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np: ORAS UU Stage 7.1 - What You Know

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My thoughts on zam are that while it is not exactly broken by its own merit, it definitely causes more restrictions in teambuilding.
Normally I wouldn't agree with "Just because you have to prepare for it doesn't make it unhealthy" because that is just what it means to be good in a tier.
What makes zam ban worthy is the fact that he is one of many stupidly strong things that I have to prepare for and as a primarily balance/BO player it makes it nearly impossible to building something that I am satisfied with.
That, added to the fact that it messes with teams apart from just hitting them hard, is what sets it over the top imo. From T-wave to sub and even encore, the damn thing has too much it can do at any given moment. That is why when I vote I will more than likely vote ban
 
while i still think suspecting mence would have been a much better starting point, i can see that the zam-less meta is a bit more manageable teambuilding-wise.

to all the people suggesting we add even more op mons to the meta in order to balance it: please explain to me in what universe adding a single check to a variety of pokemon would balance a metagame. i really dislike this train of thought because never in the history of pokemon has this actually worked. here's what actually happens:

step 1 - you drop togekiss because its a good dragon check
step 2 - dragons are still really fucking threatening because adding a single check to them doesn't do anything in 80%+ of matches, so people still use them and hence you still have to prep for them
step 3 - and now on top of that you also have to prep for togekiss and we just lost zap

congrats you have created an even less manageable metagame.


yes i agree zam is not the culprit, but no one pokemon is, so we need to start somewhere; and while i think mence would have been a better starting point, zam is a very close second so i am a-ok with it getting the hammer if it means not having to run aero every game.
 
Koko is 100% right.

I was mistaken about this in the past because I missed the forest for the trees. The trend started some time ago, maybe around Crawdaunt was when the ball really started rolling. The issue really is that the amount of brutally strong and fast (or pseudo-fast, in the form of priority) setup sweepers has a definitively negative effect on the metagame. Teams begin to look "same-y", running the same boring cores to half-ass check as large a group of these mons as possible.

Zam dropped in the middle of SPL and was, for me, the straw that broke the camels back. I didn't enjoy playing against it at all because the way to check it was so different to other pokemon similar due to the Magic Guard ability. Typically with a quick frail sweeper, forcing it out through aggressive doubles while hazards are up to get it into the range of an unboosted priority attack is a successful, if difficult, strategy. One that rewards good play. Can't do that with Zam, though, so you're forced to run a pursuiter and one faster than 372 at that, which is sort of a ridiculous requirement (it's also like, 3-4 mons lol).

This, on it's own, wouldn't be TOO bad... if it weren't for everything else. And the other outrageous threats in UU are so different to this it's pretty crazy - think about how you check Crawdaunt vs Alakazam. If running an offense team, there's two ways to really comfortably check Daunt -> run fighting type priority (Vacuum Wave / Mach Punch Infernape, Mach Conkeldurr, Wave/Mach Lucario) or run something that can take Aqua Jets even at low HPs (i.e. Mega Sceptile). Surprise surprise I ran Mega Sceptile a billion times in that tournament. I think it's a great mon, but not 5/9 usage great, I just couldn't realistically think of a way to cover all of these things at once, because it's not really possible from what I can tell.

The list goes on and on. You have Gyarados, Mamoswine, Infernape, and then the worst two, Hydreigon and Salamence, all breathing down your neck. This level of offensive focus is so insane to think about realistically covering, and like I said the main reason you see all these half-ass unfocused "balance" squads that follow the idea "respond to what your opponent does" instead of "accomplish your gameplan". They'll usually have one of the massive threats slapped on somewhere in the hopes that their opponent might not be running a suitable answer.

All in all I think every playstyle suffers. Offense these days has gone from a situation where you plan maybe 5 turns ahead to one where you need to plan the entire game at preview or t1, balance teams are ultra-similar to one another and boring to boot (haze milotic 40 turn stalls, that owns!!!!) and stall teams are just generally kind of ass if you aren't PIF who can come up with a Xatu Arcanine core. Zam might not fix everything by itself, but things like "it can't OHKO Blissey" are insanely useless to say because it's really missing the entire point, the metagame will take a step in the direction of better if we get rid of it.
 
I’m going to start off and say that after having played 74 battles and earning reqs that I still am undecided on my vote regarding the Alakazam suspect test. I am leaning more towards the ban side but it’s very close so I look forward to more discussion in the hopes of coming to a complete conclusion.

