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Metagame np: SV DOU Stage 5: White Lines (Cocaine Bear Remix) | Ursaluna Banned

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Don’t poke the bear, just focus on the fear,
I focus on the money, I can see it crystal clear
You can feel it in the air, I keep all my shooters near
When it's all said and done, the circle get the square

:sv/Ursaluna:​

The first suspect of SV after home compatability is upon us! Ursaluna was very nearly quickbanned, coming just shy by one vote.

Ursaluna has quickly cemented itself as one of the top threats in Doubles OU. It has all that a Pokémon could ask for, with excellent stats, offensive typing, ability, and movepool. While only 550 bst, its stats are maximized for Trick Room attacking, where it has low speed and special attack, but fantastic bulk and 140 base attack. The Guts ability allows it to carry a Flame Orb to status itself, and then receive an attack boost and immunity from other status moves such as Amoonguss’ Spore. Combine this with STAB Facades that hit ridiculously hard, and you’ll be focusing on the fear. To round this out, Ursaluna also has Ground typing that lets it punish Steel & Rock types that could resist its Facade, and two great Ground moves in Headlong Rush and Earthquake. It even gets some solid coverage moves like Crunch, Close Combat, Heavy Slam, and Stone Edge that can punish would-be counters. This leaves very little room to maneuver around Ursaluna once it is properly positioned, almost guaranteeing it will rack up KO’s and square that circle.

If all that wasn’t enough, Ursaluna has also received some excellent partners in reliable Trick Room setters like Cresselia & Diancie. It’s especially seen use alongside Cresselia, whose ground immunity lets Ursaluna fire off Earthquakes with reckless abandon. Cresselia is also able to support Ursaluna with Lunar Blessing to relieve its damage taken from Burn, and Ally Switch to protect Ursaluna from unwanted attacks. With Ursaluna’s Iron Hands-esque bulk, it’s even started to see play outside of Trick Room teams just as a fat attacker, sometimes paired alongside tailwind users such as Tornadus.

With that being said, Ursaluna does have some drawbacks. Its typing is great offensively, but isn’t so special defensively, being weak to common attack types like Fighting, Grass, Water, and Ice. This can sometimes lead to it getting picked off by priority moves such as a Jet Punch from Palafin-Hero or Aqua Jet from Basculegion, or otherwise strong attacks from Iron Hands, Rillaboom, and Chien-Pao. Alongside this, it speed ties many other prominent Trick Room threats like Diancie and Iron Hands, and is undersped by some like Torkoal and Amoonguss. This can sometimes make it tricky for Ursaluna to get into the position it wants, where it has multiple turns of Trick Room to freely operate and KO multiple Pokémon.

As usual, 60% of the vote must be in favor to ban Ursaluna.

Important: For this suspect, there will be two ways to qualify. The first is the typical laddering period, where players must reach the minimum GXE. The second is by winning a live suspect tournament, to be held in the Smogon Doubles Room. You may compete in the suspect tournament on any account, and will need to post proof of you winning the suspect tournament on the voter ID thread.

There will be two live suspect tournaments:

Suspect Tournament Times
Saturday, June 17th Sunday, June 18th at 12:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
Sunday, June 18th at 4:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)

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

Laddering Period
Start: Friday, June 16th at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
End: Sunday, June 25th at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)

All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! Doubles OU ladder on a fresh alt with the prefix “DOUBX [Name].” For example, I may use the name “DOUBX Actuarily” to qualify.

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.

GXEminimum games
8050
80.249
80.448
80.647
80.846
8145
81.244
81.443
81.642
81.841
8240
82.239
82.438
82.637
82.836
8335
83.234
83.433
83.632
83.831
8430

Ursaluna will be legal during this suspect.
 
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Ursaluna Suspect - Ban this Please
:Ursaluna: General Thoughts
The arrival of Pokemon Home has led to a total shift in the viability of fullroom in gen 9 doubles ou, with powerful options like Cresselia and Ursaluna leading the charge in bringing an archetype from the level of matchup fishing to the forefront of the metagame. Prior to home releasing, the topic of contention in DOU was Iron Hands, which was able to sweep through teams after boosting with swords dance. However, this level of power is nothing compared to that of Ursaluna, whose guts boosted facades eviscerate most of the metagame without having to waste a turn clicking swords dance (yes, flame orb needs to activate, but that's hardly on the same level of investment). Personally, I think this ease of setting up to deal massive damage is just too much for the metagame to handle. I especially think Cress + Ursa is a serious problem, with lunar blessing allowing Ursa to heal off chip damage and preventing it from dying to stray neutral attacks, which Ursaluna can typically shrug off with its 130/105/80 bulk. It's not even like Ursaluna is one-dimensional- it also gets Swords Dance, as well as pretty much any coverage it could ever want, although it's so strong with just facade and headlong rush that we rarely even see these other options used. Overall, Trick room is a little bit too strong right now, and I think the easiest fix will be to ban this stupid bear. It invalidates so many Pokemon, and there is very little risk involved with using it, even just as a semiroom component.

