Metagame np: SS DOU Stage 3: Awful Ever After | Urshifu Single Strike Banned

[MajorBowman]

You know I can't stay sober, stay sober
Drowning in the memory of you
Feelings start to take over, take over
Use me to misuse and abuse
'Cause I've got nothing to lose ​

The third suspect test of Generation 8 DOU is about to begin! This time around, Urshifu Single Strike is up for elimination. Upon the release of Isle of Armor, we were blessed (cursed?) with the release of a two-for-one special in the form of Urshifu. While both styles are almost identical save their typing and signature move, the Single Strike Style, also known as "the dark one," has proven to be a much greater threat. For the sake of my sanity I'm just going to refer to Urshifu Single Strike as Urshifu for the rest of this post; know that we are only suspecting Single Strike (again, the dark one) and not Rapid Strike (the water one). Wicked Blow's 100% critical hit rate essentially gives Urshifu a 120 base power attack with 100% accuracy that is immune to Intimidate, which makes this move incredibly spammable. Even Pokemon that resist Wicked Blow have to be wary of switching in, as a Wicked Blow boosted by a Choice Band, Urshifu's most common item, will deal a significant chunk of damage to nearly everything. For example, offensive Togekiss is 2HKOed by Wicked Blow, so not even a Pokemon that theoretically should be a pretty hard counter to Urshifu is safe. Additionally, Urshifu's solid base 100 stat in both HP and Defense mean that it can take physical hits quite well for what is ostensibly an offensive Pokemon.

I have somehow made it an entire paragraph without bringing up what is arguably the dumbest thing about Urshifu - Unseen Fist. This ability allows Urshifu to bypass protection (Protect, Detect, etc.) with any contact move. Conveniently, all of Urshifu's best attacks make contact, so it makes great use of this crazy strong ability. While Protect has classically been a very useful tool in positioning your Pokemon around opposing threats, Urshifu throws that utility off a cliff and will not be denied its chance to attack. This makes pivoting around Urshifu that much harder and is compounded even further by Urshifu's ability to pivot itself through Protect thanks to its (nice) access to U-turn.

Of course, Urshifu does not come without flaws. A double weakness to Fairy means that Pokemon like Togekiss and Sylveon will annihilate Urshifu if given the opportunity, and its good but not great speed tier and poor Special Defense leave it somewhat vulnerable to being revenge killed by the faster threats in the tier like Volcarona or Dragapult. Additionally, Unseen Fist only allows Urshifu to bypass Protect and does not break Protect for Urshifu's partners a la Feint or Hoopa's signature moves. However, conditions need to be pretty perfect in order to take out Urshifu without sacrificing too many resources, landing Urshifu straight in our crosshairs.

Important: The laddering period will last for a total of nine days.

Laddering Period
Start: Friday, July 31st at 8:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)
End: Sunday, August 9th at 8:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)

All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! Doubles OU ladder on a fresh alt with a name of the form "DOUUS [name]. For example, I might register the name "DOUUS Bowman" to use on the suspect ladder.

To qualify to vote, you must achieve a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may subtract 1 game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. As always, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE is fine.

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84	30

Urshifu Single Strike will be legal during this suspect.

 

[Darkmalice]

Long time no see everybody!

My thoughts on Urishfu:

• This metagame is highly dependent on positioning. Lots of support mons, Fake Out, redirection and U-turn everywhere contribute to this (Blastoise and Rilaboom, I'm looking at you). This support and positioning both benefits Urshifu by getting it in the right time, and stopping some would-be options for checking it like Will-O-Wisp and switching in Terrakion for the Justified boost. It also hinders it in that it can be navigated around to bring in a faster Pokemon to check it. But it's generally in Urshifu's favour.
• Random Dazzling Gleams drop it. I've seen Pokemon like Whimsicott or Gengar using it who would otherwise not use it as a way to check it.
• Without a bulky fairy type like Togekiss, Weezing-G, or Clefable (I was using Clefable, since it's easier to switch in on Stealth Rock), you don't have a switch-in to the Choice Band set. They are the safest Pokemon at checking it, and it's not hard to fit one onto a team. At the same time, the Fairies that check it can generally be set up on by Volcarona. Even Togekiss can if it's on the field at the same time as Volcarona (set up QD to avoid a 2HKO from non-Scope Lens Air Slash) and Volcarona has decent support Mons which is easy. I found Urshifu + Volcarona with support exerts good offensive pressure from team preview.
• Only a few teams can get away without a bulky Fairy-type; these need both good positioning utilities like Rilaboom or Blastoise, and faster Pokemon that can check it. For the weather teams, I feel sun-teams can resort to this method without overly-dedicated planning to check it. Rain teams have too much issue with Blastoise and Rilaboom to resort to speed for beating Urishfu, and Urishfu has too strong a match-up against Excadrill, Ttar, and Gigalith. Sun has safer options like Venasuar who can Sleep Powder to avoid Sucker Punch and cares less for Rilaboom and Blastoise. An example of overly-dedicated planning includes Dazzling Gleam Whimsicott i.e. when you use an somewhat inferior move that you wouldn't use otherwise to check Urshifu.

