One of the main reasons that Blastoise is different from other breakers that are similar such as Omastar and Inteleon is its speed tier. It is able to outspeed every common scarf user in the tier at +2 other than Heliolisk, including Rotom-Mow, Indeedee-F, and Passimian. This makes it extraordinarily difficult to revenge kill, as you need to either tank a +2 hit from Blastoise, have a priority move, or have one of the very select scarf users that can outspeed Modest Blastoise when set up. Because of this, the burden of checking Blastoise is often placed on defensive counterplay instead.
This defensive counterplay comes in the form of hard checks and soft checks. There are not a lot of hard checks to Blastoise, but most of them are Water-types such as Vaporeon, Mantine, Clear Smog Gastrodon, and Quagsire. These Pokemon are able to take on Blastoise by switching directly into it, barring flinches from the aforementioned Dark Pulse. There are several soft checks to Blastoise such as AV Copperajah, SpDef Dhelmise, Snorlax, Scrafty, Guzzlord, Eldegoss, Sylveon, etc., but these Pokemon either need Blastoise to be chipped first or are required to be at full health to be a proper defensive answer. Counterplay also comes in the form of preventing Blastoise's free setup by attacking it on the susceptible Shell Smash turn, but this often requires risking a vulnerable Pokemon such as Stakataka or Mudsdale that may get attacked instead of the setup move being used.
Set variety is something that also can mitigate the amount of checks that Blastoise has. For example, Substitute sets (over Ice Beam) aim to take advantage of the use of Vaporeon as a check by setting up against it behind its Substitute before knocking out the Vaporeon with Dark Pulse and sweeping the opposing team. Another example is Earthquake (over Dark Pulse) sets, which run Jolly to outspeed Scarf Heliolisk and can KO Pokemon such as Copperajah as well in exchange for not having the option to flinch anymore. This can also take the form of fully Physical sets, which run Facade to beat Scald users or can run Rock Slide to beat Mantine. Finally, there has been experimentation with Normal Gem + Hyper Beam sets to get rid of Water Absorb Pokemon after a Shell Smash or two.
It's also worth considering that although Blastoise can be considered to have many soft checks on its own, they cannot be taken into isolation as Hyper Offense builds can support Blastoise very well. Most Hyper Offense builds will run a Pokemon that can abuse Vaporeon which is forced in by Blastoise, but besides this, Blastoise can take advantage of most Terrain setters in the tier. Both Grassy Terrain and Electric Terrain give Blastoise a Terrain Pulse that beats many of its checks, and Indeedee-F makes Blastoise virtually impossible to revenge kill by taking away the option to use priority moves against it.
Overall, Blastoise is undeniably checkable, but has several ways to either mitigate its checks or force its way through them with a factor of luck. This makes it centralizing in the teambuilder, as oftentimes having one check to Blastoise is not enough in isolation to cover the many sets it runs and team archetypes that Blastoise singlehandedly enables. Blastoise is a rather unique Pokemon in that most Hyper Offense Pokemon by themselves can be outplayed or mitigated with a well built team, but Blastoise will 6-0 you if you don't have a proper check despite having a handful of very comfortable ones. This makes it polarizing unlike any other Pokemon, and although its far from the best Pokemon in the tier, this dynamic makes it suspect-worthy.
- 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**
| 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 NUZC For example, I might signup with the ladder account NUZC Meri
- 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, Blastoise, 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 Saturday, September 17th @ 11:59pm (GMT-4), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.
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