np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 7 - Diamonds [Read post #226] [BANNED]

[yuruuu]

A lot of people seem to be claiming that games are won/lost at team preview.

Lol.

Don't even think about comparing this to Baton Pass or Swagger.

You don't even need particular breakers to beat stall. Mega Sableye isn't what you think about when choosing a stallbreaker. I don't think "Can I hit hard enough to kill Mega Sableye" when picking one, because it is invariably the least bulky of all the Pokemon on the stall team (unless you count the trappers which I don't really think count as part of their defensive core). If it can destroy Skarmory on the physical side, Mega Sableye isn't taking it. If anything, stall is just losing if you remotely prepare for it. Trapping makes it harder but that is irrelevant to Mega Sableye. Boohoo, you can't use CB Tyranitar as your only way of breaking stall because it loses to Dugtrio. How the fuck is this a set that is popularized because of Mega Sableye???? You just want to trap Chansey and do a shit ton of damage to that. Mega Sableye isn't even relevant.

Mega Sableye isn't forcing you to use any particular stallbreaker, and most certainly is not making Dugtrio any stronger. Dugtrio is just fucked up. I really think it was broken in gen 3 and hasn't become any worse since.

The hazard removing core alone stops every relevant hazard setter. This has been known since XY. Mega Sableye stops you from getting up spikes. Zapdos will never let you keep the spikes up either. Sure, you can always claim that that's a free turn to switch in, but then that's a slippery prediction slope, you can always switch in on their Mega Sableye and it's also a free turn. I don't really want to go there.

Going to emphasize that if you are losing at team preview, your team is ass. There are a million stallbreakers in ORAS, and if you can't find the space to fit one on your team then you deserve to lose. Stall preys on matchup, this hasn't ever changed. If you know that your opponent is going to throw Rock, and you throw Scissors, it is your own damn fault.

 

[NotSoClutch]

i am going to fucking explode the next time i see someone, once again, stating that sableye has counters. we. know. this. stop removing as much context as you possibly can and start to look at the grander scheme of things, if you're even able.

This is a two way street friend, if the fact that sableye is a matchup headache keeps being brought up, then the point of how easily countered Sableye is will continue to come up as well. It's the natural progression of the argument. If you want something else other than recycled ideas from this thread then move discussion in a new direction.

 

[HailFall]

Damn... you sound angry.
*ahem* on another note - what else do expect us to do vs Mega Sableye? Target it's supports (which would be common sense in one way)? If we know that Hazards don't work vs it and it value is reduced vs comps' that use it - alongside the consideration of it's checks and counters (which you seem to have a short fuse over), do you mind constructively explaining this 'grander scheme of things' that you refer to?

The issue is the level of support it provides to the rest of the team, and how it creates matchup issues. If you'd like a more in depth explaination of the problem with sableye in the grander scheme of things, you should try reading some of the posts in this thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-oras-ou-suspect-process-round-7-diamonds.3585600/

hope i helped!

 

[Joycap]

The issue is the level of support it provides to the rest of the team, and how it creates matchup issues. If you'd like a more in depth explaination of the problem with sableye in the grander scheme of things, you should try reading some of the posts in this thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-oras-ou-suspect-process-round-7-diamonds.3585600/

hope i helped!

O...K, let me reword that.
I said this as maybe tigers jaw had a different interpretation of the 'grander scale' (mostly because this person has not really specified weather he/she is pro or anti-ban). This is what I meant.

Anyway, if we're thinking of targeting sab support- I think that there are some very basic buildable cores that can beat stall based around Mega Sableye. Not just blunder 's video on how to beat stall (see

, because this is a good and relevant video), but also the likes of Mega Diancie - and pokemon that can utilize Pixilate Hyper Voice alongside alongside Ground coverage (so, M-Altaria/M-Diancie). Add a knock off fighting type and (in a vacuum, which most of these mentalities are coming from) to check Chansey, and voila. But I digress.

Examples:

Diancie-Mega @ Diancite
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 4 HP / 36 Atk / 216 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Diamond Storm
- Moonblast
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock

Conkeldurr @ Assault Vest
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Atk / 16 Def / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Ice Punch
- Poison Jab

Make of this what you will

 

[volx757]

The issue is the level of support it provides to the rest of the team, and how it creates matchup issues. If you'd like a more in depth explaination of the problem with sableye in the grander scheme of things, you should try reading some of the posts in this thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-oras-ou-suspect-process-round-7-diamonds.3585600/

hope i helped!

i am going to fucking explode the next time i see someone, once again, stating that sableye has counters. we. know. this. stop removing as much context as you possibly can and start to look at the grander scheme of things, if you're even able.

Hey awesome friend thanks for linking us to the thread we're already in! Awesome veiled sarcasm!

You guys are providing nothing constructive.

So I think besides the first two posts in this thread (ABR and Blazelatias), there hasn't been any explanation or presentation of evidence as to why Sab should be banned. We're not all going to base our decision off the fact that particularly visible players simply don't like it anymore. And you know why people keep bringing up that Sab has lots of counters? Because the only thing Pro-Ban has put forth is that Sab fucks up their matchups. You know what logically follows this discussion of matchups? A discussion of counters. Because that's what a bad matchup is, one in which your opponent has counters to your wincons or even your whole team.

So if we all agree that Sab is not broken, has counters, and isn't over-centralizing, is the reason for a ban just that it's annoying? What kind of a precedent does that set?

