely a step in the right direction in my eyes, and if Silvally-Ground is one of those threats (it definitely is) then I see no harm in banning it then simply retesting it if the result is undesirable.

I would post replays of Silvally sweeping someone's team from full but it happens so much I don't even bother saving the replay as its nothing notable anymore. I already said this earlier but every defensive check to Silvally is a momentum black hole that's vulnerable to most of the silly breakers I mentioned earlier. Nothing really pivots in on Silvally-Ground without getting U-Turned on then an Indeedee-F or Exploud is in now staring down a Tangela or Weezing or Quagsire or any other decent check. Is the issue here the Pokemon that forces such abrupt, momentum-draining play? Or is the issue the Pokemon taking advantage of it? It's hard to pinpoint it but seeing as Silvally-Ground is really the best and only Pokemon fully abusing this currently, I think I can blame "fast strong mon with U-Turn" here.

EDIT: realized I literally just repeated my first post on this thread but I don't think what I'm saying is wrong, although the arguments for DNB also aren't wrong for the most part.

 

[Xerche]

People have already posted all the analysis stuff about Silvally-G and why it's strong in this metagame, but I just wanted to give my thoughts on the tier as a whole.

I will start by saying that NU is still my favorite tier. It's what really got me into playing competitive pokemon, and I still do enjoy it, but I enjoy it less than I used to. I feel like my biggest issue is that building teams can feel incredibly formulaic and because of the amount of threats we have in this tier, it's impossible to check them off.

I'd say the biggest offensive threats in the tier atm are Silvally-G, Blastoise, and Indeedee-F. I personally feel like the most problematic is Blastoise, and I feel like Blastoise is the most unfun mon in this tier to play against. Silvally can pivot on its checks to bring in its teammates that can threaten those walls, and Blastoise quite commonly haxes its way though its checks. Thanks to the new drops, I feel like Indeedee-F is more manageable, but if you don't have a dark type or you let your steel take too much damage, you will get swept by this pokemon.

These are usually the pokemon on my mind while I'm building a team, but there are other threats that make building creative teams difficult. I understand that sometimes your team will just have a bad matchup, and I really don't know how to describe it, but this issue just feels so much worse to me when I'm trying to build NU teams.

I don't think Silvally-G getting banned would solve the problem instantly, but if it were to get banned, I think new holes would open up and we could begin to address those as they come up. Would Rotom-C be unhealthy for the tier if Silvally-Ground gets banned? Who knows.

Even after all of this, I don't know if I would vote for Silvally-Ground to be banned if I was able to get reqs. I think Blastoise is a bigger issue personally, but I wouldn't mind seeing both Silvally-Ground and Blastoise gone.

#Banstoise

 

[SlickL7690]

After thinking about it, I think that NU has too many wall breakers for its own good. That’s what a lot of other people have been saying and I’m inclined to agree with them. Threats like Blastoise will only continue to rise because it, like many other threats in the tier, have like 1 or 2 checks they need to get rid of before they can sweep. Meanwhile the defensive Pokémon that do exist, like Sylveon, Mudsdale, Vaporeon and Escavailier have absolutely no momentum and can be broken by the proper wall breaker in addition to being worn down gradually. It feels like the counter play to this hyper offense is to try and get in a better position with your hyper offense. Even Talonflame, who is one of the best Pokémon in the tier, is used defensively more often than not purely due to its defensive typing and ability and access to recovery, great offensive options and reliable momentum. It’s only the best because of how well rounded it is. Like I said in my last post, Silvally-G is not well rounded at all but strikes fear into the team builder and team preview because of what it can do. With some teams you can tell you’ve lost to Silvally-G on team preview just due to how many threats it invalidates.

That being said, I don’t think it’s broken. It’s a response to the others in the tier. At least when you see Silvally-G you know what the set is. Meanwhile you essentially have to play the Wallbreaker Lottery with threats like Sirfetch’d, Indeedee-F, Golurk, Stakataka, Tyrantrum, Starmie, Tauros, Sylveon, Exploud, Dragalge and even Inteleon. They all can run different sets, which all so similarly devastating damage. Longevity is no longer an option. I’ve even seen defensive Pokémon running more speed to outpace slower wall breakers, because if you can’t out speed you most likely lose a Pokémon and the opponent is free to keep switching out to preserve the other wall breaker they have. Scouting for what sets are being ran can be extremely risky and promotes promotes Protect spam because given you don’t know exactly which Pokémon to switch into, you’re basically guaranteed to be forced into a death spiral with your team. There are no mid ground plays most of the time, just advantageous or disadvantage plays.

