Metagame On The Radar

[Waylaid]

Hey guys, waylaid here. I thought it'd be good as a council member to take nalei's lead and explain my own position on a possible magearna quickban. sorry if I'm rambling it's like 3 am


I support a magearna quickban.
Just 3 days into DLC and magearna has asserted itself as an oppressive force on the metagame. It has insane usage on ladder and is sure to occupy nearly every swsh game in both LT and Wcop. It also has crazy versatility with an insanely low opportunity cost. This mon can basically run anything (specs, bulky dual dance, bulky cm, air balloon, weakness policy, scarf, fast encore, etc) at a very viable level, almost never dropping below an estimated A+ ranking with any given set.

because magearna combines the extremes in both versatility and viability, magearna checks are:
1. few and far between
2. frighteningly similar to each other

as nalei's hit list shows, magearna can be well-teched to beat almost every mon but strong and offensive fire types. I'd like to show the smogon tiering policy to explain why this is such an issue.

I will list the 3 top things that all compelled me to support a quickban


1.
definition of a broken mon:

III.) Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

• These aren't necessarily completely uncompetitive because they don't take the determining factor out of the player's hands; both can use these elements and both probably have a fair chance to win. They are broken because they almost dictate / require usage, and a standard team without one of them facing a standard team with one of them would be at a drastic disadvantage.
• These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere.

argument for mag being broken:
Magearna is a prime example of a mon that may "dictate / require usage." Magearna is spammed on nearly every team on >1500s ladder, and if LT's use of cinderace is any indication, it'll be spammed in tours as well. A team without magearna is incomplete. magearna can render huge swaths of the metagame useless, and allows builders to only be forced to cover the ~30% of the metagame that mag doesn't immediately beat. mag's viability makes a team with mag almost always a direct improvement from a team without mag. the fact that, as of now, a viable team composition is "mag/ground or water type (for the fire types that beat mag)/mag check" is wildly concerning. magearna is versatile enough that it can run any of its extremely viable sets to cover whatever its partners don't already take care of, thus "solving" the building aspect of the 1v1 metagame. the second bullet: "whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche pokemon..." applies to magearna to a lesser extent. fire types may not be considered "extraordinarily niche," but being forced to bring one on every team is certainly constricting. I believe that magearna is broken by the tiering policy definition that the 1v1 council uses.

2.
unhealthy (to an extent)

an unhealthy mon is much more subjective, so I shy away from calling pokemon unhealthy to a metagame off-the-bat. sableye is a prime example of an unhealthy mon. it had a defined niche and defined counters (dark types + niche mons like aroma and klutz swoobat) that made it rather simple to prep for, but still constricted building by forcing one of the listed mon types on the team. I believe that magearna is less unhealthy than sableye because
a. it requires a greater number of sets (although the sets are still viable) to beat individual checks (sableye dominated all but the defined counters with just 1 set)
b. there are more spammable fire types than there were dark types

I do think that magearna is unhealthy, but not to a bannable extent. it certainly detracts from the diversity and negatively affects teambuilding. the tiering policy on what is unhealthy reads: "These are elements that may not limit either team building or battling skill enough individually but combine to cause an effect that is undesirable for the metagame," and I believe that perfectly applies to magearna, though the rest of the tiering policy's definition of unhealthy may not

3.
timing

should we decide to not quickban magearna, it will exist in LT, it will be around for summer ssnl, and it will dominate building in wcop of 1v1. this dlc drop is quite untimely, as the proximity of tours forces us as 1v1 players to rapidly re-develop the meta before important tours start or continue. I believe that our efforts to develop the metagame at this point in time are mostly directed towards discovering more mag tech/searching for more mag counters. should mag stay in the meta before these tours, we will be playing swsh in a. an underdeveloped meta and b. with an incredibly powerful and spammable mon on every team. not only is this unhealthy to the meta, it's unhealthy to the tournament scene, and I have no doubts that swsh players would prefer to play in a mag-less meta. I think mag could be less broken in a more defined and developed meta after we've found a niche for the dlc pokemon, but keeping it unbanned now puts an unnecessary strain on meta development. should we quickban now and re-suspect magearna at a better time, I have faith that the metagame would undergo proper development and adapt to the threat of mag. at the very least, we would be more confident throwing it out should it turn out to remain broken.

based on the reasons I listed above, I support a magearna quickban with a resuspect in the future. please share your thoughts on magearna in this thread as well.

 

[Here Comes Team Charm!]

Going to support a magearna ban: it has two extremely good sets (setup and specs), a number of viable alternative sets and lures (air balloon, scarf, encore), very few common counters (all of which are reliant on fire moves to take it down), and the most bonkers typing in the game. It's arguably stronger than it was in gen 7, in a meta without megas and z-moves.

With the upcoming tournaments, I suggest just being on the safe side and quickbanning it for now. It's always possible to re-test it after a while.

 

[nolenot]

Personally, I think that the new DLC meta hasn't developed enough, and we should wait for a bit and see what new sets begin no pop up into existence (and by that i mean people unironically using it in tours/ladder) before immediately qbing/suspecting it. Even if theres a lot of sets and variability with Mag, it's not like Cinderace of even Mimikyu because while those had viable unsets that don't sacrifice much, while Magearna does. Also please don't clown on me for this this is just my poorly researched opinion found from like 10 games on ladder.

 

[Ginger Princess]

Concerning Magearna, I am of the opinion that it should be quickbanned for the moment. The answers for Magearna are relatively limited and force centralized cores of *insert fire mon* + support for stuff that fire type loses to. If you don't run a Fire-type, you run the risk of being 3-0ed by one of its many plausible sets, that can mix and match items now that Z-Moves are gone. Power level has increased post-DLC, but not to SM levels, whereas Magearna has only gained tools at its disposal, like Trick/Encore/Stored Power. It may be fine post-DLC 2, but thats far off in the future.

I'm not going to say much because honestly my fellow council members in Nalei and Waylaid have beaten me to it. I will say that right now its kind of comparable to Gen 7 Kyurem-B: it forces a specific type of Pokemon (Steel for Kyub, Fire for Magearna) to be run, or else you will likely face 50/50s on preview with the multitude of good Magearna sets to build with. I ran Choiced Rotom-Heat w/ Trick, which shut it down handily, but looking at VR makes it clear that Pokemon like that are the exception, not the norm.

In general this seems like a pretty cut-and-dry case.

 

[Waylaid]

​

Following the quickban of Magearna after the DLC drop, Togekiss has slowly become a dominant threat in the 1v1 tier. Its high base stats, deep movepool, and solid ability in Serene Grace all contribute to its versatility and strength in the tier. Togekiss is able to utilize a plethora of viable sets and lures that allow it to beat most of its checks. What Togekiss doesn't ususally beat can often be defeated due to the combination of Serene Grace and Air Slash. Because of Togekiss' ambiguity at preview, its counters are nearly all electric types that resist its Flying STAB, leading to what some would argue is stagnancy in the metagame.

In an effort to address the possible issue that Togekiss presents, Council is considering voting on a Togekiss suspect or possible quickban. Naturally, any decision should be backed up by community support, so please take this opportunity to share your thoughts regarding what should be done with Togekiss. Feel free to reference tiering precedent by mentioning whether you believe its movepool, stats, and variability make it broken, its Speed tier coupled with the flinch chance from Serene Grance makes it uncompetitive, if a combination of the two makes it unhealthy for the tier, or if you believe that Togekiss is not deserving of a suspect test.

Please keep the conversation in this thread civil and respectful; arguing and flaming doesn't bring us any closer to resolving the problems that will be brought up in this thread, and won't be tolerated. One liners will be deleted.

 

[Vrji]

I personally wouldn't mind it being gone, it's a giant nuisance when building, especially because there isn't one clear answer to it:
Faster scarfers like scarf drill or darm-g usually win out but lose to counter variants with the respective resist berry, while anything slower just gets flinched to death by its scarf set, and that's not even mentioning its specs and stall sets that all beat different things.

In my opinion Togekiss clearly follows the pattern of broken 1v1 pokemon (mew, sabelye, especially jirachi) of having one set (scarf air slash) that can beat most of anything, with good sets to beat the few counters to that set.

 

[ExplodingDonkey]

Hello, donk here with the serious post for once! (crazy isn't it?)

SO the main question at hand is "What to do with Togekiss right now?" There are a few options: Quickban, Suspect Test, or leave it be until DLC 2. I believe that each of these options have their own set of benefits and problems. Let's start with addressing a quickban scenario. In the case that Council has decided to quickban Togekiss, the benefits are that an unhealthy presence in the meta would be gone, and the meta would finally have a chance to change. This would possibly revive SS, which many players call a "solved meta" or a "bad gen." But a quickban could cause already strong mons like Rillaboom and Urshifu to become even stronger, as one of their biggest counters would be banned. The meta may become even more unhealthy than it already is with the still standing problem of Porygon-Z and the massive popularization of Assault Vest. In the case that Togekiss is left as it is, the meta would stay the same until approximately 2 months later when DLC 2 is released, keeping SS in its "solved meta" state.

On the other hand, a suspect test holds quite the wide array of problems that must be mentioned. First of all, a suspect test for togekiss would be unlike most other suspect tests, from a community standpoint. The glaring issue of this (hypothetical) suspect test is that if Togekiss were to be tested, it would most definitely be banned. However, the reason for banning would not necessarily be for the sake of improving the metagame, but in the eyes of most of the community, it would be for the sheer frustration and hatred towards Togekiss. A common argument against the suspect test which is "Why not just quickban it if it's gonna be banned anyways?" I would say that is a fundamentally poor way of thinking because of my aforementioned thoughts about a quickban scenario above.