Replays:
Me vs Ninjasnapple- this game showcases both the offensive prowess of Ursaluna, as well as its immense bulk, living a Volcanion steam eruption handily
Me vs AIRedzone- a good illustration of how oppressive Swords Dance can be
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9doublesou-1882903234-rhux5zv4t8ifk9glm98c7s3i88ls42npw a good illustration of how oppressive Ursaluna can be into hyper offensive teams once trick room goes up
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9doublesou-1885278982-fdiois835zqwr00bh7sukxivwqm50bgpw OSDT game that features a fast Ursaluna shredding through an opposing tr team

Frankly I find it a little odd that it wasn't quickbanned, but I'm glad we're getting a chance to weigh in on this so quickly. However, please get this thing out of the tier, it threatens too much of the metagame with too little an opportunity cost due to it's high bulk and easy access to high damage output.

Other thoughts
:Cresselia:
I think Cress is pretty stupid too, it isn't as obviously broken as Ursaluna but I see it as a contributing factor to both the Annihilape ban and the fact that Ursaluna is receiving a suspect (and will hopefully get banned). Lunar Blessing was the perfect tool for such a bulky trick room setter, and the BST nerf doesn't change the fact that Cresselia is one of the bulkiest Pokemon of all time, and it can now tera to enable itself to set tr easier. I would suggest monitering this following the suspect, I highly doubt it will actually receive any action but to me it's kinda borderline and I think it deserves a mention here.

Tera in general:
I definitely think tera is a little bit questionable right now, it's been pushing strong Pokemon over the edge all gen and now there are even better Pokemon able to abuse it. I think it would be a serious shame if it had to be banned, but its worth keeping an eye on as the meta develops and stabilizes with whatever tier changes take place (I definitely think there will be some). On top of leading to uncompetitive mindgames, it really screws over long term planning within games (as Z Strats and others have noted) and to me it's definitely a little unhealthy. I do think the bar should be higher for banning this than for anything else, considering I think it is generally well-liked and it really gives SV a unique feel, but I don't think we should rule out suspecting it eventually.

:Flutter Mane:
I don't really have a problem with this one, I do think it is quite strong, but I also think it significant counterplay in this metagame with the higher bulk and offensive power of the other mons around it. I think Chi-Yu is a little weaker than previously and I think that helps make this far less oppressive than in the pre-home meta. Please keep this around, its nice to have an actual fairy type.
 
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I already wrote about Cocaine Bear in the previous NP thread when discussing my views on the third post-Home quickban slate, and my views haven’t changed so I’d like to just re-share what I already wrote with a few edits and updates:

I am leaning towards the opinion that Ursaluna should be banned.

Whenever I use Ursaluna on my teams, it becomes apparent that despite Ursaluna's gross sheer power and perfect STAB coverage, it is not without drawbacks as it gets worn down relatively easily and lacks longevity if not supported by healers (Cresselia, Amoonguss or Indeedee) and speed control (Trick Room is best, but Ursaluna can be ev'd to be useful in Tailwind too).

However, whenever I face opposing Ursaluna I am quickly reminded about how little counterplay there really is to it, other than doing your level best to prioritize killing it quickly at all costs. At best, you have an Intimidate user like Landorus-T that can at least mitigate the Guts buff Ursaluna is getting. But the fact is, Ursaluna quite easily trades with or outright destroys all of the Intimidate users even after an Atk drop (Lando-T had a Fighting chance if not for losing Superpower this gen) and in general you know this mon is always getting anywhere from one to several KOs in every game it plays. Not to mention, if Ursaluna manages to Terastialize to Normal-type that alone is enough to reverse an Intimidate drop. Basically Ursaluna just has so much sheer offensive presence, as well as quite significant bulk, that I see it as a somewhat warping force in the metagame.