Does anyone else agree or am I just crazy? The more I consider the issues I find no clear course of action. Silvally-G is simply the response to the growing meta. It invalidates many slow threats, and yet it manages to get clapped by all the wall breakers. There’s no singular threat that’s a problem, it’s a whole web of threats.

Edit: the best way I can describe it is OU at the beginning of the Crown Tundra, where tons of threats like Kyu-B, Zygarde and Genesect were all existing at once, and it was suffocating trying to build a well rounded team.

 

[Finchinator]

Hey friends, just a reminder that the suspect is winding down and now may be your last chance to post your thoughts or grab reqs as the suspect enters the voting phase at the end of Wednesday. Thanks!

 

[xerovis]

With suspects, I always seem to mess around in the early stages with different teams trying to find the perfect one to run with, and this time I found my stride too late and didn't have adequate time to keep going.

last ditch attempt

With less than an hour left I would've needed probably 8+ wins in a row so I ended my final attempt after Togkey shut me down with some Golurk heat.


Honestly after laddering a fair bit here and there when time allowed throughout the week (mostly giving up on alts if I got too many losses) it is really hard to say what will happen here. If I was voting I'd probably lean towards Ban on G-vally. It's really a hard thing to decide on - turtledoggo1's Post is really well written and summarizes most of the good reasons for a DNB, so I'd recommend reviewing that if you want some in-depth for DNB. However there are equally valid points for Pro-ban in posts like Togkey's Post, and Test Techles' Post, and I've come around to the idea that banning and retesting at a later time would at least give NU a changed meta to investigate.

Further to those points, one thing that makes this more difficult is that there's versatility in gvally sets, although the one that 6-0's is generally harder to fit on teams, doesn't have the utility of u-turn, and is generally more matchup-based in terms of its success. It is similar to Blastoise in the matchup-based success point, but the key difference is that what I would argue is the "main" set for Gvally, doesn't have flame charge or facade and doesn't have that potential to truly sweep the same way or "6-0" if you will, but instead generates momentum for the plethora of wallbreakers in the tier. In contrast, 95% of Blastoises you see are Shell Smash Herb with your flavor of the day for moves that just do one thing. Both gvally sets are dangerous in different ways and its hard to prepare for them both, as the checks to one set just give momentum to the other set (Tangela is a perfect example).


I would also echo the repeated sentiment that NU is just stacked with Wallbreakers right now. I've been responsible for the compendium for basically all of SS NU and the wallbreaker section has never been so crowded. For the most part this abundance just provides variety: The majority of wallbreakers are either bulky breakers that tank (i.e. Escav, Snorlax), mid-speed breakers that can easily be revenged (i.e. Exploud, Golurk) or frail and fast breakers that can clean but aren't necessarily faster than average speed controls (i.e. Inteleon). There are exceptions that stand out as unhealthy, and those seem to be ones that can sweep without to many turns of setup or preparation. This can come in the form of actual setup (like in the case of Silvally-Ground or Blastoise) or in a mon that only having a handful of checks that need removal before a sweep (Indeedee-F).

The distinction here is that Silvally-Ground
→ can be one of these breakers
→ can be a consistent momentum generator
→ has a very respectable speed-tier

Another mon that fulfills all of these doesn't come to mind other than Mowtom, an already solidly S-tiered NU pokemon whose momentum move can be blocked.

Needless to say, many have expressed concern about the general functionality of the tier right now so I believe a ban will at least shake things up more than a DNB would right now. Best of luck to you voters out there, I hope you see the result you desire!

 

[Finchinator]

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...2-silvally-ground.3701525/page-2#post-9207859

Silvally-Ground remains NU

 

[Stories]

Following the suspect test of Silvally-Ground, resulting in it not being banned from NU, I'd like to take a look at the results of this suspect test and draw some arguably crude conclusions from it. I noticed a vast majority of players who voted to ban Silvally-G are ones who are very active in the tournament scene, particularly quite good players such as zS, OnArceus, Danny, Ho3nConfirm3d, and others. I want to right away get this out of the way that some very good players such as Finch, OBB, and Irish did vote DNB and I want to clarify that I respect both their skill and vote in the suspect test, but I'm simply making this point to make another point, and this post will probably upset some people anyway.