And as for my stance on how to resolve this? No idea, Togekiss is a tough problem to resolve. Hopefully it will all be fixed soon though.

And that'll be it from me, I'll leave you guys with this.

 

[Mr. Mime fan]

Finally, this thread is about togekiss, so i’ve been wanting to talk about this.
Togekiss right now can be called unhealthy, to say the least and i don’t think anyone should or will disagree to that point. But what to do about it?

If we QB it or Suspect test it the result will be the same.
Togekiss would be banned. The meta would allow for more diversity and mons that were shut down by it aren’t anymore. And it’s wincon for every game doesn’t stand and no more viable mons that have serene grace. But if togekiss were banned, as donk said, there is a possibility that the meta would be still unhealthy and the mons that are top tier which were shut down, become more unhealthy then togekiss. Causing a series of discussions about more mons causing the meta to be changed rapidly and not really for the better

If we leave it, The same meta will be staying for two more months until the Crown Tundra DLC officially releases.
Togekiss will stay unhealthy for two months and people struggling to beat specific sets will stay doing that. The meta will revolve around a few mons, and the same bland meta will stay, where people struggle in the teambuilder to beat all of it’s sets and the community will be mad. But this might be for the better compared to the first option

Let’s look at some people‘s opinions here and these are my thoughts-

Vrji- Togekiss is unhealthy because of teambuilding restraint etc etc.
So I agree with this point, but when your saying this, how do you know the meta won’t be more restraining in the teambuilder without togekiss?

Donk- the meta will turn into more chaos and more tests/qb’s will be done to hurt the meta if togekiss is banned.
While I agree, either way it'll become an unhealthy meta for the next two months.

So I see both of the sides of discussion and In my humble opinion,
Either way we get an unhealthy meta. Looking at their points

But, if it is forced to the point of this, we need to see.
which meta is less unhealthy to play and will have less teambuilding restraint
I’m thinking without togekiss ban, it might be less unhealthy
But tell me what you think

 

[magicarpe_lvl100]

Finally, the day has come. Let's talk about togekiss.

Accurate representation of Togekiss

Togekiss is arguably less broken than the mons that have already been kicked off the 1v1 metagame such as mew, jirachi, mimikyu, cinderace and magearna, and it's unhealthiness relies on basically 2 main concerns :
1/ Serene Grace flinch abuse, that can wipe out anything slower than togekiss : the main raison of why kiss can be considered unhealthy. For example, kiss has a (0.57)^4=10.56% odd to beat a mon that is 5HKOed by air slash, no matter what the mon is. That's not even a small odd.
2/ Versatility : togekiss can adapt to the mons that beat it's main sets : wacan counter can wipe out non bulk up zeraora, specs grass knot destroys rhyperior, amnesia marenga can deal with special attackers...

These 2 things makes building against togekiss really difficult, yet it can't be avoided considering togekiss is used in around 10% of the teams on the ladder based on august usage stats, which puts it above other 1v1 metagame threats like pz and urshifu.
This said, a togekiss ban would be more than justified. However, on the other hand...

A togekiss ban would also send the meta in an instability state again, 2 months before Crown Thundra DLC, with some mons like urshifus and rillaboom potentially becoming overpowered again, needing yet again additional bans... We know what we loose, but not what we get to replace it... Doesn't sound worth of getting rid of togekiss if we consider that.

To conclude, I am opposed to a quickban of togekiss, and would prefer to it either a suspect test which would give more time to think about how a togekiss-less meta would look like, and to debate, or togekiss to remain in 1v1 until the upcoming DLC, as while unhealthy the togekiss meta is still playable.

That's all I had to say, thanks for reading.

 

[PartMan]

WARNING: WALL INCOMING

I despise Togekiss. But for the purposes of this post (and the next one; I'll be breaking this in two posts since they're two somewhat different topics), I will neutrally explain why I think Togekiss deserves to be incinerated in the pits of Tartarus.

Post I

First up, in this post, I'll be explaining what meets my definition of a healthy meta, and how 1v1 as a whole relates to those. In the next, I'll explain how Togekiss warps the meta, and the effects of possible decisions that can be made.

So, what's a healthy meta? I mean, we're all here playing Pokemon, but it's rather competitive - I've never seen anyone grind thousands of hours on Hungry Hungry Hippos. So when we play Pokemon, we naturally have some assumptions.

a) That the game does not offer a biased advantage to either player.
b) That the game inherently rewards skill, and practice improves this skill.
c) That the outcome of the game should lean towards the better-skilled player.

Of course, there's a degree of randomness in Pokemon - which is where misses and crits and stuff come in - but ultimately, there needs to be a limit to how much randomness affects the game. There's countlessly many strategies with Pokemon, and each comes with its own inherent risks and matchups. If you choose to use Flamethrower over Fire Blast, for example, you increase your risk management while reducing your damage output. And this all factors in when you play the game.

When you play a game of Pokemon, there are some factors you have to deal with - these include bad matchups and hax. While the team you bring is up to you, and the associated risks are, too; the matchups you face and the hax that happens is out of your hand. This is what makes games interesting - without some degree of randomness, the in-battle hype wouldn't be as fun. Besides, as a simulator of Pokemon, we aren't free to dictate the game mechanics - all we can do is enforce rulesets to ensure a healthy, playable metagame.

Now, let's take a look at what factors are important when you play a game of Pokemon - or more accurately, 6v6.

a) Teambuilding
Teambuilding is the part where you.... build teams? Your team ultimately dictates the game - your playstyle, your facing matchups, your knowledge of the meta, your ideas and innovation; they all come out here - and this is the one part of the game that you have perfect information about.

b) Matchup
The matchup depends on your opponent. This can be a good matchup or a bad matchup - and any good team has answers to bad matchups.

c) Play
The play of the game is where you make assumptions and then make decisions based on those assumptions. One critical thing here is switching, which permits you to switch 1v1 matchups at the cost of a move.

d) Hax
HAX - nothing to be done about it.


The thing is, 1v1 is different from 6v6 - it removes the entire aspect of switching. This prevents changing your 1v1 matchups - so a single wrong decision while picking your Pokemon can cost you the entire game. Naturally, this increases the emphasis on your team's ability to handle threats - if your team has a single 3-0, it is almost guaranteed that you have lost the match (assuming your opponent is knowledgable). Unlike 6v6, you can't switch out of a bad matchup to a designated counter - you just have to deal with it. Given the fast-paced nature of battles, there's a lot more potential for innovation and lures - and it also means that the slightest bit of hax could turn the game awry.

In the end, 1v1 puts incredible emphasis on the aspects of teambuilding and choosing. This gives rise to lures, or unsets, or feints - and these make the metagame very diverse and interesting. In the end, I think we can all agree that the game's outcome should be heavily inclined towards the player who made the right pick based on their team and the opponent's.

The thing is, you don't always know your opponent's set, so this hazards a guess from both players - if you see a Zeraora, you'd usually be prepared for a Band / LO set, for example. You can also look at how well both sets would synchronize with the rest of the team and take a shot at assuming this set.

The fast-paced nature of 1v1 also promotes several somewhat risky plays - Iron Tail, for example, is a move that would rarely be used in 6v6 over Iron Head, but in 1v1 allows a Pokemon like Haxorus the chance to defeat a Pokemon that would otherwise counter it, changing a 100% chance to lose into a 70% chance to win in certain matchups. But this inherent risk - the 30% of missing after having made the correct play - is also something that must be considered by the player. When you teach your Haxorus Iron Tail, you also make the conscious decision in the knowledge that there is a 30% chance that your play will fail. And since even a single miss can heavily alter the outcome of a 1v1 game, hax is a lot more infuriating.

For an ideal metagame, you'd have a diverse set of used Pokemon, each that can be checked and countered in various ways. A flourishing metagame shouldn't be overcentralized, should reward careful planning and knowledge of the meta, and should put a user's risk assessment and management while teambuilding to the test.

I'll end this post here; Togekiss's relevance coming up next.

 

[PartMan]

Alright, so I've explained what an ideal meta represents to me, and how various factors tie in. Next, I'll be looking at how Togekiss affects these, and add some comparisons and examples to illustrate my points. The objective nature of my discussion ends here; and this is where my subjective points commence.

So we've established that hax is a crucial part of the game. It might not always happen, but when it does, it can heavily change the outcome, and more oft than not, cause salt. Most hax is an associated risk - like Focus Blast being notorious for missing - but these are factors that are influenced by the player when they make the decision and are ultimately part of the user's risk management. Naturally, every Pokemon has counters, and a good team can reliably perform well against any other team.

The thing is, these risks are all user-acknowledged. But what happens when you begin to introduce risks that are forced onto one player by the other?

This is where Togekiss comes in. By no means is Togekiss overcentralizing - it doesn't see as much usage as, say, Primarina. But the major difference is the matchups that Togekiss has even with its checks and counters.

The main issue with Togekiss is the combination of Serene Grace and Air Slash. I'm sure no one can argue about this set being the main reason Togekiss is under the radar. But on its own, Togekiss has a reliable 60% chance (57% if you factor in accuracy) to flinch the target each turn. With a respectable 120 SpA and Choice Scarf letting it outspeed even 252 Jolly Zeraora or Dragapult, Togekiss can outspeed and flinch repeatedly. Counters for Togekiss are usually limited to Inner Focus (most of which are weak to Fairy + Flying STAB), or Electric types that resist it. Taking a look at Zeraora - there's a nearly 10% chance that Togekiss can flinch it to death. While this isn't a majority of a chance to win (which is one of the reasons Togekiss has been left alone so far), it's not a chance that can be ignored. To quote some moderator (don't remember who): The distinguishing feature of Togekiss is the ability to flinch even its counters to death.