I'm not sold on my opinion yet. I'm actually thinking of not broken so far (note I'm generally more cautious on banning stuff than most users). Unprepared teams struggle with it. However it didn't feel overpowering against the prepared teams. Nor am I convinced that team variety or that the team archetypes that are struggling in this metagame (rain, sand, TR) would actually get better. Team variety and these aforementioned teams seem to be more a victim of Blastoise and Rilaboom that are very strong at navigating around these teams. Urishfu simply abuses their support. Other Pokemon in the metagame can also abuse their support well such as Volcarona and NP Togekiss.

 

[GRAND EMPRESS]

Am I one of the gud players now?

No seriously. Through this whole run, which was torture btw, I never once felt Urshifu was all that oppressive. Wicked Blow is dumb as piss, yes. I will never debate that. But it doesn’t really just invalidate Pokémon like a lot of other things do (lookin at you, Rillaboom). From what I can see, Urshifu itself really isn’t that bad. Feels like more of an annoyance than an actual problem due to it forcing very aggressive play. But imo this isn’t all that hard to adapt to. If we could deal with Hoopa, this is basically the same damn thing to me. The big difference is Intimidate not working.

from what I’ve seen, Togekiss and Sylveon were very common Pokémon running around and they just didn’t give a crap about Urshifu. I found myself struggling to get it in safely all the time outside of flawless pivoting or an opponent being choice locked into something undesirable

From what I see, the meta is rather passive and positioning is absolutely everything. Urshifu just drinks that like a glass of milk. And most of its best answers get knocked over by Rillaboom or turned into setup fodder by Volcarona, both of which I personally find FAR more oppressive and meta warping than Urshifu.

Volcarona- This demon sets up on half the tier and can just go berserk almost for free. On team preview alone it commands a mountain of respect. Even laying rocks isn’t that big a deal thanks to HDB

Rillaboom- Basically the only good terrain setter right now, making Grassy Surge borderline incontestable. Grassy Glide is actually ridiculous. Incredibly powerful priority under its already almost omnipresent terrain and still decently powerful outside of it, pivoting capability, Fake Out pressure, and respectable bulk just makes it a massive pain to deal with. On top of almost entirely invalidating anything remotely weak to Grass on sight. That’s just nuts

Venusaur- Moreso sleep. Without a viable Electric/Misty terrain setter or anything relevant with Sweet veil, Sleep imo is just a little bit too strong in today’s meta. I won’t say gamebreaking, but it seems to just pressure thing WAY more than it really should be

Shadow Tag- Do I really need to explain why this is stupid?...

All these things imo are much worse to deal with than Urshifu. And even in this current meta, I feel it still has a fair number of checks to it with that crippling x4 Fairy weakness being exploited left and right
Therefor I myself will be voting No-Ban for Saitama here

 

[MajorBowman]

The Voter ID thread is now up, tagging Darkmalice and GRAND EMPRESS to let yall know you need to repost your reqs there to qualify

 

[GenOne]

I didn't want to post here until I made reqs, but I've done that now.

Historically speaking, I've always been pro-ban on any Pokemon that is able to inflict strong damage without regard to the type chart:

• SM Mega Kangaskhan broke through teams with Parental Bond-boosted Seismic Toss with little regard to its Atk investment.
• Marshadow had "perfect coverage" between its two STAB attacks. By that I mean, there isn't a viable Pokemon in existence that can take less than neutral damage from both Spectral Thief and Close Combat. Marshadow mirrors also sucked because one Marshadow could KO another Marshadow with LO-boosted Shadow Sneak turning such matchups into a de facto game of "chicken."

For some reason, I don't get the same aversion to Urshifu that I did with Kang or Marshadow. Urshifu mostly fits the above criteria; Urshifu has "perfect coverage" aside from its ability to hit Fairies, which needs to be patched with a coverage move or U-turned out of, and Wicked Blow disregards Intimidate which is huge. Not to mention, Urshifu's Unseen Fist ability allows it to disregard Protect similar to how Hoopa-U has in previous gens.

Unlike Hoopa-U, Urshifu has a much better speed stat, a less exploitable defensive typing, pivoting move access, and immunity to Intimidate. These qualities make it a "must include" on any team (literally, not using Urshifu right now is like not using one of Landorus-T/Incineroar in previous gens).

But unlike Kang or Marshadow, I feel like fair counterplay exists to check Urshifu moreso than previously suspected threats. Most teams should be running a good Fairy-type anyways, even in an Urshifu-less meta. This has been the case since SM, and Togekiss and Weezing-Galar are both excellent picks right now. Furthermore, Urshifu most typically wants to run a Choice Band or Choice Scarf, followed by Life Orb as the 3rd best option. All three options have benefits and consequences, and are easy to scout early on. This is in contrast to Marshadow mirrors where you had to assume that a Marsh vs. Marsh mirror was literally a old wild west standoff that RNG would decide.

Urshifu is obviously one of the biggest threats in the format, but I do question at least partially whether banning will actually solve anything. Is it actually broken, or does it just shake up our perceptions of past metas where we accepted that Intimidate spam was the answer to the meta? I disagree with a lot of SS developments, but an Intimidate nerf seems warranted and Gamefreak has been unflinching in its stance that it needs a nerf this gen. Whatever we ban, I don't think this trend is going away anytime soon.