Another thing that's been tossed around is the timing and how that shouldn't be relevant as many players won't even be playing ORAS in a couple weeks. This goes both ways. What if you all trying to get rid of Sab are also just gonna abandon the game when SuMo comes out? What if I am? We don't know yet who is gonna stick around, so we should leave this balanced metagame where it's at, and let those who stick around decide if they want to suspect/ban it.

I've repeated myself across posts now, sorry about that. This suspect has left a bad taste in my mouth, I'm outtie.


Edit: HailFall below, you meant to quote this section:

IV.) Unhealthy - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken, yet deemed undesirable for the metagame such that they inhibit "skillful play" to a large extent

but i would point you to this subsection of that:

C.) This is the most controversial and subjective one, and will therefore be used the most sparingly. The OU Council will only use this amidst drastic community outcry and a conviction that the move will noticeably result in the better player winning over the lesser player.

Where is the drastic community outcry? On ladder? nope. In forums? nope. In chat? lol who cares about chat but still no.

 

[HailFall]

So if we all agree that Sab is not broken, has counters, and isn't over-centralizing, is the reason for a ban just that it's annoying? What kind of a precedent does that set?

II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant
A.) This can be match up related; think the determination that BP took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team match up issue, where even with the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
D.) Note uncompetitive elements are almost always present in the battling skill aspect; they will, however, be present in the team building aspect should we allow them in the sense of having to rely on excessively specific counters (such as loading teams with Sturdy or Keen Eye Pokemon and the like).

This is the precedent on which mega sableye should be banned. It allows stall autowin (or almost autowin) based on matchup alone. Mega sableye removes the general counterplay to stall (hazards + smart switches, taunt, etc.) and instead makes the outcome usually reliant on whether or not the person trying to break the stall is packing one of the specific breakers said stall team loses to. Obviously its not impossible to win if you get lucky crits or the stall players chokes, but for the most part its decided at team preview. this is why mega sableye is uncompetitive. Please dont make me repeat this again people have said this countless times.

 

[Aberforth]

The issue is the level of support it provides to the rest of the team, and how it creates matchup issues. If you'd like a more in depth explaination of the problem with sableye in the grander scheme of things, you should try reading some of the posts in this thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-oras-ou-suspect-process-round-7-diamonds.3585600/

hope i helped!

Thanks for being a condescending douchebag. Glad to know you have it in you.

The matchup issues it enables are not as strong as I feel you are claiming. Part of this is the fact that it does have things that can punish it's presence (seeing as you dont like the term counters, how about stallbreakers) that can come in on it with little to no difficulty. It's also a pokemon that is very prone to being worn down, and if you're using pokemon that cannot deal with Sableye in getting up rocks, those mons have no way to chip damage Sableye to eventually do their job and you refuse to prepare with other parts of your team for Sableye stall teams, then that is on you.

I dont know where this myth came from that each Stall team only loses to a single specific set or breaker, with all of them being wildly different from each other. There are a lot of choices to make that make your team better vs Sableye stalls, and in addition to that these choices are normally also good vs Balance teams. The best example of this is SD Grounds, which give the current Dugtrio stall a lot of issues, however most breakers that aren't ohko'd by Duggy are effective in both the Stall and Balance matchup. Things like Taunt Gengar, Heracross, Mega Gardevoir, ZardY+Ttar, Manaphy, subcm Keldeo, Vincune, Magma Storm Tran, Nasty Plot Thundurus, ext are far from useless mons in the meta, and they're not at all useless in other matchups. Of course, you can point out that Sableye stalls do have ways of taking them out, however except in the case of Tran, all of those ways are based on the skill of the user rather than something uncompetitive about them.

Unhealthy is a difficult thing to quantify, and is largely subjective. If you feel Sableye is banworthy, there's little that can be said or done to convince you. But I do not think that the level of adaption required to deal with Sableye, and indeed Sableye teams, is too much to ask for considering the frequency of said answers, the effectiveness of those answers against a majority of teams in the meta, the ease of accommodation of these answers (ie: its not like a Volcarona needing the team built around it, with the exception of zardy) and the poor performance of Sableye teams in tour play, suggesting strongly to me that Sableye isn't nearly as good as the hyperbole makes him out to be.

 

[Freeroamer]

If you use teams with a combination of hazards user that can't really pressure Sableye and 5 mons that are individually walled by the core members of a stall team without a way to trap or remove them, then yes you probably lose on matchup vs a moderately well played stall team. However that's simply not a good build and tbh, it's probably unlikely you break a decent balance team also. This isn't an issue inherent to Sableye unless it's completely impossible to prepare for Sableye stall and reasonably cover the rest of the metagame which I simply don't believe is true. Sure sometimes you will have poor matchups at time vs stall, but other times you will have great matchups much like any playstyle. I will maintain that trapping in every form is the true evil here but that's a lost argument.

 

[HailFall]

The guy was asking literally for the exact thing people have been explaining over and over again in this thread, i dont see anything wrong with my reply. theres no reason to flame me over it.