Togekiss has repeatedly distinguished itself as a notorious flinchhaxer in the metagame, and never has a guaranteed loss - there's always the chance that flinches come out on top. This doesn't even factor in the opponent's risk management - it simply adds a significant 10% to any existing risks that they've taken. In 6v6 metagames, this flinching can be countered by switching out to a better resist, or simply by sacrificing your Pokemon - this freedom doesn't exist in 1v1, since you lose if you one you sent dies. What this causes is a natural hatred towards a Togekiss, since a somewhat lucky player can prevail over a more skilled player by adding this 10% to the chances to winning. These arguments are actually relevant to sleep as well, but that hasn't distinguished itself as a notable threat this generation due to a lack of abusers, so I'll withhold those specific reasons for another post.

Effectively, my argument here is that Togekiss brings an unhealthy chance to bypass all skill and involved effort in teambuilding, which by itself is grounds for major debate. However, the impact of Togekiss doesn't end here. With a defensive stat distribution of 85 / 95 / 115, Togekiss has a respectable amount of bulk and a wide variety of sets that can be run. Even so-called counters to Togekiss can usually only deal with Scarfed variants - even Inner Focus Lucario would die to a Counter bulky set, and Zeraora would die to Wacan counter. Togekiss can viably run an incredibly wide variety of sets that can defeat proclaimed counters. Furthermore, these sets are indistinguishable at team preview. Since Togekiss can run Scarf, Specs, Wacan Counter, TWave / Air Slash, Maranga, Kee, or even AV sets, it is almost impossible to deal with, and this issue is compounded by not knowing what set you're facing. Of course, these sets have their own opportunity costs, but Togekiss's wide movepool that includes Trick, Encore, Yawn, Counter, Roost, and other moves that allow it to deal with almost every situation. To me, Togekiss's ability to run an uncompetitive Air Slash set while not losing out on the alternative of running decent and viable sets that are capable of overpowering even so-called Togekiss counters - this is the main reason why I feel Togekiss shouldn't have a place in the meta.

I've read a couple posts that try to explain why Togekiss is good for the meta, and I can't see anything in particular - some of the higher-ranked Pokemon had somewhat favourable matchups against Togekiss already, and there aren't any particular Pokemon that Togekiss was solely responsible for holding back. I don't see any Pokemon rising to unhealthy levels of overcentralization because of Togekiss being booped.

So what do we do? There's a couple possible options:

a) Burn it and kick the ashes into a deep pit
I like your line of thinking.

b) Quickban
Probably the best method. A vast majority of the community has expressed issues with Togekiss, and adding a suspect would only lengthen and complicate the process.

c) Suspect
See above.

d) Keep it
WAIT WHAT NO
READ THIS AGAIN

Mubs out.

 

[Tol]

I disagree with a quickban. Here’s why:
Since time immemorial, Smogon has used the suspect test as its main way of banning Pokémon. From this, it can be inferred that the suspect test is the “default” method of banning. From conversations I have had with people that know way more about this stuff than I do, I have gathered that there are two main reasons that a quickban would be used instead. These reasons are Necessity and Circumstance. Necessity is the more common if the two. These quickbans are the “new mon just dropped and it’s at a much higher level than the other stuff in the meta” or “a mon just got a new ability/item/move that puts it at a much higher level than the other stuff in the meta” bans. Circumstance is the less common of the two. These are the “most of the community that speaks up thinks that this is unhealthy, so let’s quickban it to have a healthier meta for the upcoming major tour/other deadline causing thing since we don’t have time for a full sustest” quickbans. Neither cause can be found here. Togekiss has not gained anything new that would push it so far over the edge as to be quickban worthy, and according to here, the nearest major tournament that contains SwSh is in December. Even if, as some have claimed, “the result is gonna be the same either way lmao” that is no reason to not take our time and do it by the book.
shoutouts turtalkatthing
mubs out

 

[Murm]

I made a vr post recently and I talked about Togekiss, but imma talk about it more. I'm going to try not to repeat what a lot of the other people have said but they have excellent points and I love them.

I honestly think it should get quickbanned, or if not a quickban, a suspect. I find it so stupid that if you don't outspeed scarf Togekiss or if you don't have inner focus, you can just lose, even if you picked right. Yes it can be a small percentage, like the 10% to 5hko mentioned a lot before this post, but it can do it reliably enough to the point where it is unhealthy. Its variability also proves to be a problem. I mentioned this before, but I cannot think of a single mon that always can handle Togekiss. The only two viable ones that come close are Zeraora and Rotom, but they can still lose to scarf kiss air slash or wacan berry. It just has such good stats and an amazing movepool that allows it to do anything from stall to even physical. Yes some sets are certainly better than others, but the fact that it can run pretty much anything proves to also be unhealthy. I am tired of dealing with this thing. It is so obnoxious to teambuild against to the point where I want to run Rotom or Zeraora on every team. It can get slapped on any team and do well; you can tailor it to fill any hole on your team. It is just super unhealthy because it has too many options and even if you choose right and if they don't have the right set to counter you, they can just flinch you to death if you are slower. Please ban this mon. I'm tired of it. Also ban PZ later byeeee.

 

[Notater]

I disagree about the premise of a quickban.

While the idea that Togekiss has a significant chance to flinch hax its counters has some merit, I'd like to make a worthwhile comparison: Mega Gyarados in SM. While the mons may seem incredibly different, they both still share the property of being able to hax many of their counters with flinches. Waterfall's 20% flinch rate was generally ignored when counting whether or not something like Mega Gardevoir was a counter, so I feel that it is pertinent to disregard extremely low chances of situations like 4 consecutive flinches in a row being needed to outhax a counter as somewhat negligible.

Similarly, while Togekiss has plenty of lure sets that can defeat its usual counters, there are several important notes about this: For one, each lure set has an opportunity cost of not defeating some of the other Pokemon Togekiss would be otherwise able to beat. Additionally, while Togekiss can lure its usual checks, mons that are usually checked by Togekiss can also oftentimes lure Togekiss. For instance, while the matchup is sometimes shaky on both ends, Occa Berry Scizor can lure in and defeat Togekiss hoping to dispatch it with a choiced Fire Blast, and Whimsicott can defeat Togekiss with the combination of Taunt + Coba Berry blocking any recovery attempts and halving Air Slash's damage, respectively. (It is possible I am missing something obvious here, I apologize if that is the case.) A great number of Pokemon are able to bypass some of their usual checks via lure sets, not just Togekiss, so this sort of property is hardly an indicator of Togekiss being broken.

Finally, quickbanning Togekiss would send the meta once again into a state of disrepair. As magicarpe_level00 has stated, "with some mons like urshifus and rillaboom potentially becoming overpowered again, needing yet again additional bans..." a QB on Togekiss could actually lead the metagame into a worse state than the one it is in--that current state being far from terrible even with the issues it has.

Am I probably biased due to using Togekiss a fair amount and liking the mon? Perhaps. Nevertheless I feel that a quickban would be shortsighted and thus either a suspect test or no action at all should be taken.

 

[The Official Glyx]

Togekiss is a very awkward mon to account for in teambuilding. The handful of you who have been there when I discussed in disc and room already know what I'm about to say, but I don't really feel that Togekiss is necessarily broken enough or uncompetitive enough to warrant a ban under the guise of either terms, but enough of both to warrant examination under the guise of being unhealthy. If you look at a lot of the recent suspects, the suspected mons in question all had one trait in common, being that ambiguity at team preview that leads to uncertainty in how you'd go about beating the mon. While Togekiss does have this aspect about it, I really don't feel that it's quite to the same extent as mons like Cinderace, Mimikyu, or Mew. However, for what it lacks in that aspect, it more than makes up for it by sheer RNG by means of Serene Grace flinching, especially when run in tandem with Thunder Wave, which only exacerbates the matter of RNG.

I personally do not see something befitting of a quickban when I look at Togekiss, as it comes nowhere near the level of other quickbans like Kyurem-Black, Melmetal, Moody, etc, though if there is near universal support of skipping the formality of a suspect test, I'm all for it. That said, I also do feel it's a bit redundant to have a full-blown suspect test when DLC2 is two months away (1 and a half, by the time the suspect would end), which would very likely just lead to a Togekiss unban, among other mons, as a result of the drastically increased power level that would come from all the legendaries returning, in addition to multiple other mons like Garchomp and Metagross, and everything else Game Freak has up its sleeve-

My personal take is that the best course of action would be a quickban, so that people don't waste their time for 2 weeks when they're already in like 5 or 6 other ongoing tours, in addition to not having all that effort go to waste in just 2 months.

With that said, I also think that concerns over mons like Rillaboom or Urshifu becoming "broken" in a Togekiss-less meta are more than a little overblown. Porygon-Z by far is the mon that's warping the meta around it the most, other than Togekiss, and I do feel that it would likely be the next thing we look at, once the matter of Togekiss has reached its conclusion.

Ultimately, whatever happens to Togekiss, and potentially PZ at a later time, will mostly come to affect the ongoing Seasonal, as well as Championships, rather than having any lasting impact upon the metagame once DLC2 arrives. Because of that, I think it's for the best that we save ourselves the time and effort that would go into proper suspects and get to discussing the pending DLC2 metagame, namely the matter of which Pokemon that are banned currently that could stand to be unbanned once the DLC arrives. If the suspects counted towards Tiering Contributor, that would be a different matter, but since they don't, I feel that this is best.