I'm also obliged to mention the alternative broken element to the meta: Volcarona. Today, if I had to pick between Urshifu and Volcarona, I would say that Urshifu poses more problems in the meta. Many would-be Volcarona checks (such as sand) would be in a much better position without Urshifu playing a bodyguard role. But all things in a vacuum, a +1+1+1 Volcarona commands the game much more than an Urshifu, which can be counterplayed once you know what item it is running.

I'm a swing vote at the moment, and just wanted to post my thoughts to prompt discussion. I feel like the majority of DOU wants Urshifu banned, and I can get behind the reasoning why. My feelings wouldn't be hurt. But I also personally don't feel like Urshifu is a _bad_ presence in the meta, it just forces us to view the meta differently. I suppose this is the #FreeMarsh hot take of Gen8, but here I am.

 

[Red Pill PUA]

I have no problem with the dark version. It’s the 50/50 bullshit of the water version showing up as the dark version on the team select screen. Fix your glitches. Cost me games during the suspect being I’m making moves assuming its the dark version I’m facing. Surprise its the water version and blows through my team.

The only way you know its the water version is once its actually out on the field.

In fact during this suspect I’ve come to the conclusion the water version is stronger.

This mon does not deserve to get banned. It’s not that strong.

I will be voting ban if the team select glitch is not fixed by voting day. In fact I bet if it does get banned water version will still show up as dark version on the team screen.

Other wise I’m voting no ban. This mon would be NU in ubers.

 

[fespy]

I have no problem with the dark version. It’s the 50/50 bullshit of the water version showing up as the dark version on the team select screen. Fix your glitches.

This is not a glitch, it's how it works on cart

This mon does not deserve to get banned. It’s not that strong.

Strength is not the only factor in suspect testing a pokemon

This mon would be NU in ubers.

wut

 

[DaWoblefet]

In Red Pill PUA's defense, Showdown's current implementation is misleading - on cart, you don't know the Urshifu forme at Team Preview, but Showdown defaulting to Dark-type until it's actually revealed is confusing (especially since the UI sometimes makes it seem as if there is 2 Urshifu at the same time).

However, I don't think I've seen anyone else argue that Water Urshifu is challenging to deal with. Rillaboom can snipe it before it can move, Amoonguss redirects its attacks forever, Blastoise is able to take CC really well and redirect its other moves, it still has the ever-prevalent Fairy-type weakness, etc. It's a viable Pokemon, but I don't think I've heard really any discussion at all about it being anywhere comparable to Dark Urshifu

Other wise I’m voting no ban. This mon would be NU in ubers.

When considering bans from a tier, their impact on the above tier is irrelevant. So it wouldn't matter how well Dark-type Urshifu would do in DUbers; we didn't consider Melmetal's strength or utility in DUbers when banning it, and Incineroar's utility in DUbers wouldn't justify banning it from DOU. We're only looking at the merits of the Pokemon in the tier it's in when evaluating if it should be banned. This is standard tiering philosophy.

 

[GRAND EMPRESS]

I have no problem with the dark version. It’s the 50/50 bullshit of the water version showing up as the dark version on the team select screen. Fix your glitches. Cost me games during the suspect being I’m making moves assuming its the dark version I’m facing. Surprise its the water version and blows through my team.

The only way you know its the water version is once its actually out on the field.

I will be voting ban if the team select glitch is not fixed by voting day. In fact I bet if it does get banned water version will still show up as dark version on the team screen.

That isn’t a glitch, my guy..... They naturally share the same sprite in the physical game. Maybe you need a bit more research. And they both share a fair chunk of the same checks, so prepping for SS should do you just fine against RS for the most part

The only minor glitch I ever see with Urshifu is with team preview. When the Urshifu’s dead, it’ll most of the time still display it as if its still aliveand healthy. That can get a tad confusing at times, considering you may mistake it for still being alive and end up screwing yourself over in the process. This is a SUPER rare and extreme case ofc, but its a thing

If this is what you mean, then yes

In fact during this suspect I’ve come to the conclusion the water version is stronger.

I definitely have to disagree here. Wicked Blow’s damage output far exceeds that of Surging Strikes while hitting a lot more in the meta for big dick damage. RS also gets entirely walled out by a fair number of defensive options that SS would blast through without much issue. On top of not being insta-sniped by the neigh-omnipresent Rillaboom

This mon does not deserve to get banned. It’s not that strong.

While I do personally agree with you here, you haven’t exactly given any type of reason as to why or how you came to this conclusion

This mon would be NU in ubers.

...You’re not wrong, but wut? What does its viability in DUber have to do with it being a healthy presence in DOU?...

 

[MajorBowman]

Reminder that np threads are for talking about the metagame and not for shit slinging contests

also ban urshifu unseen fist is stupid ok thanks that's all

 

[JRL]

I don't want to describe again what things do dark urshi good, I want to give my opinion. I think that dark urshi should be banned:

1 Dark spam with inmunity intimidate.
2 Restrict team building always need play 1/2 fairy type in your team.
3 It's too easy to put him in a team. In my opinion team without dark urshi play at a disadvantage.
4 Have cover to hit fairies with iron head.
5 If you have speed control in battle not can use protect with your move contact, you can't pivot.

I think that dark urshi is so strong in this meta, you just have to place it in a favorable position and click on Wicked Blow. In addition, there are fairy type that dark urshi can do 1 ko with rocks, always that use support helping hand:

252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Helping Hand Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon on a critical hit: 313-369 (79.4 - 93.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock.

