np: SV UU Stage 4.0 - Magnetic (Sandy Shocks Suspect)

[BigFatMantis]

I'll be voting Do Not Ban (or Keep UU) on Sandy Shocks. Mossy Sandwich made an excellent post on why banning Shocks is not the proper move here, as it's not broken, not overpowered, and definitely not uncompetitive by Smogon tiering standards. Those are the main reasons from a tiering perspective on what would warrant something to be banned, and it does not fall under any of them.

The final prong, whether or not something is "unhealthy", is always a vague term that many people have interpreted incorrectly in my opinion, but maybe that was the intention of the term. Sandy Shocks is not unhealthy to the metagame in my opinion - it provides real value in a consistent hazard setter that will not totally take over a game unless it A) burns its tera (which, while tera Shocks is threatening, it will usually do this early and prevent a far more dangerous tera sweeper like Scizor or Quaquaval from using its tera) and B) your opp decides to ignore it in the builder.

To further illustrate this point B, I'd like to illuminate some of the defensive answers to Sandy Shocks. While not all of these are perfect, there's enough there to plop on your team and be fine vs it:
AV Bike forces Sandy to burn Ice Tera to do much against it (still doesn't KO it), and forcing Shocks to burn tera immediately puts you in an advantageous state.
Yeah, it's mainly only used on fat stally teams, but fat stally teams are good, and Blissey just outright stops all iterations of Shocks except meme sets like Body Press.
Another mon that forces Sandy to burn its tera to do anything to it (and still doesn't KO it), and Woch is easily a top 5 mon in the meta right now.
If Shocks is Tera Ice, then Gastrodon answers it pretty effectively, and Gastro is also a top mon in the meta atm on the defensive end.
Since Power Gem Shocks is all but non-existent, Rotom-H answers it pretty easily. If you do run into a rare Power Gem Shocks, then it's not really a good Shocks anyways and it means it's probably just a scarf Shocks or something with no hazards. All the Rotoms are good vs Shocks actually, depending on its tera.
Florges is a very underrated mon atm, and no version of Shocks can really give it much of a hard time unlesss your Florges terad into Steel already. Sylveon is just as good defensively vs it also.
The Screamer may be even better than Florges/Sylveon vs Shocks, as it outspeeds also.
Not sure why we let RU have a Spinner tbh, but this mon also doesn't let Shocks do anything really and also outspeeds it and threatens it offensively, I'm surprised nearly nobody is using it really.
If the Shocks is Tera Grass then it can't do anything at all to any grasses, especially the Toed. It also can't do much to them if it's tera ice but something else on the team tera'd already.

I left some answers out, and didn't even really go into offensive answers like Greninja or AV Donphan, and even something like Scizor will just own if the Shocks goes Tera Ice.

I'm obviously not saying Shocks is bad - it's a very good mon in the meta. But I think people overexaggerate how "oppresive" it is, when it's not even as good as it was last month, and with the incoming Home drops next week, UU is going to look much different anyways sometime in June, so I don't really see any reason to ban this thing at the moment. The meta is fine at the moment, no need to try to fix it when nothing is insanely restrictive, let's just leave it alone and see how it looks after the omega drops hit.

 

[TheReal274]

I just got recs so I'm gonna go ahead and add one more voice to the growing DNB chorus. Sandy Shocks was, imo, problematic and possibly banworthy a couple months ago, but UU gained a couple new tools in Greninja and Cyclizar that can check it depending on their sets, and both mons do a great job of this using their best sets (Specs and RegenVest, respectively). Additionally, the meta has shifted slightly in ways that make Sandy Shocks substantially less oppressive -- the fairy twins Sylveon and Florges are both capable of checking it offensively and defensively, while Scream Tail can outlast it with Wish / Protect / Dazzling Gleam. Shocks also struggles vs everyone's favorite slugs, Wo Chien and Gastrodon. Yes it can tera grass to beat Gastrodon, but that can be scouted and tera is a big opportunity cost. You can't reasonably expect to tera the same mon in every game, and even then, tera grass prevents it from dealing with Cyclizar and Wo Chien. If it teras ice to threaten grass types, Wo Chien's best set RestTalk can beat it without having to tera as long as you stay healthy. Blissey stonewalls it which makes it struggle vs stall, and it's liable to get overwhelmed vs cheese HO.