 

[dogknees]

Ah yes, Togekiss. There's certainly enough precedence for it to be considered an unhealthy presence or perhaps even uncompetitive, which has made me consider opting for a quickban and just skipping the whole suspect test phase altogether, since it certainly wouldn't survive in the community's hands (as outlined wonderfully by ExplodingDonkey). My opinions on this Pokemon are very skewed. While I think it boasts plenty of factors that make it deserving of attention, my main concern lies with whether or not this is the correct way to go about fixing the meta. Are we gunning for the removal of an unhealthy presence that has made the meta stale, or is it just an annoying Pokemon that would simply rather not deal with? Let's take a look at how Togekiss got to this position.

With the introduction of DLC came a truckload of threats. In terms of returning Pokemon, these are the most notable:


Out of these, for now I only want to focus on one threat.


The effects of Porygon-Z absolute cannot be understated, because I'd argue it's the entire reason that we're stuck in a boring meta. The reason for this extends back to before DLC towards the later end of ladder tour and seasonal, where AV Primarina was trending. At this point it wasn't yet a standard or fully defined set, but it was something which people knew about and understood that it held a significant niche. Fast forward to DLC after Magearna was banned, and all of a sudden we've lost one of our best Porygon-Z answers. The solution? Assault vest Primarina. The ball for this set was rolling far before DLC as previously outlined, but the Magearna ban was the tipping factor which snowballed into the AV plagued meta that we currently have. It was shortly after this that we started to realize it wasn't Primarina that made AV so good, but rather that AV manages to hold its own weight. The fact that you could slap it on a Pokemon and suddenly have a consistent answer to special threats like Porygon-Z, Primarina, Sylveon, Magnezone, Rotom-H, Volcarona, Salazzle, and Gengar (I could keep going but will stop here) was and still is an enormous benefit when it comes to constructing solid teams that are capable of combating the majority of the meta. I'll relate this point back to Togekiss later in the post.

Looking back to the list of DLC threats, I'll now touch on two more that became very prevalent:
(Grassy Surge)

Urshifu (namely rapid, but single can't be ignored either) was an instant meta threat that very quickly solidified itself as a staple Pokemon that needed to be accounted for within every build. Versatility between sets and forms allowed it to develop quite quickly, having initially dominating the meta between relatively standard choice band, bulk up, and assault vest sets. Throughout wcop we saw it develop further with roseli and wacan berry sets proving to be quite popular, alongside bulk up / iron defense proving to be no laughing matter. Rillaboom found itself doing exactly what it used to do but now with far better results, with offensive (life orb / choice band) and defensive (grassy seed + leech seed) elevating it to the next level. I swear this will all related back to Togekiss, but there's one more section that I want to touch on first.

Pokemon that were already around, but developed significantly:


Zeraora quickly adopted life orb as its main set, since it has incredible potential to plug in whatever holes your team is weak to. This, alongside being one of the best Togekiss, Primarina, and Porygon-Z counters (ignoring lures), made Zeraora a serious contender to be considered a meta defining threat. Snorlax for the most part ditched choice band and adopted a more beneficial stall approach, since the meta became much more familiar with physical bulk due to the prevalence of Urshifu, Zeraora, Rillaboom, Haxorus etc which Snorlax didn't appreciate. Arcanine did the opposite, switching from stall to offensive since it arguably wins far more important matchups. Pretty much the same happened to Sylveon, favoring offensive sets and ditching defensive yawn (unless your name is nolenot and you can get three turns of sleep every game). Kyurem finally gained significant usage after being a sleeper threat for practically the entire meta, being able to run basically whatever set it wants (scarf, AV, weakness berry, specs, stall etc). All of these are exmaples of Pokemon that dropped a main set in order to adapt to something better. So what's the point of all this? Why did I go through and ignore Togekiss to look at Pokemon that aren't considered problematic? Well, here's my theory:

Togekiss is the attempted solution for an already unhealthy metagame. ​

Hear me out. I'd argue that the meta has progressed rather quickly, but still at a steady pace where we've been able to clearly see when something came into popularity, and how the meta adapted to deal with it. If we were to theoretically run a timeline from the introduction of DLC to the end of wcop, it wouldn't be too difficult to pinpoint where relatively uncommon ideas began development into serious meta sets. The consequence of developing sets is that a Pokemon often leaves something else behind in order to adopt the new idea. This is common, and is basically the essence of what metagame development is; new sets and Pokemon being explored in order to combat the metagame. The thing with Togekiss however? It leaves nothing behind. It only continues to adapt and add more tools to its arsenal. Scarf maintains its niche due to flinch antics, alongside specs which essentially does the same thing but at the cost of speed for incredible breaking potential. Then you get thunder wave sets that further stack the RNG alongside nasty plot + roost which increase breaker potential and longevity respectively, and lure sets that, albeit relatively unreliable with high opportunity cost, can't be ignored since they've proven to be effective. While it doesn't particularly excite me to not have a completely solid grasp on how a metagame would look without Togekiss, I don't see any alternative other than opting for a quickban of Togekiss. I think that the metagame was unhealthy prior to Togekiss' reign, however there wasn't any discussion about it since there was no absolutely dominant force that suggested action needed to be taken. It's now far too late to go back so we have to deal with the glaring problems that are in front of us, and it's not like there's really no other suitable alternative that would make sense in my eyes. Togekiss has simply adapted far more than any other Pokemon, taking heavy advantage of the assault vest trend while putting unhealthy restraints on its supposed answers due to both flinch and lure potential. I'm going to echo Rosa and also agree that Togekiss is far more unhealthy than it is broken / uncompetitive, which is plenty of justification to warrant some action being taken.

 

[Snoms]

This mon takes nearly any skill. Unless you have a Zera, Darm, Chansey/Bliss, or a faster scarfer, it could be gg.
I support a ban.
Lets talk about Toge shall we. Expanding on my point.
Counters:


Anything with obese SpDef and a recovery move
Faster mons,
AV (sort of?)
Easy pickings
Anything that takes reg damage from air slash and underspeeds or has no priority.


(if scarf)
(if scarf)

(kinda?)

Hell. Even,
before it was sent to the "waiting room" rachi handled it better though.

Basically, a win/lost is determined by a insane flinch rate which I think, enables less skill in 1v1.
to the waiting room with and Z-Detect!
Also quick bonus.

And without any further ado, here's the 1v1 Viability Rankings!

S Rank
Porygon-ZEE (RNG)

S- Rank
Primarina (Based on air slash flinches, but hydro only does 60 so likely, win.
Togekiss (speedties and flinches, toge wins)

A+ Rank
Darmanitan-Galar (yeeted)
Dragapult (yeeted)
Snorlax (Lax can put up a hard fight with that spd, so win)
Urshifu-Rapid-Spin (win)

A Rank
Crustle (depends on rng, but 1 flinch destroys poor rock bug.)
Rillaboom (ded)
Sylveon (win)
Zeraora (win)

A- Rank
Arcanine (loss)
Azumarill (win)
Dracovish (win)
Haxorus (win)
Kyurem (loss)
Magnezone (depends on rng)
Rotom-Wash (loss)

B+ Rank
Aromatisse (win)
Corsola-Galar (loss, cursed body just fucks toge, plus this thing carries amnesia)
Chandelure (win)
Chansey (loss, unless your skill level is higher than ravonnes elo, doubt it.)
Dracozolt (loss)
Gardevoir (win)
Hydreigon (win)
Kommo-o (win)
Porygon2 (win)
Rotom-Heat (loss)
Sawk (win)
Slowbro (win)
Skarmory (win? unless you dieth from a iron head)
Urshifu-Single (yeeted)
Volcarona (win)

B Rank
Aegislash (oof)
Avalugg (oof)
Celebi (win)
Conkeldurr (win)
Darmanitan (win)
Diggersby (win)
Durant (win)
Gastrodon (win)
Goodra (loss)
Hawlucha (win)
Mandibuzz (win)
Marowak-Alola (win)
Rhyperior (loss)
Salazzle (win)
Venusaur (win)
Whimsicott (win)
Zarude (win)

B- Rank
Centiskorch (Win)
Corviknight (Win)
Ferrothorn (Win)
Gengar (Win? Depends on cursed body.)
Incineroar (Win)
Scizor (Dies)
Scyther (Wins)
Silvally (Fairy, Poison)* (Wins, fairy. Depends on RNG, poison)
Steelix (Loses)

C+ Rank
Bewear (Wins)
Blastoise (wins, depends on rng, and if it carries beam)
Blissey (loss)
Golisopod (win)
Grimmsnarl (loss)
Gyarados (win)
Indeedee (win)
Milotic (loss, unless you have invested a lot of evs into lucc)
Talonflame (win?)
Tentacruel (win)
Toxtricity (depends on rng)
Tyranitar (loss)
Weezing-Galar (rng)

C Rank
Alakazam (win)
Dragalge (if av, loss, if not, win depending on rng)
Duraludon (loss)
Excadrill (loss)
Keldeo (win)
Lycanroc-Dusk (loss)
Meowstic (loss)
Pyukumuku (rng)`
Rotom-Mow (rng, but not much rng, so likely win)
Slowbro-Galar (depends on quick draw)
Terrakion (rng)
Togedemaru (win if fear, loss if endure)
Type: Null (rng)

C- Rank
Bronzong (loss)
Clefable (rng)
Gigalith (loss)
Hatterene (win)
Hippowdon (win)
Hitmonlee (win)
Malamar (win)
Mamoswine(win)
Miltank (rng)
Ninetales (win)
Ninetales-Alola
Obstagoon (win)
Vaporeon (rng)
Virizion (win)
Weavile (loss)

D Rank
Alcremie(win)
Appletun (win)
Araquanid (win)
Bisharp (loss)
Braviary (win)
Charizard (win)
Cloyster (win)
Cofagrigus (win)
Copperajah (win)
Dhelmise (win)
Dubwool (win)
Eiscue (rng)
Espeon (rng)
Exploud (win)
Indeedee-F (win)
Inteleon (rng)
Marowak (win)
Mudsdale (win)
Orbeetle (win)
Pincurchin (rng)
Reuniclus (win)
Sirfetch'd (win)
Torkoal (win)
Umbreon (win)
Vikavolt (win)
Banned for being overwhelming.
Banned for no checks.
Banned for no skill.
SHOULD be banned for no skill.