I really agree with both King UU as well as teal6 in that the current metagame has shifted with the drops to UU over the last while. Starting when Crawdaunt was voted to be released, I feel like the metagame has become more and more powerful (lots of set-up sweepers) and fast and that has had an impact on the meta. Rightly or wrongly is what we as a group need to decide!

Regarding Zam specifically, I hated playing against it for the same reasons that teal6 talked about. It’s just such a unique mon with it’s combination of speed, power, ability, and movepool. It has a lot of opportunities to do it’s job as a revenge killer, potentially bopping something coming in on a switch, and not taking hazard damage thanks to it’s ability letting it do it’s job multiple times unless you have a pursuiter. Now there are only a handful of mons that outspeed and can pursuit which makes teambuilding limiting (so many pursuit Aero running around for a while). Note that Zam sometimes ran T-wave to cripple pursuit aero for the rest of the match.

Now if you looked to check it defensively, you had limiting options as well with things like Escavalier (watch that HP Fire) and Meloetta and not a whole lot else. Note that both of those were non-standard UU mons prior to Zam so again there is a restriction on teambuilding. So many things are 2hko’d which Merlouvynis has done a great job in showing, and you just don’t know what it’s running and if your potential counter/check is safe coming in until it’s potentially too late.

The final way to handle Zam was to use priority, and that’s easy to play around until a last mon standing situation. And with the 4 HP/80 Def ev investment, standard priority from the likes of Entei and Doublade doesn’t ko which means Zam can win if you get some hazard/chip damage with good gameplay throughout the match. Zam was also able to function as a last minute stop to DD or rain dance choice or scarf moxie (probably missing other setup moves) sweepers thanks to Focus Sash which gave it another valuable niche.

Now it isn’t unbeatable, there are lots of things that stomach a hit and can hit back hard because of Alakazam’s frailty. The frailty of Zam is what made it somewhat tolerable in the tier and not completely broken on it’s own imo. Point is it can’t steamroll a whole team generally.

I have enjoyed the meta more without Zam in the tier! I have played lots and also watched a lot of battles and I feel like without Zam, the tier gets a little more room to breathe and the team options become more diverse. While all playstyles are impacted by the absence of Zam, balance is perhaps the biggest benefactor imo with Alakazam being on suspect. There’s just so few spots to dedicate to handling all the tier threats and Zam had a habit of taking down at least one mon a game with good gameplay. With so much of the tier playing a balanced style, I really think it needs to be protected. Zam isn’t the problem imo, but like has been said before it may be the Camel that broke the back or the cherry on top.
 
King UU said:
Alright so I've been playing a lot of games cause I'm sick and have been sick since Sunday (the gods way of punishment for my activity win, I guess). As a result of playing these games I have made my decision regarding my stance on Zam.

Banning Alakazam will have no notable impact in regards to our current "problem" of the meta shifting away from less offensive playing styles. What I mean by "problem" is that there's no singular Pokemon that is outright broken in this tier; it's the combination of powerful threats that almost make you rely on everything rank A- and higher, for anything else simply is outperformed (not a universal statement, but a fairly accurate one in day-to-day teambuilding). However, I don't think that Zam needs to take the fall here, for this problem began, as Pearl mentioned, when suspect after suspect, drop after drop, more and more powerful things were entering the tier. Alakazam could be considered the straw that broke the camel's back, but the camel has been sitting in the shade with its back broken since early 2016.

So how do we go about fixing this? Well, I think it's more about creativity than limiting playstyles over over-centralization. I'm probably not the go-to expert on teambuilding in this tier, but I've allowed myself to enjoy some creative builds for the sole purpose of building around this bulky offensive meta (and no, I'm not just talking about Trick Flame Orb Rotom u_u). While this may not be the most appropriate answer for a suspect test (see my post on Mega Pidgeot), it's the answer that I think is the most adequate given the stage of the meta.

For me, banning Zam isn't an option since, objectively, it is not a singular problem, and acting on the "problem" impulse would do a disservice to this tier as a whole, for then we could apply this logic to almost half of the S/A+ Rank mons. Instead, I implore you all to build shit that will defeat the current mindset of "Offense can do no wrong" and let Zam live to see its day into Gen 7. Some of you may disagree, and that's ok, for I think this suspect has much more to do with how you want gen 6 to finalize itself, and we should all have a say in that as long as we do our due diligence. I may have more concrete thoughts on this as the suspects nears its end. I also recognize that my opinions on the "problem" this meta faces is not a universal opinion.


Disclaimer: do yourself a favour and picture Sam's face when I talk about the camel in the shade.
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What you said at the beginning is essentially the consensus, so I agree ofc.