Crazy damage right? have a good vote ;)

 

[Darkmalice]

I feel there is room to check for Urishfu without restrictive team building.

You can check Urishfu with your own Urishfu, similarly to checking Lando-T with Lando-T in previous generations. As Urishfu is usually choiced, has good physical bulk, and commonly clicks Wicked Blow, switching your own Urishfu into a predicted Wicked Blow is reasonable.

252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Urshifu on a critical hit: 73-87 (21.4 - 25.5%) -- 0.3% chance to 4HKO

This can then force a swap from the opponent to avoid an incoming Close Combat.

It's obviously bad to have Urishfu as your only check to opposing Urishfu. But when paired with a good Fairy-type, which pretty much every team has currently and was common even before DLC, you have two checks for opposing Urishfu. Togekiss and G-Weezing are harder checks thanks to Follow Me and Neutralizing Gas to protect your teammates (the latter means you can Protect against Urishfu). Whimsicott and Syvleon are more offensive checks, the former outspeeding non-Scarf sets and OHKOing or using Tailwind, Sylveon able to tank a hit but is more shaky since it can only tank two Wicked Bows against Choice Scarf without heavy EV investment (though a 0 HP / 252 Def Sylveon can tank Jolly CB Iron Head). Iron Head doesn't deal enough damage to the bulkier Fairies, and Scarf Urishu cannot OHKO Whimsicott with it.

Other non-Fairy type checks include Zerora and Solar Power Charizard, who outspeed non-Scarf sets and can survive CB Sucker Punch and OHKO wiht Play Rough and Heat Wave in sun. They also survive Jolly Scarf Wicked Blow (Adamant can OHKO Zard, though Zard itself commonly uses Scarf). Obviously other checks exist like Terrakion, Hurricane Kingdra, and Body Press Kommo-O. There's room for some creativity like Follow Me Clefable (compared to Kiss: different set of resistances, can set up Rocks, doesn't care about passive damage with Magic Guard), or surprise techs like Will-O-Wisp.

Personally I believe U-turn is better than Iron Head / Poison Jab. The big reason is that Urishfu, with its good physical bulk, SR resistance, and U-turn, is often easier to save for later in the game as it usualy takes less chip damage over time than its checks. This places pressure on the opponent to keep their checks relatively healthy. This can be compounded with other pressure like stoppoing the Urisfhu user from setting up with their Volcarona, or with support mons like Blastoise and Rilaboom to make it harder to check Urishfu. Commonly users have their own support mons like their own Blastoise to help with this, creating a positioning war with the opponent. I feel Urishfu tends to do well in this positioning wars. It can both take advantage of these wars, both by taking advantage of residual and by benefiting from good position. The position wars are about getting a good position to either take out a threat (Wicked Blow or other nuke), disable a threat (sleep), set up (Volcarona is the most notable example here) or set up Stealth Rock (provide more pressure by punishing switches and further chips to weaken checks like Togekiss for Urishfu). Lots of the common pokemon do well here. But I don't think Urishfu is too difficult to handle because of these wars. It is not too commonly the greatest threat in these wars - I may be more afraid of Volcarona setting up, being put to sleep by Ven or Amoong, or a different striker who can finish off a weakened team like Rilaboom with Grassy Slide or Excadrill. Nor do I consider Urishfu an overbearing pressure when facing against it. I may be more pressured by one of the aforementioned threats that can take advantage of positioning, or simply a Pokemon like Blastoise that makes positioning considerably easier without providing a direct threat itself.

 

[Nails]

Choice Band Dark Urshifu is broken. It kills stuff with extremely limited counterplay that is at best "guess which move it clicks and go to the resist", but often is not even that good because it has two slots that it can target. Wicked Blow is incredible, offering great neutral coverage and granting it an immunity to Intimidate while it's spamming its primary stab attack which can ohko significant portions of the format (especially with a HH boost). Fighting/Dark is a classical combination of typings with nearly unresisted coverage, and Close Combat/Drain Punch are both very potent secondary stab moves. Fairies, the only mons that resists its stabs can be covered neatly with Iron Head or U-turned on to offer a teammate a favorable position. Notably, U-turn is often a slightly risky play for other mons as they can hit into a Protect and be left exposed to a hit from the partner, but Urshifu is always guaranteed a switch out. Aside from its offensive potency, it has 100/100/60 defenses, which translates to very solid physical bulk and mediocre but not crippling special bulk.

It really cannot be overstated how much Urshifu warps the game. The certainty with which it can push damage and take kills is unmatched; counterplay is often limited to outspeeding and OHKOing it, which is challenging given its solid enough speed tier and strong physical bulk. Typical avenues for controlling physical damage such as Intimidate, Stat Boosting, or Screens are rendered useless by Wicked Blow. I feel like I'm kind of talking in circles and repeating myself, because there isn't too much to say about it. It's gonna hit you, and you're gonna die. Nothing else gets to do that with anything approaching the consistency and power of Dark Urshifu. Urshifu Single Strike in a class of its own and needs to be banned.

reposting my post from the other thread here, dark urshifu is super dumb. it forces teams to stack resists to it and still finds room to take kills. its ability demands that you must overprepare for it in the teambuilder, and that greatly restricts the amount of viable mons in the tier. it's broken because of how completely it beats things that it beats.