 

[Boat]

Togekiss reminds me of Jirachi in more ways than one. It has a multitude of strong sets, alongside the 'ol reliable' of Choice Scarf, letting it bullshit its way through many would-be checks. The Maranga + Roost set is a total demon, Choice Specs boosts the power of its coverage moves to actually be really effective, and Resist Berry + Counter makes even super-effective STAB insufficient sometimes. Togekiss differs from Jirachi in one major way though: its environment. Jirachi existed in a meta with a much lower power level, where its best competition was Mimikyu (which it beat more often than not). Togekiss, however, exists in a meta where its competition is nearly as powerful as itself, and in Porygon-Z's case, is arguably stronger. For this reason, I don't think Togekiss is comparatively as strong as our previous quickbans, and I'll be voting for a public suspect test rather than a quickban. I'm undecided on what I'll be voting in the suspect itself, but I'm very certain that I don't think it's powerful enough for a quickban.

 

[RADU]

Alright, time to talk about Togekiss in 1v1.

​

I've been told countless times by people who experimented with it, that Togekiss was just as good, if not better, than Jirachi, but rachi's presence led
people to experiment with kiss less, leaving its Scarf set the only one to be widespread and actually considered. I personally think the staleness of the SS 1v1 metagame in general and the lack of experimentation that was to be had led people to toy around with the top tiers more than ever before, and Togekiss especially. This led to discovering sets (that were previously dug out by ravonne himself and other ladder fiends that were able to strive thanks to them) like Maranga Thunder Wave, Yache/Babiri/Wacan Counter, Choice Specs, Assault Vest, Amnesia stall and customization from the standard Choice Scarf set in the likes of bulkier EVs and Trick + Rest being comfortably run. In a metagame where putting Assault Vest on any mon makes it viable, naturally having such a high special bulk puts you head and shoulders above the rest.


As I did for the Jirachi OTR, I will here-by be providing the definitions which help mark the ban-worthiness of threats in a metagame. I will then be providing the reason why Togekiss infracts every single point here shown:

A strategy/Pokemon/move/ability can be described as Degenerate when making use of it is devoid of the skills traditionally required to perform well in the game.
In the case of the 1v1 metagame these skills come in set prediction, good picking, match-up knowledge and good teambuilding.
A strategy/Pokemon/move/ability can be described as Over-centralizing when the metagame tends to warp itself around that specific threat, rendering good options that would normally not be considered viable at all.

a Tier 3 violation in the metagame is something that classifies as degenerate. Most violations in this tier aren't ban-worthy by themselves but they can be annoying to deal with and they do set a basis for ulterior threats
Example: Moves like Dynamic Punch and Zap Cannon, with their 50% accuracy and their secondary effect, are classified as degenerate, but the presence of valid and more solid alternatives and the quantity of match-ups these moves cover aren't good enough to justify a ban.

a Tier 2 violation in the metagame is something that classifies as over-centralizing. Some violations in this tier are ban-worthy and some aren't, depending on how well-versed the metagame is and how well it deals with the threat in question
Example 1: Kyurem-Black is an extremely over-centralizing Pokemon in the BW metagame, but the meta in itself has developed in such a way that dealing with it is not a hassle, and the Pokemon that can deal with it are also strong in themselves. (hopefully this example becomes irrelevant soon)
Example 2: Mimikyu was an over-centralizing Pokemon in the SS metagame, and the meta in itself simply lacked the resources to properly keep it at bay, making Pokemon that would generally not be considered very good, like Excadrill, rise a lot in viability. For this reason it was deemed ban-worthy and removed from the tier.

And finally, a Tier 1 violation in the metagame is something that classifies as both degenerate AND over-centralizing. Pretty much every violation in this category is deemed ban-worthy, since the metagame is forced to wrap itself around a threat that can also cheese its way out of these losing match-ups.
Example 1: Mimikyu in the SM metagame was an extremely strong Pokemon that warped the meta around itself (over-centralizing) and could still beat threats that would normally counter it by running a Thunder Wave set (degenerate).
Example 2: Snorlax in the SM metagame was an extremely strong-hitting Pokemon with the use of moves like Z-Belly Drum (over-centralizing) and that could rely on the combination of Yawn and Protect to gain a favorable match-up against Pokemon that would technically counter it (degenerate).
Example 3: The previously banned Jirachi was able to over-centralize the metagame with the insane MU spread provided by its combined sets and the sheer degeneracy of Iron Head + Serene Grace.

Following this criteria, Togekiss classifies as a Tier 1 violation. Here's why:


The Degeneracy of Togekiss in the 1v1 metagame

Going point by point, I'll illustrate how using Togekiss devoids user of the player skill necessary to strive in the 1v1 metagame:

Set Prediction: The inherently high amount of sets makes it nigh impossible to distinguish what the set Togekiss set supposedly is: a player is supposed to gauge opposing team sets from what the two remaining member need covered, but in a metagame like SWSH where the two other members could range from 2 to 5 different sets a piece, the difficulty of this task is highly increased. Once you value the fact that Togekiss' different sets' match-ups overlap to often cover similar things with slight but important alterations, it becomes basically a guessing game.
Good Picking: Even if you end up guessing the pick correctly, you could mess up the set prediction and still lose. But let's say you also predicted the set correctly, and picked Zeraora, one of the ultimate Togekiss counters...

Hide

252 SpA Togekiss Air Slash vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Zeraora: 69-82 (21.7 - 25.8%) -- 3.1% chance to 4HKO

0.6^4
= 0.1296

odds say, 13% of the time, you still lose. Which wouldn't be a big deal, but you have to factor in that very few mons have odds these good, most other supposed Togekiss counters can still lose 36% or 21% of the time. Even a bulk invested Crustle can still lose 46% of the time.
Match-up Knowledge: It ain't matter what you click bro, you still getting flinched. You coulda spent a decade of your life practicing the match-up, digging through resources and studying the teams for decades to see if the man is Wacan Counter and about to bust your plasma fists-clicking ass or trick your naive-looking-knockoffing-ass and dgleam you to death, Togekiss can still click air slash 5 times and dick you over.
Good Teambuilding: The amount of reliable counters to all sets is so small that you either run in the aforementioned Set Prediction problem or end up running the same very few mons on your team all the time. Running into this risks is a no go when Togekiss has such a high usage rate both in ladder and in tournament, which means better players have a harder time striving off of building vs. people who just spam kiss. When a player is not only not getting rewarded, but being actively punished, for avoiding the standard, you know something isn't right.


The over-centralization of Togekiss in the 1v1 metagame

As highlighted by zio's great in-depth post, in a metagame where the top tier dominance is so high and every team has to contain one of the 6 most dominant mons to not get 3-0d by other relevant stuff, Togekiss beating all the other 5 mons semi-reliably (extremely reliably if you take all sets into account) will allow it to have a good MU against pretty much every single good team.
Also, considering the small amount of counters Togekiss has
5 reliable (although stall rotomh/rotomw still lose to trickroost, and DarmG really needs jolly scarf or bulky band to be reliable)

7 unreliable/MU dependant

6 coinflip MUs


We can see how most of these mons: have seen an incredibile drop in usage as of lately, especially because of their poor MUs against the other top tiers.
And, to be fair, mons like and get somewhat carried by their unrivaled good MU against Togekiss in their usage.


Oh wait, but isn't DLC 2 coming in two months? We should just wait until then!

I used to actually really vouch for this argument, and it was my only point against a Togekiss ban, until dom told me "Do you really think it's worth it to mantain a metagame shitty for another two months if we know the problem and we have the means to fix it? You fucking [redacted slur] [redacted slur]. If we start the suspect soon it will last at most like, 2 weeks, [redacted slur]." And this totally changed my mind about the suspect and about racism in the united states of america.

Also, I'm gonna put my thought here beforehand, I talked about it with zio and we think SS is due to a tiering reset with DLC 2 and have a wave of quickbans, especially seeing the amount of powercreep that is coming and how many non-banworthy threats there are that would need to be resuspected.


Anyway, this closes it out for me. The bitch is broken and we should totally suspect it but I'm not in favor of a quickban

VERDICT: SUSPECT

 

[Waylaid]

As a member of the 1v1 Council, I feel obligated to explain my personal views on Togekiss.

At the time of this post being written, I believe that a suspect test of Togekiss is the best course of action. These are my thoughts:

1. I think Togekiss is unhealthy.
Zio's post is an absolute masterpiece and gives an in-depth look at how Togekiss leads to a stagnant and "solved" metagame, where any one team must have multiple toge checks or an electric type to be considered viable in the swsh meta.