But then you mention that the answer to UU's problem is to just "be more creative" in teambuilding as apposed to getting rid of the problem directly. I completely disagree here, the funny thing is that the current meta actually restricts being creative. There are some things you are actually forced to use so as to not auto lose to a mon. I also disagree with how you seem to think encouraging people like this will fix the problem. No, the problem will still exist in my opinion, as it has for a long time. People have had lots of time to be creative, and it clearly hasnt worked. You should have perhaps said this months ago, now it's too late.

Then you say Zam shouldn't be banned, which I'm starting to agree with. However you also said you don't want anything suspected (could be paraphrasing), and that I have to disagree with because like I said this meta needs to change somehow and imo getting rid of a dominant force is the most impactful way to do it. I don't know if that should be alakazam, but I think it has to be something.
 
To play devil's advocate, Sash Zam also provides some defensive backbone/utility to a team as a way to stop pretty much any sweeper/fast threat with a twave or just KO. Aside from like cloyster, Zam can provide a countersweep measure, much like scarf ditto in a sense i guess lol. Tbh i'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing for this meta, because on the plus side, it eases team building in a sense that you can always rely on Sash Zam to deal with a specific threat, lets say scarf/DD mence or hydreigon, but on the other hand you have a Sash Zam that is pretty much guaranteed to cripple something, so like why not run Zam.
 
Im 100% percent no ban. This suspect is more a complaint of the meta than a focus on a particular mon. To me zam is a benefiet to the meta. With either the sash or lo set youre able combat offense or balance/ stall very well. Both of which archetypes have gotten better over time with recent drops. The sash set vs offesnse acts as a win and or and revenge killer that can keep sweepers like Mence at bay. Vs balance unless youre running cm encore the sash set isnt doing much. The lo set vs balance is a pretty big threat with cm and or encore and to even offense as well as sub. The lo set the only thing that one consider to be unhealthy but even then it get venged extremely easy. There is nothing about zam specifically that is bad for the meta. This meta is a way way lesser version of the koko meta from about a year or two ago, but the difference is that none of the mons by them in this one are broken. To single one out and say this one should b suspected is dumb and trivial.

While this meta is stale rn nothing in it is broken. It will shift again and we will gain or lose things to spice things up, like always
 
GULLY said:
Im 100% percent no ban. This suspect is more a complaint of the meta than a focus on a particular mon. To me zam is a benefiet to the meta. With either the sash or lo set youre able combat offense or balance/ stall very well. Both of which archetypes have gotten better over time with recent drops. The sash set vs offesnse acts as a win and or and revenge killer that can keep sweepers like Mence at bay. Vs balance unless youre running cm encore the sash set isnt doing much. The lo set vs balance is a pretty big threat with cm and or encore and to even offense as well as sub. The lo set the only thing that one consider to be unhealthy but even then it get venged extremely easy. There is nothing about zam specifically that is bad for the meta. This meta is a way way lesser version of the koko meta from about a year or two ago, but the difference is that none of the mons by them in this one are broken. To single one out and say this one should b suspected is dumb and trivial.

While this meta is stale rn nothing in it is broken. It will shift again and we will gain or lose things to spice things up, like always
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So it doesn't testify to how unhealthy something may be when it has a set for combating every single playstyle? It's already been said a few times even by yourself that this suspect test seems to stem not so much from Alakazam being a broken threat (I'll admit, Alakazam by itself isn't entirely broken. Reachzero's post highlights most the reasons why I say this), but rather Alakazam + everything else we have being a bit much to handle in this meta for some teams. If Alakazam is putting the slew of offensive threats we already need to account for over the edge, I don't see what makes it anything but unhealthy.

Based on your reasoning, I can pick and choose whatever set I want to run on Alakazam to cover my team's faults versus other playstyles (I have actually used Encore + CM a good bit, it's pretty lit versus bulky squads) and still come out with something half-decent. It's the quintessential "offensive support" Pokemon. And it's kind of one-sided when you think about it, because Alakazam is really usable on Offensive and Balanced playstyles. Defensively-oriented Balance, Stall, and Semi-stall in most cases wouldn't even bother touching Zam due to its frail nature, especially when things like Reuniclus, Cresselia, and even Hoopa are much sturdier replacements. So this means Alakazam isn't only a threat to different playstyles, but its use is also restricted to offensive playstyles, giving them more of an edge.