 

[GenOne]

I disagree somewhat that Urshifu forces you to overprepare. Darkmalice's post did a good job at fleshing out what countermeasures are available and I still stand behind what points I made in my original post in this thread regarding how Urshifu becomes reasonably easy to play around once it choice locks into a move (or in Life Orb's case, you know it's Life Orb).

Most of the posts in this thread seem to be defending Urshifu so far, and the pro-ban posts aren't saying anything that MajorBowman didn't already cover in the OP. I'm still a swing vote at this point, but can someone who is in favour of banning Urshifu respond to some of the points made in this thread by those who are against it?

 

[qsns]

can someone who is in favour of banning Urshifu respond to some of the points made in this thread by those who are against it?

Sure.

Nor am I convinced that team variety or that the team archetypes that are struggling in this metagame (rain, sand, TR) would actually get better.

Trick Room and Sand really do not get to properly exist in this format with Urshifu in it. Against Trick Room, you are literally fine with sacking 4 Pokemon to the initial 5 TR turns in order to click Wicked Blow + Follow Me and OHKO everything that you weren't able to kill. There is one viable TR setter, Hatterene, which can live a CB Wicked Blow, and even that needs significant defense investment to take the hit guaranteed, severely hampering its effectiveness at being an offensive setter. Almost every build of sand literally just loses to clicking Tailwind and CC/Drain Punch with Urshifu. Pokemon like Togekiss definitely exist and probably should be run on these archetypes, but it's incredibly easy to force chip on it since the opponents HAVE to switch into it or they lose a Pokemon - not even Protect can help your pivoting here. This isn't even counting the partner next to you, and honestly, I don't feel like I need to - Urshifu breaks through its own counters throughout the course of a match unlike any other Pokemon we've seen in Doubles OU, and this informs a lot of my points. If your archetype is weak to Dark or Fighting-type moves, you die very, very quickly to Urshifu.

Team variety and these aforementioned teams seem to be more a victim of Blastoise and Rilaboom that are very strong at navigating around these teams. Urishfu simply abuses their support.

These Pokemon lose so horribly to Urshifu as a support Pokemon - threatening a Fake Out after taking 70-80% switching in is not enough - that the metagame has been trending away from these support options in favor of offense. The latest rounds of Seasonals have shown Sun, Talonflame TW, Psyspam, and other ridiculously offensive archetypes as the only truly viable team styles because Urshifu's ability to just click unblockable attacks punishes fat stuff so fucking hard that it's borderline bad. Volcarona is absolutely a component of this shift, but while Volcarona flounders in the face of teams that can punish it while setting up, Urshifu still thrives no matter what archetype it queues into. Into offense, at worst, it trades 1 for 1 with its solid bulk (which is the best you can usually do against this, hence the shift to offense) and at best, it completely sweeps an opponent.

from what I’ve seen, Togekiss and Sylveon were very common Pokémon running around and they just didn’t give a crap about Urshifu.

252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 144 Def Togekiss on a critical hit: 132-156 (35.2 - 41.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sylveon on a critical hit: 207-245 (62.5 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I think "not giving a crap" is a stretch, especially for the Sylveon example. Togekiss is often the only solid defensive check to Urshifu on the teams its found on, giving Urshifu the chance to deal ~37% to the Fairy-type of the team, and it can decide not to take this if it's beneficial - the switch is so telegraphed that U-Turn is incredibly easy to click (CB U-Turn often forces kills on its own) and a better partner can be brought in to deal with it. Teams cannot afford more than 1 defensive (defensive kiss, weezing) and 1 offensive (offensive kiss, sylveon) check to this (this is more than most teams can afford to run atm) or they will die to everything else.

also Urshifu gets Iron Head so it can kinda just... click that sometimes



I think Urshifu is broken because while counterplay "exists," it is not enough. Its ability to go through Protect breaks the fundamentals of the tier, and while breaking fundamentals of a game doesn't necessarily mean a Pokemon itself is broken, it abuses it with unparalleled STABs like nothing else. You cannot defend yourself against this Pokemon in a longer, defensive game because it's so damn hard to sponge attacks from, and you cannot defend yourself against this Pokemon in a shorter, offensive game because it just OHKOs whatever the hell it wants to with any speed or bulk advantage because you cannot pivot using Protect. There is no reason not to abuse Urshifu on every team while this Pokemon is still around.

EDIT - still extremely pissed Shadowboxin' wasn't our NP song and I will never let the corrupt tier leaders live it down

 

[MajorBowman]

EDIT - still extremely pissed Shadowboxin' wasn't our NP song and I will never let the corrupt tier leaders live it down

Arctic edit: qsns is right though​

 

[Darkmalice]

Trick Room and Sand really do not get to properly exist in this format with Urshifu in it. Against Trick Room, you are literally fine with sacking 4 Pokemon to the initial 5 TR turns in order to click Wicked Blow + Follow Me and OHKO everything that you weren't able to kill. There is one viable TR setter, Hatterene, which can live a CB Wicked Blow, and even that needs significant defense investment to take the hit guaranteed, severely hampering its effectiveness at being an offensive setter. Almost every build of sand literally just loses to clicking Tailwind and CC/Drain Punch with Urshifu. Pokemon like Togekiss definitely exist and probably should be run on these archetypes, but it's incredibly easy to force chip on it since the opponents HAVE to switch into it or they lose a Pokemon - not even Protect can help your pivoting here. This isn't even counting the partner next to you, and honestly, I don't feel like I need to - Urshifu breaks through its own counters throughout the course of a match unlike any other Pokemon we've seen in Doubles OU, and this informs a lot of my points. If your archetype is weak to Dark or Fighting-type moves, you die very, very quickly to Urshifu.