2. I don't think Togekiss is quickbannable.
Much like Rosa's post outlined, Togekiss' negative impact on the metagame is nothing near that of mons like Melmetal, Necrozma, and Jirachi. For the most part, community outcry about Toge has been more of a recent development, because many people were unable to pin down Togekiss as the source of SS' unhealthiness. Even still, I'm not entirely convinced that Toge is the only problem with swsh. Togekiss' unhealthiness reminds me much more of Mimi (suspect test) than it does Sableye (quickban).

3. If we suspect Toge, it will be banned.
Much like donkey's post outlined, people hate Toge. It will get banned in a suspect test. A lot of people, myself included, wonder if a suspect is just a waste of time.

4. I care more about voting for what I believe is correct tiering than I do about "wasting time" getting reqs.
I think Togekiss is just suspectable for the reasons I outlined in part 2. I won't vote quickban on a mon I don't think is unhealthy enough to warrant a quickban when there's nothing forcing my hand. There's no big tour coming up, no deadline we have to meet. A predetermined outcome on a suspect doesn't mean we shouldn't run the suspect.

 

[zioziotrip]

click for music​

Alright lads, zioziotrip here again to send a mon to the gallows. I've already made my argument for why Toge should be removed from the tier here. My position has not changed, Toge is incredibly unhealthy for the meta and it does not belong in the tier due to its uncompetitive nature. Seeing as I've already talked about the mon itself, I'd like to talk about how I think it should be handled. I am in favor of a suspect test. I agree w/ the sediment that Toge's departure is somewhat of a foregone conclusion, however, Toge doesn't compare to previously QB'd threats. Its speed and assortment of weaknesses to common types don't make it a close and shut case. 2 weeks is not a huge time commitment in terms of our ongoing tours and I think realistically reqs should only take a few hours at most for each person. While I still adamantly believe this thing is banworthy, it deserves a proper suspect. I kinda want to use this as an opportunity to talk about how future bans/unbans should be handled in my opinion.

DLC 2 is arriving in around 2 months and it is gonna shake up the meta significantly. The power level is gonna change a massive amount, we are getting back such a massive amount of really strong mons, that full list can be seen here. To put it bluntly, I believe there should be a wave of unbans to see how old bans will fare in the new metagame. While there are some exceptions, such as Mew and Sableye which are just inherently not gonna work in 1v1 based off their core strength, I think mons that weren't banned for inherently unhealthy gimmicks should be retested. Of course, there is no feasible way to do this w/o the consideration that QBs for threats that aren't worthy of a suspect. Current council guidelines state that quick-unbanning is only possible if the meta is radically different than the one it was banned from. I think this absolutely applies to DLC 2, the power creep is absurd, and while it should be judged on a case by case basis a lot of banned mons are worth trying out in DLC 2. While suspects would be nice it's simply is a matter of time. Assuming 3 mons are resuspected going into DLC 2 (for the sake of argument, Toge, Necro, and Melmetal) and 2 new additions are suspected (for the sake of argument, Dragonite and Tapu Koko) there would at minimum 10 weeks of suspects. That's just not a feasible amount of time considering they should be spaced out especially when having to take tours into account. While I believe any judgment calls should be reserved until DLC 2 drops properly, I want to lay out a list of new threats that banned mons now have to account for. This is not a list of new definitive checks, instead a list of new mons that the banned mon has to account for that it did not have to at the time of its ban. I'll leave my first impression of what this means for the mon's place in the meta, however, I plan on making an update to this list once DLC 2 properly drops and the meta has had time to flesh out.


now has to account for

First Impression

This does not matter at all. Sable forces the meta into a place where you basically can't safely use choice items which is super unhealthy imo. Choice mons are vital for checking stall pokes and keeping naturally fast mons in check. Should remain banned.

now has to account for

First Impression

I think while on paper that seems like a lot to account for, Mew can handle a majority of it. Mew's movepool is just ridicously diverse and if unbanned I could see scarf being ultra-annoying to potential checks. Imo, its immense amount of options are not suitable for the tier, however, it does have quite a few new adversaries so it may be worth looking at. Should remain banned.

now has to account for ()

First Impression

Necrozma was not banned for insane versatility nor ludicrous power/gimmick. It was banned because at the time the meta was simply unable to handle its level of strength. This is no longer the case. Necrozma only has effectively two sets, Specs and Stall. It has various niche options such as psychical but its not noteworthy outside of being a lure, which any mon is capable of, the opportunity cost is high. Necro has gained many hard counters such as Eerie Impulse/NP PZ, Urshi-SS, Chansey, Eerie Impulse/Toxic Zapdos, Eerie Impulse Koko, CM Tapu Lele, and Blacephalon. Even outside of this, if you can setguess Necro can be effectively neutered, especially the specs set. Necro will still be great, however, the meta has caught up to its power level. I would like Necrozma to be looked at for a quick-unban.

now has to account for (presumably )

First Impression

Disguise is inherently not fit for 1v1 and Mimi's assortment of options such as Trick, excellent special bulk/typing, and Curse make it not fit for the meta. Mimi is just way too much of a pain to account for in the builder in my opinion, I do not see this changing. Nothing we got 100% beats Mimi and to me this means it will be the same hassle it was. Should remain banned.

now has to account for

First Impression

I'm super uncertain about this one. On one hand, 60% nonsense makes me want to pull my hair out. On the other hand, we have gotten a ton of mons where the amount of flinches necessary is basically the same chance of a crit which to me counts as a counter. It has a lot of variety in what it can run which is scary but when it was banned it def was in a significantly frailer and weaker meta. Jirachi should be considered for a possible unban, however, any call should be reserved after other bans.

now has to account for

First Impression

Cinder's natural bulk and great movepool is way too much to handle w/ Libero. Cinder can bulk a shit ton of attacks when considering it can change its typing, in addition, its excellent speed always for more bulk investment. Overall, still don't think Cinder will belong in the meta. Should remain banned.

now has to account for

First Impression

Honestly, I feel Mag was a similar case to Necrozma. It only has two prevalent sets and when it was introduced to the meta it was simply incapable of handling it. Mag is still super strong w/ excellent stat distribution, arguably the best typing in the game, and an excellent movepool. I think the power level has increased a shit ton tho, so imo it's worth looking at. Magearna should be considered for a possible unban.

lol

I skipped over these because I think they are inherently to strong for the tier, I'll outline why.

Melmetal-Melmetal has immense psychical bulk and immense strength basically singlehandedly invalidating a large portion of the tier, especially psychical attackers. Proved to be an unhealthy presence sheerly off the hurdle of getting through its bulk and power, not even to mention TWave Double Iron Bash flinching nonsense.

Kyurem-Black-This things stat spread is ludicrous. Holding it back in other gens was its lack of psychical Ice Stab however this gen KyuB got Icicle Spear. While not the most reliable, Icicle Spear allows KyuB to break through many things it could not previously notably Syvelon and Gardevior. KyuB is also immensely difficult to both wall and drop in one hit. It can effectively run special and psychical, possibly at the same time, and w/ options such as Earth Power, Freeze-Dry, and Fusion Bolt even resists aren't safe. KyuB has 125/100/90 bulk which when coupled w/ investment makes KyuB absurdly bulky especially considering KyuB is anything but passive meaning it usually only has to take one hit. KyuB sheer bulk and power make it unfit for the tier.

Marshadow-W/ arguably the best offensive typing in the game, an excellent speed tier, and usable bulk Marshadow does not fit in the tier. A frustrating part of Marshadow is that setting up on it is not practical, it can simply steal boosts w/ Spectral Thief and normal types which are immunt to Spectral Thief don't appreciate a CC.

Of course, a test can never hurt but I think these mons were banned for a reason. I don't see them staying very long in the tier if they are let back in temporarily, however, I think Melmetal is somewhat worth looking at. It has a shitty speed tier which is a very explotiable weakness, but ig we'll see.

I got sniped by the council minutes post while writing this, however, I still think this is a good guide to go off going into DLC 2. That's all for now, Mubs out.

 

[Ginger Princess]

Togekiss should be publicly suspected. A quickban is crazy at this stage of development. It sets have not at all proven their effectiveness in the metagame. I will be voting DNB unless a severe shift in Togekiss strategy is shown and proven on either ladder or tournament.

Its uncompetitive nature due to Serene Grace has certainly never been more noticeable, as its Flying/Fairy combination both offensively and defensively, combined with bulk and utility like Trick + its ability to abuse a plethora of items in this noticeably weaker metagame. In particular, its Flying STAB offensively provides neutral or super effective coverage with some of the best Pokemon in the game, like Pz, Primarina, Rillaboom, Urshifu, etc.

I think, however, players are overhyping the issues of Togekiss. It is not really hard to predict, nor is it actually good enough to be anywhere near previously banned Pokemon.

I'll start with the set variety/prediction on Preview. Its most common and well known strategy - Scarf with Air Slash - is notoriously unreliable in a tournament setting. That set just doesn't win games, not in the same way a Pokemon with a repeatable/reliable strategy can. You can basically ascertain the set of a Togekiss based on the player you're fighting, and where you are fighting. You're going up against someone barely involved in 1v1 who signed up for fun? It's going to be Scarf. You're up against an experienced player who actually knows what they're doing, and wants to win? It probably isn't Scarf. The worst case would be if you're fighting a good player on ladder who may be memeing that day, and then you might get flinched to death.