I'm not gonna talk about what Alakazam does or uses, cause that's been stated all over this thread, and everybody reading these posts should know what Alakazam is doing in UU. What I want to highlight is why even if it isn't outright broken that it should still be removed if it's making the metagame unhealthy by giving offensive teams an advantage on top of everything else it's capable of doing. And besides...Ain't that what suspect tests are for? Balancing out the metagame? It's not always a case-by-case basis of whether a mon by itself is too much for the tier to handle, and it should be done with all playstyles in mind.

Also I agree with Kokoloko, a Mence Suspect def would have been a solid starting point. #MakeCrobatGreatAgain

tl;dr: Alakazam is unhealthy. He has two spoons and ain't even eating with them
 
The problem is that, regardless of whether Zam is banned or not, the meta will still be stale and just as unhealthy as it has been before. Pre- and post-Zam metagames weren't much different, so banning Zam, in my eyes, won't make much of a difference in creating a better metagame.
 
Hikari said:
The next suspect in UU is Alakazam. Since it dropped, Alakazam has been a metagame defining force thanks to the combination of high special attack, speed, fantastic coverage and Magic Guard. Mediocre bulk and Pursuit weakness keep it relatively manageable, but as soon as Alakazam manages to get in play, it threatens virtually the entire tier.

Alakazam will not be allowed during this test.

The suspect test will have an N value of 20 and a COIL requirement of 2650. It will last 2 weeks from the date this thread is posted.

You can calculate the number of games required using this formula:

N=20.0/log2(40*GXE/2650)

song: Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know
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Hikari said:
The next suspect in UU is Alakazam. Since it dropped, Alakazam has been a metagame defining force thanks to the combination of high special attack, speed, fantastic coverage and Magic Guard. Mediocre bulk and Pursuit weakness keep it relatively manageable, but as soon as Alakazam manages to get in play, it threatens virtually the entire tier.

Alakazam will not be allowed during this test.

The suspect test will have an N value of 20 and a COIL requirement of 2650. It will last 2 weeks from the date this thread is posted.

You can calculate the number of games required using this formula:

N=20.0/log2(40*GXE/2650)

song: Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know
Click to expand...
how to vote? newbie here
 
Kelvin Ryan said:
how to vote? newbie here
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After sometime an alt identification thread will be put up for those who have acquired reqs. You'll be required to have some kind of photographic evidence showing that you have met the requirements to vote. After that is done, another thread will pop up allowing you to input your vote for the Alakazam suspect.

Hope I helped out
 
hmm I find it interesting that zam was suspected first but i'd like to see what the ladder is w/o it. Unfortunately, I'm not use to ladder with all the tier changes so I don't think I can make a reasonable decision on whether to ban/not ban zammers. So I'll be reading up the previous comments to get an idea.
 
Hey, I wanted to post here after a long time away from competitive Pokemon. I chose to do that now and not earlier because I managed to get reqs (link) after having to play 14 more games than I was supposed to due to losing like half the games I played in the last two days—prior to yesterday, I had to play 63 total with 41 in, so not the best days lol. I have been following this thread so I have some more insight outside of my own picture which, considering my team was poorly built, thinking that there were too many threats to handle was the obvious reasoning.

I only started playing again after Conk and Sylveon's drops and Celebi's reintroduction, which I figured was a good excuse, so I merely played for about ten days before the test started. My knowledge from the Zam meta comes from that and watching UUPL games—as well as a few SPL games before that—so I couldn't really get a well-thought opinion. I tried looking at the weekly stats courtesy of Pinkin Lark , but that doesn't help much because Zam wasn't much used and it didn't have the best w/l record (before this week, it was used 13 times and won 5 games in total; didn't check if any of those was a Zam v. Zam game). I could use that as an excuse to say "See? It ain't broken, nobody uses it" but that wouldn't be right because people are obviously gonna be prepared for it. In the few games I played against it, I doubt it even got a kill, but that's because I used WP Celebi + Pursuit Aero and it wasn't running Signal Beam—prolly because Celebi had just dropped—, meaning I actually took advantage of it.

As such, I can't honestly vote either to keep it because I didn't find it that hard to handle or to ban it guessing it could be stronger than I realized, meaning I'll prolly end up abstaining—maybe some posts in the future will help me change my mind. It's a good thing there's no max to vote, otherwise it would've been unfair to try to ladder only to abstain. However, I do agree that there are way too many big threats in the metagame so something should be done to make it healthier, unless we wanted to just give up and let it be until Sun & Moon are released (or more precisely, until we get SuMO UU, which will be like a year from now o.O ) lol*. I don't think there's one in particular you can just say "We remove this, and everything's good", and I'm not really sure Mence is more broken than Zam, even if it's still one of the bigger threats. Regardless, the introduction of Conk and Sylveon didn't do much to help either (and I guess NP Celebi, too but it balances out with Defensive variants being really useful), except maybe lessening the chances of ragequitting against AV Machamp's Dynamic Punch—which I honestly haven't seen at all in the past week; talk about losing a niche. Although I haven't tried building it, I'm gonna guess balance is much harder to play with now, and I remember it already being hard after Mamo dropped. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing because let's face it, the bigger number of threats, the harder it's gonna be to build teams that check most of them and you can always update sets and make them faster paced to keep up, but it's never gonna be a good thing, if anything. So to sum up, there's definitely room for improvement in the tier, even though I doubt the Zam-less meta is that better than the other one.