Taunt gengar is legit useless against sableye stall idk why you bring that up. Mega hera loses to stall with bold clef and/or doublade while being checked by stuff like counter/bb skarm so thats a bit of an issue; isnt splashable. Taunt garde is a super shaky stallbreaker that takes way too much from chansey's seismic toss to stallbreak efficiently; it also loses to doublade/shed stall and isnt a very splashable mon. Ttar gets trapped by dugtrio on dugtrio stall, and zardy without purusit support is easily handled by chansey. RD manaphy loses to stall with unaware clef / av tang / shed and puts you at a large disadvantage to non-rd against everything besides stall. Non RD is somewhat feasible to handle even without this as well, due to scald being not that hard to stall out. Subcm keld has to win a bunch of 50/50s with amoong and is generally not too reliable; also loses to shed. Vincune isnt splashable, cant afford to lose lefties switching into knock, and cant risk switching into status either making getting it in a bit tricky; loses to shed. Mega sableye with spdef investment can handle magma storm tran, and it loses to builds with stuff like suicune unless power herb which tbf isnt that good against non-stall teams as lefties are super important for tran and it can wear stuff like rotom down with tox; gets trapped by dugtrio too. np thund loses to unaware clef and is checked pretty damn hard by quag.

do you see a pattern here? each "stallbreaker" loses to one or more iterations of sableye stall. You cant reliably pressure stall with hazards or taunt, as mega sableye shuts these down. Youre left hoping you either get a good matchup or dont get matched against stall at all.

 

[volx757]

i said i was outtie but ♪ ♪ hold up. hold up. hold up. hold up. ♪ ♪ stop. this dude really just said 'some mons lose to other mons' as if that's an argument? Or even 'some teams lose to other teams.'

I mean, yea dude, this is ORAS. the threat list is stupid long and it's pretty widely accepted that you simply cannot cover all threats in the meta with 6 mons. Try again.

 

[Martin]

I'm just going to bring up a little bit of I'm Rick Astley's post in the Arena Trap PR thread to preface one of my key reasons for being pro-ban on Sablenite:

1) A Dugtrio + Xatu combo does not cause problems for UU, because neither pokemon is broken there.
2) Dugtrio was not regarded as broken before Mega Sableye entered the tier.
3) Dugtrio is not broken on offensive teams in OU.
4) Therefore, it's an interaction between Dugtrio and Sableye that makes Dugtrio seem broken.
5) We have evidence that Dugtrio can be part of a balanced OU metagame in which Mega Sableye is not present.
6) Therefore, it is Mega Sableye that is the broken part of the duo.
7) The correct tiering policy decision is to ban Mega Sableye.

Kinda simplistic and is just kinda ripped out of the middle of his post, but yeah it's a pretty nice outline which I agree with tbh. As much as I hate to bring up the old gen 4 characteristics, Mega Sableye is being suspected on the grounds that it achieves the modern equivalent of hitting the support characteristic. Not because it is annoying, not because it is broken in the traditional sense, but because of the fact that it is capable of supporting trappers to the extent that it does and that it is a restrictive force in the teambuilder. This in large part comes down to their general reliance on hazards not being up to function, with this being something that Mega Sableye makes very easy to control. In addition to this, the presence of Mega Sableye means that in order to consistently win vs. a stall team (i.e. before you take "outplaying" into account--loosely addressing the whole deal of matchup, which is a pretty big strike against Sab as it is) you will be limited to a handful of Pokemon as it is. Now consider that a stall team not only heavily limits what it loses to by default, but then that it can further limit it by making it dangerous for some wallbreakers to attempt to break with using the trappers. This would be fine if there was an opportunity to put up rocks using the Dugtrio example, but if you can't get them up you can literally bring out Dugtrio vs. things like Tyranitar on your sash and kill it on the spot--meaning you have eliminated an incredibly dangerous threat, your defensive synergy hasn't been compromised and you haven't had to predict to get your trapper onto the field (i.e. with no drawbacks). A big part of what makes Tele stall so dangerous is the combination of Dugtrio and the team's ease at preventing hazards. Sure, there's double defog, but think about how much more those moves would need to be built into a turn if it weren't for Mega Sableye. Using Defog involves expending a turn and providing your opponent a free switch or a turn to set up with no drawbacks, whereas blocking them with Sableye is a completely free trade-off.

While I don't agree with the concept of hazards being necessary to win vs. stall, I do think that Mega Sableye's ability to consistently prevent them from going up (something which Mega Diancie, Mega Absol, Xatu and Espeon are not as consistent at, which is why they are not of Sab's scope when combined with the defensive utility it brings to the table over all of these other bouncers with KOff, Wisp, Foul Play, a fighting immunity and actual defensive stats) is a more important consideration than a lot of people are suggesting ITT. Spikes chip damage, for example, very quickly racks up if not kept in check, as does SR to a lesser extent, and as such it always has been--and always will be--an important thing for heavily defensive teams to keep off of the field throughout the match, and Sableye allows it to be done without any drawbacks. And then, of course, comes the issue of centralisation. It completely dominates stall, and while you can feasibly run non-Sab stall you will have an inherent disadvantage due to having a large amount of difficulty laying hazards and spreading status as long as it is alive, and similarly you will have an extremely hard time taking it out so that you can begin to exert consistent pressure of your own. On the offensive end of the spectrum, Sableye is a major contributor to a large number of stallbreakers falling out of favor as well as being the sole cause of viability of certain things (see: Lum Berry Bisharp; DGleam>HP Fighting Espe on Scolipass etc.); if your only means of stallbreaking is Taunt and your Pokémon isn't Taunt+BU Talonflame then chances are you're not going to stallbreak while it's still alive. Taunt Gliscor and stallbreaker Mew fell out of favor mostly on account of Mega Sableye's existence and its ability to completely cockblock them while reflecting their taunts back at them. Sure in the case of Mew you can temporarily burn it with Synchronise, but you're left with a Mew that is taking 1/8 per turn and can't re-burn it short of carrying Heal Bell support for itself while the Sab player works towards getting a Heal Bell user (which most stall teams carry by default) onto the field. It just makes trying to pressure these teams using traditional methods insanely frustrating and has completely changed the mechanic of just how these teams and their counterplay function.

