Suspect SV AAA Suspect #11: Zamazenta

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Isaiah

Isaiah

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:sv/Zamazenta:​
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Zamazenta (Hero)SuspectSuspectSuspectDo Not SuspectSuspectSuspect5-1 Suspect

WHY:
Following a 5-1 council vote, the AAA council has elected to suspect test Zamazenta into the tier! Zamazenta has always found itself on the banlist since its release in generation 8, and for fair reason: it's another Fighting-type with good coverage (notably, moves like Crunch, Stone Edge, and Heavy Slam enable it to hit just about every possible switch-in pretty hard), only this one's also extremely fast and has very good bulk. Although potential Zamazenta sets only exist in theorymon, it's not difficult to outline potential use cases for combos like Choice Band or All Out Attacker + Sword of Ruin, Immunity ability + IronPress, maybe even some Regenerator build.

That being said, Zamazenta is not infallible. It appears to struggle against Fluffy and Intimidate, two very common and generally effective sources of counterplay to strong physical attackers, and Corviknight and Skarmory can make this particularly difficult if they're running IronPress. While Zamazenta is fast, there is faster: offensive Deoxys-S and Choice Scarf Azelf outspeed and OHKO non-Choice Scarf sets. In terms of other forms of counterplay, common Pokemon like Deoxys-D, Gholdengo, Zapdos, Scream Tail, and even Primarina all possess a natural typing and bulk that demands specific coverage or a specific set in order for Zamazenta to win the one-on-one without folding to other team members.

Since this is a Pokemon that has never been legal in any version of the metagame up until now, and we're not facing a content drop like Pokemon Home, DLC, or a new generation, a suspect test is the fairest way to gauge if Zamazenta really deserves its place on the banlist or if there's room for it to learn how to use almost any ability.

HOW:
During a Suspect test, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:
  • Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown! site and on a new account (creation date no earlier than today, February 12 with "AAAZA "--for example, I could create one called "AAAZA Your Mom" to ladder with. Having the prefix at the beginning of your alt name is mandatory, AKA not in the middle (e.g. The AAAZA Man) and not at the end (e.g. The AAAZA).
  • To qualify for voting, your alt must meet the required GXE and games played threshold; it starts at 78% GXE at 25 games, down to 75% GXE at 40+ games.
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  • Zamazenta will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.​
  • The suspect test will go for two weeks and end on February 26 at 10:00pm GMT -6
  • When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to disseminate topical opinions regarding whether or not Zamazenta should be unbanned (Optional)
  • It is mandatory to provide proof of ownership of the alt account as well. (Post a picture of your reqs with your smogon name featured)
With that all of that being said, it's suspect time! As usual, the actual voting will take place in the Blind Voting Forum, so posting anything other than proof of reqs and discussion isn't necessary.
 
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Fun time w these reqs! Too early for me to judge if zam is worth keeping in the meta rn. On this run it honestly felt pretty underwhelming unless it was CB SoR, but even then it suffered big time from 4 mss. It is a nice addition for speed control for things such as Barra, boulder, and pao that doesn't require a scarf and can actually threaten them pretty hard even outside of choice sets. Again, not too sure how I feel ab it so I'm just gonna experiment with other sets such as sheer force, scrappy, and random body press shenanigans until voting time comes around.

Here is the team I used for most of the run:
:Dragonite::Corviknight::Manaphy::Sandy Shocks::Scream Tail::Zamazenta:

Team is not the best, gets cooked by VA corv, which accounted for 3/5 of my losses, it was fun tho.


Used this team after the 5th loss cuz I didn't want to keep grinding:

:Great Tusk::Swampert::Dragonite::Corviknight::Heatran::Zamazenta:


Name from Rockin Chair by Oasis
 
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:chesnaught::empoleon::great tusk::toxapex::corviknight::chansey:
Had to make some choices to beat everything I wanted, still weak to mglo gappy and tbolt dnite.

Voting Unban, some of the best mons in the meta rn are psychics and dark. Zama threatens out chienpao and moon with it's superior speed, and even scarf moon has to lock into outrage to 2hko, while also being forced out by deoxys and scarf zelf. CC 2hkoing intim corv might sound scary on paper, but has to predict fire fang into a roll against fluffy. Zama also promotes using other defensive walls such as deoxys defense and pecharunt, and crunch is a much less spammable move than cc, nor does it do anything to fluffy. It faces competition from other fighting that have a secondary stab, as well as utility in the form of rapid spin from tusk, or uturn from gapdos and swing. It's movepool is also pretty lacking, only having basic coverage moves (not even eq), and howl as it's best setup move.
 
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Pretty easy suspect run, going 20-0 until 2 losses because my Stall v Stall mu is pretty poor with no spinner, though I came close to winning vs Glalie so I made a few changes to beat their stall, though I never ended up matching into them again which was sad. Stall was fun to play but, at least this version, was definitely not OP. I had to play pretty strenuously versus other fat teams and I had my fair share of bad MUs into offense that I only won because they were bad. Managed to farm a bunch of the HO teams I saw though so shoutout for that.

:skarmory::chansey::iron-moth::iron-hands::mandibuzz::empoleon:

Used to be VSwitch Hands + U-turn/Fiery Moth but I made them IPunch and Solar Beam/Flamethrower to beat Glalie if I ever saw them again as IHands/Moth came close to winning but I got PP Stalled and eventually died. To be fair I made this team very quickly so maybe Stall is OP but we should at least wait for some higher level play to determine. I should probably have a spinner but I saw someone say Stall must have a spinner so I just ran with this no-Spin version to have some fun.