K now I wanted to talk about some sets I used that have been more common recently. The basic point of my team was to reenact the old Celepass one from the Hawlucha days (Fast SpDef WP SD Pass Celebi, SubSitrus Lucha, AssVest Entei, Mega Blaster, SR Queen, and Pursuit Metagross/later Scarf Rachi)with RP Horse as the sweeper, but it ended up keeping only Celebi and Entei. When I first built it I had SR Cobalion because I wanted to try out Slurpuff as the standalone sweeper (that shit's fun to use and ugly to play against, especially when it sets up against my para'd Entei .–. ), but after I rose on the ladder I decided to go with Double Dance Cobalion as the cleaner and Taunt Soft Sand Krook as the SR setter. Fun calc: +2 252 Atk Soft Sand Krookodile Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sylveon: 342-403 (86.8 - 102.2%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock pretty cool, except when it doesn't work . Then I had Pursuit Mega Aero and Tenta, which at first was defensive but on the second iteration became offensive.

celebi.gif


Celebi @ Weakness Policy (Leftovers if you're scared)
248 HP / 112 SpD / 148 Spe
Jolly nature
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
- Seed Bomb
- Recover

At first I ran just enough for +Spe Chandy and Mamo (so, slower than Jolly Gyara) to take advantage of Nidoking, but after some calcs I decided that I needed to be faster. The Speed EVs are for Entei, which allow me to outspeed Rotom-H and base 85 as well. Going with reach's spread to outspeed Krook is an option since Knock Off will kill more often than not since without Lefties you'll struggle to be at full health, but I wanted to be slower than Rose for WP purposes. I don't think I ever took advantage of it, so I guess running 192 would be recommended. Anyway, Celebi is really really cool, and if it wasn't because I suck at laddering and I BP out of Suicunes expecting the switch to Mega Beedrill to trap it as they stay in and Scald, it'd be even better. It can beat last Pokemon Cunes/FB Reuni (maybe it'll make Signal Beam more common)/Cress/Slowkings, so basically everything but Lax, but it can't touch Chester which is annoying. Celebi is easily the most versatile mon in the tier.

cobalion.gif


Cobalion @ Shuca Berry (Lum Berry)
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly nature
- Swords Dance
- Rock Polish
- Close Combat
- Iron Head

Double Dance Cobalion is the love of my life. I ran Shuca to take advantage of Earthquakes (rking boosted Mence and Aero) and also because I was really weak to Ground, otherwise Lum would prolly be better most of the time. This thing 2HKOes whatever the standard Mola spread is if it doesn't burn, so 1 out of 20 games you'll be able to beat it. There are obviously a number of checks to it which I try to wallbreak with Entei and Krook, but after they are weakened, it can go to town. Gyara in particular is annoying because it can use it as setup bait if I had to bring it in earlier, but it's funnily slower than Megad Aero so all I have to do is keep it from getting to +2 (hence why it setting up on Cobalion is my biggest worry). Sacred Sword could be an option to not have to worry about boosted Lax, but it's really weak otherwise so I don't recommend it.

tentacruel.gif


Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Trait: Clear Body (Liquid Ooze is an option I guess)
4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Sludge Bomb | Acid Spray
- Rapid Spin

Offensive Tenta is really fun. It can be thought as a lure similar to Shuca Penguin but with the advantage of being faster at the cost of bulk and power. I ran enough for Krook before but I chose to go max Speed to at least have a 50% chance to KO Mence before it EQs, as well as outspeeding LO Hydra and non-Scarf Stan if that's still a thing. This set would be so much better if Hydro Pump didn't miss every time I need it not to, but well. The choice of Sludge Bomb v. Acid Spray is power against the ability to get a virtual NP boost and force switches like a super weak Seed Flare. It helps breaking through Cress and stuff, but remember that if using Clear Body, P2 can take advantage of it. It's happened to me, it's not funny. The biggest issue with not running Scald is the total inability to touch Empoleon, which has become increasingly common.