Last but not least, matchup. If you think that matchup isn't a bigger issue when dealing with SabStall than with other archetypes then you're off your rocker because there are so many fucking examples that just back up this point. Wonder Trio is the best example here, with it being notorious as a build which literally decides most of its games on team preview. Like, that is the whole reason the team and its variants were ever able to achieve anything on the ladder--there are matchups which are straight up un-winnable when facing it if you assume that the Wonder Trio player doesn't play completely incompetently, and similarly there are matchups that the team automatically loses on team preview because it has no counterplay (for instance, the OG Wonder Trio gets 6:0'd by NP Togekiss). And then you also look at popular archetypes of stall that have come about since the introduction of Sablenite into the metagame; these are all very much uphill battles for either the player using the team or the player facing the team, and this is in large part due to the dynamic of Sableye+trapper picking and choosing what can take a stab at breaking through your defense. Have you noticed that the first time people actually started moaning about either trapping or matchup in the context of stall was with not long after the release of ORAS, and as such was at around the same time that Mega Sableye got released? What a funny coincidence. Now, as much as I hate to use a statement like that (and as such don't give it that much weight), it is definitely an indicator that there is something up, and given how conveniently timed it all was it is really difficult to not make the assumption that Mega Sableye was the catalyst for all of this.

Anyway, this post wasn't very well-focused and was written in three or four chunks so pardon me if there are any unfinished points or if there are any coherence issues. I'm honestly not very good at formulating good arguments for this type of thing (I suck at debating), but I honestly just wanted to post my whole stance on Sablenite so that I could leave this thread behind me. All in all, I am saying Ban Sablenite.

 

[HailFall]

i said i was outtie but ♪ ♪ hold up. hold up. hold up. hold up. ♪ ♪ stop. this dude really just said 'some mons lose to other mons' as if that's an argument? Or even 'some teams lose to other teams.'

I mean, yea dude, this is ORAS. the threat list is stupid long and it's pretty widely accepted that you simply cannot cover all threats in the meta with 6 mons. Try again.

If you would take a second and do me the courtesy of reading and making an actual effort to comprehend what I wrote you would know thats not the case at all, but it seems youre more willing to intentionally miss the point and make up a strawman. I dont even know why im posting in this thread trying to talk to people with no intent to listen. Theres honestly nothing i can say nor an argument i could make to fix that.

 

[toshimelonhead]

I must mention how most 'noobs' or low level players wouldn't be willing to play passive. Most of them would just be like 'DUHH, I CAN DO X BECAUSE I CAN - DUHH!' without any thought, rhyme or reason (what you refer to as 'braindead' - see Scald/Knock off spam)*. Is using Sab-M easy and/or low risk? Probably. But I HIGHLY doubt most low level/low skill players would have the attention span for stall. Let me put it this way:

<20 turns - a fast match
20-25 turns - around average
25-40 turns - ok, we're getting on a bit now...
>40 turns - very defensive/stall match.

Do you think that players under mid level / 1500 ELO have the attention span for 40+ turns? Doesn't seem like it to me...?

Bro if you think 40 turns is a "very defensive/stall match" go try GSC.

 

[Uufwwfuu]

I have been a mega sableye player for over a YEAR. I hope you listen to this.
The reason it's being talked about is because people are sick of it bouncing back rocks and taunt.
Don't want it to bounce back rocks? Then stop throwing rocks

Ou pokemon that beat sableye (NO FAIRIES INCLUDED)

Charizard y fire blast
Excadrill earthquake
Manaphy tail glow
Serperior
Charizard x flare blitz
Heatran
Lopunny
Thundurus
Volcanion

And ALL THE FAIRIES

Mega sableye has good defense, but 50 hp. NOT BULKY

Don't take away the ONLY cool magic bouncer because taunters and stealth rock kids like to taunt

If you would take a second and do me the courtesy of reading and making an actual effort to comprehend what I wrote you would know thats not the case at all, but it seems youre more willing to intentionally miss the point and make up a strawman. I dont even know why im posting in this thread trying to talk to people with no intent to listen. Theres honestly nothing i can say nor an argument i could make to fix that.

It doesn't make any sense to ban something two weeks before the end of the tier. Especially when it was allowed for the entire tier.

That'd be like banning Chansey from RBY now, it doesn't make any sense. I personally don't think that MSab is broken, sure he's annoying on Stall, but Stall has Dugtrio and Skarmory to get rid of hazards anyway. It cripples bulky offense teams that use MSab, and that's not really necessary. But whether or not MSab is broken or not is irrelevant. This isn't the time for a suspect test...

I'd feel a lot better about this if we waited until we got the SM Pokemon, rather than hastily banning something NOW, where it'll stay for the rest of eternity because why not.

Yes let sun and moon come out and sableye be part of it.