And in the time that the meta has developed since I last posted about Ursaluna, the metagame has somewhat shifted away from pure hyper offensive spam to more bulky offence teams where Ursaluna shines, and I have not seen any new meta developments that really help answer Ursaluna other than maybe Rillaboom becoming a bit more popular again. But that’s also a double-edged sword in itself because Ursaluna also really appreciates Grassy Terrain recovery to mitigate Burn damage. And also, with Urshifu-R banned, screens offense has become viable again (see my sample team for an example) so if anything Ursaluna has just become even more of a bulky menace to try to play around in a game.

I will say I do agree with fangame tho that it do be fun to use. Just less fun to face and imo definitely deserves to be banned :)
 
I think we are suspecting the wrong thing. While I'm open to debate on the level of brokenness of each individual mon, I think Tera is the biggest thing that leads to strong pokemon becoming problematic pokemon, but it also has a negative impact on the natural state of the game. Offensively, Tera allows things like urshifu to blow anything out of the water. Adaptability boosts on existing stabs is absurd, but the main issue becomes apparent when Tera is applied defensively. This really becomes apparent on pokemon like ape, cresselia, and now luna which benefits from offensive and defensive Tera. Without having the option to tera a lot of these bulky behemoths wouldn't be able to get away with just brazenly setting up part way through a match, and the offensive threats while still strong, would have a harder time breaking past walls. One of the fundamentals of pokemon has always been long term game planning and while doubles has a little less emphasis on it compared to singles, tera completely twists the game into being all about short term predictions. Every turn presents 50/50s on whether or not your opponent just teras and invalidates your attack. Obviously pokemon is a game that promotes predictions, but it has a bigger emphasis on positioning. We shouldn't punish players for positioning checks properly just to get trumped by whichever "get out of jail free card" your opponent decides to pull. Outside of that, tera allows people to have two items in a sense. Being able to tera grass to remove weakness, gain safety goggles, and hold a separate item is ridiculous. Same concept can be said with tera ghost. Vgc has open team sheets because it's obvious tera was made with fun gimmick in mind, not competitiveness.

I propose 3 options:
Ban tera outright
One mon per team can equip tera
Team preview reveals tera types.

I think the last two lead into "complex bans" and think first option is for the best.
Obviously go through with Luna test but I really think this mechanic should be looked at next
 
Teals said:
Vgc has open team sheets because it's obvious tera was made with fun gimmick in mind, not competitiveness.
Click to expand...
I'd like to respond to people's "ban Tera" arguments (spoiler: I think Tera is the best part of SV and I think it offers way more than what it takes away), but I want to make sure we're all on the same page here:

VGC is open team sheet because there's no function to lock your battle box in Scarlet and Violet, so they need to police people changing their moves between games
 
Where do we start this thing.

This thing was not a problem at all when urshifu single strike was still in the meta, but, now it’s gone, and I have to make sure my Palafin eats his Cheerios to kill Ursaluna. On a serious note Ursaluna‘s bulk puts on par with Cresselia already, and Cresselia just doesn’t want to die. So now imagine giving Cresselia 140 base attack, it‘s not fun. But Ursaluna also has guts, and because the flame orb burns it’s holder, guts will make Ursaluna 50% percent stronger, which makes me feel like I’m playing against Zacian, and Cresselia.

Ursaluna does have serious counter play like Palafin, Focus sash Chien-Pao, Iron Bundle, Walking Wake, and Volcanion on a lesser note, so it’s able to be checked, and honestly, me personally, Ursaluna hasn’t been that bad at all in double. A lot of water types can come in and 2-3 it K.O without a double up and because of all the other Pokémon that came from Pokemon Home, Ursaluna is kind of just there.

Trick room is a whole new story though. Ursaluna is really slow which is bad normally, until trick room basically just gives it plus six speed so now all of those previously stated counters get out speeded and Koed in one or two turns. But Ursaluna also gets facade, which when burned does 140 base damage, haha, dear god. With stab, that 210 damage. Oh lord have mercy, I’m gonna bust.

Outside of trick room, Ursaluna doesn’t give me too many problems, so I really don’t think it should be banned. Most of it’s power comes from guts, so if you catch it on a switch in with spore or toxic, so it becomes easier to K.O later.

Final opinion: Don’t ban

-EkCantDrawLol
 
There will be two live suspect tournaments:

Suspect Tournament Times
Saturday, June 17th at 12:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
Sunday, June 18th at 4:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
Click to expand...

The Saturday Suspect Tournament was missed, so we’ll run two tournaments on Sunday the 18th. One make-up at 12:00 PM Easter Time (GMT -4), and the second at the regularly scheduled time of 4:00PM Eastern Time (GMT-4). We apologize for the mistake.
 