Volt Switch is certainly very powerful for getting out of its bad matchups, with Shocks sitting at a good speed tier and can threaten most of our grounds especially with tera. I've noticed a slight rise in AV Donphan on the ladder, which functions very nicely with Wish support and is a solid blanket check that matches up very nicely into Shocks while preventing Volt Switch. But I digress. I do think Volt Switch is a powerful tool, but Shocks wants boots if it's gonna spam that move, and that in turn can make it easier to check offensively -- OHKO it if it lacks sash; outspeed it if it lacks scarf / booster energy.

Lastly, Home is coming out soonish maybe??? Embarrassing for Pokemon to announce a release date and then renege on it, but I do expect it'll come soon. UU is likely to change massively in the next couple months and the power level is going to rise substantially. Not that we should ban based on a future meta -- this suspect is for the current meta after all -- but even within the current meta, Shocks has plenty of counterplay. A great Pokemon to be sure, but not banworthy, imo. I apologize for the unorganized post that largely rehashed excellent posts that already exist in this thread by Mossy Sandwich and udongirl, but I wanted to get my thoughts down somewhere. Cheers!

 

[Lizzie]

While I broadly agree with the sentiment that sandy shocks is significantly less broken than it was a month or two ago I think a lot of the checks people are listing are very fake. If your check allows sandy shocks to get spikes freely and then volt switch out it's not really stopping it from doing what it wants to do. Wo chien was still here two months ago, it just got spiked on and then volted on and long term your team was getting shredded by hazards. Ultimately the strongest checks to this mon are decidueye and cyclizar. Both are very good at forcing progress vs opposing teams and can remove sandy shocks spikes consistently. Additionally offensive checks which can prevent it from hitting the field are somewhat valid but not a viable long term strategy on bulkier teams. Rotom heat is potentially the best offensive check because it's really hard to switch in on and you don't want to give it free turns. You can also count scizor as an offensive check due to it making shocks not want to tera but overall these sorts of arguments feel incredibly broken check broken to me, and sd scizor can pretty easily trailblaze vs a lot to outspeed sandy shocks anyway. With regards to home coming soon, this will never be a good argument to keep something in the tier and I honestly don't see what's gonna change to make this mon stop doing what it currently does, the combination of it's typing stats and movepool are just really good and unique and make it incredibly restrictive in the builder.

I still completely understand people who feel this mon isn't broken, in my opinion it's borderline and while i lean towards ban I didn't feel that way at all the first few days of the current meta. I just think this mon continues to find ways to break through its checks and is in no way healthy in uu.

 

[pokemonisfun]

So I see a couple really good arguments in this thread to ban Sandy Shocks, Skarph in this post talked about how good Sandy Shocks is at abusing Tera and killing Gastrodons with Tera Grass + it abuses Tinkaton very easily.

Liz here talked about how Sandy Shocks uses Spikes to be one of the most dangerous setters since it can keep Spikes up which can give a decisive advantage to the Sandy Shocks user.

Bice talks about both of their points more generally.

A few points though:

• I agree that Grass Sandy Shocks tend to be very good in Gastrodon teams but basically there are no Gastrodon teams that rely solely on Gastrodon to beat Sandy Shocks. We have to scout the tera but that is doable and in my opinion expected and normal in our tera society, Gastrodon works very well with Talonflame, which deters the Tera Grass, and most Grass types, which completely wall Tera Grass Sandy Shocks.
  • There are simply a lot of other decent checks to Sandy Shocks even taking into account Tera, Scream Tail, Roost Slither Wing and Hariyama are all very slower good checks to Sandy Shocks (actually most Screamers are faster). Faster checks that revenge kill were already listed by Skarph and others, including Pawmot, Jugulis, Gengar, and Greninja.
  • As Mossy mentioned, Sandy Shocks can struggle to deal with random Tera Grounds that block Volt Switch, most notably on Pelipper right now
• I think the best argument to ban Sandy Shocks is that it's Tera Ice + Spikes set is extremely hard to stop from setting up Spikes freely, basically all of our hazard control in the tier loses to Sandy Shocks 1 v 1.
  • However, I don't think being an exceptional hazard setter with very good pivoting abilities is enough to push it to broken - these are great traits, but not even enough for me to think Sandy Shocks is deserving of the S rank it holds. It's not strong enough to sweep, the strongest standard move it has is an unboosted Earth Power - not at all bad, but simply good, not even great.
• I'd like to compare Sandy Shocks to our last suspect Scizor, which I voted to ban (and still would vote to ban today) - both are amazing at abusing Tera and last time, I said I wanted to ban Scizor even though I didn't think it was absurdly broken because it's just difficult to pin point exactly what's broken, I sincerely doubt there's anything that much more than 50 or 60% of the knowledgable/able to get reqs playerbase would vote to ban.
  • But Sandy Shocks simply can rarely create it's own sweeping opportunities bar extremely niche sets like Charge Beam Booster Energy, it's always going to be revenge killed or walled by something. Scizor has the luxury of very powerful priority and just enough coverage for all of it's walls in Close Combat / Trail Blaze, Sandy Shocks is going to be slower than the Pawmot/Iron Jugulis/Gengar/Greninja etc. and has to choose what it gets walled by, Scizor with Superpower / TB / BP alone is essentially unwallable bar Tera mons and Tauros Fire.

Overall, I am not convinced Sandy Shocks is broken. I rather focus right now on Wo-Chien or else the threats that can actually sweep (Gyarados/Armarogue/Psychic Terrain/Rain) more similar to Scizor.

 

[Lily]

Been thinking an awful lot lately and now that voting is coming up, I'd like to make a post detailing why I firmly believe Sandy Shocks is a really unhealthy presence for the tier. In addition, I'd like to refute the checks some people have listed, because frankly they just aren't very good.

So let's start off with Sandy's builder presence.

When it comes to what we have in the builder to handle Sandy Shocks, your gut will likely bring you to two places; Ground-types, which can block Volt Switch and usually relatively safely tank Earth Power, and Grass-types, which resist both of Sandy Shocks's STAB moves alongside its common Grass-type Tera Blast coverage. In terms of what's UU by usage, that leaves us with the following:

Now let's individually analyse the Sandy matchup for each of these Pokemon. I'll be ignoring Toedscruel in both cases as it's widely agreed that it's unviable.

- Assault Vest Donphan is a good short-term Sandy Shocks check for offensive teams. Any other set is not worthwhile for anything other than blocking Volt Switch, as it is cleanly 2HKOd by Earth Power without Special Defense investment, and 2HKOd by Tera Blast even if it has it. (Assault Vest is also 2HKOd by Tera Blast, but on offensive teams, forcing Sandy to Tera isn't necessarily a bad thing). Notably, Donphan is also a Rapid Spin user that is relatively tough to spinblock and switch into, meaning it's fairly good at preventing Sandy Shocks from getting hazards up if it's still healthy.

- Individually, Gastrodon does fine. It doesn't really fear Earth Power if Sandy hasn't gone Tera Ground yet (though that does a lot, especially to variants that aren't literally max max spdef). Tera Blast obviously sends it to high heaven. As detailed by pif and others above, Gastrodon is not a sufficient Sandy Shocks check on its own, but it is frequently paired with Pokemon that can more efficiently handle it like Rotom-Heat, Wo-Chien and Cyclizar. Fair enough. In terms of hazard matchup, Gastrodon is complete Spikes fodder; it is not particularly threatening to switch into, so Spiking on the turn Gastrodon comes in is almost always free, making it an extremely poor check later on in the game if the Gastrodon user cannot safely remove hazards.

- Not a good Sandy Shocks check unless it's running Careful, which still gets blown away by Tera Blast. Tera Ground variants also shred it. Extremely easy to switch into, even moreso than Gastrodon, so Spiking as it comes in is typically very free. Notably can chip a Tera Ice/Grass Shocks with sand, at least.

- Needs extremely significant SpDef investment to even avoid the 2HKO from Earth Power. Popped open by Tera Blast. Is relatively difficult to switch into sometimes, so Spiking on it may not always be super free.

