finally getting around to this
I think unbanning Basculegion-M was a big mistake! For multiple reasons! Just gonna start with the mon itself though.
This mon is still dumb as heck
I really shouldn't have to explain why Last Respects is good, its probably the best endgame cleaner in the game because of how often you can end up OHKOing everything, especially on HO structures where it's most prominent due to how often 3/4 mons die before it. This was the same before DLC 1, its the same here too. There are some endgames where it is literally impossible to play around because it's so hard to avoid its OHKOs in the later stages of a match. The issue is, because of the sheer amount of damage it outputs, defensive counterplay is extremely limited because few things have the actual natural bulk to take an Adaptability boosted Last Respects, Dark-Types are either offensively oriented (Chi-Yu and Chien-Pao), harder to fit, or just plain bad. Normal-types are in a similar boat, with Ursaluna being an offensive Pokemon who can lose a lot of health from burn or eating attacks, while Farigiraf and Indeedee-F can be harder to fit (with the latter arguably being considerably worse than it was previously). Tera Normal is an option on Pokemon that don't need their tera anyways (mainly Volcanion) but isn't always available (mainly due to tera needing to be used earlier in the game). As such, defensive counterplay is extremely limited or unreliable (calling Chi-Yu a Basculegion switch-in is not good because you can get OHKOd with 3 mons down), making offensive counterplay the more viable option. However, being faster than scarfed Basculegion isn't the easiest thing, since the paradox mons can usually only do it once with Booster Energy (outside of sun teams) and Choice Scarf users aren't common. Prankster Tailwind can help....but considering Basculegion has a Tornadus to back it up most of the time, it cancels out (and in late games it's more likely to not be a factor). That pretty much leaves priority as the best option due to how easy it is to add it to a team and how it effectively ignores speed tiers entirely. The issue with priority comes with how easy it can be to add counterplay in either tera types that resist Grassy Glide or Sucker Punch, or a priority blocker like Farigiraf, both of which entirely stop the most common (and cited reason!) method of keeping Basculegion-M in check. Farigiraf isn't something you can necessarily put on a wide swathe of teams, but it works extremely well on offense and compliments Basculegion greatly, and while using tera removes the Adaptability boost, a good portion of the time its still enough due to the raw strength of Last Respects. You can point to replays of Basculegion being kept in check by Grassy Glide sure, but you can also point to once where the counterplay gets countered with ease like this one (or where the counterplay isn't there and Basculegion just wins lol). Did I mention it can live Grassy Glide without tera? What effectively happens is Basculegion forces either Rillaboom or Chien-Pao on teams in order to reliably answer it in late games (I don't care that Ogerporon gets Grassy Glide, you can't use it without Rillaboom regardless) only for it to potentially not even answer Basculegion. That just isn't remotely healthy and I really think it should be banned asap.
I do also want to touch on how Basculegion was unbanned without any input from the community when the change was a singular move with no other substantial changes to help balance it when the suspect that lead to it being banned was extremely decisive (35-11 isn't really close, at all.). Especially considering how few people were or are actively defending it, which strongly suggests this was an unban barely anyone in the community wanted, and I doubt that has changed at this point. Unbanning pokemon previously banned by a suspect is fine if there were significant changes to the metagame between its ban and unban, and a literal singular move that can be easily circumvented does not seem that significant. I really hope more thought it put into what is on the slate in scenarios like these, because frankly this is just baffling to me how this was allowed to happen.
I think unbanning Basculegion-M was a big mistake! For multiple reasons! Just gonna start with the mon itself though.
This mon is still dumb as heck
I really shouldn't have to explain why Last Respects is good, its probably the best endgame cleaner in the game because of how often you can end up OHKOing everything, especially on HO structures where it's most prominent due to how often 3/4 mons die before it. This was the same before DLC 1, its the same here too. There are some endgames where it is literally impossible to play around because it's so hard to avoid its OHKOs in the later stages of a match. The issue is, because of the sheer amount of damage it outputs, defensive counterplay is extremely limited because few things have the actual natural bulk to take an Adaptability boosted Last Respects, Dark-Types are either offensively oriented (Chi-Yu and Chien-Pao), harder to fit, or just plain bad. Normal-types are in a similar boat, with Ursaluna being an offensive Pokemon who can lose a lot of health from burn or eating attacks, while Farigiraf and Indeedee-F can be harder to fit (with the latter arguably being considerably worse than it was previously). Tera Normal is an option on Pokemon that don't need their tera anyways (mainly Volcanion) but isn't always available (mainly due to tera needing to be used earlier in the game). As such, defensive counterplay is extremely limited or unreliable (calling Chi-Yu a Basculegion switch-in is not good because you can get OHKOd with 3 mons down), making offensive counterplay the more viable option. However, being faster than scarfed Basculegion isn't the easiest thing, since the paradox mons can usually only do it once with Booster Energy (outside of sun teams) and Choice Scarf users aren't common. Prankster Tailwind can help....but considering Basculegion has a Tornadus to back it up most of the time, it cancels out (and in late games it's more likely to not be a factor). That pretty much leaves priority as the best option due to how easy it is to add it to a team and how it effectively ignores speed tiers entirely. The issue with priority comes with how easy it can be to add counterplay in either tera types that resist Grassy Glide or Sucker Punch, or a priority blocker like Farigiraf, both of which entirely stop the most common (and cited reason!) method of keeping Basculegion-M in check. Farigiraf isn't something you can necessarily put on a wide swathe of teams, but it works extremely well on offense and compliments Basculegion greatly, and while using tera removes the Adaptability boost, a good portion of the time its still enough due to the raw strength of Last Respects. You can point to replays of Basculegion being kept in check by Grassy Glide sure, but you can also point to once where the counterplay gets countered with ease like this one (or where the counterplay isn't there and Basculegion just wins lol). Did I mention it can live Grassy Glide without tera? What effectively happens is Basculegion forces either Rillaboom or Chien-Pao on teams in order to reliably answer it in late games (I don't care that Ogerporon gets Grassy Glide, you can't use it without Rillaboom regardless) only for it to potentially not even answer Basculegion. That just isn't remotely healthy and I really think it should be banned asap.
I do also want to touch on how Basculegion was unbanned without any input from the community when the change was a singular move with no other substantial changes to help balance it when the suspect that lead to it being banned was extremely decisive (35-11 isn't really close, at all.). Especially considering how few people were or are actively defending it, which strongly suggests this was an unban barely anyone in the community wanted, and I doubt that has changed at this point. Unbanning pokemon previously banned by a suspect is fine if there were significant changes to the metagame between its ban and unban, and a literal singular move that can be easily circumvented does not seem that significant. I really hope more thought it put into what is on the slate in scenarios like these, because frankly this is just baffling to me how this was allowed to happen.
Urshifu-R:
Ursaluna:
The Ogerpon forms are each quite good, but I haven’t seen enough from them that would make them bannable. I’d say the Hearthflame mask form is t1 (and is the closest to being banworthy), Wellspring is t2 for it’s great support, and cornerstone is t3.
As we’ve begun to see, grassy glide being reintroduced in SV alongside the Ogerpon forms has really made grass-weak Pokémon take a beating. So both of these Pokémon who are grass weak and rely on attacking first to ko before they take damage back are in a much more difficult position. As previously I was very on the fence with each, this has put me in the belief that they should be freed so we can see how they feel in the metagame.