Even with the variety of sets at Togekiss' disposal, the sum total of these sets has not put Togekiss' at a level where it can be considered uncompetitive enough for a ban

Now, concerning actual power of Togekiss, I'm basing my data off of personal experience on ladder, where I barely ever run into the tour Togekiss sets, alongside the replays I've seen in the ongoing Summer Seasonal, where Togekiss has lost all but 1 of the half dozen or so times I've seen it. World Cup also holds quite conclusive evidence. I unfortunately had to count the actual usage of Togekiss (when it was sent out) alongside win % by hand, because Usage Stats marks a mon used if its brought on Team Preview.

After counting instances in World Cup where Togekiss was actually sent out, you get 22 games. In those games, Togekiss has a 41% win rate (9/22) (59% loss rate (13/22)) total. This was when Togekiss was mostly running non-Choice Scarf sets (like Maranga and Wacan), especially at the most competitive level in Semifinals and Finals (where Togekiss was sent out 8 times, having a 37.5% win rate (3/8) (62.5% loss rate (5/8)).

If you look at the games (its a time investment but I think its very much worth doing) the majority of Togekiss matchups don't involve Pokemon traditionally used to reliably beat Togekiss, and instead involve Pokemon hit neutrally by Air Slash, so the lack of wins can't really be explained by players overprepping, either. I think it even lost against every Urshifu-R it fought against (all 2 lmao).

Perhaps an argument could be made that 'Because Togekiss can be so unpredictable, it puts undue pressure on Team Preview, which stacks with Serene Grace hax to create an uncompetitive element'. This is where the actual usage stats can play a role.

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Urshifu-*          |   78 |  17.89% |  53.85% |
| 2    | Primarina          |   67 |  15.37% |  49.25% |
| 3    | Zeraora            |   65 |  14.91% |  40.00% |
| 4    | Togekiss           |   53 |  12.16% |  54.72% |
| 5    | Rillaboom          |   49 |  11.24% |  67.35% |
| 6    | Porygon-Z          |   39 |   8.94% |  51.28% |
| 7    | Sylveon            |   38 |   8.72% |  44.74% |
| 8    | Dragapult          |   33 |   7.57% |  60.61% |
| 8    | Haxorus            |   33 |   7.57% |  54.55% |
| 8    | Sawk               |   33 |   7.57% |  39.39% |
| 11   | Kyurem             |   32 |   7.34% |  50.00% |
| 12   | Azumarill          |   31 |   7.11% |  58.06% |
| 13   | Magnezone          |   30 |   6.88% |  60.00% |
| 14   | Darmanitan-Galar   |   26 |   5.96% |  38.46% |
| 15   | Scizor             |   25 |   5.73% |  60.00% |
| 15   | Snorlax            |   25 |   5.73% |  56.00% |

Togekiss has Top 5 usage, and (this time) a positive win rate, showing that Togekiss applying pressure on Team Preview may be true. But, when compared to every other mon, its 54.72% is really only slightly above average, not anything spectacular compared to generally 'fairer' Pokemon like Urshifu, Rillaboom, Haxorus, etc etc. I think if Togekiss was significantly hindering a player's ability to correctly predict against its team, the win rate would be equal to or greater than the top of the food chain.

If you're curious about ladder, Togekiss is #3 in usage in August, with Choice Scarf having 61% usage, followed by Choice Specs at 8%, then Leftovers at 8%, then Maranga Berry, at 5.171% usage. Ladder is ladder, it hardly ever represent the optimal metagame, so I'm pretty much ignoring it. If I were to use it, I'd be saying something like 'the sets people are fearing are barely ever used' but hurr durr tour replays.

It's undeniable that Togekiss is the best its ever been when it comes to viability, but even with the addition of new tech, it is still awful, at least compared to other similarly ranked Pokemon. This is nowhere near the level of oppression a Pokemon like Jirachi forced the tier under, when it would it couldn't be OHKOed and could use its Speed tier to consistently and reliably beat back huge swaths of the metagame, alongside being harder to predict the sets & the better defensive typing and bulk of the Scarf hax set (creating more consistency).

In my opinion, for Togekiss to be bannable due to uncompetitiveness, much less quickbannable, the amount of hax would need to reach a level where the flinches + whatever combo of item and other moves at the very least reaches a positive win rate at high levels of play. If this scenario was that Togekiss could run multiple sets that made it impossible to consistently predict and play against, because every set had an equal chance of being used, and these sets made it so Air Slash flinching was viable and could only somewhat be checked by Pokemon it should be countered by, I would be singing a different tune. But this isn't the case, not nearly.

If everything works out in Togekiss' favor, when it's running its slightly more reliable non-Scarf sets, it wins. Most of the time, this does not happen. Like I said in the beginning, I can't deny Togekiss is not better than it has been in the past, which can certainly be scary to think about, but that still isn't making it so uncompetitive that it significantly threatens the health of the metagame. Nor is it somehow the 'glue' or whatever thats keeping a stable balance between other broken threats. I'll echo the observation that the metagame is certainly top heavy, but thats not really too surprising when we're dealing with a lower overall amount of usable Pokemon, with some Pokemon having significantly better qualities for 1v1 than others. That doesn't objectively make current SS a bad metagame, its just a metagame - and frankly, its not like that will last long, anyway. Basically 3 months from now, the legendaries are released, we get more viable Steels, and the metagame is remade all over again (and Togekiss will probably be freed again if its ever banned lmao).

A suspect is fine, and probably inevitable at this point, but I would encourage players to see how often you're winning with the same set, because of hax. Lures are lures, and only really work once on ladder, and can be accurately predicted by good players. A suspect based on uncompetitiveness is the only reasonable approach to this situation.

 

[Nalei]

I'm of the opinion that Togekiss should be banned because of its near complete lack of counterplay, unhealthy meta presence, and extremely high viability to top it off. While a suspect test would almost certainly result in a ban, just like a quickban would, I believe a suspect test is the way to go.

What hard counters does Togekiss have? In theory, we're looking at max speed Knock Off+Plasma Fist Zeraora, +Speed Scarf Rotom, and effectively nothing else. Of course, each of Togekiss' sets has a very fair number of counters or at least effective checks that none on its own is problematic beyond some RNG. However, each of Togekiss' sets retain a very high level of viability meaning that would-be lure sets are starting to cement themselves as simply normal sets. This is frightening not only in the KyuB-like lack of opportunity cost between sets but in the sense that predicting what set Togekiss is is nearly impossible. Its non-Scarf sets are not a homogenous mash and differentiate among each other in matchups perfectly well. You may be able to predict whether or not someone is Scarf but for many teams (or not; 2/5 of the times I brought Togekiss in WC it was choiced), this info is simply not going to help that much. I don't think there's that much more that I can add to the conversation given what's already been said but go check out zio's post if you haven't already.

As for a suspect versus a quickban, I'm fairly confident that either would end the same way. While it might be convenient to call it a day based on that assumption and quickban it, I've been convinced that it's not the right way to go. Despite all that it has going for it, Togekiss is simply not on the same plane of bannability as any quickbans from the last couple gens and additionally we would be dropping a quickban quite late into the meta with no apparent scheduling needs for this to go through quickly. A quickban would be fast and easy but I believe that giving the vote to the community, however much of a formality it may seem to be, is the right thing to do.

 

[zioziotrip]

Aight sure, gonna inspect TDA's closer because there's a lot I don't exactly agree with.

Togekiss should be publicly suspected. A quickban is crazy at this stage of development. It sets have not at all proven their effectiveness in the metagame. I will be voting DNB unless a severe shift in Togekiss strategy is shown and proven on either ladder or tournament.

I agree it's not QB worthy, nothing to add. "It sets have not at all proven their effectiveness in the metagame" is just objectively false. If you look at MUs it can beat almost the entirety of the meta w/ all of its sets and even considering individual sets they have excellent spreads respectively, most notably beating a lot of the residents in higher tiers (S-A+.) I obv don't agree w/ DNB and I'll dissect the reasoning why instead of restating of my case.

The section before this is just explaining why Toge is effective, nothing wrong w/ it

I think, however, players are overhyping the issues of Togekiss. It is not really hard to predict, nor is it actually good enough to be anywhere near previously banned Pokemon.

This is just so off. "It is not really hard to predict" there are very few people arguing this is the sole issue, neither is that true. Even ignoring the fact you've played basically no SS games in tour, it has Scarf/Specs/Maranga/Charm+Amnesia/Counter Resist Berry and all have incredibly similar MUs, each gaining/dropping just a few each but ofc it's not impossible to guess based off team structure I just think saying "It is not really hard to predict" is super misleading because it's def not super easy. The main issue Toge presents is in the builder, there are v few completely reliable counters and it strains teambuilding super hard, I'll get into this later in the post. This: "nor is it actually good enough to be anywhere near previously banned Pokemon." is a complete nonsense argument because it doesn't mean anything. Was Mimikyu as bad as Sableye or Mew? No. That doesn't mean anything especially when you consider what makes a banworthy mon "worse" than other banned mons is completely relative. I see this argument basically every time a ban is suggested and it's super bad + makes 0 sense so stop using it please!!!

I'll start with the set variety/prediction on Preview. Its most common and well known strategy - Scarf with Air Slash - is notoriously unreliable in a tournament setting. That set just doesn't win games, not in the same way a Pokemon with a repeatable/reliable strategy can. You can basically ascertain the set of a Togekiss based on the player you're fighting, and where you are fighting. You're going up against someone barely involved in 1v1 who signed up for fun? It's going to be Scarf. You're up against an experienced player who actually knows what they're doing, and wants to win? It probably isn't Scarf. The worst case would be if you're fighting a good player on ladder who may be memeing that day, and then you might get flinched to death.

First gonna talk about Toge being "unreliable" and this is a part of why it's uncompetitive as stated by policy.