Congratulations to myself for winning the first suspect tour! I will now qualify to vote as a result (Rigged?????). Finals replay, semis 1 replay, semis 2 replay.
1687107811234.png

Reminder that there will be a second suspect tour later today at 4pm GMT-4.
 
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Ban it, I've seen its power, and it's to much. Ursaluna has many teammates that aid it. Indeedee-F is useful in preventing Ursaluna getting picked off with priority in trick room.
Cresselia is immune to earthquake provides recovery and offensive and defensive support.
Torn with tailwind makes it deadly if Ev'd correctly. And lastly Ursaluna has the offensive tools it needs to make its self a threat. Making itself banworthy.
 
On Ursaluna:

I think Ursaluna's raw power combined with the restrictions it places on the teambuilder make it way too good for the tier in its current state. Its raw power and bulk have been spoken on enough so I want to talk about it in gameplay. Unlike in VGC where the Urshifu forms really punish its Protect turn to setup, really one of the only ways you can truly pressure Ursaluna is forcing a Protect on its partners Trick Room turn while swapping in a Fake Out user (think something like Iron Hands threatening Close Combat with a potential Rillaboom switch), and even this can be foiled by something like Ally Switch Cresselia from the Ursaluna user. There's also the threat of switching between Normal and Flying immunities to gimp its attacks and stall Trick Room, but the Ursaluna user is in an equal position to read these switches as the opponent is to make them. And that's just talking about it in Trick Room, which doesn't account for the teams that have opted to pair it with Tornadus additionally/instead. Support from Screens and the numerous Fake Out users give it too much room to operate how it pleases and this Pokemon is just way too dangerous to be given that space. The various random Flying and Ghost Tera types it's been forcing in the builder are also starting to get really annoying, both because it sucks as the Ursaluna user to whiff your Facade into an unforeseen Ghost Tera but also on the other end of the coin most of these Pokemon would love to use more generally useful Tera types. I will be voting ban.

On Cresselia:

Cresselia is really easy to slot onto teams. For months we struggled to fit Ground resists routinely and now we've got one of the best ones ever made at our disposal with a new toy in Lunar Blessing. However I think Cresselia is just regular good and not too good if that makes sense. Lunar Blessing isn't actually an insane amount of recovery, and its very susceptible to Taunt if not running Safety Goggles. It is a little frustrating that it makes pretty decent use of Ally Switch as it has a pretty flexible last move after Trick Room / Lunar Blessing / [Attack] but I think this only gets consistently scary when enabling something far more dangerous like the above. The passivity and lack of offensive pressure just don't make me believe it's anything that necessitates action.

On Tera:

Tera seems to be the big talk as of late but honestly I don't buy it. We would absolutely be suspecting Ursaluna with or without Tera present, neither Urshifu form would've lasted tera or no tera. Yes there are Pokemon that make excellent use of it like Annihilape, but we can ban those and move on. I really appreciate the depth that tera offers to the game, the strategy revolving around forcing Teras and using surprise Teras to punish certain Pokemon/Cores is just a way to play the game that we haven't really had before and I'm a big fan. Please leave it alone.

salute
 
So looking at many of the posts here theres a common theme that “there are basically no counters to Ursaluna under Trick Room.” So I think it’s helpful to list out ways to beat Ursaluna to evaluate that claim. As I see it there’s basically 3 ways to beat it under Trick Room, defense boosting Pokémon, priority attackers, and slower Pokémon that can hit Ursaluna hard.

Defense boosting mons: :Garganacl: :Orthworm: :Bronzong: :Diancie: :Goodra-Hisui: :Corviknight:

Defense boosting with body press is arguably the most reliable way of dealing with Ursaluna, however most of these Pokémon need to have gotten a defense boost up before Ursaluna hits the field. (Also they are quite reliant on hitting Ursaluna with the body press, and so the Ursaluna player has options such as Tera Ghost Ursaluna or Ally Switch Cresselia to stop this).

Diancie speed ties with it, and even after a diamond storm boost Ursaluna is doing slightly more damage to Diancie than a body press does to Ursaluna, and once factoring in Diamond Storm’s unreliability for boosts, Diancie isn’t a practical check.
252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Headlong Rush vs. +2 252 HP / 0 Def Diancie: 240-284 (78.9 - 93.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 0 Def Diancie Body Press vs. 8 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna: 314-370 (77.9 - 91.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage

Garganacl and Goodra-Hisui both are a bit reliant on Tera in order to take on Ursaluna as they otherwise would get hit super effectively. Even though Garganacl can underspeed Ursaluna in Trick Room, it really needs to have already gotten an Iron Defense up first to avoid still getting 2hko’d:
252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Headlong Rush vs. +2 252 HP / 4 Def Garganacl: 270-320 (66.8 - 79.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Options like Bronzong, Corviknight, and Orthworm are very reliable as they resist both facade and are immune to Ursaluna’s ground moves, but only Orthworm has really seen use outside of being used purely to check Ursaluna, and even then it’s only seen on EQ spam, and so typically a good sign a Pokémon is too broken is when players are reliant on using bad options just to beat one Pokémon. So all in all there are some good options here, but they might hurt your team in other matchups.