Trick Room is definitely hurt by Urishfu, whether its relying on Hatterene to tank a Wicked Blow (this is a recipe for failure since any chip = KO), or using Fake Out / redirection to make other Trick Room settler able to set up TR (preferred). I still think they'll struggle since teams frequently have (1) methods to pressure TR settlers (sun teams, Volcarona hitting many of the users super-effectively, Incineroar's Knock Off, Rilaboom's Knock Off + Glassy Slide follow-up) and (2) mitigate the speed advantage gained from TR such as redirection or Fake Out (Rilaboom, Blastoise, Togekiss) or less commonly very slow Pokemon that may underspeed TR teams like Amoonguss, Gigalith and Torkoal. TR teams can often set up TR once even against Urishfu but (2) means that whilst TR teams gain an advantage from the TR team, it is not significant enough to carry over in the turns following TR ending and (1) means it is too difficult to set up TR a second time or without sustaining too much team damage in the process.

Sand teams are pressured by Urishfu, though they can adapt to it, for example GeneOne's team. I also think they would still struggle without Urishfu because of other threats: Blastoise, Rilaboom, Venusaur, G-Weezing paired with something faster than Excadrill, and would still need a Fairy-type for other Fighting-types like Kommo-O and Urishfu-Multi Strike.

These Pokemon lose so horribly to Urshifu as a support Pokemon - threatening a Fake Out after taking 70-80% switching in is not enough - that the metagame has been trending away from these support options in favor of offense. The latest rounds of Seasonals have shown Sun, Talonflame TW, Psyspam, and other ridiculously offensive archetypes as the only truly viable team styles because Urshifu's ability to just click unblockable attacks punishes fat stuff so fucking hard that it's borderline bad. Volcarona is absolutely a component of this shift, but while Volcarona flounders in the face of teams that can punish it while setting up, Urshifu still thrives no matter what archetype it queues into. Into offense, at worst, it trades 1 for 1 with its solid bulk (which is the best you can usually do against this, hence the shift to offense) and at best, it completely sweeps an opponent.

The goal is not to switch in those Pokemon directly into a Wicked Blow. Or at least without threatening something like threatening to KO Urishfu (any Fairy-type move, whether it be as weak as defensive Kiss' Dazzling Gleam or as strong as Syvleon's Hyper Voice), its partner, set up your Volcarona, Tailwind etc something to make that switch in worth it, but that's still not the intention. Rather, it is to mitigate Urishfu's threat when they are on the field to do your own said threatening thing more safely. That may be in you favour even if Wicked Blow takes a large chunk of Blastoise's health (contrary to @Nail's claim, getting hit by an unresisted Wicked Blow is not necessarily death). Or less if Togekiss used Follow Me, you Fake Out the Urishfu, or set up a faster Tailwind so the ally can move before Urishfu.

Without such a support focus, then teams would need to be more offensive orientated to provide more direct pressure on Urishfu such as you aforementioned sun, Talonflame, and Psyspam examples. These give it less room to click Wicked Blow, U-turn etc in the first place. These team examples also have relatively better match-ups against Rilaboom. I don't think Urishfu is the only contributor to this trend.

252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 144 Def Togekiss on a critical hit: 132-156 (35.2 - 41.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sylveon on a critical hit: 207-245 (62.5 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I think "not giving a crap" is a stretch, especially for the Sylveon example. Togekiss is often the only solid defensive check to Urshifu on the teams its found on, giving Urshifu the chance to deal ~37% to the Fairy-type of the team, and it can decide not to take this if it's beneficial - the switch is so telegraphed that U-Turn is incredibly easy to click (CB U-Turn often forces kills on its own) and a better partner can be brought in to deal with it. Teams cannot afford more than 1 defensive (defensive kiss, weezing) and 1 offensive (offensive kiss, sylveon) check to this (this is more than most teams can afford to run atm) or they will die to everything else.

also Urshifu gets Iron Head so it can kinda just... click that sometimes

I partially agree here. Not giving a crap is a stretch - it's a great Pokemon. But offensive checks are easier to come by than what you suggest. Many of the offensive teams simply try to apply enough pressure to stop it from clicking a move in the first place as per above. Many Pokemon can exert that pressure - essentially anything that outspeeds it and threatens to deal significant damage, which the list is relatively large: Talonflame, Zerora, Terrakion, Charizard, Kingdra, Alakazam (Dazzling Gleam, and good luck with Sucker Punch on Psychic Terrain), pretty much anything faster with a Fairy-type move. Offensive checks are not just limited to Kiss and Sylveon. And I think 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe Sylveon is a bad EV spread in a Urishfu-metagame contrary to the default spread on the damage calculator; more bulk is better than Speed.

 

[Ezrael]

How does Urshifu operate in the metagame? What is broken about it?