These sets are by no means innovative (I like how I saw two Offensive Tentas winning UUPL games immediately after I started using it), but I consider them to be interesting trends. You know, unlike Pursuit Aero, which is like the most expected thing ever. I thought I'd share them to maybe spike some conversation now that the suspect is half over, considering before that happened reach and Hogg were talking about their Celepass teams. It's good to be back :P

* Also, can we talk about the new legendary beasts? Solgaleo looks so majestic and Lunala has big wings but it's otherwise rather ugly :\
 
God, why is everyone hating on Lunala? I dig it, I really do. That being said, Solgaleo DOES look sick as hell (I'm fighting everyone I know that gets Sun that doesn't nickname it Liger Zero or something to that effect), and their signature moves are sweet as hell. Free STAB Mold Breaker? Yes please. Not sure what to make of their typings just yet. I guess Yveltal will be making his triumphant return to Dark Aura Sucker Punch the shit out of both of them.

I briefly ran a Weakness Policy Celebi waaay back when it was last in the tier, it passing a +4 to a Specs Raikou for a win is still in the replay thread last I checked. You're absolutely right that it's the most versatile thing in the tier and I'm kicking myself for not having used it earlier. Celebi for S, man, I'm telling you. Once the Zam suspect is over this shit needs to happen.

I'm currently using a Tentacruel with LO and Giga Drain over Ice Beam right now (also, run Sludge Wave instead of Bomb, Tentacruel isn't THAT bulky without investment and I'd want to see a few replays of it putting in work before I gave the boosted poison chance the nod over instagibbing Chesnaught), and I'm loving it. I REALLY wish it had like 85 or 90 SpA, because I lost several games over the last few days from Swamperts living Giga Drains with 1% and KOing with Earthquake. Yeah, Hydro Pump missing is a killer. But it's worth running when you remove a Krook on turn one and your life is that much easier.
 
Alright, I'm not going to use this time to discuss whether or not Zam is broken on its own because as Pearl said, that's not the point of this suspect. The point of this suspect is to try and fix the broken, unhealthy, and unfun metagame that is currently ORAS UU, by tackling one of the biggest threats in the tier. So what is UU like without Zam?

First thing you'll notice will be in the teambuilder. You wont feel the need to slap a pursuit Mega Aerodactyl on every team in hopes that it will be enough to get rid of Zam, pursuit in general doesn't feel as necessary and Esca, although a decent fairy resist for sylvy (despite HP Fire), feels a lot less useful. Hydreigon is no longer as pressured to run scarf, as even though its still a good set its spike in usage was a direct result of Zam, meaning more "muscley" Dreis will begin to pop up again, able to break through defensive cores. Crobat remains very good, as although it no longer has zam to revenge Aero not lurking around every corner and still being able to check the new drops makes it a solid mon. Espeon and Azelf are no longer virtually useless, cm Espy being given a chance to show its rather small niche as a calm minder off once again and offensive variants of Azelf may find them selves ripping apart teams that stopped prepping for offensive psychics with zams leaving (havent actually seen these two nor used them as of yet, just speculation.) Now to be rather obvious, fastish mons in the 100+ and up speed tier that are slower than zam get a lot more breathing room, and feel alot easier to stack up on teams. Infernpe, Cobalion, Virizion, Houndoom, etc, all lost a common and top tier revenge killer, Coba in particular also losing Zapdos letting it not worry about running edge as much (although it is still useful for Gyara.)

These are just a handful of things ive found through laddering the suspect, and there is sure to be alot more shifts in the meta if and when Zam gets banned. Now, as for whether or not this meta is better, I do feel as if there is a lot more flexibility involved in teambuilding. Where as with Zam UU felt hopelessly bad and was a meta that pretty much noone liked, without it it feels more salvageable, though i wouldn't call it good just yet. If you couldn't tell i will be voting ban on Alakazam, and will look forward to further suspects in hopes of fixing this tier.
 
I like to see that most posts agree this meta isn't as healthy as it could be. I like it because that means we are worried about how the UU meta is doing and we all wanted it to be better. We may not agree that Alakazam is the problem, but we at least recognize how Alakazam + another dozens threats makes it really hard to build, especially for balance builds and stall.