I noticed this from the Goodra suspect test that Goodra is what I like to call a "tournament mon"; it's a high skill-ceiling Pokemon that if the correct plays are made, is obviously broken. In a tournament, its best to assume each player will be making the best play, and following this, many players will agree that Goodra definitely did have more success in tournaments than on ladder. This is the case for Silvally-G as well in my opinion. I think on ladder it can be quite inconsistent, but in tournaments, its ability to U-Turn to position breakers or to rip apart teams with or without Flame Charge is very well-known. As much as I hate to say it, the ladder is the biggest part of any tier, and is the most important to preserve, but where is the line drawn when a Pokemon is obviously silly in tournaments?

Both Goodra and Silvally-G had insanely close votes in their tests and you can see a clear divide between those who just played ladder and likely barely play the tier for the test to get their TC badge and those who went through the trouble of getting reqs so they can preserve the integrity of the tournaments they play in. Its no secret that people who don't play a tier farming suspect tests and permanently affecting a tier they don't even play as a result has been a concern lately, not that people who qualify to vote.. don't qualify, but I think the incentive to have some funky pixels under your username should not be powerful enough to encourage players to just ladder in an environment that A) doesn't even reflect the suspected Pokemon at its strongest and B) that they won't even play on after the suspect test, and I would gladly lose my TC badge if it meant that was changed, because I genuinely believe that the incentive is both too easy to get and is damaging this tier and others.

This post isn't to call shots at anyone I just want to TLDR some mons aren't broken on ladder which is where suspect tests are held, and some people that do these suspect tests only play on ladder, see the mon isn't broken, vote accordingly, never touch the tier outside of that and now the tier mains end up playing in tours with broken mons. Not saying this is the case for Silvally-G's test, not saying it isn't, but this issue is real.

 

[Ren-chon]

I noticed this from the Goodra suspect test that Goodra is what I like to call a "tournament mon"; it's a high skill-ceiling Pokemon that if the correct plays are made, is obviously broken. In a tournament, its best to assume each player will be making the best play, and following this, many players will agree that Goodra definitely did have more success in tournaments than on ladder. This is the case for Silvally-G as well in my opinion. I think on ladder it can be quite inconsistent, but in tournaments, its ability to U-Turn to position breakers or to rip apart teams with or without Flame Charge is very well-known.

I mean, this happens with a lot more mons than just Groundvally, and even sets too. 'Mons like Tsareena, Croak, Duraludon, Xatu, Scarf Helio and the likes also do a lot better in tournament settings than in ladder, whereas other options like Vaporeon and Stoise are quite better in ladder games, with the former being easier to abuse in tours and the latter being notoriously awful in any remotely competitive situation. This idea of "this Pokémon is so broken if you get every single turn right with it and play at 100%" is so... Weird, specially considering in tours you can better prepare for this sorta thing since youll have your opps scout to go from instead of having a team that covers the entirety of NU+PU+NFE list. A Pokémon being effective in high stakes situations while used properly doesnt make it broken, just makes it a good 'mon which Gvally definitely is.

As much as I hate to say it, the ladder is the biggest part of any tier, and is the most important to preserve, but where is the line drawn when a Pokemon is obviously silly in tournaments?

The... The line is drawn here. With a suspect. The thing we just did. We gave the playerbase a chance to vote, handed out multiple surveys during and after Zong meta, and in every single one of them Groundvally was deemed not broken. Idk what else youd want us to do here? NU shouldnt be tiered just to please the people who play SCL or w/e specially when this isnt even a consensus between them lol heck, even some of the folks who did vote ban (like OnArceus) had stated before that they werent 100% sure on it.

Both Goodra and Silvally-G had insanely close votes in their tests and you can see a clear divide between those who just played ladder and likely barely play the tier for the test to get their TC badge and those who went through the trouble of getting reqs so they can preserve the integrity of the tournaments they play in. Its no secret that people who don't play a tier farming suspect tests and permanently affecting a tier they don't even play as a result has been a concern lately

The fact they had insanely close votes should hint to the fact that theyre just good/amazing Pokémon, not particularly broken. This is even more true considering our tier is somewhat stable broken-ness wise, instead of the close-ish Sigilyph vote we had back in days due to the "broken(s) checks broken" situation. Also, lets not forget even those so called suspect farmers also had to play through 30+ games of this exact same tier/meta we play, so its not like theyre voting 100% blind. During this suspect they likely either 1) played a considerable amount of Silv-Ground and thought it wasnt broken, or 2) barely played any Groundvally save for a few. I dont see any issue in situation number 1, and while the 2nd scenario is indeed one of the flaws of a suspect test, it also goes to show that its not that much of a tier warping behemoth when its not used that much during the suspect and the people playing against it still didnt think it was all that broken

TLDR some mons aren't broken on ladder which is where suspect tests are held, and some people that do these suspect tests only play on ladder, see the mon isn't broken, vote accordingly, never touch the tier outside of that and now the tier mains end up playing in tours with broken mons.