Hello to all. I'm relatively new to ORAS OU (I only started to play on showdown about 3 months ago) but I'm an avid player. On showdown, we've all probably gone up against the terror known as Mega Sableye. But all in all, stall is stall. Mega Sableye may have revolutionized stall teams in that classic stallbreaking methods wouldn't work. If Sableye had access to phazing moves, then I'd be yelling 'BAN! BAN!'. Thankfully that's not the case. However, calling him cancerous (fyi that's why we ban them), is wrong. The critter has very glaring flaws that needs to be assessed before going any further.

Sableye is only weak to fairy, so he's ideal as a defensive mon. But therein lies his first (and arguably most major) flaw. His base HP is 50. In a word, Paltry.
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 144+ SpD Mega Sableye in Sun: 225-265 (74 - 87.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 144+ SpD Mega Sableye in Sun: 246-289 (80.9 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Both Modest and Timid Mega Charizard Y easily KO Mega Sableye.

252 Atk Mega Absol Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 112 Def Mega Sableye: 166-196 (54.6 - 64.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Another instance is mega Absol. Or for that fact, Mega Diancie. Any half decent wallbreaker, can destroy mega sableye. For example...

+4 252 SpA Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 144+ SpD Mega Sableye: 313-370 (102.9 - 121.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
It's not hard to get a few leaf storms off. Against mega sableye, anybody could do it.

Another big weakness is the fact that mold breaker shuts sableye down, or for that matter skill swap. Mold breaker allows pokemon like Haxorus (mind you he's a brilliant stallbreaker), to taunt mega Sableye. Mega Gyarados also has mold breaker and access to taunt.

The third weakness is the prevalence of the fairy typing. Azumarill, Clefable, Sylveon, M-Gardevoir... All of these eat sableye for breakfast.
252+ Atk Huge Power Azumarill Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 112 Def Mega Sableye: 270-318 (88.8 - 104.6%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

even better....

+6 252+ Atk Huge Power burned Azumarill Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 112 Def Mega Sableye: 535-631 (175.9 - 207.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
if Azumarill is burned while setting up a belly drum, It wouldn't end well for sableye.

Another issue is the concept of Hazards... How can you set them up if you're playing against M-Sableye? Short Answer... You don't. Hazards aren't necessary. SR are next to useless unless they have pokes like TalonFlame, charizard, or Beedril, or Kyurem-B. Spikes are convenient but not mandatory. And if you really want SR or spikes, use Mold Breaker +Hazards. Excadrill exists.

But wait. You may be having doubts. What if they run Sableye and Talonflame on the same team? If they run Semi-stall? Answer: They can't support Mega Sableye then. Sableye requires a stall team to play effectively (believe me I was playing against this bastard for 183 turns, we were holding up the tour and CZ had to come and flip coin to disqualify one of us...). Sableye on its own is very weak. It requires a team that supports it to play effectively.

TL;DR Sableye is pretty weak unless supported the right way. Remove support and it's harmless.

I am saying Don't Ban and I urge you to say the same. We can all appreciate this mischief making mon and respect his standing in the OU tier.

It deserves to be part of ou sun and moon

 

[Norne]

Error dude, this ban only applies to ORAS OU.

The tiers reset every new generation and then quick banning happens. SM will have everything available, this ban has absolutely no relevance to SM OU.

With that said, the problem here is that people loose at great preview vs some stall archetypes as they didn't prepare for it, but let's be honest this isn't different from a certain stall archetype getting trampled by zard Y, rest talk Heracross, mega medicham with the right coverage option or shit like specs Keldeo can actually break a core with little issue.

It's entirely match up based for both freaking sides, we have 50-70 Pokémon with actual niches in OU, stall advantage is simply choosing wich match up it is more likely to win by pivoting well, offense can't cover everything in stall and balqnce unless it sacrifices match ups against itself.

We just have to suck it up and see the bigger people, you think this is just match up based for YOUR PLAYSTYLE , well though cookie, match up reliance happens to all of the playstyles , you are the one that chooses your weakness at team building and this is the most meta defining factor of gen 6, Pokémon that pivot everything like aegislash where broken, Pokémon that choose what they snipped where broken too Gothitrap, Greninja and mega Gengar, Pokémon that where extremely easy to bring and punished shit switching in like nobody's business saw their leave in mega Mawile and finally shit that made the metagame stagnant by making offense too powerful like Deoxys, or shot like Landorus I and Hoopa-u wich could potentially invalidate stall unless disturbing amount of scouting was done or had the right mon to check it, all of those took their gracious leave.

Illuminate me, where do fucking sableye fits here? At best I can pair it with freaking Deoxys in increasing a playstyle effectiveness , but is nowhere near as effective and sableye comes with cost effectiveness and his "bulk" issues to pivot effectively as a magic bouncer.

So tell me one last time, are we just a bunch of hypocrites to call on sableye causing match up issues when stall suffers the same freaking issues with at least half of offense?

It is true, we do not longer have an all purpose anti stall answer due to well placed bans, God riddance Landorus I and Hoopa U, so it takes a bit more on thinking when people address a weakness to a certain core instead of slapping an all purpose answer to a playstyle.