I got reqs on monday but I waited a bit to post my thoughts on this suspect as I took this week to build a little and experience this meta without having to worry with my GXE and COIL. Without Alakazam, a meta-defining threat, I had way more room to creativity and building improvement, mostly when thinking about the psychic threats in the tier. Before Zam dropping, our premier answer for psychics were Krookodile, smth Alakazam can't switch into, but laughs about after it got in. It is true that I can simply slap an Escavalier in my balance/BO team and call it a day, but when I have to do this everytime because SpD Forry can't do shit, AV Metagross is gross, and any other answer is gimmick af, it sucks :/

Psychic-types are often really hard to switch into, but most of Psychics we had were 1) slow; 2) not that strong (before boosts); 3) had to rely hard on prediction because of 1). Alakazam simply ignored these steps and could afford to make wrong predictions, since it is faster than every non-mega bar Crobat and stronger than any other Psychic, with a movepool as good as our former-stronger Psychic Azelf has.

I guess if it was Gen 5, without the fairy-type therefore without fairy coverage, we could have some more solid answers for Zam in Sableye and Spiritomb, perhaps some other Dark types that Zam would risk the Focus Miss, could balance things for this mon while offering some room for teambuilding. Unfortunatelly, that is not the case, and we have to answer to this.

While I don't think Alakazam is the answer to all UU problems, I feel it is a beginning and a good start to fix this meta. With Zam leaving or not, I hope we can have some more suspects before Solrock and Lunatone gets their megas, as I believe UU can end this gen being one of the best tiers to play and enjoy a good time.
 
I'm usually pretty laissez-faire when it comes to bans, but I actually do think Alakazam is independently a broken 'mon, even above and beyond the points others have made about the tier in general.

In general I actually DON'T think that wallbreakers are inherently broken, even when they can potentially 2HKO most of the tier (see: Mamoswine and Victini). What sets Alakazam apart is the fact that it is insanely difficult to revenge kill - with only a scant handful of viable 'mons that outspeed Alakazam, it basically amounts to teams needing to run Pursuit trappers (not all of whom even beat Alakazam) or at best trade with Alakazam every time it comes in. This is exacerbated by how crazy-good Spikes-stacking teams are in this meta, as Spikes easily turn most of LO Alakazam's 2HKOs into OHKOs - and with Alakazam beating every Defogger and Spinner one on one barring Crobat and SDef Forry (neither of which can comfortably switch in), there's a ton of synergy to be had there.

Thanks to that ridiculous Speed tier, by the way, Alakazam isn't just crapping on balance or stall. It's also outspeeding and beating a ton of the 'mons on most offensive teams, even with its LO set. (I think we've more than discussed SashZam's advantages versus offense enough here, so I will mostly focus on what I see as the more problematic set.)

Honestly, when I'm building right now, the two biggest things I look at first are how I discourage Hydreigon from clicking Draco Meteor, and whether Alakazam just beats me. I don't actually believe that centralization alone makes something ban-worthy, but it is kind of amazing how threatening Zam is. While I don't think that Alakazam is the sole reason the tier is not at its best right now, I do think that it is independently unhealthy all on its own merits, and is worthy of a ban.
 
Alakazam is banworthy because of its speed tier and incredible wallbreaking potential. Its best set is Life Orb Calm Mind featuring Psyshock or Psychic, Dazzling Gleam, and Focus Blast. Shadow Ball is another fantastic option to nail Cresselia but is not my preferred pick. This set pretty much beats everything you need to and only suffers from Pursuit Aerodactyl's ubiquity in the tier. Stall gets snapped in half, balance mons nearly all get 2hkod and are easily broken through with Calm Mind, and offensive teams can neither switch into it nor outspeed it. In a word, Alakazam is bananas. Offensive teams can normally handle one pokemon outside the typical speed range of 98-108 shared by many of the offensive mons in the tier. This pokemon is usually a mega pokemon. With Alakazam's presence, you now have to face off against that super threatening mega that outspeeds and ohkos most of your members alongside a second pokemon that outspeeds and ohkos most of your members. This makes these matchups sometimes impossibly difficult as Zam is just as potent offensively as every mega in the tier. Furthermore, as Teal mentioned previously, Alakazam is resistant to a lot of the usual ways to weakening it due to its ability Magic Guard. Overall, it's just insanely good and is part of the issue surrounding the tier at the moment which is why I will be voting ban.