Policy

IV.) Probability management is a part of the game.

• This means we have to accept that moves have secondary effects, that moves can miss, that moves can critical hit, and that managing all these potential probability points is a part of skill.
• This does NOT mean that we will accept every probability factor introduced to the game. Evasion, OHKO moves, and Moody all affected the outcome "too much", and we removed them.
• "Too much" is if a particular factor has the more skilled player at a disadvantage a considerable amount of the time against a less skilled player, regardless of what they do.

Ok so what you've just said is actually a perfect example of "the more skilled player (being) at a disadvantage." Imagine you've just clicked Toge into Urshi, you won that interaction. HOWEVER, your opp somehow dodges a flinch through para (jfc how) so here "(the) less skilled player" has won the interaction. Also this bit about being able to guess set off your opp's level of experience is super laughable. You act like Scarf is some objectively worse set that good players don't use, which just isn't true whatsoever. It gives you 57% odds vs Gengar/Salazzle as opposed to 0% as well it completely smashes Pult, which is important since one attacking move Toge loses to Pult(most stall sets can only fit Air Slash.) Also sets that aren't Scarf aren't some arcane knowledge, it's not a far reach that a new player thinks paraflinching is a viable strat which it is. Also considering new players can be backed by experienced players this argument falls apart completely. Also I've personally used Scarf Toge two times in wcup and I've seen a lot of player's builders, and shockingly they have Scarf Toge. (DenisTheMenace eblurb off the top of my head)

Even with the variety of sets at Togekiss' disposal, the sum total of these sets has not put Togekiss' at a level where it can be considered uncompetitive enough for a ban

"Even with the variety of sets at Togekiss' disposal, the sum total of these sets has not put Togekiss' at a level where it can be considered uncompetitive enough for a ban" this is something else that means nothing. It's completely case by case, there is nothing that states "5 sets is too many!" and many mons have been banned despite only having like 2 sets such as Melmetal (offensive/id press) and Marshadow (berry/offensive item.) Every mon that has been banned or will be banned off having too many sets every mon will pale in comparison to Mew. Mew can quite literally beat every mon in the meta effectively having infinite viable sets. Regardless, looking at Mimi (which was banned as its diversity cause an issue in the builder) it had 5 prominent sets being LO+SD/Scarf/Bulky Band/Curse/Kee+Charm which toge matches w/ Scarf/Specs/Maranga/Charm+Amnesia/Counter Resist Berry. So even if we follow this line of logic (which I totally disagree w/, idt precedent works here as it's almost entirely relative what "too many sets" qualifies as) Toge matches Mimi in sets.

Now, concerning actual power of Togekiss, I'm basing my data off of personal experience on ladder, where I barely ever run into the tour Togekiss sets, alongside the replays I've seen in the ongoing Summer Seasonal, where Togekiss has lost all but 1 of the half dozen or so times I've seen it. World Cup also holds quite conclusive evidence. I unfortunately had to count the actual usage of Togekiss (when it was sent out) alongside win % by hand, because Usage Stats marks a mon used if its brought on Team Preview.

"Now, concerning actual power of Togekiss, I'm basing my data off of personal experience on ladder" bad idea. I've made 1688 (top3 at the time) on a completely fresh alt ( 3 pogrunner62 1689 71.5% ) using a team w/ Dedenne, effectively only using two mons. Ladder is a poor representation of the meta, even at high ladder you're gonna have random nonsense that would never be considered usable seriously. Also there is random shit like Steelix that is a relic of metas in the past. I would look less onto raw ladder stats, and more into the opinions of people who consistently top it. Personally, I have the experience of 3-0g XSC w/ a Dedenne so I'm calling for a ban (joke, the ban part.) " alongside the replays I've seen in the ongoing Summer Seasonal, where Togekiss has lost all but 1 of the half dozen or so times I've seen it." summer ssnl isn't even into semis and likely people aren't building proper Toge teams considering it's on its last legs, also mons having a bad streak doesn't represent its impact on the meta building wise. I really wonder why once people starting spamming Toge we suddenly see people spamming Toge counters, almost as if there's a connection w/ it being unhealthy requiring an excessive amount of attention in the builder. I can tell you, when Mag when still in the meta you could see a fire type on basically every team, it's a similar case here.

After counting instances in World Cup where Togekiss was actually sent out, you get 22 games. In those games, Togekiss has a 41% win rate (9/22) (59% loss rate (13/22)) total. This was when Togekiss was mostly running non-Choice Scarf sets (like Maranga and Wacan), especially at the most competitive level in Semifinals and Finals (where Togekiss was sent out 8 times, having a 37.5% win rate (3/8) (62.5% loss rate (5/8)).

Once again, crazy that at a top-level people account for a super scary mon. I think a solid example is back when Pheromosa was allowed in SM OU, at top-level stall spammed Shedninja. Shed was an effective countermeasure, so why was Phero still banned? Shed usage was a clear indication that Phero is a burden on the meta. So let's pivot back to 1v1 and look at the usage of Toge counters in wcup.

| 3 | Zeraora | 65 | 14.91% | 40.00% |
| 4 | Togekiss | 53 | 12.16% | 54.72% |
| 13 | Magnezone | 30 | 6.88% | 60.00% |

Interesting. While both Zera and Zone are solid outside of beating Toge I think this stat is super telling. Toge pokes such large holes in teams that most are basically forced to run a Zera, while there are other semi-counters they aren't run nearly as much, noticeably the closest semi-counter, Kyurem, being used less than half as Zera at 32 times. "After counting instances in World Cup where Togekiss was actually sent out" also I disagree w/ this being an accurate measure. If your Toge has scared your opp into making the wrong pick then it has effectively contributed, this can be said for every mon because even if you didn't end up clicking the mon your opp must've accounted for the possibility. Just seems like a disingenuous method of making the win-rate appear worse than it actually is, 54% for a mon used 53 times is p damn good. Already touched on why discluding Scarf in picking is a super terrible idea as it's used at every level of play.

If you're curious about ladder, Togekiss is #3 in usage in August, with Choice Scarf having 61% usage, followed by Choice Specs at 8%, then Leftovers at 8%, then Maranga Berry, at 5.171% usage. Ladder is ladder, it hardly ever represent the optimal metagame, so I'm pretty much ignoring it. If I were to use it, I'd be saying something like 'the sets people are fearing are barely ever used' but hurr durr tour replays.

I'm not curious about ladder, I bet Dedenne has over a 70% win-rate. Albeit you already seem to understand ladder doesn't represent the meta effectively, despite basing your opinion off your experience on ladder. Weird choice.

It's undeniable that Togekiss is the best its ever been when it comes to viability, but even with the addition of new tech, it is still awful, at least compared to other similarly ranked Pokemon. This is nowhere near the level of oppression a Pokemon like Jirachi forced the tier under, when it would it couldn't be OHKOed and could use its Speed tier to consistently and reliably beat back huge swaths of the metagame, alongside being harder to predict the sets & the better defensive typing and bulk of the Scarf hax set (creating more consistency).

Dude I can say that Rachi was nowhere near the level of oppression of Mew, what's your point? This entire section is basically just a repeat of an earlier section where you said "nor is it actually good enough to be anywhere near previously banned Pokemon." I've already expressed why this argument means nothing, it's a rabbit hole that leads nowhere. There is a chain of broken mons that are ""better"" than other broken mons and it doesn't mean anything since we're discussing what needs to be banned, not an Ubers VR.

In my opinion, for Togekiss to be bannable due to uncompetitiveness, much less quickbannable, the amount of hax would need to reach a level where the flinches + whatever combo of item and other moves at the very least reaches a positive win rate at high levels of play. If this scenario was that Togekiss could run multiple sets that made it impossible to consistently predict and play against, because every set had an equal chance of being used, and these sets made it so Air Slash flinching was viable and could only somewhat be checked by Pokemon it should be countered by, I would be singing a different tune. But this isn't the case, not nearly.

"In my opinion" since when did we go off this and not policy. It's fine to have an opinion, but you're backing it up off gerrymandered facts and asking it to be taken seriously. Also, this seems generally ignorant to a big part of why Toge actually presents an issue, its impact on building. Your entire post fails to mention building (ctrl+f if you don't trust me) which means this entire argument is inherently missing a part of the puzzle. Flinches and its annoying nature on preview are a part of why it causes an issue.

Overall, this post seems p ignorant in a lot of areas. Tag when changes are implemented :]

tl;dr

 

[clerica]

​

Despite Genesect receiving most of the attention, recent popularity has pushed Jirachi up the rankings and solidified itself as a dominant threat in the meta. Base 100 stats across the board, an incredible movepool, and the ability Serene Grace all provide Jirachi with ample tools to deal with a large portion of the metagame. The recent rise of sets like Weakness Policy has further contributed to its versatility, beating some of its previously considered checks like Sitrus Volcanion. This leaves Jirachi with very few consistent counters across all of its sets, most of which have to run a specific set to reliably win, such as Scarf Volcanion. This has led to some people saying that Jirachi could perhaps even be better than Genesect, which is currently being suspect tested.

As it stands, the council is looking to address Jirachi shortly after the Genesect suspect finishes. The most likely course of action would be a vote on a quickban, but as always any decision should be backed up by the community. Take this opportunity to share your thoughts and opinions on Jirachi, as well as what course of action you think the council should take on this issue. Feel free to also reference tiering policy when backing up your arguments.

Please keep the conversation in this thread civil and respectful; arguing and flaming doesn't bring us any closer to resolving the problems that will be brought up in this thread, and won't be tolerated. One liners will be deleted.