I'm not trying to be righteous or undermine other people's arguments, but just blaming stall(not even sableye) on match up issues is a very weak argument at this point with our history in Gen 6.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

I'm just going to bring up a little bit of I'm Rick Astley's post in the Arena Trap PR thread to preface one of my key reasons for being pro-ban on Sablenite:

Kinda simplistic and is just kinda ripped out of the middle of his post, but yeah it's a pretty nice outline which I agree with tbh. As much as I hate to bring up the old gen 4 characteristics, Mega Sableye is being suspected on the grounds that it achieves the modern equivalent of hitting the support characteristic. Not because it is annoying, not because it is broken in the traditional sense, but because of the fact that it is capable of supporting trappers to the extent that it does and that it is a restrictive force in the teambuilder. This in large part comes down to their general reliance on hazards not being up to function, with this being something that Mega Sableye makes very easy to control. In addition to this, the presence of Mega Sableye means that in order to consistently win vs. a stall team (i.e. before you take "outplaying" into account--loosely addressing the whole deal of matchup, which is a pretty big strike against Sab as it is) you will be limited to a handful of Pokemon as it is. Now consider that a stall team not only heavily limits what it loses to by default, but then that it can further limit it by making it dangerous for some wallbreakers to attempt to break with using the trappers. This would be fine if there was an opportunity to put up rocks using the Dugtrio example, but if you can't get them up you can literally bring out Dugtrio vs. things like Tyranitar on your sash and kill it on the spot--meaning you have eliminated an incredibly dangerous threat, your defensive synergy hasn't been compromised and you haven't had to predict to get your trapper onto the field (i.e. with no drawbacks). A big part of what makes Tele stall so dangerous is the combination of Dugtrio and the team's ease at preventing hazards. Sure, there's double defog, but think about how much more those moves would need to be built into a turn if it weren't for Mega Sableye. Using Defog involves expending a turn and providing your opponent a free switch or a turn to set up with no drawbacks, whereas blocking them with Sableye is a completely free trade-off.

While I don't agree with the concept of hazards being necessary to win vs. stall, I do think that Mega Sableye's ability to consistently prevent them from going up (something which Mega Diancie, Mega Absol, Xatu and Espeon are not as consistent at, which is why they are not of Sab's scope when combined with the defensive utility it brings to the table over all of these other bouncers with KOff, Wisp, Foul Play, a fighting immunity and actual defensive stats) is a more important consideration than a lot of people are suggesting ITT. Spikes chip damage, for example, very quickly racks up if not kept in check, as does SR to a lesser extent, and as such it always has been--and always will be--an important thing for heavily defensive teams to keep off of the field throughout the match, and Sableye allows it to be done without any drawbacks. And then, of course, comes the issue of centralisation. It completely dominates stall, and while you can feasibly run non-Sab stall you will have an inherent disadvantage due to having a large amount of difficulty laying hazards and spreading status as long as it is alive, and similarly you will have an extremely hard time taking it out so that you can begin to exert consistent pressure of your own. On the offensive end of the spectrum, Sableye is a major contributor to a large number of stallbreakers falling out of favor as well as being the sole cause of viability of certain things (see: Lum Berry Bisharp; DGleam>HP Fighting Espe on Scolipass etc.); if your only means of stallbreaking is Taunt and your Pokémon isn't Taunt+BU Talonflame then chances are you're not going to stallbreak while it's still alive. Taunt Gliscor and stallbreaker Mew fell out of favor mostly on account of Mega Sableye's existence and its ability to completely cockblock them while reflecting their taunts back at them. Sure in the case of Mew you can temporarily burn it with Synchronise, but you're left with a Mew that is taking 1/8 per turn and can't re-burn it short of carrying Heal Bell support for itself while the Sab player works towards getting a Heal Bell user (which most stall teams carry by default) onto the field. It just makes trying to pressure these teams using traditional methods insanely frustrating and has completely changed the mechanic of just how these teams and their counterplay function.

Last but not least, matchup. If you think that matchup isn't a bigger issue when dealing with SabStall than with other archetypes then you're off your rocker because there are so many fucking examples that just back up this point. Wonder Trio is the best example here, with it being notorious as a build which literally decides most of its games on team preview. Like, that is the whole reason the team and its variants were ever able to achieve anything on the ladder--there are matchups which are straight up un-winnable when facing it if you assume that the Wonder Trio player doesn't play completely incompetently, and similarly there are matchups that the team automatically loses on team preview because it has no counterplay (for instance, the OG Wonder Trio gets 6:0'd by NP Togekiss). And then you also look at popular archetypes of stall that have come about since the introduction of Sablenite into the metagame; these are all very much uphill battles for either the player using the team or the player facing the team, and this is in large part due to the dynamic of Sableye+trapper picking and choosing what can take a stab at breaking through your defense. Have you noticed that the first time people actually started moaning about either trapping or matchup in the context of stall was with not long after the release of ORAS, and as such was at around the same time that Mega Sableye got released? What a funny coincidence. Now, as much as I hate to use a statement like that (and as such don't give it that much weight), it is definitely an indicator that there is something up, and given how conveniently timed it all was it is really difficult to not make the assumption that Mega Sableye was the catalyst for all of this.

Anyway, this post wasn't very well-focused and was written in three or four chunks so pardon me if there are any unfinished points or if there are any coherence issues. I'm honestly not very good at formulating good arguments for this type of thing (I suck at debating), but I honestly just wanted to post my whole stance on Sablenite so that I could leave this thread behind me. All in all, I am saying Ban Sablenite.

The problem with your quote is the same could be said for Gothitelle. . . And we already know what happened there.

I won't comment on everything else as I honestly didn't read passed that quote.