Oh yeah, this is a Zama-H suspect I'm meant to be posting for. Honestly I saw very few Zama-H and they all completely flopped into this team and a few others I ran, though to be fair, I am a big Pecha/Deo-D fan and generally have pretty fat Fighting resists in general (because you should, unless you're like offense or smth). I tried to build for Zama-H but it's honestly not fun because it's kind of fishy to use. If they have a super Fatass fighting resist/immunity or Fluffy, of which there are plenty, you're just not going to get places without some heavy support or immaculate play, or both.

To be fair, its speed means more cope teams are not having too much fun and it can be argued to force some stuff and might be particularly bad for offense (which I don't build so I'll wait for other opinions about that) but I've even run Intim Corv + DNite into it and been pretty much fine off, with a Scarf Wake to blow up IDBP versions. Other Fighting types have significant advantages in pivot, secondary STAB and other cool moves which make them all more consistent to use imo.

Most likely voting to unban, but I'm still open to Ban arguments, if they show up that is.
 
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:heatran: :great tusk: :corviknight: :swampert: :walking wake: :chien-pao:

I went on a tirade in the discord about how corv/pert is too easy to prep for and then shamelessly used it... Greybaum you were right, tran patches up a lot of the holes.

zama is definitely fast and strong, but not having dual stab and its best moves being contact balance it out. my loss was to it, but in that game I was too careless with corv after they got a fire fang read right and hopefully won't make that mistake again. CB SOR is probably just the best set. I experimented with CB strong jaw and scrappy sub IDBP, both of which can do some cool things but aren't nearly as consistent. there's probably some weakness policy agility shenanigans that could work on screens too. it doesn't have enough utility/recovery moves for a fully defensive set, but roar on hazard stack could be fun.

at the risk of portraying a "broken checks broken" stance, i think that if the fast offensive darks stay in the tier it's nice to have some offensive counterplay to them (especially pao). probably leaning unban.
 
Quantum Tesseract said:
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lol thas me ^^ lost to that team like 2x istg
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:chien-pao::great-tusk::corviknight::empoleon::zapdos::deoxys-speed:
matte here aka istealcumpsteams, used ada cb pao for crazy ass damage, 2hko fluffy corvikk so thats dead, and zamazzz + scarfer moonie alr outspeed a happy pao (jolly) so making ur pao ada for the extra damage is better. also ice shard is like a hella good cleaner once corvikk is removed. av tusker gives more than one form of hazard removal, bc i felt like being forced to go to corvikk to remove em rockers is kinda annoying and can be tuff with pao being weak to hazards also supports empo which checks waker and other prim sea zappy, zap on my team is for prim sea support and stops use from getting wrecked by ceru and stuff, and pairs well with deo-s because the two break down any defensive core like swamp + heatran and also zapp stops moth from fukng with me :D you can do whatevaa u want w the zappy set, i like it bulky but you can make it ofensive + thunder to fuck manaphy but like idk bc i hate missing 50/50 thunders vs desoland heatran and it sets rocks pfree on my team if i attack. deo-s is SFLO bc pao's shard, change the last move on deo to whatevaa u want, i like fblast to fuck up heatran coming in, but knock or rockers work. also change empo's set to like rocks/knock if u change tha. keep roar tho bc it stops cm cheese (aaa laddar wildin). only tuff mathup is manaphy rengn veest + full phys def bc i can't ohko stuff (i was running weather ball) so run thunder to kill mana > hcane ig... then knock mana w empo and stuffa also ff vs ogerwellpring if u don't wanna play smart but if u wanna win u gotta guess with the empo and corvikk and outoffence w pao and deo, just keep in mind that you don't ohko pon with deo.

anyways imma stop yapping, i think unbanning zaza will be gud for the tier because aaa is stale/central cee rn, and checks pao and moonie ofefnsivslyyl so thats dope.
 
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Almost feels shameful posting this because of how horrid these reqs are, but I cba restarting/resetting W/L, so I'll just live with it.
Spammed Webs for the whole run, won't be posting team because of how horrid it is.

No strong opinions on Zama, honestly feels kinda balance to me but I'll just see what other peeps think about it before I make my decision.
 
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Got Reqs!
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(Ignore that the name is spelled different (it's been eons since I watched the show as a young kid, before many of you being born... Old man moment))
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Uh, Team I used was [TEAM HERE CAUSE GIA TOO LAZY TO FORMAT IT NICELY] and is a pretty good team, has DesoLando as has been a signature of mine as of late.

Voting to let it remain in the tier, didn't impress me to badly to want to send it back to the shadow realm.
​
 
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My first ever suspect test.

Got super unlucky last match but my gxe is high enough. I did not encounter zama-h ONCE, infact the only time I saw it in AAA is when I myself was using it. I cannot give my thoughts on it but it just seems like fast bulky fighting type with no extra STAB. With an AC I can't see this thing being used defensively so its only role is offensively. Defensively it uses a regen slot, and offensively it doesn't really use any slot, hell you could do TC, SoR, strong jaw if you're feeling spicy. It doesn't really compete with other offensive pokemon's ability slots. Probably voting unban on this considering we have pokemon that are stronger because of signature moves, secondary typing, or just hits slightly harder.
 
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Comí mucha parrilla este fin

I wish that Zama had taunt so that i could decisively 1v1 every team with it and just win. I ran a stupid hazard stack semi stall and i was forced by the tyrannny of gamefreak to run corber when i wanted to run skarm.
https://pokepast.es/93d0602b694a53c6

Im usually very accepting of corbers very do nothing nature and loved it for being just a guy that has fog, uturn, and a pretty good defensive typing, but being forced to run it because my options are it, big donphan, or mandibuzz makes me so sad. I wish i could run anything else. We should move to natdex

I do wonder if zama is reasonable to deal with if you arent running the two hardest checks for it on the same team.
 
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