...so what? This "and some people that do these suspect tests only play on ladder, see the mon isn't broken, vote accordingly, never touch the tier outside of that and now the tier mains end up playing in tours with broken mons" specially sounds the weirdest on this whole post, because not only does it make it sound like you have an issue with people who went through the due process to get reqs and vote (which required 30+ games, as mentioned), but you also act as if even some of the so called tour players themselves didnt vote to keep it in the tier too. The current reqs system is indeed flawed, but the entire tone of this post making it seem like only well known tournament players should have a say in how the tier is handled is just a huge no, and even worse trying to force a divide between the forementioned group and ladder/NU room folks as if you had to do well in seasonal, play in SCL or whatever to participate in NU?

 

[Stories]

The current reqs system is indeed flawed,

this is largely what my post was meant to be about; the divide between tournaments and ladder was really just an afterthought I dwelled on for too long but at the end of the day, players who don't play NU decide to farm for their TC badge here and end up impacting the metagame in a way they could not understand (largely because the recent suspect tests are for Pokemon better in tournaments which was really what my ladder vs tour point was meant for). Regardless of the result of this test, or the Goodra test (both of which I'm fine with, I may have given off the impression that I'm not.)

but you also act as if even some of the so called tour players themselves didnt vote to keep it in the tier too

I quite literally did acknowledge this and also said that the conclusion was "crude"

...so what? This "and some people that do these suspect tests only play on ladder, see the mon isn't broken, vote accordingly, never touch the tier outside of that and now the tier mains end up playing in tours with broken mons" specially sounds the weirdest on this whole post, because not only does it make it sound like you have an issue with people who went through the due process to get reqs and vote (which required 30+ games, as mentioned), but you also act as if even some of the so called tour players themselves didnt vote to keep it in the tier too.

I don't care that people took the time to grind ladder to vote, my point is that the ladder is often not an accurate portrayal of the metagame, and I think there should be alternative voting paths outside of beating Galvantula's named SPYDER and CB Arcanine and the Hypersonic Bot because how would you know that a Pokemon like Goodra or Silvally is broken in a competitive setting by laddering through that?

 

[Phantomistix]

Also, lets not forget even those so called suspect farmers also had to play through 30+ games of this exact same tier/meta we play, so its not like theyre voting 100% blind. During this suspect they likely either 1) played a considerable amount of Silv-Ground and thought it wasnt broken, or 2) barely played any Groundvally save for a few. I dont see any issue in situation number 1, and while the 2nd scenario is indeed one of the flaws of a suspect test, it also goes to show that its not that much of a tier warping behemoth when its not used that much during the suspect and the people playing against it still didnt think it was all that broken

Everyone here knows that ladder is not representative of the NU meta, and hasn’t been for quite a while. You chose to omit that most people who got reqs will have only played a handful of actual good matches against players who know the tier. Playing against eeveelution stall, CB arcanine, hitmontop, hypersonic-alt is not a good way of learning the tier, and does not represent the meta in any way. A ladder where one user alone is able to make a mon rise an entire usage tier and yet people think it’s an accurate representation of the meta.

People have been complaining about this every suspect for a while now, as they should. Everyone knows and admits the tiering system is flawed, yet for some reason we keep using it. It works on popular ladders like OU, maybe to a lesser extent in less popular ladders, but it sure as hell doesn’t work in our tier with this mess of a ladder. We aren’t the only ones suffering from this, a lot of OMs do too. For example, 2v2 held a suspect test for Tornadus a while back, ended up with a DNB vote with a very clear divide between who voted what. A few tours and an astonishing usage/winrate in tournament later it was banned via a vote between 2v2 players with no official suspect, along with Urshifu-Rapid to avoid a situation like that with OMPL around the corner (voting result was like a 95% ban btw).

People hate change, but they also hate the current tiering system. Why don’t we trial suspect tours in the next suspect. If it works well, we adopt it as a new tiering method, and at worst we’ll actually have an opportunity to actually play the tier. Can do room tours/live forum tours twice a day/once a day with alterating day and night times to accommodate timezones, with top 2/4 getting voting reqs, or have a 2 week points leaderboard from these tours (would do twice a day with this option), with people requiring a certain amount of points to get reqs. Would also provide a more accurate representation of the tier for the TC grinders, allowing them to make better decisions.

I am perfectly fine with the decision to not ban SilvG, it shouldn’t have been suspected first anyway, but the divide between voters is what concerns me.