Aside from the match up point which is getting really old and tired. Because time and time again it has been torn apart, then when it is, the classic "no one is saying counterless" shit is regurgitated as if there's anything else that needs to be said when it comes to match up. That exact same statement can be said about every playstyle and many Pokemon in the OU tier. It is what happens when you get an abundance of viable Pokemon in a single tier, sorry, but you cannot prepare 100% for every playstyle and every single Pokemon, and sometimes even if you do, you may still lose the game because the opponent out played you, got lucky, or whatever you decide to blame it on.

Now if Sableye Stall won damn near every match up it went into, and forced you to run some outlandish Pokemon to stop it you would have some footing.

But you and I both know that is very far from the truth. Let's not go too far with the exaggeration.

 

[Aberforth]

do you see a pattern here? each "stallbreaker" loses to one or more iterations of sableye stall. You cant reliably pressure stall with hazards or taunt, as mega sableye shuts these down. Youre left hoping you either get a good matchup or dont get matched against stall at all.

Not going to address the rest of that post cause I dont want to waste my time explaining why a) what you're saying isn't right b) why when you do make a point, it's a sign of skillful play most of the time.

But this point here... where did this entitlement come from? Yes, there is no universal Stallbreaker. There is also no universal Hyper-Offence breaker. You have to actually play well to beat stall, while not using a team that relies on only one mon to do any sort of damage, and that mon is trapped by Duggy. Especially when stallbreakers are often pretty damn good vs balance teams too (also Lol @ Rain Dance Cm Manaphy being bad vs balance). There is no be-all, end-all answer to all stall teams, nor should there be. You should be expected to play better than that, be it by using setters that can actually set vs Sableye (SD Grounds in particular) or by using multiple mons that help vs stall, while not compromising the Balance/Offense matchups much, due to the fact that you KNOW you're using a Ferrothorn/Helmet Lando, and should thus make edits to your team to take into account something that is relevant in the metagame, in much the same way that if I choose to run 6 mons OHKOd by Lopunny that are all slower than it, I dont get to say Lopunny is broken without people finding what I'm saying stupid due to me using a suboptimal af team.

 

[MrAldo]

Taunt gengar is legit useless against sableye stall idk why you bring that up. Mega hera loses to stall with bold clef and/or doublade while being checked by stuff like counter/bb skarm so thats a bit of an issue; isnt splashable. Taunt garde is a super shaky stallbreaker that takes way too much from chansey's seismic toss to stallbreak efficiently; it also loses to doublade/shed stall and isnt a very splashable mon. Ttar gets trapped by dugtrio on dugtrio stall, and zardy without purusit support is easily handled by chansey. RD manaphy loses to stall with unaware clef / av tang / shed and puts you at a large disadvantage to non-rd against everything besides stall. Non RD is somewhat feasible to handle even without this as well, due to scald being not that hard to stall out. Subcm keld has to win a bunch of 50/50s with amoong and is generally not too reliable; also loses to shed. Vincune isnt splashable, cant afford to lose lefties switching into knock, and cant risk switching into status either making getting it in a bit tricky; loses to shed. Mega sableye with spdef investment can handle magma storm tran, and it loses to builds with stuff like suicune unless power herb which tbf isnt that good against non-stall teams as lefties are super important for tran and it can wear stuff like rotom down with tox; gets trapped by dugtrio too. np thund loses to unaware clef and is checked pretty damn hard by quag.

Im failing to understand something. Isnt that the goal of basically any stall team that aims to be effective in this metagame? To have a way to counteract most common stallbreakers, and you play against stall playing patiently wearing down your opponent responses to your stallbreaker or wallbreaker in question until you can win? I dont understand, is like people pretend to win from team preview with basically every stallbreaker available? All the potential variations of stall cant afford to be weak to the same goddamn shit, thats ridiculous to expect. People arent forced to run ridiculous niche shit in order to beat these stall teams, thats a flat out lie and all these stallbreakers can be easily tailored to be the stall teams in question with the proper team support. You cant just expect to auto win against stall when you something that is commonly labeled as a "stallbreaker" and hope it will do that on its own. You failed from the get-go with that mentality. And you should drop that "entitled" profile, it doesnt look good on you.

I dont understand how mega sableye limit hazards and how is that a bad thing. Lets be honest, we are on a tier where most of the hazard removal options are rather niche (like in the case of skarmory you would be running spikes 9/10 times) or extremely unreliable in the case of latios and starmie, which gets easily removed with pursuit from stuff like tyranitar and weavile (both are tricky but both being easily removed from the match is a very likely scenario) and basically the most reliable removal option boils down to Zapdos or stuff like Excadrill, where Zapdos is the only with reliable recovery. And Mega Sableye isnt the hardest mon to put in range of anything strong cause while it has excellent defensive stats it lacks the HP to make good use of them in the long run which means it constantly keep recovering and giving up momentum. You probably shouldnt be relying 100% on the spikes or have actually 0 ways of pressuring mega sableye whatsoever. There are very little neat tricks that help pressure mega sableye like running a bit of speed on ferrothorn to damage sableye with power whip, which does respectable damage, etc, etc. Many of the pro ban arguments literally boil down to "it is annoying" and to a "domination of the hazards game" which is heavily exaggerated imo. Thats pretty good on sableye but doesnt compensate for its notorious passivity.