Two things. First, I think that if a pokemon's main check is itself, then that pokemon is unhealthy, and likely banworthy. This doesn't apply always, as Lando T was a good Lando check without being cancer. Why was that the case? Landorus was a good and healthy landorus check because it was immune to the other's main stab, reduced its damage output, and didn't try to OHKO other landorus. When lando did run hp ice, it was giving up some decent other moves and could be punished for that. in gen 6, Landorus was primarily a physical attacker, who could hit other landorus with a solid 75 bp non stab spread move. Rarely have we seen other pokemon function as a check to themselves, and when they did it was almost always cancerous. Marshadow was used as a marshadow check. Melmetal was used as a Melmetal check. In no small part, Gengar was banned because Gengar teams had to use Gengar as their Gengar check. These interactions were unhealthy because of the nature of the interactions of the specific pokemon. For VGC, Xern and Groudon are often their own checks on teams and that is turbo cancer.

Landorus is an outlier in terms of a mon being healthy while being its best check. Incin and Rillaboom come decently close, but the key underlying factor in these mons is that they're primarily support mons, and can't hit themselves for super effective damage or anything close to an OHKO

Second, ubiquitous use of a pokemon that is good into every matchup is telling as to whether it is banworthy. There are matchups where Landorus is really uncomfortable. Lando doesn't enjoy fighting hard sun or Rain, and can often be a sac into those teams. Urshifu, on the other hand, has no matchups that it doesn't enjoy. As one of the primary users of the sun team with Charizard and Ninetales, and priority blocking from tsareena, and venusaur, and my own urshifu, and fake out, I can confirm that Urshifu is still a massive threat. This is true as well for the talonflame terrakion team, which I beat in practice mostly by abusing the power of urshifu. Darkmalice points out that "Urshifu still thrives no matter what archetype it queues into."

Here is what it boils down to for me. Urshifu's counterplay is sufficiently limited by its ability to crit, its speed tier, Unseen Fist, and typing. Volcarona, for instance (a pokemon that may well be broken) is restricted by the fact that it has to set up to do any meaningful damage. Urshifu is not limited by that and instead there are no ways to prevent its damage output except by killing it first. You cannot intimidate urshifu, as it will crit you. you cannot protect and switch in fake out, as it will hit through protect. You cannot just use a faster pokemon, as it has sucker punch. Hell, you can't even prevent it from pivoting, as its u-turn goes through protect. As a result, urshifu finds its way onto every team and is forced to counter itself, when nothing else does and hope your opponent clicks wicked blow. The damage output into neutral mons or resists is too much such that the only way to kill urshifu is to Revenge Kill it, which is not a trivial task. This mon does too much damage in one slot and restricts teambuilding far too much.

 

[Commander Beta]

How does Urshifu operate in the metagame? What is broken about it?

Two things. First, I think that if a pokemon's main check is itself, then that pokemon is unhealthy, and likely banworthy. This doesn't apply always, as Lando T was a good Lando check without being cancer. Why was that the case? Landorus was a good and healthy landorus check because it was immune to the other's main stab, reduced its damage output, and didn't try to OHKO other landorus. When lando did run hp ice, it was giving up some decent other moves and could be punished for that. in gen 6, Landorus was primarily a physical attacker, who could hit other landorus with a solid 75 bp non stab spread move. Rarely have we seen other pokemon function as a check to themselves, and when they did it was almost always cancerous. Marshadow was used as a marshadow check. Melmetal was used as a Melmetal check. In no small part, Gengar was banned because Gengar teams had to use Gengar as their Gengar check. These interactions were unhealthy because of the nature of the interactions of the specific pokemon. For VGC, Xern and Groudon are often their own checks on teams and that is turbo cancer.

Landorus is an outlier in terms of a mon being healthy while being its best check. Incin and Rillaboom come decently close, but the key underlying factor in these mons is that they're primarily support mons, and can't hit themselves for super effective damage or anything close to an OHKO

Second, ubiquitous use of a pokemon that is good into every matchup is telling as to whether it is banworthy. There are matchups where Landorus is really uncomfortable. Lando doesn't enjoy fighting hard sun or Rain, and can often be a sac into those teams. Urshifu, on the other hand, has no matchups that it doesn't enjoy. As one of the primary users of the sun team with Charizard and Ninetales, and priority blocking from tsareena, and venusaur, and my own urshifu, and fake out, I can confirm that Urshifu is still a massive threat. This is true as well for the talonflame terrakion team, which I beat in practice mostly by abusing the power of urshifu. Darkmalice points out that "Urshifu still thrives no matter what archetype it queues into."

Here is what it boils down to for me. Urshifu's counterplay is sufficiently limited by its ability to crit, its speed tier, Unseen Fist, and typing. Volcarona, for instance (a pokemon that may well be broken) is restricted by the fact that it has to set up to do any meaningful damage. Urshifu is not limited by that and instead there are no ways to prevent its damage output except by killing it first. You cannot intimidate urshifu, as it will crit you. you cannot protect and switch in fake out, as it will hit through protect. You cannot just use a faster pokemon, as it has sucker punch. Hell, you can't even prevent it from pivoting, as its u-turn goes through protect. As a result, urshifu finds its way onto every team and is forced to counter itself, when nothing else does and hope your opponent clicks wicked blow. The damage output into neutral mons or resists is too much such that the only way to kill urshifu is to Revenge Kill it, which is not a trivial task. This mon does too much damage in one slot and restricts teambuilding far too much.