- The mirror is awkward. Sandy can't really switch into itself, but if you -do- block its Volt with your own Sandy Shocks, the game immediately gets super duper ugly. See Turn 6 of UU Masters Finals.

- Completely worthless vs Sandy Shocks as it loses the 1v1 even if it gets in completely safely somehow. Takes far too much damage from STAB moves and doesn't recover much HP (less than 50% at neutral attack) with Strength Sap. Can at least spin away the Spikes before dying.

- Notable for being resilient to essentially everything Sandy does except Tera Ice, while being able to Defog if Sandy opts to Spike. Can succumb to VoltTurn cores with the likes of Scizor, Cyclizar, Noivern, Talonflame very easily, but if you play a little bit aggressively, Decidueye is a really solid check to most Sandy Shocks sets.

- Borderline unviable, but okay at checking Sandy. Extremely vulnerable to being spinblocked by just about everything, so it's pretty useless into Sandy + Ghost teams, as it'll just get Spiked on the switch and then Volted on into a blocker. Still, it's a decent enough stopgap.

- Great counter until it Teras (which it will inevitably have to do vs Sandy VoltTurn to not be worthless against the U-turn users), then not a very good one at all. Rest loops are uncomfortable and you take too much from Volt Switch to truly counter. I do not like when people cite this as a counter, because it completely ignores gamestate in its entirety; in a vacuum yes, this will beat Sandy, but you cannot treat a hazard-setting pivot as though it exists in a vacuum. Very weak to hazards if not running Boots, and if running Boots it's really weak to chip damage from Volts/EPs/etc.

Other options do exist, of course - Cyclizar does a fairly okay job with its Assault Vest set (though I disagree with people calling this a "counter" - I've forced out countless Cyclizars while keeping a Spike up (see here) because it doesn't immediately do much damage back to you, you just have to sequence it correctly). Rotom-Heat and -Mow are uniquely qualified to switch into pretty much every move but they take a lot of damage from Volt Switch and generally hate coming in on attacks to begin with considering how much it hampers their progress-making. Offensive pressure from the likes of Greninja, Noivern, Gengar etc. certainly exists too - I am just focusing on defensive responses in the builder right now.

I am aware of options listed above like Sylveon, Florges and uh... Cryogonal. They are not good counterplay. They will win the 1v1 and that is it. If you cannot come in on Volt Switch and either be immune to it or take extremely minimal damage, you are terrible Sandy Shocks counterplay.

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Now, in-battle response can certainly be different to builder response. After all, last gen we dealt with Keldeo and Primarina, who were demonic in-builder but rarely made their presence known as heavily in actual games. I do not believe Sandy Shocks is like this. I have some replays to showcase this.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-687284

It goes to show how difficult it is to prevent Sandy Shocks from making progress when you see that, without even Terastalising it, I was able to use my Sandy Shocks's threat level to maintain maximum hazard layers *and* chip down a Blissey from full HP despite my opponent having a Defogger, a Blissey, a Wo-Chien and TWO Ground-types. This game also shows how deceptively difficult it can be to make progress -against- Sandy Shocks, since lots of "counters" like Wo-Chien and Blissey don't immediately threaten it much and it can just keep toying with its food.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-693192

Now of course there is an element that Sandy is always going to look very good against a team without a Volt Switch immunity. However, on preview the Sandy matchup here looks fine. Slither Wing and Decidueye are both respectable checks, and Noivern is a faster revenge killer. So what goes wrong? Well, skippergamez guesses the set wrong - happens! And unfortunately they lose 4/6 of their team for it, because their dedicated counter got popped open by surprise coverage. This could've been avoided had they kept their Scizor, sure, but it's not like you can afford to play that safely around Specs Greninja - minimal support was needed for Sandy to completely take over this game, and it didn't even need any hazards of its own.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-693172

Another example of Sandy Shocks taking over a game where it ran into three different forms of dedicated counterplay, simply by getting a single Spike up and pivoting all day long. The combination of Quagsire, Rotom-Heat and Wo-Chien, which theoretically should have been enough, was clearly not capable of keeping Sandy Shocks in line because of the limitless progress its hazards make alongside its Volt Switch.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-692666

Another example of how suffocating the Sandy Shocks VoltTurn combos can be. Just over and over, without much at all by way of counterplay to the strategy.