In fact, many of the pro ban arguments boil down to basically a similar pokemon... Dugtrio. I find scary the amount of dugtrio mentions in this thread, in some pages doing ctrl+f is like turning on a christmas tree. People havent considered, at least for a minute, that part of what makes this "matchup issue" so prominent is because of dugtrio easily removing many relevant and effective wallbreakers and stallbreakers like tyranitar and heatran respectively. This deserved to be looked upon more deeply imo, since I dont see mega sableye guilty of the issues at hand.

And I will just leave it on this size. The outcome of this suspect test doesnt really worry me, I will be satisfied with any result tbh, but the results has to be under solid bases. Im rather disappointed at many of the pro bans posts in this thread (like Xatu + Dugtrio not being a problem in UU, therefore in OU it shouldnt be a problem... what kind of stupidly flawed logic is that? These 2 are different metagames, hello. Thats LOL). Anyways, happy laddering, remember to both which whatever you believe would be the right choice and hope we dont regret any decision afterall.

Cheers!

 

[Morsel]

Re: Tigers Jaw

In your counterargument to my initial post in this thread, and what is implied here, you clearly feel that people are looking at Sableye from too much of a narrow perspective. You did write a lot, and used neat linguistic techniques to fluff up your point, but your argument is so unsubstantial that it can literally be summarized in one sentence: mega sableye is not the issue, but rather that the benefits mega sableye brings to stall allows stall, as a playstyle, to pressure teambuilding to the extent where it cannot be adequately prepared for.

Any team that has zero counterplay or strategy versus popular builds is a flawed team. If mega sableye allows dugtrio stall to be prominent, then it is up to the teambuilder to optimize their team to meet that metagame trend. You can't simply say "but mega sableye CAN allow X, Y and Z stall teams to function, thereby making it impossible to prepare for." It is up to YOU to analyze if stall build X, Y or Z is popular, note its popularity, and change your team as a result. Of course you cannot be simultaneously prepared for X, Y and Z at the same time. You phrased this as a problem, but it is literally impossible to prepare a team against every single offensive and defensive threat, so that 'problem' has always existed, and will continue to exist regardless of Sableye's presence in the metagame. Thus, the 'problem' you mentioned is only really so if you are unable to adapt to the metagame.

i am going to fucking explode the next time i see someone, once again, stating that sableye has counters. we. know. this. stop removing as much context as you possibly can and start to look at the grander scheme of things, if you're even able.

You do, however, do an excellent job at being condescending, so at least you have that going for you.

 

[Joycap]

Hoopa-u invalidated stall, but it also had 0 switchins short of dogshit like mandibuzz and consistently put in work against balance and offense too. Being able to completely annihilate an entire playstyle while also being effective enough against others is ridiculous, and it being able to sponge almost every unboosted special hit didn't help either.

That reminds me - the Hoopa-U suspect test was 61.4% pro-ban, which is BARELY the minimum for a ban. Mega Sableye PAILS in comparison to Hoopa-U in a lot of ways (only viable on stall, as opposed to Hoopa-U being viable on Hyper/Balanced Offense; not being able to hold an item) and other things. Oh, and who here remembers Megagross? Yeah, that thing was only, what? 57.5%? And IMO those two suspects i've seen more viable reason for a 'ban' then the grasping at straws I've seen here.

Also - i've looked at the current Ubers list, and none of the ex-OU ubers scream 'stall' or even vaguely defensive play to me outside of Aegi and MAYBE Deoxys-D. Think about that for a sec...

 

[vso]

Even though I am leaning no ban it is obvious that mega sableye has counters. The reason why the good players who want to ban it vote ban is because stall loses skill. i do not think it will be banned. Thereal question is whether stall is playable in a sab less meta.

 

[onlyheretocomplain]

You know what else is matchup based? Literally every single Pokemon in the game. It's the degree with which they limit matchups which is important. Swagger and baton pass also forced you to run Pokemon that were generally fairly poor in most other matchups (which isnt really the case with sableye).

Stall's general checks: Wallbreakers, Taunt users, Encore users, boosting sweepers that can take on Quagsire/Clefable

M-Sableye stall checks: Specially-based wallbreakers, Mega Pinsir, Mold Breaker + Taunt, SD Gliscor

You're right, we don't have to rely on stuff like Numel. It still restricts teambuilding more than any other Pokemon in OU.

 

[NotSoClutch]

Stall's general checks: Wallbreakers, Taunt users, Encore users, boosting sweepers that can take on Quagsire/Clefable

M-Sableye stall checks: Specially-based wallbreakers, Mega Pinsir, Mold Breaker + Taunt, SD Gliscor

You're right, we don't have to rely on stuff like Numel. It still restricts teambuilding more than any other Pokemon in OU.

Most limiting =/= limiting to the point in which it needs to be banned. Aberforth brought up plenty of strong sab stall checks and you even brought a few up yourself.

 

[Kiki~]

I think M-sab limits stall team building. How can i play with m-slowbro stall team vs m-sab? And it don't have anything about a good team builder or a good player against stall.

 

[NotSoClutch]

I think M-sab limits stall team building. How can i play with m-slowbro stall team vs m-sab? And it don't have anything about a good team builder or a good player against stall.

Bring a stallbreaker that works for your team Vincune, pressure zapdos, clef, CM bro, stormtran, etc. You can tech against sab stall. Now, this tech may not beat every sab stall (see storm tran), but it's not impossible by any stretch for non sab stall to beat sab stall.