In regards to the counters to urshifu I must fairy types, which would normaly anihilate him have been severely cut down, I had always used at the very least one fairy type is gen 7, normally 2, which were absolutely top tier, and I even had to control myself not to use 3 in a team. On the contrary, the gen 8 meta lacks any offensive fairies outside of hatterene and the ocassional sylveon, and appart from that it's only really support togekiss, not to say any of them aren't good, but they are only as dominating because of the lack of option, no one would ever consider running sylveon in a tapu meta, together with other fantastic fairies like diance and mega-mawile, I think the meta lacks enough fairies to counter urshifu, should frozen tundra introduce viable fairies, we probably suspect test it, however, right now, GenOne and I have been preparing teams for the seasonal and we really have to go out of our way to account for urshifu, I have had to abandon some of the defensive calcs I had attempted to stop urshifu as even resists have trouble being 3HKO instead of 2HKO, in favor of as many as 3 fake out users in some of our iterations just so we can fake out urshifu, which isn't even that good against non-choice variants with protect.

 

[GenOne]

I've given this some more thought and will likely vote ban, based on the discussion above. Although I will likely be a vocal proponent of re-suspecting it during the Crown Tundra DLC, when better checks like the Tapus are freed.

I will concede however that Urshifu is a Pokemon that thrives no matter what archetype it queues into, which fundamentally reduces the amount of required skill and knowledge that goes into building a team.

I still don't agree that it's unhealthy because "it checks itself" because:

1. There are examples of Pokemon, like Dragapult this gen or Lando-T in previous gens, that check themselves and are perfectly healthy for the metagame
2. Most Urshifus are choice-locked, and once they pick their move they're forced to stick with it, which gives the opponent some room for counterplay

I also don't think Urshifu does much to restrict the amount of viable archetypes that would be in the metagame; most of the trends we're seeing right now (lots of offense teams, very little fullroom, sand, bulky offense, etc.) will likely still prevail with Urshifu banned. The offense teams we're seeing are just good team styles, Trick Room was bad even before Urshifu, and sand and bulky offense teams will still have to contend with Urshifu-R and Terrakion, which I don't doubt will become more popular.

On the tangent of Urshifu-R, I don't think anybody currently views it as a problem, mainly because its typing is worse both offensively and defensively. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this suggests to me that out of all of Urshifu-S's traits, the only one that truly pushes it over the edge is its typing. For this reason, I hope that if we ban it now, we re-suspect it during Crown Tundra when we have faster and better Fairy-types.

EDIT - and if that suspect's NP song isn't Shadowboxin' I will riot

 

[Shadowmonstr7]

Urshifu single strike is very broken, and I don't believe the available counterplay is anywhere near strong enough to validate keeping this mon in the tier. The available fairy types can hardly deal with urshifu themselves. The only fairy that can really take a wicked blow is Weezing Galar. All the rest like offensively invested Togekiss and Sylveon take at least 50 and are slower than Urshifu, so they can't even get a hit in offensively after switching in.

252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Togekiss on a critical hit: 153-180 (49.1 - 57.8%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO

Defensive Togekiss can survive two wicked blows but it doesn't exactly appreciate switching in either. Really the only pokemon in the tier that can switch in to cb wb is an opposing Urshifu. In addition, despite being choice locked it's incredibly difficult to slow down urshifu's momentum, and the typical methods for dealing with fast, hard hitting mons in the past like fakeout and intimidate simply aren't very effective against urshifu. Tsareena and Indeedee are both extremely good in the current metagame, and Inciniroar is really pretty bad at the moment and intimidate won't even do anything to stop the power of wicked blow. In addition, many fast mons like dragapult or scarf zard that should be able to kill urshifu without too much trouble can struggle to do so due to the power of sucker punch. Most teams without urshifu can be made better simply by adding this threatening mon, and I only have one team post-dlc that doesnt include urshifu single-strike. This pokemon almost always trades very favorably, and I believe it puts a substantial strain on the teambuilder.

For these reasons I will be voting to Ban Urshifu.

 

[Commander Beta]

When is the voting period expected to end?
One thing is for certain though, this vote is definately not as much of a landslide as the melmetal one, which ended in a few hours.

 

[talkingtree]

Voting will end on Sunday or whenever we reach >60% Ban votes or >40% DNB votes (both out of the total number of qualified voters), whichever comes first. The latter almost always comes first, but if we reach the end of the planned voting period and neither has reached the required number of votes, the result will be determined by using (# of Ban votes / votes cast) instead of (# of Ban votes / possible voters).

 

[MajorBowman]

While we are still waiting on some votes, the result is set in stone. Urshifu Single Strike is now banned from DOU. Thank you to all who participated!

Votes
Ban: 36/55 (65.45%)
Do Not Ban: 19/55 (34.55%)

 

[Senhorolho]

Nice! I know it was banned already, and this is my first reply to all forums (i'm new here) so i'm sorry if i'm not supposed to be replying but, i'm aware of urshifu's reason to be banned. Wicked Blow in my opinion is the most broken part, more than Unseen Fist. If you have bulk up on your set and set it up once, even Pokémon that resist a hit (unless they are double-resistant) can potentially get OHKO'd.

+1 252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Togekiss on a critical hit: 252-297 (67.3 - 79.4%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

Just an example of how broken it is.