Priority Attackers: :Palafin-Hero: :Chien-Pao: :Dragonite: :Kingambit:
Priority attackers are typically good options for offensive teams taking on Trick Room. Palafin is definitely the best choice of these options as its priority move is able to hit Ursaluna super effectively. However it’s reliant on Ursaluna investing in Spdef to get a chance to ohko, so it really wants rain/Sword of Ruin/Tera Water to guarantee the ohko:
252+ Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 8 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna: 362-428 (89.8 - 106.2%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

The other options here all are kinda reliant on Ursaluna already having received chip damage, or to have already fired off a Headlong Rush to have lowered its defenses. Chien-Pao and Dragonite need both on the field at the same time plus a Tera normal Dragonite to stand a chance:

252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Normal Sword of Ruin Dragonite Extreme Speed vs. 8 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna: 282-333 (69.9 - 82.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage

252 Atk Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Sucker Punch vs. 8 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna: 139-165 (34.4 - 40.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after burn damage

Meanwhile Kingambit needs to have gotten a swords dance off beforehand, as well as to Tera-Dark:
+2 252+ Atk Black Glasses Tera Dark Kingambit Kowtow Cleave vs. 8 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna: 482-568 (119.6 - 140.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

So here there are some options, but they often require good positioning.

Slower Pokémon that can hit Ursaluna hard:
:Amoonguss: :Enamorus-Therian: :Glastrier: :Iron Hands: :Gastrodon:

This category can be a bit of a stretch sometimes, requiring slow Pokémon to run surprise sets in order to hit Ursaluna hard. Many of these rely on hitting Ursaluna’s ground typing, which it often Tera’s out of, and also many are hoping that your opponent is not bringing an Ursaluna that isn’t heavily invested in special defense. For instance Grass Knot on Life Orb Enamorus-Therian does ohko 252 hp Ursaluna, but one invested in spdef has a strong chance to live it:

252+ SpA Life Orb Enamorus-Therian Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 8 HP / 248 SpD Ursaluna: 354-416 (87.8 - 103.2%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

You’re also pretty much required to run damage boosting items on Pokémon that wouldn’t really want them:

252+ Atk Life Orb Glastrier Icicle Crash vs. 8 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna: 413-486 (102.4 - 120.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Gastrodon Hydro Pump vs. 8 HP / 248 SpD Ursaluna: 374-439 (92.8 - 108.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

The best mons out of this list sadly aren’t reliable, as Amoonguss doesn’t ohko without absurd offensive investment, and Iron Hands has to win the speed tie. So this category really requires players to go out of their way to beat Ursaluna.

There are of course other ways, such as preventing TR from getting up, to defensive pivoting and cycling Fake Out, but both of these aren’t great. Cress is the best partner for Ursaluna, as it’s an extremely reliable Trick Room setter, able to counter all of the ways players typically try to stop it. And once in Trick Room, Ursaluna does so much damage on even resisted hits that it can break through defensive pivoting. All this to say, that prepping for Ursaluna requires many teams to go so far out of their way in checks, that I’ll be voting ban.
 
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There are still votes remaining, but the result is decided. With Ban having received over 60% of the vote already, Ursaluna will be banned from SV DOU. The current voting breakdown is as follows:

Ban: 40 (76.9%)
Do Not Ban: 4 (7.7%)
Votes Remaining: 8 (15.4%)
Total Voters: 52

Tagging DaWoblefet to implement, thanks!!

Post below your thoughts on how this may change the metagame, or any other Pokémon you feel should be considered for the next suspect!
 
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I think the biggest shift the metagame will be how cress is played. It complements diancie in the sense that it is a setter that doesn't lose to Landorus, but there aren't many tr abusers that directly benefit from being paired with cress. I can see Iron Hands rising to spots ursaluna normally filled. I also think cm sets will gain popularity to a degree, because lunar blessing is still a great move and facilitates Calm Mind sets as you can't get far trying to poison or burn it in an attempt to neutralize it
 
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