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I've not even gotten into how absurdly difficult it can be to limit Sandy's opportunities by virtue of its bulk and typing, or how it pairs far too well with too many Pokemon that enable it to just pull the same bullshit over and over. I ask DNB voters to ask themselves not if Sandy Shocks is broken, but if the dynamic it brings to the tier is remotely healthy. If you can answer that question with a resounding "yes", then I respect your decision. If you cannot, I implore you to reconsider how you'll be voting.

Sandy Shocks puts far too much pressure on the player in the builder and in-battle when wielded by a skilled battler. Counterplay exists, and it isn't necessarily restricted to bargain bin Pokemon, but it is wildly insufficient relative to what Sandy Shocks has proven itself capable of time and time again. I will be firmly voting ban and I strongly encourage others to do so if you want a truly enjoyable SV UU.

 

[pokemonisfun]

I don't think these replays show a broken Sandy Shocks. I think going through replays is a wonderful thing and I'm sure you will disagree with what I say, but I genuinely do not think these replays indicate Sandy Shocks is broken, replies bolded in blue.

---

Now, in-battle response can certainly be different to builder response. After all, last gen we dealt with Keldeo and Primarina, who were demonic in-builder but rarely made their presence known as heavily in actual games. I do not believe Sandy Shocks is like this. I have some replays to showcase this.


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-687284

It goes to show how difficult it is to prevent Sandy Shocks from making progress when you see that, without even Terastalising it, I was able to use my Sandy Shocks's threat level to maintain maximum hazard layers *and* chip down a Blissey from full HP despite my opponent having a Defogger, a Blissey, a Wo-Chien and TWO Ground-types. This game also shows how deceptively difficult it can be to make progress -against- Sandy Shocks, since lots of "counters" like Wo-Chien and Blissey don't immediately threaten it much and it can just keep toying with its food.

It's clear here the main reason you won was because your Espeon was able to prevent your opponent from clicking Utility moves, most notably Toxic on Quagsire and SR on Hippowdon never had chances because the Espeon. Espepon was the one who lured Hippowdon here. To be blunt, any Spiker or Volt Switch user would have given you a decisive advantage after turn 27 - where Espeon, not Sandy Shocks, lures and KOs the Hippowdon. Throughout the entire game, your opponent simply can't use Utility moves and your Alomomola is a perfect counter to their Wo-Chien so it can't make Knock Off - it's certainly a crushing victory by you and very well prepared, but let's not kid ourselves - Sandy Shocks was absolutely not necessary here to win, let alone broken. If your Sandy Shocks was replaced by a Spikes Quagsire, it could easily have won as well.


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-693192

Now of course there is an element that Sandy is always going to look very good against a team without a Volt Switch immunity. However, on preview the Sandy matchup here looks fine. Slither Wing and Decidueye are both respectable checks, and Noivern is a faster revenge killer. So what goes wrong? Well, skippergamez guesses the set wrong - happens! And unfortunately they lose 4/6 of their team for it, because their dedicated counter got popped open by surprise coverage. This could've been avoided had they kept their Scizor, sure, but it's not like you can afford to play that safely around Specs Greninja - minimal support was needed for Sandy to completely take over this game, and it didn't even need any hazards of its own.

With all due respect - this is a pretty horrible example of a game. Skipper here, as you mentioned, brought a team with no Volt Switch immunity. Moreover, he only has one decently reliable check to Sandy Shocks after it Ice Teras - Scizor, which he sacks on turn 6, because his team simply can't deal with Greninja, an A/A- ranked threat. Why are we surprised when Ice Sandy Shocks sweeps a team that has no check to it? Furthermore, you're irresponsibly exaggerating here when you say he loses 4/6 of his team for simply guessing the set wrong - he lost his team because he decided to Tera Flying his Tyranitar, which was just a misprediction, not necessarily a bad play on his part, and then he tossed Slowbro for no reason (obviously sacking Tyranitar is better because it was already dead and Slowbro could survive a Volt Switch still and at least force Sandy Shocks out, Adaam reveals Tbolt later but Skipper didn't know it was Tbolt yet. This is not Sandy Shocks being broken, this is you picking a game where the opponent was very weak to Ice Sandy, they sacked their best counterplay to it early on for reasons unrelated to Sandy, then Sandy unsurprisingly winning.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-693172

Another example of Sandy Shocks taking over a game where it ran into three different forms of dedicated counterplay, simply by getting a single Spike up and pivoting all day long. The combination of Quagsire, Rotom-Heat and Wo-Chien, which theoretically should have been enough, was clearly not capable of keeping Sandy Shocks in line because of the limitless progress its hazards make alongside its Volt Switch.