Some other thoughts I have about the tier, mostly related to Sylveon dropping. These are all going to be jumbled up because I'm just writing my thoughts don't expect anything too insightful here. Teams are weak to DD Mence because of Sylveon's emergence. I have seen many teams featuring Blissey where normally a Porygon2 would sit which leaves these teams wide open to DD Mence sweeps. I think this is due to Sylveon existing now. In addition, teams are beginning to phase out Florges and are running Specs Sylveon which will of course make them more vulnerable to a Mence sweep. I think Sylveon dropping hurt many typical offensive teams due to its incredibly spammable Fairy STAB. Previously, you didn't have to pack a true fairy resist on many offensive teams and could get by with using a Cobalion and a second fairy check like Toxicroak or Entei I suppose although that does resist fairy. Since Sylveon's drop you are forced to run something like Metagross to handle it which in turn makes you weaker to pokemon such as Lucario, Entei, Hydreigon, and basically anything slower than 108 speed. Offense really appreciated a fast pokemon to act as glue which is no longer a viable option in many cases now and has to adapt accordingly.
 
After getting reqs and watching a shit ton of battles, I thought I'd give my 2 cents on some of the metagame trends and some other things I've noticed about the tier. Here goes.

Metagame Trends:
So just to be quite blunt, the first thing I noticed about the ladder and meta overall is that Calm Mind cresselia is fucking good, like really fucking good. In an offensively oriented meta that tends to lack status that severely cripples bulky set up sweepers that don't use rest like cress, it thrives. That combined with retarded bulk and good speed for a bulky CMer, it just wins games on its own and it saved me in a lot of battles where the rest of my team didn't really matchup well against my opponent and I could just hang in at like 4-3 or something and pull off a mid game sweep after removing any mon that could stop it.

Tenta had been getting some decent hype before the suspect and without zam in the tier, it got a lot of action. It's just a really nice glue for bulky offense or offensive balance teams with its speed and spinning ability along with t spikes to punish stall teams. Speedy is a nice lure although bulkier sets with decent amounts of speed were better for me so I could get some longevity out of it. It was on a lot of teams and its making cune worse and worse as the tier progresses.

Lots of bronzong as well. Probably in response to sylv. Zong was decent from what I saw however a lot of the synergising bulky mons it was paired with all got broken down by krookodile which put a lot of teams up shit creek because after zong got trapped, the team it was on would just fall apart and get dunked on by some very common threats.

Specs sylveon is fucking insane with the right support. The idea that its a trade vs offense is a petty excuse to downplay it imo. It being a trade is the worst case scenario against offense builds. It really isn't that difficult to find its way in multiple times throughout a battle with its typing and while lopsided, manageable natural bulk. It has good enough speed to outspeed a lot of walls and it just in general pressures the fuck out of so many builds with specs HV and BP. The only downside to using this mon is that it inherents that "trade mon" ideaology when you use it on heavier and Hyper offensive builds. Its absolutely retarded on bulkier and offensive balance teams that give it the support it needs.

This was probably just me but, I personally didn't see a lot of celebi's against me while I was laddering which surprised the hell out of me. I really like what it brings to the tier with its ability to fit on pretty much any playstyle and versatility that lets it do well on a respective build. Whenever I did come up against one I did struggle a bit trying to figure out what it was going to do to me but it wasn't overwhelming or anything and it doesn't create any real lopsided battles. (I know it does well vs stall but idk how well)

As far as banning zam:
I probably am going to ban zam because it causes a bit too much strain on the tier combined with all of the threats UU has inherited over the last 6 months. I didn't really play too much of the zam meta because I didn't like how the tier was increasingly getting more and more matchup based but I didn't find it inherently broken on its own in the games I played. Just by reading some of peoples thoughts on here though, their arguments make tons of sense. I, like some others thought mence might be getting call for a suspect because DD mence is fucking insanity right now. However, like koko said, I'm content with giving zam the boot. I 100% enjoy a meta without zam then one with it.

good stuff.
 
Man, did Sylveon make an huge splash in coming down to UU huh? Insane power for a (normally) defense oriented pokémon and the necessary coverage to threaten some of its checks with Shadow Ball (Gross, Bronzong), HP Fire (Exca and Forretress) and Psyshock (Nidos, Tentacruel) is really making a fuss. Put the right support and it almost surely kills at least 1 mon per match. I'm not gonna be surprised if it gets kicked up soon.

Now about Zam...

Man, it is really hard to make a defense for its case. While I agree with some players that it's not so broken as in unkillable, it is really troublesome. Not taking damage from hazards means it has at least one action with a Focus Sash. Its versatility is also extremely problematic with support moves like TWave and Taunt, and its ridiculous speed just adds salt to the wound. Even would-be counters like Krook, Absol, Umbreon and Buzz are bothered to take a Dazzling Gleam as a warm welcome (not counting Focus Miss), and you're almost obliged to have a Pursuiter in your team just for the sake of Zam . I highly doubt he is gonna escape from this suspect. Back to the BL-OU limbo he goes, apparently.
 
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