I don't disagree - Sandy Shocks was brutal here. But not because it was broken. ESM's team here clearly lacks a good response to our current S rank mon - Salamence - because they're using Quagsire over Gastrodon. His opponent doesn't have a Salamence, but they do have Noivern, which causes similar issues especially as significant portions of Tinkaton's health and item is sacrificed early on in the game. Combined with the fact Wo-Chien couldn't make progress here because it lacked Knock Off unfortunately, it's not a huge surprise ESM lost. Regardless, I don't know how you can look at that game and think Sandy Shocks was the MVP, to me it was clearly Noivern and ESM's lack of Noivern counter + sacking most of Tinkaton early on that cost him this.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-692666

Another example of how suffocating the Sandy Shocks VoltTurn combos can be. Just over and over, without much at all by way of counterplay to the strategy.

This was a brutal game again, I don't disagree. But again, Sandy wasn't broken here. To not scout for Tera grass when you're using stall with a Quagsire blocking Volt Switch, that's just extremely ballsy play that didn't quite work out for the staller. Moreover, he still had a chance to Toxic Sandy Shocks which obviously did a lot more long run. Additionally just because the stall user lost doesn't mean it was fated, what if the Talon got a burn on the Slither Wing at the end - there is a non Zero chance shiloh could have won still by sweeping with Blissey later (assuming Alo was chilling water to stop Slither). The most important thing though is that Tera grass wasn't scouted when at that point, Shiloh (I think that's him sorry if not) clearly had the resources to do so. This doesn't mean Sandy is broken, it means you have to scout tera in gen9uu. That's not a controversial point.
---

 

[Lily]

I'm unsure what I can do to convince you when I've placed factual information about a pokemon KOing 4 others (3, I suppose, if you don't count it putting ttar in SR range) and you tell me that I'm exaggerating... I will happily and respectfully disagree with you on this topic but I don't truly believe your analyses here are accurate or unbiased. And maybe mine aren't either. I can't refute statements like "Sandy wasn't necessary to win" or "wasn't the MVP" because those aren't the point I was making in the first place; it's ultimately not relevant at all, actually. The point of the replays was to show off the touted counterplay like Decidueye, Wo-Chien etc. as ineffective, which I feel I did properly.

I'd just like to particularly highlight this part, because it feels (possibly unintentionally - I don't want to act as though this was malicious) like it completely dodges and distracts from the point.

ESM's team here clearly lacks a good response to our current S rank mon - Salamence - because they're using Quagsire over Gastrodon. His opponent doesn't have a Salamence, but they do have Noivern, which causes similar issues especially as significant portions of Tinkaton's health and item is sacrificed early on in the game.

This doesn't serve to further the discussion at all. If we were going to discount replays based on our own perceptions of what's good and what isn't, then replay analysis would be entirely invalid to begin with; in Mossy's replay analysis - which I felt was very good, and which also made me reconsider my vote entirely - pdt brought a team (g2) that was also wholly unprepared for Salamence, so we'd have to throw that out, and g3 Mossy brought a Scarf Decidueye so we can't reasonably let that slide for the same reason. To be clear, I'm not singling Mossy out here - he just so happens to have made a very thoughtful and well-constructed post that included analysis, so it's the easiest one I can compare to. But anyways, this is what people are using, for one reason or another, and it's all I can make reference to. It's not like I have any higher quality games to point to right now than what's going on in UU Open.

I don't intend to refute anything else you've said because I either don't feel it's relevant as I've already said, or do think your criticisms are valid (the ones on my game especially, although I think you exaggerate a bit by saying spikes quag could've done the same thing).